"Undine! Quick Attack!" My buizel shot forwards in the water and delivered a crushing blow on my opponent's clamperl, knocking it out for good. Shamefaced, the stranger battling me recalled his clamperl and stalked off without another word.

"Good job, Undine!" I declared, holding out a Finneon Stick. She snapped it up and swallowed it in a single, smooth motion, and I beckoned to the next trainer in the line. "Let's see what you've got!"

My team and I were currently standing in Cayenne's biggest Pokémon Park, getting in some last-minute training for our scheduled battle against Daria. I'd seen her and her ninetales working together back at school, so I had a pretty good idea for a strategy to use against it, but the rest of her team was a total mystery, and they were sure to be as tough as nails if they'd been through the gym circuit a couple of times already. If I was going to win, I would have to be smarter than her pokémon were strong.

"Go, Rillo!" shouted the next trainer, a short girl. Her sentret popped out of her ball and stiffened upon seeing my awesome buizel.

In the second Rillo and the girl took to weigh their options, I gave my own orders. "Sonicboompursuit!" Being able to say orders so rapidly like that was a massive advantage for any trainer, but it took practise to be fast and precise. I'd been doing this all morning, though, so I had a good handle on at least a couple of good combinations for all four members of my current team.

Undine slapped the ground with her tail, unleashing a fast-moving burst of wind, and then barrelled into it, bolstering her own Sonic Boom with a dark aura.

"Defense Curl!" gabbled the girl opposite me.

The order, and the sentret, were too slow- Undine slammed into the ring on the sentret's stomach before it could get into a defensive stance. Before Undine could end the contact and pull back, I gave my second order.

"QuickattackAquajet!" This was the second combo I had for Undine. Theoretically, a Quick Attack on its own would probably have been enough to take out the lame rat we were fighting, but Undine and I needed to practise anyway.

Undine slugged the sentret in the stomach and then, wrapped in a blue aura, smashed into it headfirst again, hurling it across the park until it slammed into a tree and dropped to the floor, clearly unconscious.

The girl ran after her pokémon, her ball-hand outstretched. She missed the beam twice before she finally managed to return the sentret.

"Next!"

A boy swaggered up to the battler's diamond opposite me. "Go, Jaik!"

I knew what it would be before it had even finished materializing, and performed a perfect quick-execution switch-in in response. Goodbye Undine, hello Caligula.

"Caligula, use Bulldoze!"

A wave of dirt exploded out from beneath Caligula's front feet and hurtled towards the magnemite we were fighting.

Its trainer scoffed, clearly not expecting the attack to hit- magnemite hovered above the ground, and Caligula's Bulldozes didn't quite reach that height yet.

"Sonic Boom!" he ordered.

"Bulldoze," I said just after he finished.

The magnemite blasted Caligula with compressed air. She weathered the attack like a champ and stamped on the ground again, sending out another wave of dirt. The other trainer looked ready to order another attack, but then the first Bulldoze struck 'Jaik'.

Our opponent actually jumped when Jaik fell to the ground with a sonorous clang and began spitting out random sparks. The second Bulldoze, right on the tail of the first, hit the fallen magnemite 'normally', punting it a fair distance towards its trainer.

"What the-"

"SandtombRockslide!" I shouted triumphantly. Caligula generated a mass of loose dirt and flung it at the magnemite, then repeated the process with a bunch of rocks. Because the Rock Slide travelled more quickly through the air than the Sand Tomb, they reached the magnemite at the same time, bombarding it even further.

"Jaik! Get up!" pleaded the trainer.

"SandtombRockslide!" I said again. Magnemite were notoriously durable, so I would take the opportunity to get some more practise with my combination attacks.

"Sonic Boom!"

Caligula's second volley was blasted out of the air by the magnemite's attack. I blinked, then snapped out a retaliatory order.

"Dig!"

Looked like Jaik's trainer had worked out that being aloft was no special advantage against ground-type attacks without a Magnet Rise to support it, so he might as well attack from the ground level himself.

