Act I: Chapter 13

Hello everyone,

Reminder of pokemon and names:

Hashi - Hariyama.

Minato - Hypno.

Madara - Growlithe.

Shika - Absol.

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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I sighed with content as I took the first sip of coffee for the day.

'Thank Arceus I decided to invest in that pot.'

There really is no feeling like that first drink of coffee in the mornings. It's even better if you are camping near the base of Mt. Moon and watching the first rays of the sun peak over the horizon.

'This is it. This is the dream. On the road, getting stronger and getting to travel? You can't beat this with a stick. And you get to make good money with it.'

My right hand reached out to pet the absol laying beside me. Shika had her eyes closed, enjoying my hand on her back and although I would never bring it up to her, I could swear she was purring.

Madara was already stirring, but he was doing it like a ten year old getting ready to go to school. His movements were erratic and his eyelids were dropping constantly.

Hashi and Minato stood off to the side, completely unaffected by the early mornings, stretching in preparation for the morning training that had become our routine.

We sat there for a while, a little longer than I usually prefered. Normally I would have been giving out orders on what to train for the day, but I just couldn't get my legs to move. Instead, I enjoyed the company of my pokemon, and stared into the distance.

Trees were sparse along Route 3, but once you turned onto Route 4 and got closer to Mt. Moon, they started to pop up in small forests around the base. That's where I was currently camped. I knew, by the map in my possession, that the entrance to the famous cave would be about another mile down Route 4.

I took the last sip of my coffee and stood up, signaling that we were about to start training. My party members stood up with me and looked to me for instructions. I smiled at them and couldn't help but think I should think of them as family members.

I opened my mouth to speak, but all four of my pokemon's heads snapped to a spot in the trees. There was too much brush to see what they were looking at, but Minato's mental link told me that it was a pokemon that Madara's nose told us smelled like the trees around us along with honey.

The pokemon that walked out of the bushes and into our camp was simultaneously one of the cutest and terrifying to come across in the wild.

A small bear cub, with brownish-orange fur walked in front of us. Around it's snout, the fur changed to a lighter color, the same color as the crescent on its forehead.

A teddiursa.

'Fuck!' I thought to my party. 'The mother will be close, be ready Hashi. Fighting type moves.'

Everyone tensed, and my eyes darted around the clearing. The teddiursa wobbled slightly on its legs and didn't even seem to be aware that we were in front of it. But it's nose kept twitching, as if it smelled something that it wanted or needed.

'It's alone. The mother was taken.' Minato's voice told me in my mind.

He sent me images to accompany the words. The roar of the mother Ursaring just as a louder, more intimidating, roar sounded out. Then the blurry image of a Rhydon appeared in my mind. Next was a single symbol, stitched perfectly into a shirt.

A red R.

'It's hungry.' Minato told me, and the rest of my party relaxed.

I started thinking through my options. The most obvious choice was to feed the little cub and send it on its way.

'It'll never survive.' I thought as I scratched that idea out.

One of the empty pokeball on my waist suddenly felt heavy. 'It is a single evolutionary pokemon. Normal type, which can be extremely valuable against pretty much everything. Move pool is close to the most diverse. And there is a reason ursaring are so feared in the wild.'

I made my decision fairly quickly. Really there wasn't much of an option. Most of the wild pokemon we came across were a part of a bigger group, and they hunted together. So getting experience off of them wasn't a terrible deed, since they would survive to become stronger. But this pokemon wouldn't make it the rest of the day before finding someone who has a taste for teddiursa. I couldn't leave it.

With my decision made, I swung around my backpack and opened it.

'Hashi's high protein diet will probably be best, until I can get to a pokemart.' I deduced.

A growl from the teddiursa made me turn my head. Hashi was approaching the little bear and the growl didn't deter him.

Hashi walked straight up, and grabbed the little bear by both of it's arms. It let out a little bark that wasn't very intimidating. I knew that it would turn into a roar in the future that would inspire fear.

The bear squirmed in his arms and tried biting him. Hashi hugged it tight with his left arm and shoved his right hand in it's mouth, letting it chew on his hand. The bear's bite didn't even get close to breaking the skin on his hand so I looked away and grabbed the food from the bag. I took out the bowl that I normally fed Madara out of and set it on the ground before pouring out a decent portion for the bear.

As soon as the scent hit the air, the bear turned away from gnawing on Hashi's hand and looked straight at the food.

