Disclaimer: Pokemon does not belong to me. Last I checked, Pokemon belonged to Satoshi Tajiri. The only things I claim ownership to are the own characters in this story.

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DUNNE DAYS

Part 11: Practice

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* * * 13:55 - 8 June 2004 * * *

"Oh, these are such joyous days indeed! For fate has brought me to meet you once again my beloved Nurse Joy!"

"Oh hello Brock," Nurse Joy smiled back at him. "What can I do for you?"

"Just being in your presence is enough medicine for me!"

"Ah, wait, hold that thought," Nurse Joy said as she reached behind her.

ZAP! In one quick and fluid movement Nurse Joy's hand shot out and shocked Brock with an electroshock device.

"Of course… you could just help these two Trainers here…" Brock managed, before he passed out.

The Nurse clapped her hands, and two men rushed in from another room. They loaded Brock onto a stretcher and carted him away.

Nurse Joy nodded, her electroshock device returned to a case labelled 'In case of Brock', and turned to the two boys, "So, how can I help you two?"

"Full recovery please," Brown said, taking the Poke Ball from his unresponsive friend's hand and adding it to his own, before handing them to the Nurse.

"Not a problem! They'll be up and raring to go again in one hour minimum."

The Nurse placed the Pokémon in the healing machine as Brown looked around the Pokémon Centre.

"Why do all of the Nurses look the same?" he eventually said aloud to Jordan.

Jordan did not reply, but continued to stare at the floor.

"It's because they're supposed to provide a friendly face that every Trainer will recognise," another voice answered.

Karp Roden walked up to the boys. "Hey Brown! Hey Jordan! What a surprise meeting you here!"

Brown shook Karp's hand, "Hello Karp."

"So… how'd the Gym go?"

"Well…" Brown frowned. "Jordan… kinda…"

"Ah…" Karp nodded understandingly, finally noticing Jordan's depression. He clapped Jordan's shoulder. "It happens. Even I lose battles sometimes."

Jordan nodded, giving a feeble smile.

"Tell ya what," Karp grinned. "There's this new Training Centre opened up on the North side of Pewter City. Interested? It's supposed to be really good!"

The blond haired boy looked into Karp's grey eyes and nodded slowly. "Sure."

* * * 14:21 - 8 June 2004 * * *

It was a short trek to the Pewter City Trainers Club, but getting inside took a substantially longer amount of time. By the time Karp had booked a room, Brown had been jostled around several times by various Pokémon Trainers, some big, some small. It was quite nerve-racking, and Jordan even seemed to forget about his loss as he looked around in wonder.

Because of the crowd, not much of the room could be seen, but they could tell it was a big place. The colour scheme was grey, like the rest of the city, and looked quite like the Pewter Gym if it weren't for the long corridor in place of the door that led to the battleground in the Gym. One major cosmetic difference, the boys noted, was that instead of the Boulder Badge decorating the various rooms, a simple Poke Ball symbol was present instead - the symbol of the League.

Of course, the portraits of the Gym Leaders were also absent, but that was to be expected.

Room 14 finally became available, and Karp led the way along the corridor and up a flight of stairs, stopping at the fourth door along. The group entered, and found themselves in a small arena, the walls and floor heavily shielded so the Pokémon could go wild. A sign on the wall listed some banned moves, among them Explosion and Dig, though the list seemed quite short in comparison to the total of moves overall. The ceiling was also quite high up, presumably to allow for Flying-types as well. It did explain why the staircase had felt so large, however - presumably the rooms below were also like this one.

"Nice place, huh?" Karp grinned.

"Yeah," Brown agreed, and Jordan simply nodded, too astounded to reply.

Karp stepped onto the battlefield and reached down to his belt, pulling off a Poke Ball and tossing it onto the field. "Magikarp, I choose you!"

"Magikarp!" the Fish Pokémon crooned.

"Wow," Jordan gasped. "So that's one of your Magikarp?"

"That's right," Karp said. "How'd you like to battle him?"

Jordan's eyes seemed to burst free from his face in amazement, "I'd love it!"

Brown sat against the wall and watched as Jordan released his Squirtle.

"Spurt!" Squirtle sang as it appeared.

Brown smiled to himself. Jordan seemed to have forgotten all about his loss after all.

The battle was long and action packed. With every move Squirtle made, Magikarp simply Splashed to another spot of floor. Even when Jordan tried to swamp the battleground using dangerous Bubbles, Magikarp was seemingly unaffected. In the end, Squirtle fell, exhausted and out of moves.

Far from being upset again, Jordan seemed revitalised.

"That was a nice move with your Bubble," Karp smiled. "It probably would've worked better against a different type, like a Rock-type. It's one strategy you could use against Brock if you didn't already."

Jordan shook his head. "No, I didn't. But I will now!"

"Well anyway," Karp said. "I hope this experience taught you that there'll always be Trainers beyond your reach. This goes for you too, Brown. At the end of the day, whether you can or can't beat Brock doesn't mean you're any less of a Trainer. One person's strength is another person's weakness. It's just like the relationship between the types, in a way. Everyone has something they're good at."

Karp waited a while for his words to sink in, then checked his Pokétch, "Wow, it's already five! I'd better get going. See you, it's been fun!"

The Pokémon Master dashed away, Jordan and Brown calling their farewells after him.

"So, what now?" Brown asked. "You wanna go to the Gym or kill time elsewhere?"

Jordan raised an eyebrow at Brown. "Now what kind of Trainer would I be if I wasted time when I could be getting a Gym Badge?"

…

Author's Note: Yeah, um… So that's a pretty short chapter about Jordan's training with Karp to beat Brock. Karp is clearly very powerful. He's already been called a Pokemon Master by some characters.

I think the reason I made that training centre rather than just having a battle out in a field somewhere was that I couldn't be bothered to write about the inevitable audience that would be drawn to the battle of a "Pokemon Master".

Again, short battle, but to write it all out would seriously bore you. It'd just be "Bubble". Dodge. "Tackle". Dodge. Et cetera.

Brock's anime personality came out there at the beginning. Come on, I had to! And yeah, Nurse Joy has a taser/electroshock device cos you've gotta be prepared for the Brockster!

On a more personal note, I've recently gotten into Homestuck. Actually it's not that recent since I started reading it in the beginning of April but yeah. I'm planning to write some FanFictions for Homestuck as well… especially since I've read this really good one.

Next chapter: Jordan's sister takes centre stage!