And no, no it wasn't.
You see, this boy on the bed wasn't any normal boy. He was Ash-god-damn-Ketchum! Winner of... um.. oh, yes, the , uh, Battle Frontier and... the Orange League... and... huh... guess he hasn't won much.
Any who, this boy just so happened to be in the hospital because of the spiky-haired squinty-eyed man or, more simply, Brock. I am sure you would all love me to refer to him as the former for your amusement, but I am in favour of my poor typing fingers and will not, apologies.
It all started at Sunyshore city.
Please, put on some flashback harp music, I will give you a few moments to do so.
...
All ready? Fantastic.
If you do not know, the raven-haired boy known to all as Ash Ketchum, has a very.. unique way of training with his Pokémon. As seen in the occurrence at the Pokémon Summer Academy, Ash allowed - and even encouraged at a stretch - his temporary Raichu to use its moves on him, shocking him to hell and back but nevertheless strengthening his Raichu's confidence. Unsurprisingly, he has continued to use this tactic. Such a tactic was used on one occasion months later, after his 'battle' with Volkner - or should I say his 'about-five-minutes-of-battling-and-then-the-power-went-out' with Volkner - at about nine at night.
Ash had returned to his friends disappointed, but at the same time feeling lucky he had another chance to train after feeling a short burst of wrath from the gym leader. Dawn had suggested gently that he do some training behind the Pokémon Centre. Ash had agreed, and while Dawn had apologized that she had to sleep as she was up all last night thinking about the Grand Festival in Valor Lakefront, Brock had offered to help the Pokémon trainer. Now, Brock - being a former gym leader - knew about training like the back of his hand. Figuratively, of course, he didn't spend more than ten seconds staring at his hand unless it was to ponder upon the subject of when he was going to get married, a wish he dreamed about.
"A-hassh!" Brock had called to the boy across the astroturf training field. As the figure in question lifted his capped head, the former began to give him some pointers.
"You see, Ash, although it's very important to strengthen your current team, if your left with no Pokémon with a type advantage, you have to strengthen them too..."
And then Ash began to train Pikachu because he didn't have a type advantage.
And then Ash began to train Pikachu's Iron Tail because it had the opposite of a type advantage.
Now I bet you're thinking at this very moment, 'Hmm.. this story has completely forgotten about the whole tactic thing it chuntered on about some twenty lines ago!' But fear not, dear reader, as I am now coming on to that, hurrah!
Ash was currently using Pikachu's electric moves on himself to test the power. Once he was satisfied, Ash, being the.. uh.. hard thinker he is, had a train of thought that might have gone a bit like this:
Electric moves?
Type disadvantage.
Type disadvantage?
Steel moves.
Steel moves?
Iron tail!
And so, Ash commanded Pikachu to use Iron tail on him, and in the fraction of a second before the Iron Tail socked Ash in the face, Brock managed to let out a dumb 'huh' and widen his forever-closed eyes a little.
"Beep.
Beep.
Beep."
Said the heart rate monitor.
That sounded oddly like a children's nursery rhyme.. hm.