Not long after Bolt had risen into the clouds, Valtor seized the opportunity to ask about Steven. He’d seen how Kenta’s face had lit up in recognition at what he, Valtor, had perceived as an ordinary-looking young man. However, what really shook Valtor was how Kenta trusted Steven enough to reveal his true self to the practical stranger. Was he really that great of a potential ally?

“Steven Stone,” Kenta answered in response to Valtor’s question, “is an honorable man. He proved that when he fought for the lives of those Magneton earlier, even though it very well might have gotten him in trouble with the law. I was certain he would sympathize for us, after that.

“But Steven’s worth doesn’t stop at being honorable. He’s also held the title of Hoenn Champion for longer than Brendan, to-date. As you’ve heard, only two people ever overcome his Metagross, and only Birch himself defeated his whole team.” Kenta smiled grimly. “Stone is a masterful pokémon trainer. But I expect he had an edge that most of us aren’t privileged to . . . financial backing from his father.”

“Huh?” Valtor looked at Kenta curiously. “Who’s his dad, then?”

“Mr. Devon Stone. The president of Devon Corporation.”

Kenta didn’t need to say any more. Realization rushed over Valtor immediately, like a tide. Of course . . . between his daytime television programs, he’d always used to see commercials advertising Devon’s latest pokémon products, such as the Timer Ball and the recently-made Ressurection Machine. President Stone was a multi-billionaire, and his son, a pokémon force to be reckoned with. Now Valtor understood why Kenta had tried so hard to win Steven’s trust. The former champion would’ve been an indispensible ally; a resource that might’ve made their impossible task mercifully easier. But with or without him, they had to press on, and gather whatever other friends they could.

***

On just about any given day, the port city of Vermilion would be bustling with activity from five in the morning until long past midnight. Today, however, there was almost no spirit in the air at all. It might have been the cold January weather that took the liveliness out of the people on the docks, or maybe the fact that there had been delays due to iced-over water. Then again, the previous night might have contributed to the slowness of the day. Those who had gotten little or no sleep, and those that had grieved for the pokémon taken from them, walked the streets with dark lines under their eyes, on the edge of their patience, yet too tired to take out their aggression on anyone.

One house of the neighborhood stood as an exception to the drab behavior of the city. Loyal members of the Vermilion Pokémon Fan Club swarmed into the small building, pushing past the door one after the other, chatting all the while. Through the threshold, the scenery revealed a compact room, filled with comfortable-looking sofas and a large table in the middle. On the walls hung large pictures and paintings of happy-looking people with pokémon, and on the floor sat actual-size pokémon dolls, consisting mostly of Clefairy. Just above the door, a cuckoo clock struck seven, and a little wooden Pidgey statue popped out and squawked at each knell. The elderly chairman in a suit called the meeting to order, but order didn’t last long. In less than two minutes, club participants were gathered in clusters, fretting and raving about the pokémon they’d lost. Hardly caring if anyone was really listening, they jabbered their hearts out, seeking to get the rage and frustration off their chests. It was difficult for anyone to make out what the others were saying, over the din of many people talking all at once.

“You remember my Dodrio? The one I nicknamed Chocobo? He was faster than any flying bird, and his Tri Attack always gave an enemy some sort of status condition. And those bastards from G.R.I.P. just took him like he was theirs!”

“Dodrio is no great loss, you could always get another one in the Safari Zone. But my Jynx was irreplaceable-”

“Hey, screw you! I don’t care about getting another Dodrio. Chocobo was special! No one could ever replace him!”

“I had an Arcanine. He knew Extremespeed and Flamethrower, and I’d bought his Fire Stone and everything. Those good-for-nothings had no right to take him. Don’t they have enough in their stupid K-9 unit already?”

“Well I had an Eevee, and I never wanted to evolve her, ever! But that’s what they’re famous for. Even if I got her back tomorrow, how could I know who she is? What if those scumbags have turned her into one of the ugly evolutions? There are eight ways to screw her up forever!”

