Chapter 61.2- Oak

That would have only been a problem if it had been a one-on-one battle. Ino was focused on keeping Lance locked, but the difference in power between them meant she could actively multitask. A blast of rainbow-colored light knocked Dragapult off balance, and Igneel showed his presence in this fight with a bang. He flew across the grounds, firing fireball after fireball at the ghost type. Each hit was devastating, and when Igneel got to him, Dragapult looked to be very much on his last legs. Of course, it proved to be a trick, as Igneel passed right through the Dragapult he'd been charging at, with the substitute exploding just as Igneel was in the epicenter of the blast.

My fire dragon flew back out of the explosion, looking a little worse for wear after everything. We searched for the original body, only for it to suddenly appear next to Lance. Once it touched its trainer, Ino's hold was broken, and Lance was free. I expected the dragon master to be pissed. Apoplectic. In search of revenge. But he actually just looked amused. "Well, you gave me exactly what I wanted. I'll give you one chance. Run. Now. Run far and fast with your tail between your legs. The next time I see you will be the day I end you," was all he said, while still smiling brightly and running his eyes over his newly evolved pseudo-legendary.

It stung. It stung every bit of me as I returned my Pokémon to their Poké Balls, starting with Snorlax and ending with Broly, who still seemed unsure about things. I said a mental goodbye to Sabrina, which she quickly amended to a 'see you later.' I loved that girl with all I had. Of course, I heard an eep in my mind as she retreated. I just smiled wryly and turned my attention to Ino. Once she touched me, we disappeared. We traveled several miles with each teleport, but we kept on going. It wasn't until I was sure our teleports could no longer easily be traced that I released Igneel from his Poké Ball. Ino nodded, accepting her orders as I rubbed my friend's scales before climbing on his back.

The league employed a large variety of psychic Pokémon. It would be foolish for me to assume they wouldn't have a way to trace multiple teleports, no matter how quickly we made them. So, Ino's mission was to set a false trail while Igneel took me to our destination. 'Where?' I hear you ask. Home, of course. Not the lab. Not Cinnabar. Not Viridian. No, the only home I'd ever known in this world. The forest that would become the Safari Zone at some point in the future. That was my home in every way that mattered. Every way I cared about. The truth was that the days I'd spent there were the best days of my life. They were peaceful and simple.

XXXXXXX

Two weeks here, and I was nothing but grateful to Lance. That conclusion took a while to achieve, but as I was forced to spend more and more time scavenging, figuring out rations, and generally being around nature, I calmed down and achieved peace with things. I realized that Lance had actually done me a favor. All that time away from this place had eroded me. My decision-making had been skewed and became more and more suspect as time went on. Looking at my past deeds with a neutral eye, I could see how erratic I had truly become over time.

Now, the more time I spent in this place, the better things became. I got to grieve Hashirama and build him a grave next to Quicksilver's. I got to train with my team in an environment they were all extremely comfortable with. That might have actually been the best part: the training. So many ideas for each of my Pokémon that we got the opportunity to leverage. As Igneel aged, his fire began to acquire a new quality. It was explosive. I saw it in videos of older Charizards on my Pokédex. The Pokédex Sabrina had returned to me on her first visit. She was another reason I felt much better. In two weeks, she'd visited four times and was pretty much my only source of information on how things stood. I'd disconnected my Dex from the Pokéweb, so there was no way for me to be tracked with it, and conversely, no way for me to use it to see how things were going in the wider world.

Eating a lunch of trainer rations and feeding all my Pokémon with their specialized meals, with the exception of Snorlax, who was instead just forced to eat a dozen portions of trainer meals. The Snorlax meals were provided by the league, and of course, they'd stopped sending them once I became an official fugitive of the law. According to Sabrina, the news called me troubled, unpredictable, and highly dangerous. I was an S-rank threat, apparently. The same rank Giovanni had held before his conditional pardon. I guess knocking out two of the champion's Pokémon was deemed impressive enough to warrant me being placed on the same level as the league's most dangerous criminals.

When I'd left, I'd filled my head with thoughts of proving my innocence and securing my freedom at some point, but I honestly wondered if I should. What was the point? Sabrina's latest piece of news showed that the Kanto representatives for the tournament had already been chosen: Oak, Giovanni, Sabrina, and Bruno. It was a good lineup. I mean, I gave myself good odds against three-quarters of the team, but the truth of the matter was I was tired. I'd trust my fate to others for the first time ever, and I'd trust them to do what was necessary to keep this region alive. If they didn't, I already had my ticket out. Every day, Ino practiced teleporting to the Seafoam Islands as quickly as possible. If Kanto lost, I'd be out of here as quickly as possible, which brought me to the present argument.

