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Lumiose City – Vert Plaza: Ten Years Ago

Samson, a very bruised preteen, slumped to an alley wall in pain. He almost managed to sit down before eight year old Salieri gripped onto his collar and dragged him to his feet so she could look him in the eyes. Her school uniform consisted of a dress shirt and a long skirt, but she had modified it by rolling up the sleeves and unbuttoning the top few buttons. At this young age she would be adorable, if it wasn’t for the ever-present scowl on her face. “The ********?” he whimpered, trying to maintain a shred of dignity after getting beaten up.

“You got two warnings. No one calls me Sally three times and gets away with it.” She pulled him in closer and growled, “If it happens again I’ll pierce your tongue with my fist. Now where is my money?”

“Right here.”

Out the corner of her eye, Salieri saw three more rough looking preteens standing at the end of the alley. One of them, a young punk with a fauxhawk, tossed a bag of coins up and down in his hand. “I thought you were all talk when you said you’d kick our asses, but you’re a real firecracker.”

Sal dropped Samson to the floor, where he clutched his balls (he was previously kicked in the balls). She wrinkled her nose, which had yet to be scarred, and marched forward. “Give it back, Griffin,” she commanded, pumping one fist into her open palm.

“Or what?” Griffin stuffed the coin bag into his pocket and stepped forward, meeting Salieri halfway. “You can’t take all three of us.”
“Maybe. But I can hurt you.” Sal cracked her knuckles. “I want to hurt you. Say no, I’ll have more fun that way.”
Griffin narrowed his eyes. Most kids in Vert Plaza knew him as the top bully. Anyone that stepped to him got crushed. But he had no idea his latest target was so dark. “Do you know what sadism means? You’re a freak, Sally-“

Her fist whipped into his face, cracking something and throwing him to the floor. “I really hate that name.”

The other two preteens ran up to her and attacked wildly, and once Griffin recovered he joined in as well. Griffin and his bullies were bigger than her, but Salieri was quick and refined. She ducked and weaved between their sloppy blows to deliver her own with practiced fluidity. The bullies had to wonder how many streetfights the girl had been in before this, and if she had been bred for them.

One of the bullies managed to get a punch to the side of Sal’s head, which paved the way for more opportunities. The tide of battle shifted from her favor, and soon she was knocked to the floor. The will to fight still filled her veins, but before she could get up Griffin pinned her down with a boot to her back.

“Merde,” he grunted, wiping blood from his lip. Salieri, a little battered but not worse off than her opponents, wriggled under his heel. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth-“

All of the sudden, white smoke seeped into the alleyway. Salieri grinned. “You’re really screwed now.”
Griffin’s grunts spun around to locate the source of the smoke. Finally, they had the sense to look up, and couldn’t believe their eyes. “What the-“

From her floored position, she heard the unmistakable sound of punches and kicks. These ones were new, though, twice as explosive and brutal as anything else in the brawl. Finally, she felt Griffin’s boot leave her back, and she sat up to watch the end of the fight.

A new comer had entered the alleyway. He looked to be about two years older than Salieri, with the same complexion, dark hair and amber eyes. Like Sal, he wore a modified school uniform in a similar fashion, with the addition of a blue bandanna around his neck emblazoned with his symbol: a grotesque smiling sun. While Salieri’s childish cuteness was compromised by her scowling, her brother Moze almost always had a smile on his face. It suited him.

Moze held Griffin up against the wall by the neck. Above them both, Banksy hovered in the air with her head sticking out of her shell, staring right at the terrified Griffin. Salieri’s brother took a second to wave at her. “Hey See-Sal~”

“Moze.” She stood up and brushed herself off. “I didn’t need your help.”

“Kay~” he replied back. His attention returned to Griffin, and just as cheerfully, Moze said to him, “Vert Plaza is my turf now. Tell everyone you know that Moze Soledad is in charge here. Actually, tell them Moze is in charge all over Lumiose. Or I’ll pierce your tongue with my fist.”
“Tch. That b***h already gave that line to my friend.”
“Really? Oh, chouette. Well, that’s how you know we’d actually do it.” A glimmer of grim seriousness shined behind Moze’s bubbly eyes. “But if you call my little sister a b***h again, I can just rip your tongue out now and save us both the trouble.”

Griffin held his tongue, liking it just fine where it was supposed to be. “That’s a good boy.” Moze spun Griffin around, produced a can of spray paint from his cargo pants pocket, and quickly tagged his sun emblem onto Griffin’s jacket. “There we go. Proof of purchase.” He let go of Griffin and held out his hand. “Money please.”

