Burning Thunder

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A large pile of colourful books was stacked up on the desk as the man slowly marked his way through them, occasionally leaving short written messages of advice or praise for the results on either end of the score spectrum. It was getting late in the day, and as somewhat of a workaholic he would likely sit there until he was finished marking, but it was being made more difficult than usual thanks to all of the noise in the house.

“Cinnia, give me back my glasses!”

At the sound of a loud thump – likely Bianca either hurdling the sofa or falling off it – Cheren let out a quiet sigh, sitting back in his chair and rubbing at the brim of his nose. He was never going to be able to get his work done with so many distractions, and if he left it for later he’d be too tired to think properly. He raised his voice. “Stop chasing her; she’s just trying to clean them for you. She’ll give them back.”

There was a stubborn huff; then the house fell silent. Good. Now that was sorted, he could finish marking his students’ work.

No sooner had he put his pen to the paper, he was interrupted yet again as Bianca burst into the room, impeccably clean glasses now firmly on her face and one arm in the sleeve of her lab coat as she fought to get the rest of the garment on. “Enjoy your evening, mister teacher! I’ll be back in a few days.”

“You’re leaving? Now?” Cheren looked over his shoulder at last, glancing at the clock on the wall; 7:45PM.

“Yep! I know it’s a bit late, but the professor said she wanted me at the lab to help her examine some kinda strange metal thing, which might be an entire new Pokémon!” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “See you soon!”

“Strange metal—” As usual, he was still trying to catch up with her words even after she’d finished speaking. Didn’t that description sound familiar somehow?

Of course! That was similar to how Nate had described the creature he’d seen in the forest. The same forest where Bianca had been hurt by the strange barrier and knocked out…

“Bee, wait—!”

“Huh?” She was almost out of the door already, but stepped back into the room when he called, tilting her head. “Is something wrong?”

“Uh…” Irritably scratching at the side of his neck, Cheren tried to think of some excuse. How was he supposed to explain that he was wary of the metal creatures? It wasn’t as if he was afraid of steel-type Pokémon, and besides, he hadn’t even told the other gym leaders the exact reason for keeping people away from the forest.  “Ah, nothing… you just seem to be away a lot these days, that’s all. Feels like ages since we’ve managed to spend some time together.” He knew his wife well; affection would probably win her over. And besides, he’d much rather have to get up early the next morning to finish marking this work than for anything to happen to Bianca.

She was silent for a few seconds, taking his words in; then a bright smile spread across her face. “Aww, Cherry, have you been lonely without me? That’s so sweet!”

He automatically flinched as he felt her arms around him, partially because of surprise and partially because he expected to suddenly be unable to breathe, but it seemed Bianca wasn’t going for a bone-crushing hug this time – which was somewhat of a relief. “I—yeah…” Slightly flustered by the affection, he felt his face start to get warm, and he could tell by the way she giggled and kissed his cheek that it had shown.

“Don’t worry! I’ll be back in a few days; maybe we can watch a movie together at the weekend when you have less work to do!” Bianca gave a sweet smile, completely oblivious to the real reason he wanted her to stay. He’d almost hoped she might figure it out on her own, but perhaps that was hoping for too much. It wasn’t as if she’d actually seen the creature in the forest.

“Right…” He forced a smile. After all, she was going to the professor’s lab; if anything did go awry, Aurea and Cedric would be there as well. No danger. “That sounds great, Bee. Come home safely.”

“I’m just going to see the professor, silly! I go there at least once a month,” she laughed, hugging him tighter for a moment before releasing him and standing up straight and glancing over at the clock. “Oh! Speaking of the professor, I’d better get going or I’ll miss the boat! Bye, Cheren!”

“See you,” he gave a – probably unnoticed – wave of farewell as she dashed out of the room. Perhaps he was just worrying too much. That was a habit he’d never really broken out of towards the people closest to him.

---

Ryan was woken the next morning by a muffled yelp as a Pokémon tripped over his leg. As he groggily pulled himself up into a sitting position, he noticed Mariana scrambling back to her paws, an apologetic look on her face.

“Sorry, sorry,” she whispered, waving her paws. “I was just—I wanted to look out the window.” She must have misjudged what was just air under the duvet and what was actually part of him when she was trying to climb over.

