Pokémon: Master of the Rain Team

Competitors’ village, lakeside.

”Well, well. The old turtle showed up too?” Professor Oak saw Ash walking over with a familiar old man. As a fellow Pokémon researcher, he recognized Blaine’s wig at a glance.

”Who are you calling an old turtle? Want me to call Agatha over so she can catch up with you, wooden-head?” Blaine’s fake mustache practically bristled. Oak wasn’t the only one who had an old nickname.

”Ahem. I’ve made a new discovery recently. Want to see it?” Professor Oak coughed to cover his embarrassment. Before Blaine could say anything worse, he baited him with research and dragged him away from the campsite with an arm around his shoulders.

Everyone watched the two old men leave, confused about the ”old turtle” and ”wooden-head” thing. Only the older people there, and Reiji, had any idea about the old grudges from their generation.

Before Blaine left, he sent out Arcanine to watch over the sleeping Amber.

Elisia settled Amber on a blanket and quietly asked Pikachu to look after her. With Blaine’s Arcanine beside them too, she felt much more at ease.

Then she noticed Delia rushing around alone to prepare dinner. Even with three helpers, Delia was still swamped, so Elisia got up and went over to help.

”Mom, is dinner ready yet?” Ash did not care what the two old men were talking about. He had spent so long looking for Reiji that he was starving. He could barely wait for the meat on the grill to finish cooking.

”Sit down.” Delia saw Ash reaching for the meat and immediately smacked him on the head. Did this silly boy not know grilled meat was hot?

After getting hit by his mother, Ash obediently went to sit beside Brock. Misty sat across from him. Daisy, sitting next to Misty, kept looking toward Reiji, while Inspector Joy was so bored she had started counting beans on the table.

Reiji noticed Joy right away too. That red hair was impossible to miss. He only glanced once before turning away. It would be bad if she recognized him.

He was about to find a seat when the Cerulean sisters waved at him.

”Handsome, sit here! Sit here!”

”Ahem. No, thank you.” Reiji coughed and turned them down. He really could not handle those three, so he sat beside Brock instead. That was when he noticed Brock had gone completely gray, like a dead man with his soul drained out.

Reiji stared at him, speechless. Who had crushed this little prince of love so badly?

Before Reiji could react, Brock dropped to the ground, hugged his leg, and cried, ”Rai, please tell me. Why are they so warm to you?”

”Uh…” Reiji had no answer. How was he supposed to know why those beauties were acting like that? Trouble wrapped in pretty faces was still trouble. He wasn’t touching it.

”Hey, Brock, why are you hugging his leg?” Ash was too hungry to care about women. He barely had the strength to glance over. Worrying about dinner was much more important.

”He got hit where it hurts,” Misty said. She knew Brock too well. Seeing him like this, she could only roll her eyes.

”Ahem.” Brock jumped back up after Misty exposed him and immediately changed the subject with a serious face. ”Ash, Rai is a really strong Trainer. He’s caught plenty of powerful Pokémon. Didn’t you say you can’t get Charizard to listen? You can ask him. This is a good chance.”

”Oh, right. I was so hungry I almost forgot.” Ash took out Charizard’s Poké Ball, nudged Brock aside with his hip, and looked at Reiji. ”Rai-nii, how did you get so many strong Pokémon to listen to you? Teach me how to handle Charizard.”

”This…” Reiji saw Ash’s eyes shining with tears. Ash had lost the Indigo Plateau Conference because of Zard, so of course he couldn’t just let it go.

Helping Ash was not impossible. It just depended on whether Ash had the nerve for it.

”Please, Rai-nii?” Ash thought Reiji was hesitating because he did not want to help.

That was not it. Reiji was just thinking about how to make Zard listen.

”Well, I do have one way. Want to hear it?”

”Yes!” Ash nodded like crazy. Of course he wanted to hear it.

The table grew quiet. Everyone was listening now, waiting to hear how Reiji planned to deal with a disobedient Charizard.

”Charizard doesn’t listen because you’re too weak.”

”Huh?” Ash collapsed on the spot. So it really was because he was too weak.

Reiji looked around and only then realized half the table had fallen over too. Everyone had been eavesdropping.

”What else? How do I make Charizard listen?” Ash quickly scrambled back up and pressed him for more.

”Use your other Pokémon to beat it until it listens.”

That was Reiji’s method. If a Pokémon refused to listen, beat it until it did. That was how he had handled that dumb fish, and now it was obedient.

