The guy, looking at the two girls suspiciously, nodded, turned around and started to walk and to Cassie's shock, Lyn actually started to follow him. Cassie hurried after her and grabbed her by her arm. "What the hell are you doing?" she hissed in her sister's ear, trying to not be loud enough for him to hear them. "I don't want to battle right now."
And I'm getting sick of you volunteering me for things without asking me.
Lyn looked at her blandly, decidedly unimpressed. "We want to improve, don't we? What better way than to fight with as many different people as possible. You won't always find willing idiots like this one and it's not like the people here are completely without skill, so it should be a challenging fight. No one wants to lose but better against a no-name moron in a place where it doesn't matter than an important match later on."
"Did you plan this? Talk trash about this stupid school and hope it would provoke someone here into a fight?"
A slight smile appeared on Lyn's lips. "Nothing that nefarious but once he started crying and complaining, it seemed to just make sense to make use of his idiocy."
Cassie swallowed her reply and just let out a loud sigh. "Man, you're not making this easy. I bet you Amy would've been a lot easier to handle."
"I'd hope so, she's only six."
He was leading them to another court outside, on the other side of the building. The difference was clear, as this field had ample lighting, with countless headlights shining on the fields from the walls of the buildings. There were also more people using them as almost all of the fields were occupied. Most people were wearing uniforms or gym clothes with the logo of the Tech institute branded on its back, but some were not. Probably people like them, just visiting for a short time.
The guy went to an open field, talked to one older woman with long red hair, wearing gym suit. She had a whistle around her neck and clipboard in her hands.
"Jim here tells me you want to battle," she greeted them, her eyes narrowing a bit. He probably also told them why this battle was happening, and Cassie couldn't imagine her liking some jerks talking shit about her workplace.
"Yeah, why not," Cassie said, shrugging. "I mean, I want to sleep and all, but how long could this take?"
The guy, Jim, glared at her for this but the woman just raised an eyebrow. "How many pokemon?" she asked.
"6 vs 6!" Jim demanded, and only now did Cassie see that he did have six pokeballs attached to his belt. All of them normal pokeballs, luckily. She'd have felt pretty stupid if he'd also pulled out a magmar out of his ass.
"Relax, man. I only got four. And even that's probably too much for a quick match. How about two on two?"
"No, four on four then. We're going to do this right, without you being able to squirm away saying that you didn't use your best pokemon!"
"Well, doesn't really matter. Fine then. Let's have some fun." Then she got an idea. She had wanted to stream something, and this place should have good internet. "Hey, mind if I stream this?" At this, he perked up, a satisfied smile growing on his face.
"A chance to humiliate you in front of your pathetic fans? Feel free. But no cutting or editing to make yourself look better. Live or nothing. No recording it and then altering it later to cover up your loss."
Cassie felt more than a bit insulted at that. "Not really my style, so don't worry. I did say I wanted to stream, not record. Give me a second." She booted up her pokecom, connected to the wi-fi and took her channel online. She quickly typed in a short notification.
Surprise live-stream of my first pokemon fight on the road to the SYT (surprise!). Enjoy because the guy I'm about to stomp probably won't.
Then, she handed the pokecom to her sister, who was looking at her with an expression that Cassie couldn't quite decipher. "Make sure you capture everything, alright? Don't worry about capturing my good side, they're all excellent." Her sister nodded, amused and Cassie, satisfied, went back.
They took their places at the opposing ends of the battlefield. It was just a plain earth field, nothing special about it. So, it suited her just fine for now.
"Have you both have picked your pokemon?" the referee asked.
"Yeah."
"Yes, Ms Grimm."
With that, both hurled their first pokeballs, releasing their pokemon. On Cassie's side, the red pokepower revealed a koffing, a floating, purple sphere with countless craters all over its round body. Its wide mouth was open and grinning, its eyes focused on the enemy which revealed itself to be a phanpy. It was small, blue and had had large ears that flapped on both sides of its head. It had a trunk that had a red stripe on its bridge, the same red stripe that was also on each ear twice. It walked on all four legs and had a very short tail.
Never seen one of those before.
