Hello everyone! I guess this chapter is nice because it is very long (there was no good way to chop it up), coming in at about 9k. So technically, two chapters worth. However, it was kinda needed as this marks the official end of Jubilife's 'arc'. Really, I guess at 90k words, we can categorize this as a first arc, right? Anyways, enjoy.
I don't own pokemon.
Gray
It was my final day in Jubilife, so I had to check out of my room in the Cozy Cresselia. There really wasn't much to pack up before locking up my room, but I made sure not to leave any of my belongings behind. Today would be my last day in Jubilife before heading to Sandgem Town. I planned to get there by evening, even though I'd only leave after Sal's final lesson. It was only about a two- to three-hour walk, anyways. Instead of opting for breakfast, Lawrence and I were supposed to meet up before Sal's class as he went through Jubilife acquiring more rare items. There was an open invitation for Latias as well, the same as every day. So far this week, though, Latias had not joined us.
"Gray!" Latias exclaimed as I walked out of the Cozy Cresselia. I had finished depositing my key and was just preparing to head out when Latias met me by the door.
"Hello Latias, how are you today," I asked, a little surprise crossing my face. Our conversations had been tense recently, so to see Latias so upbeat was rare. Even stranger, she looked pretty tired. In all honesty, she appeared to be absolutely exhausted.
"Wonderful! It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Latias asked, swirling around. I was starting to worry for her mental health when I saw her eyes were a bit bloodshot. From what I understood, Latias didn't drink alcohol at all due to the fact that she could easily kill herself crashing into objects at high speed. So, I concluded that she must've been truly exhausted.
"Yes, it's quite nice. However, are you sure you're 'wonderful' and not 'exhausted'?" I questioned, steadying Latias after she finished spinning.
"Of course I am! I'm so tired, I could sleep standing up!" Latias exclaimed. Her upbeat expression seemed strained and I was reminded of Meg and her constant, unabated crazy happiness. There wasn't an apparent reason for Latias to be like this, her tiredness was really taking a toll. She was probably serious about being able to fall asleep right now. I dragged her over to a nearby bench and she sat down eagerly. "However, it was worth it!" Latias smiled, pulling out the bag she had been keeping the egg in. She carefully handed the bag to me. "She hatched early this morning at 3 Middle Hoenn Time… that brat. Couldn't have hatched earlier in the night! Watch your fingers, she's a biter!"
I could feel something moving around inside the bag as I grabbed it. Carefully, I unzipped the top strap, keeping my fingers well clear.
"What the hell?" I exclaimed as I looked in the bag. . Inside, I saw an open maw with a row of jagged teeth. The maw stretched the length of the bag, an easy eighteen inches across. Whatever this pokémon was, it was trying to eat an unsuspecting hand.
"Ah, she's a Trapinch," Latias yawned. "That's how trapinch generally catch food in the desert, although it kinda sucks. Feed her a few of those berries and pokéblocks in the side pocket and she'll probably stop trying to take your arm off. Night, Gray…"
Immediately after saying that, Latias seemed to lie across the bench and was soon sleeping. Surprisingly, her illusion stayed up even as she drifted off to sleep. It would've been an issue had the illusion dropped. I turned my attention away from Latias to check the side pockets of the bag for food. I guess Latias was leaving me to try and take care of this damned maw of a pokémon. Finding the berries, I grabbed a few before focusing back on the giant maw. It was a bit disturbing how eager this pokémon was to rip off my hand… for four minutes, all I had seen of this pokémon was a giant maw. I held a berry right above her jaws, trying to gauge her vision. I dipped the berry all around the center of her mouth, careful to not drop my own hand too far in and not to let the berry touch the teeth. Surprisingly, there was no reaction, suggesting her eyes couldn't see in front of her face. As soon as the berry hit a tooth, however, the jaws snapped shut with ferocious speed.
"More!" the trapinch ordered before reopening her mouth to its prior position. The fact that she spoke surprised me. While her voice reflected that of a toddler, the fact that the trapinch could speak at all at less than twelve hours old was amazing.
Then again, it could simply be that the pokémon language has instinctively learned words like 'food', 'water', 'help' or similar words… Crying pokémon would be a detriment in the wild, scaring away food or attracting predators. Perhaps over the evolution of pokémon, they started to learn words from birth? More likely, pokémon simply took garbled sounds the babies communicated and made them into words that corresponded with what the pokémon wanted. I heard the language so naturally in English that there was no way for me to hear the sound. Regardless, I obeyed the bossy little trapinch and threw some more berries in her open maw.
Eventually, the trapinch's appetite seemed to be sated and she stopped demanding more berries. Good thing too, I was almost halfway through the berries Latias had in the bag. She closed her mouth and allowed me to pick her up. For the first time, I got a decent look at her. Contrary to the blackness of her mouth, her body was bright orange with a white stripe outlining her legs. Her body had the general shape of a turtle, but the shell seemed to cover her underside as well. She balanced on four small legs that were only a few inches off the ground. Her legs had to be strong to support her head, though… Her head was a good deal bigger than the size of her whole torso, and she had a giant grin of jagged teeth, almost stretching from one side of her head to the other. I only figured out what her eyes were by the simple fact that nothing else on her body resembled eyes. Two black circles were placed just above the ends of her mouth with a white four-sided star iris. It made her eyes look like giant buttons, but the iris did track my hand as it moved from side to side. I had to pull away once as she tried to bite me.
