Pokemon-The Lost Master

Chapter 20

Cynthia was curled up in a dark room. She had no idea about the passage of time, or any awareness about what might be going on outside. When food was pushed through a flap she would eat, and there was a toilet in the corner. That was it. Her prison was as simple as it could get. When she first arrived she had tried the door to find it was shut solidly. Being too weak to struggle she had lain down on the floor and fallen back asleep. Now, many meals later, she had recovered from the injury she had received when she was captured. Her back, while sore, was not bleeding, and didn't feel infected. Cynthia now had nothing to do but sit and think.

The Sinnoh Champion focused on two things. She was trying to keep thinking about what might be going on outside, in attempt to make sure that she wasn't disconnected. She feared that she might never be found by the Pokémon Master. But then as she reasoned, the Johto League was going on. She couldn't realistically expect him to abandon the tournament where he would expect to be seen, particularly given the efforts he had put into working on the Pokémon League. And even if he came looking for her, how would he find her? She had only found Team Rocket because Mewtwo had known where to look.

How would 'Champion' be able to compete? She admitted he was a remarkable man, but surely finding her would be beyond even him. As she thought about the Johto League she wondered who would win. And furthermore, who would lead the Sinnoh region through their league, due to start five months after Johto. She knew that she needed to be there for the League, or people would start to question her absence. But she couldn't even get out of wherever she was. Agent hadn't been particularly specific.

The other thing that occupied Cynthia's time was thinking about the chain of events that had brought her to where she was. Thinking back to her initial defeat at the World League, where 'Champion' had come out of nowhere obliterating opponents. There would be trainers who entered under bizarre names each year, after all the requirements to enter were simply to have defeated all thirty-two Gym Leaders across the four regions. It didn't have to be in a single season, it could be any length of time. This meant that there were a huge number of trainers that would enter each year.

Usually most were knocked out in the early rounds, but the man called 'Trainer' had caught attention quickly. In his first fight, he didn't say a single word, releasing a Charizard that systematically destroyed his opponents Pokémon. Cynthia, who didn't have to enter until the later rounds, had been sat with Charles Goodshow watching various battles on a series of screens. Despite the speed the noise filtered through, his opponent was already on his third and final Pokémon for the match. As they watched, Charizard had simply glared at his opponent, and promptly roasted the powerful Tyranitar that he was facing with a single Flamethrower.

It not only knocked the Armor Pokémon out in a single hit, it picked it up and threw it across the arena to land next to its stunned trainer. Cynthia had remembered watching and feeling, for the first time in her career, fear of a Pokémon. She had only seen it for a few moments and already knew that the Charizard was going to be hard to stop.

For the rest of the tournament she made sure that she was able to see something of 'Trainers' battles. He always used the same Pokémon, and it took six battles for him to actually have to issue a command. Up to that point he hadn't spoken a word. When he first gave an instruction, the reaction from the crowd was surprising; they were usually fixated on his Charizard, but all heads snapped to the man, and many missed the attack that ended that particular battle.

When she faced him herself, Cynthia had tried absolutely everything she could think of. No matter what she did, the Charizard seemed to be able to see it coming and get out of the way and return an attack with blistering speed and power. As her Pokémon had fallen with incredible speed, Cynthia had just been in awe of the team she was facing. 'Trainer' left Charizard to fight by himself for a lot of the battle, but when he gave an instruction it usually tore Cynthia's defense open and ended the fight. She remembered the feeling when her Garchomp had crashed into the ground for the final time, surrounded by smoke as the crowd roared.