"Don't worry, girl," she yelled to her pokemon, "Stay calm and take that scrub out. Usual start." Her pokemon obeyed, immediately exhaling a generous amount of a disgusting brown cloud of poison that rushed towards phanpy. The small creature dashed to the side, narrowly avoiding the worst of it but its smell sensitive large trunk was a detriment in this case. It recoiled and winced. Koffings didn't smell very nice from the start and the poison gas didn't improve things.
"Penny, wait for the right moment and then use that!" he yelled. "Until then, keep your distance."
Cassie wasn't an expert on phanpys but she didn't remember them having all that many long-range attacks. It was bad luck on his part, poison pokemon were a bit of a bitch for close combat pokemon to deal with. Come close and definitely get poisoned. Stay at range, be at the mercy of the poisonous long-range attacks with less accuracy but give up any chance of striking back.
"Use sludge, Diva!" Diva hummed in agreement and proceeded to vomit sticky, purple muck in form of a pressured stream with a surprising reach. It was disgusting and toxic and wickedly effective. Cassie loved it.
"Dodge!" Phanpy was already jumping before the order had been issued. Nothing would ever want to be hit by that attack.
The second Diva's attack stopped, the phanpy sprang into action. It curled up into a ball and started rolling at great speed towards the koffing. The rollout move, Cassie knew, was one of the better physical attacks. The speed and spin of the pokemon using it made being hit by it no small matter. That said, it was stronger the bigger and heavier the pokemon using it was and phanpy was thankfully small and relatively light. Still heavier than Diva but not tremendously so.
The spin also provided a degree of protection from some attacks.
Not without its downsides, though.
"Float aside and use smog." Diva obeyed and thick, heavy, dark green fog welled out of the numerous craters all over her body. The smog was poisonous and smelled bad, even to Cassie. The distance phanpy had kept had allowed her to give the command to her pokemon in time and Diva had barely been able to float aside. Cassie let out a relieved sigh, even as the phanpy was turning for another attack. It was spinning so fast, it would be using its incredible sense of smell to aim. Well, now Diva had covered the field in toxic smog, slightly masking her own smell making it difficult to pinpoint her exact position. And the more the phanpy inhaled to know where to aim, the more poison would get in her system.
Cassie turned to her sister, to the camera and gave it a cocky wink. That ought to get some laughs.
Phanpy, after the second attack had missed as well, had stopped. It had a pained expression on its face and was panting. Diva, on the other hand, was floating with a smug expression on its face, as it was sneaking glances towards the pokecom and its camera.
Cassie's eyes were on the phanpy though. Yes! It's poisoned.
And while that was a good sign, it didn't necessarily mean a win just yet. It was still dangerous.
"Nail it again, girl and then finish it," Cassie said, and watched as Diva spit out another torrent of disgusting sludge, this time striking the poor thing right in the head, pushing it back a few inches. Jim's orders to jump back fell on deaf ears as it was in no condition to listen. Diva stopped and floated as quickly as she could to the disoriented phanpy and slammed into it, making it collapse with a squeal on the ground, twitching, unconscious.
"Round 1 is over, win goes to koffing," the ref said, a frown on her lips. "Be sure to have Penny checked out thoroughly later, Jim. That was a lot of poison." Jim nodded, lips pursed, looking annoyed.
"Easy," Cassie crowed, a bright smile on her face. "Continue or was that enough?"
"You wish," Jim spat back.
Cassie shrugged. "Fine by me." She returned the koffing. At the behest of the ref, Cassie picked her next pokemon and when the signal came, both released their next combatants.
Cassie had chosen Lancer, her spearow whereas Jim had sent a mankey. Cassie had to smile. While it was by no means a guaranteed win, there was a type advantage for her here. Still, his mankey looked energetic and strong. It was jumping on its two legs, its tail swinging wildly. Its pink snout was twitching, probably because the poison from last round hadn't fully vanished yet.
No, its fur was shiny, its eyes focused and it looked ready to fight, this might be harder than she had thought.
"Focus," Jim ordered.
"Take off and gain some height."
Both pokemon did as they were told, preparing their next attacks. This was, in its essence, a gamble, Cassie realized. In a lot of ways, Lancer was a glass cannon. If his attacks at full speed connected often enough or if they managed to get lucky and land a critical hit and cause an injury, yeah, they could take this. On the other hand, he wouldn't be able to take all that many hits from the mankey, being roughly ten times lighter and all. Any injury he received would limit his mobility and flight, his one true advantage. She couldn't forget that the advantage flying types had against fighting ones were that the latter had a hard time catching the former, being able to fly and all and few fighting types had all that many long-range attacks.