"Jaik, watch out for movement!" The magnemite began scanning the ground ahead of it with its single eye. I grimaced. No matter how strong Caligula was, I still hadn't worked out how to get her to follow orders that were as complex as that. Her Dig would take her directly beneath her opponent's current location, and make her attack it.

"Crunch!" I shouted when I figured enough time had passed. "BullozeCrunch,uh, BulldozeCrunch!"

"Jaik! Dodge!" It managed to rise up into the air and get out of the way several seconds before Caligula surfaced- I'd given my orders too early and tipped them off- but that didn't stop the Bulldoze from hitting it and allowing Caligula to close in to Crunch range.

Caligula sunk her teeth into Jaik's steel flesh with a horrible screeching sound, actually denting it between the strength of her jaws and the reinforcement provided by the Crunch attack itself.

"Mirror Shot!" said the other trainer. He had his ball out, ready to return his partner at the first sign of trouble.

The magnemite managed to successfully launch its attack, shoving Caligula a few feet back towards me, but it was dragged along with her.

"BiteCrunch!" I said. This was much easier than other combinations, being two syllables rather than four or five like some of the others were, but it was harder to use- Caligula usually wasn't in a situation where she was in range for both attacks.

"Merrshot!" screamed the other trainer, trying to be as fast as me. I grinned as his magnemite tanked Caligula's Bite without doing anything.

"Mirror Shot!" he shouted again, managing to calm himself down somewhat.

This time, the attack flew out just as Caligula was letting go of the magnemite. Both pokémon were propelled away from each other by the force of the attack.

"Dig!" Caligula vanished underground again. This time, I would get the timing right.

Jaik struggled back into the air. "Mirror Shot into the hole!" It floated over to the site of Caligula's second burrow and tossed a ball of bright light into it, but the attack did nothing- and then Caligula erupted from the ground beneath Jaik once again, disrupting its levitation.

"Crunch!" The moment Jaik landed in her open maw, she clamped her jaws together tight.

Defeated, the boy recalled his magnemite.

I shook my head in distaste. All those Alena Hale fanboys who didn't know the first thing about a magnemite were dragging the species down, just because she happened to be Zan's Champion and started her journey with one. And who even named their pokémon after the team members of a trainer that they might one day battle for themselves? Rank amateurs, that was who.

"Next!"

An hour of ridiculous stomps later, it was ten o'clock- time to make my way back to the (stupidly named) Ridin' Fighters Battle Stadium, in time for my battle. No-one on my team had evolved in all that training, but they'd all learned some pretty good moves, and I'd been able to practise my quick-draws and rapidfire calls. A lot of people didn't realize that trainers had to train themselves, too, but I was ahead of the curve there with my commitment to learning from the real professionals in the field. Losers named their pokémon after their idols- winners trained their pokémon like their idols.

I was about to cross the road in front of the Ridin' Fighters Battle Stadium and enter it when an unfamiliar voice caught my attention.

"Hey, is that Janet?" it said from some distance behind me.

"Oh my gosh... it is! What the heck?" said a familiar voice.

They do say that familiarity breeds contempt.

"Nadia," I said, turning around. Sure enough, the other blonde was standing at the end of the street, next to some girl I didn't remember ever seeing in my life. She had a forgettable face- rounded, but not heavy, and rather unspectacular as far as colouration went. Nothing like my hair or the sparkling green eyes of Alena Hale. "Who's that?"

The forgettable girl gasped and put her hand to her mouth in mock horror. "She doesn't remember me?" she asked Nadia.

"She barely knew my name after I slept in the same room as her for a year," Nadia confided in a stage whisper. The two of them tittered like morons for a couple of seconds.

"Look," I said, "I have somewhere I need to be, so screw off."

"What a coincidence!" said the girl who was rapidly becoming 'the annoying girl' in my reckoning of things. "We're going somewhere too!"

"Great." I turned back to the road and groaned. The light had gone back to red.

It didn't look like there were any cars approaching, though, so I charged across the road in record time and barrelled through the stadium's front doors.

