Midnight, January 1, 2008, proved to be one of the darkest nights Japan had ever experienced. All over the country, television sets sat with a blank screen, showing nothing but the miserable reflections of whoever happened to be sitting nearby. Nobody’s lights were on. Nobody’s house made a sound. From the humble town of Pallet to the mighty Pokémon League HQ, pokémon fans of all ages sat in the shadows of their homes, brooding sulkily. While some were quiet, others were vocal, though their complaints were unheard by anyone other than themselves.
“Training will never be the same again,” muttered a seventeen-year-old boy, lying on his couch and watching a feeble attempt at fireworks through the window outside his house. He looked down at the things he was holding; in his left hand was a red cap he’d worn for four years straight during his pokémon training days. In his right hand was a bottle of sake, which he’d attained illegally by having a vagrant buy it for him. He raised the bottle to his lips and took a great drink, stopping only when he had to gasp for breath. As he belched, his companion in the next chair over looked at him with a mixture of disgust and concern.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Tachibana?”
“Blow me. If I die from alcohol poisoning, I’ll be the happiest bastard of this year.” Takeshi glared at the colorful fireworks bursting merrily in the sky just outside his window. “Pfft. Happy New Year, my ass.”
Most households in the active pokémon regions of Japan were more or less the same way. New Bark Town was no exception. While Mr. and Mrs. Nyna halfheartedly celebrated the coming of a new year with two drinks in the kitchen, Hibiki remained alone in his room, reflecting on the events that had ended 2007 so bitterly.
Kenta was gone, reported missing a little under two months back and presumed dead after the Silph Corporation incident. An officer from the New Bark Police Force had stopped by at their house several hours after the event, looking somber and holding his hat in his hands. His mother hadn’t stopped crying for hours after the news, and his father had gone into a daze. Hibiki himself remained hopeful for a while that Kenta would miraculously pull out of this mess as he’d done a few years in the past.
One particular incident of Kenta’s trainer day heroics stood out in his mind. Back when he was sixteen, Kenta had rescued Johto’s legendary god of electric-type pokémon from the nefarious Team Rocket, with the help of friends. During that time, he’d risked being crushed and eaten by the foe’s Steelix on several occasions, and had nearly been electrified to death by the very creature he was trying to save. Somehow, Kenta, Marina, and Juni’chi had all pulled through, but it could have turned out much worse.
Unfortunately, Kenta’s luck hadn’t held out with Silph Corporation. The news revealed that they had indeed been holding blueprints for the Master Ball’s design, and though the government had seized the information and successfully arrested all known perpetrators involved, Kenta hadn’t made it. The criminals had put up a tough fight to keep their precious information, all in vain, but not without consequences. Hibiki had gotten to see Kenta’s coffin at a quiet memorial service, empty, but still symbolically woeful. All that remained of his brother’s memory was his room, and the Munchlax he’d captured in the Sinnoh region and given to Hibiki as a present.
Less importantly, but still devastating to a certain degree, remained the fact that disheartened so many other trainers on this gloomy night. Hibiki checked the clock, 12:08. It had been eight minutes since pokémon trainers all over Japan had lost every pokémon they’d ever captured, save two. Hibiki felt sorry the trainers who’d suffered under G.R.I.P.’s new decrees, but he couldn’t fully pity them. He hadn’t become a pokémon trainer thanks to his mother, so he hadn’t lost anything. He’d even gotten to keep Kenta’s Munchlax, under the condition that his father register as a pokémon trainer and re-adopt the plump little creature under his own name. Munchlax also had to wear an Everstone on his collar at all times, and he’d often tried vainly to eat it. Hibiki had grown closer to the pudgy little pokémon over the last month, because Munchlax was still originally Kenta’s pokémon after all.
One month passed, then two, and then three- and slowly the weather outside Hibiki's window turned from slush to rain. Yet still he spent long periods of time in his room in a depressed slump. To cheer him up, Kenta's old companions, Marina and Juni’chi, called the house sometimes, but Hibiki wanted nothing to do with them. Marina always sounded close to tears over the phone when Hibiki talked to her, and he suspected that she’d had a major crush on Kenta back during the good ol’ days. She was depressing to listen to. Juni’chi, on the other hand, frightened him somewhat. Although they looked nothing alike, Juni’chi seemed to almost consider Hibiki a smaller version of Kenta, and treated him as such. He’d ask Hibiki about Kenta’s team, and compare it to his own, then offer to battle Hibiki when they were both old enough. At that time, Hibiki would use Kenta’s pokémon, and the match would be two-on-two, and blah, blah, blah . . . the guy was just plain ignorant. Hibiki couldn’t hate him though, because in spite of his strange requests, Hibiki got the feeling that this was Juni’chi’s way of coping with Kenta’s absence.
