Cardzmaster 2004 
The Last Trump Card
Posts: 50
(1/25/04 2:52 pm)
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Portals: Chap. 15 (FIN)
Well, here's the end of Portals. And the beginning of The 22nd Portals will be posted when finished.
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“Meet the end.”
“Is it really time yet?”
“Of course. We all knew he would complete all the missions.”
“But he has yet to complete this one.”
“This mission does not matter. You must trust me on that. But he has one final mission. And that is to defeat one of our best psychics in pokémon.”
“And that is who?”
“You, Red. Your time has come and it is now. You must either defeat JP or let him take his place as your apprentice. If he fails versus you, we have been wrong all along and all this work is for naught.”
“Yes, Sensei.”
“And do not refer to me as Sensei anymore. I am your friend and no longer your master. Refer to me as Sabrina, my real name.”
“Yes, Sabrina. I will go prepare for my win now.”
“Good. But do not get your hopes up. He is much more powerful than you believe.”
“You do know that these audio files could be used against us after the takeover. We should delete them.”
“You are correct. I will keep them in my mind alone. Should we ever need to look back upon them, I will be the recorder. This discussion room must be destroyed along with the tapes. All evidence must be eliminated.”
“Of course Sabrina. I will begin the process.”
/End Transmition
/delete files codejp1.mp3g thru codejp15.mp3g
/engage autodestructsequence
Auto destruct T-30…T-15…T-10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…………….
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The night had gone by in a flash. My mind was a whirlwind of ideas of how to defeat the humungous glitch deep inside Cinnabar Island. I knew my team, as a whole, was no where near powerful enough to defeat the giant bird-like creature. I got out of the cot I was laying in and groggily dragged myself to the wash room. Due to my mission, I had to be out early enough to scale the mountain unseen. As I entered the day before, I noticed that the mountain was off limits to non-Cinnabar Environmental Personnel. I had to be out before Nurse Joy was up and stopped me. I turned on the shower and set out the clothes I was going to change into. My distraction was set. The overnight nurse would know no one was supposed to be up before 6:00 Am. It was now 5:30. I crept behind one of the curtain walls in the hall and watched the nurse swipe her card to open the door. All I needed was an open passage way and I could Teleport out. I watched the nurse walk into the Wash Room. Once she opened that door and looked in, I teleported out of that room. The door closed just as I got out.
Part One of my plan was over. Now for Parts Two and Three. I was now in the main lobby of the Makeshift Center. I had to get the main door open and run up the mountain. However, I knew the door could only be opened by the Nurse’s special PIN or a swipe of her code card. But, as I had come to know, any Nurse’s card could be used to open the door. I had no idea what I was going against this whole time, so in one of my earlier missions I swiped Courtney’s card. I grabbed it out of my wallet and swiped it through card slot. The red light turned green and the lock disengaged. I pushed the glass door open and slipped the backpack I had been carrying onto my back. I had to make a break for it now.
I ran like Hell, which for the first time strikes me as odd, as Hell cannot run. The mountain was in front of the building and I had it half scaled before anyone noticed that I was on it. Two guards, who had been sleeping, had just noticed my accent of the mountain. They jumped out of their posts and started to run after me with their guns. They pointed them at me, but I knew they wouldn’t use their weapons. No violent weapons had been used in the Kanto Police Department’s history for the past ten years. So my run went unattended. And their fear would keep them out of the cave. The top of the mountain came into view after about three minutes of hard running. I had left the fat armed guards about halfway up the hill. The cave was right in front of me. I jumped in without another thought.
Another thought, however, would have been good. The cave had a sharp drop-off right after the entrance platform. I plummeted to the very bottom of the cave. And this drop didn’t stop soon enough. I knew that the fall would kill me if I didn’t do anything. I engaged one of my new psychic abilities and slowed my descent. Gradually my speed slowed and after about five minutes of gentle drifting, I met the bottom of the cave. I Brought out Pins to shine some light on the place. He used Flash and then I returned him, because he was acting rather tired for some reason. I was amazed at what I saw in the darkness. The cave system I was in was more than a bunch of adjoining rooms. It was many hallways linked together. This was more like a labyrinth than anything.
I knew staring at everything wouldn’t help, so I released Psybyr to help me navigate. I was using psywaves to map the caves, but all I was getting at was where from my position the biggest MissingNo was. Psybyr would know how to make an accurate map.
Psybyr however had no idea either.
“What do you think I am!” he exclaimed. “I’m not your lackey to do everything you can’t. I’m only as powerful as you and have no idea of how to get around here. I could try to get someone with Supersonic to map echoes, but we don’t have anybody like that. Our best bet is to just try to walk toward the reading we’re getting and fight it.”
“Alright, alright,” I said. “I get your point. I was just hoping you could tell me ideas form a pokémon’s stand point.”
“Well, I can tell you that all non-psychic pokémon will be useless in this cave.”
“Why?”
