Chapter 1: The Great Gonzalez
Chapter 2: Strange Books and Stranger Boxes
Chapter 3: New Companions and Old Rivalries
Chapter 4: The First Gym
Chapter 5: In the Mountains...
Chapter 6: Waterside Warfare
Chapter 7: Experiments at the Cape
Chapter 8: Struggle on the SS Anne
Chapter 9: Giovanni
Chapter 10: The Pokemon Tower
Chapter 11: Ghosts and Gyms
Chapter 12: Ninja Ninja
Chapter 13: The Future Champion?
Chapter 14: We Meet Again
Chapter 15: Muscle and Mind
Chapter 16: Mysteries of the Mansion
Chapter 17: Hope Rides Stallone
Chapter 18: The Final Gym
As Jose and I land in Viridian City, there's only one thing that catches my eye. The lights in the Viridian City gym are on. I make a quick stop at the pokemon gym to prepare, then head to the reopened gym. The gym's layout is almost like a maze, but the few trainers standing around weren't even good enough to be a decent warm up. At the end of a maze, I find myself in a large empty room. Against the back wall of the room is a large ornate chair. Sitting on the chair is a middle-aged man. The man brings the glass in his hand up to his lips, taking a long slow drink of dark red wine before finally acknowledging that a trainer has entered his room.
"I see you've earned a couple more badges since the last time we met. Looks like mine's the only one left for you." The man says to me as he sets his wine glass down on a small stool next to his chair.
"Wait, you're the Viridian Gym Leader?" I shout out in disbelief. Suddenly, I remember the words Brock told me several months ago when I faced him in the Pewter gym: "His name's Giovanni. Don't know much about him except that the other trainers have a lot of respect for him, maybe even fear him."
"You sound so surprised." Giovanni laughs as he answers, "I can't say I've been taking my position here too seriously lately. Running Team Rocket kept me quite busy. Unfortunately, most of my members ran off after you made a mess of my plans at Silph Co, so Team Rocket's business is on hold."
"I'm so sorry I made things so inconvenient for you there. I've already beaten you twice, so can you just go ahead and give me my badge?"
"Sorry, but that would take all the fun out of it!" Giovanni pulls three pokeballs out of his pocket, and with a flick of his wrist, sends them flying out to the center of the room. Two Rhyhorns and a Dugtrio emerge from the pokeballs.
"More ground pokemon? You're just trying to make this easy aren't you?" I snidely remark as I call out Gonzalez. "Gonzalez, Razor Leaf!" The Venusaur roars and sprays out an onslaught of leaves toward Giovanni's pokemon. The pokemon quickly fall to Gonzalez's attacks, vanishing back into their pokeballs.
"Looks that monster of yours has gotten far stronger than the first time you've used him against me." Giovanni calmly states as he throws out another pokeball, this one containing his Nidoqueen. Gonzalez shoots out another flurry of leaves, but the Nidoqueen quickly spins around, knocking the leaves away with its large tail. "Nidoqueen, Body Slam." Giovanni tells his pokemon, and the Nidoqueen charges forward, slamming its large body into Gonzalez. The Venusaur counters the attack by shooting out several seeds at its opponent. The seeds immediately sprout, and soon the Nidoqueen is wrapped up by several small vines.
"Now, Gonzalez, attack with more leaves while it can't move!" I shout to my pokemon. Gonzalez blasts the Nidoqueen at point blank rage with more leaves. Unable to move, the Nidoqueen takes the attack at full force, roaring in agony before finally passing out.
"Looks like I'm forced to use my best pokemon already." Giovanni says as he recalls his Nidoqueen, still perfectly calm. "You really do live up to the name Richards." Giovanni throws out his last pokeball. A large purple monster appears, similar to Nidoqueen, but bigger and more ferocious looking. The pokedex identifies it as a Nidoking.