Griffin looked between Moze, his sister, his Torkoal, and repeated the process. If this was what he’d have to deal with as the boss of Vert Plaza’s kids, then he quit. With a grumble he gave Moze the bag of coins and stomped away. His wounded comrades picked themselves up and followed.

Once they were gone, Banksy plopped onto the ground with all four limbs and the smoke disappeared from the alley. Moze pat the Torkoal on her head. “Nice intimidation, Banksy.”

Before Salieri could speak, Moze blurted out, “See-Sal! Xavier and I found this huuuuge tree a few blocks away. You have to check it out.”
“A tree? In the city?” She peered into his eyes. “Are you on drugs?”
“Eww, no. Gross. I was climbing on roofs with Xavier and we saw it in one of those lots nobody goes to. It’s really cool, you have to come see. Come see, come on. Let’s go.”

Salieri rubbed her chin. “Can I ride Banksy over?”

Moze looked to his Torkoal for confirmation. She blew out a plume of smoke in approval. “Yeah sure. I’ll meet you guys there!”

“Yes!” Salieri pumped her fist and hopped onto Banksy’s shell. The Torkoal tucked in her limbs and rose slowly into the air with jets of smoke. Sal tried to balance, and ended up straddling the shell instead. “Okay, okay, not so-“

Banksy blasted off into the sky as Salieri held on for dear life. “FAAAAAAST!”

~~~~~

Lumiose City – Vert Plaza: Present

Salieri stared at the wall in the alleyway she fought in years ago. It seemed bigger back then. Moze had returned after adding Vert Plaza to his territory to tag the alley wall. The tag had been covered by a spray painted white flag, meant to symbolize the name the media had given him after he quit the league: Moze the White Flag.

With Veillantif in hand, she sprayed a big red X over the flag. I just did this yesterday, she recalled. How many more of his tags are covered up? The red X was a temporary solution to the defacing of the defacings, and a flimsy one at that. Sal didn’t have time to retag them all before she left, but it pained her to leave them like this. The tags were a reminder of the best sides of Moze. Going over them meant he was being forgotten.

“Sorry bro,” she mumbled as she walked away. “I’ll fix it another time.”

Gotengo

The massive treehouse complex was a much more relaxed place during the day when no parties were being thrown. The kids who weren’t in school or decided to skip it were either lazing around outside or hanging out in one of the many shacks.

They all gave Salieri nods or waves as she walked into the main shack. To her surprise, there was a large retro TV in the corner next to the turntables. It must have been a new find off the street. A bunch of people, including Mia, were gathered around the screen.

Sal recognized what they were watching: it was a home video documenting the making of Gotengo. There were few familiar faces on the screen. Gotengo was still in it’s beginning phases, and construction of the main shack was underway.

The video cut to Mia, age nine, scrawling on a blue print. “Whatchya workin’ on, Mia?” asked the camera man. His pubescent voice put his age around thirteen or fourteen.
“Tree house hottub,” Mia replied, not looking up from her work.
“How, uh, how are we gonna do that?”
Young Mia looked up with a big smile that she didn’t have in this day and age. “Trade secret. Gimme a thousand pokedollars and I’ll tell you.”
“No way. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Hmph. Cheapskate.”

Mia covered her eyes with one hand, embarrassed. The other kids watching “Aww’ed” and “Ooo’ed” at the unseen side of the insufferable wiz kid. Salieri snuck up behind Mia and pinched her cheeks.

“You were so cute,” she flatly mocked. Mia slapped her hands away, unfazed by Sal’s sudden presence.
“Shuddup. You’re on next.”
“I’m what?”

The video cut again, this time to Salieri, age ten. Still yet to be scarred, and still not the wearer of the bandanna, she was climbing up the Gotengo tree and was hanging on a branch. Hanging on her leg was a nervous Riolu.

When the shaky camera focused in on the Riolu, Salieri’s smile faded. “Can we skip past this-“

“You okay up there, Salty?”
Little Salieri spun on the branch cautiously to give the cameraman a grimace. “Don’t call me that, Griffin, I hate that nickname.”
“That’s why it works. Cause you’re so salty.”

The Riolu scrambled up Young Salieri’s leg, relieved to be in a safer spot. Salieri gulped and tensed up as she watched her younger self. Mia picked up on this, and put a reassuring hand onto Sal’s shoulder.

“Don’t make us come down there, we will kick your butt all the way up this tree!”
“You can’t hit the cameraman!” Griffin asserted. “This is official documentation.”
“Then you can officially document me kicking your butt!”
"Come on! He doesn't even know any good attacks!"

Young Salieri gasped and clutched the Riolu tighter. "He outranks you and you will address him as Sir-"

