The blow of the winter morning gently woke the group again. The adventurers rushed out and pulled down their respective tents in preparation for their continued journey into the Fiori region. Iris began observing the map to ensure that they would reach their destination in the fastest and safest route possible. Ash and Dawn trained again with Cynthia hoping to hone their skills.
“The map says we will be headed toward the second half of this region,”
“You say that as if it were a bad thing,”
“You haven’t heard the stories about the Fiori region have you?” Cynthia asked.
“What stories,”
“The Fiori region was devastated by a clash between two powerful legendary pokemon. Fiori was then shaped by the battle into two separate islands. The one which we stand on is that of life, the other of death where the plague has it’s origin.”
“Death?”
“Yes, but it should not be of our concern” Cynthia nodded walking ahead of him.
“Try not to worry about it. we all have to face death sooner or later” Dawn cheered him up.
Ash smiled weakly at Dawn, but he cheered up slightly, continuing into the region with his group of friends. The sun shined on the barren land which surrounded them. A thick sea of ice surrounded them. Iris worried that the ice could break and they would fall to a horrible watery grave. Cynthia tapped her on the shoulder and gave a gesture to keep moving. Iris’s sense of fear faded a bit by the motivation she received from Cynthia. Ash and Dawn gave Iris a silent thumbs up together and slowly stepped forward into the frozen ocean. Silently trekking a few miles more, they noticed a strange shape in the distance. The travelers slowly and cautiously advanced toward it. The shape became familiar upon approaching it. It was a large caravan full of people and pokemon guiding goods through the solid ocean. A man in a Eskimo jacket filled with numerous furs stomped up to the travelers.
“It’s good to see you,” Lucius greeted shaking their hands.
“It’s good to see you too, what are you doing here of all places?”
“We found the location of the last artifact.”
“That’s good news we will help you at once” Ash exclaimed excited.
“But what about our progress in the pokemon league?” Iris nagged.
“It’s always best to take our time and advance at a sustainable rate” Cynthia shot back correcting Iris.
Lucius waved at everyone to follow, Ash, Dawn, Iris, and Cynthia soon joined the caravan on the search for the last artifact. Lucius stopped pointing to the scenery ahead. There was a large old ruined tower that lay in smoke. At the very top lay a large blue glow illuminated the sky.
“That must be the artifact we are looking for” Lucius pointed.
“Lets hurry quick before anything happens to the artifact,” Ash shouted hastily telling his friends to hurry up.
“I’m going, I’m going!” Iris panted yelling at Ash to slow down and calm down.
“Iris, hurry up before the caravan leaves you behind,” Dawn said sternly.
“All right,” Iris groaned.
The group reached the tower in a good, short fifty minutes. Cynthia pressed against the wall examining the distinct features on the wall. Lucius searched for a possible entrance to the tower. Dawn lay down petting and cuddling with the pokemon in her group and the caravan.
Ash tapped on the solid tower confused by it’s function; There was no door to be seen. Only walls and strange hieroglyphics. Cynthia calmly paced her reading slowly tracing her finger on the ancient scriptures.
“I figured out how this tower works.”
“That’s great,” Lucius complimented, impressed by her ability to read the hieroglyphics.
“The text on this wall is similar to unknown,”
“Excellent now what do we need to open this door?” Lucius asked desperately.
“We need the tow artifacts placed near the edge of the walls,” Cynthia directed.
“Of course brothers, sisters get the artifacts over here,” he shouted at his followers.
“This seems strange,”
“What's strange Ash?”
“I was expecting a sudden attack from the bad folks aligned with Team Renegade.”
A loud explosion erupted in the distance. Two large craters cracked the dense ice sheets formed. The caravan rushed goods to safety before the ice could collapse.
“It’s about time they attacked us” Ash complained calling out his pokemon.
“Yes I was expecting that to happen” Dawn sighed.
Lucius feverishly ordered the followers to get into place. The members finally placed the two orbs near the wall. The tower began to rumble and open a secret compartment with stairs leading up to the top. Cynthia dashed up the stairs with Lucius after the artifact. She then braked furiously at the top of the stairs.