Something clicked to Hibiki’s left, but when he glanced over to the other side of the room, all that he saw was the blackness of night outside through a raindrop-dotted window. He shifted his weight on the bed to a more comfortable position, so that he was fully facing the window, and stared dully as his own image reflected partially in the glare of his room’s lamplight.
My reflection. Lookin' good . . . yeah, right.
At that moment, Hibiki’s reflection in the window vibrated wildly, and his walls came to life with a humming din. He sat up straight in bed, immediately awake and heart hammering, and his reflection also shifted to reveal something large and blue moving outside of his window. Out of the blackness, a human fist suddenly appeared and knocked thrice on the window. “Hibiki!” came a muffled voice from outside, veiled by the noise of the vibrating walls and the rattling window. “Hibiki!”
Nothing could have prepared Hibiki for this. He shrieked in terror at the ghastly apparition hovering from just outside his window, and fled the room still shrilling at the top of his lungs. Tearing down the stairs, skipping every other step, Hibiki dove into the kitchen and hid under the table, pulling down the tablecloth to hide himself. Dishes left out on the tabletop came crashing down to the floor and broke all around him, but he could care less at the moment. Shaking from head to toe, he lay curled on the floor, hardly daring to breathe. Looking around the kitchen floor for something to use as a weapon, possibly a long shard of broken glass or a dish fragment, his eyes stopped on a familiar-looking black backside. Munchlax was standing in front of the open refrigerator, frozen in guilt, one paw on the door, and the other holding a plate of leftover cake. Hibiki’s brain clicked.
“Munchlax!”
He grabbed hold of his pokémon’s paw and hauled the bamboozled Munchlax away from the refrigerator and into the living room to where his mother and father had been drinking sake. “Mom! Dad!” he shouted insistently, shaking both of their still, toppled-over forms on the couch. Neither responded, and when Hibiki stood and listened for a moment, he could hear both of them snoring gently. They were out cold from drinking. He was on his own.
With some hesitation, Hibiki made his way slowly towards the stairs again, stopping short when he heard a loud bump issue from his room just overhead. He turned to Munchlax, who was chomping down his stolen cake, and looking very content in spite of the ruckus going on all around him. Hibiki stared at his gluttonous pokémon, almost impressed at its total lack of fear. “You are incredible. How can you be so relaxed at a time like this?”
Munchlax finished the last of the chocolate cake, licked his fingers, and burped in reply to Hibiki’s question. Hibiki sighed. “It’s your nature, I guess. Well, I’m not feeling so calm at the moment, so how about you take the lead? Wait, hang on.” Hibiki dashed to the kitchen, and returned a moment later holding a meat cleaver clasped in both hands. He and Munchlax inched up the stairs quietly, and Hibiki leaned close to his companion’s ear and cupped his hand. “Okay, here’s the plan,” he whispered, heart still pounding uncontrollably in his chest. “If it’s a ghost, you cast Shadow Ball on it. I’ll go find any of Kenta’s spare pokeballs and try to capture it, so we don’t cause any more damage to the house than we have already.” He narrowed his eyes. “On the other hand . . . if it’s a burglar, we’ll attack together. Let’s show this guy not to underestimate the Nyna name, just because Kenta’s gone. Are you ready?”
They’d reached the top of the stairs. Hibiki summoned up as much courage as he could muster, and peeked around the corner. He nearly fainted in shock. Standing in the hallway, arms crossed and smiling confidently, was a young man with shoulder-length black hair, wearing a brown traveler’s cloak that covered the rest of his body. “A question then, Hibiki,” he said in a soft voice, and Hibiki’s heart gave yet another jolt as he recognized the voice. “What if I’m neither a ghost nor a burglar? Did you have a plan for that?”
