Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ The Forgotten Son ❯ Five Years Later... ( Epilogue )

Jaden felt nervous as he pulled on his uniform. Tonight was his first night in action; after months of training in the police academy, he was finally an acting officer of Slateport City. His older friend, Nick, had convinced him to join when he was looking for a job; and with good reason, too.

 

The region of Hoenn was recovering from the greatest catastrophe in its entire history. It wasn't too long ago that the insane Archie and Maxie, leaders of teams aqua and magma, rose into power. They revived the great weather gods Groudon and Kyogre to do battle, wreaking havoc across the region. People were killed, towns and cities nearly destroyed, and when both monsters suddenly disappeared the exact cause remained a mystery to most.

 

In the wake of this tragedy, crime and suicide rates rose dramatically in the region. Many people had lost loved ones; even more lost their homes. Hoen was in a state of reconstruction, and at this time it depended on its police force to aid it. Nick had joined not just to make a living, but to make a difference every day, and he persuaded Jaden to do the same. But now Jaden, looking at himself in the mirror, felt unsure. His kind, handsome face and clear blue eyes spoke of a young man, looking very official in his dark blue uniform shirt and sharp, black pants. He'd heard plenty of horror stories of pervious officers who met their end at the hands of people gone insane.

 

“Jaden! Come on!”

 

Jaden shuffled nervously out of the locker room, standing face to face with Nick, already in uniform. “You look professional!” he said reassuringly. “Isn't it exciting? Your first night on patrol?”

 

Jaden glanced around. “Yeah, pretty exciting.” He said, a little unconvincing.

 

“Don't worry about it,” Nick said. “It's a good job. You'll come to like it.”

 

* * *

 

It turned out not to be too bad at all. Nick accompanied Jaden, the two of them patrolling the streets, flashlights in hand. It was a quiet night. They made it late into the night without any major incident, and Jaden slowly grew comfortable with the routine.

 

Jaden jumped, suddenly, when a voice rang out from the radio he had on his hip. “Hey!”

 

Jaden picked up the radio and responded. “What is it?”

 

“A ship came into the harbor about half an hour ago at 1:32 AM. Apparently, it was unscheduled, but when the shipyard manager went over to investigate he disappeared. Can you check up on that for us?”

 

Jaden looked at Nick apprehensively, fearing the worst. Nick took the radio from him. “Don't worry about it,” he spoke calmly. “We'll go take care of it.”

 

* * *

 

The ship was moderately large. It loomed over the two officers, foreboding and still.

 

“Let's go search it.” Nick offered, reaching for a pokeball on his belt.

 

“Um… don't we need a warrant to search?”

 

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Nick said; “We have probable cause to believe a kidnapping of some sort occurred. We're okay.”

 

Seeing Jaden's frightened expression, Nick quickly corrected himself. “Oh, ah! Don't think too much about it. That's more of a loophole so we can have a bit of fun, see some action. Of course a kidnapping didn't actually happen.”

 

“Oh, uh… okay, then.” Jaden said, relieved.

 

Nick looked up at the ship as he clicked the button one of his pokeball, a look of nervous tension growing on his face.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, the two officers were lowered onto the deck of the ship, clinging onto the legs of the green dragon pokemon called flygon. “Nice work, buddy,” Nick said kindly to his dragon pokemon, patting it on the head briefly before pulling it back into its pokeball. “Come on.” He whispered to Jaden, “Don't get too worried. Isn't this exciting?”

 

Jaden was scared out of his mind, and it was starting to show. Phantom noises came from every corner of the ship as they snuck along, and every step he took felt like it may be his last. Nick helped him, however, patting him on the back and re-assuring him he was doing great every so often. They circled completely around the deck of the ship, finding nothing.

 

“Do you think what we're looking for is deeper inside?” Jaden asked.

 

“I don't think we really even know what it is we're looking for.” Nick answered.

 

Just then, the hair stood up on the back of Jaden's neck and he felt a chill run down his spine. Nick tackled him very suddenly, yelling “Get down!”

 

A mighty blast of water narrowly missed the two trainers as they dropped down onto the ground, not an instant too soon. Quickly they rolled away from each other, leaping to their feet and facing their attacker. There stood a young man, hardly older than Jaden, in a black business suit. His cold, piercing eyes struck Jaden even through the darkness, and he shuddered as he looked into them. Beside him stood a large, red lobster pokemon—known as crawdaunt—its large, round claws snapping rhythmically and threateningly.

 

“What are you doing here?” the man demanded, his voice booming.

 

The two officers stared him down, neither daring to utter a response. A chill grew in the air. “Follow… my… lead,” Nick mouthed to Jaden.

