User blog:VikingFyre/A Excerpt

This isn't exactly a direct exerpt just something I wanted to write because I felt the need...

As the great gym doors closed shut, Sakaki let out a long drawn out sigh. He felt heavy, in body, mind, and heart. The defeat at the hands of the boy had done more than wounded Team Rocket: it reminded him of what he left behind for it.

"The boy is strong," came a flat voice from behind, sending Sakaki on his heels and spinning at once to see Victor leaning against the wall with his Alakazam meditating beside him.

"What do you want?" he growled, clenching his fist at the sudden intrusion.

"Funny, I came here to ask you the same," retorted Victor, drawing a cigarette from his lab coat and lighting it with a snap of his fingers. "I must say I haven't seen you so intense in the heat of battle since we were young."

Sakaki spit and slowly approached his former friend, his mind racing with memories of a past he wanted to discard to be free of the pain it carried. His eyes locked onto Victors when he was 5 feet away, his jaw firmly locked in a grimace that spoke more than he cared to. Victor stood casually facing his former comrad, wisps of smoke snaking around his head like ghostly tendrils.

"Why are you here Victor? I thought you said the next time you saw me you'd kill me for what I've done."

Victor stared at Sakaki in silence for several moments, letting more smoke puff from his nostrils, before taking a long drag and exhaling a cloud of harsh tabacco towards Sakaki. "Perhaps thats why I had come. Maybe at long last I've snapped and come to avenge the lives of my friends and the life of that creature you sponsored to be created. Or maybe I came because after all these years I still believe that there is a part of you from back then that still lives on. And after watching that battle with that boy, I now know that to be true."

Sakaki was so tense his body was trembling. His knuckles were shining white and Victor saw a small trickle of blood run out of the corner of his mouth from how hard he was biting down. Victor was certain he would see is once closest friend erupt like a bomb, but was met with shock, when Sakaki fell to his knees and looked up at the ceiling, eyes filled with tears and pain.

"Victor..." he said softly, his voice wavering as he tried to keep composed even as tears ran down his angular face. "He was amazing. I have had loses before, but never had my opponent shown such passion, such fire, such earnest faith in themselves and poke'mon...and to think, all this time the kid that had been a thorn in my organization's side, was in fact the same boy who beat me...the same boy who...who..."

Victor apprached and knelt down in front of his friend who began to sob, holding him close in a brotherly embrace. Malchior watched on as his trainer comforted the man that had once been his brother in arms turned enemy, and marveled at the compassion humans could posses. For several long minutes tears ran from Sakaki's eyes and onto Victor's shoulder, his body trembling still but no longer from tension but instead release.

"You should have known that a day like this would have come you fool," Victor said half jokingly to lessen the somber air in the hall.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams I would ever see him again, to see him grow up and surpass me. Part of me is so enraged that all my years of running from them have been for nothing, yet there is part of me that can't deny how...how..."

"Proud you are?" Victor finished, to which his friend nodded and sat back on the floor.

"My own son, my own flesh and blood." he gave a bittersweet smile and reclined his head back, looking up at the scars on the walls and ceiling his battle had left. "Guess the old bat was right, Vic," he sighed.

Victor sat down and crossed his legs beside Malchior, drawing another long drag from his smoke. "Oh?"

"She said, 'you shall be have your ambitions shattered by the one you failed.' Agatha was right...my organization, my reputation, my will, have all been destroyed by person I failed the most...the son I should have been there for. What kind of man am I? What have I become?"

"What you became was an echo of your own father, and to protect Deliah and your son you abandoned them, hoping to destroy Rocket from within but ultimately becoming the embodiment of it. You lost sight of what mattered when your eyes were covered with dollar signs. And when you became so foolish as to play god and requisition that poor abomination...I had truly thought you were a greater monster than your war mongering father had been. However..." Victor put out the butt of his cigarette on the floor and flung it off to the side. "...what you HAVE become now is a free man."

"What?"

"Ten years, Sakaki Giovanni. Ten years you have been burdened with the shackles of greed, corruption, power, politics...all of these things enslaved you and turned you into a deplorable monster. Broken and defeated time and again by one young trainer, one boy who, until today, was the bane of your existence. But today that same boy came and faced you, not as the head of Rocket, not as the prodigy of former champion Samuel, but as the Gym leader and legendary master of Earth, Giovanni. And in that battle, you saw the boy and man you were in the eyes of your own son, was reminded of who you were, and with the final blow in the heat of combat, vanquished the remains of the criminal bastard you became. You're free now, Sakaki. Free from the pain you sought to turn your back on."

Sakaki gave a long sigh and slumped, his body going limp and eased himself onto his back on the cold hard floor. Tears still trickled from his eyes and his jaw was starting to throb from pain, but despite the ache in his body and heart, he felt lighter than air.

"Where do I go from here Victor? What now? What's next?"

"You alone must decide that old friend."

Sakaki chuckled and managed to smirk. "He really grew up to be a fine lad. My son...Red..."

"Why didn't you tell him if you don't mind my asking?" Malchior telepathically asked.

Another sigh followed by long silence, before Sakaki said solemnly, "Because he is strong. He grew up strong and became a good person. For me to reveal to him that his father is another monster, the worst of the worst as he said to me in Silph Co., I know in my heart that would break him worse than if I had defeated him in battle. His spirit would be crushed, and his heart filled with doubt. I...I could never do that..."

"Sakaki," Victor interrupted after a brief moment of quiet, "The league has sent me to request that you resign as Veridian City gym leader. The recent activities of your organization have garnered enough attention that should this have any kind of connection to the league it would create unrest in the people. Many would believe that Rocket had planned to take over the league or even instigate a new war."

Slowly Sakaki rose up onto his feet and brushed his black slacks off, offered a hand up to Victor and cocked a feigned smile. "I had planned to step down anyway. It's time I start over, time I answered for my actions and deeds...and make amends to those I have wronged. Victor, will you allow me the chance to do this, or will you report me to the authorities and have me taken away?"

Malchior looked up at Victor quizzically, wondering what his oldest friend would say, then back to Sakaki. There was a tension in Victor's brow and his eyes were hidden in the glare on his glasses. It seemed as if both men turned to stone in that silence, before without warning Victor began to walk past his friend with his hands in pocket. As Malchior began to follow, Victor stopped halfway towards the door and half turned his head back.

"What would you do if I let you go, Sakaki?"

Sakaki turned, assuming that defiant and stoic pose he took on since he was a boy, and answered, "What wealth I have left will be given to those I took from. I would like to see Deliah one last time, and...and to find my other son...Silver."

"I do not envy you in this old friend," Victor turned in full, "truly. But it takes a courage most men do not posses to right the wrongs of his past. Just know this," Victor's face then became grim and threatening, "You have made many enemies, some of which you cannot hope to face and walk away from unscathed, and whats worse, there are those that have begun to model themselves in the image of your Team Rocket across the globe. If I discover that you are apart of any that again,"

Sakaki cut him off, "Then you have my permission to take me out in the way you befit appropriate. I wouldn't have it any other way." A silence fell between the two, until Sakaki smiled, "It was good to see you again Victor."

"Likewise Sakaki. Likewise." and with a wave of his hand, teleported away along with Malchior, leaving Sakaki to stand alone for one last time in what was once his gym.

Well kids hope you enjoy it, thats kind of the feel I'm going for in the story. Please comment and tell me what you think!