Hibiki stared at him. But it was impossible. How could it be? “. . . Kenta?”
“Miss me?” His brother shed the cloak, and Hibiki noticed he was wearing peculiar clothing underneath. Normally, when Kenta wasn’t in his officer uniform, he wore long shorts along with his favorite jacket with the front-pockets. Now, however, he wore a body-hugging, half-sleeved maroon shirt and dark-blue baggy pants with black stripes. In other words, the exact clothing of Brendan Birch, the greatest of the Pokémon League champions. Hibiki wouldn’t have noticed the significance otherwise, but Brendan’s clothing choice had become a recent trend, in spite of the cold weather. After all, he was an idolized trainer to many people aside from just Kenta.
“Kenta, you . . . you . . .” Hibiki couldn’t bring himself to speak. Kenta walked up to him and wrapped his arms around the younger brother tightly. “If you’re not going to give me a hug,” he said with a smile, “I guess I’ll just have be the one to do it.”
Hibiki returned the embrace, finally getting his senses back, and Munchlax joined them, making the squeeze suddenly and uncomfortably tight. The three of them let go, and Kenta stood back and put a finger to his lips. “Mom and Dad aren’t awake, are they?” he whispered. “If they are, I need to hide in your room until they’re asleep.”
“Huh? Well . . .” Hibiki checked briefly down the stairs, but heard nothing going on. “They’re out for a while. Too much sake. Kenta, it’s you!” he shouted in a burst of emotion, finally able to get out what he’d been meaning to. “Where have you been? We thought you were dead! Do you have any idea-”
“Come here.” Kenta stopped Hibiki and motioned him into his room. “Sorry, but you can let it out in a second. I need your sheets first.”
Stunned, Hibiki followed Kenta into his room, then nearly passed out for the second time that night. In the middle of the floor, taking up most of the room, lay an enormous blue dragon with red wings, sopping wet and breathing heavily. Hibiki stood and stared down at it, unable to even move until Kenta threw a corner of his blanket at him. “Here, take that and cover him. We need to get him warm,” said Kenta urgently. “It wasn’t snowing out, thank goodness, but it was still pretty damn cold.”
Hibiki did what he was told, and helped Kenta wrap the blanket around the dragon until only the head was showing. Cautiously steering clear of the reptilian beast’s mouth, Hibiki inched to his bed and hauled himself onto it. Opening his own mouth wide, he closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment on simply breathing to calm himself down. Feeling the weight shift on his bed, he turned and looked up at Kenta, who was seated beside him. His brother looked down at him, his smile back on his face. “Okay, now you can say whatever you wanted to.”
“I . . . well . . .” Hibiki pointed down at the dragon on the floor, which was watching the two of them while Munchlax stood nearby staring at it. “Kenta, what is that?”
“That?” Kenta followed Hibiki’s finger to the dragon’s head. “That’s Bolt, of course!” he said perkily, reaching into the pocket of his brown traveler’s cloak. “He evolved into a Salamence.” Pulling out a reddish-pink cube, Kenta tossed it to Bolt, who caught it in his mouth. Hibiki gaped at the creature in wonder. “That’s Bolt?! But . . . but he looks completely different!”
“I was shocked at first, too,” Kenta laughed. He stopped laughing abruptly as Munchlax stood before him and held out a demanding paw. “Oh. Hi.” Kenta held up his hands and shrugged. “Sorry, Munchlax. That was the last one.”
Munchlax looked blown away. A moment later, he clenched his fists and began turning red, a growl rippling up in his throat. Hibiki jerked backwards in fearful realization of what was going on, and turned to Kenta in desperation. “Aaaah! Kenta, watch it, he’s going to use Selfdestruct!”
“Wha-?!” Kenta went rigid, then hurriedly reached into his pocket and yanked out another pink cube. “Here! Here! I lied, look, I’ve got another one!”
Immediately, Munchlax’s enraged expression subsided into glee, and he snatched the block of food from Kenta’s hand and chewed happily on it. The two brothers let out a sigh of relief, and it was Kenta’s turn to gape at Hibiki’s pokémon in astonishment. “He knows Selfdestruct?! When in the hell did he learn to do that?”
Hibiki shook his head. “I dunno. He just did, during one of his temper tantrums. He gets furious if we forget to feed him for prolonged periods of time, or if he’s denied a treat he really wants. You caught a real winner that time, Kenta.”
