Chapter 58:  Dark Side (Part B) by Michael Keens/ Exodus  

“Go Twinkill.  Psychic attack!”  
Spooks calmly floated to the side swiftly, and dived down to Body Slam my 
Starmie.  
My call for an Ice Beam was well timed, and close as it was, the opponent 
couldn’t escape.  
It fell back, encased in ice, and a Thunderbolt followed up to blast it hard.  
“Mimic.” spoke Veronica, the remaining ice was blasted and pieces distracted 
Twinkill long enough for the Gengar to glow and return an accurate Electric 
attack, this was worse for Twinkill, being a Water-type.  
“Gar!” grinned the opponent, using Mega Drain to draw out Twinkill’s health, 
but it retaliated with Bubblebeam, beating down the enemy and blinding it so it 
went off course and missed its prize.  
Twinkill used Double Edge to cross the energy and then into the Gengar, the 
energy shattered and perhaps restored a little of my Pokémon’s health, I 
couldn’t tell.  
“Hypnosis.” spoke the still calm Veronica, but before her Gengar’s eyes turned 
to hypnotic spirals, I had Twinkill use Water Gun to block the sight of it, but 
in doing so, couldn’t see the next attack in motion.  
A huge gold Hyper Beam blasted through the water and clipped Twinkill as it 
tried to flee, Twinkill crashed and shook itself to regain its senses, and rose 
up to a ring of Gengars around it, all waving their fingers from side to side.  
The Gengar was using Metronome, and its random attack didn’t reveal its 
position, Razor Leaf was activated, and sharp tearing projectiles blasted 
across the field and tore into Twinkill, it quickly leapt into the air and 
started spinning, creating its own wind and deflecting back some of the attack 
on the Gengars, the real one becoming revealed soon enough.  
Twinkill spun towards the fallen Gengar, lying on its back and trying to get 
up, at the last moment, it proved it was exaggerating its damages and its eyes 
glowed.  
Twinkill came out of its spin and staggered around due to the Confuse Ray, the 
Gengar used Double Team again, but the real one deliberately made its position 
clear by glowing.  
“That’s Explosion.  Twinkill! You have to shake off that confusion and get out 
of there!”  
The Gengar was glowing brighter as it spun with its fakes, at the last moment 
Twinkill outstretched its limbs, signifying it was no longer confused, but 
spinning into the air would take too long and so, “Hydro Pump!”  
Twinkill knew what I meant, and looked towards the ground before blasting, and 
jetting itself skyward as an explosion ripped through the field just behind it, 
Twinkill barely escaped.  
The Gengar was blackened and its body was occasionally shaking uncontrollably, 
it was down for the count.  
“Don’t celebrate yet, I’ve still lots of powerful Pokémon, Go Sabre.”  
“SCY-THER!!!”  
I gasped a little, Scythers were deadly Pokémon, and a type that had nearly 
gotten Twinkill killed, “Don’t panic Twinkill, I won’t let you get hurt.”  
It nodded, jumped into the air and used Ice Beam on my command, but with one 
swift cut, the cold beam was cleaved and the Scyther spiralled around the 
remainder until it slashed against Twinkill, luckily, it was far more developed 
than the first time we battled a Scyther, and as a result, its body didn’t fall 
apart.  
Still, it was no reason to celebrate, the Scyther circled immediately round and 
clipped Twinkill with its wings.  
As Twinkill fell some distance, the Scyther took the time to use Agility to 
increase its speed, Twinkill used Psychic attack, but it was dodged by a now 
incredibly fast Scyther, now using Focus Energy for added punch in its attacks, 
Twinkill fell by it with a failed Double Edge, and then Sabre used Swords Dance 
to increase its power.  
Twinkill finally managed to lay a hit with Tackle, but the Scyther had 
increased several of its specialty stats and was ready to fight, first using 
Quick Attack to dash around and attack Twinkill from behind at blinding speed, 
as Twinkill fell, the Scyther dived, its blades falling towards it for a Cut 
attack.  