Lancer, unfortunately, didn't have all that many yet either. Need to step up his training, now. This can't stand.
"Keep up your guard and get ready to dodge."
Jim's order wasn't surprising, well, guess it was time to roll the dice. "Go!" she snapped.
Lancer, fluttering roughly ten meters over the ground until now, took to a nosedive, flapping his wings at high speed, his beak aimed forward. Cassie couldn't see it but she knew his eyes would have this mean glint that could demoralize some pokemon. Unfortunately, mankey wasn't one of them.
Still, the mankey didn't manage to dodge fully but enough to avoid a full hit. All Lancer managed was to make a small cut with his beak on its left cheek. The mankey didn't even flinch, its angry eyes focused on Lancer as it had flown upwards again, this time circling the mankey from up high.
Better than nothing.
There was no real need to give additional orders right now. Any advice she would have would be in the realm of "be careful" and less useful advice just didn't exist.
Lancer attempted the second dive and it was then that Jim reacted. "Now," he just said. Mankey readied itself as it saw Lancer dashing towards it and just before Lancer hit it, mankey jumped and his arms lashed forward, managing to actually capture him. It then used the momentum of Lancer to whirl both of them around and then slammed the spearow on the ground headfirst. Lancer's screech of pain was shrill and made Cassie wince.
Okay, fuck me, that was actually really impressive.
"Return, Lancer. Too bad." She recalled the poor bird who had crumbled on the ground and met the challenging smirk Jim now sported. "Gotta admit, that was a cool move."
"Thanks," he said, his tone mocking. "You got one win but that's it."
"Winner, mankey," the ref said unnecessarily. "You going to switch him out, Jim?"
"Nah, Phil is good. He's going to handle the rest."
Well, someone's cocky.
The ref nodded and turned to Cassie. "Your next one please."
There was really only one choice that made sense. She pulled out Diva's pokeball again and threw it. "You're up again, sweetie." Diva, after her materialization, gave out something akin to a sigh, and gave Cassie an exasperated look to which she could only shrug. Diva turned her attention back to her new enemy, taking in who it was. Her eyes were meeting mankey's feral ones but didn't flinch.
The day she backs down from a pokemon like that is the day we should quit.
"Clear smog," Cassie said and a white fog streamed out of Diva's mouth at great speed. Mankey jumped to the left on time and dashed forward on command. The strategy was clear. Get close enough too fast for Diva to react. Some strategies like that, common sense and thus obvious as they were, were rather easy to anticipate and Diva knew what to do.
The second mankey had started to dash, she had stopped her attack and instead launched a different one. Once more, thick dark green smog vaped out of her holes from all over her body at all directions and mankey's punch and himself passed through a cloud of poison. The karate chop did connect, and Diva let out a grunt of pain as it was hurled back by the force of the attack but in turn, mankey inhaled a lot of poison through its snout and had to stumble back, coughing, as it tried to regain his balance.
Cassie and Jim shouted their next orders at the same time, but the coughing and pain from the poison made it harder for mankey to move so the next sludge attack managed to douse him from head to toe, covering him in poisonous goo.
Cassie shot the camera a quick smile and used that opportunity to glance at Lyn, who was watching the match with an intense expression. Focusing back on the battle, Diva was content to float away, keeping some distance between them, forcing mankey to shamble after her and allowing the poison to do its job.
She contemplated for a second whether to order her pokemon to use smokescreen to make it stumble around blind but decided against it. Right now, it helped her far more than him to know where his pokemon was. No need to risk the mankey getting a lucky hit in by obstructing her own sight as well. With mankey defeated, he would be down two pokemon, whereas she was down one and had one already a bit tired and damaged. The advantage was hers as long as she played it safe.
That meant keeping away from mankey for now. Besides, Diva could use this time to recover a bit.
Jim realized the futility, knowing that Cassie would not allow his mankey to come near her pokemon again, not now that mankey had lost his speed. "Good job," he praised his mankey and returned it to his pokeball.
