Chapter 51.05

“So Blackthorne is under attack?” I asked Oak as I walked into the lounge and found him reclining and watching the news story on the television. I mean I’d never expected the petty old man to interfere in an attack on the strongest of the cities. After all, Blackthorne had most strongly opposed his reign as champion and Oak could hold a grudge like no one I’d met before.

We watched as Lance’s Dragonite swept towards the pokemon I recognised as Garchomp with two of his teammates behind him. The Sinnoh champion seemed calm in her trademark black dress-thing as Garchomp casually wrestled with the pseudo-legendary trio. One dragonite wasn’t enough to pin it down and it seemed to be keeping up with three. Even if Lance’s pokemon weren’t using their full power yet, I’d have expected it to be having a more difficult time against the three bulk, muscular pseudos. Lance was no slouch and all his pokemon were champion level so to see three of them fail to put down Cynthia’s ACE put things well in perspective for me. I’d just luxuriated in the fear I put in the Principal and how easily I’d dealt with the poacher, but I could see that any one of Lance’s Dragonite would put my team down like stubborn mongrels. And there was another pokemon taking three of those Dragonites with little difficulty. ‘There’s always a bigger fish indeed’ I hmphed to myself. The thought of the princi[pal reminded me that I’d not spoken to Oak about the attack.

“So how did you know they’d go after Gary? It’s good you found out in time, don’t get me wrong. I’m just curious” I asked him as I accepted a bottle of beer David had grabbed for me on his way to the minifridge. The legal drinking age here seemed to be ‘whenever you fucking felt like’. I guess with creatures strong enough to destroy cities fucking around, there were more important things to focus on than kids getting sloshed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was aware of the Principal’s shifted allegiance from the moment he started to owe the debts he did. I wanted to see who would come after Gary with the right bait, and the fellows you captured will sing all kinds of songs when Alakazam gets to them. After all, a collaboration between the Black Hand and Team Rocket was out of my predicted models so that information on its own is invaluable” He said, paying more attention to Garchomp than he did me. I could already see his eyes tracking it across the 80-inch screen searching for weaknesses and tells.

I wish I could say I was surprised that Oak would use his own Grandson as bait, but nothing the old man did could ever surprise me again. The saddest part was that even with this, he was proving a better parent than my sister and her husband who had dumped the boy on Oak’s shoulders and gone off gallivanting to Hoenn.

A/N; Snippet of 51. Can’t believe we’re already 50 chapters in. Don’t worry, things will probably round up in the next twenty or so chapters. Not sure how long I’ll be spending on the last arc to be honest.