The dawn crept into my room, with warm orange light peeking through the blinds. The beams settled onto my face, slowly stirring me from restless sleep. I had been dreaming of a situation far away from the Indigo Plateau; my subconscious had taken me back to the grass plains east of Vermillion City, into a party with my old friends. The dream had been highly sexual, and unusual, as only deep-sleep dreams could be.
I dwelled on the memory of his dream, while firmly rubbing my crotch, enjoying the pressure on my morning wood as I shook off the remnants of slumber. I gave my rigid member a quick squeeze, and my thoughts reluctantly drifted over to the reason why I was here, sleeping in the trainer's village; the Indigo League Championships.
This morning signalled the start of the qualifying rounds, to get to the main draw, and the excitement swelled in my chest as I began to imagine how my first League match might go.
I had travelled across Kanto in a slow figure-eight over three years, collecting badges and training my team intensively between gyms; my first day training with only Pingu, my starter piplup, seemed like an eternity ago. I exhaled sharply, with a little disbelief rolling through my mind at how fuzzy the memories of my early journey now seemed to be; only a few significant moments had any clarity.
Pushing away those thoughts, I pulled my backpack and utility belt from under the pillow; I had taken to keeping them in there on the road a long time ago. Merely leaving your belongings next to you, did not guarantee you would wake when they moved. I had found this out to my detriment during the first few days of my journey to Fuschia City, when a Team Rocket member slipped into my campsite and snatched my belt, pokeballs all attached; by a stroke of luck, I had left Pingu out of her ball, and she had saved me from the embarrassing situation of having our team stolen.
I laid the belt and backpack on the bed, and opened the clothes drawer. I picked out my lucky battle shirt; a white sports shirt, overlaid with a viridian-coloured hoop, carrying the Viridian Fearows football team logo over the heart, and paired it with soft polyester pants, shimmering black shorts that rested just above the knee. I snapped the utility belt on, swung the backpack over my right shoulder, grabbed my John Deere trucker hat, and strode into the bathroom.
While turning on the tap, I quickly splashed my face with tepid water, to erase the last of the Victory Road dirt from my jawline and neck. Something about the dust that was kicked up from the battles with gravelers in the tunnel, made it stick like glue to the skin; I suspected it was the sweat from the rotund tanks that caused it.
After pulling on white ankle socks, my favourite now-off-white volley shoes, and patting my pockets to ensure my room key and phone nestled safely in my shorts, I headed to the lifts. As I walked through the hallway, I began to formulate my plan for the morning; there was a lot of potential preparation time until I was due at Indigo Stadium 3 for the first match at 11am tomorrow.
I decided to fly to the foot of Mount Silver for the day, where I could find some wild ponyta, ursaring, tangela and rapidash to spar with. The small Pokemon centre was there in case something went wrong, and to quickly refresh my team before heading back to the Plateau. The combination of wild Pokemon would test my team's attack, defence, and speed, while blowing out some cobwebs.
Only three pokemon could be used in qualifying; I had already decided to keep Pingu in secret for the main draw, should I make it. No way did I want the big challengers in the main draw to work out how powerful my empoleon's offense was; her special attack and defence ability, moveset, high level, and resistance to the dragons that normally made up the bulk of teams that the strongest trainers possessed, made her a potent secret weapon.
I summoned my pidgeot, Streak. He shot out of his pokeball into midair, immediately taking flight with a powerful flap of his strong wings. Streak's crest flowed in a gorgeous wave from the top of his head, as he crowed, and circled back to me.
"Hey buddy!" I exclaimed, grabbing him around the shoulders and pulling him to my chest as he landed in front of me. "Remember where Mount Silver is?"
I let him go, and he chirped in the affirmative.
Out came the flying harness from my backpack; I quickly looped it over Streak's head and breast, removing the need to grab his feathers for any grip. Once it was secure, I jumped up, onto his shoulders, and put my legs flat on his back, face down. I held the harness tightly, opened up my knees, and pressed them gently into his sides for lateral stability.
Streak crouched a little, as he raised his wings up to the sky. With a push and a strong flap, he launched the two of us into the air, quickly escaping the line of multi-storey buildings in the village and heading towards the silver peak, stretching up above the darker, flatter mountains surrounding it.
The pidgeot leisurely flew through the crisp morning atmosphere, his crest flowing like a gorgeous wave behind us; the odd ray of sun glistened off his incredibly hard, sharp, golden beak. He cawed with delight, taking me on a rollercoaster ride as he caught the various updrafts and gusty winds that prevailed above the bluish, mountainous plateau beneath us.
As we glided around a low rocky peak, the foot of Mount Silver unfurled into view. Dry grassland, sparse bushes and rocky ledges supported a small square building in its bosom; a red roof with a pokeball-derived symbol stood proudly upon its top. Spotting the pokemon centre, Streak decided to dive down in a parabolic landing pattern. The wind began to whistle past my ears, as our velocity quickly increased.