“Harden!!!” I shouted, I would take no chances if there was a remote chance 
Twinkill couldn’t deal with cutting attacks on its own.  
Twinkill’s body glowed gold, and a crackling sound signified added defenses, as 
the Scyther’s blade slammed against Twinkill, I had it follow up with 
Thunderbolt to easily catch the Scyther off guard.  
Twinkill landed, but so did a ring of Scythers, all raising their blades and 
the real one preparing to counterstrike as soon as Twinkill made a wrong move.  
“Double Team has been So overused today, so much so that I’ve got several new 
strategies in mind to beat it.  Surf!”  
Several waves of water burst out Twinkill’s top spikes and spread out in all 
directions, the real Scyther was flushed out, the fakes disappeared, and the 
Scyther was slammed against one of the hills of rubble from earlier.  
“Scy-”  
“STAR!!!” screamed Twinkill, slamming into the mantis with everything in it, 
the rocks crumbled as the Scyther fell back and Twinkill followed up with 
another attack, pressing down onto the Scyther hard.  
“Back away Twinkill!” I screamed, after seeing the Scyther’s blade glowing, it 
didn’t escape in time, twin beams of energy hit Twinkill with the power of four 
Double Edge attacks at once due to Bide.  
Twinkill was almost out of it, and unleashed a Swift attack in an attempt to 
retreat and recover, but the Scyther sent out a Swift attack of its own and so 
was able to chase Twinkill down without worrying about getting hit by the 
star-shaped projectiles.  
“Twinkill! Rec-” I said before seeing the Scyther throwing itself at Twinkill, 
forcing the pair downwards, raising a scythe and slashing hard.  
Pieces of Twinkill’s gem shattered, and both Pokémon crashed down, the Scyther 
stumbled away, a little weakened but still set to battle, and I pointed 
Twinkill’s Pokéball to recall every piece that broke, luckily it was automatic, 
all parts of Twinkill’s gem turned into energy with it and withdrew into the 
Pokéball, I wouldn’t want any Pokémon of mine to be permanently scarred because 
of my actions.  
I turned to Veronica who wore an odd smirk on her face, and then hurled Lavos’s 
ball upwards.  
“MAG!!!” he roared, shooting a flame into the air upon appearing on the ground, 
he was all set to battle, and spewed forth a huge Flamethrower attack.  
The Scyther was unprepared for an attack of that length and was grazed on its 
side and wings as it rose into the air, spitting out a Toxic attack to hit 
Lavos hard and instantly send poison into his system.  
“SCY-THER!!!” it screamed with a murderous expression, closing in on my 
Magmar.  
“Smokescreen!” I called, and Lavos quickly filled the area and the air above 
with smoke.  
“No good.” spoke Veronica, “Swords Dance.”  
The smoke was fanned back by Sabre’s spinning, engulfing Lavos completely, 
still I could make that work to our advantage I thought, I was wrong again.  
With Quick Attack, the Scyther tore past the area of smoke, one line at a time 
and performing random slashes until it found its target and rounded for another 
hit, but an orange barrier suddenly shot up and deflected the Scyther 
completely.  
Lavos leapt forward and snatched the enemy in his grasp, he hurled the Scyther 
directly up but its wings flapped and threatened to make the throw a failed 
move, but in that moment of slowdown, the Scyther was completely vulnerable, 
and Lavos launched a Psychic attack as it dove down, trapping it and 
restraining its whole body, including its wings.  
The Scyther crashed hard, and gave off a murderous glare towards Lavos with 
glowing eyes as it picked itself off the floor, it leapt into the air and 
dropped swiftly, blades out and eyes still staring him down in an attempt to 
unnerve him, it didn’t.  