"I agree with Latias, you are a little brat," I muttered after the trapinch tried to bite me again. "I'll have to wait for Latias to wake up to take care of you, I don't want to lose my hand."
However, waiting for Latias to wake up wasn't going to work. It was almost time for me to meet up with Lawrence, and Latias could be out for hours. I couldn't really move her… Where would I put her? And I didn't feel like sitting here for her to wake up. I did have my obligations. However, her being here could cause issues: an innocent, unprotected girl sleeping on a bench just asked for trouble, and she was still a legendary…
"Shedinja, come on out," I commanded, releasing Shedinja's pokéball. He popped out in the red glow and stared at me, silently waiting for a command. As unchanging as ever, there was no expression on his face, no emotion and no dialog from him. At times like these, I almost felt guilty about how obedient he was. Nevertheless, I needed his help. "Shedinja, can you watch over Latias for a little while? Please stay hidden and deter anyone from attacking her while she sleeps. When she wakes up, please have her come take you to find me."
Shedinja bowed his whole body before disappearing right before my eyes. He simply vanished… My eyes widened and my mouth was slightly agape; I didn't know Shedinja was capable of such a feat.
Ah… Phantom Force, the truly terrifying move of ghost types. Ghost types just disappear after using it and can strike at any moment. There's no way for an enemy to hit the ghost or protect themselves. About 1000 years ago, Giratina taught the ghosts of this world an attack similar to his legendary Shadow Force. While Giratina's attack literally drives the target insane and is far more powerful, phantom force is still quite the scary attack.
"When did Shedinja learn that? He told me all of his attacks a long while ago…" I asked in disbelief. Such a powerful attack could, without a doubt, be potent in fights.
Probably very recently. You've been battling with him a great deal; he may've just learned the attack. Pokémon learn moves as they grow stronger… the learned move suddenly just clicks with them on a subconscious level if it isn't forced upon them.
"So pokémon just randomly learn moves as they grow stronger? That doesn't make much sense," I questioned as I began to move into Jubilife. It would've looked strange if there was someone to see me talking to myself, but my only company was Darkrai and the newly hatched trapinch. I figured that asking Shedinja to watch Latias was enough of a task, so I had split the workload in a sense by watching the newly hatched maw.
Of course not! The move Shedinja just learned is a 'learned move': moves that a pokémon can naturally learn due to their species type. The moves he can learn are species specific, although other species can learn many attacks he knows. This isn't to say that's the only way pokémon learn moves. Some attacks are only learned via lineage, technical machines or via practice. Bar lineage, those aren't near as natural for a pokémon to learn. In fact, learning moves by practice is incredibly difficult because those moves must be designed… They don't exist prior to the pokémon learning it. Most of the time, it takes an incredibly smart pokémon. Although, all moves were at one point in time a designed move. As time passed, they would eventually become natural to a specific line of pokémon.
"So basically, you can teach a pokémon a move that doesn't exist prior to that?" I had been combining moves into small tactical attacks in my training for multi-battles and had seen the effectiveness… especially when Shedinja started to combine double team with shadow sneak, making almost an infinite amount of shadows for the enemy to have to check.
Yes. Sometimes, it's just a combination of moves into a new move. Multiple fighting moves have been created this way. However, this isn't necessary… the pokémon can be taught something completely new with enough work. Generally, that's how psychic types like Gustav and Espeon come across such diverse moves such as shadow ball, energy ball and rain dance.
Darkrai continued filling me in on the intricacies of creating a move while I began to look for Lawrence. I was supposed to meet him at a small antique show, Relicanth's Relics. I knew where the shop was since we had visited it once before, so I had no issue finding it. I was late by an easy five minutes, but I figured Lawrence would be at least that late. Having spent a good deal of time with him over the past three days, I learned that he preferred to be "fashionably late". At least five minutes behind, no later than ten. Some of it could be attributed to the cart he dragged around to carry all the belongings he planned to sell and the ones he'd eventually buy, but most of it was just him being lazy. Well, at least today I didn't have to wait long for him to show up.
"Gray! How are you doing today? I hope you didn't get too lost on your way here," Lawrence laughed, poking fun at my habit to get incredibly lost in Jubilife's 'simple and straightforward' streets. Holo was trotting along with Lawrence, grinning widely. I nodded my greeting to each in turn before responding.
"Ah, I actually DID get lost, you're just so late that you didn't notice. Couldn't even find the door out of my room," I smiled. "So, how much do you plan to steal from this poor store?" Lawrence had been telling me outside of each store how much he would make with each purchase, and the profit could only be compared to robbery.
"If we're lucky… hmm, I'd like to get about 400,000 poké profit from an antique store like this. Antiques are hard to sell properly if you don't research each item properly… which is why you never buy from an antique store that knows their stuff. You probably will only break even," Lawrence smiled, pulling out a thick notebook. Over the last few days, I had seen some of the notes he had. They were extensive notes about the average selling rates of different materials he bought. A log of what he bought and sold went into great detail about condition, price and people he acquired and sold to. This was Lawrence's Bible, and he was very, very religious. He even forced me to swear that I'd never disclose anything in that book before showing me any of the pages.
"Just think of it this way, Gray," Lawrence said, opening the door to the antique store. "The sellers still make roughly what they asked for. Their own ignorance will keep them happy: They don't need to know what I'll sell their merchandise for in another region." He gave Holo a quick pat on the head before returning her to her pokéball. While Jubilife was rather accepting of pokémon in stores, Lawrence seemed to worry his profit margin could suffer marginally if his pokémon, specifically his 'fire demon' Holo, accidentally broke something. With that, he walked in, his business face on. This poor store… I knew I was rather tight with my money, but I also knew Lawrence could squeeze 100 poké out of thin air... There was no logic behind how he managed to make so much money so easily. Or perhaps the logic was just too high for me to understand. I was truly in the presence of a master.