Griffin spun the camera around to face himself, and the mic failed to pick up the rest of Young Salieri's sentence. Griffin shook his head at the lens. “We need to redo the chain of command.”

The video cut again, this time to Moze, age twelve, standing atop the scaffolding for the main shack. Now everyone watching got quiet, tensing up like Salieri did.

“Dude, are we really gonna finish this? The blueprints are nuts,” Griffin asked from behind the camera. Young Moze nodded slowly, as if were obvious.
“Of course. We’re gonna build up the tree too.”
“Now you’re just being greedy.”
“Why? We have a whole tree to use. Reach for the sky, yanno?”
“You ever heard of Icarus?”

Young Moze chuckled. “Whoa, smart guy walking over here. Someone give him a diploma.”
“Hey, ******** you. I’m serious. What are you gonna do when your wings burn off, you dingus?”
“Icarus was the dingus. I am no dingus.”
“Okay, okay. Geez, you never quit do you?”

Suddenly, Young Moze got very serious. He grabbed the camera and against the protests of Griffin, brought it closer to his face. “I’d rather die. What’s the point of wanting something if I can’t want it all?”
“You’re crazy, Moze.”

And Young Moze’s infectious smile returned. “Crazy like a boss. Turn down for whaaaat?” He kissed the lens and passed the camera back to Griffin.

Now everyone watching was still. Salieri had already left the room to the main porch. Mia quickly turned off the tape and popped in another as a distraction. While the kids inside quickly forgot what they had seen, Mia went outside to Salieri.

The bandanna girl was laying in the hammock hanging from the rafters, eyes covered by shadow. “I forgot that his part was coming up-“
“It’s fine,” Sal interrupted. It wasn’t fine, but Mia wasn’t going to push.
“So? Let’s see the Bug Badge?”

Sal retrieved her badge case and tossed it to Mia. The scientist in her looked the badge over carefully. “What is this metal? A platinum alloy? It’s got a nice ring to it.”
“You’re such a nerd.” Salieri rolled out of the hammock and Mia handed the badge case back. “Got a minute?”
“I can give you five.”
“How about sixty?”

Mia rubbed her chin in fake deliberation. Salieri groaned until Mia had enough of trolling and nodded. “Great. The sooner we do this, the sooner I can leave this city.”

Viola's Gym. You know the one. I don't but you do
It was impossible not to feel at least a little bit nervous. He'd stopped by the center to get his two pokemon ready for this challenge, but he couldn't help being concerned about them. Essence had already suffered a pretty bad loss, and she was in no way going to be his stronger pokemon here. Francis... He shook his head.

Benedict entered the gym to challenge it at last, and leaned against the wall while he waited for the current challenger to finish up.

Santalune City Gym

The name Bridgette Baskerville would blink to show Viola's victory and soon after a girl dressed in purple would leave the gym shoulder's slumped.

The announcer would then call Benedict down to the arena.

((Helena coming up next.))

Route 22

Helena wasn't the best at it, but she fell into the mindset more easily. From the same place that she'd learned to solve complex problems in her head came the ability to break down everything into parts and handle each situation separately.

It was all fast paced, and that through her off, but this was something she could handle a lot easier than most people coming into this in place of school.

Loki had been made capable of combat thanks to Salieri's TM. He had made use of this with his teleporting. He was the both the easiest and the hardest to handle.

There was no shift in momentum when he moved. He couldn't apply pressure like Pokemon that danced around the field, and the delays and signs of teleport being in use meant that she only ever, at best, made distance or closed it. Still, she could call out to use teleport and attack and it was the easier for him to avoid blows than one of her Pokemon that had to get out of the way.

It was proportionately difficult, if not slightly more so, to land a hit on the opponent, which is what they worked on currently - Double Team was the only thing that made it possible once her opponent - a trainer this time - figured out what she as doing.

Loki battled against her - a girl named Mackenzie - Bunnelby

Lilt was the next Pokemon on Helena's list of multiple-battle-training. She was a physical combatant against Rabbie - a bored looking boy several years younger than Helena - and his Pidgey, who made good use of gust and quick attack to kepe out of Lilt's range while trying to influence her flight and hurt her through it.

Helena's countermeasure was to swing wide around Pidgey and quick attack when he called for a gust. The wide angled quick attack had given Rabbie time to get Pidgey to safety, but not enough room to avoid the follow up. That match began to break down into a constant of speed and power, one Lilt was beginning to win as Rabbie struggled to put some space between the two.