“Confuse Ray!” I shouted, and Lavos returned the stare but immediately affected 
the Scyther, it suddenly lost all control and forgot where it was, it crashed 
down hard again, got back up, and tried a Wing Attack, but after falling down 
so many times, a wing had been bent out of shape and so it missed.  
It stumbled across the floor as a result and was vulnerable again, “Fire 
Blast!” I called.  
It was overwhelmed, the fire star slammed into it and passed through her, the 
remainder of the flames dissipated while the rest burned into the Scyther and 
blackened it.  
With a final cough and scream, the Scyther fell to the floor, its blades 
ploughed into the floor but didn’t hold, and slid out to lie on the floor with 
the rest of Sabre.  
“You’ve done well, but this is where it ends.”  
“Mee-owth!” purred Veronica’s Meowth, Swipe, who up to now had simply sat by 
its trainer.  
“You’re not laughing.  Everyone else does.” spoke Veronica.  
“I’ve learned not to underestimate any opponent.” I replied.  
“That’s very mature and smart of you, but you must underestimate it a little, 
be honest.”  
“Maybe a little.” I admitted, shrugging a little.  
“Then that alone will defeat you! Swipe! Go!” shouted Veronica suddenly.  
“Mega Kick Lavos!”  
As he came dashing forward and leapt into a kick, the Meowth leapt over him, 
and in a flash, scratched his face, Lavos crashed, and got up to a surprise 
Bubblebeam from the opponent.  
He retreated from the type advantage attack to get away, but the Meowth came to 
him, dealing out a devastating Slash attack to the face.  
The Meowth landed to his side, and was swiftly met with a Leer technique to 
stop it from attacking, but it growled in return and wasn’t fazed by the scary 
look.  
Lavos let out a long shooting Flamethrower but had to sweep it around as the 
Meowth ran around and leapt over it, Lavos adjusted and changed the altitude of 
the attack but the Meowth still managed to get around it, it leapt over another 
wave, curled up, glowed, and unleashed a Thunderbolt attack.  
As the Meowth came down and bit Lavos’s body, I gasped, “Its dodging 
Everything.”  
I turned back to Lavos and had it use Ember, it needed a break between powerful 
Fire attacks, but it was blocked by a wave of coins unleashed by the Meowth.  
The Meowth burst through and used Fury Swipes to attack Lavos several times, it 
leapt off as he swung his fiery arms around, and was apparently the victim of 
the next attack:  Psychic.  
A blue explosion rose up and steam and smoke rose up from it, but when it 
cleared, all that was left was a cheap and torn up replica of a Meowth, we’d 
fallen for Substitute, and could do no more, the poison in Lavos’s system had 
been growing all this time, and now knocked him out.  
“Now you’re at a disadvantage.” smirked Veronica, “I’ll tell you now I still 
have my Venomoth to go, and you’ve never beaten that before.”  
“I beat your Alakazam, I can beat everything you throw at me.  Make me proud 
Pollen.”  
“Vileplume...”  
“Win this already Swipe.  Screech.”  
The piercing cry affected everyone, everyone except Pollen, due to his twisted 
evolution, he wasn’t affected by certain techniques anymore, its too bad he 
lost his individuality to have this gift.  
“Body Slam!” I called, and Pollen landed the first hit against its surprised 
opponent, I instructed it to do so again but it hit a fake Meowth, several 
others and the real one were behind it.  
“Double Team again? Getting a little old, isn’t it?” I questioned.  
“You’re going to run out of countermeasures for it soon enough.” replied 
Veronica.  
“Really? Pollen, use Toxic, spray it towards the ground those Meowths are 
standing on.” I ordered, and Pollen obeyed, the real Meowth made itself known 
when it was the only one who flipped up to dodge the venomous liquid.  
“Mimic.” glared Veronica, and her Meowth attempted its own Toxic attack.  
“Reflect!” I called, and the blast was repelled.  
“Use that beam attack we talked about earlier.” I explained.  
