Ash_Junior
Irredeemable Nerd
All right...for those of you who have read Hell Hath no FUry, this is the sequel. Some of you, such as Purple_drake (*waves*) will probably be reading this because it has LANCE in it. And Agatha, Lorelei (one of my favorites), Karen (Dark Elite in G/S/C), Bruno, Steven (Steel dude), Sabrina, and others (yes, Jessie/James/Meowth, Giovanni, Butch/Cassidy will be in it too)...
please note that while some of the stuff in here is drawn from HHNF, most especially the final chapter(s), it CAN be read as a stand-alone, and, in fact, it's pretty good as a stand-alone.
plus, it will have created Pokes and created countries. I've got about 70 pages of stuff to draw from (76, but who's counting
), and that's just the first third or so!
this will be BIG. And there are two sequels to it after this!
without further ado...
Operation: Celebi
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Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I do not own Janera. I did not make up Janera. Janera was created by Obsidian_Blade. Go read her fic Raven. It is REALLY good. The Wings of Council belong to an author named Topaz, on thepokemontower.com. I believe that everything else is mine.
Kanto—The Indigo League. To most trainers, the two terms are synonymous. Even in Johto, the Indigo League is looked up to because of one solitary thing, and, indeed, after their civil war, they patterned themselves AFTER Kanto. The Indigo League is the only league in the world to have the Elite Four, although there are many rip-offs and cheap imitations. Many other countries may have copies of the Elite Four, such as Johto, yet none match or even come close to the sheer power and prestige of the Elite Four of the Indigo League.
The Elite Four keep their positions by battling trainers, and, if they win, they retain their job. The Elite Four, which actually consists of five trainers, are all masters of their craft. The name is confusing because the Elite Four consists of a Champion and four Elites—Master trainers that have earned the right to be recognized as one of the most powerful in the country, and, often, the world. The champion is, to put it succinctly, the actual Elite of the Elite Four. The actual Elite Four are actually the Elite Second through the Elite Fifth of the Indigo League. If the Champion is defeated, then the new Champion has the choice of keeping the top thre of the Elite Four, and placing the deposed Champion as the Elite Second, or simply choosing their own Elite Four.
For Several Years, the membership of the Elite Four hasn’t changed. However, the positions of those within the Elite Four change regularly. Despite the internal shuffling, for years one Master Trainer has stood above the rest. He is the Dragon Pokemon Elite Master Trainer Lance. He has led the Elite Four, and, because of his position, the Indigo League fairly and honorably for ten stainless years.
The rest of the Elite Four consists of Agatha, a n aging master trainer majoring in Ghost and Poison types; Bruno, the masculine master of Fighting and Rock types; Lorelei, the young master of Ice types; and Karen, a master of Dark Types. While people come close to defeating the Elite Four all the time, Lance stops them all the time, or there would be another Champion in short order.
The Elite Four, or, rather, the Elite of the Indigo League, live on the Indigo Plateau, in a city by the same name. Indigo Plateau is the center of the Kantan Pokémon League. It houses a giant arena where a huge competition is held every year to decide who among the average trainers is the best. This trainer then gets the opportunity to face Lance in a highly publicized match. This is a distinct advantage for the trainer and a direct disadvantage to Lance, or whoever the Champion may be, because the winner of the tournament doesn’t need to go through the Elite Four before he faces Lance, or, if Lance is ever defeated, the Champion of the Indigo League.
However, contrary to popular belief, the Elite Four and the Champion are not the ultimate government in Kanto. After all, if this were the case, a young, headstrong young man or woman could come to power, and squander away everything that Kanto has worked so hard for. Instead, there is a delicate system of checks and balances, which is headed by an elected representative assembly that is the actual power in Kanto. There is a notoriously strong rivalry between the Elite Four and the Representatives, or “Reps” as they are often called by trainers, caused by the sharing of power in the country.
The Elite Four and the Champion live in what could be described as a palace on Indigo Plateau, the center of activity for the Indigo League. The lavishly decorated mansion holds an opulent dining hall, several conference rooms, deluxe suites, offices for each Elite and the Champion, and many other accommodations that are both a necessity or a luxury for Human and Pokémon habitation, including a deluxe training chamber where top-of-the line holography allow Pokémon to keep their edge, or, conversely, for humans to practice their self-defense skills.
The halls of the mansion are lined with thick carpet the color of the sky on a night when the sky is lit up by a full moon’s glow. Tapestries of famous Pokémon and people line the room. From the legendary Gerahid of Tintia who rose up against Stephen the Pillar to every Gym Leader in the history of the Indigo League to the majestic Dratini family to the common Rattata, all manners of people and Pokémon are honored in . Among those on the foremost tapestries are the famous Wings of Council, and the Titan Council, both of which, according to legend, met on Mount Silver about once per decade. The Lati twins, both in their full glory were also displayed. Ho-oh, Lugia, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, the legendary birds, were not on a tapestry, but were displayed on intricate ceiling paintings. The legendary beasts Suicuine, Raikou, and Entei were likewise not on tapestries, but instead were benches, carefully carved in exacting detail.
Lance walked through the halls, his Dragonite and Charizard flanking him, and took all this glory in the breadth of a single second—or maybe he ignored it because he had seen it all before. He had examined every inch of every work of art in every room on every floor of the mansion, so there was nothing new for him. He had been here for ten years, except for some holidays and all of his vacations, of course. As he strode through the halls, his cape billowing out behind him he nodded to aides as he passed, most of whom grinned like little kids and performed a mock salute as he passed, to which he returned, doing his best not to laugh, while others ignored him and hurried about their business. If the saluters thought that this was some kind of military organization, he wouldn’t argue with them, but he knew better. Technically, the league did have something of a martial structure, but Lance usually ignored that aspect of the league. This was a bone of contention between Lieutenant Surge, the Gym Leader of Vermillion City, and himself. Surge had served in the Third Altan Defensive War, and insisted on a very martial state of affairs for the Vermillion City Gym, and thought that the League should have be as well. Lance, however, insisted that it was for the children, and should be fun, not overly strict.
Up ahead in a two hallway, right-angle junction, he saw Karen—The Dark Elite— draped over a bench carved in the shape of a Houndoom with her Umbreon and Sneasel on either side of the ends of the bench, waiting for the other Elites to join him for the meeting Lance had called. They both looked bored, as did their master, as usual. Karen looked up at Lance briefly, then her eyes returned to the book she was reading. Karen was early, as usual. Lance smiled slightly. It was rare for Karen not to be there exactly on time, or a little early. He didn’t think that there was even one time since she’d become an Elite that she’d been late for something. To anyone who didn’t know her, it would look like she was ignoring him, but Karen was notorious for being able to multi-task. Lance was pretty sure that she was keeping an eye on everything, taking in every little detail that was going on around her, while still managing to focus most of her attention onto her book, but she might have been focusing all her attention on her book. That was the problem. You never knew with her. She was a bit unsettling, it was true, but there was nobody that Lance would trust more in a battle to watch his back than Karen. While she wasn’t the best Pokemon battler, her personal melee skills and ability to handle firearms were nearly unmatched from anyone Lance had ever known. Her knowledge of strange words helped him greatly in writing speeches, though sometimes he needed a dictionary AND a thesaurus to understand what she was trying to say in a given situation. Karen had always held a special place in Lance’s heart, and recently he had been catching himself sneaking peeks in her direction when he was sure the Dark Elite wasn’t looking.