"Battle at ten thirty," I said to the receptionist.
"Oh, hello again!"

I remembered that there had been a guy here yesterday, but not much about him. "Why are you still happy?"

"I... don't know." His face fell as the fundamental problem with his life appeared to him in full clarity. Good. He'd looked much too happy for someone who didn't even train pokémon for a living.

"Okay. Battle at ten thirty?" I repeated, this time inflecting a little to indicate that I needed a response that wasn't the inane blathering of an idiot with too much free time. I pulled out my Pokédex, remembering that it had been scanned last time, and handed it to him.

Suddenly listless, he accepted and scanned it wordlessly, then gave it back.

"Have fun," he said. He clicked his little remote and the metal door at the end of the room swung open again.

I swept through it, to find Daria already standing on the edge of the battlefield. I tensed in giddy anticipation.

She nodded at me in greeting. "Alright. Just a couple of things you ought to know: first, this is a public match, so anybody can come in to watch."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I said, meaning it. I knew why she'd made it a public match, too- it meant we didn't have to pay to use the stadium.

"Second, I'm not accepting any Battle Points if I win this. It wouldn't be right, alright?"

"But-" She cut off my protest with a stern gesture.

"No buts," she said. "No Battle Points, or no battle. Okay?"

That sounded like she thought it would be too easy to beat me, but I grunted an agreement. I was just going to give this my all and see if I could prove to her I could put up a fight.

"Now," she went on, "Three on three, no substitutions?"

"Sounds good to me," I said. I pulled out Caligula's ball.

She strolled sedately over to the other end of the pitch and, without any count-down or build-up, lobbed a plain red Pokéball at the centre of the pitch. "Go, Flare," she said.

Her ninetales exploded into existence in front of me, and I became aware of a sudden increase in temperature. That was weird.

"Caligula! Go!"

Ninetales versus trapinch. On paper the advantage was mine, but I knew that it wasn't going to be an easy advantage to make use of.

"Bulldoze, Dig!" I rattled off, my standard defensive opening.

"Dig, Safeguard, Extrasensory," Daria said, like she was checking items off a list. "Short orange-E ten, hold blue-K four."

That last thing was not an attack. I stared as the ninetales ducked under ground as naturally as Caligula had done, neatly avoiding her Bulldoze in the process, and then hurled Caligula out from where it had entered the ground with a burst of blue energy. Caligula landed on her back some distance ahead of me with a muffled thump.

"Dig!" I said. She managed to right herself without too much difficulty and dove right back into the ground, only to be hurled back out a moment later, Daria's ninetales hot on her heels. "Rockslide!"

Boulders formed around Caligula in mid-air, even as she tumbled back to the earth. If I could land a close-range super-effective hit, I might-

"Protect!" Daria said. "SolarbeamR-Afour!"

"Dig!"

The boulders collided harmlessly with the ninetales' green barrier as it twisted around in mid-air. Caligula landed nimbly on the floor beneath the ninetales. Solar Beam took a while to charge, so I figured the Dig would get Caligula out of the way until the threat-

A horrifyingly quick Solar Beam struck her in the face, proving me wrong.

She fell over, and didn't get up again.

I recalled her and took a moment to pick out my next battler. If her Solar Beam was going to charge up that quickly, I needed something that resisted grass... and something that would be fast enough to actually score a hit on that ninetales.

"Fang!"

Besides the Solar Beam thing, Fang didn't have any special advantage over the ninetales, but I didn't think I would need it.

"Protect!"

"Glare! CrunchThunnerfang!" After a moment's pause, I reiterated. "Thunder Fang!"

The Glare broke through the ninetales' hastily erected barrier- Protect did less if it was used repeatedly over a short period of time- and Fang was finally able to connect with a Crunch and a Thunder Fang in quick succession.

"Extrasensory!"

I responded with another "CrunchThunderfang!" Then it occurred to me what she'd just said, and the oversight I'd just made.