Feather, Helena's Flabébé, was already pretty competent as a wild Pokemon. However, that confidence had begun to cost her in the match against Elsa's only Flabébé. Helena struggled to get the fairy type to trust in her commands, and Feather was reluctant because of how stretched Helena's attention was already. It simply made a difficult battle even harder.

Loic was the confident trainer that faced off against Caboose - the Pikachu that Helena had been given by Zack - with his Lucario. Their battle was the most difficult because Caboose had almost immediately won it, and the bond between Loic and Riolu had resulted in Lucario evolving to turn the tide against them.

What happened now was Helena struggled to get Caboose into a favorable position. It would have been easier if Loic wasn't also a great trainer - a rising star he called it. While she had only small difficulty setting him up for a thunder shock at first, dealing with Lucario now was near impossible.

Speaking of rising stars - a girl named Louise who also referred to herself as such was battling the weakest of Helena's team. Snaps the Corphish battled the Litleo with small difficulty. The type advantage made it easier on Helena, but it was still difficult because Louise, much like Loic, lived up to the title that she claimed. Both of them had bragged about being one of the small percentage of trainers to get a badge their first day, and Helena could see why.

Still, she held her own. Even if it felt like that was all she doing for some of the battles, she managed to hold on. It was enough, and she was focused and thinking and growing and she could feel it a-

ding ding ding

Helena's concentration broke. It was only for a few seconds, but it was enough that she lost the momentum of the battle. She struggled to gain it back as her xtransciever continued to ring but it was too late.

As Zack's call went to voice mail, Helena saw her Pokemon fall one by one. She slumped, defeated and looked at the call list. "Awesome," she grumbled out loud as she pressed the button to call him back and began the depressing process of handing out what remained of her cash to the five trainers who had beaten her.

Benedict gave his best grin to the gym leader when she released the joltik. His pokedex basically informed him that he was not going to be having an easy time because of a flying type, but that wasn't what he'd been worried about to begin with. Getting close would probably get his pokemon electrocuted.

"Gust!" He called, and Francis replied by creating a gust low to the ground, one that would hopefully force the tinier pokemon off the ground.

"Low." Benedict warned, and Francis moved, keeping lower to the ground for a reason that he didn't quite comprehend. The thunder wave missed him, and Ben moved his eyes to the next target. "High winds!" He called, and the pidgey aimed his next gust...

Above the joltik, so that the air would create its own currents. The target wasn't the bug, but his environment. Ben had noted the way the fletchlings had fallen, and run some tests. The trick would be getting this battle over with before Francis became overconfident, or disheartened. Likely, Viola would know this as similar to what she had done before, to make her flying bug type's movements erratic and difficult to read.

In this case, it was simply to make using webs to move more difficult. Hitting Joltik would only be a plus if it happened.

The odd surfing was unexpected, but Benedict forced himself to maintain an air of calm. The crowd would see a composed youth with that grin on his face.

"Swat back!" He called. He'd learned of infestation somewhat during the fight before his own, and from the pokedex. It was dangerous, not easy to deal with. Most trainers would likely run away and make distance.

Francis rushed at the joltik suddenly with quick attack, picking his angle as well as he could. Likely, he would be caught by the infestation in full once he got close, but the lower ones that simply fell weren't likely to be the ones that did it, not with keen eye directing him.

Once he'd gotten reasonably close, whirlwind would go out, a strong enough blast of wind that it could blow even large pokemon away would be sent, in part aiming to throw the joltik out of the arena. Mostly, it was to catch it off-guard.

Whirlwind would still go out, Benedict resigning his pokemon to his choice. No, it wouldn't be able to transition immediately, but the joltik would likely be in for a surprise when Francis didn't immediately panic. The infestation would catch him as he was pulled in, and he would allow himself to follow the joltik for as long as it was attached to him, so that he wouldn't be an anchor for it to hold still with.

The pain was bad, yes, but Francis wasn't immediately disheartened.

"Keep it coming!" Whirlwind would go out more than just the once, was what that meant. It would be a barrage at the joltik anytime it seemed to be catching itself. And while the infestation could be bad... Well, every battle was a risk.