”Uh… beat it?” Ash had no idea what to say. He had never thought about beating Charizard into obedience. He had always assumed his Trainer level was too low, though not being strong enough to beat Charizard was probably part of the problem too.

His current Pokémon were Pikachu, Pidgeotto, Butterfree, though it had been released, Bulbasaur, Charizard, Squirtle, Kingler, Primeape, also released, Muk, and Tauros.

With that lineup, what was he supposed to use to beat Charizard? If anything, Charizard would beat him into obedience.

”Pfft. Your strongest Pokémon is Charizard, isn’t it?” Misty imagined Ash trying to subdue Zard, only to get roasted black instead, and couldn’t hold back her laugh.

”Ash, your strongest Pokémon really is Charizard. This method is too hard for you,” Brock said, rubbing his chin. The idea was not wrong, but for Ash, it was difficult.

”You can’t treat Pokémon like that. You should reach them with your heart and let them accept you from the bottom of theirs. That’s how a Trainer should earn a Pokémon’s trust,” Inspector Joy said, unable to stay quiet. As a Joy, she could not accept this kind of method.

Reiji ignored her and turned back to Ash. The less he said around Joy, the better.

”If you can win Charizard over with your heart, that works too. But you’ll need to set something up.”

He leaned closer and whispered the plan to Ash: Zard would get beaten down, then Ash would take care of it afterward and let it understand how much its Trainer cared. Something like that should soften Zard up, depending on whether Ash was willing to go through with it.

Beat Zard physically to make it listen. Use sincerity to win it over. Both sides at once.

”Rai-nii, will that really work?” Ash had been excited at first, but once he heard Charizard would have to take a hard beating, he started to worry.

”What else can you do? Either you beat it yourself and play the bad guy, or I beat it for you and I play the bad guy. The result is the same.” Reiji spread his hands. Ash lowered his voice and started discussing it with Brock.

”Brock, what do you think?” Ash told Brock the plan. It sounded kind of unreliable.

”Do you have another choice? He’s right about one thing. Either you get strong enough to beat Charizard yourself, or someone else does it for you while you play the good guy.”

”All right. I’ll do it.” Ash thought for a while, then clenched his teeth and decided.

He did not want Zard ignoring him again at a critical moment. Especially not after what happened in the Indigo Plateau knockout match. Zard had thrown the match when it mattered most. There was no way Ash wasn’t angry.

If Zard had listened, his ranking might have gone higher. Top eight, maybe even top four.

”Rai-nii, please help me make Charizard listen.”

”I can help, but when you take care of it afterward, you have to mean it. That’s what gives you the best chance of getting through to it.”

”Hey, Ash, are you really doing this?” Misty had been following their discussion the whole time. The whole thing sounded unreliable. The idea of ”retraining” Zard already sounded ridiculous, and Ash had actually bought it.

”Of course. We’ll try first.” Once Ash made up his mind, not even thirty Tauros could drag him back.

”Unbelievable. He just ignored me.” Inspector Joy watched Reiji and Ash keep talking as if she had said nothing, and her fist tightened. Only one other man had ever ignored her like this. Damn it.

”All right, don’t get mad. Don’t waste your energy on men like that,” Daisy quickly comforted her friend. She did not really know Reiji or what he was like, and she had no idea how Joy had interacted with him before.

But from the way he turned down the Cerulean sisters, he was clearly not the type to chase after pretty faces. He was nothing like Brock.

”I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere. He seems familiar.” Joy calmed down a little under Daisy’s comfort, then turned to her friend. Daisy had been acting strange for days now.

”Uh… maybe you’re imagining it?” Daisy knew exactly where that familiar feeling came from, but she couldn’t tell Joy. It was killing her.

”You’re hiding something.” Joy narrowed her eyes at Daisy. The more Daisy dodged her gaze, the more certain Joy became.

”Am I?” Daisy’s eyes drifted everywhere. She couldn’t look Joy in the face at all.

While the two women started quietly suspecting each other, Reiji and Ash began their Zard plan. Ash walked to an open patch of grass and released Charizard. Reiji sent out Poliwhirl.

”Poliwhirl, take it farther away and fight there. Teach Charizard a lesson, then freeze it.”

”Wait, Rai-nii, you’re not going to command Poliwhirl?” Ash saw Reiji only wave and give a quick instruction before letting Poliwhirl fight Charizard on its own. Wasn’t he taking Charizard a little too lightly?