“It’s not fair that they, like, made us pick who we wanted to keep, while making us give up the others! It’s like forcing us to choose who would get saved out of a burning house. Like, like, who matters more, your father, mother, brother, or sister? That’s just cruel!”

“I couldn’t keep any of my pokémon! They were all classified as too strong. What the HELL, man!”

Outside the door, Kenta and Valtor listened to the lamentations drifting through the window. Kenta shook his head and groaned. “Well, they’ve got the right attitude,” he said bitterly, “but I don’t know if I’d be able to take all this eternal bitching.”

“Hey, Moses had to deal with the Israelites for more than eighty years,” said Valtor, half- jokingly. “You don’t have it so bad.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a Moses.”

“You’re going to have to be one.” Valtor put a hand on Kenta’s shoulder, feeling it was his turn to support his older sibling. “Kenta. If this plan is to work, you need to be the strong Moses figure. You might not be able to talk with God face-to-face, but I’ll be your Aaron.” He patted his brother on the back, giving him the reassuring smile that Kenta so often put on for him. “Now get in there and perform a miracle.”

Kenta grinned weakly. “Alright, fine,” he said, standing up straighter. “But if you ask me to part the Vermilion Sea and lead these guys to Fuscia City, I quit.”

“Heh, Moses wasn’t actually the one to do that, anyway,” laughed Valtor, pulling open the door for him. Kenta rolled his eyes and headed into the room first, muttering “Jesus freak” under his breath. Valtor followed, pulling the door shut behind him. Nobody took notice of the two newcomers, since all of them were completely preoccupied with talking about the pokémon they didn’t have anymore. Kenta listened to a couple more kids talk about their lost Nidoqueen and Alakazam, then put aside his patience and brought his fingers to his mouth. He whistled loudly, shrilly, in such a sharp pitch that it brought a complete hush on the club in a matter of seconds. All eyes turned on him, and Kenta steeled himself for his upcoming speech.

Don’t be afraid. Just call them out for what they are! You’ve got to MAKE them angry!

“Look at yourselves.” Kenta gazed around the room, at the surprised and skeptical faces that stared back at him. “Your once-proud pokémon teams are all but gone, and the best you can do is squeeze together in a stuffy room and gripe about it? I mean, come on- really? This isn’t going to change squat, you know. Which one of you has gotten back so much as a Weedle for his bitching and moaning?”

The trainers of the fan club continued to stare at him. Their deer-in-the-headlights looks came across to Kenta as extremely stupid, and he forgot his stage fright completely as genuine anger took him. “And why do you all look so shocked right now?” he demanded. “Have I said something strange? I can’t believe how weak you all are. The pokémon you’ve cherished your whole life are taken from every one of you in one night, and you aren’t even attempting to fight back. Not even by civil disobedience. You say you care about them, but you obviously don’t care that much. You guys make me sick. It’s fitting, really- you don’t deserve the pokémon you’ve lost anyway.”

“Who the friggin’ hell do you think you are?” challenged a teenage boy towards the back right-hand side of the room. “You’re not Brendan Birch, just ‘cause you’re dressed up like him.”

“Yeah!” chimed in another girl, standing up angrily. “What we do is none of your effing business, you fake, so just turn around and get out now!”

“That’s right!”

“You have no idea how we feel!”

Valtor felt himself trembling slightly. He’d encouraged Kenta into this, but things were quickly turning ugly. Suddenly, he had a powerful urge to retreat, to leave this spot of burning discomfort, and go back out into the freezing evening air where it was quiet. This sort of pressure and abuse was too much for him.

“So, I have no idea how you feel, huh?” Kenta returned, his voice booming deeper and stronger than Valtor had ever heard it before. He was holding up Bolt’s Friend Ball, and his eyes glistened with the light of battle. “You think I don’t know? Then here’s what I propose. Everyone who wants me to leave, battle me out. Prove me wrong. If all the pokémon you still have are stronger than the single pokémon I have, then I’ll go in shame. But if we win, then I get to declare EXACTLY how you feel- and you’ll realize I’m right.”