"Cancel!" I snapped, and Fang dropped to the floor, aimless for a moment. The dangerous blue energy passed harmlessly over his head. "Acid! Stockpile!"

I'd completely forgotten about Extrasensory, I thought as I breathed a mental sigh of relief. The ninetales ducked out of the way of Fang's acidic projectile and Daria ordered it to use Flamethrower, which Fang was able to avoid without any prompting.

"GlareAcid!"

Fang's eye glowed red and he spat out another wave of brown sludge, but Daria said, "Red-E six dodge Solar Beam." Seemingly unaffected by the Glare, it avoided the Acid by a comfortable margin and blasted Fang with a rapidly charged beam of solar energy. Fang hissed, in annoyance more than pain. It occurred to me that Daria had set up a Safeguard almost as soon as the battle had begun, which was probably why Glare wasn't doing anything.

"Crunch!"

"Extrasensory," Daria said.

I groaned, suddenly reminded that the psychic-type attack was why I'd wanted to take her from a distance to begin with. "CancelStockpile!" I hadn't practised saying that one at all, but it was easier to say fast than most other combinations of words.

"QuickattackInferno!" As Fang flattened himself on the ground, narrowly avoiding his second Extrasensory of the day, the ninetales pounced on him with blinding speed, muzzle already brimming with fire- the same combo that had taken out the vigoroth yesterday.

"CRUNCH!" I half-screamed. Fang thrust upwards with his sinuous body, dislodging the ninetales briefly and giving himself an opening to fix his jaws around its neck. The Inferno attack exploded out of the ninetales' mouth but went wide, careening into the bleachers and exploding harmlessly in the distance.

"ThunderfangBite!" Fang withdrew for a nanosecond and then struck again, catching the ninetales at the same spot- this time with a bite that crackled with electricity- and then repeated the manoeuvre once more, this time with a simple Bite attack.

"Disable, Extrasensorylong," Daria said, looking more animated now that her ninetales had actually taken a big hit. The ninetales' eyes flashed blue and Fang's body locked up, keeping even his eye from moving in its socket for a couple of seconds. Then the ninetales' third shot at an Extrasensory flew from its eyes and struck true. My jaw dropped as Fang was launched into the ceiling by the force of the attack.

Luckily, I had enough presence of mind to recall him as he fell back to earth.

"What's next," asked Daria, a little bit of a smile playing about the corners of her lips now that the battle had gotten more interesting. For a moment there, I'd actually drawn blood, so to speak.

"Just watch," I said. I had two left. Undine was going to fare about as well as Fang had, between her reliance on close combat and vulnerability to Solar Beam, which left just one option. "Go, Para!"

She raised an eyebrow as the light of my third and final Pokéball for this battle faded, revealing my third and final pick.

"A lileep, huh? How'd you even get one of those?"

"Ancientpower!" I said in reply. "Ingrain, Confuseray!"

"Protect," said Daria softly.

Several rocks appeared in the air around Para and hurled themselves at the ninetales with telekinetic force, but they dissipated harmlessly on contact with the ninetales' Protect attack. The Confuse Ray missed completely.

One out of three wasn't terrible.

"Heat Wave." The ninetales' eyes went an electric blue colour and it breathed out a current of heat and flame that coated the battlefield in the blink of an eye. Para whined, clearly uncomfortable, but held her ground regardless.

"Dig!" said Daria as I was just making my own next move.

"AncientpowerAcid!" Para sent both attacks hurtling at the ninetales, but it had plenty of time to duck underground, safely out of the way. "Para, hold! When it comes out to hit you, hit it with an Acid!"

Para trilled her agreement and seemed to hunch over, as if bracing herself for the ninetales' incoming attack.

"Long-Red-C-ten surfacing! Extrasensory!"

To my horror, the ninetales emerged several feet to Para's left, instead of directly underneath her like a Dig attack was supposed to do. Then, also to my horror, the ninetales then executed another Extrasensory. Though Para's Ingrain spared it from being thrown into the air like Caligula and Fang had been, the attack had to have hit her hard, especially on top of the Heat Wave earlier.

