The Letter R

–Day 2–

Steven and Smoker creep up on the camp, being as quiet as they can, to not alert the people not far away from them. They both were trying very hard to remain calm and think rationally but were having a very tough time controlling themselves. They glared at the tents in front of them with the device pulsing a light purple, with a big letter R on it.

Steven and Smoker looked at the surrounding area while staying prone and sneaking around the camp, trying some way to remedy the situation. Team Rocket, just like with Prince, are trying to use pokemon for evil deeds and chaos once more. Steven and Smoker sneak to the top of a hill a little bit away from the camp. Steven stopped to think and wonder what to do from now on, and this was a dire situation. Earlier today, him and Smoker were training against different packs and hordes of pokemon, and Steven had started to feel weird about the pokemon in the area. Something wasn't right, pokemon in route one almost never attack in groups, most low level pokemon fight for themselves after they turn a year old. But every single encounter he had there were groups of pokemon, one particularly nasty situation had occurred where 12 different rattata had attacked him and Smoker right after a battle with 6 pidgey. It was a blessing and a curse, because while it gave Smoker a lot of experience on the battlefield, it wasn't normal. The pokemon were acting like enraged zombies, only running away when they could understand they had absolutely no chance.

Smoker and Steven had searched around this part of the route, a forestry bit for a while. The pokemon seemed to get worse the closer they got to a hill in the distance and Steven had a bad feeling at the time. Smoker had used his increased sense of smell and hearing to track down the source of the pulsing. What he had found he wished he hadn't. Team rocket was purposefully enraging the pokemon of the forest to make them group up, paralyzing and confusing them with Zubat and Magnemite, and throwing them into a huge pokeball storage, no doubt for cruel testing and merciless future bloodshed. Steven knew he had to do something to stop this, this could not go any further.

Steven called out Prince and Queen, and waited for them to come to their senses as he explained all that he and Smoker knew at the moment. 'What do you guys think? Should we leave or should we fight. Before you say your decision just know that we may not be strong enough to compete with these goons yet,' steven said in a very serious tone of voice to indicate that it was a life or death situation they were dealing with.

Everyone looked at each other and all three pokemon looked at him and thought back in unison,'FIGHT!'

Steven smiled, he had raised a good team. 'Ok, so what we should do is…'

—-----

Steven ran forwards out of the brush as fast as he could at the goon standing a few feet away from the small tower emitting the pulse. The goon saw him running towards him however and shouted "Intruder!". Which made all the goons that were inside come rushing out. Steven continued runnin towards the pillar and counted how many pokemon and other humans were on the field. Approximately 10 people and they all either have 1 magnemite or 2 zubats, so around 20 opponents for Steven and his team to defeat. However, Steven and his pokemon both reached the same conclusion for scum like the ones they were facing, get rid of their existence entirely.

Steven ran up to the lone goon standing in front of the pulsing tower and punched as hard as he could in the face. Needless to say, human on human violence was not common and this shocked the grunts in the area, as Steven had knocked out their comrade with one punch! Steven stood in front of the pillar and behind him Smoker rushed behind him as an additional attacking force. Steven and Smoker now stood in front of both many people and pokemon and were greatly outmatched, however even in this situation, much like all the other ones they encountered up until now, they were exhilarated. Steven and his pokemon had truly started to bond over their thirst for power, they were slowly transformed into battle junkies, mostly due to Steven's peculiar, extreme workout regimen.

The goons who were scared at first now saw that only a single trainer and a single pokemon stood in their paths, they once again regained their morale and prestige as trainers and bandits of a high level organization. One of them shouted with authority,"Get the kid! Train all magnemites in the area and make sure not to hit the sacred temple!"

The goons magnemite all launched electricity attacks at Steven and Smoker but they both evaded, in opposite directions as to further confuse the enemies. After all, how could a trainer effectively give commands to their pokemon when they had to way to speak to each other. These goons didn't know of the many backup plans Steven had run his pokemon through, they could act independently and alot of times come up with better ways to use their powers than steven could. Again, a true testament to Stevens unbelievable training.