"You don't trust me," she said, and I hurried to reassure her that I did, placing her hands in mine and giving her a glimpse into my thoughts. There was no human in the world I trusted as much as Sabrina. There was no human in whom I had as much faith in seeing it through, but even that did not appear to be enough for her.

"Come with me, Sabrina," I finally offered, realizing that she wasn't fully convinced by my words. "Come with me. Let's skive off. Leave the league and the people to their own devices. Just us and our Pokémon. A long peaceful life. A life free from everything. Freedom at last, Sabrina," I said in a whisper as our foreheads touched.

"That is no freedom, Donnell Oak. That is cowardice," she said, and her tone sent me reeling. It was cold, lacking the warmth I'd become accustomed to over the months we'd been together. She took a step back and pulled her hands out of mine.

"You would leave the world to burn. You would let Kanto burn," she accused, and I nodded. I'd never lie to her. That was one promise I would keep.

"I would. All I care about is in this clearing with me."

"No. No, Donnell. You truly do not care for the people of Kanto? Viridian? Cinnabar?" She searched my eyes and seemed to find whatever she was looking for as she took another step backward and just disappeared. Fuck. Did I just get dumped?

I turned to the team in exasperation and found them pointedly focusing on their tasks, acting like they hadn't been listening in. I just scowled and turned to the tree I'd been doing pull-ups on before she arrived. Physical exercise was a godsend for distracting me from all the things I'd honestly rather not be thinking about. 

XXXXXX

A week since she left, and Sabrina still hadn't returned. I focused my attention on my Pokémon instead of wallowing in guilt and anger at how things ended. Igneel did me proud as he flew through the air, leaving a shockwave in his wake as he moved. I looked at the flames floating at his back, right behind his wings. It's an idea I got from Endeavour in the My Hero Academia anime. The fire hero could fly by turning his flames into jetpacks. With the developing explosive quality of his flames, Igneel could do the same, allowing him to move at speeds beyond what even Quicksilver would have been capable of. The only thing holding the move back was control. Igneel could not react to his surroundings at that speed and got tunnel vision worse than anything I'd ever seen. When I tried to share his senses to understand what he was going through, I found myself on the floor retching in short order. Now, I had him work with Ino when she wasn't practicing her endurance and finer control to learn some psychic abilities. Psychic Pokémon were masters at understanding their surroundings. If I could get him to develop even the vaguest of psychic powers, I'd be golden. It was coming slowly, though.

I turned to where Broly was training, and I smiled. He was doing two things at once: training his terrakinesis while going through his martial arts forms. Gai was a fighting-type Pokémon, and that somehow made him well-suited to working with Broly to build a fighting style that took maximum advantage of his speed and control over the very ground. The fact that I'd been able to show the fighting type the memories I had of several different fighting styles, both fictional and real, from my old life was probably a contributing factor.

Speaking of Gai, the fighting-type Pokémon was working on his endurance. He was practicing holding on to several of the "gates" (the name we'd come up with to describe his combination of enhancement moves at the same time). He held the combination of moves for as long as he could every day while engaging in shadow fighting with himself to get used to his improved speed and power. It was impressive how he consistently got better day after day. In his recharge times, he moved between Broly and Tsunade.

Tsunade was off on her own. As a pure fairy type, she was the best weapon I'd ever have against Lance and his team of monsters. I'd kept her away from battling for so long, but situations and her own desire had her training now. Multiple fairy type moves flowed from her in quick succession. Our goal was to reverse engineer all the fairy type moves I could remember from all the Pokémon games I could remember. So far, we were making good progress. Like the rest of the team, she was a prodigy at whatever she put her mind to.

Kenpachi's own goal was much simpler. He spent his days in meditation, trying to get in touch with the dark typing his evolution had gifted him. When I was done with my own exercise, I would join him. We bounced off each other when we meditated together and made leaps more progress than we ever could when we worked alone. Kisame was an entirely different beast. No training was as active as hers. Water had fallen under her command months ago. Now, we sought to do the same thing with ice. She commanded blizzard after blizzard to get used to controlling the element, and as Igneel crashed into the foliage and set a few trees alight, she rushed to perform her secondary duty while training: keeping track of the irritable fire dragon. She was the only one I trusted to put him down when he was being testy, without causing any unnecessary damage.

A/N: New half of the chapter. Will be complete by Wednesday, I think.