Pollen grounded its feet and could be seen charging something, Veronica exhaled 
and gave off a confident smile, “Solar Beam? Swipe, attack, and then use Rage 
to enhance yourself.”  
The Meowth ran forward, but it was fired upon with lots of energy, Veronica 
gasped, it wasn’t Solar Beam which took time to charge, it was Hyper Beam, 
which fired first and took time to recover from afterwards instead of vice 
versa, the Meowth hadn’t gone into its Rage stance yet and so was blasted for 
nothing with far more power than Veronica expected.  
The Meowth collapsed, and I chuckled, “Looks like your Meowth isn’t that 
powerful, but its dodge ratio more than made up for it.”  
“Was that meant to be a compliment, or just a comment? Either way its over for 
your Grass-type.” spoke Veronica.  
“VENO-MOTH!!!”  
The opponent unfortunately had several type advantages over Pollen, it swiftly 
pushed forward, shifting to the sides occasionally so as not to be an easy 
target, I had Pollen use Sleep Powder, but the Venomoth flew to one side and 
used Disable to freeze my Pokémon, and then Poison Powder to follow.  
Veronica had it use Leech Life to significantly drain my Vileplume’s life 
force, but Pollen quickly broke free and I was able to have it use Mega Drain, 
the two spheres of stolen power collided and spiralled out of both Pokémon’s 
range.  
I surprised my opponent by having Pollen use Cut to tear across its opponent’s 
body, and then Stun Spore to hinder its speed and manoeuvrability.  
We angered the Venomoth known as Haze, and it used Confusion to lock around 
Pollen’s body and toss it around the field.  
“We need your powerful attacks Pollen, use Solar Beam but time it so that you 
hit the Venomoth.”  
I couldn’t believe how precise and skilful Pollen was, and the perfect moment, 
it drew in power and then fired ahead, the Venomoth was hit dead on, but as 
Pollen fell, it was blasted by a Solar Beam charged by the Venomoth, who’d used 
the solar energy of the last attack to instantly charge its own without having 
to wait.  
We surprised the enemy with an Acid attack, burning its wings and body and 
forcing it to lower itself temporarily, but it flapped its wings and generated 
a Razor Wind attack, which was blocked by another Reflect shield.  
The Venomoth charged forward and broke through the shield with Double Edge, 
Pollen stumbled back but got on its feet by my order immediately, and then 
dodged to avoid a Mega Drain attack launched by the Venomoth.  
“Let’s end this, that little weed can’t hold on for much longer, use Psywave.”  
Several rings and spirals were generated, all circling and wavering towards 
Pollen.  
“This could go either way, but its my only chance! Hyper Beam Pollen, but stay 
alert and prepare to dodge anything that comes your way!”  
He immediately fired another golden beam of pure power, upon hitting the 
Psywave, it split up and the separate beams reverberated in several 
directions.  
Only one backfired and came back at Pollen, but because I’d specified it 
before, he leapt up to dodge it, the Venomoth tried to move, but the earlier 
Stun Spore suddenly prevented it from doing so, it was blasted in several 
places and its Psywave vanished, right before an explosion from the energy rose 
up and left a stunned Venomoth lying on the floor.  
“What a great battle! The Green Trainer wins! I have no doubt that our final 
match will be one of the best with this trainer participating!”  
I smiled hard, I was in the finals now, but I’d most probably have to face up 
to Bryan, unless Scott found a way to defeat him, still, for better or worse, I 
was a finalist.  
Veronica turned to leave before saying, “I have no regrets, I didn’t even 
anticipate I’d win the entire League.  We’ll meet again, and I shall expect a 
better battle than this one.”  
“You’ve got it Lady.” I smiled, before leaving myself and moving towards the 
audience seats to await Scott’s battle.  

I had no idea he was currently battling for Carrie’s life.  
One by one, the enemy Pokémon went down, but the six Rockets looked confident 
as they recalled them, “No worries, we have more Pokémon, but you don’t seem to 
have that luxury.”  
