Chapter 9
Crystal's POV
Crystal shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hadn't even wanted to be here, and apparently, after meeting a guy and playing pool with him, Gold felt the need to tell him everything about them.
"So to sum it up, we were sent into the future by Celebi, got captured by the government, rescued by the Resistance, coerced into helping them, and now we're training for our first mission!"
"We're supposed to be training, Gold," Crystal intervened.
"Oh come on, Super Serious Gal, I'm sure Grimsley here knows that a little bit of gambling can never hurt."
"No, it doesn't," He agreed.
Crystal groaned. 'I'm in a room with two gambling obsessed slackers,' she thought. Those two were completely different from her and were stopping her from getting anything done.
"Why am I even here?" She wondered out loud. "I need to be training..."
"Oh?" Grimsley raised his eyebrow. "You two need to train? Well, I could help out."
Crystal laughed. "You? What can you teach us?"
"Well for one, I'm a member of the Unovan Elite Four."
Crystal scoffed. "Standards must be low. Besides, I've never even heard of Unovan."
"It's Unova. Anyways, would you like a test battle to demonstrate? One on one, and if you last longer than a minute, I might tell you about why I'm here."
"All right," she snorted derisively.
Almost a minute later
Crystal watched in horror as Arckee fell to the ground with swirls in its eyes. Grimsley's Krookodile had neatly destroyed her Arcanine, with a Rock Slide and an Earthquake. She would normally have expected Arckee to have gracefully avoided the attacks, but the lack of nature must have lowered his speed by amazing amounts.
"Great job, Arckee. You did your best," she said as she recalled her defeated Pokémon. She had a grudging respect for Grimsley now, but a man of his talent shouldn't spend time gambling. Almost exactly like Gold.
"Fine, so you're somewhat competent. What can you teach us?"
"Well, any gambling has a lot to do with a battle. Gambling requires dexterity, cunning, and luck. Especially if you cheat. All these skills are vital to battling. Here, let me show you." He took out a 1 Pokédollar coin. "I have this coin, and I'll flip it. If it's heads I win, and if it's tails you win. If you win, then I tell you anything you want to know. If I win, then nothing happens. Okay?"
Crystal nodded. She had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Grimsley flipped the coin. Heads.
"Again?"
She nodded. Another heads. He kept flipping, and every single time, it was heads. Crystal was flabbergasted. The probability of that happening was miniscule, and yet she had just seen this many flip something like twenty heads in a row. "How is that possible?" She asked.
"Simple," he replied. "If you look carefully at this coin..."
She gasped. "Both sides are heads!"
He nodded. "Therefore you couldn't win."
She scowled. "That's cheating!"
"You should have noticed," he fired back. "And yet you didn't. These are the kinds of things you have to see immediately. I'm certain that Gold here noticed it the instant I flipped the coin."
She turned in surprise, and saw Gold nodding. "When he showed it to you, he never showed you both sides, and when it flipped I was looking, and you could only see heads, no matter what the angle was."
"Dexterity. Cunning. Luck. If the coin was normal, you would've won eventually. If I flipped too slow, it would have been obvious both sides were heads. If by chance you saw it, then I lose again. I had all three, and therefore, I won every time. In the battle we just had, remember that? Your Arcanine was much faster than my Krookodile. Therefore, I had Krookodile use Rock Slide, which hits a general area. It also has the bonus of kicking the dust on the ground up, hampering view, and forcing your Arcanine to rub at its eyes, allowing Earthquake. With all three aspects in my hands, I easily won."
Crystal just stared at him in amazement. It made total sense, and yet she had not seen his plan when he was carrying it out. Was this the strength of an Elite Four member?
"So. Do you truly believe now that gambling does nothing at all? Or even that I am incompetent and have nothing I could teach you?"
She shook her head. Those facts had seemed set in stone ten minutes ago. But now, they were proven to be false.
"You said that you are grouped into teams right? How about I come over and teach your group?"
"You'd do that?" Crystal asked. It was impossible to imagine that such a strong trainer would help them out.
"Of course," he responded. "And I have one last thing to say to Gold, here."
"Hm?" He looked up, and saw Grimsley handing out a small pouch.
"You were about to win our game, I saw. Lady Luck just happened to avert her gaze at the last second. But I'll tell you why I'm here. I've been looking for someone to hold onto this. Can I trust you to keep this and not lose it, nor look into it?"
"Sure," he answered, a little puzzled. "Why me?"
"Gambler's instinct. And my instinct is rarely wrong. Now, how about we head to a hotel? We need somewhere to sleep. We can head to Resistance HQ tomorrow."
"You know about them?" Crystal questioned, a little surprised.
"Most gym leaders and Elite Four members do. We even help out occasionally. Now, how about we go?"
With that, the Elite Four member led the pair back to a nice looking hotel and strolled inside. Crystal saw Gold putting the little pouch into his jacket pocket. Looking back, she thought she'd seen a shadow behind them. However, she must have imagined it, because a second later, it was gone.
Blue's POV
"Alright, White! I wanna see how good you are at battling first. Battle Silvy here for me!"
Blue was glared at by Silver for the nickname, and smiled mischievously. She saw Silver sigh and decide that it would be better to do as she asked. Damn right.
Silver sent out his Weavile and White released her Servine. Blue hoped that she'd last a little more than a minute against Silver.