“Heh.” Kenta smiled and closed his eyes. “Go figure. Well, he’ll have his uses yet.” His expression changed dramatically, and suddenly he was completely serious. Hibiki had never seen him so grim before, and he looked away from Kenta so he wouldn’t have to match him eye-to-eye. “So . . . wh-what’s up, then, bro?”
“Well . . . I can’t stay here long, that’s what’s up.” Kenta got up from the bed and turned to look at Hibiki’s window, which was still open and letting in cold air. “There’s a reason I flew in through your room, rather than just using the front door, Hibiki.” He held up his brown traveler’s cloak, and pointed to the Brendan Birch garb he was wearing. “There’s a reason I'm wearing this white beanie and such, rather than my usual clothing.” Looking warily at the door, Kenta reached into his left pocket and slowly withdrew a purple-colored pokeball with an “M” imprinted on it. “And there’s a reason . . . that I’ve got one of these on me. Do you recognize what this is, Hibiki?”
Hibiki shook his head, looking curiously at the ball. It didn’t appear any different than the other capture balls he’d seen before, at least not in size or shape. For all he knew, it could’ve been a creatively-decorated Great Ball. However, Kenta held the ball with utmost caution, and regarded it with a keen eye. “This is called the Master Ball,” he said quietly. “It holds the absolute power of capturing any pokémon in the world without fail. You could consider it a weapon as strong as the strongest pokémon known to man.”
Kenta’s eyes were intense, and Hibiki could’ve sworn they were almost glowing. He felt afraid once more. Why was Kenta showing him this?
“Bro?” Hibiki swung his legs under the bed nervously, still looking upon the Master Ball. “That’s cool, but . . . how come you have it?”
“Because nobody else other than you knows I have it,” Kenta responded, tucking the elite pokeball back in his pocket. “Otherwise, it would be taken from me.” His smile returned, and he ruffled Hibiki’s hair. “But I know I can trust you. That’s what I’m doing from now on- only going to people I can trust.”
The brothers looked at each other, and a lasting silence ensued. After several long seconds, Kenta suddenly grabbed Hibiki’s shoulders. “Brother,” he said meaningfully, once again matching eyes with him. “I want you to come with me.”
*(As always, if you'd like to hear what this sounds like in audio, the YouTube link's in my sig.)
“Training will never be the same again,” muttered a seventeen-year-old boy, lying on his couch and watching a feeble attempt at fireworks through the window outside his house. He looked down at the things he was holding; in his left hand was a red cap he’d worn for four years straight during his pokémon training days. In his right hand was a bottle of sake, which he’d attained illegally by having a vagrant buy it for him. He raised the bottle to his lips and took a great drink, stopping only when he had to gasp for breath. As he belched, his companion in the next chair over looked at him with a mixture of disgust and concern.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Tachibana?”
“Blow me. If I die from alcohol poisoning, I’ll be the happiest bastard of this year.” Takeshi glared at the colorful fireworks bursting merrily in the sky just outside his window. “Pfft. Happy New Year, my ass.”
Most households in the active pokémon regions of Japan were more or less the same way. New Bark Town was no exception. While Mr. and Mrs. Nyna halfheartedly celebrated the coming of a new year with two drinks in the kitchen, Hibiki remained alone in his room, reflecting on the events that had ended 2007 so bitterly.
Kenta was gone, reported missing a little under two months back and presumed dead after the Silph Corporation incident. An officer from the New Bark Police Force had stopped by at their house several hours after the event, looking somber and holding his hat in his hands. His mother hadn’t stopped crying for hours after the news, and his father had gone into a daze. Hibiki himself remained hopeful for a while that Kenta would miraculously pull out of this mess as he’d done a few years in the past.
One particular incident of Kenta’s trainer day heroics stood out in his mind. Back when he was sixteen, Kenta had rescued Johto’s legendary god of electric-type pokémon from the nefarious Team Rocket, with the help of friends. During that time, he’d risked being crushed and eaten by the foe’s Steelix on several occasions, and had nearly been electrified to death by the very creature he was trying to save. Somehow, Kenta, Marina, and Juni’chi had all pulled through, but it could have turned out much worse.
