– Chapter Two –
Counsel
Jacob Saviour's Point of View
Even though the hurricane had long gone, its presence still lingered, in more than one way.
The high wind speeds were still present, and every now and then, I could see people's property flying about in the wind. It was sad to see my home, Fuchsia like this, unable to live, because they were literally besieged in underground chambers by the terrible storm. Without the dedication of Master Koga, Fuchsia would have lost most of its population. Master Koga was the person in charge of building the system underground tunnels that linked to people's houses.
A leaf flew into my face, and I brushed it off wearily. This was the first time in my entire life that I had witnessed a hurricane, and it tore my heart apart. I saw people, refusing to leave their homes, and being swept away by the hurricane's cold fingers of death. It was almost unbearable to hear Master Koga tell us to leave the poor souls who would not leave their property, not with a look at their tear strewn faces.
I scowled, stamping on a piece of twig, and crunching it between my boot and the hard earth, Far from easing my pain, it made me even angrier, and worse, still, nauseous. Keeping my thick brown trench coat tightly wrapped around myself, I wandered the streets of Fuchsia. I made my way up Road Number 67, and turned left, facing east.
Rays of purples, and pink light were peeping from behind the horizon, as if wondering if it was the correct time to come out. Somehow, this calmed me. The sunrise always had that effect on me, and at times when I felt really depressed at night, I would stay awake until the sunrise, just to get calmed down. I looked down at my watch. It was a wonder it was still working. I looked around the street until I saw a small wooden trapdoor in the middle of some rubble. I walked over it, knocking on it.
"Who's there?" came a gruff voice from within.
"It's me, Jake, open up," I replied, standing back as the trapdoor swung open. I turned my back, and began to descend down the step-ladder. I reached the bottom, and found myself in a dark chamber, lit by a single oil lantern hanging from one of the walls.
"Finally, I was getting worried," came that gruff voice. I knew who t was without even looking.
"No need to worry about me, Chester. I'm perfectly alright. Fuchsia is my home, I cannot get lost there. You on the other hand…" I trailed off.
"But Fuchsia's my home too…oh," it took him a while, but he soon realized that he was being insulted, and began to throw punches at me. Fake punches of course, if they had been real, he would have knocked me out in a matter of seconds. His muscles were well toned, and he was trained in seven disciplines of martial arts, being in third Dan black belt in all of them, except Kalaripaytu which was extremely taxing on the body.
"Okay Mister Bigfist, Master Koga told me that he wanted a council with me, do you know where he is?" I asked, dodging Chester's most recent punch, after all, he wasn't the only one trained in martial arts.
He beckoned with his finger, and turned, walking through a small doorway, his blonde hair shimmering in the dim light. I followed, envious of his easy to take-care hair. Mine was so silky, that it never stayed where I wanted it to, so I just let it fall in front of my eyes. Chester led me through a long corridor, with black doors on either side. Some of those doors led to actual rooms, others led to places like a guardroom, and other still weren't even doors, just pieces of wood on the rock. Finally, Chester reached a door (God knows how he knew it was this one), and opened it, pointing for me to go in. I obliged.
Inside, it was lit by a couple of lanterns, and after the darkness of the corridor, it was almost blinding. I closed my eyes, and opened them again, only to see Master Koga sitting on a chair, with a desk in front of him. He was dressed in a tight-fitting purple robe, which he had taken to wearing ever since he had heard that The League of Shadows was open. Apparently, he knew who the leader was, but he wasn't going to tell me. Not now, anyway. His looked at me when I entered, and nodded for me to sit down.
"I'm glad you came," he began once Chester had closed the door.
"I can't say the same," I replied, looking around warily at the dark room, as if expecting some evil enforcer to jump out and kill Master Koga.
Master Koga was the man who trained me. Ever since I was five, he had begun to train me in various forms of martial arts, to protect me against anybody who would try to kill me. When I had asked him why anybody would want to kill me, he kept silent. I always wondered if there was something he wasn't telling me. I suppose you could say it was because of him that I was wary of the room. He had trained me to be ever vigilant, even in a place that I thought was friendly.
"I'm glad you feel the same way I do," he replied ironically, "but I'm not here to chat idle talk with you. There has been a serious breach in security somewhere west of here. We need –"
I cut him off, expecting this the minute that Chester had called to say that Master Koga wanted to see me. "Let me guess. The hurricane wasn't natural?"
It was Master Koga's turn to eye me warily. "And what gave you that assumption?"
"Master Koga, you're talking to the boy you raised like a son. You taught me everything you knew, and without knowing it, producing someone who is alike you in many ways. Whatever you see, I see too. The hurricane was much too wide spread to be natural. I heard that it even hit Cinnabar. Something that ranges form Fuchsia all the way to Cinnabar cannot be natural."
Master Koga smiled in the semi-darkness. "I'm glad we think on the same level, it makes things much easier to explain. But I have some bad news. Fuchsia wasn't the extent of it. It even reached Lavender, although it only rained heavily there. I have my ideas, but I need yours."
I sighed heavily. "No one ever calls to say hi anymore. What is it that I can do?"
Master Koga grinned uncharacteristically. It wasn't normal to see him smile. Normally, he had heavy frown marks above his eyes, and his mouth was twisted downward. In fact, smiling was so unnatural to him, that it looked a lot more like an ugly grimace than a smile.
"Listen, Jake. I have my reasons to believe that the storm originated in Vermillion. If you look carefully," he explained, pulling a large map from inside one of the drawers of his desk and laying down in front of me, "almost exactly in the middle of Cinnabar and Lavender is Vermillion. So it would make sense that the storm is from Vermillion."
I looked at the map, and noticed that what he was saying made complete sense. "But why would it begin in Vermillion. To create a hurricane at such a magnitude one would need a piece of machinery as big as a Snorlax. There's no way that the people in Vermillion didn't notice that, unless it was them who did it."
"Correct. Or almost correct. You see, you would need a powerful piece of machinery, or a powerful Pokémon."
That last word caught me by surprise. I hadn't expected a Pokémon to be behind this. It wouldn't make sense. By nature Pokémon were peaceful creatures, and wouldn't summon a large hurricane like that without a reason. Besides, even a Pokémon with the power of a legendary Rayquazza wouldn't be able to create such a big hurricane, and sustain it for nearly three hours. I explained my doubts to Master Koga.
"Essentially you are correct. No Pokémon that we know of has the capability of being able to cast such a big hurricane. But what about the Pokémon we don't know about? There are still many Pokémon that we don't know," explained Master Koga, as he pulled open yet another drawer, rummaging around in it. "Now where did I put that thing?"
"What thing Master Koga," I asked, now extremely confused.
Master Koga looked up at me, and then glanced at the door. The beckoned me closer, and whispered, "I have recently been taking up projects which involves the past of Pokémon. In a way, the mythology and history of Pokémon, how they believed the world to be brought about, and so on. It has been extremely taxing work, as it is not easy to find such records. And they are written in an ancient language long forgotten. It was believed that both Pokémon and humans used to know the language and were able to converse in it. For months on end, I worked tirelessly, and to no avail. It was then, when me and my team were about to give up that we found what he wanted. It was carved on a stone, but the constant rubbing of earth on it had almost levelled out the stone. We had to use laser X-Ray technology to uncover what it said. We finally managed it, and I managed to convert the ancient language to a language closer to Shakespearean English," he explained, finally pulling something out of his drawer. "Ah, here it is. Now listen carefully What I am about to read to you is the Pokémon's version of how the earth formed, and the tragedies that happened on earth in its early years of creation. It goes like this…"