“At…” he glanced at the clock on the wall, stifling a yawn, “six in the morning?”

“Ah, sorry…” Mariana shifted her paws for a moment, soon turning her attention back to the window and curiously peeling a corner of the curtain aside. A thin ray of light seeped into the room as she did so.

“Is it a nice view?” Ryan asked, still more or less half asleep, much unlike his Pokémon. If he just went back to sleep she might trip over him again, and he didn’t want her falling off the bed.

“Huh? Oh… yeah. Lots of trees,” she replied absently. Whiskers twitched, and she rolled the material of the curtains between her paws as she looked down at them, seeming distracted. “Do you think I’ll be as strong as him one day?”

In his current half-awake condition, Ryan didn’t piece together her question right away. “As strong as who?”

“Marth… the champion’s Pokémon.” She turned to look up at him, eyes wide with awe and worry. “Are we going to fight him one day?”

“One day, hopefully. It probably won’t be for a long time yet. We still need another four gym badges before we can challenge the league.” And the gym battles were likely to get even tougher from here on out. Imagine how strong they’d be by the end of it all!

“Where is the next gym? Is… are there any more electric-type Pokémon?”

“I don’t know what type it is, but it probably won’t be electric,” Ryan shrugged. “I think the closest gym to here is Driftveil City. It’s the other side of Nimbasa. Maybe we should head over there today.”

“To challenge the gym?” Mariana gasped.

“No, no, we’ll need to train first.” He wasn’t entirely sure what the best way to do that was, but… “I wonder if Jeremy’s still nearby.”

“Jeremy?”

“He’s… a trainer,” Ryan explained simply. “Me and Jay battled him once before we met you. We lost, but I want to show him how much stronger we are now!” Jeremy didn’t seem to think they could beat him; they’d have to show him that he was wrong. “Maybe he’ll still be at the Pokémon Center in Nimbasa.”

---

“A man named Jeremy? Sorry, but I don’t often remember the names of our guests,” the nurse apologised, bowing her head slightly. “Is he someone you know?”

Ryan just nodded, not really sure how to explain. They’d headed back to Nimbasa first thing in the hopes that if he was still there they might catch him before he left. However, finding him might prove to be more difficult than he’d expected.

“Could you tell me what he looks like? I might have seen him.”

“Um… blond ponytail and glasses. Oh, and he has an Espeon!”

A look of familiarity crossed the nurse’s face. “Ah! Yes, I remember a man like that. He left here yesterday, but I remember he was asking for some of our information leaflets about Relic Castle… I wouldn’t know where he is now. Sorry if that information wasn’t much help. If it’s something important, I could give him a message if he returns.”

“No, it’s okay. Thank you.” He could remember seeing ‘Relic Castle’ written somewhere in the map before, but hadn’t paid much attention to what it might be.

Before going anywhere, he decided he might as well take a look at the map to see where the place was. Perhaps Jeremy was still there?

Charlotte looked over his arm to see what he was doing. “What’s that?”

“A map of Unova.”

She tilted her head, squinting slightly. “Don’t be stupid. Unova is much bigger than that. Heck, this room is bigger than that entire thing!”

“It’s a scale map.”

“… Oh. Right.”

Ryan scanned over the nearby area, searching for the words ‘Relic Castle’, eventually spotting them in the middle of a place that looked like the desert. When passing through that area before they hadn’t ventured out any further than the houses on Route 4; was there really a castle out there? The suggestion made him think of the fantasy-style castles he’d always seen in cartoons when he was younger, and he tried to imagine any of them being out in the middle of nowhere, covered in sand. He wasn’t sure why Jeremy would be going out there, but it definitely sounded interesting…

So, the desert resort had become their next destination. It may have been a complete detour on their way to Driftveil, but it’d be more than worth it if they did manage to find Jeremy and beat him in a battle. Then the man would have to admit that Ryan and his team were strong!

The path from the houses to the desert seemed quiet, so he let all his Pokémon out to walk with him – even if that did slow them down a little.

“Look! Look!” Smith cheered, waving his arms around in the sand as if trying to create some kind of sand-angel, although given his shape it looked more like a sand-bowtie.