The fan club immediately burst into challenging calls of “fine!”, “let’s go outside!”, “this freak is mine!”, and a great deal of booing. Valtor hurried to pull the door open again, and Kenta backed out, pulling Valtor with him. The two brothers scampered to the other side of the street, and turned with their backs facing the sea. The fan club trainers piled out of their house and stood opposite to Kenta and Valtor, pulling out their pokéballs in rapid succession. Shouts of summoning filled the air, and in burst after burst of blinding white light, the trainers’ pokémon appeared until they’d formed a solid wall. Valtor eyed the opposing force; a Venomoth, three Jigglypuff, a Nidorino and a Nidoking, a Farfetch’d, two Poliwag, a Poliwhirl, two Pidgeotto, a Mr. Mime, two Raticate, a Rapidash, a Fearow, three Geodude, two Zubat, two Voltorb, a Vulpix, a Machop, two Gloom, a Clefairy, and two Pikachu. He couldn’t even clearly see the pokémon behind the front lineup, but he was fairly certain that there were at least two more waves after the first. Valtor looked at Kenta; his brother appeared faint from the sight. “Kenta?” he asked timidly, holding up his Heavy Ball, “I . . . I can help you if you’d like. If we double-battle them, do you think we might win?”

Kenta shook his head, putting a hand over his eyes. Valtor wasn’t sure he’d even heard him. “Man, these pokémon . . .” he muttered weakly, “ . . . suck! ”

Valtor stared at him. “They suck?” he repeated, wondering if Kenta was serious. How could he face a force this massive and spurn it like that? Kenta tossed his Friend Ball, still shaking his head. “Geesh, this feels like a waste . . . but desperate times- you know the rest.”

Bolt’s gigantic Salamence body materialized between the Daitan brothers and their wall of opponents, and as he thudded to the ground, the entire front line cowered back a step. The fan club trainers gave yells of exclamation and disbelief, and Kenta pointed at the scattered first wave of opponents with a disgusted face. “You see, Valtor,” he said, “Intimidate is one of the best abilities a pokémon can have. Any physical opponents severely drop in their status as a threat. The problem is, when they’re not a threat to begin with, it’s just embarrassing to watch.”

Valtor could not stop himself from gawking at Kenta. Even for him, this was over the top. Valtor understood that he was playing the part of the mean guy to be taken seriously, but there were limits to be considered. Whether true or not that the enemies were weak, their feelings had to be considered as well. But now wasn’t the time to tell Kenta. He was in his battle state, and the last thing Valtor wanted to do was distract him.

“Give them the first move, Bolt,” Kenta commanded, “but use Protect. You’ve taken enough hits today already.”

“Hey!” shouted one of the fan club girls indignantly from the crowd, “that pokémon isn’t allowed to be used anymore! I checked!”

“Then take him from me, if you can,” responded Kenta in his bold voice. “I’ve kept him out of G.R.I.P’s filthy hands until now; I’ll keep him out of yours.”

“We’ll see about that!” snarled a young man, whose age appeared to be just around eighteen. “Break through its defenses, Nidoking! Thrash attack!” His command paved the way for his colleagues, and every fan club trainer on the frontlines followed with shouts of their own. Flurries of leaves, blasts of fire, bursts of water pressure, pillars of lightning, and beams of psychic force all shot at Bolt at once, along with every sort of horn, talon, fist, beak, claw, and sharp fang imaginable. The Salamence was covered as all the attacks landed at once, and a cloud of smoke burst out from the scene. Valtor held on tight to his hood as the air pressure blasted outwards from the impact, wondering frantically how anything could’ve hoped to survive such an outburst. Kenta, meanwhile, stood his ground, his arms crossed, his eyes observing the scenery as the smoke cleared.

Bolt was unscathed; his wings wrapped around his whole body but the tail, surrounded by a protective emerald-colored aura. As he unfurled his body, the aura vanished from sight, and he bellowed a ferocious roar at his legion of attackers. Lying around him were two fallen Pidgeotto, two Jigglypuff, and a Poliwag. Kenta pointed at them, retaining his strong voice so that nobody would miss his words. “Look at that!” he exclaimed angrily. “We haven’t even returned fire yet, and your own pokémon are hitting each other with their attacks! What if I were a real threat? The lot of you would be done for.”