"Winner of the round is koffing. Jim, you can't use your mankey again this match." Jim nodded. "Same as before, make sure to get both of them thoroughly checked out, poison damage is no joke. And you, do you want to switch your pokemon out?"
"Nah, we're good." By now, Diva had lost her element of surprise and was already tired besides. Best to get one more poison attack in.
She nodded, the frown on her face having deepened. "Very well. Jim, your next pokemon please."
"You just wait," he said, "this ain't over yet!". With that, he released a flaffy. Its wooly fur that covered its head, neck and some of its upper body was white. Its exposed skin was a bright pink and its oddly cylinder-shaped ears were black and pink striped, just as its long tailed that ended with an azure ball. It bleated, the voice somehow hoarse and shrill at the same time, muscles tensing as it readied itself.
"Thunder shock!" he ordered, and its fleece cackled with electricity before it launched at Diva who managed to dodge in time. This was going to be difficult. The electricity, if the flaffy got lucky, could ignite the poisonous gasses that allowed Diva to float. On the other hand, Diva had trained against Rush over the last year, aware of that particular weakness. And while her gasses hadn't become less flammable, she did get better at reading and then dodging electric attacks.
There were no guarantees, of course and Diva wasn't exactly the fastest pokemon and electricity attacks were notorious for their speed. Only way to dodge them was to know where and how they arced and react accordingly.
Easier said than done in the heat of combat, but Diva's eyes were focused on the sparks of lighting on the fleece. "Dodge and attack," Cassie ordered. It really was the best they could do. Flaffys were only marginally faster than koffings and they were really basically the same type of fighter, only their element differed. To be fair though, Cassie mused, flaffys can tank a bit more damage.
Diva proceeded to do just that. Before the flaffy could resort to a new attack, purple sludge spewed from Diva's mouth and the electro pokemon surprised them both by dashing forward, ducking under the attack, readying another of her own. Diva expelled gas from her craters and tried to swerve to the right but a bolt of lightning hit her too fast to dodge and she howled in pain.
It was now too close for Diva to be able to dodge reliably but on the other hand, the flaffy was also close enough to have trouble dodging the gas attacks. "More!" Cassie yelled and even through the pain, Diva didn't stop generating the gas, she even increased it and a wave of white smog washed over the flaffy, making it cough. Not to be deterred though, it pushed through, slamming on its arms against Diva, before following up with another thunder shock, this time igniting some of the gas and a small explosion split the two fighters apart. Flaffy was singed and breathing a bit hard with the occasional cough rocking through its body and while Diva was still hovering, she certainly didn't look good with all the small burns covering her.
Yeah, that's enough. Cassie returned Diva, giving the pokeball a small peck. "Well done, gorgeous," she whispered to it.
"Fight goes to flaffy, you can't use that koffing in this fight any more." Cassie nodded. "Jim, are you switching your pokemon?" The flaffy, while still in fighting condition, had been poisoned. No surprise there, it had been released on an already heavily contaminated field and then got up close with a koffing. Cassie allowed herself a small grin. Her starter had taken out two of his pokemon and all but guaranteed the defeat of his third. No, her main girl was as awesome as she was beautiful.
Jim had no doubt noticed that as well. "No, gonna switch him out." With a bitter expression on his face, he returned his flaffy.
"You can still use him later on," the ref reminded him and he nodded. Both trainers then picked their next pokemon and released them for the fifth round of the match.
On Cassie's side, a purple two-meter snake with yellow eyes and a yellow rattle-tail end started hissing as she raised her head from her coil, flicking her tongue in out and out. Jim on the other hand called forth a small plant pokemon with a yellow bell-shaped head and a body thinner than most pens she owned, with two green leaves for arms and small roots for feet, wobbling left and right.
Ekans against a bellsprout, not the best matchup. It was too small to be reliably trapped by Medusa and could wiggle out relatively easy and in fact attack way better from up close like that. On the other hand, the size difference should allow for effective physical attacks. Medusa slamming herself against the damn weed was crude but Cassie figured still effective.
"You've got a lot of poison pokemon," Jim said, a bit of frustration bleeding into his voice.
"What can I say, I do love me some status effects."