”No need. Poliwhirl can handle it.” Reiji did not care how Zard got beaten. It couldn’t beat Poliwhirl anyway. A simple lesson would do.

But Reiji’s casual attitude looked like an insult to Zard. Charizard snorted two streams of white smoke and started walking toward Reiji. It wanted to fight him directly.

It never got close. Poliwhirl rushed in with Waterfall and hit it with Ice Punch, sending Charizard flying.

”Roar!” Charizard crashed onto the lake and skipped across the surface. Once it steadied itself, it beat its wings over the water and roared at Poliwhirl, accusing it of a sneak attack.

”Poli.” Poliwhirl moved farther from the campsite and beckoned with one hand, openly taunting it.

”Isn’t this going a bit far?” Brock had seen Poliwhirl’s burst of speed. It had even stripped a patch of grass bare where it launched from. It had clearly used the same technique from earlier that day, just much weaker.

If it had used the full-power version from the match, Zard would not have taken that punch. It would have been knocked out immediately.

”It’s fine. Poliwhirl knows what it’s doing. To help Ash with Charizard, I’m not planning to use Poliwhirl tomorrow anyway. It can rest for two days before fighting again.” Reiji waved it off, then opened a bottle and poured Brock a drink.

”Come on, Brock. Have one.”

”This… I don’t know.” Brock glanced around guiltily. He still remembered what happened the last time he got drunk. If he got drunk again in front of all these people, he would never live it down.

”It’s this hot out. What’s wrong with a little cold beer? It barely has any alcohol.” Reiji already had an arm around Brock’s shoulders. Their cups clinked like they were old drinking buddies.

”Dinner is ready! Everyone, come help carry the plates,” Delia called.

Then she saw Reiji and Brock already drinking. She marched over and smacked both of them on the head.

”You’re both underage. Of all the things to learn, you choose drinking?”

”Pfft!” Reiji sprayed out the beer he had just taken a sip of, and it landed right on Inspector Joy. Brock sprayed his onto Misty.

”We’re sorry. Really sorry. I got your clothes dirty.” Reiji apologized quickly, then grabbed a plate of skewers and ran. On the way, he also took a bottle of cold beer.

Brock saw how smoothly Reiji apologized and immediately copied him. He apologized, grabbed meat and beer, and slipped away too.

The two of them moved away from the campsite, started a separate fire by the lake, and prepared to drink there.

As soon as they sat down, Brock looked at him and asked, ”You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

”Sharp as ever, Brock.” Reiji did not deny it. ”I don’t want her paying attention to me. It’d be better if she disliked me.”

He meant Inspector Joy.

A Joy with a Latias was almost certainly precious to the Joy family. She was absolutely part of the main line.

The gap between them was too big. Reiji did not want her getting any unrealistic ideas, and he would not let himself have any either. It was impossible, and he did not want them both to end up hurt because of a mistake that went too far.

At first, he had joked about marrying into the Joy family. But that had only been talk. Nobody should take that seriously.

If he became the son-in-law of the Joy family or the Jenny family, he would be tied down by endless rules. They were major families. Of course they had rules. He could not live like that.

Jokes were jokes. He was not going to trade a fisherman’s lifelong happiness for them. His old partner would never forgive him. That old partner was a fisherman’s true love.

As for marrying for love?

Forget it. Ordinary people might talk about love freely, but marriage still ended up depending on parents. He could name plenty of relationships ruined by families, in both this life and his last.

Children from major families dreaming about complete romantic freedom were just dreaming. After marriage, many of them did whatever they wanted anyway. If you took it seriously, you lost.

”You were the one who saved Joy, weren’t you?” Brock asked it like a question, but he was already sure.

”Yeah.” Reiji admitted it openly. The disguise had been rough. There was no way it could fool Delia or Professor Oak.

”Then this one’s to you. Saving Joy from someone like Vicious is seriously impressive.” Brock had looked up Vicious on Professor Oak’s computer that night. He was one of the stronger Elite Four-level Trainers.

He was nothing like the Team Rocket trio. Vicious had a pseudo-legendary. Brock could barely imagine how Reiji had escaped with someone slowing him down.

”I got lucky with the timing.” Reiji smiled and clinked his cup against Brock’s.

Brock was a decent guy. That was also why Reiji looked down on Team Rocket. Drinking with someone from the orderly side of the Pokémon world was much easier than dealing with the schemes of chaotic villains.

[End of chapter]

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