From the left-hand corridor from his perspective, Lance could hear Agatha huffing and puffing as she plodded along towards the junction where Karen was waiting for everyone. The woman was getting older and older, and it was harder for her to get around to different places, but nobody would ever suggest to her that she was too old to be training anymore. The only time that Lance knew of that happening was at a press conference, and that young man received a stern lecture and a hard caning as a reward. The old woman was a bit eccentric, but she was a good trainer, and Lance often came to her for advice whenever he wasn’t sure how to do something. Her wise counsel and encouragement had kept him from resigning too many times to count. She was an excellent trainer, and the only reason that she wasn’t the Champion herself was because her Pokemon were getting old as well. They had long since left their primes, but were still a force to be reckoned with, as was Agatha herself. The old woman had a sharp mind, and was notorious for picking out solutions to unsolvable situations. She was rarely on time, but she tried to be. No one could fault her there. It was simply that her age prevented her from moving around quickly, though Lance had heard a rumor that late at night she practiced her self-defense skills, but he wasn’t sure of the veracity of the story.
The short, hunch-backed woman emerged from the hallway, huffing and puffing, glanced around the junction, then shuffled over to a chair that was sculpted in the shape of a Fearow, with the Fearow’s head stretching straight up, and the wings serving as the armrests. Agatha’s two escorts, her Gengar and her Misdreavus flanked her. Her Pokemon were special, too. Her Gengar’s gases was tainted a slight purple, and her Misdreavus’ gases was tainted a strong turquoise. This was, of course, not surprising, considering the length of time that Agatha had been training for seventy-five years, she’d seen and sometimes caught a thing or five.
From the left-hand hallway, Lorelei picked her way out of one of the halls, and looked at Lance, smiled. Lance couldn’t help but smile softly in return. She was the youngest of them there, at the age of twenty-six. She had first joined the Elite Four when she was sixteen, by his request. A Johtan Gym leader, and his good friend, Bugsy, had recommended her. She had been in a coma, however, for most of the first month of his reign as Champion, so he had only had three Elites with him until she got better. And then, of course, she had asked him if she could go out and have a journey before she officially joined. Lance acquiesced, and had chosen a temporary replacement for her.
Bugsy had gone with her on her journey, and had helped her very much, from what he had heard. The journey, which lasted nearly four years, covered much of Johto, Hoenn, and Lorelei's home country of Alto. For some reason, she had avoided Kanto altogether. He had heard that she had been rather outgoing, but nothing of what she had been before she had traveled to Nuschantz with Bugsy. When the pair had come back to Indigo Plateau, and Lorelei took her place in the Elite Four, she was rather animated for several days. Then Bugsy went back to Johto, and she lapsed into silence and depression. She had remained this way for six years, save for the times when the Johto gym leaders Falkner or Bugsy came to visit her. Then she was a little more...alive. Other than that, though, she was generally very quiet, and tried to stay out of the way.
That she had lasted so long was a testament to her strength and skill in raising and dueling Pokémon, although recently her wins had been far and few between. Lorelei had, when he had battled her in the beginning, had used elaborate strategies that had nearly overcome him. She was extremely quiet, and didn’t like the press. She found comfort in books, and rarely talked to anyone except Karen. Karen and Lorelei often had long conversations over books they had both read, which were generally long, and had complex plots. They usually debated in quiet tones about a character’s strong points versus his or her weak points after they’d both read it. They were, hands down, the most intelligent people Lance knew. They were great authors too. They often wrote stories about things that were, at least to his mind, exceedingly strange. Lorelei had even hinted that she was working on her very own novel. They generally wrote about a world where there were no Pokémon, where there were substitutes for them, and the substitutes were called “animals.” It was strange, but it was also amusing. Lance was a mediocre author himself, but didn’t have the imagination to make anything quite so out of the ordinary. Lance smiled as Lorelei hurried to sit down next to Karen, where they began to talk in hushed tones, Karen gesturing towards the book that she was reading.
“HAAAAAIIIIIIL,” Lance heard coming from the hall Agatha had come from, and he inwardly winced. It was Bruno, of course, making his usual noisy entrance, “THE CONQUERING HERO!” came Bruno’s booming voice, as he stomped his way through the halls towards Lance and the others. Karen and Lorelei, annoyed at the interruption in their conversation, glanced up slightly in annoyance, then turned back to each other and resumed their hushed conversation, “HE WHO IS MIGHTIEST IN AAALL THE WOORLD!!!!” It wouldn’t be so bad, Lance considered, if Bruno had the slightest semblance of a singing voice. As it was, he sounded worse than a Golem on Pokénip singing through a sewage grate. “HE WHO IS THE GREATEST IN AAAAAALLL THE WOOOORLLLLLDDD!!!!!” And the said Golem was a few miles away from the said sewage grate. Lance resisted the temptation to cover his eyes and his ears as Bruno lumbered around a corner, his Rhyhorn and his Golem were both using Earthquake in tandem to Bruno’s footsteps. Bruno always wore garish clothes, that clashed in the worst way, or only pants, and no shirt at all. Today, fortunately, Bruno DID wear a shirt. Although Lance wasn’t sure that wearing a bright yellow shirt with dark pants, shoes, and dark gray baseball cap with golden chains and other things of that sort weighing him down around his neck was the best fashion choice. But then, it was Bruno’s life, not Lance’s. Although Lance did have to spend many hours a day with Bruno. Bruno would have been almost every girl’s dream, Lance guessed, if he wasn’t so out-spoken and actually learned how to dress. But, once again, it was Bruno’s life, not Lance’s.
Bruno opened his mouth to begin another verse, when Agatha, who had just reached the junction, held up his hand. “Bruno,” she said in her cracking, English accent, “I think we’ve had enough of your singing for today, thank you.”
Bruno’s face fell, “But I was just getting to the good part of the song!” he whined.
Lance rolled his eyes. Bruno, at age forty-seven, still hadn’t outgrown his adolescence. Lance, at age twenty-nine, was far more mature than the Fighting Elite. Lance opened his mouth, but Karen’s cool voice was there before he could open his mouth, “Bruno,” she said softly in her interesting oriental voice, “I believe that Lance called us together for a reason other than to enjoy your singing. Mellifluous as it may be.” Lance frowned. He hadn’t heard that one before. He made a mental note to look it up.
Bruno shrugged, and his chains jangled together, “Sure, whateva ya say, homeys!” Lance inwardly shrank back. How a grown man of his age could act like this, he had no idea, “I’m down with that!”