“Don’t act all high and mighty, just because you avoided damage for one turn!” snapped the one girl from earlier. “Any pokémon can learn Protect. You’re just stalling your defeat!”

“Am I?” Kenta narrowed his eyes, irked at his opponents’ ignorance. “Then defeat us with the pokémon who can still battle after this move.” He pointed at the crowd of fan club pokémon still lined up in fighting poses. “Break their stubborn pride, Bolt! Earthquake!”

Valtor knew what came next. He bent his knees as Bolt shot up into the sky, prepared to leap. As soon as the Salamence began his comet dive, Valtor jumped as high as he could, and not a moment too soon. Bolt’s torso smashed the ground with all the force of a fallen jumbo jet, and the quake rattled every house within seeing-eye distance. A few windows shattered, and a couple of unfortunate fishermen on distant docks were thrown straight into the water. On the battlefield, not one ground pokémon remained standing. Valtor climbed to his feet, and subconsciously inventoried the enemy pokémon still conscious. Remaining on the fan club’s side flew two Butterfree, a Farfetche’d, a Fearow, two Spearow, a Venomoth, a Beedrill, and two Zubat. Other than them, the vast majority was down for the count.

The Vermilion fan club stood surprisingly silent now, standing and staring at their fainted pokémon, all beaten by a single devastating move. Kenta waited a few seconds for the reality to sink in, then spoke once more, hoping to God that he wasn’t making the wrong decision. “I’m guessing you guys had somewhere between seventy to ninety pokémon before this,” he declared, less harshly than before. “Do you want to keep going with your last ten, or are you ready to quit?”

Valtor watched the fans intently, wondering what they would do. Never in his life had he ever experienced anything so extreme, and even the morning’s battle between Bolt and the Tyranitar seemed tame in comparison to taking down almost an entire city’s club of trainers. The members of Vermilion Fan Club were staring at Kenta and his Salamence with a new expression written on their faces. There was little indignation amongst them now, let alone hatred. Certainly, there was no more arrogance. Now there was only fear, awe, realization at last that they were facing a trainer several leagues above them. The club’s chairman stepped forward meekly, removing his hat with one hand while waving down his remaining few pokémon trainers with the other. He bowed his head, not looking either of the Daitan brothers in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” the old man spoke, keeping his eyes on the ground. “None of us had any idea what you were capable of. No more fighting- please?”

Kenta let out a long whoosh of breath and gave the chairman a relieved smile. “I never intended to fight you in the first place,” he said, walking up to Bolt and rubbing his scaly head. “I’d only wanted to talk.”

The chairman motioned to his club’s house. “Then by all means, let’s go back inside. Can we perhaps start over?”

“I’d like that. Um . . . sorry about your windows. I’ll pay for them soon, I promise.”

***

Valtor hadn’t expected the trainer fan club to forgive him and his brother so readily, and judging by some of the dirty looks he was getting from the more grudging kids, he accepted that not everyone shared the chairman’s views. Each club trainer sat cross-legged on the couches and wherever there was room on the floor, watching as Kenta prepared to speak once more at the forefront of the room. Looking at Kenta for a moment, Valtor noticed that he had become just as nervous as he was before. Kenta scratched the back of his head and smiled weakly, if not somewhat guiltily, at his listeners.

“Guys, I uh . . . I want to apologize for my rudeness earlier,” he said slowly. “It’s just that I had to stir you up and get you all listening to me somehow, and angering you was the only way I knew you’d take me seriously.”

“I was going to say earlier, you were being kind of a douche back there,” chimed in Valtor. He ducked as Kenta attempted to smack him in the back of the head. “Shut up, runt.”

“So you’re not Brendan Birch, and I don’t even know who that kid is,” spoke the trainer who’d owned the Mr. Mime, pointing at Valtor. “Just who are you guys?”

“That, we can’t tell you,” said Kenta in a final tone. “But we’re here to offer you something that nobody else can give you. We’re here to take back . . .” He spread out his arms. “- yesterday.”