Smoker used fire spin on 3 of the magnemite, knocking them all out, but took the attacks of two other magnemite that weren't caught in the area of effect of fire spin. Smoker pretended to retreat, scared for his life while the two magnemite followed him. The goons mocked Steven as he evaded the pokemon attacks,"Hey kid! You might as well give now! You got no pokemon left, your little pet just left you!"

Steven smiled as in the exact next moment two of the zubats were hit with a powerful confusion and much like the magnemite fell almost instantaneously to the harsh attack. That wasn't it though as trees around the area started to be pulled out of the ground. The goons watched on in shock as hundreds of trees were being pulled from the ground, all while steven continuously dodged the tens of attacks coming his way like it was nothing but a light walk. The goons started to grow fearful, with good reason as a few seconds after the trees were in the air they all launched at the goons tents and base of operations. All of the tents in the compact area under the hill were completely and utterly demolished.. Steven had just done two very major and distinct things by using the tree strategy from the get go, one was that if the goons had communication with a superior or boss of some sort now they were cut off and couldn't call in for reinforcements. Second was that now they didn't know what else this young boy had in terms of fire power, because in all reality the goons realized that steven very well could have just destroyed the camp in big swoop with more trees had he wanted too.

However there were still 14 pokemon left and there was only one trainer, they couldn't let an upstart trainer on the beginning of his journey make of fool of them this easily. The rocket who had ordered the attack on steven ordered his men to attack steven with all their might, since they couldn't see the other pokemon steven had with him, they might as well just attack him directly. Steven continue dodging the repeated attack of the pokemon while waiting for the signal from queen. Suddenly, the entire back area where the trees had been lodged caught on fire and started a huge fire behind the goons. Steven smiled and started to take the people in front of him seriously, this was the signal and chance he had been waiting for.

Steven called out telepathically to Smoker who had long since dealt with the small fry magnemite who were currently sitting burned and unconscious behind a large boulder. Smoker returned to the battlefield and fired off an ember in the direction of a couple of magnemite, scaring them further among the chaos that was going on around them. The scared pair of magnemite went over to 4 other magnemite and huddled together in a defensive position on guard against any attacks. This however, was a mistake for these unfortunate pokemon, this was what Smoker had been aiming for, because with them huddled together he poured a ton of fire energy into a more concentrated force and unleashed a monstrous fire spin on the pokemon. All 6 magnemite all fell at the same time, only the 8 zubats remained.

Suddenly another massive confusion suppressed the entire battlefield, slowly weakening the zubat who were already in disarray from the situation and could hold an effective defense. They huddled together much like the magnemite from before except this time the confusion was slowly chipping away at their health. The final bell tolled when a rapid fire of ember came from above the camp and knocked out the rest of the zubat. Steven smiled and looked at the top of the hill where queen was coming down with a huge sack full of pokeballs, with a smirk spread across her gleeful face. They had won, but now the most important part still remained, so steven and his pokemon moved quickly and cornered the goons who were not injured and unconscious.

Steven breathed a sigh of relief once all the goons in the area were tied up. He knew this was all of them after asking Prince to scan the area and seeing that there was no one out here for at least 3 miles, and the person furthest away seemed to be a lumberjack of some sort. Steven and the rest of his team had move quickly though, they could not afford to wait any longer. Steven ordered the destruction of the pillar and Smoker and Queen destroyed it with a couple of embers. As soon as Steven saw that the light was no longer powering the machine of war he breathed a sigh of relief, he had done it. Steven knew that this small victory would mean a lot to someone else, maybe even a core memory, but steven knew that this was only the beginning. Steven would have to get stronger, his team had built nearly perfect foundations of growth and had perfected various strategies. Now steven had to find good situations to let them relearn these strategies in a real battle, one with high stakes that proved and refined the genius of his monsters.

With Prince's help all the tied up goons and even the tower were lifted telekinetically into the air, to make sure none of them could even attempt an escape. Steven and his team rushed back to professor oaks lab with Steven carrying Prince so he could concentrate on maintaining the telekinesis while Steven ran. After around 4 hours of running they could see the lab of Oak on the horizon, in good time too as Prince was starting to have trouble maintaining the telekinesis on the rowdy men who did not like what was happening to them at the current moment.