The antique store's interior was quite simple in design; a simple carpeted floor and white wash plaster walls just served as space for the numerous antique furniture, pictures and miscellaneous objects. Much of the wooden furniture was absolutely beautiful, but Lawrence paid it no heed whatsoever. His golden rule was to buy only what you could carry with one hand. So he skipped to the smaller objects. His focus was on the tables of books, clocks, silver- and dishware, sculptures and vases that were scattered throughout the bulk of the store.
"So, how'd you like Sal's lessons on tracking wild pokémon?" Lawrence asked as he picked through the tables of antiques.
"Better than the lesson on berries… I guess I'll be able to get better meals than energy bars now, but that lecture was a tad boring," I answered easily, looking at the antiques with casual interest. I had no interest in buying, but some of these objects were very interesting. A plate displaying an Espeon under a sun and then some sort of foxlike pokémon under a moon was my current object of interest, probably because it was one of the few pokémon I recognized easily.
"Couldn't agree more. Anyways, I try to make it so I'm never sleeping in a forest. You're a bit braver than me in that respect. Ah, Gray… your left," Lawrence laughed, gesturing to a small doll. I handed it to him and watched as he examined the doll to see if it was something he truly wanted. He nodded to himself before placing it on a growing pile on items he wished to buy. "No reason to try and get myself killed so easily by sleeping in a forest."
"Ah, you should try it sometime! It's not half as bad as you think. If you can find some grass and a few trees, you'll be fine… the pokémon never bothered me."
"Yeah, I think I'll let you enjoy your forests. Too many horror stories of trainers waking up surrounded by pokémon who are mad at the trainer for impeding on their territory."
"I've actually had something similar to that… Only it happened in a city. Some mightyena thought they could take Espeon from me… I got a nasty little surprise from them." I said, handing Lawrence another item he gestured for.
"Hmm? How'd you get out of that? Mightyena can be pretty vicious pokémon when they feel like it."
"Luck and the fact that there were only two of them. Espeon wasn't a match for them; we ended up going up a fire escape. I got my leg bitten pretty badly but we got out fine."
"Same leg that almost got deep fried by that charizard?" Lawrence asked. I nodded, rolling my eyes. Just another thing Lawrence hadn't let me forget about over the past few days. "Speaking of which, how is Emily's egg doing?"
"She got it to hatch this morning, but she's exhausted. A little trapinch, I guess. It's a brat, to be sure. I've got it with me right now, but all I generally see is her mouth." I lifted trapinch's bag off my shoulder and carefully placed the bag on the ground. As expected, when I opened the bag I was met with the black maw of trapinch's mouth, causing Lawrence to chuckle.
"Ha, and you say you two aren't close. But Emily must be really good with caring for pokémon eggs… Holo's been sleeping next to the egg I got every night, and he just hatched yesterday evening. He now thinks Holo is his mother, an arrangement she seems to be fine with," Lawrence said, rolling his eyes. "It's a bagon… basically a blue devil that likes to head-butt everything," He said, pulling out his pokéball. A unique feature I had learned about the pokéball from Lawrence was the ability to see the occupant of the pokéball. Generally, a pokéball had a shade preventing us from looking in, but there was a way to remove the shade. In the pokéball, I could see something akin to a blue baby dinosaur. It was curled up in a ball sleeping, so it was hard to get much of a look at it. However, I could see a bony helmet protecting his head, giving proof to Lawrence's statement.
"Ah, you keep trying to say Emily and I are close… As I said before, it's not like that at all. I've barely known Emily longer than you. Not to mention we don't see eye to eye on much."
"Ah, I don't believe that at all. She's trusting you with her pokémon there, right? And what about the old adage 'Opposites attract'?"
"She doesn't want to own pokémon so she's basically left me to take care of this one. As of right now, I don't even have a pokéball to keep this thing in." I answered. "As for that stupid saying, it probably was coined by some lonely engineer trying to understand life through his work…"
"You say that now, but that man probably had more romantic experience than the both of us combined," Lawrence laughed. I rolled my eyes; that wasn't exactly a hard feat to accomplish. "Hmm, but about not owning pokémon… I've seen her type of thought process before. Over in Unova, there's a movement called the 'Plasma Pokémon Party', they're a political party for the freeing of pokémon everywhere in the hopes for human and pokémon coexistence. For whatever reason, they've gained some support everywhere... I'm not much of a fan of it, to be honest. Pokémon wouldn't be able to have commerce with humans due to the communication barrier. It would fall through from an equality standpoint right there… Not to mention this idea would basically make all of vegetarians to some more prevalent degree than right now."
"I would imagine there'd be quite a bit of economic backlash from something like this," I hypothesized. "Production for pokéballs and battling equipment would die. Not to mention all the travel trainers produce and gym income for local cities."
"Yeah, that would hurt. It'd sink every region into economic issues for a while. No matter where you go, pokémon competitions are the biggest sporting events. Pokémon league battles draw in billions of poké between merchandise, ratings and gym challenges. The entire culture of young children involves journeying around with protection from pokémon… So we're basically talking about completely adjusting cultures. Even more importantly, my job is reliant on pokémon… I wouldn't feel safe traveling without some sort of defense, and I'm certainly not alone in that thought… Any job requiring long distance travel would die… You can't cross an ocean without a good deal of pokémon to protect a ship. It's definitely the lead reason Plasma has been trying to remodel their views."