Despite the breakneck speed he was travelling at, a mere handful of metres from the ledge that the centre rested on, Streak spread out his wings in a flash. As the proverbial brakes hammered on, my body pressed firmly against the big bird's back, he managed to land softly outside the front door.
I slid off his rump on to my feet. Reaching around to pat his chest and offer my appreciation, the next act was to unclip the harness, fold it up, and pop it in the top of my bag. For a second, I deliberated whether to heal up Streak or not; my mind wrestling with the idea of keeping my third ever pokemon on my team for the qualifying rounds.
Reasoning that I already had a fighting-type pokemon counter, which would cause me the most issues early on, I decided against it. Grass types when qualifying wouldn't hurt any pokemon in my preliminary idea for the three-person team I was toying with, especially if they were also poison-type. Settling on my decision, I signalled to Streak to follow me into the centre, so he could get some food to eat for breakfast.
The shiny glass doors opened with a swish, as I briskly walked into the building. One of the two nurses that manned the outpost was standing at the solid granite counter, which fell just short of spanning the width of the front area. Her dyed pink hair was curled up in a pipe-like fringe, upon which rested her white hat. At the back, her hair made two loose loops; these drew the eyes back to her slender neck, and her pointed, delicate facial features. She had big blue eyes, which were too bright to be real; many nurses across every region had to wear contacts to 'fit the image'. Her fair, smooth skin, rounded, high cheekbones and soft jawline made her out to be a gentle healer, with a friendly, caring personality.
She glanced up as Streak and I stepped inside the entry. With a quick smile, the nurse finished off writing in her folder which was laid open on the counter, shut it with a snap, and looked up again to properly greet the two of us.
"Hello, and welcome to the Mount Silver Pokemon Centre!" she warmly greeted us with, smiling brightly. "Would you like to heal your Pokemon?"
"No thank you," I replied, "I'm after some food for my Pokemon. Pidgeot seed, canine biscuits, and drowzee pellets, if you have some of those."
The nurse nodded. "We should have all of those here, sir. I'll have our Chansey bring them out for you."
Joy turned to her computer, sitting on a desk behind the slab of granite that was standing between the woman and I. She typed furiously for about ten seconds, then looked back to me and smiled once again.
"Take a seat, and Chansey will bring them out for you," she beamed, nodding towards the tables behind me.
I wandered over to the table on my left, Streak carefully skittering across the floor behind me. I grabbed two pokeballs from my belt as I walked, one in each hand; using an overhand grip, my middle fingers clicked the release buttons on the front of each ball. The pokeballs flicked open, and two red beams began to reassemble the matter contained in the ball into two medium-sized creatures; a shining dog, blue-haired with a gold, spiky mane and gold tufts down her body, and a bipedal half-tapir, half-human pokemon, resplendent in yellow fur with a shaggy mane, and a pendulum tucked into his palm.
The dog-like pokemon was my manectric, BoltThrower. She could dart around and shock opponents to pieces before they knew it; she was my sweeper, and she could hurt psychic-types with a powerful bite attack before they knew what was happening. For other opponents; one charge, and she'd fry the best of the best.
The other one was Tappy, my hypno; he was the first Pokemon I'd ever caught. He'd won us our first gym badge in Vermillion Gym, and he was the frustrater in my team. Tappy put opponents to sleep, stopped them using their best attacks, and messed up their minds for good measure. A few months ago, he made a wannabe champion cry by making his alakazam look stupid; he hypnotised it, then ate its dreams until its trainer couldn't handle the screams of anguish any longer. Combined with his defensive stamina against special attacks, no-one suspected how good his hypno really was.
"Guess what, guys?" I asked them, while swinging around to plant my bum on the chair. "Breakfast is coming for you three, compliments of Mount Silver Pokemon Centre!"
BoltThrower gave a little yelp at the good news, while Tappy let a little grin spread across his face. He jumped up on to the chair opposite me; my manectric ran some circles around Streak, jumping up and down with excitement at seeing the big pidgeot.
While Tappy began swinging his pendulum around above his head in a absent-minded fashion, I caught sight of the chansey that was to serve us, rolling a cart out from the back of the pokemon centre. Three dishes were filled up, wobbling around as the plump pink assistant walked the food to the table; some water bowls sloshed around on the lower tray.
The chansey pulled up beside me, bowed, and smiled at Tappy and I. Having completed its task, it turned on its heel and waddled back to the rear of the building, leaving the cart with the food next to our table.
Streak and BoltThrower eagerly raced up to the cart, skidding to a stop. I grabbed their bowls of food, and placed them in front of each pokemon; once all three had begun eating, I put the water bowls beside each of them. As my hungry team slurped, crunched and pecked their way through breakfast, I studied my area guide for Mount Silver; I wanted to ensure there were no wild surprises I hadn't planned for, waiting on the slopes.