Hashi let it down and it went straight to the bowl and began devouring the food inside. I wondered if I should stop it from eating too much for a moment before deciding that I didn't actually give it enough food to damage it at all.

I put the food back up in my backpack just as Shika moved forward to the little bear. It growled at her as it noticed she was getting closer to its food. Shika's head snaked out and nipped its neck, warning it not to growl at her.

And then she laid right next to the little bear and started to dote over it much like a cat would. Everytime the little bear would growl at her, she would nip it before cleaning it with her tongue.

'Fucking Team Rocket.' I couldn't help but think as I remembered the memories that Minato had sent me.

'A real life version of Team Rocket.' I corrected myself. 'I refuse to count on their incompetence.'

My eyes scanned the trees around me for a moment. I didn't find anything, but I knew they could still be around the area. If Brock knew that wild pokemon were disappearing, then surely he would have chased them out of the area. I forced myself to stop thinking about the issue and promised to stay alert while going through Mt. Moon.

My eyes were once again drawn to the bear at my feet. I couldn't help but smile as Shika immediately went to mothering it and integrating the bear into the group.

"Well, we have a new family member."

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'Mt. Moon's entrance is surprisingly small.'

I couldn't help but judge the ten feet tall by five feet wide door. It was barely wide enough for Shika and I to walk through comfortably.

But we did all the same, and that was our first mistake.

There is a distinct feeling of the barrel of a firearm touching your temple. It is further amplified by the clicking of a hammer being cocked.

"Don't fucking move!"

The voice sounded like the typical criminal who didn't have any experience actually committing a robbery. It was shaky, as was the gun on my head.

I sent the mental command for my pokemon not to move either, even though all of their anger hit my mind at once. They did not like their trainer being threatened so thoroughly.

"Ok." I said, surprisingly calm for the situation, as my hands spread out and my arms moved from my pokeballs. "You can have whatever you want." I told the man, who I knew was probably a Team Rocket member.

"All of your pokeballs, now." The man commanded.

'Fat fucking chance.' I decided immediately and went through a plan in my head with my pokemon.

When I walked into the cavern, the change in light had not let me see the man in the corner, surrounded by darkness. But now my eyes were adjusting and I could make out what was in front of me.

A crobat was on the ceiling, hanging upside down. A houndoom stood closest to me, about the same distance from me as Shika was. Shika and the houndoom were looking straight at each other, promising death to whoever moved.

Another small movement alerted me to a sneasel on the other side of Shika, although far enough for a plan to be made.

"Do you want me to reach for them?" I asked, playing along with the Team Rocket member.

He hadn't obviously thought that far ahead, because he didn't answer immediately.

"Uh, no! Don't fucking move, I'll get them." The man, or boy would be a more appropriate term, said.

'My signal.' I told my team, who didn't give any verbal confirmation, but I knew was ready.

He was standing on my left, with his right hand holding the pistol. I assigned targets for all of my team as the Team Rocket member reached his left hand down to my belt.

A common mistake people will make when dealing with a firearm is false confidence. Most are so inexperienced that they don't realize how easy it is to close the distance, or move before they could react and fire. That was why so many police officers died to their own weapons across the world. The memories from another life told me all of these things, and also gave me the courage to do something about it.

So when the boy took his eyes off of me, so many things happened at once.

'Fatal.'

My head ducked, while my left hand rose and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the firearm and shoving it up.

A deafening bang sounded out as the Team Rocket member pulled the trigger. The bullet impacted somewhere above me, but I wasn't paying attention to that.

Another thing to remember when fighting over a firearm with very little distance, is to make sure you never stop attacking, and allow them room to think about adjusting the aim of their wrist. So while my team leapt into action, I couldn't see what was happening because I was too focused on the Team Rocket member. I trust my team to protect me and themselves.

My right arm snaked forward to the grunt and my elbow hit his nose, breaking it and dazing him. The blow would have made Brody proud. Growing up fighting with a fighting type Gym Leader teaches one self-defense extremely quickly and efficiently.

His head snapped against the wall behind him, causing a concussion no doubt. I never stopped moving to give him time to recover and my right hand continued to the pistol. The grunt was all but knocked out when I wrenched the pistol out of his hand pointed at his face.

For a brief moment, I considered pulling the trigger and ridding the world of such a piece of shit.

Instead, I saw that he was barely conscious and didn't even know what day of the week it was. So my hands operated the pistol as if I had been doing it my whole life, which wouldn't be a lie, depending on what life you were talking about.

