Everything Pokémon: Pokémon Facts Book 2

Pokemon Creepypasta #11

Ketsuban

“Rhydon, use fissure!”

The Gym floor shook beneath Rhydon’s feet as it let out a tremendous bellow. If this move hits…

All at once, an enormous crack opened in the earth. A gaping maw stretched across the gym floor, speeding rapidly towards the move’s target. Closer, closer…and the fissure opened up beneath the opposing Blastoise, sending it tumbling down untold feet into the darkness below. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the tear was gone. The gym floor shone flawlessly under the cold, synthetic light, and Blastoise was nowhere to be seen.

The opposing trainer’s tears fell swiftly now, splashing silently onto the pristine tiling into which his Pokémon had vanished.

“Where…where’s Blastoise? Where… did he go?” The trainer was staring listlessly at the ground, refusing to move an inch. He was obviously in shock over the sheer magnitude of his defeat; Giovanni would have to remedy this.

“Pay up, kid”, ordered Giovanni in a low voice.

The trainer acquiesced resignedly, forfeiting half of his life savings into Giovanni’s waiting palm. But he still refused to leave.

“Go home”, commanded the leader, now slightly irritated. “You’re holding up the line.”

The trainer looked about himself in a dazed state and noticed the challenger standing behind him, a small, black-haired boy of perhaps ten years of age.

“Oh…sorry, I…I didn’t notice”, mumbled the defeated trainer with a small nod, and he, at last, began to pace resolutely back towards the Gym’s front door.

Giovanni turned his attention to the black-haired boy, who had stepped forward. He was wearing a red jacket over a black t-shirt and had a red-and-white cap pulled low over his eyes. Giovanni was intrigued by this challenger; something about him was unsettling, something about his slow, measured pace and expressionless visage seemed somehow…alien. But that was of no consequence; nobody had ever defeated Giovanni’s main team, and he was not about to let this child become the first.

“Welcome,” spoke Giovanni in a cool, intimidating tone. “I am the Viridian City Gym Leader. Do you dare to challenge me?” Giovanni rose to his full height. “I am the greatest trainer the world has ever known! I have defeated countless thousands in this very spot! Thousands upon thousands of championship dreams, terminated right where you’re standing! And yet you still dare to forever risk your only aspiration by blithely challenging my undefeated team?”

The speech had been delivered flawlessly, and Giovanni felt quite proud of himself; surely, the child had by now realized his insignificance, surely he was at this moment quaking in his boots.

And yet, the challenger showed few outward signs of his distress. Giovanni’s oratory had reduced countless grown men to sniveling, crying imbeciles by means of that very speech, and yet here was a child, a whelp no more than ten years old, standing his ground. Rather than break down, the challenger nodded and stepped noiselessly forward. The effect was disconcerting, and Giovanni’s voice displayed an imperceptible faltering.

“Very well…then let us begin.”

Giovanni threw his first Poké Ball.

A stream of crimson light issued forth from the Poké Ball, quickly coalescing into Giovanni’s Rhyhorn. Rhyhorn was Giovanni’s usual lead and had served him admirably in the past by gauging the strengths and identifying possible weaknesses of his opponents. The terrifying spectacle of the three-foot-tall Rhyhorn’s single-minded charge attack had caused many to resign their challenge in terror by itself. But the child stared unflinchingly at Giovanni’s Pokémon and threw down a Poké Ball of his own.