“Well, MissingNo has the ability to send out Sleep Waves on a psychic frequency. Trainers and pokémon who are not psychic will listen intently to these waves trying to decipher them. We psychics immediately interpret these waves as location transmitions. But non-psychics will listen too intently and pick up its sleep attack, becoming drowsy and useless. MissingNo will come by and take over their body in order to nourish itself. The government knows this, but if the public knew, Cinnabar would be completely evacuated and the economy would tumble because of this major vacation spot.”
“Great,” I muttered. “So not only am I doing a favor for Blaine, but I’m saving the world.” I picked up my pack and started walking out of the small dome we had been under.
“It’s not like this is the first time you’ve done this,” Psybyr yelled as he ran to catch up to me.
“I know,” I responded. “I can remember the first time I was on a mission with you. I’d done some minor things for some friends over in Kanto on a local level but I never dreamed I would be doing the work I’m doing now.”
“Yeah,” Psybyr put his input in, “When I first saw you, I thought Sabrina had paired me with the biggest idiot possible. She had hated me from the time I was born you know. But I finally got to know you on the Possession mission. Dang that was nerve racking.”
“And kind of funny to now that I look back on it,” I said, chuckling mentally. “I just now realized how much of an idiot I was back then. Oh well, life goes on.” I checked my senses again. The MissingNo had changed its position again.
“You caught its movement,” Psybyr remark. “Good. Maybe we really are getting somewhere.”
It was about twenty minutes later that we decided to take a break. After a great amount of walking, hovering, and floating, we decided it was best to rest ourselves for the next battle. I pulled out some of the granola we had snuck out the night before. It wasn’t that much and I knew we were going to need more food before this was over. But with no other sources in sight, I knew our path to the glitch must be very fast.
“So, what do you think you’ll do after you’re done in all the Portals?” Psybyr asked. “You’ve got to be getting close. Sabrina once told me that the Fear test, which is this test, is one of the last that students at the University take.”
“Well,” I said thinking out loud, “I don’t really have a set path. I just want to get back to some of my old friends. And definitely Courtney. I don’t know how I can live without her. I can see us getting together down the road, getting married…”
“…Having sex, raising children, having more sex, raising more…”
“Psybyr! I never knew you had that kind of mind.”
“Well, I’m a guy aren’t I? And what’s wrong with the word sex. I mean most people act like it’s a curse word or something. It’s just a word.”
“Okay, okay, fine. I didn’t mean to get on your case.”
“Well, you did, and it offends me beyond what you could ever…”
And then he stopped talking. His metal coated ears perked up and listened to something. But what? My question was soon answered.
“MissingNo.”
“They came to us?” I asked my psychic friend. “How many?”
“Only five. But one is larger than the others. It could be the mother.”
“Great. I’ll start getting a trap ready. You lure them here.”
“JP, we don’t have time for a trap. They’re herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”
And Psybyr’s speech became slurred. I then realized that we weren’t going to ambush them; they were ambushing us.
I went into heroic JP mode. I released Pins while using my Psychic powers to track the pokémon that had snuck up on us. Sure enough, Psybyr was right. Over the drone of his voice, which had not stopped uttering the annoying, low pitched “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”, I caught four smaller MissingNo and one larger Missing No in the center. The four smaller Birds were using powers beyond my comprehension to cause Psybyr to only utter one sound and not function as anything else. I commanded my Typhlosion to burn the four Birds in one large Fire Wheel. He, being slightly affected by the glitchy atmosphere, fired a Fire Spin instead. The Fire Spin was more powerful and burned the four small birds to oblivion. Psybyr fell onto the rocky floor, out of his trance and out of it for a while.
The larger bird became visible now. The four smaller Birds must have been cloaking the leader the whole time while confusing Psybyr. The Big Bird, as I now call it, loomed in front of me like a giant half block of prismatic crystal. But its gentle and haughty mood quickly changed. From somewhere in its cubic form it fired a high powered squirt of water. Not only did it crack open the wall with Pins body, it knocked out Pins on the spot.
But Psybyr was now recovering. He shook his head as if he was trying to shake off the fatigue he was experiencing. But I had to get him to help me. I had to contact him.
{Psybyr, you okay?} I asked.
{Go away,} he responded. {I have the headache from Hell and can’t think straight at all.}
{Psybyr, I need you now. All I need you to do is cast a Psychic on that floating cube.}
{You want Psychic?} I could tell Psybyr was angry. {I’LL GIVE YOU YOUR PSYCHIC! POWERS OF THE EARTH, BOND WITH ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!}
And at that moment I backed away. Because the souls of all those who had died in the eruption traveled through the walls and in Psybyr. Psybyr wound them into a ball, each spirit adding their unique power to the ball. I didn’t know it was possible, but I saw the large MissingNo shiver in fear. Psybyr unleashes the spirits in what I now call a Spirit Ball. It hit the MissingNo so hard, that the floating cubic form dropped to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. One of these pieces paced my cheek, making a small, yet deep cut. I began to bleed badly. I used my newly found power of healing to make the cut into a scab.