I didn't look at it, but I felt the sleek design of a 1911 pistol. I knew it wasn't on safety because he had just gotten done firing the weapon, so I rounded it on his own team.

There was no need.

His team was dead.

Madara had the sneasel by the neck, and it's body moved like a rag-doll, signaling a broken neck from his jaws. The burns on the neck told me he had used a fire fang to complete the deed.

Minato's hand was covered in electricity and blood as it extended through the mouth of the crobat and out it's back. I carefully looked to see if there was any poison mixed in, and I couldn't see any.

Hashi's massive hand held the head of the houndoom, which was also limp in his arms, signifying another broken neck. It's body drug behind him as he walked towards me with an intimidating look on his face. He threw the body down in front of me, and the others did the same with the other bodies.

I turned back to the, now obvious, Grunt and pointed the pistol at him. Blood leaked down his nose and his eyes barely focused on me. His body had slid down the wall and he was barely capable of functioning.

I put the gun on safety and put it on my waistband under my backpack. I tightened my belt so that it wouldn't go anywhere.

I reached down and grabbed the Grunt by the arm before lifting him on my shoulders way easier than should have been possible. He was easily my height, even if he wasn't as heavy as I was. I blamed my training with the weights three times a week.

"Bring them outside." I told my pokemon. "And be alert. There is most likely more inside."

'They probably heard the gunshot.' I thought as I walked outside with the body on my shoulders.

As soon as I hit sunlight, I threw him on the ground and pulled out my pokegear. The emergency contact function of the pokegear was capable of being activated in many ways. The most common was a sequence of buttons on the outside of the device, capable of being activated with one hand. My hands ran through the sequence quickly.

Almost immediately, someone answered.

"Ace Trainer Troy, what is your emergency." The familiar voice called out through my pokegear.

The face of a red-headed trainer who was normally over the Sevii Islands was one I was familiar with. He was the same one who questioned me after my incident with the Skarmory on Three Island.

"Troy, this is Brawly. I'm standing in front of Mt. Moon. I was attacked by a member of Team Rocket and have him and his team in custody. I think there are more further into the cave." I kept my explanation short and concise.

"Psychic incoming, ten seconds."

I didn't bother giving my pokemon any commands, Minato was already giving out instructions not to attack the incoming party. I hung up the pokegear, and counted.

At the eight second mark, a massive buildup of psychic energy announced the arrival of the Ace Trainer.

Troy, in his Ace Trainer uniform, and with a floating Alakazam behind him, appeared in front of me. His red hair and piercing blue eyes scanned the situation quickly. His face was set into business mode, and his hands dipped to another pokeball and pushed the release button as fast as I had ever seen anyone do it.

A massive turtle, with natural cannons as shoulders appeared before me. The blastoise had a scar that ran right beneath it's right eye, and made it even more intimidating, if it was possible. I tried not to tense at the arrival of two of the most powerful evolutionary lines in Kanto.

"You've grown, Brawly." Troy said. His eyes roaming my pokemon beside and behind me told me he wasn't talking about my physique. His hand reached onto his wrist and pushed a single button that I knew would send an emergency alarm to any other Ace Trainers in the area, along with the Gym Leader.

"But you need to get out of here." Troy told me, without room for argument.

I shook my head immediately. "Not possible. It's personal now."

"You don't understand. This is too much for a two-badge." Troy said as he walked forward towards the bodies on the ground. His eyes did rise in surprise at the dead pokemon on the ground, but showed no remorse.

I understood why. These pokemon were evolved, besides the sneasel, meaning they had been with the Grunt for a while and weren't forced into obeying him. They were too far gone. It was best they were put down or put far into the wild, and I didn't have time for the second option.

'Six more.' Minato's voice told me, and apparently Troy and his alakazam.

"Shit, that's a lot for one operation." Troy responded as he looked towards the entrance of Mt. Moon.

And then, an even bigger build up of psychic energy alerted me of another arrival.

Brock, himself, warped into the space behind Troy, accompanied by an absolute freak of a Claydol. It was one that I knew would be impossible for me to defeat with even my whole team for sure.

Brock wasted absolutely no time. "Five all together, in a cavern that was closed off to the public before even my father was Leader. Ready up, we go straight there."

I didn't bother asking how he knew the information. 'Maybe the claydol can feel them because of its ground typing?'

Troy frowned at the order and decided to challenge it. "Can he handle it?"