He laughed, "You know, you're actually better than I assumed, but that ends here. Greenbean here will be the end of line for you."
What a name. I love it.
"Talk shit, get hit, my man."
"You were talking shit about my school!" His voice flared and got louder.
Cassie shrugged, "Then be better at hitting. Whatever, can we finish this now? This has gone long enough and I do want to sleep sometime today."
"Fine, have it your way. Attack!" With that, Greenbean the bellsprout sprung into actions as its tiny feet started a mad dash towards Medusa.
"Defend." Obeying the order, Medusa let out a loud screech, making the plant pokemon flinch in the midst of its attack. It was just a second, but it did cost it some momentum and the ekans exploited that by shooting forwards, opening her maws, revealing gleaming, poisonous teeth, ready to bite down.
The bellsprout was quick to dodge by ducking and leaping forward, rolling under the attack. It then extended two long, green vines from under its leafy arms which wrapped themselves around Medusa's face, effectively closing her mouth shut. She let out a muffled hiss and tried to shake herself free and while she did manage to whirl the light plant pokemon around, the vines remained in place, tightly wrapped around.
Well, that was annoying.
"Sleep," Jim said and Greenbean released a fine, green powder from its bell-mouth and let it rain down over Medusa.
"Leap out!" Medusa obeyed and hurled her body of the worst of the cloud and remained in motion, dashing around the arena, desperately trying to open her mouth. The good news was for now, the sleeping powder hadn't worked. The bad were that the bellsprout was still vomiting that stuff up and while the momentum they were traveling at protected Medusa from being hit for the most part, it wasn't good that the whole field was getting covered with pollen.
They really need to decontaminate this field afterwards.
Then, a stroke of luck, the vines around her maw got lose and Medusa was able to shake the damn weed off and it landed elegantly on its feet, wobbling almost tauntingly, a smug expression on its dumb face.
I hate that thing. "Bite its head off," Cassie snapped and Medusa obeyed, leaping once more forwards. This time, the plant pokemon couldn't completely dodge, since the pokemon had been much closer. It managed to protect its head by of Medusa's teeth tore into its left leaf-arm. It screeched as Medusa lifted in the air, shook her head wildly managed to throw the thing on the ground. It managed to flip in the air and land on its feet, its wobbling no longer the elegant rocking but a more frantic shaking.
It was also pissed off as it immediately fired off another vine, this time hitting Medusa right in the face and its second vine whipping into her right eye. Medusa shrieked in pain, throwing its head back, exposing her yellow underbelly. The vines shot forward once more, wrapped themselves around her head and pulled her body with full force to the ground. Cassie could see some blood there and she immediately recalled her ekans, the beam from her pokeball enveloping in red energy and returning into it.
FUCK!
"Round goes to bellsprout. Guest can't use her ekans anymore. And you need to get it checked immediately after this fight, that injury looked serious."
The smug smile on his face was pretty wide now. "See, I told you. This is the end. And in your words, you talked shit and now you're getting hit pretty hard."
Cassie forced a smile on her face, anger boiling in her stomach. "Look at who's getting overconfident, having only two poisoned pokemon left."
"That's still two pokemon to one of yours."
"Oh, but what a pokemon that is," she promised.
He wants the gloves off? Wish fucking granted.
"Are you keeping bellsprout in?" the ref asked Jim, who was rolling his eyes at Cassie.
"Nah, take a rest, Greenbean. Your part should be over." With that he returned it and picked up another pokeball. "You ready to lose?"
Cassie laughed, turned to her sister with the recording pokecom, noticing her frowning in concentration. Seems like little sis is starting to get worried. Well, time to finish this. She shot the pokecom a large smile, gave her sister a wink and plucked Rush's pokeball from her belt.
"You know what to do," she said and released her pikachu who had initially jumped out with a bored look but was now eying the rereleased flaffy with some derision.
At the ref's signal, both pokemon went into motion, only the flaffy's wobbly sprint on its two legs paled in comparison to Rush's mad dash on his four. Electricity crackled on Rush's cheeks and flaffy's fleece and since they had closed the distance both attacks connected and lighting struck both pokemon. Flaffy made small grunt whereas Rush let out a satisfied smirk.
