Fyron was big. Tall and broad-shouldered. It almost seemed like an errant twitch would see him sending a lesser man flying, completely by accident.
Unlike his suited man out in the lobby, Fyron's outfit was much more relaxed. He wore a loose floral print shirt, almost like something out of an Alolan vacation, and tan breeches. The ensemble clashed horribly with his hair- electric blue, like Allspice's gym leader Mila.
Diplomatically, I elected not to say anything.
"Hey!" boomed Fyron as I walked in. "Is this another challenger?"
"Yes," I said, confidently taking my place opposite him. He was already in position to battle. I supposed that during peak work hours, he just stood there between challenges.
"What's your name?"
I grinned. Finally, someone who knew how it was done. "I'm Janet Prosper, from Allspice City. And I'm gonna kick your ass!"
"Bahaha!" laughed Fyron. "You've got fire!"
The pun would've been weak from anyone else, but Fyron was tough. I could respect him, and any puns that he might make. Gym leaders had to stick to their theme, after all.
"Well," he continued, "I'm Fyron! Just that, and nothing else! So..." He pulled out a Pokéball. "Let's go! Three on three, no time limit, no boundaries! Go, Hana!"
Out came a flareon. I should've expected it after the two eevees frolicking in the lake in the lobby, but I hadn't really been thinking about battling back then.
"Go, Caligula! BulldozeDig!"
Fyron grinned. "Follow it! Quick Attack up!"
Caligula responded to my order as soon as she appeared, sending out a pulsing wave of upturned dirt and then vanishing underground in quick succession. Hana the flareon shot into the air, avoiding the Bulldoze, and then followed Caligula down her burrow.
"Bulldoze!"
The flareon was hurled back to the surface, followed by a spray of dark dirt. It cried out, but seemed relatively unhurt when it landed. Fyron blinked, evidently not expecting that particular move. I mentally breathed a sigh of relief- I wasn't sure how Dig and Bulldoze interacted, but I was glad that this was what it had done.
"Dig!" Fyron shouted after a moment, but he was too late- Caligula burst out of the ground beneath the flareon and smacked it aside with her head.
"Crunch!" The flareon squealed as it was trapped in Caligula's powerful jaws.
"Fire Spin!" Fire sprung up around the flareon's body. Suddenly Caligula was swung around the flareon in her mouth and slammed into the ground headfirst. "Sunny Day!"
Using Sunny Day meant it would be standing still for a couple of seconds. "Bulldoze!" Caligula rolled over and executed the move simultaneously, sending out another Bulldoze. This one punched the flareon from up close, making its legs buckle and sweeping it backwards.
It was prone on the ground- easy pickings for a Rock Slide.
"Rock Slide!"
"Dig!" shouted Fyron. Recovering with startling speed, the flareon managed to get itself underground. The tip of its bushy tail was just vanishing into its burrow as Caligula finally launched her attack.
"Crunch!" Caligula opened her mouth and awaited the flareon's arrival.
"ShadowBall," said Fyron. I blinked as an orb of spectral energy exploded beneath Caligula's feet. She cried out, but didn't budge from her spot.
"Dig!" I said as Fyron inhaled again.
"ShadowBall!"
Caligula punched into the ground. The 'splash' of another exploding Shadow Ball flew out of the new pit, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt as much now that Caligula's big head was in the way. "Crunch! Bulldoze!" This time, the Bulldoze pushed them both out from underground, but without hurling the flareon into the air like last time- probably because Caligula was weighing them down. "Rockslide!" This time, I would do it with the flareon securely in Caligula's mouth.
"Firespin!" said Fyron quickly.
The move flipped Caligula upside down and broke her grip again, but it didn't matter- her rocks appeared almost on top of the flareon and slammed into it with tremendous force, launching it clean across the room.
Fyron recalled it before it actually hit one of the walls, and nodded at me. "That was pretty hot battling, but let's see how well you handle it when I turn up the heat."
Okay, the puns were starting to get on my nerves now.
"Go, Kieran," he said. Out came a pokémon that I vaguely recognised... a fletchinder, probably, since this was the fire gym and that thing could definitely fly.