"So what caused this movement anyways? There'd have to be some redeeming qualities for people to believe such a thing. If there wasn't an incredibly good reason, the movement wouldn't last that long," I pointed out.
Lawrence tilted his head a bit, seemingly thinking about the exact reasons. "Well, it's not like Plasma doesn't have a valid point... What they talk about is 'pokémon enslavement'. Essentially, pokémon are forced into jobs where they are worked to death. Battling pokémon are sold over the black market, and they're raised… roughly, to say the least. Many have permanent psychological scars and become viciously obedient to their masters and attack everyone else on sight," Lawrence stated, his tone even and almost removed.
"But probably most disgusting cases are the pokémon forced into prostitution. There's always going to be someone out there with a strange fetish no one else will ever understand… and this one happens to be very popular and mostly illegal. Sinnoh and Kanto are even ridiculously liberal about… relationships… between pokémon and humans, but they still require extensive testing to make sure there is 'consent'. Because of this rule, they're plagued with people who have these fetishes and the tests can be rigged in their favor. Most famously, a brothel in Sinnoh was illegally selling pokémon that had been psychologically broken to the point of obeying anyone without question. It had been there for 25 years before discovered and sold over two thousand pokémon in that time. Sinnoh's government is still trying to cover it's own ass for that 'overlooked' company," Lawrence continued. This part was far more passionate. Perhaps to him, pokémon enslavement was just a negative product of the existence of pokéballs. However, I wonder what caused his sudden passion. Perhaps he had a run-in with one of these groups?
"What happened to the company once found?" I asked. Lawrence was preparing notes on a few items, suggesting he was just about ready to check out.
"Well, when the government found it, there was nothing left. Someone went and burned the place to the ground, killing quite a few people inside. Suspiciously, all the pokémon were found to be unharmed. Even more suspiciously, the government never tried to see if that company had any ties… They simply started an investigation to track down, convict and imprison the arsonist. Priorities… Don't get me wrong; murdering the people was atrocious. However, Sinnoh just acted like there was no chance that other similar organizations could possibly exist. It was just… well, a national screw-up that Sinnoh still hasn't lived down."
Lawrence eventually checked out, which took roughly ten minutes as he negotiated the price of multiple items. He sold a few items that he had brought on the cart with him, working his magic to sell the pieces at what I thought and secretly knew to be too high. When we left the store, he grinned wildly.
"So how much did you make?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Well… It always depends on luck when I see, but I think 350,000 poké is a safe assumption. A little bit low, but I can't complain. People really should know the worth of what they sell. That one was conservative enough on buying, so I'd say the products sold were sold fairly… just a bit under what I thought I'd make."
And so the rest of the morning would follow similarly. We both were leaving in the afternoon to different locations, so we both had some preparations to be made. I wanted to get the minor amount of shopping I needed to do out of the way before Sal's lesson, as I could leave Sal's lesson and arrive in Sandgem by dusk. If I had to shop after Sal's class, I could easily be arriving at midnight Lawrence was planning to take a ship out of Slateport to head to Hoenn, so he also was going to try and make it all the way to Slateport today. He would be arriving around midnight, but he his boat left tomorrow at noon.
"Ah, Gray! We should trade contact information," Lawrence exclaimed. This left me having to explain the fact that, short of a postcard, people had no way to contact me. Lawrence was a bit surprised; it seems that everyone who travels has some sort of technology. Technology to contact others also helped to serve as a map and a GPS in case you got lost or needed someone to rescue you. Essentially, dying was a lot easier when no one knew you were dying.
"Ah, then I'll look into getting a phone sometimes later..." I answered halfheartedly after Lawrence lectured me about the importance of technology.
"Yeah, yeah… The guy who sleeps in Eterna forest doesn't even have a device to guide him out."
"In my defense, I did have a hand-drawn map," I smiled, referencing Meg's map of the forest. Of course, it was useless for many human paths and such, but it had helped occasionally. "Anyways, Sal's class will be starting soon, I don't need to get lectured before then."
"Nah, I'm supplementing those lectures. Today we'll be battling with the class for trainers… Sal mentioned they considered it a rivalry and so we have to fight. Five matches of single three versus three, one doubles match and one triples match. Apparently, they generally beat this class since all the trainer class does is study these battles... So to encourage us, Sal's offering us a prize if we win," Lawrence trailed off. I laughed at his typical behavior. If there was money to be made, Lawrence was interested.
"Alright, alright. I'll win my match so you do your part and we'll get the prize," I grinned.
"We're only two people… I have to worry about the four trainers being able to battle properly. But knowing Sal, whatever that prize is would definitely be worth it."
Indeed, Lawrence and I were only two people. The matches so far were very evenly matched… We were down 3-1 after Arthur Miller absolutely decimated his opponent. Arthur only brought his Arcanine as an intentional handicap and still destroyed his opponent, a young 15-year-old trainer, almost effortlessly. Through the whole match, Arthur had been lecturing the trainer on what he was doing wrong, further adding to the trainer's humiliation.