Lorelei looked up, “It has something to do with Giovanni, doesn’t it? Or Team Rocket, right?” Giovanni, had fallen on rough time after Lance deposed him as The champion of the Indigo League, and had, several years before, had taken control of an upstart sect of Johto organized crime known as Team Rocket. Since then, he had turned it into something to be feared, even by those that did not live in Johto. Team Rocket had expanded more than a thousandfold than what it had been before Giovani had taken control, and it seemed as if Giovani were specifically targeting Kanto in general, and Lance in particular. To make matters worse, Giovanni had no official ties to Team Rocket, and had taken control of the Viridian City Gym, and had used it as a base for Team Rocket. Lance looked back at Lorelei. She looked worried. “I knew that the Global Police was making a mistake when it targeted Team Rocket.”
She was referring, of course, to the Global Association of Police Agents and Crime Fighters (GAPACF, or Global Police for short), and their recent crack-down on crime. They had targeted kidnappers, murderers, thieves, drug dealers, and others of that ilk, but had specifically targeted Team Rocket, in an effort to force the gang out of Kanto and Johto. The early missions were hugely successful, but lately they had been meeting more and more resistance.
Lance grinned, “Yes, Lorelei, it DOES have to do with Giovanni and Team Rocket.” He looked around, “But I’d prefer to talk about it in the conference room.” He gestured toward a pair of ornate doors with intricately carved designs of an underwater scene. It was the Water Boardroom. An entire room filled with paintings, carvings, sculptures, tapestries, and even an aquarium to show the glory of water. Or something like that. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the people who had designed it when they came to him and asked if they could make it.
Agatha leaned on her cane heavily, “So, it finally came down to the Global Police routing the bloody Rockets out, did it?” she coughed, and Lance wasn’t sure if she could stand on her own without that cane anymore. “Why, in my day, they would have rousted up the local trainers; the local gym leaders; we, the Elite Four;” she glanced at Lance, “And the bloody Champion to help take out bloody Team Rocket.”
Lorelei looked confused, and Bruno’s expression mirrored hers. “Um,” Lorelei said quietly, “What are you guys talkin’ about?”
Lance rolled his eyes, “If we could get into the conference room, I’ll tell you.”
Karen stretched, put her book down, and got up. “I have a feeling I know what this is about.” She said, “I thought you’d be calling us together for something like this ever since that Global Police Agent stopped by your office last night.”
Lance nodded, allowing himself a tight smile. He should have expected that nothing got past the Dark Elite’s attention during the night. He waited as the Elite Four moved into the Aqua Board Room, and took seats around the table. Lance waited until they were all seated, then shut the door and pulled a briefcase out from behind a miniature of a submarine. He placed it on the table and opened it. Inside was a small holographic projector.
Lance took a seat behind the projector. “All right. As you are all aware, the Global Police have essentially declared war on Team Rocket. As I am also sure you are aware of, Team Rocket has shifted its main base of operations from Viridian city back to Goldenrod City, thank goodness.” He activated the holo-projector, and a three-dimensional image of the Viridian City Gym appeared. “However, they haven't completely evacuated their Viridian base, and the Global Police simply don’t have the man-power to eradicate the Rockets in Kanto as well as Johto.” He looked at Agatha, and a triumphant grin appeared on the old woman’s features, “So, the Global Police have asked us to help. Karen and I will handle the Viridian Gym. We’ll be in charge of a commando group of trainers, with orders to confiscate everything in the gym, for the Global Police to look through later.”
Bruno looked up at Lance, a strange expression on his face, “So, what, then. You expect us to sit around here, homey, twiddling our thumbs?”
Lance forced himself not to smile, “Actually, I was coming to your part next.”
He pushed a button, and the diagram of the gym changed to one of a building with garishly bright lights, “This, my friends, is the Game Corner in Celadon City. Among intelligence circles, it's pretty well known that the Rockets run it, and have a base beneath it, but Erika’s let them stay there because of the revenue they provide. However, we can’t let them stay anymore. Not with the atrocities they’ve done, and gone unpunished. Now is the time to punish them. Bruno, Agatha, Lorelei, you three are to rendezvous with Erika, and you four, along with the trainers from the gym and any local trainers who have volunteered to help the Global Police against Team Rocket, are going to go and root out any Rockets from their base below the Game Corner. A Global Police Agent will brief you when you arrive in Celadon. Any questions?”
There weren’t any. Lance nodded, “All right, then. Ladies and Gentleman, we have our assignments, let’s saddle up.”
“Lock ‘n load,” Karen said quietly, but loud enough that everyone could hear her. With that, everyone got up, and moved towards the door. Everyone, Lance noticed, except Lorelei. Lance caught Karen’s eye, and she nodded, and stayed behind in the room. Lance had discussed Lorelei with Karen before, and now, as he had told her, he wanted her to do something to boost her self-esteem. More than likely, she was grateful that she didn’t have to hear Bruno talk about how great he was going to be in the Celadon raid. As for Lance—He had to get going and brief the team that had been assigned to him on their up-coming mission.
Karen returned to her seat, and faced Lorelei, who was still sitting, and was staring at the aquarium blankly. A Goldeen and a Corsola were swimming around each other, and it looked like they were about to fight. “Hey,” Karen said softly, “Are you okay?”
Lorelei jumped, “Hm? Oh, what did ya say, Karen?” she turned around to look at Karen, but the Dark Elite noticed that the other girl’s eyes didn’t quite meet hers.
“I was asking,” Karen said gently, “if you were okay. Is there something bothering you?”
There was a long pause as Lorelei considered this, then she said, “Not really.” There was another pause, “Well,” Lorelei said, “It’s just that…” she hesitated, “I mean, what if it turns out that I’m not really the coun’y champion? That everybody just lets me win ‘cause they feel sorry for me?” Lorelei's eyes slowly came up to meet Karen's, almost begging her to change the subject, or to let her go get ready for her upcoming mission.
Karen stared at Lorelei in disbelief. “THAT’S what’s been bugging you?” she asked incredulously, staring at the Ice Elite in disbelief, “Lorelei, listen to me. you’re in the Elite Four. You’ve beaten all the gym leaders. True, it was after you joined the Elite Four, but you still beat them. Right now, your career average is that you win about half your matches, and most of the matches you lose is because you stop thinking that you can do it! Let’s take, uh, that Trainer who majored in Normal types,” Karen said, referring to a loss the day before that Lorelei should have won easily, “You lost your nerve. You had everything all set up for your win, but you cracked.” The trainer, when he faced Karen, had been defeated easily. But if Karen could say one thing about that trainer, he certainly had resolve.
“He was going to beat me anyway,” Lorelei mumbled, looking at her hands, and shifting uncomfortably, “His Clefairy was tough as an Ursaring. His Chansey was mean as a ‘Doom. I thought it was just better to end quickly than to unneccesarily hurt my Pokemon.” A haunted expression went across her face, and for a split second, there was an expression almost as if she were in real pain. “Nothing should be hurt like that.” she whispered.