"Streak, Fly!"
The big pidgeot shot upwards, climbing sharply with powerful flaps of his wings. The wild tangela peered painfully into the sun, trying to follow their opponent's flight path; the blinding rays made it impossible.
After a couple of seconds, Streak became a small silhouette against the turquoise air, momentarily slipping outside the bright disc hiding his location. Seeming to pause and stall mid-flight, he began the second, downward arc of his parabolic flight towards the waiting tangled mass of vines.
A golden puff of dust shot out from the green pokemon on the ground, enveloping the tangela with an airborne paralysing shield. Another blast of air shot upwards towards the rapidly closing Streak, in a last-ditch attempt to stop his unbelievably fast attack.
"Dodge spores, then Return!" I screamed, hoping Streak would hear in time.
Upon hearing my rushed instructions, Streak started a barrel-roll, avoiding the spout of spores. In a second, a loud thud echoed around the valley, as Streak's breast crashed across the front and side of the wild tangela, sending it skidding across the grassy meadow.
I waited and watched; the tangela rested on its back, legs slowly moving as it mustered the strength to rise.
"Streak, U-turn!" I cried.
The pidgeot sprang forward from the spot he had landed upon, and strained to flap his powerful wings in an effort to rapidly pick up speed. Seeing the tangela slowly roll to its side, Streak veered left, away from me; this brought the wild foe in line with his right side. At the last second, he banked hard right, crashing across the belly of the stricken wild pokemon - a deep slash from Streak's beak ran across the tangela's tentacles, and it spun in the air a full three-quarters of a rotation, slamming to a stop upon landing back on terra firma.
As Streak pulled up from his final attack, I ran over to the unconscious tangela. Pulling out a potion spray, I aimed at the cut and covered it in the regenerative agent. The proud victor slowly strutted over, making sure that no unexpected harm would come to her trainer during the revival.
Once I had blanketed the wild pokemon's injury, I stepped back to my previous battle position. The last thing I wanted now was a surprise faceful of paralysing spores, so close to the Championships. Streak waddled over to stand next to me, watchful of any panic or attacks from the tangela.
After thirty seconds, the tangela began to awaken. Tentacles twitched, eyes opened, and the sentient bush slowly staggered to its feet. Sneaking a look sideways at Streak while coming to its senses, the wild pokemon staggered away from us; it lacked the appetite for a second go. Waiting patiently, my bird and I watched the tangela slowly walk away through the tall mountain grass and sparse bushes.
"Well, all of you have had a good run here today, Streak," I told the pidgeot, and I grabbed a juicy oran berry from my pack. Throwing it up for Streak to catch, he caught it mid-parabola with blinding speed. "Ready to head back up to the plateau?"
"CHEEOOTT!" squawked Streak. I jumped up onto his back, grabbed the harness, and admired the colourful toughness of Mount Silver's rocky faces, as we flew back to the Plateau for a well-earned dinner. Tonight, I decided, I would figure out my attacking strategy for tomorrow's qualifiers.
Oh fuck, that chick could suck.
I closed the front door of my hotel room behind the teal-haired lady as she left. They said that every working lady in Kanto and Johto came to the Championships to satisfy the huge demand for their company and talents; like me, they needed a release for their nervousness and excitement, I surmised when told that. Travelling the region alone training pokemon didn't lend itself to having a real relationship, so a visit from a police officer-turned-courtesan served just as well on the eve of my debut here. No doubt, all kinds of other shenanigans were happening throughout the building; a pumping room party could be heard a few floors above my own, and the people were screaming out to the rest of the Indigo Plateau, telling them how great a place it was.
As I opened the window to get some fresh air in, a glass hurtled past towards the ground below. I stuck my head out, watching the projectile fall the last five floors, and saw it smash to smithereens upon the concrete path that snaked out to the training fields.
I looked up, to see the offender slowly retreat from their balcony's edge. They should hope that wasn't a sign of their future in the contests tomorrow, I thought, as I withdrew back inside, and headed to the fridge to grab a bottle of beer - hopefully, it wasn't a portent of my own future, I thought, but I dismissed that thought as quickly as it came.
With a cold amber ale in hand, I sat down at the small desk along the wall opposite my bed, pushing my discarded pants aside and pulling the coach card over to my working space. Wearing a coaching card on my arm did make me look like a wannabe quarterback for the Vermillion Volts, but it gave me a physical reference to fall back on when things started falling apart. Gym leaders would witness their challengers breaking down and losing their heads day after day, following bad decisions with worse decisions; when something went wrong for me, I would stop, take a breath, and revise my options on the card before sending out my next pokemon. I had won my badges on the first try every time since I had tried out the system, after needing to make four attempts at winning the Marsh Badge from Sabrina in Saffron City.