“Whee!” Jay seemed to have decided to slide down the sand dunes at the side of the path instead, not seeming too bothered by the fact that the grains stuck to his fur, standing out against the dark colour.

Axle just let out a quiet sigh as he trudged along the path, his footprints sinking slightly deeper than the others. “Honestly, you’d think they’d only just hatched out of—” he was interrupted as a clump of sand hit his scales, and snapped his gaze around with a furious glare in his eyes. Charotte just snickered at the expression, not seeming intimidated at all.

“Are we nearly there yet?” Mariana asked quietly, trotting along beside her trainer, occasionally stopping to try and shake off the sand that clung to her blue fur.

“Almost.” Ryan pointed to the tunnel-like gate up ahead, signalling the change between the route and the resort. He could tell that the wind was starting to get stronger, and he could see some of the sand being carried by it up ahead.

It certainly hadn’t prepared him for the sudden gale that hit them when they reached the far end of the gate.

Either the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, or the sandstorm was just a lot harsher further from the city. Either way, Ryan found himself squinting and holding up one arm to shield his face from the sand that lashed against his skin, pressing on forward.

“I can’t see!” Jay wailed, stumbling from the force of the wind against him as he walked unevenly through the sea of sand, ears buffeted madly by the gales.

Ryan glanced back at his team, glad that it was easier to see when he wasn’t facing the wind. Jay wasn’t the only one having trouble against the storm. “You guys should return to your Poké balls for now.” If they were going to battle somewhere here – he didn’t know how anyone could fight in this weather – they couldn’t let their strength be sapped by the storm first. None of them had any complaints about being sent into the shelter of the red-and-white capsules.

The tricky part was going to be trying to find the castle. Even if the desert was mostly sand dunes, it was impossible to see far into the distance with the sand raging past. How had the weather managed to change so much from out on Route 4? Was it always like this out here?

Pulling up his hood to hopefully provide some shelter, Ryan fought his way through the storm alone. His clothes were steadily getting covered in sand, and he was pretty sure there was some in his shoes now too – perhaps coming out here hadn’t been such a good idea. But if Jeremy had come through this terrible weather to get here, there must have been something important, right? Unless the storm hadn’t been so bad yesterday…

Reaching the top of one of the sand dunes, he held one hand up to shield his eyes from the weather and attempted to look around. It was a fruitless effort; he couldn’t see anything further than a few metres away. He was starting to wonder if the storm was getting even worse.

Amidst the howling of the wind, he thought he heard something else. A strange noise; definitely not human. It almost sounded like a groan—or perhaps a growl…

“Hello?” Ryan scanned the area once more, wincing as sand blew into his eyes. Trying to blink it out, his vision was momentarily lessened, but he couldn’t hear the noise anymore either.

“Leave this place, now!”

The ferocious roar startled him. He still couldn’t tell where it had come from, but instinctively he took a step back. The unsteady surface shifted beneath him, throwing him off balance, and for a moment the world seemed to spin as he felt himself falling.

A few seconds later he was at the bottom of the dune he’d just been standing on, even more sand than before stuck to his clothes and still slightly dazed. Sitting up was more difficult than expected with the sand shifting beneath his hands, but when he finally did, he could see a shadow moving towards him.

A very large shadow, getting increasingly large by the second…

The sand lit up as the beast finally appeared visibly in front of him, roaring out a battle cry and holding one flaming fist into the air. A Darmanitan! 

It was going to attack. He wouldn’t stand a chance against a creature that powerful, and there was no time to send out any of his Pokémon—

In the end, all Ryan could do was stare up at the violent creature, frozen with the fear evident in his eyes as he anticipated getting hit by the attack. Why had he thought coming out here was a good idea? He should have turned back as soon as he realised how bad the storm was.

Time felt like it had stopped. Maybe it had. Perhaps he’d already been hit and it was just taking his brain a while to catch up.

Or maybe what he thought was happening really was. The fire-type had continued to watch him, eyes widening to a look of somewhat disbelief. Slowly the flames faded out, extinguished completely as it let its arm drop back down to the sand. Flaming eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Your scent—no, it can’t be— so how…?” the creature mumbled, taking a step towards the frightened child. For some reason it seemed to be more cautious now, as if it didn’t actually want to scare him.

“Natural…”