"RockslideRockslide," I said immediately. Against a flying-type, I just had to use supereffective ranged attacks and hope for the best.
Unfortunately, the fletchinder easily avoided both volleys of rocks. "Flamethrower!"
"Dig!"
It took a lot less time to say Dig than Flamethrower, so Caligula was able to avoid the return attack without taking even a bit of the gout of fire that the fletchinder spat at her.
The fletchinder spent a couple of minutes darting randomly through the air above the battlefield as we waited for Caligula to resurface.
"Rock Slide!" I said.
Caligula, and a collection of floating rocks, burst out of the ground almost right in front of Fyron. He stumbled backwards and shouted, "Protect! Fly!"
The fletchinder didn't use Protect at all (Fyron must have panicked and said the first thing that came to mind), but it did shoot up until it was almost touching the ceiling of the gym. Caligula's Rock Slide fell abysmally short of its new height, and the boulders smashed back into the earth around her.
"Flame Charge," said Fyron. He'd gotten a lot quieter. Suspicious. His fletchinder erupted with flames and dove from the sky, heading straight for Caligula.
"Crunch!" Caligula opened her mouth, ready to catch the flaming bird in its tracks.
"FlyFlamecharge."
The bird abruptly climbed back out of its descent, narrowly avoiding Caligula's jaws as they swung shut like a stantler trap, then immediately returned to its attack, this time much faster. It struck Caligula in the middle of her shell-like back, knocking her off her stumpy legs and making her cry out.
Good move, Fyron, I thought to myself. "Dig!"
Recovering somewhat, my trapinch dove back to the safety of the underground.
Fyron countered with an escape move of his own. "Fly!"
"Rock Slide!" I said, hoping that Caligula would be fast enough to hit it before it could get out of range.
She burst out from the ground and, after a moment's concentration, hurled another volley of rocks up at her opponent. It easily flitted out of the way, sped up by its successive Flame Charges, and glanced at its trainer for further orders.
"Flame Charge!"
"Dig," I said, hoping that Caligula would be fast enough to get underground before the fletchinder got to her.
She wasn't.
The attack threw her onto her back, and this time, she didn't roll back onto her feet and keep going. With a sigh, I returned her. She hadn't landed a single hit against that fletchinder, but she had managed to take out that flareon for me. It would have to be enough.
"Go, Para!"
My lileep trilled and flexed her tendrils as she sized up our opponents.
"AncientpowerBrine! Ingrain!"
I would have picked Undine, but that fletchinder had powered up with a couple of Flame Charges, and I didn't want to risk my main up-close threat for this gym on something that would be almost impossible to catch. Para had the supereffective attacks I needed for this battle, and the power to stall against anything that was in Fyron's arsenal.
On top of that, I had a little surprise for the fletchinder if it went on the offensive.
"Flame Charge!" The fletchinder shot forwards, curving around the boulders of Para's Ancient Power and the salty droplets of her Brine, clearly intent on the lileep in front of it.
I waited a couple of seconds, then- "Constrict!"
Fyron looked up at me, clearly surprised, then back at his pokémon. Its cloak of fire had dissipated, and now it struggled in Para's embrace.
"AcidBrine!" Para spat out a mixture of seawater and acidic juices all over the fletchinder in her grasp, making it squawk in pain.
"Steelwing!" Fyron shouted. He finally sounded like he was treating this seriously. "Get out of there!"
I responded in kind. "Constrict!" If he wanted to get his fletchinder out, I was going to make it harder. "AcidBrine!"
"Flamecharge!" The fletchinder's body began steaming, but under the deluge of water and acid that Para was vomiting over it, the attack wasn't starting up properly. I filed away that useful interaction for later use.
"Constrict! AcidBrine!"
The fletchinder's feathers flared into life, but they died back down with a fizzling noise before anything could happen. Steam rose up from the pokémon's body- Para's watery onslaught was just too much for the fletchinder to handle. It fell limp in Para's tendrils, drenched and defeated. The beam from its Pokéball struck it shortly afterwards, restoring it to its energy form. Fyron tilted his head- a sign of respect.
I felt like I could punch a stormcloud out of the sky. This was how battles were meant to go.