“At least my Pokémon are out!” shouted Scott, and his Pokémon reacted without a 
need of instructions, each attacked a Rocket in their own way, stopping them 
and preventing them from releasing their Pokémon.  
Squirt blasted the Pokéballs away from one, Kindle burnt a Rocket’s hands 
mildly, Shard’s tail whacked one on the head, Dragoon did the same, Raichi 
shocked a Rocket, and Bob slammed his weight into one.  
The two Rockets that had spoken earlier were still conscious, and held a 
remote, “You won’t escape, we’ve set the path you came through to blow, 
trapping you here if we need to.”  
“But do you want to be trapped with six enemy Pokémon? Ask yourself that.”  
They took a moment to, and in that moment, the female was hit hard on the head 
by Carrie, she’d managed to free herself from the ropes, and was enraged as she 
usually was when Rockets were present, it seemed as if her power grew in this 
state because she lifted a small rock swiftly and hurled it into the second 
Rocket as he reached for his ally’s control.  
“Carrie...” said Scott surprised as he recalled his Pokémon, “I’ve never seen 
this side of you.”  
“I Hate Rockets...  Its because-”  
“There’s no time I’m afraid, they captured you to deliberately make me late for 
my match.”  
“Then we’ll talk later, you should go...  But what should we do with these 
Rockets.”  
“Waste some of their ‘precious time’.” replied Scott, grasping Carrie, taking 
the small device and running back the way he came, eventually after leaving the 
cave, Scott pressed the button, and as the Rockets had said, the sound of 
falling rock sealed up one entrance to that cavern, if the Rockets had set up a 
base there to sneak into the Indigo Plateau, they wouldn’t be doing so for some 
time.  

“Red Trainer, your opponent has failed to show for the battle, do you wish to 
disqualify him?” questioned the referee to Bryan, who had been waiting for ten 
minutes.  
“Of course I do, if he can’t be responsible enough to plan ahead, he doesn’t 
deserve to win.” smirked Bryan.  
“Wait!!!” shouted Scott, at his side of the arena, dripping with sweat and 
panting.  
“Nice of you to show Mr Addison.” smirked Bryan.  
“Got held up by a couple of jerks I’m sure you’d know nothing about.” he 
frowned.  
“You may as well have forfeited, you don’t look fit to battle.” Bryan 
shrugged.  
“I’m sure you’d love that, but I won’t let you go to the finals without a 
fight, and I can’t afford to lose.” growled Scott.  
“Shall we begin?...” Bryan smiled darkly.  
“Let’s go you Jerk.” Scott replied.  

“Tetsubo...” panted Carrie as she joined me in the audience during the first 
battle, “Did Scott make it in time?”  
“Yeah, he did, but why was he so late?”  
“That guy in the mask, Scott thinks he’s a Rocket, and that he sent others to 
purposefully capture me in order to stop Scott from battling.”  
“He Is a Rocket Carrie...”  
“You mean you knew? Then why didn’t you-”  
“Rockets will do all kinds of things to get their way, including blackmail, but 
please don’t worry, he won’t win the League.”  
“That’s right, cos Scott’s gonna prove that cheaters don’t win anything!”  
I sighed, and watched on, a part of me hoping Scott would win, and the other 
hoping he’d be rational when Bryan almost certainly won this.  

Unfortunately I was right, with his Pokémon weakened from their earlier battle, 
they were at a double disadvantage, but that didn’t stop Scott from trying his 
hardest for his sister.  
His Dragonite was the first to fall, but it gave it its all, sadly it took its 
combined efforts with Shard and then Raichi to topple Scott’s Golbat.  
Raichi unfortunately fell, but at least forced Bryan’s Electrode to take 
desperate measures and sacrifice itself for a partial victory.  
Scott’s small Poliwhirl didn’t stand up to Bryan’s Arcanine, but his Snorlax 
took attack after attack and used several countermeasures to force Bryan to 
recall it.  
