Chapter 4: Water Reflection
It was a cold morning. Nothing new. Misty woke up staring at the ceiling feeling like her bored usual self. She huddled in her sheets since it was a snowy morning once again and the window was right above her, the cold wind seeping right on top of her head like a sheet of ice. She didn't feel like getting up. She already knew what was in for her for the day.
"Yet another batch of young challengers outside my door," she thought, looking at the wall. There were some pictures of her with Ash and Brock when she was still a younger water trainer.
She wanted to sleep more. Dreaming seemed like a better reality than the redundant one she was stuck in everyday. At least something different happened in her dreams that occurred each night. But she knew that depending on some artificial world would only make her crazy. And sleeping too much isn't good for anyone. She didn't seem as unfulfilled as before, but it still felt the same since her recent visit from Ash, Brock, and May. She rolled out of bed since she had to get up sooner or later anyway, and there were probably trainers outside. And it wouldn't be nice for them to shiver outside. She dressed up in daily clothes and went to the outer gym, which was separated from her room. Her shoes made sounds which echoed all over the gym. The sun shone from the frosty windows eighty feet above the gym, which made the water's reflection look spectacular on the ceiling. She liked staring at it. It brought her tranquility. There were a few pokémon swimming in the pool as she motioned them to get out of the water, and inspected that all of them were there and checked if they were normal in health. She petted one of the pokemon and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. She took out some eggs and toast, while remembering her sentence from last night:
I know how to prepare food!
She twitched her eyebrow at the thought of Gary Oak, the so-called pokemon professor in-training, who seemed to annoy her, but she couldn't deny that he really knew his facts. She ate her food fast, and then walked up to the door to get the first trainer in line. It turned out to be a scrawny kid who looked somewhat like a novice. Misty announced the rules to him and got on her side of the battlefield. She summoned her first pokemon out of the water, Starmi. What shocked and surprised her was that the trainer picked the obvious choice, which was to choose an electric pokemon. Except this electric type was a Pikachu.
"Ugh, out of all choices…" she thought. She was thinking of Ash. But she put away her emotional feelings and thought of the battle. Misty didn't bother to say anything while the trainer said, "Electric shock!"
Misty just stared. She knew she had trained Starmi well enough to be resistant against electric type attacks. Starmi just whirled around, reflecting the jolts, then smacked into the Pikachu. The Pikachu fell into the water, injured as it took a direct blow into the face. The trainer looked stunned, worrying about his Pikachu's health and stats. Misty's Starmi directly kept going towards it. Misty forgot one factor. Although she had an advantage because Starmi had water as an all-around environment to recover, the Pikachu was completely submerged in water, so it could produce a huge thunder attack, measuring up to an incredible amount of joules. And there is a point when water-types can no longer resist against the shock against an electric jolt. The trainer directed a thunder attack.
"Oh crap!" Misty thought. She only remembered that rule now. But it was too late. The Pikachu carried out its attack, thus knocking out Starmi. She got her first choice battle pokemon knocked out for the first time in a great while. She ran to her Starmi's aid and comforted it, letting it sit in a freshwater pool on the side. She had to pick a secondary one. And this was her last choice, since she did announce only two pokemon are to be used in a match for rules. She summoned for Dewgong, which resided in one of the side pools of the gym. It jumped out, with water dripping all around its body fur, and immediately jumped in front of Misty for the battle. Misty knew her Dewgong was well trained, as the last time she saw it perform was when she had to play the role of a mermaid, and it did its Aurora Beam quite nicely, and she was sure it had improved. The trainer directed his Pikachu to do a Quick Attack all around the Dewgong but since there was a lack of solid ground, it tripped into the water. Misty remembered this time to not let Dewgong chase after it underwater, thus opening her mouth to give directions for the first time.
"Don't go after it, just stay where you are!" she said to Dewgong. It listened with complete loyalty. "Prepare for it," she said quietly to Dewgong, partially like a whisper.
She knew the Pikachu would run out of air sometime. And it did after a few seconds. Right when it surfaced its head, Dewgong gave a powerful Aurora Beam, knocking out Pikachu. The trainer was very shocked and decided to forfeit the match. He carried it out of the ring, while looking solemn. Misty remembered that image when Ash walked out of many gyms with his gravely injured Pikachu back when he was competing in the Kanto and Indigo regions, and he was so determined appear as the victor with his precious Pikachu. The trainer walked outside the doors of Cerulean Gym. Misty walked to her Starmi lying in the fresh water pool. It's jewel in the middle was blinking.