"Fuck. Dodge!" Jim yelled, having realized now that Rush was one of the electric pokemon that were outright immune to electric attacks. In fact, they made his own stronger. Bursting with more energy, Rush dove into the flaffy's face, an orb of lighting, yellow, orange and gold converging floating between his paws and slammed it into the enemy. The flaffy cried in pain but Rush didn't stop there. Dashing forward, he slammed headfirst into flaffy's stomach, hurling the pokemon a few feet back and he followed it up with yet another quick attack. The flaffy managed to raise its small arms just in time to protect its face but it didn't help much. The small arm gave out with a loud crunch Rush slammed into its face before it could scream in pain.
"Stop!" the referee roared and Rush trotted back to Cassie's side, satisfaction oozing from every step. Jim had hurried to flaffy's side, as had the ref. Checking the pitifully mewling pokemon, the ref stood up, shooting Cassie and Rush a glare. "Keep your Pikachu under control, it broke flaffy's arm."
"Hey, don't be mad at us. We didn't send in a tired, poisoned pokemon into battle. This can happen in a fight. Besides, you didn't say anything when his pokemon injured my ekans."
The ref seemed to disagree but no rules had been broken. Only bones. Jim, after having returned flaffy to its pokeball, was staring at Cassie, face completely still as if it was carved from stone.
"That pikachu is going down," he promised, voice calm.
"Please, try." Rush also chimed in with a mocking chirp, not seeming the least bit troubled. In fact, he seemed to be looking forward to the next fight, as electricity sparkled on his cheeks and it was preening with an eye towards the pokecom camera.
Jim released his bellsprout again and opposed to his flaffy, it seemed to endure the poison a lot better. It made sense to Cassie, seeing as it was also a plant. Still, despite the poison, this was not going to be an easy battle. Plant had a bit of an advantage against electro pokemon as they were good at enduring their attacks.
Still, Cassie had no doubt they were going to win this.
"Begin."
And once more, Rush dashed forward. Greenbean tried to hit him with a vine but Rush dodged them easily. On the other hand, when he got in striking range and turned mid dash to hit him with his tail, the bellsprout jumped over the attack and lashed out with his second vine attack, this time striking Rush across the back. Rush let out a rather high-pitched grunt but endured and retaliated with a quick but weak thunder shock attack, hitting his enemy point blank.
Greenbean ignored the attack and expelled green sleeping dust from his wide mouth, but Rush was quick enough to dart away, instantly dashing over his starting position, eyes focused on the bellsprout, ready to dodge at the smallest movement.
"Let him come, we have time," Cassie reminded him. Rush didn't really like to wait, he was more of an attacker but he obeyed. Bellsprout attacked a few times with his vine whip but at that distance, it was easy for Rush to dodge. A quick glance told Cassie that Jim was looking nervous and a bit desperate. He was well aware that while his bellsprout seemed to power through the poison well enough for now, that that was just a matter of time before it became too much for even him.
"Get close!" he ordered and Greenbean rushed forward. Cassie knew that the smarter move would be to move around and let him chase Rush around but that's not how the two of them rolled.
"Take him down," she said and Rush knew what to do. With an enthusiastic squeak, Rush summoned another orb of lighting hovering in front of his face, ready to repeat his earlier success. Rush waited until the last second, just when Greenbean, once he came close enough to extend his two vines from below his arms to dash forward, weave under the vine whips and slam the orb against his head. The bellsprout hissed in pain as the electricity burned and exploded. He was able to work through the pain though as his vines wrapped themselves around Rush, now that they were so close that he couldn't dodge and started to squeeze. His mouth also started to produce green pollen that slowly trickled out.
Too close.
"Electrocute him!" Rush strained his body to push against the vines and then just let electricity cover his own skin. Bellsprout screamed, the pollen disappeared, as it was getting hit by the full blast point black. After a few seconds of just taking all the electrical current Rush was generating, it was forced to let go. Burns were covering a lot of his body and its right leaf arm was crumbled and torn, another crippling injury in this match, making him stumble backwards. The pikachu rushed forward, using his moment to slam his tail against the plant pokemons head and made him slam on the ground. Just as he was trying to stand up, Rush was standing over it and slammed into his body once more, this time putting it down for good.
"The fight is over. Pikachu wins and this makes Cassie the winner of this match."