For an instant, Karen could only stare at her counterpart in disbelief. Then she started feeling the annoyance beginning to build up within her. She forced it down, though. She forced herself to remain calm. Lorelei was a superb trainer, but the Clefairy she had been referring to had only taken one or two hits from her Umbreon before it went down. The Chansey almost didn’t fight because it was too timid. “Lorelei, there are Chansey nearby. They won't take any permanent damage, you know that! We can stop the fight if it gets out of hand, and heal them almost instantly!” Lorelei stared blankly into the tank, her eyes haunted, and she shuddered. Karen sighed, and forced herself to have a calm voice, “You should have won that fight easily. Look at me.” Lorelei looked about halfway between where she had been looking and at Karen, but didn’t meet the Dark Elite's piercing gaze. “LOOK at me.” Karen repeated, adding a tinge of steel to her voice-allowed her frustration to come through. Lorelei, startled, quickly jerked her head up to look straight into Karen’s gaze, “You are an excellent trainer, one of the best. In fact, I’m pretty sure you could give Lance a run for his money if it came to that. I cannot—WILL not allow you to be like this.” Karen’s glare seemed to shrink Lorelei until Karen was amazed that the girl had even gotten this far. “You sacrificed your life, your hopes, your dreams, your entire teenage life to reach this moment.”
Karen leaned forward, and Lorelei flinched, and looked at the floor, her eyes still haunted, and beginning to be tinged with tears. “It's not worth it,” she whispered. “Nothing is worth it, if you're hurt like that, nothing is worth it.”
Karen stared at her. “Hurt like what?” Lorelei ignored her, and Karen sighed. She'd heard the exact same thing many times, but she could never get the Ice Elite to elaborate. “I looked through your trainer file. You were one of the most ruthless trainers out there. You did whatever you had to do to make ends meet on your four-year journey, and get that one last badge. It said that you battled five trainers at once to get a room at the Indigo Plateau Pokemon Center. That you took on Team Rocket almost daily after Giovanni took over, and almost always won. That you won almost ninety-five percent of your reported battles." What happened to you? Karen added silently to herself.
Lorelei’s gaze wandered, and she seemed to shrink in on herself even more, “Long time ago,” she mumbled, “I haven’t been that person for a long time. Not since...” she trailed off, and she seemed to be genuinely terrified. “Don’t worry about me,” she said in a barely audible tone, “I can take care of myself.”
Finally Karen could stand it no longer, and pounded the hard-wood table with one fist. “THAT’S IT!” She hissed in a loud voice, “I will not see you like this anymore!” Karen stood up, and, with one hand on the table for support, leaped over the entire table. She pulled Lorelei out of her seat with one hand, and snatched one of her Pokeballs off of her belt with the other. “Do you see this, Lorelei?” The girl nodded feebly, “When they became yours, they sacrificed their lives, their goals to help you find yours!” Karen slammed it down onto the table. Hard.
“Hey!” Lorelei said, blinking back tears. “D-d-don't talk to me like that!” she wailed, “You have no idea what I've done for them, and what it did to me!”
Karen glared at Lorelei. “I don't care!” she yelled, “You don't care about them!” she slammed the Pokeball back down onto the table.
Lorelei glared at her, and suddenly Karen found herself on her back, Lorelei's hand on her throat, cutting off her air, and Lorelei's face glaring down at her like Moltres out of a nightmare. For the first time in a long time, Karen was actually scared. Where had this Lorelei come from? “I told you,” Lorelei told her coldly, “Be careful with that. And I don't want to hear you say anything like that ever again. I very nearly died for my Pokemon.” Karen nodded, and Lorelei released her. Karen rubbed at her throat, and stared in fear and awe at Lorelei. Was this what Lorelei had been like? If so, then she was truly a force to be reckoned with. Then, abruptly, Lorelei blinked, and suddenly she was the frightned young woman that she had been mere minutes before. She picked up her Pokeball and carressed it lovingly. “But the Normal trainer was too dificult.”
Karen blinked, startled by the transformation. She felt her resolve harden. Somewhere in there was the strong young woman that Lorelei had once been. She had just seen it. She just had to draw it out, and make sure that it stayed. Karen let loose a small grin that she hoped looked genuine, and something in Lorelei's face changed. Karen couldn't quite read what it meant.“They gave you their trust,” Karen said harshly. “Trust that you would train them to the best that you could! Instead, you allow yourself to backslide!”
Lorelei seemed to crumble visibly underneath Karen’s verbal assault. Karen internally winced. She had seen the old Lorelei, but this didn't seem to be going anywhere. How in the world could she draw her back out? She had been so close. “Maybe-maybe you’re right. Maybe I should quit.” She mumbled.
Karen saw her chance, and seized it with both hands. Or, in actuality, two handfuls of Lorelei’s ice-blue tunic. She pulled the Ice Elite up to her face, and began talking again. “I’m right!” she hissed into Lorelei’s face, which was barely an inch from hers, “And you know it! You let your Pokémon down!” Lorelei seemed on the verge of tears, “But it’s not too late!” Karen said, and shoved the girl back down into her chair, “Reclaim what you once had, Lorelei. Fight with all your heart and all your soul when you go to Celadon, and see if you can remember what it was like, being on the road, back when you were merely another trainer! Fighting for what you believed in, to make a difference in the world.” Lorelei said nothing, and seemed to cower before Karen. Karen internally grimaced. That hadn't worked. If anything, Lorelei seemed about ready to resign.
Karen decided to use one last tactic, one which being the Dark-type Elite certainly enhanced her abilities for. “You disgust me!” Karen said, speaking, to her regret, truthfully. Lorelei’s head shot up, the old fire in her eyes, “You have so much potential, but you don’t use it! Instead, you settle for mediocre, when you should be trying to be superb!” Karen saw something in Lorelei's eyes click, much as it had when she was the Ice Queen she had been moments before. Hopefully this would work. “If you’re going to continue to be like this, then you really should just go home.” The fire in Lorelei's eyes was returning in greater force than before, and Karen inwardly grinned. She knew that Lorelei had a pretty bad relationship with her parents, and that she didn't really ever want to see them. “You don’t belong here.” That last bit might have overdone it, actually, Karen thought to herself, but she hadn't been able to stop herself.
Karen turned and stalked out, but saw the Ice Elite out of the corner of her left eye jump out of her chair with balled fists. As soon as she was out of view, she began to saunter away, past Lance, who obviously had been listening. “She’d give ME a run for MY money?” he asked, amusedly in his distinctly Kantan accent.
Karen looked up at him and grinned, “Don’t underestimate her, Lance. She’s a powerhouse, yet so little of her potential has been tapped.”
Back in the Aqua Board Room, Lorelei stood, clenching and unclenching her fists. She hadn't felt like this for a long time. Not for six years, since...She shuddered, but forced herself not to withdraw back into her shell. “You want me to go home, Karen?” she said to thin air through gritted teeth, “You wish. I’ll show you that I belong here. Then we’ll see who’s so smug!” Lorelei stalked out of the room, and looked over to her left, where Karen and Lance were just turning around a corner and out of her sight.