"This match is going to be over soon, Giovanni, and then you're going to tell me what your connection is with my father!" I practically roar at him. "Gonzalez, let's end this in one attack!" Gonzalez hears my command and launches several vines straight up into the air. The vines smash into the ceiling of the gym, breaking a large hole in the gym's roof. The strong mid day sun shines in brightly through the new sunroof. The plant on Gonzalez's back begins to glow brighter and brighter as it takes in the energy from the sun.
"Nidoking, Earthquake!" Giovanni shouts, showing emotion for the first time in the fight. The Nidoking bashes its powerful arms into the ground, and the entire gym begins to shake violently. Sections of the walls begin to collapse, and cracks begin to run along the floor. The quake causes me to stumble, and I kneel down to keep myself from falling over, while Giovanni just stands there as if nothing was happening. Gonzalez carefully adjusts his footing, trying keep the plant on its back in the direct sunlight. "Nidoking, take it down while it's off balance!" Giovanni yells, and his pokemon charges forward at the Venusaur.
"End this fight now, Gonzalez!" I scream out at my companion. Gonzalez opens its mouth, and a massive beam of green light launches out. The light envelops Giovanni's Nidoking, who stops charging forwards as soon as the beam of light makes impact. The light fades, and the Nidoking is still standing, although its body is burned badly. It attempts to take another step towards Gonzalez, but only manages to fall forward onto the cracked floor. Giovanni recalls his pokemon, and sits down in his chair. He takes another drink out of his wine glass, which somehow managed to stay upright during the earthquake.
"Johnathan," Giovanni begins speaking again after putting down the glass, "was a rival of mine back when I was just a trainer. Even as a normal pokemon trainer, I was ruthless, but Johnathan was a monster who looked even more savage than the vicious pokemon he carried around with him. I challenged him once when we were young, and his pokemon tore though mine as if they were nothing. All of my pokemon were killed while Johnathan simply smiled the sort of smile that would make a Tauros turn and run."
Giovanni takes another sip of his wine. "After that day, I didn't see him again until long after I became the leader of this gym. He came to the gym one day, looking for the gym badge, and took out my pokemon just as easily as he did so many years before. It was then I tried to recruit him as the first member of the group I was forming."
"Wait, was my father part of Team Rocket?" I ask the gym leader.
Giovanni lets out a brief sigh, "Sadly he turned me down. It's a shame, with someone as powerful as him, I could have saved Kanto!"
"What the hell do you mean 'save Kanto? Team Rocket was just a bunch of criminals!"
"It's true I often resorted to harsh measures, but I only did what had to be done! The Pokemon League controls everything! The gyms, the pokemon centers, the markets, everything in this region is just a game controlled by the league. I simply wanted to ruin their control over that game, and I was going to do this using my status as a gym leader, and by taking control of the Silph Company, which handles all of the manufacturing and research for the league."
"So it was just an attempt to bring power from the League's hands into yours?"
"You could say that. Your father had no interest in that, however. He was only concerned with finding the strongest pokemon and trainers, only concerned with looking for fights challenging enough to satisfy his lust for battle. I never saw him again after he became the first to receive my gym's badge."
"You had no connections to his death then?"
Giovanni shakes his head. "No. I lost interest in your father after it became apparent that he had no interest in joining me. I didn't even know of his death until it was reported in the newspapers." Giovanni pulls a small green badge out of a pocket on his shirt, and throws it to me. "I'm sure the league knows all about it. Now you can go ask them yourself." The gym leader walks over to the of the holes in the gym's wall made by his Nidoking's earthquake.
"Wait, you're leaving?" I yell out at him.
"There's no way I can face my underlings after losing so badly to a kid. I'm dedicating myself to training until I'm strong enough to challenge the Pokemon League myself." I try to respond, but by the time I can even think of something to say, he's gone. It doesn't matter though, if he really didn't any involvement in my father's death, I don't really care what happens to him. With all eight badges in my hand, my goal is close. Finally I can confront the league. Finally I can find out exactly what happened to my father.