 

“Well?” the young man demanded, again.

 

Nick jumped into action right away. With one swift motion he moved his hand over his belt, snapping a pokeball off and releasing the pokemon with the press of a button. Somehow his opponent was even faster; “Crabhammer!” he called out, and his crawdaunt was in motion to attack before Nick's pokemon even began to form on the field. Flygon, the large, green desert dragon was struck by crawdaunt's massive claw in the same instant it materialized on the field, stumbling back.

 

“G-go! Mankey!” Jaden weakly called out following the blisteringly fast exchange, his mankey appearing beside the flygon, hardly reassuring. Taking no notice of the pig-monkey, flygon charged forward with a mighty flap of its wings and headbutted crawdaunt.

 

Crawdaunt, however, didn't take the blow sitting down; it caught flygon's shoulders within its claws, and with a command from its trainer, “Vicegrip,” it crushed the flygon's shoulders within its claws, the dragon shrieking in pain. Mankey bravely rushed forward, launching into the air and striking one of crawdaunt's claws with a karate chop, but it ended up hurting its own hand against the rock-solid pincher.

 

“Hyper beam!” Nick commanded, distressed, but before flygon could launch the mighty beam of orange energy from its mouth crawdaunt had already released a surge of water from both of its claws; its water pulse technique hit this time, flygon soaring back and slamming into the railing along the end of the ship.

 

Nick grunted, but didn't lose his cool. “Arcanine, help him out!” With that he released a second pokemon; this one was also large in size. It resembled a large dog, but it had orange-and black tiger stripes and an intimidating, large white mane. Jaden, too, reached for another pokemon, releasing a small, brown kitten pokemon; eevee. It mewed nervously, hardly reassured by Jaden's pale face and shaking legs.

 

Wordlessly, their opponent released another pokemon as well; a largish blue water fish pokemon, quagsire. Normally outfitted with a silly grin, this one wore an expression of definite indifference. Meanwhile, he substituted his crawdaunt for an even larger, blue pokemon; an enormous, angry sea serpent pokemon took its place with a roar that shook the entire boat. Gyarados had made his entrance.

 

“Attack!” the two officers commanded, but their pokemon didn't go far. With a powerful stomp quagsire released a shockwave that ran out along the surface of the deck, ripping up wooden planks in its wake. As soon as it reached the veritable army of pokemon facing quagsire, the shockwave exploded with power, throwing them into the air haphazardly and intercepting their advances. Earthquake was a powerful technique indeed.

 

But it hardly compared to the following attack. Gyarados called upon its greatest powers, summoning a wave out from the waters of the port and striking down on the officers and their pokemon alike with massive power. The entire boat shook and bucked under the weight of the attack. When the attack had subsided it left Nick and Jaden gasping for air, lying on the ground, defeated. Jaden looked around, only to have the horrific realization that eevee and mankey had been swept out to the ocean by the attack and were no were to be found. Arcanine and flygon both lay unconscious around Nick.

 

The powerful trainer smirked and chuckled to himself as he released one final pokemon. “Kenshin, attack!”

 

A large, light green lizard spawned from a pokeball; its yellow eyes and long body seething with power. The sceptile rushed forward, wielding two long, thick blades of grass as weapons and slashing at the fallen flygon casually but with astonishing strength. After one final shriek of total pain, flygon ceased to live.

 

“No! Flygon!” Nick cried out, stumbling onto his feet on the slippery wet deck and rushing to his fallen pokemon desperately, only to be cut down by Sceptile's sharp leaf blades as well. A gasp was the last noise Nick would ever make as he suddenly dropped to the ground, blood spilling out uncontrollably.

 

The dark trainer looked at Jaden with his piercing cold eyes, sending more shivers down Jaden's spine.

 

“I think you'll be tortured more by life at this point.” The dark trainer said, his pokemon all retreating back into their pokeballs. A massive gathering of trainers in black uniform began marching out from within the ship, stopping for a moment to look in awe at the total decimation before they continued, lowering the bridge and flooding into Slateport City.

 

“Live,” the dark trainer said, “so that you can tell the police and all your friends that Team Rocket has officially returned.” Jaden, meanwhile, was feebly crawling toward Nick's body. “Update your books and make sure everybody knows that Luke Merluzzi is the new Giovanni.”

 

With that he walked off, following after the last few black-uniformed trainers as they scurried off into the city. Tonight was team rocket's night!

 

* * *

 

Jaden, however, hardly comprehended any of this. Instead he found himself weeping over Nick's body, as only a single thought ran through his head: He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. He's… he's gone.