"So we won't lose yet," Lawrence muttered. We had been watching from the stands overlooking the training field. The training field was relatively simple. It was 60 yards long, 40 yards across. About a third of the field was covered by boulders of varying sizes, and the middle had a small depression that would hold water if needed. Shedinja had shown up a bit earlier with Latias, who said she was going somewhere 'proper' to sleep. Didn't a bench beat the floor of the Eterna Forest? Thankfully, she had taken the little maw with her. Her only interaction with me was her saying she'd meet me in Sandgem town later this evening.
"Well, Ben has to win for us to have a shot," I responded. Ben was one of the trainers who had joined us the second day when we went after the weather setters. Around 17 years old, he was the same age as the other two 'standard' trainers in this class, but probably edged the other two out in battling. He was just a little more reserved in battling; not rushing headlong into fights as quickly as the others. We had talked to him in passing and both Lawrence and I agreed he was sharp enough, but so far everyone but Arthur had been handled easily. Since Lawrence and I were responsible for the double and triple battles respectively, us playing depended on Ben winning his match.
Ben's opponent was a girl who, for all intents and purposes, was probably just younger than Ben. Short seemed to be her motif… She stood just over 5 feet tall and had short brown hair, but neither were as short as the red skirt she wore. The skirt was, in my practiced opinion, far too short for a teenage girl. Perhaps it was a subtle tactic of distraction?
"Alright, let's start!" The judge stated. Apparently, actual matches needed a judge to determine when one side won. For this occasion, the teacher for the battling class acted as the judge.
"Alright, go Luxio!" The girl called. Ben released his own pokémon silently. His choice was a green monkey with what seemed to be a small bush growing from his head. I had seen this pokémon before during his triple battles; it was a pansage… Not terribly strong, but it was incredibly difficult to hit.
"Money on Ben," Lawrence started. To pass the time, we had been chatting straight through matches.
"Yeah, that Luxio looks a bit questionable," I responded. Through the first exchange, pansage was showing off his clever movements, easily avoiding the luxio's attempt to hit him. The luxio seemed oddly frustrated for it being so early. Was it not well trained?
"It's a good taunt. Status moves and the like could really hinder pansage's movements, so forcing luxio to constantly attack assures pansage will have his way here," Lawrence explained.
"It's such a good play, the girl doesn't even realize it yet," I grinned. She was nearly as frustrated as her pokémon, trying to figure out why luxio wasn't using thunder wave. Eventually, she called back luxio and sent out a second pokémon. This one was a large butterfly; it's black and yellow wings matching the color trend of the previous luxio.
"Bad mistake… Even though she's got type advantage, beautifly relies heavily on its support moves," Lawrence laughed, rolling his eyes.
"Soundless commands are pretty deadly. The fact that Ben has yet to attack yet means he's aiming his attacks at her instead of the pokémon. Eventually, she's going to make a critical mistake," I observed. This was all part of Sal's emphasis, but it was pretty awesome to see it in battle when it wasn't being used against you.
"Oh, she already has," Lawrence smiled. Ben gave his first command of the game, an attack called 'acrobatics'. I watched as the pansage changed his trajectory, flinging himself through the air. He grabbed the beautifly in midair and slammed it to the ground while summersaulting away. The attack's effectiveness was immediate; the beautifly's wing was broken, it fell like a stone. For all intents and purposes, it was dead in the water.
"Beautifly is unable to battle. Prepare your next pokémon," The judge declared. And so the rest of the match continued with Ben messing with his opponent until she made a bad decision. Ben would stay silent while his pokémon dodged and blocked; only giving commands for attacks. The match continued steadily until the foregone conclusion was reached. Ben had completely annihilated his opponent. She left the field a bit miffed. I couldn't blame her; she had been made a fool for twenty minutes.
"Guess it's me, hmm? Well, I doubt this will be anything more than my victory, since I really want to see what Sal's prize is."
And so I watched in silence as Lawrence began his attacks. He led off with Ferdinand and Holo, his two companions. His opponent led off a large fuzzy yellow spider and an arbok. The spider's fur crackled dangerously, suggesting electricity. The snake's slightly intimidating form was easily recognizable after I had taken on the young racketeer at the Ragged Pass. However, I had never seen it's offensive capabilities, as Espeon had just flung it away.
"Alright, let's go with copy two and strategy one," Lawrence called.
"Galvantula, bug bite and discharge on the porygon! Arbok, poison fang the vulpix!" The kid's commands were taking far too long. The time it took to get simple combinations across was too high. Sal had stressed how much of a disadvantage this command style was, but it was far more apparent in battle.
I watched as suddenly the two pokémon approaching Ferdinand shied away. It was his ability, trace, at work. As they retreated, the sun grew incredibly harsh. Ferdinand had summoned up the sun with Sunny Day. Lawrence seemed to love the move, as Ferdinand was capable of keeping his travels dry. However, I knew here that Holo would be the one truly loving the sun. She unleashed a flamethrower over the approaching arbok, burning him before he ever got an attack off. Even though the galvantula did manage to attack Ferdinand, the attack seemed to do no damage at all, and a second attack from Holo knocked that one out, too. The battle might as well been finished right there, but the kid decided to persist. Needless to say, the battle remained incredibly one-sided.
Lawrence laughed easily as he congratulated his own pokémon on their win before taking a theatrical bow. He got a couple of jeers from the trainer's side but he only grinned wider.