“I'm staying, Karen,” she growled, “And I'm not going anywhere. I am BACK!”With that, she strode down the corridor with fresh confidence in her steps, a sense of surety to her stride. She had a mission to prepare for. She’d show them. She’d show them all. Lorelei was BACK. And she was here to stay. And nobody, not even Karen, was going to make her go home. There was no way she'd go back there.
please note that while some of the stuff in here is drawn from HHNF, most especially the final chapter(s), it CAN be read as a stand-alone, and, in fact, it's pretty good as a stand-alone.
plus, it will have created Pokes and created countries. I've got about 70 pages of stuff to draw from (76, but who's counting
), and that's just the first third or so!this will be BIG. And there are two sequels to it after this!
without further ado...
Operation: Celebi
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Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I do not own Janera. I did not make up Janera. Janera was created by Obsidian_Blade. Go read her fic Raven. It is REALLY good. The Wings of Council belong to an author named Topaz, on thepokemontower.com. I believe that everything else is mine.
Kanto—The Indigo League. To most trainers, the two terms are synonymous. Even in Johto, the Indigo League is looked up to because of one solitary thing, and, indeed, after their civil war, they patterned themselves AFTER Kanto. The Indigo League is the only league in the world to have the Elite Four, although there are many rip-offs and cheap imitations. Many other countries may have copies of the Elite Four, such as Johto, yet none match or even come close to the sheer power and prestige of the Elite Four of the Indigo League.
The Elite Four keep their positions by battling trainers, and, if they win, they retain their job. The Elite Four, which actually consists of five trainers, are all masters of their craft. The name is confusing because the Elite Four consists of a Champion and four Elites—Master trainers that have earned the right to be recognized as one of the most powerful in the country, and, often, the world. The champion is, to put it succinctly, the actual Elite of the Elite Four. The actual Elite Four are actually the Elite Second through the Elite Fifth of the Indigo League. If the Champion is defeated, then the new Champion has the choice of keeping the top thre of the Elite Four, and placing the deposed Champion as the Elite Second, or simply choosing their own Elite Four.
For Several Years, the membership of the Elite Four hasn’t changed. However, the positions of those within the Elite Four change regularly. Despite the internal shuffling, for years one Master Trainer has stood above the rest. He is the Dragon Pokemon Elite Master Trainer Lance. He has led the Elite Four, and, because of his position, the Indigo League fairly and honorably for ten stainless years.
The rest of the Elite Four consists of Agatha, a n aging master trainer majoring in Ghost and Poison types; Bruno, the masculine master of Fighting and Rock types; Lorelei, the young master of Ice types; and Karen, a master of Dark Types. While people come close to defeating the Elite Four all the time, Lance stops them all the time, or there would be another Champion in short order.
The Elite Four, or, rather, the Elite of the Indigo League, live on the Indigo Plateau, in a city by the same name. Indigo Plateau is the center of the Kantan Pokémon League. It houses a giant arena where a huge competition is held every year to decide who among the average trainers is the best. This trainer then gets the opportunity to face Lance in a highly publicized match. This is a distinct advantage for the trainer and a direct disadvantage to Lance, or whoever the Champion may be, because the winner of the tournament doesn’t need to go through the Elite Four before he faces Lance, or, if Lance is ever defeated, the Champion of the Indigo League.
However, contrary to popular belief, the Elite Four and the Champion are not the ultimate government in Kanto. After all, if this were the case, a young, headstrong young man or woman could come to power, and squander away everything that Kanto has worked so hard for. Instead, there is a delicate system of checks and balances, which is headed by an elected representative assembly that is the actual power in Kanto. There is a notoriously strong rivalry between the Elite Four and the Representatives, or “Reps” as they are often called by trainers, caused by the sharing of power in the country.
The Elite Four and the Champion live in what could be described as a palace on Indigo Plateau, the center of activity for the Indigo League. The lavishly decorated mansion holds an opulent dining hall, several conference rooms, deluxe suites, offices for each Elite and the Champion, and many other accommodations that are both a necessity or a luxury for Human and Pokémon habitation, including a deluxe training chamber where top-of-the line holography allow Pokémon to keep their edge, or, conversely, for humans to practice their self-defense skills.
The halls of the mansion are lined with thick carpet the color of the sky on a night when the sky is lit up by a full moon’s glow. Tapestries of famous Pokémon and people line the room. From the legendary Gerahid of Tintia who rose up against Stephen the Pillar to every Gym Leader in the history of the Indigo League to the majestic Dratini family to the common Rattata, all manners of people and Pokémon are honored in . Among those on the foremost tapestries are the famous Wings of Council, and the Titan Council, both of which, according to legend, met on Mount Silver about once per decade. The Lati twins, both in their full glory were also displayed. Ho-oh, Lugia, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, the legendary birds, were not on a tapestry, but were displayed on intricate ceiling paintings. The legendary beasts Suicuine, Raikou, and Entei were likewise not on tapestries, but instead were benches, carefully carved in exacting detail.
Lance walked through the halls, his Dragonite and Charizard flanking him, and took all this glory in the breadth of a single second—or maybe he ignored it because he had seen it all before. He had examined every inch of every work of art in every room on every floor of the mansion, so there was nothing new for him. He had been here for ten years, except for some holidays and all of his vacations, of course. As he strode through the halls, his cape billowing out behind him he nodded to aides as he passed, most of whom grinned like little kids and performed a mock salute as he passed, to which he returned, doing his best not to laugh, while others ignored him and hurried about their business. If the saluters thought that this was some kind of military organization, he wouldn’t argue with them, but he knew better. Technically, the league did have something of a martial structure, but Lance usually ignored that aspect of the league. This was a bone of contention between Lieutenant Surge, the Gym Leader of Vermillion City, and himself. Surge had served in the Third Altan Defensive War, and insisted on a very martial state of affairs for the Vermillion City Gym, and thought that the League should have be as well. Lance, however, insisted that it was for the children, and should be fun, not overly strict.
Up ahead in a two hallway, right-angle junction, he saw Karen—The Dark Elite— draped over a bench carved in the shape of a Houndoom with her Umbreon and Sneasel on either side of the ends of the bench, waiting for the other Elites to join him for the meeting Lance had called. They both looked bored, as did their master, as usual. Karen looked up at Lance briefly, then her eyes returned to the book she was reading. Karen was early, as usual. Lance smiled slightly. It was rare for Karen not to be there exactly on time, or a little early. He didn’t think that there was even one time since she’d become an Elite that she’d been late for something. To anyone who didn’t know her, it would look like she was ignoring him, but Karen was notorious for being able to multi-task. Lance was pretty sure that she was keeping an eye on everything, taking in every little detail that was going on around her, while still managing to focus most of her attention onto her book, but she might have been focusing all her attention on her book. That was the problem. You never knew with her. She was a bit unsettling, it was true, but there was nobody that Lance would trust more in a battle to watch his back than Karen. While she wasn’t the best Pokemon battler, her personal melee skills and ability to handle firearms were nearly unmatched from anyone Lance had ever known. Her knowledge of strange words helped him greatly in writing speeches, though sometimes he needed a dictionary AND a thesaurus to understand what she was trying to say in a given situation. Karen had always held a special place in Lance’s heart, and recently he had been catching himself sneaking peeks in her direction when he was sure the Dark Elite wasn’t looking.