With all the MissingNo gone, I was sure I could leave now. If only I knew what was to happen next.
“It wasn’t the mother of all of them,” Psybyr said, breathing heavily.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Then why did it come to attack us? I thought only the Mother could directly attack.”
“Gosh, you must be blind,” my knightly friend remarked, “How do you think these tunnels were built in such a short time? There are only a few other creatures that can produce these kinds of systems.” He pointed to the wall. “These walls have had the same crude carving style for the past few miles we have been walking. And we’ve been walking steadily down. Only organized teams headed by a king or queen beast can make these.”
“Are you saying MissingNo are hive creatures?”
“Exactly,” Psybyr responded, “and as such the walls of these caves are very brittle. Push against that crack in the wall.”
I walked over to wall that had become cracked after Pins smacked into it. As Psybyr had said, the rock was very brittle and easily broke away. This break away revealed a wall of a substance I could not describe. I felt the barrier and it felt, oddly as it sounds, resistant to my touch yet my arm was unaffected as I moved it, as if it were in air. The wall was created of running lines that wove and interwove in different patterns. The range of its shapes were from cubes to lines, rectangles to triangles, and any shape or dimensional shape you could think of. I stood in awe of the odd substance.
“It’s a containment field,” Psybyr explained. “The government set it up two years ago to contain an experiment gone awry. This was their attempt to control illegal internet trade. Of course, to control the internet, they had to have something larger and more powerful than the internet. However, once they had the situation under control, they had to eliminate their “pet” project. Their “pet”, while working on its mission, had learned everything accessible on the internet. With this knowledge and the recorded memos e-mailed to high ranking officials, the technology retaliated. It took the form of a monster, one large enough to be wholly destructive but small enough to escape.”
“And so it escaped to a remote island, hoping never to be seen again,” I said, continuing Psybyr’s story, “Except I happened to tip off the government off to its location. Because it was programmed to manipulate items, it paid me off with infinite items. The government came and contained the beast. But it kept producing younger offspring and eventually caused the island to erupt. And I’m to blame for this whole chain of events.”
“In one point of view, yes,” Psybyr responded. “But who created the beast? The Kanto government is more at fault than you. So get over it and do the right thing. We have to disable MissingNo once and for all. And only we can do it.”
I started losing track of where I was and began to reminisce on days past, “I remember the first time I saw MissingNo. She was so beautiful and majestic. I never wanted her to come to this kind of demise. Oh, if only I could be back there again…”
“Snap out of it,” Psybyr said as he smacked me across the face with his armored hand, “MissingNo is getting to you again. Our job is to get Cinnabar back to normal and in doing that we must either incapacitate or kill MissingNo. We don’t have an option.”
“I guess your right,” I responded, rubbing my sore jaw. Psybyr packed a hard punch. “So how do we get to him?”
“We have to get into the containment field. And the easiest way to do that is to walk in.”
“What will happen when we walk in?” I asked.
“Who knows? No one’s ever been in there except MissingNo. Anything could happen. It’s a step of faith.”
Great, faith again, I thought. Psybyr was reading my thoughts, I could tell by the perplexed look on his face. But I decided that he was right. It was better to lose and keep MissingNo contained rather than to bring it out of containment and lose, releasing its fury on the world. But losing was not an option. I nodded to Psybyr, one of our many signals to get ready for our next move. I stood next to the wall once again, with my friend Psybyr there next to me. On the count of three, we stepped into the field.
And we fell. And fell. And fell. And fellllllllllllllllllllll……
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J.P. had been under too much stress from the MissingNo that he blacked out during our fall to the bottom of the containment field. I held onto him with my powers so that he wouldn’t hit the bottom of the field as hard. Sabrina would kill me if he were to be killed. She knew he was the hope Red needed. But something was wrong with her plan. Why would she solely help Red? She never did anything without something in it for her. How strange.
I realized that we had been falling for much longer than I expect. That was when I realized what we were falling through. I woke J.P. He had to be ready.
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I woke from my sleep. Or was it from being knocked unconscious. Oh well. Psybyr was there, yelling at me.
“J.P., we’re in MissingNo!”
“What?” I exclaimed. I looked up to see us falling through lines of coding that could only be MissingNo’s. I moved to touch the lines of coding. They felt just like the skin of MissingNo I had touched two years ago. But after I touched the skin, it shocked me. MissingNo had never done that before. It screamed in anger and fired a concentrated bolt of electricity at me. The bird glitch had absorbed the power of the containment field and used it to attack anyone near it. I was in true danger.
I saw two faint dots in the distance that looked like trainers standing on what appeared to be the ground. How they got in here or even if they were real were mysteries to me. I had to get to them as quick as possible, so I left Psybyr and Teleported to the dots. They were, as I had thought, trainers. Or what was left of the two of them. One was a Bug Catcher who had somehow become intertwined with the DNA of one of his pokémon. That pokémon was a Beedrill to be exact. He had the head, body, and legs of a human with the wings and eyes of a hornet. The other trainer, a Hiker was normal and stood their laughing at the deformed boy who was curled up in a corner. The Hiker had out his only pokémon, a Vulpix. I was amazed how these two could survive down here. Perhaps they could help me defeat the monster above me. I had to ask them.