Somehow, we had managed to need the tiebreaker and so I would have to play. My opponent was a man roughly my age. He was taller than me by nearly a full foot. He had wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes and a tan that suggested he was from somewhere far more south than here… To be honest, he looked like a stereotypical surfer. However, his attitude differed. This one was calm and quietly confident compared to the cocky extroverted attitudes those beach dwellers gave off. I squared off opposite of him, separated by 60 yards, and folded my hands in quiet thought. The judge was explaining the simple rules as I judged my opponent. While he was doing the exact same analyzing to me, a small smile passed his face. He had found a weakness he wanted to exploit. Something about my posture had given him a little idea on how to deal with me. I probably looked a bit nervous. I was probably even trembling a little.
I was laughing on the inside. I had to resist the urge to smile cruelly, thinking of all the nasty traps I had ready. Though, I still had a few questions. How many should I actually use? Was it really worth showing off all my hidden little traps? Most importantly, if I had to show them off, would he be fooled. As the judge gave the signal to release our pokémon, I continued my nervous façade, drawing even a few jeers from my opponent's supporters. My standard team of Gustav and Sarin were the only visible pokémon; Shedinja was already hiding in the rock formation. I had intentionally deployed him in my half of the rugged terrain to try and keep him hidden. It would also help me to have a slight information edge.
As he deployed his pokémon, I realized I recognized two of them.
The first, a meditite, was a bipedal pokémon with a garlic-shaped head. Directly underneath the garlic bulb sat the comically large black eyes and comparatively small mouth. While its face was white, every other part of its skin was a baby blue color. From my own studies, I knew this to be a fighting/psychic type that specialized in heavy fighting strikes with statuses and psychic attacks supplementing as long-range support. It would probably be the bulky mid for this team.
The second pokémon was a Sinnoh starter, a monferno. The obviously monkey-like pokémon was mostly a shade of brown with the exception of a blue stripe supplementing monferno's lack of eyebrows. Large ears, opposable thumbs and a flaming tail rounded out the noticeable characteristics of this one. Sal had shown us this fire monkey in one of our in class lectures. It, much like Ben's pansage, was fast and agile. Unlike pansage, monferno specialized in close combat as opposed to agility. Again, Monferno would be using close range fighting and fire moves, but probably had a few long range fire attacks… Two mixed ranged attackers? This was getting ugly.
The last pokémon, I didn't recognize at all. It seemed to share some traits from the monkey family, including big ears and a large mouth, but this one was different from any species I had seen. The body coloring was light green and aqua through and through, with a large lily pad on it's head. Due to its color scheme, it almost appeared to be wearing an aqua jacket. Most likely, this was a grass-based pokémon, with the lily pad suggesting some affinity for water type moves.
All this I absorbed in a few seconds. I knew right away my initial strategy of utilizing rain for the visibility restrictions would be a bad idea given the lily pad pokémon. He'd be my primary target early on. My opponent seemed to have two very offensive pokémon, so I could hopefully assume the last lily pad pokémon would be somewhat defensive. Otherwise, Gustav could be overwhelmed while Shedinja went about his own attacks.
"They look pretty easy! Could beat all myself, I could!" Gustav laughed.
"Ah… please don't get them riled up. I'm the one who has to take the hits for you," Sarin pleaded.
"Just let me do the work then! It won't take that long. Between me and our little friend, we'll be out of here in ten minutes," Gustav smiled easily.
"Alright challengers. Begin!" The judge shouted.
"Monferno, Meditite, start the attack. Lombre, begin using Rain Dance!" My opponent shouted. So he'd be using rain, too? Such a choice as to disadvantage his monferno's fire attacks suggested his meditite would be the one using long range attacks and the monferno would be solely for closer range combat. It wasn't a bad idea, seeing as Gustav would have complete dominance against monferno long range, given his ability Thick fat to ward off any fire. Oh well… if they were going to help the strategy I was planning on using, I might as well take advantage of it.
"Sarin, Gustav, luminesce," I stated simply. All of my strategies to date had been named after illusions. Between Mirage, Luminesce, Phantasm and Apparition, I had developed a healthy naming convention that was suitable to my strategy of misdirection without giving away the actual trap.
"All business so soon, eh! Come on now, we have nine minutes and thirty seconds to spare!" Gustav laughed, bouncing around. Nevertheless, he began his own preparations… or created the illusion that he had preparations to make.
Both my opponent and I seemed to be fine with shortened commands to start the game. As the meditite and monferno approached and the rain began to fall, Sarin began to rain thousands of poisonous needles over the two approaching fighting types. The idea had been to use Gustav's rain to hide these needles that, to an untrained eye, looked no different from a raindrop in the dark skies. More importantly, Gustav started poking the two pokémon with psyshock. This made it appear like a third pokémon was right around them. The monferno and the meditite began looking around to find this presence but turned up empty. This kept them in the 'acid rain' for longer; increasing the chance one would be poisoned.
"Monferno, Meditite! The rocks, his third is in the rocks. Smash it!" My opponent's first command made my eyes widen with shock as the two fighting types jumped out of the poisonous rain and destroyed a good layer of rocks. Whether he realized the rain was toxic or he had incredibly good instinct, my opponent easily drove the two fighting types out of the acid rain zone. I could continue to force the issue, but it would make the trap apparent and really lose all productive value. The attacks themselves probably wouldn't bother Shedinja, but the flying rocks could easily take him out. As they went out of their way, the lombre moved up to prevent Gustav and Sarin from flanking.
"Ah! Sarin, Gustav, push please!" I commanded.
"Got it, boss!" Gustav joked, bouncing forward. Sarin quickly followed, eventually moving in front of Gustav to continue her role as protector.
