The Dark Side of Kanto

Epilogue

                The sun slowly passed over the town of Lavaridge.  Small trails of smoke graced the blue sky, leaving tinted streaks above the world.  A cool autumn breeze passed through the buildings, rustling the orange and red leaves of the scarce trees that dotted the town.  The streets lay quiet with nary a soul in sight, but the muffled sounds of a fierce battle from the Lavaridge Gym broke the silence.

                Inside the gym, two trainers were locked in combat, each commanding a mighty Pokémon.  A young man and his Absol struggled to defeat the leader of the Lavaridge Gym, Flannery, and her fierce Torkoal.  The redheaded gym leader pointed her finger with intense confidence.

                “Torkoal!” she commanded.  “Use Flamethrower!”

                The young man panicked.  “Absol!” he squealed.  “Watch out!  Use, uh… Night Slash!”

                The young man’s delayed command did Absol no favors.  Before Absol could raise a claw, it got blasted by a fiery stream.  Engulfed in flames, it could do nothing but fall limply to the floor, defeated.  The young man shakily took Absol’s ball out and pulled the unconscious Pokémon back in.  He pocketed the ball, then pulled out another one.  Tossing the ball, he released the creature within.  A burst of light revealed his favorite Pokémon, a powerful Aggron.  The towering beast stood over the smaller Torkoal, but she just glared back, ready to fight.

                “Aggron, use Earthquake!” the young man ordered.

                Aggron stepped forward and pounded on the ground.  Flannery snapped her fingers.  Torkoal was well trained and immediately ducked into her shell.  It tumbled toward her opponent, caught air as the ground ruptured around her, and landed on Aggron’s back.  Flannery smirked with pride.

                “Now, Torkoal!” she shouted.  “Use Overheat!”

                Smoke billowed from Torkoal’s shell and her entire body erupted in flames.  Aggron roared in pain as the flames engulfed it.  It stumbled forward and hit the ground hard, leaving a crater in the floor.  Torkoal rolled off and faced her opponent, ready for more.  Aggron did not move.

                “All right!” Flannery cheered.  “Suck it, punk!”

                The young man frowned and recalled Aggron, defeated.  He pocketed his ball and sulked off, glaring angrily back over his shoulder.

                Flannery ran up to Torkoal and wrapped her arms over her cooling shell.  “Way to go, Torkoal!” she praised.  “Taking out the trash, one at a time!”  She pulled her Torkoal into her ball and clipped it to her belt.

                Flannery opened the doors to her gym and is greeted with a gentle breeze from the autumn air.  The weather had grown cool in recent days, much too cool for her tastes.  Seeing how she finished her last battle for the day, she decided a nice dip in the hot springs was a relaxing way to end her day.  While she walked the road toward the hot springs, past events crawled through her mind, particularly that dreadful day.  It haunted her, perched on her shoulder like a Chatot, squawking into her ear, a constant reminder of what she lost.  She refused to believe he was really gone.  After all, he made a promise.

                Flannery stripped her shirt and pants off and slipped into the soothing heat of the spring.  She leaned back and recalled that terrible day.  After pulling Mewtwo from the cave, the river above collapsed, trapping her friend inside.  She started to head back, but Mewtwo regained consciousness.  Soon, the authorities began to arrive and Mewtwo left to avoid them.  She wanted to go back into the cave and search, but the police insisted she remain at a distance.  The rescue crew searched for hours, but they were unable to fully clear the cave.  It eventually became too dangerous for them to remove any more rubble without risking another collapse.  Her heart broke, but in the end, no body was recovered, and as long as there was no body, she remained hopeful.

                The police questioned her about the events that occurred there.  She lied.  With her friend’s record, it was probably for the best that she kept the events quiet.  Rather than tell them they fought Giovanni, freed a genetic experiment, and blew up his secret hideout, she told them they had gone for a walk along Route 27 when he noticed the cave behind the waterfall.  He went to check it out and it collapsed on him.  The police seemed to have bought it and released her shortly after.

                Flannery looked to the sky and sighed.  It had been four months since that day.  She stayed in Kanto for a while with Hagi, hoping her friend would come looking for him.  He did not.  When Hagi was ready to set sail back to Hoenn, she protested at first, but regressed and sailed back with him.  Her friend had yet to show up and she had heard nothing.  Her hopes were beginning to wane.

                When the two arrived back in Hoenn, Flannery immediately reopened the gym.  She thought it was best to keep busy to take her mind off things.  It was hard adjusting back to a routine.  She maintained her bravado when challengers approached and soundly defeated most of them.  Her time with him had proved successful; she earned the title “One with a fiery passion that burns!” from the Hoenn League’s Elite Four and was known for being a new trainer’s first major hurdle.  She sent numerous new trainers home, league dreams shattered, and earned a reputation for being ruthless in battle.  Despite that, however, she would lay awake at night, thinking of the one she lost.  She maintained her hope, but every day made it that much more difficult to keep it.

                Flannery closed her eyes and sank further into the spring.  The hot water wrapped around her bosom, her neck, her chin, until the water was just shy of her nose.  She soaked in its soothing warmth, loosing the tense muscles that came from a long hard day of training and kicking ass.  The sun began to sink beneath the horizon, just kissing the desert cliffs, when Flannery opened her eyes again.  She decided she had enough and waded across the spring to her towel.  She reached the halfway point when she spotted something in the distance, a shadow, a silhouette standing just at the edge of town, engulfed in the setting sun’s light.  Her heart stopped.  She squinted in the sunlight, unable to make out the finer details, but she already knew who it was.  There was only one who it could be. She smiled.

                “Max!”