“Hello,” I said. My voice reverberated off the walls of the container I was in. The heavy set hiker replied to my friendly gesture. The young boy simply turned from his corner for a moment, looked at me with an empty look, and then turned back.
“I was hoping you all could help me with something,” I said, “and I also think I can get you all out of here.”
The Hiker laughed again, “Why would I want to leave? I have everything here I need here. Can’t you see all the food that our host is providing?” He walked over to the side of the barrier and seemed to pick up something. But he was just holding air. The man motioned toward the tall glitch, “Cheers to our great host!” He tipped his hand toward his face as if he were going to drink something. MissingNo shot a concentrated blast of electricity into the man’s mouth. His body shook from the pain and he collapsed to the floor. Fearing he had died, I rushed over to the man. I rolled him over to see if I could help him, but to my surprise he was laughing.
“Ah those drinks have the best kicks to them don’t they,” he said, gasping for air. “But that’s not the only reason I stay here. I have my son and wife to take care of. Isn’t that right, son.” He walked over and patted the insect boy on the back. I heard his exoskeleton crush under the power of the man’s hand. The boy, obviously in pain, ran to the other side of the room, crying. I never knew that insects could cry.
“And here’s my wife,” he said as he picked up the Vulpix. I shuddered at the thought of this disgusting relationship. The man was obviously insane, “Come here honey and give daddy a kiss.” The Vupix struggled to get away and eventually torched the man’s face with an Ember. The man just laughed, set the fire dog on the ground and collapsed from the pain.
I saw no use in trying to get him to help me defeat the monster. I walked over to the insect boy and tried to talk with him. Perhaps he could help me.
“Hi there,” I said, trying to coax him into talking with me. “I’m JP. Who are you?”
“No one you’d ever want to know,” he said between near sobs. “No one wants to know a monster like me.”
“Now don’t say that,” I said soothingly. “Could you tell me how you got like this?”
“Oh, that,” he said. “I started training when I was five. Most of the kids in my neighborhood had caught their first bug by the time they were four. I was always the slow one and never could get across to my parents that I didn’t like Bug pokémon. But just to please them, I caught one. It was a Weedle, and I hated it. But I trained it for them and it evolved into a Beedrill. Of course, I was the lucky one to be allergic to Beedrill venom. When it got mad at me, it stung me. I swelled up and could barely breathe. Ten years later, I arrived at this island and heard about MissingNo. I decided to teach my unruly bee a lesson. I put him up against the glitch and left him to be blasted to oblivion. But MissingNo had other ideas. He captured us both and took us to his lair. There he merged us into one creature to punish us for our cruelty. He did something similar to the man over there. He could never stand to be put through extensive pain. So he was made to believe there was food everywhere and all here were his family. He went insane from the hunger and thirst. He only lives because MissingNo keeps him alive.”
“Then why don’t you destroy MissignNo,” I suggested. “Then you would be free of him and this cell.”
“No, I can’t,” he said. “MissingNo would kill me. His electricity is so strong that the last time I tried to escape I was incapacitated for half a month.”
“But my pokémon can help you,” I said. “My metal Alakazam will protect you as best he can.” I pointed to Psybyr, flying high near MissingNo. “He’s mine and he’ll help you. Just go up and help him destroy the glitch.”
“But he’s so powerful,” the insect boy retorted.
“Why fear him?” I said. “He’s just a mistake.”
With my full confidence behind him, the boy flew up into the air toward Psybyr, dodging bolt after bolt of energy fired by the glitch. He almost made it to him before he was shot by one of Missing No’s bolts of lightning. He plummeted back toward the ground. Psybyr had padded the blow, but the insect had taken a major beating. I caught him with my powers and set him on the ground.
“C’mon!” I said trying to pump him up again. “Let’s go at it again. It couldn’t hurt, could it?”
“How would you know?” the boy said in between tears, “You haven’t been up there to fight it yet? Why should I follow orders from someone who is too scared to do his own work?”
And then it hit me. This was the reason why I was here. My biggest fear was MissingNo but my other fear was facing life by myself. I thrust myself into the world of pokémon to hide my fear of facing things by myself. I had to face this, my most hidden and greatest fear. I had to use my new powers to battle it on my own.
“You stay here,” I said to the boy. “I can take care of this for the first time. I don’t need to cower behind you anymore. Thank you.”
I flew up to Psybyr and joined him in the battle against MissingNo. He wasn’t doing very well. His metal armor conducted electricity quite well, and that was just about all the glitch was firing at him. After levitating up to him, I whipped a Hyper Potion out of my pack and sprayed it in the direction of Psybyr. It perked him up on the spot.