"Go, Growly!" said Fyron, after a brief moment.
His third and final combatant for the battle- growlithe, the unevolved form of arcanine. I knew from second-hand experience that arcanine were fast and tough, but not particularly strong in any one respect. Hopefully, that was true of their unevolved form as well, especially now that Fyron knew the broad strokes of what Para could do.
"Fire Blast!" Fyron called.
I was taken aback by the high power opening, but that didn't hamper me in the least. "AncientpowerAcidBrine!"
Both pokémon took a moment to summon up the requisite materials for their respective attacks, and launched them simultaneously- Growly's fireball and Para's staggered and mixed offensive. The attacks collided in the centre of the field.
Just as I'd hoped, the mass of water and rock trumped the Fire Blast. As the fire-type attack detonated in mid-air with a brilliant shower of light and smoke, I squinted and half-heartedly moved to shield my eyes, still focused on the battle.
"Irontail!"
Unexpectedly, the growlithe came charging in from the left side of the field, not from behind the impromptu smokescreen thrown up by its attack. I almost winced alongside Para as its tail, shining with white light, collided with Para's stalk, but I had to stay focused.
"Constrict!"
"Fireblast!"
With speed that surprised even me, Para lashed out at the growlithe with all of her tendrils and caught it. Before she could reel in her catch, though, it spat another ball of fire at her. Squealing, she recoiled. The growlithe was flung aside, but it managed to twist in the air and land on its feet.
"Brine!"
"Irontail!"
No holds were barred now- both of us were spitting out commands as quickly as humanly possible. Para looked pretty beat up, after the super-effective Iron Tail and the neutral Fire Blast. If I was going to end this with her, I needed to do it quickly.
"Ancientpower!"
Fortunately, as the growlithe charged down the pitch towards her, angling its path so that it avoided the hail of water that Para had launched at it, I could see that it wasn't moving as fast before. The glow of its tail looked a little dimmer, too.
The Ancient Power I'd called for just now finally flew into action.
"Home Run!"
I frowned. Was that a real attack? It sounded kind of like it would be one of those boring, gimmicky normal-type moves. Whatever it was, I didn't much care- all it presented me with was an opportunity for a counterattack.
"Br-"
A tremendous clang drowned out the rest of my order. Aghast, I could only watch as Para was flattened by one of the boulders from her own Ancient Power.
I blinked and looked at the growlithe. Although it was breathing heavily now, its tail was glowing again and it had its chest puffed out, like it had something to be proud of. It barked back at Fyron. The gym leader gave it a thumbs up, then pointed back at me and Para. House Run... that was a sport thing, wasn't it? Had he just used a sport move against me?
Cursing internally, I recalled Para and pulled out Undine's Pokéball. Using my newly caught buizel had been part of the plan all along, of course, but for a second there I'd honestly thought that Para could do it on her own.
"AquajetQuickattack," I said almost absentmindedly. Undine shot out from her ball and slugged the growlithe upside the head before it could do anything, then slammed it in the face with her tail, knocking it flat.
Fyron shrugged and returned his pokémon.
"Wait, what?" It had barely taken any hits from Para, as far as I could see, but just two from Undine was enough to knock it out?
"She's a little young," said Fyron. He strode over the field, carefully picking his way around the mounds that marked Caligula's burrows, and offered me his empty palm.
I'd expected a badge to be there, so I stared at it for a few seconds before it occurred to me that he wanted to shake my hand. I seized it quickly, pumped it up and down a little, then allowed it to drop to his side.
"Good work," he told me. "I can already tell that you're a real go-getter."
"Uh, thanks," I said. That was flattering, I guessed.
"Here's your prize- the Spice badge!" he declared, pulling it out of his pocket and handing it to me. I held it up to the air to inspect it- looked like a tamato berry in the middle of a roaring fire.
"Thanks!" I repeated, more enthusiastically this time. Five days into my journey, and I already had two badges to my name.
"That battle really got me fired up," he added, his grin broadening. "I hope we meet again!" His puns had not gotten better with time, so I couldn't truthfully return his sentiment.
That didn't matter, though. What did matter was that I could finally sign up for a bona fide pokémon tournament.