Soren Rivers

The three of us stood in a triangle, a single pokéball in each of our hands as we waited for Esme to tell us to start the battle. Finn looked up from beside me, probably curious as to why I wasn't going to send him in. "Sorry Finn, but Slash needs some training for the gym battle."

"Distractions will only make you lose." Freya called out to me. "Might as well give up now!"

"No way!" I responded, I wasn't just going to give up before the battle started!

Jay gave a sigh and looked over at Esme. "Are you going to tell us to start the battle or not?"

"Y-yeah." Esme nodded before raising and lowering her arm in a chopping motion. "Go!"

"Slash, let's win this!" I threw out his pokéball and Slash launched out in a flash of white light, already in attack position. Once the others had their pokémon out, Pichu and Poochyena, I gave the first command. "Slash, use quick attack on Pichu!"

"Pichu, dodge and use thunder shock on his zangoose." Freya ordered.

"Don't forget about me!" Jay spoke up before giving her borrowed pokémon a command. "Use sand attack on both of them and then use bite on Pichu!"

At first her pokémon didn't seem like it was going to listen but once Slash was hit by the attack I say Poochyena burst into action with a growl, throwing up sand as it ran and skidded around my pokémon and Freya's. I held an arm up to block some of the sand from my own face before giving another attack.

"Slash, get up and use fury cutter on Pichu while it's blinded!"

"Not so fast!" Freya responded. "Pichu, let it get close and use a close range thunder shock."

I was relieved when Slash rolled to the side of the poorly aimed attack and struck Pichu hard enough to send the smaller pokémon tumbling across the ground while Poochyena ran after it with teeth bared. Pichu gave a cry of pain as it took another attack and I saw Freya give a frustrated look towards us.

"Charm and then thunder shock." Freya ordered.

Poochyena gave a whimper and loosened its grip on Pichu as the small yellow pokémon gave its opponent large friendly eyes before another jolt of electricity sent the puppy like pokémon yelping and scrambling back. I took my chance to narrow down my opponents and motioned towards Poochyena. "Alright, quick attack on Pichu and then fury cutter on Poochyena!"

"Retreat and use howl." Jay's voice was a bit calmer than expected considering her pokémon was about to be hit with a super effective move.

I half wanted to change Slash's course to aim for Pichu again after it was slammed to the ground by quick attack, who knew what Jay was planning in her mind, she obviously had an idea to win. But I didn't. This was my chance to win and I wasn't going to pass it up. Slash moved quickly, boosted a bit by the fading quick attack, and landed a direct hit on Poochyena. I watched as the black and grey pokémon fell to the ground shaking from the damage it had taken.

"Poochyena, now while it's close, use bite!" Jay's command rung out, how could she still consider making her pokémon attack now? Could it even stand?

My mind was so distracted by that thought I barely registered Poochyena get back on his feet and chomp his jaws down hard on Slash's arm. Slash gave a pained growl and glanced at me before trying to shake it off. I clenched my teeth, he had taken so much damage in battle already but one more hit and Jay would be out of the battle... which would still leave Pichu to be dealt with. I looked over at Freya, she had been quiet for a bit, but she seemed to be content with watching the battle while Pichu caught its breath.

"Throw it off and use quick attack!" I told my pokémon, that should be enough to win this.

"Poochyena, hold onto it."

The small dog gave a growl in response and I heard Slash give a louder cry of pain before slamming his arm onto the ground, forcing Poochyena to let go. That's when Freya made her next move. "Use thunder shock on both of them!"

"Hide by using sand attack!" Jay countered.

"Dodge and hit it with a quick attack." Once again Slash moved out of the way before speeding into Pichu, and then the battle went wrong. Electricity wracked Slash's form and he fell to the ground. "Slash?"

Freya laughed. "Pichu's static ability. I knew your pokémon only had physical attacks so it was bound to happen, I just had to make sure Pichu could last long enough for it to take effect while you two wore each other out."

I see... so it was Freya I should've been looking out for. I gritted my teeth a bit. "Slash, can you still fight?"

"Za..." He trembled, trying to rise back to his feet, before collapsing again.

"Maybe we should stop the battle..." Esme suggested, worry clouding her gaze as she saw our injured pokémon.

"No way! I was about to win!" Freya argued. "Come on Pichu, one more to go and we win!"

"Chu!" Her pokémon gave a half hearted cry, obviously tired from the fight so far.

Jay nodded in agreement. "Let's finish this. Poochyena, ready?"

"Yena." It panted, standing back up and waiting for the fight to continue.

"Alright then, use sand attack to hide your location and then use bite."

"Pichu, listen for its location and then use thunder shock." Freya ordered.

I looked over at Slash's beaten figure, my pokémon couldn't move but he wasn't unconscious just yet. The air around us was getting too filled with dust from Poochyena's sand attacks to actually see what was happening but from what I could see it was almost as if Jay's, well Esme's, pokémon was moving faster than before. It fell silent a few turns later and all four of us watched the dust settle to see Pichu unconscious while Poochyena laid on his side panting heavily but wagging his tail slightly in victory.