“So, how’s the war going,” I asked Psybyr as I fired a shot of psychic energy at the glitch.
“Not that well,” he responded as he dodged another of MissingNo’s electric blasts. “I thought you were supposed to be on the ground resting.”
“Screw that,” I said while using my powers to run circle’s around my enemy. “You looked like you could use some help and I was tired of just having you take all the force of these blows.”
“Well it’s about time,” he said. “Now fire a blast along with me. It should strike him hard enough to incapacitate him.”
“Alright.” I pumped myself up for the attack. When I noticed that Psybyr was ready I fired. He fired along with me and our multi-colored beams of destructive light merged as one super-cosmic force. The beam hit MissingNo, but didn’t seem to affect him. The shot did some damage as he yelled at the top of his lungs at us, but instead of crumbling to the ground, he fired a shot back at me. Since I was so concentrated on the attack I was making, I had no room to dodge the blow.
This battle was over. I could no longer hover and fell to the floor. Psybyr saw me drop off and followed me to the floor. The pain of hitting the floor would kill me. I had to bail out of the mission.
“Psybyr, use Portals, now!”
“But J.P.,” he said, trying to keep me in the mission, “you’ll have to restart this whole thing over again!”
“I don’t care!” I shouted. “There is no way I can face that now. I’ll go back to the University and train until I’m good enough to defeat this glitch. But until then, I won’t risk my neck going after it. Now, Portal me out of here!”
Psybyr instantly followed my order and had me out of the cage and through a psychedelic circle in no time.
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I sat in the middle of a dark room. The ever present ceiling light shone down on my weary body. My body was lying on the floor in a sprawled heap. I couldn’t hold back the tears I had. These tears were from the disappointment of failing in my mission. I would be staying ever longer here. Why couldn’t I pull through in this, the most critical of all missions? I felt like a complete failure. I couldn’t face Sabrina or anyone after this. But I knew that the Head Mistress of the University would be in here to debrief and demean me. This had to be the worst day of my life.
The click of Sabrina’s ever familiar high heeled boots echoed around the dark empty room. Her silhouette crept over my body like the hand of death. I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say, nor her hatred for my failure. I heard her lips slightly open and prepare for her to talk. I braced for her harsh words.
“Come on,” she said in an out of character soft voice, “we have to get to your next mission.”
“What next mission?” I asked. “I have to repeat this mission because I didn’t complete it.”
“That is not the case with this mission,” Sabrina said as she walked out of the light. She walked over to the wall and turned on the low overhead lights. “This is the one mission you do not have to redo. Since this mission deals with your greatest fear, simply accepting it is a success in itself. Now, would you join me at my desk? Its rather dark and I can barely see you.”
I got up off the floor and guide lights lit up the way to Sabrina’s desk. The rather familiar rolling chair behind her and the wooden chair in front of it were rather imposing. I sat in the wood chair as she took her place in the leather one behind her desk.
“Now,” she said as she folded her hands, “I have no need for you to explain your last experience to me. The Fear mission, as most graduates call it, is a personal mission that no one is to ever know what happened in there except you. This is because each person’s inner fear is different and is hard to confront. But enough of your last experience.
“Your next mission is your last mission. You have shown exceptional ability in both psychic and trainer powers while here. And as such, all people here either stay here as professors of psychic arts or graduate with a trainers degree in psychic powers. But you have excelled in both areas. So your final test will be a battle against the second in command at the academy. And this man is one of your old friends.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“You will soon see. Are your pokémon healed?”
“No. A few of them are injured.”
“Hand them to me,” Sabrina commanded. I handed over Pins, Jumpluff, Psybyr, Slammy, Dodrio, and Drako to the psychic mistress. She placed them in a Poké Ball carry next to the computer on her desk and typed in a few commands on the CPU. The Poké Balls faded away. I could only guess where they had gone.
“Are you ready for your final adventure?” she asked me after shutting down her computer.
“I guess,” I responded. “Which portal am I to use?”
“You won’t need any portal to get to your last mission,” she responded as she got up out of her chair. “We’ll be walking there as it is easily accessible by foot. Come.”
Sabrina stood up from the table and opened the door that led out of her office and took me down the hall. While walking, Sabrina gave me a miniature lecture, “The University of Portals was created over thirty years ago to discover to investigate and train the next generation of psychics. But approximately three years into our existence we discovered disturbing news: All humans had the ability to become psychics because of their lack of brain use. A few select people in the world have psychic powers when they are born, but almost all of them die within three years. I was one of the lucky one’s to survive and found this University. But only three people have been born since that time and survived. One died in the Third Kanto War, trying to protect our University from a stray missile. Another is the second in command at my beautiful institution. And the last one is, as I assume you have guessed, you.” I hadn’t guessed, so it came as a great shock to me. “Do not worry. The second in command here did not know of his powers until he met me. And now that you have met me, your powers have become near complete. But you have one final battle before you choose your place in the Ring of Psychics. And your battle is here.”