"You fucking psycho!" screamed Jim, "What kind of trainer are you?" He had already run to his bellsprout and returned him. Stasis inside the pokeball was better than leaving him out. "You crippled two of my pokemon and poisoned all of them!"
"I don't understand why you're so shocked that pokemon get hurt in battles."
Before Jim could retort, the referee walked to her, her expression a heavy frown. "You pikachu is too vicious," she said. "Injuries happen, poison is part of the game but your pikachu is cruel and does more damage than necessary, after the fight's pretty much done." She had a bitter expression on her face. "This was also on me, I should've called the fight earlier, and since this wasn't anything official and we have a healing station right in the house, this isn't too bad but if you aren't careful, you can get into some real trouble. There's not pulling any punches and then there is your pikachu."
Cassie nodded, not really listening. She hoped Lyn had turned the camera off after the battle had ended. She didn't want that lecture going online as well but maybe it would be a good thing? "Yeah, sure," she said, "I'll have words with him." Words of praise.
The referee was unconvinced but didn't say anything else on the topic. "Anyway, follow me you two, your pokemon need some care."
An hour later, Cassie and Lyn were in the room they grudgingly received after the fight. Cassie and Rush hadn't exactly endeared themselves to the faculty/staff. Still, they had gotten a room, even if it was probably their worst. Not that they were going to complain, it wasn't a bad room by any means. The beds were comfortable, it was clean and relatively cozy. It just lacked a TV was rather small for two people. Lodging, food, medical treatment for their pokemon and most importantly internet. Cassie stretched, lying on her bed. All pokemon but Lyn's abra were undergoing treatment over the night and she was sleeping on one of the two chairs in the room.
"You know, I think I could get used to this. Traveling around, stomping fools, living the life of adventure."
Lyn chuckled but didn't look up from her small leather-bound notebook in which she was scribbling in. "If you keep your temper and don't take some enemy pokemon lightly due to a type advantage, you just might."
"Has been a while since I've done this, need a bit to get back into it."
"You will," she made it sound like a threat. "We're going to win that tournament and today was a nice start for you on that."
"You really serious about that?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Lyn looked up now, meeting her eyes, her head a bit tilted. "Sabrina sponsoring me would mean my guaranteed ticket in the big leagues and the most reliable way to achieve that is to win the tournament."
"You keep saying that as if that's so easy."
"It's not easy. That's the point. If it were easy, there'd be no meaning to it." Lyn's voice was now louder. "That's what makes it worth doing."
"Heh," Cassie wasn't sure how to reply, "fair enough."
"But seriously, good showing for the most part today."
"Thanks." Cassie then took out her pokecom, to check her channel and the comments of the video. It had a few thousand views already and roughly a hundred comments. Apparently, a few jokers had also drudged up a picture of Rush, dozing cutely on her bed that she had posted a few months back and captioned it with "Does this look like the face of mercy to you?". The fans had apparently quite enjoyed the performance. Diva had been the crowd-pleaser and backbone of the team as expected and Rush had already been popular even before he had crushed two enemy pokemon right after the other.
Thanks for all the love, guys. Looks like a good start for us ; ), she typed and then closed the gadget. Day had gone differently than she had expected but she couldn't complain. She got to meet her youngest sister for the first time and whatever Elyse was to her in terms of familial relation, she was traveling with her sister who was a bit more stuffy and stiff than she had been expected but she was going to see the world and leave her mark, she and her team.
Yeah, things were looking pretty good.
_
Full disclosure: Cassie was inspired a lot by from Overwatch which is why she's a streamer and gamer at heart. (Not going to lie, her koffing using self-destruct while she yells "nerf this" is very tempting to write at some point) She had some interesting luck with the dice as well. As you can clearly see, she kinda got the team rocket starter pack and heck, she even rolled for a meowth encounter on the next chapter, with the option of getting one. We'll see how her team develops, she'll get something fun next chapter.
Her team is as follows
Cassie: Diva the Koffing (levitate, 35/68EP), Medusa the Ekans (Shed Skin, 36/38EP), Lancer the Spearow (Sniper, 26/39EP), Rush the Pikachu (Lightning rod, 36/63)
It has more EP simply because Cassie had her team for a year longer than Lyn did.