Kenta proceeded to explain everything to the fan club, starting with G.R.I.P.’s policies, the government’s recent seizing of the Master Ball, and Kurt’s imprisonment. To hammer the coffin nail in further, he brought up Captain Arcada’s unauthorized use of deadly force against him (showing them all the red patch that had been his bullet wound), and how he and Valtor had witnessed the police killing wild Magneton and stocking them in a truck. All throughout his testifying, he took care not to give away his own name or Valtor’s. At one point, a male trainer raised his hand and guessed exactly who he was.

“So you got shot, you say? It said in the paper that an officer died of a bullet wound through the gut during the Silph Incident. It was a guy called Daitan. You also have a bullet wound in your gut.”

“I am not Officer Daitan,” denied Kenta smoothly, “or I’d be dead, wouldn’t I?”

“But . . . but nobody else was even reported getting hurt except for the receptionist-”

“People get shot when they seize criminal syndicates, and Daitan was just unlucky,” said Kenta, trying his best to make it sound obvious. “As for me, of course Arcada left it out of the news that he shot a fellow officer. Otherwise he’d be thrown in jail.”

Valtor looked at Kenta, but saw no show of weakness. He was keeping a game face on, refusing to let leak that he was lying in any way. It impressed and disturbed him at the same time.

“How can you be sure that the government really intends to use our pokémon as war machines?” asked a slender-looking young man with sharp eyes, as Kenta was wrapping up. Kenta shook his head. “I have no absolute final proof on that. I could be right, and I could be wrong.” He glared as he thought of Silvaki Kurisawa’s honeyed smile on television. “But regardless, they are our pokémon. Not theirs. The only thing worse than a thief, is a thief who says he’s done nothing wrong.”

“And isn’t it strange that they’re only letting us have two pokémon now?” added Valtor. “I could understand them limiting us from catching hundreds of pokémon that are left sitting in the PC, but they didn’t even let us keep our maximum teams of six. That’s not fair! The only reason they’d do that is to make us weak!”

“Hear, hear!” cried a girl in the front row. As the rest of the club gave a short cheer, Kenta turned his head to Valtor and gave him a quick wink. “Nice one. It’s reasons like this that I wanted you with me.”

“Thanks. I try.”

“We want our pokémon back!” shouted a young trainer in the middle left area of the crowd. “I don’t even get to see mine for another seven years!”

“You will get your pokémon back,” announced Kenta, raising his hands for silence. “But it may cost you dearly. This isn’t your typical resistance effort against some low-down team of crooks bent on using pokémon to take over so-and-so. Our opponents aren’t Team Rocket, or Aqua, or Galactic, or any of those other minor distractions. This time, it’s our own rulers. We’re going to be doing something much bigger than just taking back our pokémon friends- we will be staring down our government face-to-face and telling them that they were wrong.”

A hush followed his words, and Kenta stopped talking. I’d better give them time to think it over. Unlike me, their minds haven’t been made up for two months now.

“How will we do it?” asked the club chairman, rising from his seat in the back center of the room. “How can we possibly hope to overpower our government now?”

Kenta smiled grimly. “It won’t be easy.”

*One day later: Saffron City Pokémon Fan Club*

“G.R.I.P. has taken our strongest pokémon, and left us with almost nothing. If we ever want to match them in power again, we’ll have to plan and work together as never before. Until now, it’s been every trainer for himself, taught to stand alone in the victory circle and state his claim when the music starts. But I tell you now, you no longer ‘want to be the very best, like no one ever was.’ Look beside you, at your neighbor. He or she is your teammate, and is to be considered your equal or better. Pride breeds selfish thinking, and if you think you can beat G.R.I.P. by yourself, try battling me again.

