Rise Of A Hero

Chapter 9

Alain's POV:

I was HORRIBLY shaken after the attack. The bomb Hunter J had thrown towards us had just seared the skin of Astrid's right arm.

Thankfully, I remembered that Ash's Greninja was able to manipulate the water in human bodies, and he was able to numb the pain in Astrid's arm.

"She's...okay, Alain! Greninja can only stall the pain. It seems like the first two layers of her skin have been removed. Greninja was able to reconstruct the second layer, so there won't be anything severe. But you should still bring her over to the college's outpatient clinic", he told me and I nodded my head. Astrid had passed out from the pain, while Serena and Dawn were cleaning her arm with sponges and alcohol.

"What did she want from you?", Ash asked me and I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know, Ash! She just came and pointed her gun at us. Astrid released her Absol, who knocked her gun out. Then, she took out a grenade and before she could throw it, I let out my Charizard who moved Absol out of the way, but he was only able to partially drag Astrid away. The grenade didn't explode! It let out some gas, and when it made contact with her arm, the sleeve just melted away, and her skin seared off", I told him solemnly unable to look at my girlfriend writhing in pain even though she was unconscious.

"Don't worry, Alain! Thank your lucky stars you brought her as a fast as you could. The injuries WERE severe, but since Greninja did his job, it's just like a first layer removal of the skin. She'll be fine in a few days. Just avoid exposing her skin to the open world and keep it covered", Serena told me writing down the name of an ointment and Ash looked at her raising an eyebrow.

"Apply this twice a day, and she'll recover quickly", she told me and I gave her a grateful look in return to which she just shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. Ash however, looked troubled.

"You're not the only all rounder to exist, Glare-Face", Serena told Ash with a small giggle and he just gave her a half-hearted smile, which she easily decoded.

"Hey, look! We'll sort it out, okay? Don't break your head on this one too!", she told him cupping his cheeks and he nodded his head with a sigh.

"She....It....It was a planned attack, Ash!", I told him and he looked at me frowning.

"I'll prove it to you. You do know that some of us go to these isolated places to umm....do some stuff? They were WAITING over there! With weapons and stuff. They were bringing in weapons, and Astrid was about to confront them, but I held her back. We came to know that they were planning to weaken each region by attacking a place to increase the security at the place, and when the security at other places weakens, they'll blow out, guns blazing!", I told him and he motioned me to go on, while Serena was tending to Astrid's arm though, her breath shook when she heard me.

"I decided to leave the place immediately, and pulled Astrid away. But due to our rotten luck, Astrid stepped on a branch, which was placed RIGHT next to a microphone, and everyone became alert. The next second, J pulled her gun out and the whole thing unfolded", I told him and he nodded his head.

"Everything falls into place, Alain. It does so PERFECTLY!", he told me and I just gave him a confused look.

"I'll explain", he told me and dragged a chair and sat on it such that we were face to face.

"Look! Hoenn is the central region, so ALL forms of communication between regions MUST pass through Hoenn. Colress must have deliberately lost to Wallace to make him overconfident and lower his guard. The other grunts were dummies, I guess, playing minor pranks and agitating us, to divert our attention. J is a good tactician, and I BET she'll be trying to surround us this very instant. If Wallace is beaten and captured, the defences of Hoenn will become quite weak without a leader, and J's tactics would bring Hoenn down to its knees. What is the use of defence without communication? THAT'S what Colress wants. J is a bounty hunter. Where there is money, there's her stench. My da....the sperm donor due to whom I exist, he can throw money around. I don't know why he's working with Colress, but I HAVE to find out!", he told me rolling a non-enlarged Pokeball among his fingers, closing his eyes, and I felt guilty. I couldn't hide it anymore from him. If he could correlate two incidents which were so trivially connected, it was only a matter of days, that he'd find out about my stint with Team Flare.