"Heat Wave!" Think of the devil.
"Ancient Power!" As the ninetales readied its finishing move, Para produced more boulders and flung them haphazardly in the ninetales' direction. A few hit home, but they barely fazed the ninetales.

The ninetales exhaled another wave of flame over the battlefield, bathing Para in searing heat once more.

When the harsh glare of the attack cleared, I was surprised to see Para still standing. That Ingrain was keeping her in the fight, I guessed.

"Ancient Power!"

"QuickattackProtect!" Though she started saying it after I started my command, she finished it before I finished saying my piece. The ninetales lunged forwards and connected almost instantly, then ensconced itself in another protective shell without missing a beat or moving back from Para at all. Para's attack once again clattered harmlessly against the Protect.

I ground my teeth together. Protect was becoming a real pain in the neck.

"Acid!"

"Hyper Beam!"

Para managed to land her Acid attack on the ninetales, being in point blank range and all, but it did nothing to dissuade the ninetales from launching its own point blank attack at her. The Hyper Beam was bright enough that I had to shield my eyes with my arm. When at last I saw that the light had died off, I looked back at the battlefield to see that Para lying flat on the floor, her base still rooted to the pitch but clearly unable to battle any longer. I returned her without another word. Zero to three, I thought bitterly. Daria was stronger and smarter than I was right now.

"Good battle," Daria said, strolling over to me with her ninetales by her side. She seemed more at ease now, for some reason. "You and your arbok managed to get us pretty good with those cancels." She extended her hand.

I took it, shook it, and nodded stiffly. "Thanks. Good battle."

"I'm gonna... go, now. Maybe we'll meet again?" She walked off, her ninetales trailing after her. That suited me. Now that the battle was over, ideas for ways to train up my team were beginning to bubble up inside my head. Those random colours, letters and numbers she were saying must have been something to do with aiming attacks. If I could work out a code like that, then attacks like Dig and Quick Attack would become much more flexible for me.

Unfortunately, there was another obstacle for me there. As of now, Para was the only pokémon I had who seemed to be able to reliably understand anything that wasn't a direct order to attack. Fang was almost good at it as she was, but Caligula and Undine were both completely unresponsive.

I sighed and made for the door, only to find my way barred by Nadia and the annoying girl.

I pulled out and expanded Undine's Pokéball. "Get lost," I said.

"Hey, hey, we were just going to invite you to lunch later!" said the annoying girl. I squinted suspiciously at her, then at Nadia, who shrugged.

"This wasn't my idea," she grouched.

Her friend elbowed her in the side.

"I mean, uh, friendship," she said weakly.

"I have a holiday house up in the north side of the city," her friend told me. "I'll send you the address through the fanmail system if you promise to be there by one?"

Holiday house? And... "Fanmail system?"

"On the Trainer Tracker!" said the girl. "You have that app, right?"

"Yeah, on my Pokédex. You can send fanmail with that?" I had obviously looked up the profiles of every single famous trainer I knew as soon as I discovered the Trainer Tracker app, but I hadn't noticed a fanmail option.

Not that I was ever going to use it. Even if it had an anonymous option.

"Yeah, duh," she said.

It sounded like she was rich. Did I want to get involved in rich people things? This had to be a rich person thing. But why was I getting invited to it? I had to know. "Fine," I said. "I'll be there."

"Fantastic!" said the girl. "See you at one! Don't forget! Come on, Nads."

I snorted. Nads.

Nadia gave me the evil eye, but didn't say a word as she flounced after her buddy.

With that, it was time for me to get my team healed up and plan my next move.

I needed TMs, I decided as I stood in front of the main desk in the Pokémon Centre, waiting for the nurse to return with my four pokémon. Most pokémon couldn't learn Protect naturally, but it was supposed to be compatible with almost every species of pokémon known to humankind in spite of that, including (I hoped) all four members of my team. Having a TM for Protect at my disposal would be an excellent way to immediately bolster my team's strength, not to mention all the other powerful attacks that could be loaded onto a TM. (Like Hyper Beam.)