"He will have to. The grunts are unimportant, lethal authorization if necessary. Keep the leader alive." Brock responded quickly.

I immediately grabbed everyone's ball besides Minato's and returned them as we prepared to teleport with Brock. As I set them back on my belt, I mentally made a list of who to release first. Troy's Alakazam sent a burst of psychic energy to the Grunt on the ground and he immediately went unconscious.

My heart hammered in my ears as the claydol's psychic energy filled the air around me. Minato's hand touched me and he latched onto the energy around the clearing.

The world twisted and we appeared in a cavern that dwarfed the known caverns of Granite Cave, my hometown cave system.

I heard movement, and then Minato was in front of me with an electrical covered fist impacting the underside of another houndoom's jaw that would have latched around my throat.

'Fuck.'

Luckily my hand was already pushing the release button on Hashi's pokeball.

The Houndoom was recovering from Minato's attack, having the type advantage against my psychic and was gathering dark energy for what I assumed would be a dark pulse that would knock everyone back.

Flashes of light from pokemon being released around the cavern lit up my vision.

Hashi materialized into the world and put a stop to that plan quickly. His left hand grabbed directly onto the snout of the dog and I got to witness the same treatment he had given the other houndoom from earlier. His right hand chopped down onto the neck of the dog, covered in fighting energy.

A yelp, and the dog went limp.

A roar that threatened to shatter my bones and stop my heart called out to my left from where I knew Brock was. A single glance told me that the massive green scaled monster was a Tyranitar, a pseudo-legendary.

The orange blur in the sky answered the roar with one of his own. I wasn't sure if I was more scared of the charizard that answered the challenge or the tyranitar.

I released Shika just in time for a pokemon I never wanted to encounter to appear in front of my pokemon.

A gengar.

The ghostly energy sent a chill down my spine that never disappeared. My hair stood up on my body for a moment before a night slash from Shika made the gengar in front of me disappear in ghostly energies before reappearing in another part of the cavern, barely weakened.

I managed to release Madara, without even truly looking around the cavern.

A white hot force punched into my left shoulder from behind me. The sound of gunfire that hit my ears after the impact told me I was just shot. I rolled with the impact and the adrenaline didn't let me focus on the pain that came with it. Truth be told, I barely felt it.

My right hand drew the pistol that I had confiscated from the Team Rocket Grunt from earlier and clicked the safety off quickly. When I stopped rolling on the ground, I was on my back looking directly at the Grunt that had managed to get behind us down the iron sights of my gun. He was in the middle of turning his gun towards Troy, who hadn't even reacted to the gun shot behind us.

I pulled the trigger without thinking.

Pink mist exploded out of the back of his head. I pulled the trigger once more, out of panic more than anything and the bullet flew further into the cavern without doing any damage.

I shot to my feet, refusing to die on my back if it came down to it. Blood dripped down my left arm and the appendage refused to do more than twitch when I tried to send it commands.

The injury was thrown in the back of my mind, as I saw Hashi going toe to toe with a Machamp. Hashi blocked a combination thrown from all four arms of the Machamp before dropping down and sweeping the legs out from it. The machamp dropped to the floor.

Minato appeared in the air above it. A purple beam shot out from his outreached hand, much in the same way that his mother had the day that I had saved him.

'Psybeam.' I recognized, cheering for my pokemon quickly.

The attack knocked the machamp out, but Hashi's fist turned into a silvery color before plunging it down straight into the head of the pokemon. I turned away, before I could see the color of machamp brains spread on the floor.

Madara appeared by my side, his eyes tracked the battle field warily. I saw blood around his muzzle briefly before he disappeared into another quick attack. I briefly saw the form of an umbreon, before he barrelled into it with a mouth covered in dark energy.

I briefly thought about how quickly everything was happening and I couldn't keep up with it.

A massive jet of water shot forward from my right towards a spot about fifteen feet directly above me. The charizard from earlier was diving directly towards me, and would have killed me with the impact of his body alone had the jet of water not shot it off to my left.

Water rained on me as I tracked the charizard.

Brock's Tyranitar saw the charizard coming his way and it's body moved faster than it should have been able to. It's massive paw smacked the incoming pokemon to the ground, where a spear of rock shot upwards and impaled the charizard.

'Fuck.' I eloquently summed up the situation to myself. My dad had never explained what his days as an Ace Trainer had consisted of. Now I knew why.