“Ash, Dawn, Iris” Cynthia called to them. “Distract the team from reaching the top of the tower understand?” Cynthia ordered.
“Right,” Dawn raised her necklace ready to summon Giratina.
“We will try our best” Ash shouted doing the same as Dawn.
A heavy sheet of smoke cleared and men from two sides emerged, stepping out of the crater into thick ice near the tower encircling it with their ambitious goals. There existed men from both sides one side to the left was crawling with uniformed criminals. They wore great white colors and wore a emblem with the red crimson R of team rocket. Another group came from the right side of the tower. All in black hoods with insidious symbols on their shoulders. The symbol was that of a snake wrapped around the planet and blood above the snake in the shape of the constellation the big dipper. Both advanced toward the tower simply stepping past the ruined and confused caravan of people who were devastated by the recent attack. Ash and Dawn leaned against one another and were panicking that they had to battle this many trainers. Then as if it was strange enough that there were this many trainers ready to fight the two teams quickly began shouting threats at each other.
“The power of the artifacts belong to Team Rocket,” Misty pointed at Tobias.
“No it belongs to us,” Tobias shot back.
Misty cursed at Tobias then replied“You freaks want the power of the artifact? You will have to pry it from our cold dead hands. If we don’t retrieve that power the people we make so much money off of will perish. For once team rocket is morally obliged to help the world.”
“Your moral obligation will not cure this plague fool. If we do not free our souls from the plague we will all perish. Stand down or we will destroy you!” Tobias shot back with a cold intimidating smile.
“Oh, so you think disturbing the very balance of these artifacts will help us? The world will be destroyed and it will be your fault that every living in this planet vanishes.”
Tobias smirked flipped his pokeball calling out Darkrai. Lily and Calico stood next to him called out their respective pokemon to aid him. Another boy knelt next to his fellow Renegade grunts. The boy was strange, he appeared with black hair was tall and had a strange scarlet robe around him. Team Rocket huddled against one another ready to attack on Misty’s command the executives stood next to her whispering muffled words into her ear.
“This is strange,” Dawn scratched her head.
“Both teams seem to have good intentions but whom do we trust?” Ash asked pounding his skull for answers.
“We should just wait and see how the battle unfolds before doing anything.”
“Right,” Iris nodded running behind the tower for cover.
“This battle won’t be pretty. Lets hide behind the tower with Iris,” Ash said to Dawn running for cover.
The two teams clashed with great force, shaking the very Earth they stood on. Charmander and Gardevoir used their defense to distract the executives pokemon. Misty’s Kyogre was then left unattended, battling the other opposing pokemon.
“You idiots, it's just a distraction so they can concentrate on the main pokemon, my Kygore!” Misty cursed.
“We can’t do anything now Misty, our pokemon are too caught up with this troublemaker,” the executive yelled back.
“When we are finished with this battle I will deal with you properly,” Misty hissed.
The Gardevoir spat heaps of toxic leaves at the executives pokemon, successfully causing the pokemon to fall into comas fainting. The Renegade pokemon surrounded Misty.
Kyogre blew large gallons of hydro pump water at the pokemon spraying Charmander into a pool of icy water. Charmander was returned to prevent drowning.
“Dammit, they surrounded me, Hey you two, Ash and Dawn” Misty pointed at them.“What are you two waiting for? Help me before it’s too late,” she barked.
“How can we trust you?”
“I only joined because I knew this evil team would destroy the world if I didn't. I took a big risk willing to save the world and pay the price for it. Are you willing to take a risk yourself?” Misty shot back.
“Well..,”
“I don’t have much time,” Misty hissed back, telling her to hurry up
“Argh,” a rocket executive quickly groaned crawling on his belly.
He crawled closer to Misty pulling out a shock baton ready to defend his leader Misty.
That proved to be a foul mistake for him, Ash and Dawn instantly recognized what that baton was used for.