Immediately, the lombre started to attack as they pushed at the poor centralized figure. His methods seemed to be just to delay as the two fighting types continued smashing the rocks, searching for Shedinja. The lombre was in a constant uproar as he shot out bubbles that seemed to slow Sarin and Gustav. Under these circumstances, I really couldn't command Gustav or Sarin; it simply was too loud.
"My ears! Stop it you heartless monkey!" Sarin shouted, barely audible over the uproar. I swore I saw the lombre smirk as she said that.
Naturally, Sarin began popping the bubbles with poison sting, but continued to make little progress as the lombre fell back at his own leisure. Whenever Sarin got close enough, he just scratched her across the face and deployed more bubbles. It seemed like a losing fight for me, Shedinja trapped somewhere in the rocks and I couldn't even get a trade while they went to knock him out. I must've appeared really nervous because my opponent kept grinning.
The fighting types kept pushing closer to my side as the lombre retreated, pushing my two into the middle but still exposing his lombre alone. How long was it going to take him to realize that Shedinja wasn't in the rocks? This buffoon. Had it been a two versus three, I certainly would be flanked and lose, but this situation wasn't near that. As the lombre finally quieted down a bit, I prepared to spring my trap.
"Shedinja. Destroy his lombre. Gustav, eliminate the monferno," I commanded, changing my demeanor to reflect my inner thoughts. Shedinja appeared behind the lombre and slashed right the lily monkey's back. This was a fight that the lombre couldn't win, but he was isolated from any support. With Shedinja to his back and Sarin stopping him from crossing to monferno and meditite, he was down almost instantly.
"Meditite, take down the grumpig! Mind reader and fling!" Unflinchingly, my opponent responded to the change of events. His quick response saved him from losing right there. With nearly perfect accuracy, the meditite started to fling large rocks at Gustav. He stopped some with his own psychic attacks, but the meditite was merciless, forcing him to fall back. "Monferno, flame wheel!" This time, the monferno jumped into the barrage of rocks and started to drop a heavy kick towards Gustav. Not a single rock hit monferno due to meditite's careful aim. It had to be telepathy; Meditite was reading monferno's movements in the same way he read Gustav's. The heavy kick nearly connected with Gustav but was instead caught by Sarin's green barrier. The barrier was from the move 'protect', guarding the user from any damage. And since Sarin had worked so hard to get underneath monferno and become the target, it worked brilliantly. Gustav jumped back and allowed for Sarin to take on the monferno as he focused on the rock flinging meditite.
The field, for all intents and purposes, was completely flipped. My pokémon were much closer to my opponent and his much closer to me. In the wild, I could never let such a situation happen… I made a mental note to work this issue out later. The rain had also dissipated; taking with it any visual impairment that it caused. However, with my opponent's lombre down and Shedinja disappearing back into the rocky patch again, my opponent was at a disadvantage and he knew it. However, two things inhibited him from having any chance. The first issue was he remained ignorant of how Shedinja got behind lombre. I imagine he would assume his pokémon had guessed the wrong way. In reality, Shedinja had been using Phantom Force since the beginning of the match. So, my opponent would be expecting Shedinja to be nearer him as well, far removed from being able to strike monferno and meditite for at least a bit.
The second, and more concerning issue for him, was the fact that he had yet to realize that his monferno was suffering from poison… The poisonous rain had indeed gotten to him, and his system was in the early stages of shutting down. His movements weren't very sharp, even against a non-mobile Sarin. Every time he hit Sarin, he made contact with her poisonous skin. It would only become worse…
Gustav, on the other hand, was quietly fighting back the meditite. When it came to pure skill, Gustav was by far the strongest pokémon on the field. His craftiness in using his psychic ability to toss rocks back at the meditite and redirect them at the monferno made the meditite much more cautious.
"Gustav, Shedinja. End this game."
"Meditite, detect!" Meditite just barely dodged out of the way as Shedinja came through. It must've been less than a split second reaction. Not even a protection barrier like Sarin's would've stopped Shedinja at that point. "Counter it, fling!" A rock flew in at Shedinja, but he had already disappeared for another strike. However, in the midst of all this, Sarin was getting driven back by the monferno. The monferno's breath was incredibly labored, but he was fighting ferociously. With the lack of rain and perhaps the low health boost he would get from blaze, he had started to pound away at Sarin's defenses.
"Help please!" Sarin shouted out.
"Gustav, psyshock. Shedinja, finish him," I quickly commanded. The monferno quickly turned around to bash Shedinja, but turned to see nothing. Gustav's psyshock had hit a nerve just enough to trigger monferno's sixth sense, making him think the attack was real.
Of course, the wording itself was a trap. Because Shedinja could see me even though none of us could see him, I had decided to let my eyes choose the targets. And I was looking at the meditite.
In that next instant, the meditite fell. It had been focused on the monferno, waiting for Shedinja to appear, lowering its own defenses to the stealthy strike. Within a few moments, monferno followed suit, falling from poison as Sarin and Gustav continued to give ground.
"And… that is the game! Dustin is out of usable pokémon, the challenger is declared the victor." The judge said, stunned. Of course, he as a teacher had never expected to lose in a best of seven. Dustin must've expected it even less as for the first time, I saw shock cross his face.
"Nice battle," I said simply, shaking his hand as formalities dictated.
"You got lucky. Nevertheless, it happens," Dustin replied. There was a hint of anger in his tone as we shook hands and he quickly retreated back to his group. It didn't matter. The battle suggested the result to be anything but luck.