"Pichu!" Freya rushed to her partner's side and picked him up. "We'll get them next time, don't worry."

I returned Slash to his pokéball, he wasn't in any shape to battle, even if Poochyena looked like he was going to pass out. "Nice. But next time we battle Pichu's static won't be there to save you."

Jay grinned as she picked up her borrowed poochyena. "Yeah well next time I'll have my real pokémon to battle with me again so I won't need saved."

Esme stayed off to the side, still cautious of Poochyena, who was staring at her happily and wagging his tail. "Can we just get them healed please?"

"Calm down Esme, they're going to be fine." Freya told her friend as we went inside.

I turned to Jay. "How did you win anyway? Poochyena could barely stand."

A hint of a smirk ghosted across her face. "Well after he took that bug attack I noticed he was still moving pretty well despite his low health, I took what I knew from what my parents taught me and figured out what his ability was. Though, it would've been easier to just use the pokédex to tell me I guess."

"I see." I looked down at Slash's pokéball, I'd have to look up his ability so I knew how to use it to my advantage.

"Mud?" I looked down as Finn made a curious expression, though he was looking back outside.

"What is it Finn?"

He stared up at me. "Kip, mud!"

Finn pawed at my leg, something must be wrong, but I didn't see anything when I looked outside. "Okay, I'll go with you in a second, let me drop Slash off so he can get healed up."

"Mudkip!" Finn responded in understanding, though he was still acting jittery.

I followed him as soon as Slash was taken away and saw a medical crew outside a few blocks down carrying someone out of the gym on a stretcher along with several pokémon. All of them seemed extremely injured, as though their fight had been fierce or they had been overpowered completely. How would we ever be ready to face a gym like that? No matter how hard we trained, I doubted we would be up to a fight there for a while.

"Guys, come see this!" I called back to the others who were sitting around.

"What is it?" Freya asked, moving in front to get a better view. "Did the gym leader just kill that guy?"

"He isn't dead... I don't think." I responded, unsure if the trainer would make it.

Esme whimpered and ran back inside but Jay just crossed her arms and watched the situation. "This was never going to be easy but... That was much stronger than I expected."

"Maybe we should try another gym first." I suggested, I couldn't risk getting hurt so soon in my journey, let alone Finn or Slash.

"Yeah." Jay agreed before picking up Curse and holding the silver eevee close to her. "But first I want to check out this gym before we leave."

"Once you enter the gym though you have to fight until you lose, those are the rules remember?" She wouldn't really do something like that, right? "She'd be crazy to. She saw what happened to that trainer."

Jay gazed thoughtfully at the gym. "I'll be quick. No one would know I'm there, besides, Salem is blind, he won't even be able to see me."

"I see, and you're sure you want to risk it?"

Freya stepped closer to Jay. "I want to go too!"

I glanced down at Finn, there was worry in his gaze and I couldn't blame him for it. I was worried too, worried for my friends despite the short time knowing them, I had to go with them to the gym. "I'm going with you then."

"Alright!" Jay started walking off. "Let's hurry before the chaos ends."

I followed after her quickly, it already felt natural, following her, like a thing I would be doing for a long time to come. I didn't put too much thought into it though at the moment and instead tried not to look at the bloodied pokémon and trainer as they were finally loaded into the ambulance and taken away. There were still people in white and gold on the scene as we walked inside, scouring the scene for who knew what, information probably though I doubted the law would bite down on Salem considering things like this happened in gym battles. They disappeared from sight as the darkness of the gym's interior engulfed them with dark fog and shadows, dull black lights forming a path towards the gym leader while an abyss seemed to form on either side. He felt the urge to try stepping off the path to figure out what happened but decided it wasn't worth the risk of falling at least several feet just to figure out what was happening.

"Guys, wait u-" Esme's voice was cut off as she fell to the ground with a thud, several object rolling across the floor as she landed. "Ow..."

"Esme, what are you doing here?" Freya asked as she rushed back to her friend.

Jay glared slightly. "You'll get us all caught if you keep yelling."

"Sorry, you forgot your other pokémon and I thought you'd want them..." She picked up the fallen pokéballs and held them out as she stood up.

Jay took Poochyena's pokéball, apparently still borrowing Esme's pokémon, and I took Slash back. I grimaced as I felt something slimy on my hand and squinted down to use the black lights and bit of light from the doors to see a dark liquid that smeared crimson: blood. "Um, are you sure you're okay? There's blood on this."

"What?" Esme's voice rose pitch and she nearly screamed when she held up her hands to find more blood on them from the floor and her dress. The only thing stopping her from letting out a shriek was Freya's hand covering her mouth.

"We need to get out, that looked like way too much blood for that trainer they took out of here." Freya informed them. "Something isn't right."

I completely agreed with her on that. I certainly didn't want to be trapped in the middle of a possible murder scene, especially if said murderer was still around. "Jay, come on let's go... Jay?"