She stopped before a metal door that looked as if she had pulled it off a submarine and welded it to the wall. She turned the metal wheel that held the door shut with all her might. It squeaked so loudly that I expected all the people in the hallway to stare at us. But Sabrina had taken measures to make sure that our area was surrounded by an aura that held in all sounds. The door swung inward to reveal a rock cave lit by a skylight. There were three stone podiums located on the perfectly round cavern. One was located away from itself between the other two; the other two faced each other. I had never seen such a beautiful stadium in my life. The walls were carved with hieroglyphics that I had never seen before. But one picture on the wall caught my eye. It was of a man standing next to a Pikachu. And that man could only be one person.
“Red is here.”
“Very good job, J.P.,” I heard red’s voice coming from behind on e of the rock podiums. “Now, if you will take your place across from me we can get this battle started.”
I made my way to the podium opposite Red while Sabrina approached the one parallel to the field. As I mounted my podium, Red informed me of a few rules for our battle.
“As you now know, I’m the second-in-command at this University. I’ve been watching you and am impressed with your rapid growth. If you can defeat me, you will take on the project I have started. If you fail, you will only be remembered as another graduate of the University. Also, we invited one of your friends who have been working on my project. She could provide some insight if you succeed in this battle.”
“Hey J.P.,” the voice came from the podium Sabrina mounted. I looked over to see the curly, ruby colored hair of one of my best friends ever.
“Courtney!” I exclaimed. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Don’t worry about her now,” Red said. “Your battle is what is at stake now. Choose three of your pokémon. Any of them may be used.”
Two of the choices for my set of three came easily. Psybyr was one of my best closers and Slammy had yet to fail me. But the opening spot was a tough choice. Drako was still a rather weak pokémon and Jumpluff was just Jumpluff. That left my newest pokémon, Dodrio, as a new choice. Could I remember the old ideas I had for a Dodrio attack set? I could hope that I could. I placed Dodrio as my starter and had Slammy as my middle pokémon. Psybyr, my only other friend here rounded off my line-up.
“Are you prepared for this battle J.P.?” Red asked with his cockier than ever attitude.
“More ready than I’ll ever be,” I responded. And with that the battle started.
“Go Dodrio!”
I released the three headed bird. Amazingly, none of the head got mad and attacked each other.
Red laughed, “A bird to face my starter. How perfect. Pikachu, show them a Quick Attack.”
Red’s first pokémon, his unruly Pikachu wasn’t even on the field but with a supersonic leap, it was going head long into my Dodrio. I had to think fast. And fast was what I decided to do.
“Dodrio, use you Agility attack.”
Dodrio dodged the attack easily. Pikachu landed from his zigzagging attack. Fire was in his eyes from missing the attack. Red, however, stayed calm after missing the attack.
“This is no problem,” he said. “Pikachu, Agility to the max.”
I saw the problem mounting. Pikachu would go so fast that, even though Dodrio was moving quickly, it would appear like he was walking to Pikachu. I had to do something.
“Dodrio, match Pikachu’s speed using your Agility.”
Dodrio responded instantly and whirled faster around the arena. Pikachu spun around, trailing my wingless bird. I knew that this battle wouldn’t be an easy one, but this was ridiculous.
“Pikachu, fire Thundershocks around the arena. You may be able to hit something.”
I couldn’t tell who the faster one was in the arena. Both pokémon were evenly matched. However, Pikachu was attacking. I had to have Dodrio do something.
“Dodrio, try firing Tri Attacks around the arena to hit Pikachu.”
My wingless bird fired the multicolored attack around the enclosed, stony world as if the attack could easily become fireworks. But something tragic happened next and it affected Ash and me. The electricity in Pikachu’s attack and the multiple powers found in Dodrio’s attack fused together to form a powerful attack that was not absorbed into the walls of the arena. Ash and I both knew we were in trouble, but we continued the battle. We sped our pokémon up to speeds never attained before, hoping to be able to dodge the overpowered attack.
Eventually, I don’t know how long it took, the blast hit Red’s Pikachu, and the blast knocked the electric rat into the wall. It threw Pikachu at least ten inches into the stone, creating a smoking outline of where the rat would have once been. I commanded Dodrio to slow down, as the first leg of this battle was now over.
“Nice job,” Ash replied as he leaped onto the field and cradled the electric rat in his arms. He made another superhuman jump up to Sabrina’s box. He dropped the unconscious pokémon off and levitated back to his box. My mouth was nearly on the floor. I knew psychics could become very powerful, but I had never seen anyone like this.
“Careful, my young apprentice,” Sabrina said as she faced Red. “You mustn’t flaunt your powers in front of our student.”
“Yes, Sabrina,” Ash bowed his head as if he were addressing a revered sensei. Returning to our battle, he reached to his podium, where he had set his pokémon.
“You may have had a lucky shot on my Pikachu, but this pokémon requires no luck to beat,” Red threw out his Poké Ball. “Blastoise, go!”