I looked around to see that Hashi was currently kicking a crazed Ursaring in the head. I was willing to put money on it being the mother of the only one of my pokemon that I hadn't released into the battle.

Without any training, and being as weak as it currently was, my teddiursa would only be a hindrance.

Hashi continued his beatdown of the pokemon, and yet it still attacked him. I could tell that he was starting to pull his punches with the animal, because he knew what I knew. If we could save the ursaring, then we would. However, I knew that we couldn't calm the mother bear down.

Minato appeared next to me, and I could feel his exhaustion through our link.

'End it Hashi.' I commanded my starter. He didn't hesitate, and soon he had his arms around the throat of the ursaring on the ground. The veins in his arms bulged as he squeezed the life of the massive bear.

It was like a switch flipped on the battlefield and everything paused. A body fell to my right and I turned to see Troy's blastoise standing over a dead rhydon.

A flash of light to my left, and Brock's tyranitar disappeared into its pokeball. The claydol from earlier floated beside him. In front of Brock, an army of dark and ghost pokemon laid on the ground. None of them moved.

I had never thought it possible for ghost pokemon to 'die', but the semi-solid mound of ethereal skin from the gengar from earlier told me that was wrong.

In front of me, a dead machamp, ursaring, umbreon, sneasel, and at least four crobat laid on the ground.

I didn't even bother looking toward Troy's side of the field. Instead, I was reminded of the bullet in my shoulder by a flare of pain.

'Adrenaline is wearing off.' I thought as my hand started shaking.

A hand grabbed my right hand and the gun in its grip. Troy appeared in my vision, and I let the gun go, allowing him to take it.

He let the magazine slide out onto the ground and removed the bullet in the chamber with skilled fingers before taking out a cloth and wiping it down. It reminded me of assassin movies where the killer didn't want to be caught and was wiping away fingerprints.

"Where did you get it?" He asked, ignoring that I had a wound on my shoulder.

"The Grunt from the entrance." I answered quickly.

"No you didn't. I did, understand?" Troy asked, as if he was correcting a child.

I nodded, immediately catching on to what he was saying. Trainers that didn't hold the position of Ace Trainer weren't supposed to have firearms, under any circumstance. It was highly regulated by the league and governments of the world. Needless to say, I was happy to give Troy the blame. I would probably get off on self-defense but it was best to completely avoid the problem altogether. No one would even look twice at Troy holding the weapon.

"Good, now let's get that arm looked at." Troy said as he looked over to his alakazam.

Brock walked up next to us. "The two leaders teleported out immediately." He told us and his eyes looked down to the gun in Troy's hand.

His eyes flickered from me to Troy. Neither of them spoke, but a conversation was had between all three of us. Brock nodded, and looked away from us to the destruction we had wrought. Brock had just given his word that he wouldn't speak of who actually used the gun.

I followed his eyes, and only then did I see the other two bodies of rocket grunts. "Killed them before they left." Brock explained. "And I would be willing to be that the one up there is dead too." Brock said as he pointed up.

Another build up of psychic energy appeared behind us, and three more trainers with the attire of an Ace Trainer appeared. Two women, and another male. All of them were teleported in by the gardevoir that was floating in front of them.

"Recall your pokemon." Troy commanded. "How does Cerulean sound?" He asked in a more playful manner.

Normally I would fuss about not getting to walk all the way there as was tradition, but considering the circumstances, I just nodded at the Ace Trainer.

"Like paradise."

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A/N: Boom!

Yea, not gonna get a chapter of Courage out today. Enjoy this my friends.

We got a new team member!!!

Another action packed chapter for Brawly and co. We got to see Troy and a little of what he could do. This also showed how different battles can be when it's outside of the league circuit. There is a lot going on and everyone needs to work together to make sure you don't die.

Brawly had to deal with a pistol to his head, and easily destroyed that Grunt all by himself. I've been meaning to showcase Brawly's hand to hand skills with another person. Obviously against pokemon this isn't applicable, so this opportunity is nice.

Brock has a fucking tyranitar, and the first psuedo-legendary makes an appearance. It is also my personal favorite of that particular class of pokemon.

Two starters appear! Troy is a beast also, but Brock earns his spot as a Gym Leader, reinforcing that they are the top dogs in the league.

Another thing to remember is that Troy and Brock only used two pokemon, and still performed better than Brawly. So we still have a long way to go on our quest of taking down Lance, who stands at the top of everyone.

Let's talk in the reviews!