"Not bad, but for a gym leader, you do forget some aspects of water pokemon" someone said from behind her, interrupting her reflective thoughts again.
Misty turned her head while holding one of the arms of her Starmi. "Oh. You again," she said, kneeling at her Starmi's injuries.
"I hope you remember why I'm here. Or did you forget like in counterpart with your bad sense of home economics?" Gary said just to agitate her for fun.
Misty was about to yell again to tell him to be quiet but she just walked silently walked to the water laboratory, and opened the door for him. He walked past her silently. But their passing each other felt somewhat awkward. Misty just blinked and walked back to her Starmi and put it in the recovery room while giving it some antidotes. She let in more challengers in.
Two hours passed. Gary made a lot of progress and Misty beat three trainers with no effort. She knew her pokemon were getting tired, so she gave a break for two hours to allow them to recover. During this time, Gary made even more advancement with his findings in the lab. Misty made herself lunch and ate some rice. Gary smelled the aroma of food from the room he was occupying and walked outside to the outer gym.
"I smell food. Can I have some? Or did you burn it all?" he asked, trying to be funny.
"How much longer are you going to harp up on my bad cooking? It's getting old," she said, looking at him with monotonous eyes, while chomping on rice at the same time.
"Geez, sorry. Well, I kind of forgot my wallet today. I was wondering if I could have some food."
"Oh, how informal."
"You're not older than me. I can talk to you any way I want to."
"And just how old were you when you first started out as a trainer?"
"Ten."
"And I was twelve at that time. So there."
Gary rolled his eyes. He knew she wouldn't give in. "May I please have some food?" he asked sarcastically.
"Stop faking," she said, stuffing steamed vegetables in her mouth.
Gary heaved a frustrated sigh. His stomach was grumbling, after all.
"Misty, may I please have some lunch?" he asked without any implied tone.
She stopped chewing, and finally said, "Yes, you may. Go serve it yourself. I'm not your servant and I'm not running a restaurant either."
"Don't talk with your mouth full," he fired back.
Misty dropped her jaw with rice in her mouth, while looking exasperated at the same time. She was about to say something, but before she could, Gary said in a comical tone, "Ew, how gross. I thought gym leaders would have some eating etiquette at your age."
"You know what!" Misty said, extremely annoyed. She put her chopsticks down. She wasn't mad enough to make Gary leave. She found it rather insulting but witty at the same time.
"No, I don't know what," he said, with his arms folded across his chest.
Just at that time, Ash had finally made it all the way back to Cerulean Gym. He stood outside in the chilly surroundings. It brought back memories. He smiled. He wanted to just bring in old times with Misty. He knew he had acted quite clueless in the past as to actually never get her obvious hints of affection. But he finally saw them now. He felt a little slow. "Hey, it's better late than never," he thought. There was a line of trainers outside.
"Hey you," a trainer in line said to him.
"What?" he said back. "If you're going to challenge her, you're going to have a long wait. So get in the back of the line."
"Oh, I'm not going to challenge her, I'm an old friend."
"Well, I think she's talking to someone right now," one of the trainers stated.
"Oh. I see." It did not seem to be a major concern to Ash as he walked up the steps.
Misty was still arguing with Gary, who was leaning against the refrigerator. He was getting really hungry.
"With that attitude, you're not getting any food. You can just stay in the lab all day!" Misty said, looking away.
"Tch, fine. I'll just tell my grandfather you're starving me to death on purpose," Gary stated with a small smirk.
"What? Well you could have been smarter to actually bring something! Since when am I obligated to feed you? And what are you? Five years old? Why would you complain to your grandpa about being hungry?"
"Well I'm too busy to pack lunches!"
"Yeah sure… I bet you need someone to dress you and everything," Misty shot back. It was like a real challenge and yet really amusing to argue with Gary.
"What are you? My mother?" Gary said sarcastically.
Ash walked in and saw the two of them in the kitchen. Misty saw him in the corner of her eye. Gary didn't since his back was turned. Misty was a bit surprised, but not to a huge extent. Gary noticed the change in her facial expression and the direction of her eyeballs then turned around.
"Hey, you guys," Ash said, with Pikachu on his back like usual.
End Chapter 4: Water Reflection. Onto Chapter 5.