"Ah! Sarin, Gustav and Shedinja," I said, retreating to my small group of warriors. "And done in nine minutes!"
"Hah! Told you we would. Could've played some more, though. More experience for this young'un." Gustav laughed, bouncing around. In truth, I could tell that even he was a bit prouder of the result than he let on.
"That was… entertaining," Sarin said uneasily. She spoke as if she had just tried a new foreign food and couldn't quite grasp the flavor.
"Anything to say, Shedinja?" I asked.
"It was a slaughter. Just as it should be," Shedinja hissed. I smiled at his content attitude. With so few words to say and expectations so high, one might think Shedinja was cocky and self-righteous. But then again, people couldn't hear him talk.
"Ah Gray! Fantastic win!" Sal grinned as he patted Gustav on the head. "And to my group! I see you all have improved," He said, turning to address the seven of us. "As promised, the reward for the victors!" Sal took out a bag of items. Many shiny and semi-precious stones were present along with teeth, scales and even an incense container. As the group dug through the items with eagerness, Arthur Miller and I hung back.
"Hmm? Don't see anything to your fancy, Gray?" Arthur Miller asked.
"Ho! Perhaps you're a picky one," Sal implied.
"Ah… perhaps I am," I smiled. "No, I don't quite understand the use of any of those items. I know some are evolution stones, but it's way too complex for me."
"The apparent value and worth of those stones confuse everyone, Gray," Arthur Miller laughed. "The World Trading Organization can never agree on their market value. It's to be expected you wouldn't know. Though… I guess I see your point. With only Shedinja, none of them are particularly helpful to you."
"Perhaps something else would interest you?" Sal asked. "I'm all for helping the younger generation, you can be a bit greedy." By now, most of the group had finished up looking through and selecting an item. After saying goodbye, the only people that remained were Sal, Arthur, Lawrence and myself.
"You could take that max revive, Gray. Good trade in value," Lawrence laughed. He was holding a red semi-precious stone with a flame insignia, a fire stone. Perhaps it was for Holo?
"Ah, if I were to be greedy…" I said, my eyes glancing towards Sarin. Everything so far had led me to believe Sal just didn't have enough time for her. She preferred the name she gained before Sal caught her. She was weak, easily one of the weakest Sal had. And Sal immediately acknowledged Gustav while almost not noticing Sarin.
Even with all these indicators, I still felt odd even considering it as an option. I guess I understood how Lucy felt when she asked for Espeon. Even though I didn't think Sal had any strong connection to Sarin, she was still his pokémon. But I had to persist.
"Since I only travel with one pokémon… Would you consider allowing me to take care of Poinsettia?" I asked cautiously, using the name Sal had given Sarin. I was wrought with anxiety… this could be seen as incredibly greedy, even beyond Sal's suggestion.
But contrary to my expectations, Sal just grinned. "Aye, why not? She's been with me long enough and I see no reason that she needs to stick with me! You promise to take good care of her?" I nodded. "I know she's pretty fond of you already, so I'm guessing you're okay with it?" Sal asked, looking at Sarin. She nodded. "Then it's fine. You're a pretty good trainer, too, if that last battle's anything to go by. I was going to tell you about Dustin before your fight… seems he had a few gym battles under his belt. He was the class' star student, and you won! So I trust you with Poinsettia. Train her well, Gray! And to both of you, have a good adventure! Arthur and I have some memories to catch up on. If either of you are ever looking for me, I'm here all year, bar winter!"
"See you around Gray!" Gustav laughed. Before leaving, he bounced over to Sarin and patted her on the head. "Ah, now you get to have all the fun! I'm almost jealous. But you deserve it, right? Don't let the opportunity get past you!" With that, he bounced away with Sal and Arthur.
"So, that was interesting," Lawrence grinned. "But… You and I both have places to be. Get some way to keep in touch, you bum."
"I don't want to hear about you in prison for fraud, you know. I'll keep in touch somehow, but I'm on more limited funds than your ever-deepening pockets."
"Ah, don't take me to be that rich. Traveling is expensive, you could say I'm barely making it by," Lawrence laughed. I grinned, knowing full well he was more well off than he let on. And so, Lawrence and I exchanged goodbyes before heading our out. Perhaps, for the first time since I began this trip, I felt truly comfortable. I had friends I could look forward to seeing in the future and a few new faces for which I'd journey with in the mean time.
As I mentioned, it feels like this is kinda an arc end. A lot of the characters that Gray has met at this point will be growing 'off-screen' and be somewhat different when he finds them again (or the ones he will find). It also signifies me being mainly done introducing OCs... Mainly. From here on out, I've set the table with almost everything important, but I've been relatively slow about doing anything. Well, now we go to a very short (comparably) adventure in Sandgem town. I'd like to believe that I'm about to turn up the intensity in the plot, but you never know. I apparently have a bad case of sloth; It's taken me 90k words and I feel like I've just pushed over the first few dominoes.
Anyways. I'd love to know what you thought about this chapter, specifically the battle. As this won't be the last battle (Obviously, it's pokemon. Battles are prevelant), I'd like to know if you have anything that should be improved upon or something that was too long/short. I like the battles to be complicated as I feel many fics just scroll past them as a part that isn't interesting at all. While I don't feel this was the first 'action scene' (read:Meeting the Mightyena, Lucy's Introduction, Sora's destruction of Blake, The Charizard Test, and Giovanni's attack), this was really the first deep dive into a battle.
And as always, thanks for the support.
Ajwf