The Leader at Mt. Chimney

I was at the league again last night… Fortunately it was a dream. The stadiums were overrun with ivy and other wild plants, and wild pokemon had made it their home. They glared at me while I walked onwards into the champion’s room- only to find that the champ wasn’t there. There was an unusual smell about the air- a musty sort of smell- like in the chimp’s cage at the zoo. I looked around. Suddenly, I thought I saw a shadow flashing past- was it moi imagination? I walked to where I thought I ‘saw’ the ‘shadow’-but the only thing there, like the rest of the room, was ivy. But there was something familiar about this part of the room. I cleared the ivy and shooed away the wild weedle who had made their home here. There was a door! I opened it, though something in my head told me not to- and I could not imagine why. I gasped, for there was someone standing before me, in long white robes before a large hall: A someone with blonde hair, blue eyes and a short and muscular stature. I knew who it was, yet I did not speak. The room swum before my eyes and the person disappeared into the hall. Memories flashed by rapidly before my eyes, as I remembered the hall, where I had spent most of my insignificant years at school, reading up on new discoveries in the world of pokemon as I patted Artemis on the head. I had no idea why I was remembering all this… I walked around and examined the hall- everything was still intact. Except for the fact that everything was covered in ivy and looked like ruins in the amazon jungles. Each and every thing I saw was like a blurry picture enclosed in a much clearer one- the blurry part was my memory. I saw the field in which I had my first battle with Artemis. I saw my usual table. I saw the large bookshops where I spent more time than in school itself. I could almost see how the hall was before: bustling with people and pokemon, vendors selling ‘exotic’ items, the art gallery, the Acheron river snaking by… The memories were too painful. I turned and went back into the Champion’s Chamber when I remembered the boy was in here too. I did not look for him. I was too weak for the flooding memories. It was then; I woke up and made myself a cup of coffee.

I could never go back, not even in my memories. I still felt that I had betrayed someone, even though I knew that I didn’t. The only memory that did not torture my heart was my last year in school. Though I had cut school hundreds of times, was caught smoking in the bathrooms, yelled at everybody around moi, was a thing of utter hatred among most of my teachers, stirred up and oversaw many student-body rebellions, and impeached from the student council, I had still graduated with top grades in my class. Not the valedictorian of course, but still extremely good grades. I was a typical ‘rebel-without-a-cause’: sarcastic and sadistic, but also constantly looking for a purpose. There was only one person who saw through my ‘wall of toughness’: Jon Griffith. He was the exact opposite of me: Blonde hair (mine was black), short and muscular (I was tall and skinny), favorite among students and teachers alike (need I say more?), model student, and president of the student council. Though we were utter opposites, we were friends. I did not trust anybody and he was constantly trying to get me to trust people around us. " They won’t bite, you know" he used to say with a grin whenever he thought he knew I wanted to talk to people about my thoughts. He constantly tried to get me into his ‘group’ in high school. I even sat with his group at lunch one day- but I wound up giving a couple guys black eyes and bloody noses… why I cannot remember. Even after school, we traveled together earning badges. As usual, he was loved and liked by everybody who set eyes upon him, while I was merely a menace- if not a shadow cast by his reputation. I wouldn’t change until the fifth badge- unfortunately; it would be too late.

"Are you Cam?" came a voice from before me, interrupting my thoughts. The speaker was a rather short kid, a little on the chubby side, probably about twelve years old. He was wearing a light blue shirt with a picture of Articuno on it, and black jeans. There was six pokeballs clipped on to his belt.

"Yeah, this is him. Here for the Rage Badge, I suppose?" I didn’t give him a chance to answer "Its gonna be a 2 on 2 battle. I am not gonna waste moi time explaining the rules. Got it?"

"Yessir!" he said "GO! Sparky and Grumpy!". Out came a pikachu and what looked like a pig’s face with springs attached to its bottom: a Spoink. I got up.

"Go! Artemis and Venus!" I yelled.

" Grumpy, Psychic! Sparky, Charm!" the pig unleashed a purple burst of concentrated energy at Venus, but it barely inflicted damage, while the rodent walked up to Artemis and started to make cute faces at her.

"Venus! Aerial Ace on the pig! Artemis! Dragonbreath on the pikachu!". Venus flew high in the air and rushed at the spoink with lightning speed while Artemis opened her mouth and let out green-blue flames at the ugly rodent. The pig barely had time to react. The pikachu, on the other hand, used a thunder attack on Artemis. It had no affect, as Artemis was part ground type too, and the pikachu had got the full blast of the breath attack.

The boy must have been a novice: Both of them fainted in one hit.

"Sorry, kiddo! Try again later". I felt sorry for the kid, so I gave him one of my TMs (Ice Beam) and asked him to evolve his Spoink. He marched out with an odd gleam of victory in his eyes… I remembered when I had won my first badge: the origin of my journey and my troubles alike.

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