Fighting Words

Summary: "I'll show you how a real trainer fights," she would hawk to her challengers. He knew it was a slight against him, and he'd endured it for 16 years. Someone's about to eat their words.

"Ah, you're the child that Oak's taken under his wing, aren't you?"

It had been 16 years since he had seen the child prodigy take on the Elite Four. It was the first he'd heard of her bitterness towards him.

He had seen plenty of champions come and go in the years that followed. Every year, it was the same tired line from her mouth to the challenger's ears.

"That old duff was once tough and handsome," she would crow. "But that was decades ago. He's a shadow of his former self…"

It was a baseless comment, he kept saying to himself. If anything, his research was breaking new ground in the Pokémon world—to call him a shadow of himself would be to throw away everything he had discovered in the last 16 years.

He thanked his good fortune that the years had treated him well. For his advanced age, he was still in relatively good physical shape (although his doctors wished he would get out of his lab and move around every once in a while). He kept getting the occasional comment that he looked ten or twenty years younger than he actually was, which was always flattering.

He was willing to admit he gave up the life of a battler, despite the fact that he was a very competent one in his youth. It wasn't that he disliked battling—well, maybe he did, because it was more or less the same every time to him. Throw two Pokémon out, issue a command, attack, watch sparks fly and someone's Pokémon fall over (eventually). It got old to him, felling trainer after trainer just to survive another day…and for what? Research was much more fulfilling. He was sure that, at 83, he would've keeled over much sooner if he had been a battler. It may have kept him in better physical shape than he was currently in, but he preferred the comfort and safety of the laboratory than the unforgiving road to the Championship.

"All he wants to do is fiddle around with his Pokédex! He's wrong! Pokémon are for fighting!"

Begrudgingly, he conceded the point that some of his discoveries led to new battle strategies—but he let Gary figure those out, he was the seasoned combatant.

He began to think of his own battling team, who stayed with him all these years. It had been at least 60 years since they had seen battle, and he thought they were rather content with helping with his research.

Arcanine, Gyarados, Pidgeot, Exeggutor, Dragonite…

All of his Pokémon had served him well faithfully these last 70 years. He thought to those that had lived fulfilling lives, to those who had gone far too soon, to those that remained with him.

Could they do for one last stand, he asked himself, could they take out one of the best one more time?

His hand brushed across a stray black book on his desk. Curious, he picked up the worn, tattered, leather-bound diary and opened to the cover.

September 22, 1940.

Never in my life have I felt more humiliated than I have today.

It was a simple question—how many kinds of Pokémon are there, really? Wouldn't it be simply fascinating to have access to a record of every single Pokémon species in the world?

But I suppose academia isn't for everybody…

Pokémon are not as simple as they appear. They have personalities of their own. They react differently to different people, to different things, to different environments. They have such potential! I am sure that what we know today is only a figment of what could possibly be known. If I live to the year 2000, I am sure that we would know sixty times as much as we know today.

But for it to be dismissed, by someone who expressed interest in the idea at the time…especially someone that close to me—

He shut the book, an anguished look on his face. He couldn't bear to relive the moment she told him…that.

Samuel, darling…I thought you were more sophisticated than that. Don't you see? You can't experience the true potential of Pokémon when you're holed up in a lab.

The last few words started to echo in his head once again. As he leaned back in his desk chair, he rubbed his temples to relieve himself of the ache that began to pulsate from the core of his otherwise-magnificent mind.

…fiddle with his Pokédex! He's wrong! He's wrong! He'swronghe'swronghe'swrong…

Frustrated, he got up and swept everything off his desk, sending everything to the floor in a loud clatter.

I've waited long enough. I will put an end to this nonsense.

He took out his best stationery and put pen to paper, writing furiously into the night.

〜ポケットモンスタス〜

Her wrinkly hands ran gingerly over the parchment envelope she had received that morning. There was no mistaking it was from him.

"So…" she crowed, "what is the old duffer up to this time?"

Her beady eyes scanned the unopened letter, her fingers running over the coarse paper. It was a far cry from the typed, emotionless snail mail correspondence (what little of it he still did) that she had come to expect from him over the last five years.

"Oh, Gengar, could you fetch me my letter opener?" she said as she eased into her armchair. "I think I left it on my desk…"

"Gen gar," the ghost Pokémon chuckled as he phased through the wall clutching the dull blade in his hand.

"Thank you, darling," she said to her first Pokémon. She flicked the envelope open, hearing a slight crack in her wrist as she did so.

"Oh, now there's a sign that I'm getting old if I ever heard one," she muttered to herself, earning a slight snicker from Gengar.

To her surprise, the letter was handwritten.

I'm shocked, she thought, I thought he'd've stuck good stationery like this into his printer, if I know the old duffer at all…

Dear Agatha, the letter read:

I hope this letter finds you in good health and in continued success at the League; I am sure you've had your fair share of good challenges lo these last few years. I have heard many good things about the trainers you have faced recently—I have to hand it to you, I would have retired years ago if I had to deal with the matches you fight so well.

"Oh, how we wish you would," she muttered.

But that is beside the point. I have heard, over the course of the last 16 years, all the remarks about me you tell all your challengers.

I would prefer not to think of myself as a shadow of my glory days. You say all I want to do is "fiddle with my Pokédex." I'll have you know that some of your Pokémon would not have the move sets they do without my research into egg moves, or that pure ghost-types never truly existed—at least until the discovery of Misdreavus.

My Pokémon and I, therefore, challenge you to a battle to be held at Indigo Plateau in the next three weeks. You have insinuated that I am not a "real" trainer—I'll have you know that my Pokémon have remained loyal to me for the last 73 years—so I wish to prove to you that I still have some fighting spirit left in me, even after I left the battling scene quite some time ago.

I eagerly await your response to my challenge.

Yours,

Dr. Samuel Oak

"Ohohohohohohohoho!" Agatha cackled in her armchair. "He thinks he's got a chance! Did you hear that, Gengar, darling? He thinks he's going to win in his first battle in 60 years! Ohohohohohohoho!"

The ghost reappeared next to her armchair and cackled along with his trainer. In his hands were some stationery, an inkwell, and a quill pen.

"Well!" she huffed, "I think we'll have to teach him a lesson once and for all."