From the left-hand corridor from his perspective, Lance could hear Agatha huffing and puffing as she plodded along towards the junction where Karen was waiting for everyone. The woman was getting older and older, and it was harder for her to get around to different places, but nobody would ever suggest to her that she was too old to be training anymore. The only time that Lance knew of that happening was at a press conference, and that young man received a stern lecture and a hard caning as a reward. The old woman was a bit eccentric, but she was a good trainer, and Lance often came to her for advice whenever he wasn’t sure how to do something. Her wise counsel and encouragement had kept him from resigning too many times to count. She was an excellent trainer, and the only reason that she wasn’t the Champion herself was because her Pokemon were getting old as well. They had long since left their primes, but were still a force to be reckoned with, as was Agatha herself. The old woman had a sharp mind, and was notorious for picking out solutions to unsolvable situations. She was rarely on time, but she tried to be. No one could fault her there. It was simply that her age prevented her from moving around quickly, though Lance had heard a rumor that late at night she practiced her self-defense skills, but he wasn’t sure of the veracity of the story.
The short, hunch-backed woman emerged from the hallway, huffing and puffing, glanced around the junction, then shuffled over to a chair that was sculpted in the shape of a Fearow, with the Fearow’s head stretching straight up, and the wings serving as the armrests. Agatha’s two escorts, her Gengar and her Misdreavus flanked her. Her Pokemon were special, too. Her Gengar’s gases was tainted a slight purple, and her Misdreavus’ gases was tainted a strong turquoise. This was, of course, not surprising, considering the length of time that Agatha had been training for seventy-five years, she’d seen and sometimes caught a thing or five.
From the left-hand hallway, Lorelei picked her way out of one of the halls, and looked at Lance, smiled. Lance couldn’t help but smile softly in return. She was the youngest of them there, at the age of twenty-six. She had first joined the Elite Four when she was sixteen, by his request. A Johtan Gym leader, and his good friend, Bugsy, had recommended her. She had been in a coma, however, for most of the first month of his reign as Champion, so he had only had three Elites with him until she got better. And then, of course, she had asked him if she could go out and have a journey before she officially joined. Lance acquiesced, and had chosen a temporary replacement for her.
Bugsy had gone with her on her journey, and had helped her very much, from what he had heard. The journey, which lasted nearly four years, covered much of Johto, Hoenn, and Lorelei's home country of Alto. For some reason, she had avoided Kanto altogether. He had heard that she had been rather outgoing, but nothing of what she had been before she had traveled to Nuschantz with Bugsy. When the pair had come back to Indigo Plateau, and Lorelei took her place in the Elite Four, she was rather animated for several days. Then Bugsy went back to Johto, and she lapsed into silence and depression. She had remained this way for six years, save for the times when the Johto gym leaders Falkner or Bugsy came to visit her. Then she was a little more...alive. Other than that, though, she was generally very quiet, and tried to stay out of the way.
That she had lasted so long was a testament to her strength and skill in raising and dueling Pokémon, although recently her wins had been far and few between. Lorelei had, when he had battled her in the beginning, had used elaborate strategies that had nearly overcome him. She was extremely quiet, and didn’t like the press. She found comfort in books, and rarely talked to anyone except Karen. Karen and Lorelei often had long conversations over books they had both read, which were generally long, and had complex plots. They usually debated in quiet tones about a character’s strong points versus his or her weak points after they’d both read it. They were, hands down, the most intelligent people Lance knew. They were great authors too. They often wrote stories about things that were, at least to his mind, exceedingly strange. Lorelei had even hinted that she was working on her very own novel. They generally wrote about a world where there were no Pokémon, where there were substitutes for them, and the substitutes were called “animals.” It was strange, but it was also amusing. Lance was a mediocre author himself, but didn’t have the imagination to make anything quite so out of the ordinary. Lance smiled as Lorelei hurried to sit down next to Karen, where they began to talk in hushed tones, Karen gesturing towards the book that she was reading.
“HAAAAAIIIIIIL,” Lance heard coming from the hall Agatha had come from, and he inwardly winced. It was Bruno, of course, making his usual noisy entrance, “THE CONQUERING HERO!” came Bruno’s booming voice, as he stomped his way through the halls towards Lance and the others. Karen and Lorelei, annoyed at the interruption in their conversation, glanced up slightly in annoyance, then turned back to each other and resumed their hushed conversation, “HE WHO IS MIGHTIEST IN AAALL THE WOORLD!!!!” It wouldn’t be so bad, Lance considered, if Bruno had the slightest semblance of a singing voice. As it was, he sounded worse than a Golem on Pokénip singing through a sewage grate. “HE WHO IS THE GREATEST IN AAAAAALLL THE WOOOORLLLLLDDD!!!!!” And the said Golem was a few miles away from the said sewage grate. Lance resisted the temptation to cover his eyes and his ears as Bruno lumbered around a corner, his Rhyhorn and his Golem were both using Earthquake in tandem to Bruno’s footsteps. Bruno always wore garish clothes, that clashed in the worst way, or only pants, and no shirt at all. Today, fortunately, Bruno DID wear a shirt. Although Lance wasn’t sure that wearing a bright yellow shirt with dark pants, shoes, and dark gray baseball cap with golden chains and other things of that sort weighing him down around his neck was the best fashion choice. But then, it was Bruno’s life, not Lance’s. Although Lance did have to spend many hours a day with Bruno. Bruno would have been almost every girl’s dream, Lance guessed, if he wasn’t so out-spoken and actually learned how to dress. But, once again, it was Bruno’s life, not Lance’s.
Bruno opened his mouth to begin another verse, when Agatha, who had just reached the junction, held up his hand. “Bruno,” she said in her cracking, English accent, “I think we’ve had enough of your singing for today, thank you.”
Bruno’s face fell, “But I was just getting to the good part of the song!” he whined.
Lance rolled his eyes. Bruno, at age forty-seven, still hadn’t outgrown his adolescence. Lance, at age twenty-nine, was far more mature than the Fighting Elite. Lance opened his mouth, but Karen’s cool voice was there before he could open his mouth, “Bruno,” she said softly in her interesting oriental voice, “I believe that Lance called us together for a reason other than to enjoy your singing. Mellifluous as it may be.” Lance frowned. He hadn’t heard that one before. He made a mental note to look it up.
Bruno shrugged, and his chains jangled together, “Sure, whateva ya say, homeys!” Lance inwardly shrank back. How a grown man of his age could act like this, he had no idea, “I’m down with that!”