Unfortunately, Kenta’s luck hadn’t held out with Silph Corporation. The news revealed that they had indeed been holding blueprints for the Master Ball’s design, and though the government had seized the information and successfully arrested all known perpetrators involved, Kenta hadn’t made it. The criminals had put up a tough fight to keep their precious information, all in vain, but not without consequences. Hibiki had gotten to see Kenta’s coffin at a quiet memorial service, empty, but still symbolically woeful. All that remained of his brother’s memory was his room, and the Munchlax he’d captured in the Sinnoh region and given to Hibiki as a present.
Less importantly, but still devastating to a certain degree, remained the fact that disheartened so many other trainers on this gloomy night. Hibiki checked the clock, 12:08. It had been eight minutes since pokémon trainers all over Japan had lost every pokémon they’d ever captured, save two. Hibiki felt sorry the trainers who’d suffered under G.R.I.P.’s new decrees, but he couldn’t fully pity them. He hadn’t become a pokémon trainer thanks to his mother, so he hadn’t lost anything. He’d even gotten to keep Kenta’s Munchlax, under the condition that his father register as a pokémon trainer and re-adopt the plump little creature under his own name. Munchlax also had to wear an Everstone on his collar at all times, and he’d often tried vainly to eat it. Hibiki had grown closer to the pudgy little pokémon over the last month, because Munchlax was still originally Kenta’s pokémon after all.
One month passed, then two, and then three- and slowly the weather outside Hibiki's window turned from slush to rain. Yet still he spent long periods of time in his room in a depressed slump. To cheer him up, Kenta's old companions, Marina and Juni’chi, called the house sometimes, but Hibiki wanted nothing to do with them. Marina always sounded close to tears over the phone when Hibiki talked to her, and he suspected that she’d had a major crush on Kenta back during the good ol’ days. She was depressing to listen to. Juni’chi, on the other hand, frightened him somewhat. Although they looked nothing alike, Juni’chi seemed to almost consider Hibiki a smaller version of Kenta, and treated him as such. He’d ask Hibiki about Kenta’s team, and compare it to his own, then offer to battle Hibiki when they were both old enough. At that time, Hibiki would use Kenta’s pokémon, and the match would be two-on-two, and blah, blah, blah . . . the guy was just plain ignorant. Hibiki couldn’t hate him though, because in spite of his strange requests, Hibiki got the feeling that this was Juni’chi’s way of coping with Kenta’s absence.
Something clicked to Hibiki’s left, but when he glanced over to the other side of the room, all that he saw was the blackness of night outside through a raindrop-dotted window. He shifted his weight on the bed to a more comfortable position, so that he was fully facing the window, and stared dully as his own image reflected partially in the glare of his room’s lamplight.
My reflection. Lookin' good . . . yeah, right.
At that moment, Hibiki’s reflection in the window vibrated wildly, and his walls came to life with a humming din. He sat up straight in bed, immediately awake and heart hammering, and his reflection also shifted to reveal something large and blue moving outside of his window. Out of the blackness, a human fist suddenly appeared and knocked thrice on the window. “Hibiki!” came a muffled voice from outside, veiled by the noise of the vibrating walls and the rattling window. “Hibiki!”
Nothing could have prepared Hibiki for this. He shrieked in terror at the ghastly apparition hovering from just outside his window, and fled the room still shrilling at the top of his lungs. Tearing down the stairs, skipping every other step, Hibiki dove into the kitchen and hid under the table, pulling down the tablecloth to hide himself. Dishes left out on the tabletop came crashing down to the floor and broke all around him, but he could care less at the moment. Shaking from head to toe, he lay curled on the floor, hardly daring to breathe. Looking around the kitchen floor for something to use as a weapon, possibly a long shard of broken glass or a dish fragment, his eyes stopped on a familiar-looking black backside. Munchlax was standing in front of the open refrigerator, frozen in guilt, one paw on the door, and the other holding a plate of leftover cake. Hibiki’s brain clicked.
“Munchlax!”
He grabbed hold of his pokémon’s paw and hauled the bamboozled Munchlax away from the refrigerator and into the living room to where his mother and father had been drinking sake. “Mom! Dad!” he shouted insistently, shaking both of their still, toppled-over forms on the couch. Neither responded, and when Hibiki stood and listened for a moment, he could hear both of them snoring gently. They were out cold from drinking. He was on his own.