The turtle leapt from his Poké Ball into the stony arena. His blue hues shone in the light of the area, as little as it was. It seamed as though diamond dust covered his entire body. Yet my main priority was not sightseeing; it was to defeat Red once and for all. I turned toward the battle. Since my Dodrio’s speed had reset, I had to start with its not-so-fast maneuverability again. But Red got off the first, and final, attack of this round.
“Blastiose, Ice Beam.”
The tortoise fired a beam of concentrated Ice at my bird. Having no chance to move, my Dodrio became frozen in a block of ice just like a Thanksgiving turkey.
“Once a pokémon become frozen, it won’t unfreeze until the end of the battle,” Red quoted to me from the first pages of a textbook, Status for the Competent Trainer, from class I had taken while here in between one of mission. “You should recall it now and set it out of battle. It won’t be doing any good now.”
I reluctantly recalled my bird and spared it the shame of defeat. I reached for my second choice, a mirror match up with Red’s Blastoise.
“Go Slammy.”
My Blastoise landed onto the field with an earth-shattering tremor, nearly knocking Sabrina and Courtney over. Red and I were not affected because our adrenaline had caused us to levitate a few inches off the ground. I barely even noticed, and simply continued with the battle. Red’s turtle, being slightly faster than mine, got his attack off first.
“Blastoise, Ice Beam!”
“Slammy, Surf!”
Red’s Blastoise fired a beam similar to the one he fired before. My Blastoise built up a wall of water behind him, jumped into the foaming water, and road the wave across the stadium. The water hit Red’s Blastoise just as that turtle fired his Ice Beam. The water in the wave and the ice hit with such a force that the water temperature plunged on contact, freezing Blastoise and Slammy into one giant block of ice. Both turtles still held their attack form in the solid form.
“Well, this presents an interesting situation,” I said.
“Let’s just do this battle over this ice!” Red yelled in anger. “Espeon, go!”
Red’s Portals pokémon, a purple dog, jumped onto the ice; however, the force of his leap made him slide over the ice and into my podium. I picked up the gangly legged-animal and set him gently onto the ice. The Espeon stared me in the eyes and then hovered to the other side of the arena, next to her master, Red.
“Go Psybyr!” I said as I picked up his Poké Ball. Before I threw it onto the ice, I muttered under my breath, “And make sure to always hover at least a few inches over the ice.” I tossed my best friend’s Poke’ Ball onto the new ice arena and let the last part of the battle begin.
Psybyr, covered in all his psychic glory, hovered over the ice. His pink sword, powered by the energy welled up inside of his suit of silver armor, glowed brightly, waiting to absorb any elemental attacked fired at him. His gauntlets shimmered in the light that reflected off the new ice stadium. The armor had almost a golden hue to it because of the reflected sunlight. I had to shield my eyes from the light as many of the others had to in the arena.
With Psybyr on the field, I leapt into action, “Psybyr, Metal Claw!”
My psychic friend leapt across the arena and cut a huge gash in the back of Espeon. Red counter attacked with an ability of his own.
“Espeon, use Sunlight and then cast Psychic.”
Espeon Teleported to the middle of the arena and soaked up the sunlight pouring in. Amazingly, the cut started to heal itself. A small scar was all that remained of the once open wound. The cat then turned on a dime and cast a psychedelic blast in the direction of my pokémon. Psybyr instinctively help up his psychic sword. The attacked was into the blade and was held into a channel to be used later. I handed out the next attack.
“Psybyr, cast confusion on that Espeon and then Psyblast it.”
Psybyr cast two beams of psychic power: one contained a specialized mind control wave used for manipulation, the other solely for psychic damage. Both blasts plastered Espeon into the wall, but only did damage, not causing confusion.
“Espeon, use Psychic Toss!”
“Psychic Toss,” I questioned, “Does that attack even exist?”
“Sure it does,” Ash said. “Watch.”
I turned to see my Psybyr being levitated into the air. He fired blast after blast of psychic energy at Espeon, hoping to hit it. He had no such luck. I had to communicate to Psybyr psychically in order to win this battle.
{Psybyr,} I said using my high-powered mind communication skills, {When Espeon releases you, fire a Psywave directly at the ground. That should give off enough of a force to knock Espeon into the wall. After you land from the Psywave attack, fire a PsySlashfrom your sword using all the energy from Espeon’s earlier attack.}
{Good idea, J.P.,} Psybyr responded. {Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something to do.}
As soon as he told me that, he was dropped to the floor from a height of about 20 ft. I braced for the massive impact and attack that would follow. Right before Psybyr landed on the ground, he emitted a pulse of psychic waves. These waves reached down into the earth, causing a massive earthquake in the arena. Espeon was knocked back by the force of some of the waves that skidded across the ice. She struggled to try to escape the psychic energy that held her against the walls, but to no avail. Psybyr levitated and faced Espeon. The poor dog struggled in the face of the powerful beast. Lifting his massive beam sword above his head, Psybyr cast a PsySlash across the arena.