Lorelei looked up, “It has something to do with Giovanni, doesn’t it? Or Team Rocket, right?” Giovanni, had fallen on rough time after Lance deposed him as The champion of the Indigo League, and had, several years before, had taken control of an upstart sect of Johto organized crime known as Team Rocket. Since then, he had turned it into something to be feared, even by those that did not live in Johto. Team Rocket had expanded more than a thousandfold than what it had been before Giovani had taken control, and it seemed as if Giovani were specifically targeting Kanto in general, and Lance in particular. To make matters worse, Giovanni had no official ties to Team Rocket, and had taken control of the Viridian City Gym, and had used it as a base for Team Rocket. Lance looked back at Lorelei. She looked worried. “I knew that the Global Police was making a mistake when it targeted Team Rocket.”
She was referring, of course, to the Global Association of Police Agents and Crime Fighters (GAPACF, or Global Police for short), and their recent crack-down on crime. They had targeted kidnappers, murderers, thieves, drug dealers, and others of that ilk, but had specifically targeted Team Rocket, in an effort to force the gang out of Kanto and Johto. The early missions were hugely successful, but lately they had been meeting more and more resistance.
Lance grinned, “Yes, Lorelei, it DOES have to do with Giovanni and Team Rocket.” He looked around, “But I’d prefer to talk about it in the conference room.” He gestured toward a pair of ornate doors with intricately carved designs of an underwater scene. It was the Water Boardroom. An entire room filled with paintings, carvings, sculptures, tapestries, and even an aquarium to show the glory of water. Or something like that. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the people who had designed it when they came to him and asked if they could make it.
Agatha leaned on her cane heavily, “So, it finally came down to the Global Police routing the bloody Rockets out, did it?” she coughed, and Lance wasn’t sure if she could stand on her own without that cane anymore. “Why, in my day, they would have rousted up the local trainers; the local gym leaders; we, the Elite Four;” she glanced at Lance, “And the bloody Champion to help take out bloody Team Rocket.”
Lorelei looked confused, and Bruno’s expression mirrored hers. “Um,” Lorelei said quietly, “What are you guys talkin’ about?”
Lance rolled his eyes, “If we could get into the conference room, I’ll tell you.”
Karen stretched, put her book down, and got up. “I have a feeling I know what this is about.” She said, “I thought you’d be calling us together for something like this ever since that Global Police Agent stopped by your office last night.”
Lance nodded, allowing himself a tight smile. He should have expected that nothing got past the Dark Elite’s attention during the night. He waited as the Elite Four moved into the Aqua Board Room, and took seats around the table. Lance waited until they were all seated, then shut the door and pulled a briefcase out from behind a miniature of a submarine. He placed it on the table and opened it. Inside was a small holographic projector.
Lance took a seat behind the projector. “All right. As you are all aware, the Global Police have essentially declared war on Team Rocket. As I am also sure you are aware of, Team Rocket has shifted its main base of operations from Viridian city back to Goldenrod City, thank goodness.” He activated the holo-projector, and a three-dimensional image of the Viridian City Gym appeared. “However, they haven't completely evacuated their Viridian base, and the Global Police simply don’t have the man-power to eradicate the Rockets in Kanto as well as Johto.” He looked at Agatha, and a triumphant grin appeared on the old woman’s features, “So, the Global Police have asked us to help. Karen and I will handle the Viridian Gym. We’ll be in charge of a commando group of trainers, with orders to confiscate everything in the gym, for the Global Police to look through later.”
Bruno looked up at Lance, a strange expression on his face, “So, what, then. You expect us to sit around here, homey, twiddling our thumbs?”
Lance forced himself not to smile, “Actually, I was coming to your part next.”
He pushed a button, and the diagram of the gym changed to one of a building with garishly bright lights, “This, my friends, is the Game Corner in Celadon City. Among intelligence circles, it's pretty well known that the Rockets run it, and have a base beneath it, but Erika’s let them stay there because of the revenue they provide. However, we can’t let them stay anymore. Not with the atrocities they’ve done, and gone unpunished. Now is the time to punish them. Bruno, Agatha, Lorelei, you three are to rendezvous with Erika, and you four, along with the trainers from the gym and any local trainers who have volunteered to help the Global Police against Team Rocket, are going to go and root out any Rockets from their base below the Game Corner. A Global Police Agent will brief you when you arrive in Celadon. Any questions?”
There weren’t any. Lance nodded, “All right, then. Ladies and Gentleman, we have our assignments, let’s saddle up.”
“Lock ‘n load,” Karen said quietly, but loud enough that everyone could hear her. With that, everyone got up, and moved towards the door. Everyone, Lance noticed, except Lorelei. Lance caught Karen’s eye, and she nodded, and stayed behind in the room. Lance had discussed Lorelei with Karen before, and now, as he had told her, he wanted her to do something to boost her self-esteem. More than likely, she was grateful that she didn’t have to hear Bruno talk about how great he was going to be in the Celadon raid. As for Lance—He had to get going and brief the team that had been assigned to him on their up-coming mission.
Karen returned to her seat, and faced Lorelei, who was still sitting, and was staring at the aquarium blankly. A Goldeen and a Corsola were swimming around each other, and it looked like they were about to fight. “Hey,” Karen said softly, “Are you okay?”
Lorelei jumped, “Hm? Oh, what did ya say, Karen?” she turned around to look at Karen, but the Dark Elite noticed that the other girl’s eyes didn’t quite meet hers.
“I was asking,” Karen said gently, “if you were okay. Is there something bothering you?”
There was a long pause as Lorelei considered this, then she said, “Not really.” There was another pause, “Well,” Lorelei said, “It’s just that…” she hesitated, “I mean, what if it turns out that I’m not really the coun’y champion? That everybody just lets me win ‘cause they feel sorry for me?” Lorelei's eyes slowly came up to meet Karen's, almost begging her to change the subject, or to let her go get ready for her upcoming mission.
Karen stared at Lorelei in disbelief. “THAT’S what’s been bugging you?” she asked incredulously, staring at the Ice Elite in disbelief, “Lorelei, listen to me. you’re in the Elite Four. You’ve beaten all the gym leaders. True, it was after you joined the Elite Four, but you still beat them. Right now, your career average is that you win about half your matches, and most of the matches you lose is because you stop thinking that you can do it! Let’s take, uh, that Trainer who majored in Normal types,” Karen said, referring to a loss the day before that Lorelei should have won easily, “You lost your nerve. You had everything all set up for your win, but you cracked.” The trainer, when he faced Karen, had been defeated easily. But if Karen could say one thing about that trainer, he certainly had resolve.
“He was going to beat me anyway,” Lorelei mumbled, looking at her hands, and shifting uncomfortably, “His Clefairy was tough as an Ursaring. His Chansey was mean as a ‘Doom. I thought it was just better to end quickly than to unneccesarily hurt my Pokemon.” A haunted expression went across her face, and for a split second, there was an expression almost as if she were in real pain. “Nothing should be hurt like that.” she whispered.