Steven burst into pallet town looking like he had just come back from a war and he might as well have, but steven had to alert Oak and he had to do it now. He left Prince, Smoker and Queen to guard the goons and headed straight for Oaks lab. Steven burst into Oak having a conversation with someone, a man with orange-red hair and with a black and orange tracksuit and cape on. Steven was going to be in awe of a champion, especially lance of all people, but now was not the right time and since Steven had never met Lance before it would be weird if he suddenly knew alot about him. Steven decided not tell Oak that he knew who Lance was, and focused on the matter at hand. Steven pulled hard on Oaks shirt to lead him outside before Oak could even say hello or speak with Steven.

Oak was forcibly dragged outside in an urgent manner and he was quite shocked with Stevens behaviour as just this morning he had sent Steven off on his adventure officially. Lance followed Oak as Steven dragged him outside and both men gasped in astonishment when they saw what was ahead of them. Team Rocket goons thrown across the pallet town lawn, tied up and gagged, squirming and shouting curses at Steven. Prince walked over to three of them to translate for them and help with conversation.

'Professor can you hear me now?'Steven asked to the professor in an urgent and worried manner

Oak looked at all the goons and thought back,'yes my boy, loud and clear. What on earth happened while you were out?!' Oak was in amazement and astonishment at the same time. Oak then thought to Steven,'Tell your pokemon to connect this sir right here into the conversation so he may listen and talk with you, he is from the pokemon league and he could help way better than I ever could,' Oak said in exasperation,' And from the looks of it, you'll need all the help you can get.'

Prince heard Oaks request and Steven gave the go ahead to do it, because he knew the man's actual identity he had no doubt of his origins and could safely trust him with this information. Steven then calmed himself and once lance confirmed that he could hear steven, he gave a full battle report of what he saw, what actions he took, the effects of the machine and his analysis of the goons. He also added that he believed the pokemon under the rockets should be released as he knew most of them most likely didn't want this kind of life of villainy and evil. This was a dangerous line Steven was crossing by taking up and requesting for the removal of pokemon from a person, this was taboo in the pokemon world and held very serious consequences for the other party involved. Steven knew all too well but after explaining everything to Lance and Oak, he knew they would see the corrupt side of these men. This was something only the most powerful in the region could do, and Lance was the one who could do it.

Oak looked at Steven as Steven finished up his report of the situation. He inwardly thought to himself away from the conversation,'Oh merciful Arceus, this kid is a monster, with only 3 pokemon he managed to take out nearly 20. I was right to place my sponsorship on him, he is someone who will define a generation as he gains power,'

Steven finished up his report and looked expectantly at the two pair of men. Lance looked at Oak and Oak nodded his head to indicate that most likely everything he had heard was fact and that steven had not just made it all up for attention. Steven wasn't the kind of person to yearn for fame, he only yearned for justice and power. Lance turned towards Steven and thought to him,'I will see to it that the device is looked after and studied, as well as seeing to it that these goons of team rocket are properly disposed of' he thought in a furious manner. He had been here since right after Steven had left and he had neither sensed nor heard of any usual activity in the forest in route 1. This kid had done his job better than he ever could and he was only just beginning his journey!

Lance looked at Steven and thought to him,'well, now that its over, ill call out my dragonite to take charge of the situation'. Lance called out a massive yellow dragonite and had it guard over the men who were now extremely terrified. Lance thought back to Steven,'Now the real reason i came over here in the first place, you deserve a reward for this act of heroism and your request for a dragon master to look at your pokemon has been fulfilled. Hello Steven, My name is Lance of the Elite Four!'

—-

Lance couldn't make sense of it, this was something that shouldn't be happening to him. He was one of the regions and the world's most elite dragon trainers. He knew the ends and outs of dragon types, what food they liked the most as a species, what they enjoyed doing the most, the regular behaviors, and most importantly how important a dragons bloodline is in the hierarchy of the dragon type world. Now here he was with one of the most powerful dragons in existence as his pokemon and best friend. Lance really didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because with just her presence alone his elite dragonite was kneeling in submission. Lance's dragonite was inferior to Stevens' bagon. Lance needed to know who this pokemon descended from, this pokemon was royalty among royalty. Steven was raising a true Queen among dragons and he only had a small idea of how big this was, yet another thing that would change the course of history forever.