That said, getting my hands on a TM was a matter of money, not Battle Points. From where I was standing, in the middle of the Centre's main lobby, I could see a couple of posters on the walls that advertised rookie battle tournaments (and boasted pretty substantial cash prizes), but so far the only ones I could see were limited to two and three badges. That meant I would have to beat Fyron sooner rather than later, which wasn't exactly a bad thing.

In fact, I thought with a kick in my heart, I could check on the gym as soon as I got my pokémon back, and see if he was available for a challenge. If he was, I could fight him then and there, and make it to Nadia's friend's place in time for lunch there.

The nurse returned, and I thanked her warmly in the excitement of my epiphany. She looked mildly surprised.

"You're welcome," she called after me as I strode purposefully out of the Pokémon Centre, already bringing up directions to Cayenne Gym on my Pokédex.

Only a couple of blocks away, I thought with no small amount of gratification. I made my way through the two busy streets that stood between the Centre and the most important building in this entire city, already feverishly going over my strategy in my head. The main fire-types in this region were magby, larvesta, and vulpix, so he'd probably use at least one of those. Archer had gotten his hands on a zubat, so I couldn't rule out foreign species entirely, but that didn't matter.

I couldn't use Daria's code yet at all, without any time to practice with my team, but she'd used a couple of strategies that I was willing to try for myself. Top one was scouting with Protect- even if I didn't have Protect myself, Caligula's Dig served a similar purpose, and even worked as a good weapon against the fire-types that Cayenne's gym leader favoured. The Quick Attack/Inferno trick was another trick that I could use to great effect; it could help Undine land a Water Gun if she was up against something fast, and I could see Fang using Crunch in conjunction with Poison Sting or Acid for a similar effect.

In no time at all, Cayenne Gym loomed up ahead of me, red-roofed and walled with sleek, silver windows that gave it a modern feel. It was easily five times taller and wider than the gym in Fennel Town, looking almost like a miniature skyscraper. The classic Pokéball-and-lightning-bolt symbol, emblazoned in white on a red panel some distance above the door of the building, was the only indication that the two gyms were even related.

The gym's automatic doors swung open, revealing a glorious paradise. Leafy plants poured from all four walls, spilling freely out of baskets and pots. Between them, in little islands of space between clusters of vegetation, stood simple white braziers that blazed with orange fire. The floor was covered with white tiles that almost seemed to sparkle in the vibrant light of the room.

The biggest and most impressive feature of the room, though, lay right ahead of me. Behind a desk built out of expensive-looking wood and an equally expensive-looking male receptionist, there was an indoor lake, complete with an overgrown wall of rugged rock and a wide waterfall that serenely tumbled from somewhere beyond the back wall of the room. A pair of eevee and a solitary vulpix were splashing around on the far shore of the lake, enjoying themselves as much as I was enjoying the aesthetic of the room.

"Are you here to make an appointment?" asked the receptionist, smoother than a persian coat.

"Y-yes," I said. I'd almost forgotten what I'd come here for. "Janet Prosper." I walked up to his desk and passed him my Pokédex for his inspection, still drinking in the details of this place. "Why's this gym so..."

"Natural?" prompted the receptionist. He handed me my dex.

"Yeah."

The receptionist pressed a button on his desk, reminding me a little of the guy at the Ridin' Fighters Battle Stadium. That thought evaporated when an obsidian bridge rose up out of the lake behind him, sloughing off water as it joined the floor and the rocky wall at the back of the gym together. Then the waterfall split itself in half, parting like a curtain to reveal a corridor lined with the same white braziers that were in this room.

"'Natural' always been Fyron's way of doing things," he said, gesturing to the bridge. I took a tentative step onto it. Somehow, it was bone dry.

"Oh."

"You're lucky," he went on. "Most trainers come here after lunch."

Well, I had some place to go for lunch. Not that he needed to know.

"Just go straight down that corridor. He'll be in the main arena."

I nodded and waved him goodbye. It was time for my second gym battle.