With some hesitation, Hibiki made his way slowly towards the stairs again, stopping short when he heard a loud bump issue from his room just overhead. He turned to Munchlax, who was chomping down his stolen cake, and looking very content in spite of the ruckus going on all around him. Hibiki stared at his gluttonous pokémon, almost impressed at its total lack of fear. “You are incredible. How can you be so relaxed at a time like this?”
Munchlax finished the last of the chocolate cake, licked his fingers, and burped in reply to Hibiki’s question. Hibiki sighed. “It’s your nature, I guess. Well, I’m not feeling so calm at the moment, so how about you take the lead? Wait, hang on.” Hibiki dashed to the kitchen, and returned a moment later holding a meat cleaver clasped in both hands. He and Munchlax inched up the stairs quietly, and Hibiki leaned close to his companion’s ear and cupped his hand. “Okay, here’s the plan,” he whispered, heart still pounding uncontrollably in his chest. “If it’s a ghost, you cast Shadow Ball on it. I’ll go find any of Kenta’s spare pokeballs and try to capture it, so we don’t cause any more damage to the house than we have already.” He narrowed his eyes. “On the other hand . . . if it’s a burglar, we’ll attack together. Let’s show this guy not to underestimate the Nyna name, just because Kenta’s gone. Are you ready?”
They’d reached the top of the stairs. Hibiki summoned up as much courage as he could muster, and peeked around the corner. He nearly fainted in shock. Standing in the hallway, arms crossed and smiling confidently, was a young man with shoulder-length black hair, wearing a brown traveler’s cloak that covered the rest of his body. “A question then, Hibiki,” he said in a soft voice, and Hibiki’s heart gave yet another jolt as he recognized the voice. “What if I’m neither a ghost nor a burglar? Did you have a plan for that?”
Hibiki stared at him. But it was impossible. How could it be? “. . . Kenta?”
“Miss me?” His brother shed the cloak, and Hibiki noticed he was wearing peculiar clothing underneath. Normally, when Kenta wasn’t in his officer uniform, he wore long shorts along with his favorite jacket with the front-pockets. Now, however, he wore a body-hugging, half-sleeved maroon shirt and dark-blue baggy pants with black stripes. In other words, the exact clothing of Brendan Birch, the greatest of the Pokémon League champions. Hibiki wouldn’t have noticed the significance otherwise, but Brendan’s clothing choice had become a recent trend, in spite of the cold weather. After all, he was an idolized trainer to many people aside from just Kenta.
“Kenta, you . . . you . . .” Hibiki couldn’t bring himself to speak. Kenta walked up to him and wrapped his arms around the younger brother tightly. “If you’re not going to give me a hug,” he said with a smile, “I guess I’ll just have be the one to do it.”
Hibiki returned the embrace, finally getting his senses back, and Munchlax joined them, making the squeeze suddenly and uncomfortably tight. The three of them let go, and Kenta stood back and put a finger to his lips. “Mom and Dad aren’t awake, are they?” he whispered. “If they are, I need to hide in your room until they’re asleep.”
“Huh? Well . . .” Hibiki checked briefly down the stairs, but heard nothing going on. “They’re out for a while. Too much sake. Kenta, it’s you!” he shouted in a burst of emotion, finally able to get out what he’d been meaning to. “Where have you been? We thought you were dead! Do you have any idea-”
“Come here.” Kenta stopped Hibiki and motioned him into his room. “Sorry, but you can let it out in a second. I need your sheets first.”
Stunned, Hibiki followed Kenta into his room, then nearly passed out for the second time that night. In the middle of the floor, taking up most of the room, lay an enormous blue dragon with red wings, sopping wet and breathing heavily. Hibiki stood and stared down at it, unable to even move until Kenta threw a corner of his blanket at him. “Here, take that and cover him. We need to get him warm,” said Kenta urgently. “It wasn’t snowing out, thank goodness, but it was still pretty damn cold.”
Hibiki did what he was told, and helped Kenta wrap the blanket around the dragon until only the head was showing. Cautiously steering clear of the reptilian beast’s mouth, Hibiki inched to his bed and hauled himself onto it. Opening his own mouth wide, he closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment on simply breathing to calm himself down. Feeling the weight shift on his bed, he turned and looked up at Kenta, who was seated beside him. His brother looked down at him, his smile back on his face. “Okay, now you can say whatever you wanted to.”