I turned back around to see the path was void of the third female. She could still be nearby of course but the smoke was too thick to actually tell. I glanced down at Finn, making sure he was safe, before smearing the blood off the bottom of my shoes as best as I could before running down the path. Behind me I could hear Freya following, catching up quickly considering Esme was probably safely outside and out of the way. I didn't know how much longer we would have to run to reach the battlefield where Salem met challengers but I did know it was getting progressively darker, the lights on the edges of the path were dimmer and dimmer... that had to mean we were close! I picked up the pace a bit as I heard a battle up ahead before running into something, more like someone, and squinted to make out the person in front of me.

"It's those people from outside." Jay informed us. "They're battling Salem but it doesn't look like any gym battle I've heard about."

Freya brushed past me to get a bit closer. "You're right, you can't just gang up on the gym leader like that."

"How can you see someone ganging up on anyone in this darkness?" I questioned, moving forward to 'see' as well. When I did it was like a curtain was pulled back, purple lights filtered down from the ceiling so the shadows still crept around the majority of the room but left enough lighting for challengers to see what they were doing in battle. Sure enough, there was a group of four people dressed in identical white and gold uniforms while a flash of blond hair disappeared into the shadows, something glinting in their hand. "Oh."

"Let's follow her." Jay started moving again and I grabbed her.

"We can't! They'll kill us!" I didn't want to act like a coward but going after people like this was crazy.

"We should at least see what's going on." Freya responded before running off through the edges of the battlefield.

Jay pulled her sleeve free and hurried after Freya. "Wait up."

Great, I shouldn't follow the two of them, obviously, but I wasn't going to leave them to go on their own. If it came to a fight then the more of us the better. I continued watching the battle play out to my left as we snuck around, Salem was doing pretty good for a blind guy, then again, he obviously wasn't a gym leader for his status alone. Even at a type disadvantage with his ghosts against the strangers' mightyena, he was able to hold his own... for now.

"Um, do they have a knife?" Jay's question was a bit rhetorical considering the blond woman clearly was holding a knife, but she didn't seem to be looking for an actual answer anyway.

"We should go before she sees us." Freya responded.

About time they saw sense in leaving, it was too dangerous to keep walking in here after we found the blood on the floor. I backed away, feeling Finn turning around to take the lead with Curse, before a scream made the three of us tense. I glanced at the other two before looking out at the field to see several of the men fall under Salem's wrath, his ghost pokémon defending their trainer to the death, well the death of whoever those people were attacking him. Maybe that trainer hadn't been injured in a fight against the gym leader, maybe it was against these people.

"Yanmega, u-turn! Honchkrow, use foul play!" The blond woman chose that moment to launch her own attack, Salem's body wide open to take her knife into his back while his pokémon were too busy fighting off their new assailants.

I was prepared for the worst, seeing a murder in front of my eyes, but Salem seemed to know right where to move and stepped aside before tripping the woman up. "Aegislash, use retaliate on both of them!"

"Dodge!" The woman was scowling as she got back up for another strike.

Jay stepped forward. "Curse, use tackle, get the knife."

"Vee!" Her loyal pokémon rushed forward to follow her command.

"Finn, help her out with water gun." I ordered, if we were going to enter the fight we might as well go for it all at once.

"Pichu, get them." Freya threw the pokéball and Pichu came out ready to fight. "Thunder shock them!"

The white and gold dressed people began to retreat at the fresh attack, obviously not expecting it and already wounded alongside their pokémon. "Clara, we should retreat! We can get this guy another day!"

The blond woman glared in our direction, throwing the sharp knife towards Salem with a joyful smile before pulling another one from her pocket and hurling it at us. "Fine, Honchkrow, Yanmega, return!"

I didn't pay any more attention as they left, too concerned about ducking out of the way, only to look back and lower my arms when I saw Curse on the ground in front of us. At first the eevee didn't move, then its silver ears twitched and it jumped up holding the weapon in its mouth by the hilt. Relief went through me, I wasn't ready to deal with people or pokémon I knew dying quite yet. Jay rubbed Curse's head in thanks before taking the knife.

"Look at the design." She held it out for us to see the feather pattern on the hilt. "I can bet what type she likes using."

"A bit obvious really." Freya agreed.

Salem's blind eye turned to us as he made his way over, even though he was blind and only had one eye it still felt like he could see our souls. "Are you kids alright?"

"Yeah." Freya spoke up again.

"Good, that was a dangerous thing to do." He turned to look at his Gengar. "Can you show them to the exit and go to the Pokémon Center to get help?"

"Gar." The pokémon gave a growl and motioned for us to follow it.

Salem turned away to face the mess of bodies and blood on his gym floor along with a few of his own pokémon, who were luckily starting to wake up and move again unlike some of the enemy pokémon. "I'm afraid I won't be taking challengers for awhile, not until this mess is cleaned up, in the meantime I would keep a lookout over your shoulders. Those people you met are part of Valhalla, they're only starting to rise out of the corners of the region but considering this bold move... it can only spell trouble for Drucan. And you three just dragged yourselves right into it."

"I see." I mumbled a bit before walking out of the gym behind Gengar while the other two were at my side.