*Two days later: Goldenrod Underground*

“In spite of our meager condition, we have one thing our government doesn’t have- numbers. G.R.I.P. placed down an age marker that cuts out every trainer below eighteen years old as a qualified pokémon holder. But G.R.I.P.’s pokéball tracking system is limited to the merchandise in official pokémarts. You ‘unqualified’ trainers can avoid being tracked by getting custom-made pokéballs from Azalea Town’s Kurt Kuchinawa. He can only afford to give you one or two though, so make sure that whatever pokémon you decide to capture for yourself stays in the ball. And for the love of God, catch something you can rely upon! No Paras or Hoothoot, you get me? If you’ve got a legal pokémon trainer in your midst, ask him to assist you in the capture, so you might snag the wild pokémon in one go. Remember, be stealthy when going to see Kurt, or the police force may get suspicious. The password to getting your apricorn ball is ‘release!’

*Three days later: Dewford City Hall*

“G.R.I.P. may or may not have known this, but the beauty in only having two pokémon is that they get all the training attention. Battle experience won’t be spread out, as it would’ve been in a team of six. Your pokémon will grow fast, and learn tougher moves more quickly. Don’t slack off though- we haven’t got the luxury of time on our side! Train your pokémon to at least the second evolution, and be smart about the moves you let them keep. No Graveler with Defense Curl, understand? Try to make your teams of two balance each other out. Get a special attacker and a physical attacker if you can, a sweeper and a tank, a status condition striker and a direct hitter, whatever it takes. Everything counts, down to your pokémon’s very special ability. Mix it up as much as you can, because teams of two don’t have nearly as much flexibility as teams of six!

*Four days later: Lilycove City Pokémon Fan Club*

“If any of you have been saving your money, now is the time to use it! Pool your wealth and spend it on the most powerful TMs you can buy. Lilycove Department Store is famous for its TM stock, which consists of elemental master moves like Thunder and Fire Blast. They’re not accurate like their more reliable (and eternally more expensive) cousins Ice Beam and Thunderbolt. But they’re the only guarantees we have of taking large chunks out of our opponents’ hitpoints. Buying Protect goes without saying! Also, don’t leave out Reflect and Light Screen. No matter how powerful your opponent is, his strength is cut in half against defenses like these. Reflect and Light Screen will undoubtedly save us from being wiped out in one hit. That’s all the time we need to strike back! Concerning the illustrious TM15, Hyper Beam, buy it sparingly and teach it only to your Normal-type pokémon with high attacking power. Depending on how you use it, it could make or break you. Beware- it’s expensive. One more thing; for those of you who don’t have much money, you can still be of major help. The TM Secret Power is wonderfully cheap and has amazing side effects. And if any of you are holding HM03, Surf, share it amongst yourselves! Surf is the gift that keeps on giving- only three pokémon types are resistant to it, and it will never run out. Don’t stop at sharing this stuff with fellow club members, but lend a helping hand to any rebel trainer fighting for our cause!

*Five days later: Hearthome City Pokémon Fan Club*

“As you probably already know, unofficial trainers don’t get to use pokémon centers anymore. And on the day of battle, should it come, the pokémon on our side will be dropping like flies. So get ready now! Gear up with as many Revives as you can carry. Buy Lemonade from machines instead of potions from pokémarts; it’s cheaper and more efficient. Start practicing your pokeflutes, so you can ward off sleep and confusion if it comes your way. And above all, stock up on berries against status conditions! If we’re going to stand a chance against an army of pokémon all-superior to ours, we’ve got to be in it to win it. I promise you now, if we fight for long enough, the tide of the battle will turn. I will personally see to that.

*Six days later: Crescent City Pokémon Fan Club*

“Attacking your enemies all at once is a terrible idea; you’ll end up hitting your teammates. But in everything else you do, be as close with each other as a colony of ants. You guys must learn to travel together, train together, live together, and fight together as a unit. Even if it means teaming up with Rockets, Cipher, Innuendo, whoever, there cannot be bitterness among you. To the government, one rebel trainer is a deluded idealist. Two rebel trainers are partners in crime. But an entire region of rebel trainers is a movement! There will be no single chieftain to lead you all, not me, nor anyone else. But pick for yourselves a champion for each group, so that if your leader fails in battle, other units can press on without a broken moral.

“In spite of our secrecy, it’s only a matter of time until our opponents find out what we’re up to. We have until that unknown day to prepare for confrontation. My name to you all is Brendan Birch, and I am on your side!”