“I . . . well . . .” Hibiki pointed down at the dragon on the floor, which was watching the two of them while Munchlax stood nearby staring at it. “Kenta, what is that?”
“That?” Kenta followed Hibiki’s finger to the dragon’s head. “That’s Bolt, of course!” he said perkily, reaching into the pocket of his brown traveler’s cloak. “He evolved into a Salamence.” Pulling out a reddish-pink cube, Kenta tossed it to Bolt, who caught it in his mouth. Hibiki gaped at the creature in wonder. “That’s Bolt?! But . . . but he looks completely different!”
“I was shocked at first, too,” Kenta laughed. He stopped laughing abruptly as Munchlax stood before him and held out a demanding paw. “Oh. Hi.” Kenta held up his hands and shrugged. “Sorry, Munchlax. That was the last one.”
Munchlax looked blown away. A moment later, he clenched his fists and began turning red, a growl rippling up in his throat. Hibiki jerked backwards in fearful realization of what was going on, and turned to Kenta in desperation. “Aaaah! Kenta, watch it, he’s going to use Selfdestruct!”
“Wha-?!” Kenta went rigid, then hurriedly reached into his pocket and yanked out another pink cube. “Here! Here! I lied, look, I’ve got another one!”
Immediately, Munchlax’s enraged expression subsided into glee, and he snatched the block of food from Kenta’s hand and chewed happily on it. The two brothers let out a sigh of relief, and it was Kenta’s turn to gape at Hibiki’s pokémon in astonishment. “He knows Selfdestruct?! When in the hell did he learn to do that?”
Hibiki shook his head. “I dunno. He just did, during one of his temper tantrums. He gets furious if we forget to feed him for prolonged periods of time, or if he’s denied a treat he really wants. You caught a real winner that time, Kenta.”
“Heh.” Kenta smiled and closed his eyes. “Go figure. Well, he’ll have his uses yet.” His expression changed dramatically, and suddenly he was completely serious. Hibiki had never seen him so grim before, and he looked away from Kenta so he wouldn’t have to match him eye-to-eye. “So . . . wh-what’s up, then, bro?”
“Well . . . I can’t stay here long, that’s what’s up.” Kenta got up from the bed and turned to look at Hibiki’s window, which was still open and letting in cold air. “There’s a reason I flew in through your room, rather than just using the front door, Hibiki.” He held up his brown traveler’s cloak, and pointed to the Brendan Birch garb he was wearing. “There’s a reason I'm wearing this white beanie and such, rather than my usual clothing.” Looking warily at the door, Kenta reached into his left pocket and slowly withdrew a purple-colored pokeball with an “M” imprinted on it. “And there’s a reason . . . that I’ve got one of these on me. Do you recognize what this is, Hibiki?”
Hibiki shook his head, looking curiously at the ball. It didn’t appear any different than the other capture balls he’d seen before, at least not in size or shape. For all he knew, it could’ve been a creatively-decorated Great Ball. However, Kenta held the ball with utmost caution, and regarded it with a keen eye. “This is called the Master Ball,” he said quietly. “It holds the absolute power of capturing any pokémon in the world without fail. You could consider it a weapon as strong as the strongest pokémon known to man.”
Kenta’s eyes were intense, and Hibiki could’ve sworn they were almost glowing. He felt afraid once more. Why was Kenta showing him this?
“Bro?” Hibiki swung his legs under the bed nervously, still looking upon the Master Ball. “That’s cool, but . . . how come you have it?”
“Because nobody else other than you knows I have it,” Kenta responded, tucking the elite pokeball back in his pocket. “Otherwise, it would be taken from me.” His smile returned, and he ruffled Hibiki’s hair. “But I know I can trust you. That’s what I’m doing from now on- only going to people I can trust.”
The brothers looked at each other, and a lasting silence ensued. After several long seconds, Kenta suddenly grabbed Hibiki’s shoulders. “Brother,” he said meaningfully, once again matching eyes with him. “I want you to come with me.”
*(As always, if you'd like to hear what this sounds like in audio, the YouTube link's in my sig.)