For an instant, Karen could only stare at her counterpart in disbelief. Then she started feeling the annoyance beginning to build up within her. She forced it down, though. She forced herself to remain calm. Lorelei was a superb trainer, but the Clefairy she had been referring to had only taken one or two hits from her Umbreon before it went down. The Chansey almost didn’t fight because it was too timid. “Lorelei, there are Chansey nearby. They won't take any permanent damage, you know that! We can stop the fight if it gets out of hand, and heal them almost instantly!” Lorelei stared blankly into the tank, her eyes haunted, and she shuddered. Karen sighed, and forced herself to have a calm voice, “You should have won that fight easily. Look at me.” Lorelei looked about halfway between where she had been looking and at Karen, but didn’t meet the Dark Elite's piercing gaze. “LOOK at me.” Karen repeated, adding a tinge of steel to her voice-allowed her frustration to come through. Lorelei, startled, quickly jerked her head up to look straight into Karen’s gaze, “You are an excellent trainer, one of the best. In fact, I’m pretty sure you could give Lance a run for his money if it came to that. I cannot—WILL not allow you to be like this.” Karen’s glare seemed to shrink Lorelei until Karen was amazed that the girl had even gotten this far. “You sacrificed your life, your hopes, your dreams, your entire teenage life to reach this moment.”
Karen leaned forward, and Lorelei flinched, and looked at the floor, her eyes still haunted, and beginning to be tinged with tears. “It's not worth it,” she whispered. “Nothing is worth it, if you're hurt like that, nothing is worth it.”
Karen stared at her. “Hurt like what?” Lorelei ignored her, and Karen sighed. She'd heard the exact same thing many times, but she could never get the Ice Elite to elaborate. “I looked through your trainer file. You were one of the most ruthless trainers out there. You did whatever you had to do to make ends meet on your four-year journey, and get that one last badge. It said that you battled five trainers at once to get a room at the Indigo Plateau Pokemon Center. That you took on Team Rocket almost daily after Giovanni took over, and almost always won. That you won almost ninety-five percent of your reported battles." What happened to you? Karen added silently to herself.
Lorelei’s gaze wandered, and she seemed to shrink in on herself even more, “Long time ago,” she mumbled, “I haven’t been that person for a long time. Not since...” she trailed off, and she seemed to be genuinely terrified. “Don’t worry about me,” she said in a barely audible tone, “I can take care of myself.”
Finally Karen could stand it no longer, and pounded the hard-wood table with one fist. “THAT’S IT!” She hissed in a loud voice, “I will not see you like this anymore!” Karen stood up, and, with one hand on the table for support, leaped over the entire table. She pulled Lorelei out of her seat with one hand, and snatched one of her Pokeballs off of her belt with the other. “Do you see this, Lorelei?” The girl nodded feebly, “When they became yours, they sacrificed their lives, their goals to help you find yours!” Karen slammed it down onto the table. Hard.
“Hey!” Lorelei said, blinking back tears. “D-d-don't talk to me like that!” she wailed, “You have no idea what I've done for them, and what it did to me!”
Karen glared at Lorelei. “I don't care!” she yelled, “You don't care about them!” she slammed the Pokeball back down onto the table.
Lorelei glared at her, and suddenly Karen found herself on her back, Lorelei's hand on her throat, cutting off her air, and Lorelei's face glaring down at her like Moltres out of a nightmare. For the first time in a long time, Karen was actually scared. Where had this Lorelei come from? “I told you,” Lorelei told her coldly, “Be careful with that. And I don't want to hear you say anything like that ever again. I very nearly died for my Pokemon.” Karen nodded, and Lorelei released her. Karen rubbed at her throat, and stared in fear and awe at Lorelei. Was this what Lorelei had been like? If so, then she was truly a force to be reckoned with. Then, abruptly, Lorelei blinked, and suddenly she was the frightned young woman that she had been mere minutes before. She picked up her Pokeball and carressed it lovingly. “But the Normal trainer was too dificult.”
Karen blinked, startled by the transformation. She felt her resolve harden. Somewhere in there was the strong young woman that Lorelei had once been. She had just seen it. She just had to draw it out, and make sure that it stayed. Karen let loose a small grin that she hoped looked genuine, and something in Lorelei's face changed. Karen couldn't quite read what it meant.“They gave you their trust,” Karen said harshly. “Trust that you would train them to the best that you could! Instead, you allow yourself to backslide!”
Lorelei seemed to crumble visibly underneath Karen’s verbal assault. Karen internally winced. She had seen the old Lorelei, but this didn't seem to be going anywhere. How in the world could she draw her back out? She had been so close. “Maybe-maybe you’re right. Maybe I should quit.” She mumbled.
Karen saw her chance, and seized it with both hands. Or, in actuality, two handfuls of Lorelei’s ice-blue tunic. She pulled the Ice Elite up to her face, and began talking again. “I’m right!” she hissed into Lorelei’s face, which was barely an inch from hers, “And you know it! You let your Pokémon down!” Lorelei seemed on the verge of tears, “But it’s not too late!” Karen said, and shoved the girl back down into her chair, “Reclaim what you once had, Lorelei. Fight with all your heart and all your soul when you go to Celadon, and see if you can remember what it was like, being on the road, back when you were merely another trainer! Fighting for what you believed in, to make a difference in the world.” Lorelei said nothing, and seemed to cower before Karen. Karen internally grimaced. That hadn't worked. If anything, Lorelei seemed about ready to resign.
Karen decided to use one last tactic, one which being the Dark-type Elite certainly enhanced her abilities for. “You disgust me!” Karen said, speaking, to her regret, truthfully. Lorelei’s head shot up, the old fire in her eyes, “You have so much potential, but you don’t use it! Instead, you settle for mediocre, when you should be trying to be superb!” Karen saw something in Lorelei's eyes click, much as it had when she was the Ice Queen she had been moments before. Hopefully this would work. “If you’re going to continue to be like this, then you really should just go home.” The fire in Lorelei's eyes was returning in greater force than before, and Karen inwardly grinned. She knew that Lorelei had a pretty bad relationship with her parents, and that she didn't really ever want to see them. “You don’t belong here.” That last bit might have overdone it, actually, Karen thought to herself, but she hadn't been able to stop herself.
Karen turned and stalked out, but saw the Ice Elite out of the corner of her left eye jump out of her chair with balled fists. As soon as she was out of view, she began to saunter away, past Lance, who obviously had been listening. “She’d give ME a run for MY money?” he asked, amusedly in his distinctly Kantan accent.
Karen looked up at him and grinned, “Don’t underestimate her, Lance. She’s a powerhouse, yet so little of her potential has been tapped.”
Back in the Aqua Board Room, Lorelei stood, clenching and unclenching her fists. She hadn't felt like this for a long time. Not for six years, since...She shuddered, but forced herself not to withdraw back into her shell. “You want me to go home, Karen?” she said to thin air through gritted teeth, “You wish. I’ll show you that I belong here. Then we’ll see who’s so smug!” Lorelei stalked out of the room, and looked over to her left, where Karen and Lance were just turning around a corner and out of her sight.
“I'm staying, Karen,” she growled, “And I'm not going anywhere. I am BACK!”With that, she strode down the corridor with fresh confidence in her steps, a sense of surety to her stride. She had a mission to prepare for. She’d show them. She’d show them all. Lorelei was BACK. And she was here to stay. And nobody, not even Karen, was going to make her go home. There was no way she'd go back there.
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