My pen was resting against the wall, where it had rolled to after I threw my pants on the desk. I picked it up, unclipped the lid, and began to think about my plan for tomorrow morning.
Why did I not have preprinted cards to slide into my arm piece? Because every situation was different, and my pokemon changed as they grew. Writing a fresh set of notes helped keep things up to date, I could read them quickly because they weren't too small, and I liked to write the most important message I'd need if I was in deep trouble, on the card.
BoltThrower and Tappy would be two of the three I used, so I drew three columns down all but two centimetres of the card, and wrote their names at the top of two of them. Under BoltThrower's name, I wrote down the pokemon types she'd go well against, and the ones I needed to avoid. Tappy's received the same treatment.
Whilst taking a swig of beer, I went through the types that I'd written down, and what ones that needed to be covered by number three.
BoltThrower was vulnerable to ground-type attacks, and dealt well with electric, flying and steel-type attacks. She could get hurt by electric attacks, but she could paralyse other pokemon on contact, which was a much more useful ability, since only fools and desperate people battled electric vs electric pokemon; unless of course, they knew they'd overpower them anyway.
Her moves were Charge, Discharge, Bite and Flamethrower. This moveset gave water and flying pokemon nightmares, as well as being good against steel, ice, and bug types. Bite gave her a chance against psychics, ground types and ghosts that I couldn't deal with otherwise, being a physical attack. Dragons and rock types posed a problem, as repeated bites wouldn't take them down in time.
Tappy had good defence against other psychics and fighting pokemon, and his forewarning of the opponent's attacks made for better strategy planning. His vulnerabilities were bug, ghost and dark-type attacks, the last two of which we'd encounter plenty of at league championships level.
His moveset was Hypnosis, Dream Eater, Zen Headbutt and a new attack I'd taught him four days ago, with a brand-new technical machine bought online from the Alola region - Dazzling Gleam. Dark and dragon-types were covered with the new attack, and I could cause fighting and poison-types big problems with the Hypnosis/Dream Eater combination. Insomniacs would still be hurt with Tappy's two other attacks.
Number three would be whoever could fill some of the holes I had. My main problem left to deal with was rock types, highly defensive and able to put stealth rocks down; I decided to go with a fighting type, as an extra counter against steel and dark types.
I had one fighting type strong enough to use here. Bruce was his name, my Hitmonlee that I had won as a prize from the Saffron City Fighting Dojo.
His moveset was Close Combat, Earthquake, Rapid Spin and Work Up. He was in battles for a good time, not a long time, and he did well against hikers who thought boulders were impossible to beat.
I finished jotting down the notes, and moved to the bottom of the card, to write my key fallback note. To find the advice I needed, I went back in my memories, to when I left Vermillion City with a badge and four pokemon in tow.
I'd gone home to say goodbye to my parents, and grab the map I'd left behind when I went to train in Lt. Surge's gym. Mother had been very emotional; she had been a notorious trainer in her time, and had been teaching me everything she knew since I could understand her.
She pulled me in for a hug, as I'd said goodbye and walked toward the heavy pine front door to leave.
"Your entire journey will be amazing, through the good and bad times," she whispered in my ear. "Whatever you do, just remember; some pokemon are just as smart, or are smarter, than us. Catch the ones that are, and teach them to think for themselves. That way, when things aren't in your favour, you can make it work."
My entire training career so far had been based on this principle of pokemon training and battling. While the overwhelming majority of trainers were obsessed with type matchups and maximising their pokemon's strengths in combat, I was making sure I had the strongest, smartest partners alongside me. If I made up a command on the fly, my pokemon would work out how to do it and win the fight. Technical machine makers and gym leaders had a lot to answer for, steering everyone into using simple, inflexible commands that were easy to teach and use, but made a trainer's battle method narrow and predictable.
With that in mind, I wrote on the bottom of the card:
BE CREATIVE, MAKE IT WORK!
A wave of fatigue washed over my body, tingling across my back and down my body. I rubbed my eyes, and picked up the card, rising from the chair to go over to the bed. Crouching down, I pulled my backpack out from underneath my bed, and unzipped the pocket containing my arm band. I reached in, withdrew the band, and slipped my notes into the pocket of the band. As the cover unclipped, I checked that the card was the right way up; after satisfying myself of that, I closed it and pushed it back into the backpack pocket.
I pushed the bag back underneath the bed, and strode back to the desk to grab my beer. It was time for sleep; one more swill emptied the bottle, so I dropped it in the bin in the kitchen, and headed to bed.
I flopped down on the soft mattress, and put my hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, was the first day of the rest of my life. Everything up until now was preparation, and I was ready.
Tomorrow was the beginning of my destiny.
Tomorrow promised victory.
To be continued...