She lasted exactly a minute and twenty two seconds, before Silver commanded an Ice Beam and finished the Servine off. Blue remained hopeful about her new apprentice's abilities, and could give pointers and lessons.
After White had recalled her fainted Servine, Blue stood above her. Apparently, it was intimidating, as White's eyes widened, and she scooted a couple of feet away from her.
"Now, what did you do wrong?"
"Umm... I-"
"Nope! First of all, you weren't fast enough. Second, you weren't strong enough. Lastly, you weren't smart enough."
At each statement, White's face grew darker and darker, but Blue didn't notice.
"So, to improve each, you're going to have to train your speed, power, and intelligence. I'd recommend starting with-"
"Umm... Nee-san?" Silver intervened. "I don't think that the lecture you gave was good for morale."
"But it's true!" Blue fired back. "And I'm gonna help her get better! What's wrong with that?"
"Just look at her. Tell me truthfully if she looks like she's getting help."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Okay. So maybe it was a bit harsh. But it doesn't mean it can't have helped at all!" Blue said indignantly.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Fine. So it may not have been so helpful. But I had good intentions!"
"I'm sure you did," soothed Silver. "But there are better ways of helping."
"I guess," Blue grumbled. "But maybe we could-" she started, eyes brightening a little.
"Nee-san..." Silver crossed his arms.
"Alright," Blue conceded. "So then what do you recommend we do?" She glared at him, daring him to respond.
Unabshed, Silver responded, "We explain exactly what went wrong. We explain how and why it went wrong. We explain what we'll have her do and why it will help."
"That's what I was doing!"
"No, you were going to have her do countless excersises for no apparent reason," Silver countered.
She sighed. He was right again. That was Silver for you. She was proud of him. Even though he countermanded her orders. She was sure not even Red would have dared to do that. Perhaps she was prouder of her brother than a sister should have been, but it was probably natural.
"Alright, Mister Genius. How about you explain, since you're making all of the decisions," Blue said, a little spitefully.
Silver simply looked at her, and soon enough, she sighed and turned to White.
"Okay, first of all, your Servine wasn't fast enough compared to Silvy's Weavile. It's completely reasonable since Nii-chan is a training maniac, and his Weavile is a naturally fast Ice-type. On the other hand, your Amanda, that's what you call it right? Amanda? Anyways, your Amanda is a grass-type, which should be only slightly slower due to lack of training. Secondly, Amanda does not have enough power to inflict a large amount of damage onto Weavile. Again, only lots of training can remedy this. Finally, you had the type disadvantage. Weavile knows Blizzard and Ice Beam, strong super effective attacks that'll wipe the floor with Amanda. On the other hand, Amanda has used only Grass type moves so far. Versatility is key in any Pokémon battle. Anything I missed?" She glared pointedly at her brother.
"Nope. So, how are we going to fix that?"
Blue mumbled, "Sometimes I feel like the younger one."
"What was that?"
"Nothing~!" Blue hastily replied. "Okay. Besides training in general by beating stuff up, we can also specialize. We've done countless drills under the Mask of Ice to increase our ability. We can easily recreate them, if we have the right place and materials..."
"The VR room," White piped up.
"Huh?" Blue was puzzled. What could that do?
"The VR room," White stated confidently. "Wasn't there some training option? We can go there and check it out!"
"I agree," Silver stated.
"Why can't you agree with me?" Blue grumbled.
"What was that?"
"Nothing~!"
The VR room turned out to be a blessing. Various training devices appeared as soon as one of them said they wanted it. Nothing too complicated could be produced,, but simple objects such as targets, rocks, and dummies were in infinite supply. After seeing what White could do without being pitted against an incredibly strong trainer, Blue deduced that White did know what she was doing, and had a fair grasp of strategy, but had a lot of room for improvement.
Blue noticed that Silver slept in a corner as she offered tips and strategies to her pupil who was making noticeable progress already, for just a single one hour session. Already, her Servine had faster reflexes and sharper instincts. Power was still fairly low, but Blue was hopeful.
When it was time to leave and wake Silver up, Blue watched him sleep for a while. His face was serenely calm, and he was smiling a little in his sleep. A bit reluctantly, she woke him up.
Upon noticing White repeating the various phrases she had taught her, including ones such as, "Your opponent's stupidity is your greatest ally," and, "The battlefield is helpful in the right circumstances," Blue felt proud, and was confident she had this 'mentor' thing down pat.
Yawning, she headed to bed. She fell asleep with a smile on her face, dreaming of a time when she'd be able to brag about White and say with a smirk on her face, "I taught her." In her dream, Red and Green were both standing in awe as White singlehandedly beat Gold and Yellow. A good dream.
?'s POV
"How goes on the following of Grimsley?"
A man in a trench coat was on a phone, standing in an alley next to a nice hotel room. "Not bad. He's checked into a hotel. And he's with those two kids. Anything I should do?"
"Not yet. We're still assessing the value of the gem. There's no data at all about it, despite that one request for them, offering that large sum."
"Yeah, ten million Pokédollars," the man responded, eyes glazing over. "Imagine what we could do with that kind of dough."
"We don't know the validity yet. Just follow him, and make sure you keep your eyes on that gem. Got it?"
"Roger." The man slunk away. He already knew just how he'd get his hands on that jewel. The girl would have to suffer a bit though. That would be fine. He couldn't fulfill his sadistic urges too much these days.