“STOP!”
Sabrina lifted her hand, stopping the slash from reaching Espeon. The waves holding her disappeared as did Psybyr’s attack. Espeon leapt out of her crevice in the wall and ran under red’s feet, shaking for fear of another attack from Psybyr. With flames in his eyes, Psybyr stared down Espeon again, causing the creature to tap its own Poké Ball to escape its fear of my pokémon.
Sabrina floated down to the floor of the stadium holding Courteny in here psychic field as well. When the Head Mistress of the university landed on the floor with my friend, she motioned for Ash and I to join her. We both levitated down to the floor. Sabrina started here speech.
“You’ll both need to recall your frozen Blastoise,” she said as she started to hover once again. We both recalled our pokémon and floated down to the stone floor. Sabrina started up again, “Red, I stopped Psybyr’s attack because it would have killed your Espeon; therefore, J.P. is declared the winner of this battle.”
“How dare you end this battle on your own terms!” Red exclaimed in anger. “I would have rather lost to this ignorant than to have you protect me.”
“Silence!” Sabrina’s voice echoed off the walls as if the voice of God had made some kind of command. “If your Espeon had died, I would have no choice but to kick you from the University of Portals and wipe your minds of all things you have done here. Now be quitet and listen to what I have to say.” Sabrina turned her attention toward me, “J.P., since you defeated Red, my second-on-command at the academy, you may now take his place. You will be involved in teaching a few classes at the University.”
“That sounds fine,” I responded. “Is there anything else I will be doing?”
“Yes,” she said. “Red and I had a deal before he decided to take on this challenge. You will now be able to help us in our conquest. Humans have long been abusers of pokémon and psychics such as us. With your abilities and mine, we will be able to control the pokémon, making them our slaves, and conquer the human race. You and I will rule the world together!”
“Wait!” Red shouted. “That was not part of our contract. He was supposed to help you and I make pokémon and humans equal.”
“Shut up, you insolent fool,” Sabrina said. “You have no more input into this decision.” She cast a powerful psychic blast at Red. He created a force field of his own power to try and block it, but failed. The woman’s power threw Red into the stone wall of the arena. He sat slumped against the wall, groaning as he clutched his back. His Espeon, which had forgotten to recall ran over to him and levitated her master to his feet. She tried to bring him back to consciousness while I received a message from Psybyr who had been standing by me the entire time.
{J.P., don’t accept her offer,} he said in his message to me. {I don’t trust her anymore and neither should you.}
“Thanks for the suggestion Psybyr,” I responded aloud, “but I can take care of this on my own.” I stepped toward Sabrina and stared her in the eye, “I don’t want you offer. My family and friends deserve more than to be made slaves by pokémon. You should have known that before we started.”
“That I did,” she said as she smiled mysteriously. Courtney, who was still staring wide eyed at the conversation from Sabrina’s psychic grasp, fell to the floor as soon as I defied Sabrina’s command. She rushed over to me and held onto me tightly.
“You have chosen the wrong path, J.P.,” Sabrina said as she moved Red and Espeon over toward my general position, which was in the center of the arena. “The path you have chosen is very painful, but you must now endure it. Your friends will suffer with you also.” She began to hover above the floor and grabbed one of the Poké Balls. She threw it against the wall in order to release her Alakzam. With the release of her pokémon, the room went dark except for the area where Sabrina hovered and where my group stood. It floated over to her and stood with the same icy glare as Sabrina at our small group. I was the only one who ever thought of saying anything.
“Go ahead,” I said with a cocky air, “Do your worst.”
“That I will,” she said. “Alakazam, Portals.”
Her pokémon effortlessly cast the familiar psychic beam under our feet. Amazingly, it created a portal directly beneath our feet. My friends, excluding Psybyr screamed fell into the portal. Psybyr grabbed the edge of the portal trying not to fall in. I did the same. Sabrina’s eyes flared with fire from the depths of Hell when she saw me holding on. She floated over to me as her Alakazam floated toward my pokémon. She seemed unaffected by the vacuum effect of the portal. I struggled to hold on as she stared me down.
“I’m glad I decided to put this last portal in,” she said, almost gloating. “I never expected you to be so selfish as not to think of the good of other especially me.” She laughed manically. “I once told you there were twenty Portals available to explore. Where you came to battle Red was Portal 21. And where you go now, the most torturous place ever, is Portal 22. Enjoy your stay…”
With that, she cast a beam of psychic energy at my fingers. I screamed in pain and fell into the portal while I viewed Psybyr being blasted by Alakazam. Psybyr joined my decent five seconds later. I focused all my energy on finding my friends who fell before me so that I could face the 22nd with people I could rely on.
------------------------------------------------------------
The 22nd Portal.
Coming in 2003...
Portals stats:
1 chapters left
Next chapter release date:
Summer 2003
Quote of the time period: "Too many numbers..."
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