“You were the ones who harmed that mother Garchomp” Dawn gasped disgusted.
“I.. I can explain” the executive stuttered to Misty begging for forgiveness.
Dawn slowly stepped forward, a self immolation spawned with black fire. Her Giratina became aggravated screeching rampantly. The echo caused surrounding living things to hold their ear drums together from the boom. The Giratina grappled on to Kyogre and scratched him furiously; he hacked and slashed his way through Kyogre.
“Ddawn” Misty was speechless by her sudden action.
Dawn glared at her with hate, she finally moved her lips to one word “Die,”
Giratina held it’s golden red pincer in the air and stabbed Kyogre, swiftly picked it up and hurled it into the ocean. The mass broke a sheet of ice and Kyogre quickly descended into the deep blue.
“Excellent decision,” the strange boy held two artifacts in his hand.
Cynthia and Lucius bolted back down the terror straight into the sight of the mysterious boy; Cynthia quickly recognized him.
“Anthony,” she cried.
“It’s good to see you again,” Anthony smiled.
“That’s.. but he didn’t age one bit” Dawn cried out.
“That my friends. Is the miracle of Team Renegade” Anthony explained.
“You made a difficult decision. I hope you are satisfied with it” Anthony chuckled.
Lucius saw Anthony then bowed. The followers simply ignored what they were doing and stood next to Team Renegade. The group felt betrayed by the actions of the men and women who they thought were truly trying to help cure the plague.
“I have not told you the result of curing yourself would be removing your soul. Thus making you a immortal” Anthony sighed.
“How could you do this?! You made me almost kill my own friend,” Dawn screamed.
“She is not dead my dear.. yet”
Anthony fused the three artifacts together a large black smoke then appeared. It circled the team rocket members. The rocket gang cried in pain as their energy was drained. In a few hours the whole team was speechless, mute and immortal. Anthony waved Ash, Dawn, Iris and Cynthia goodbye. The whole team Renegade marched off into the snow. Cynthia shouted Anthony to stop. She slowly began humming a strangely familiar tune. It sounded like a whistle a tune of blowing leaves. Anthony stopped upon hearing the sad beautiful tune.
“It’s a song you told me about, A song sung in Alamos town. Do you remember what it’s called?” Cynthia said silently almost begging him.
“The leaf whistle,” Anthony whispered softly.
“We are friends are we not? Friends shouldn’t fight each other no matter what. We stick by each other in the darkest of times.”
“I taught you well Cynthia. Please do one last thing for me...,” Anthony requested.
“What’s that?” Cynthia replied.
“Don’t forget what I taught you. Don’t forget me.” Anthony sighed and said his final goodbye. “I’m sorry.” Anthony then walked away joining Team Renegade.
The rest of the day was a miserable camp in for the night. Everyone was silent not exchanging at least one simple sentence or word. Ash ate silently with his firends not exchanging the simplest word of apology. Dawn was bothered by this a good friend of hers betraying Cynthia was horrible. She couldn’t believe the group was going to pretend this didn’t happen. Dawn pounded the floor in frustration.
“Are we just going to sit here and mope? Is that it?!” Dawn screamed.
“There is nothing we can do. Everything is lost” Ash shrugged hopelessly.
“It’s not,” Dawn argued.
“We can do something about this if we wanted to Dawn, but what!? Even if we struck back we would be of no condition to fight.”
“Well..,” Dawn shook.
“Enough, you three” Cynthia ordered.
“Huh?” Ash said confused.
“Dawn is right, we need to get those artifacts if we are to stop their ultimate goal from happening” Cynthia answered.
“But where will we find them?” Iris complained.
“In Junction city: the heart of the region. We'll stop them there” Cynthia grinned motivated by Dawn.
“Junction City?” Dawn gasped.
“Then it’s a plan” Ash laughed excited.
“Thank you Cynthia,” Dawn cried out bowing.
“Let’s save the world together,”
“Together,” Iris nodded.
“Together,” Dawn high-fived Ash.