It lost out to Bryan’s Victreebel, but put up a great fight, and Scott’s Magmar 
was strong enough to make Bryan reconsider things.  
Unfortunately Kindle was Scott’s last available Pokémon, and had battled very 
hard prior to the battle, and Bryan’s Poliwrath easily ended the match.  

“And victory goes to the Red ‘punctual’ Trainer Lion.” said the commentator 
calmly, “Who once again handles his match without breaking a sweat, unlike his 
opponent it seems.  He’s our second finalist and will be battling the Green 
Trainer, Tetsubo Capture, tomorrow.”  
“No...” panted Scott, dropping to the floor as if his body no longer worked, 
“Casey...  I’m... so... sorry...  CASEY!!!...”  
“Hmmph.” chuckled Bryan, turning to leave, while Carrie and I ran down to 
comfort Scott, “That was boring, hopefully your friend will prove a 
challenge.”  
“NO!!!” screamed Scott, sprinting towards Bryan with a dark look on his face.  
“Scott! Don’t!” I shouted, tackling him from one side and knocking him over, 
“Don’t do something you’ll regret!”  
“He’s a Rocket!” Scott shouted in my face, “He conducted the whole scheme to 
make me lose! He has to pay!”  
“Scott, there’s nothing you can do...  You’ve no proof that...”  
“Wait a minute, its not that you don’t believe me...  You knew! He told me to 
give you his regards so you must have known who he was! And you never told me?!” 
shouted Scott as the realisation hit him.  
“Scott, I’m sorry, I was blackmailed and-”  
“You allowed this scum to compete and put Carrie in danger with your silence! 
Emily told me about this sort of thing, you would have learned from that!” 
Scott continued to shout out, the audience could see, but luckily they couldn’t 
hear.  
“Scott, you don’t understand, I had no choice, and I didn’t think Bryan would 
try hurting anyone but me.” I tried to defend myself.  
“You’re unbelievable Tetsubo! I don’t want to speak to you again! I blame you 
just as much as that scum for what’s going to happen to my sister, I’d have 
won this if it wasn’t for the two of you!” yelled Scott.  
“Break it up boys, if you know what’s good for you.” threatened Bryan with a 
sly smile, “And ‘Capture...  See you in the finals, its going to be an 
experience...”  
With that he disappeared into the doorway and into darkness, while I was left 
with a dilemma I shouldn’t have had to deal with.  
Scott rose up and pushed me to the floor in the process, “Its a wonder you have 
friends Tetsubo, true friends would never endanger others by keeping secrets, 
no matter how or what you’ve been threatened with.”  
“Scott, please, I have to explain something.”  
“Save it!...  Don’t ever expect for me to talk to you again.  You’ve sentenced 
my sister to death!”  
With that he stormed off, and I simply lay there, not caring what the audience 
thought of me, too lost in troubled thoughts and despair, Scott hadn’t let me 
explain that I’d battle Bryan with everything I had and give him whatever money 
he needed for his sister, and that I’d have told him about Bryan if only I’d 
been able to find him earlier...  
First Abby, and now Scott, I wondered if something out there had it in for me, 
my victories were in some way causing problems among my friends, the Pokémon 
League should have been a positive experience, but problems, other people’s 
agendas and Bryan’s games and torments were complicating everything for me, and 
however much I tried to do the right thing, to make everything okay, I couldn’t 
seem to win all the battles.  
I picked myself up, and walked sadly away, it felt like a world of problems 
that had rested on me were falling to pieces, and that I didn’t have what it 
took anymore to deal with them all.  
Not only that, I was starting to feel like going against Bryan was pointless, 
and that no matter what I did, the bad guy would always come out on top...  

End of Chapter 58B  

Back to Chapter 58A
Next Chapter
Back to Story List #41 - #60
Back to the Pokézone