I didn't sleep a whole lot that night. A lot of it was spent staring up at the ceiling, thinking about possible strategies. I had looked up my opponent in the database before trying to go to sleep. Her name was Christine. She was from Minnesota and a few years older than me. It was also her first tournament as well and was ranked below me in the power rankings. Unfortunately, sifting through her listed pokemon didn't help much. She had caught a fairly sizeable number of pokemon and had been observed using at least five different water pokemon over the last year. There was no way for me to know which of those she would use, if any of them. It took a while but eventually I dozed off.
I got to the appropriate field at about quarter to eleven the next morning. After showing someone my pass, I was allowed into the trainers' area to get registered and prepare. A hallway split into two separate paths, each leading to a different locker room. I was the green trainer so I took the hallway painted green instead of the red one. Sitting in front of the locker room entrance was a worker at a table filled with papers and equipment. My identity was verified again and the worker asked for my three pokemon so they could be registered. I switched my third pokemon real fast and then panicked and switched them back before handing the poke balls to the worker. Once registered, I just had to hope I made the right choice.
The locker room looked like any other locker room I had been in. Rows of red metal grated lockers lined the walls with groups of benches in front of them. I wasn't sure why they were even there because no one used them. Showers were also available but those were even more underused than the lockers. The only area in the whole room that got any use was the small area with some worn couches and easy chairs that surrounded a group of monitors. Each one was pumping in a live feed of all the other battles currently going on. There was only one other trainer in the room. We exchanged nods as I sat down to watch the ongoing matches until my own began.
Time slowly ticked away. I caught something flashing on the edge of my vision. There was an electronic sign on the wall that I hadn't noticed before. It listed the two trainers currently on that field in big red letters against a black screen. Below them in smaller print was the names of the trainers on deck. My name was one of the two listed. I heard the other trainer in the room let out a low whistle and then the sign changed. The two trainers that had been listed were wiped away and my name slid up into the active match spot. A timer appeared below my name indicating that I had to be in my trainer's area in eleven minutes, giving the announcers enough time to introduce us to the television audience before the match officially began. I heaved myself out of my chair, used the restroom quickly and then headed for the exit.
I passed the trainer who had just battled in the hallway. He wished me luck. I thanked him and took a few more steps to reach the open air. The crowd let out a low rumble for me when I appeared on the video screen. I wasn't expecting much considering this was the first time I had entered and all. Across the field I could just see the figure of my opponent coming down her own hallway. The crowd gave her a polite round of applause as well. A few minutes passed before the referee took his position along the side of the field.
"Trainers!" he called out. "Direct your attention to the video screen! Who makes the first move is about to be decided!"
The screen had a new layout to it. It was divided into three sections: red on the left, black in the middle, and green on the right. At the top of the green section was my picture and atop the red was Christine's. There were three blank squares beneath both our images that would eventually display the pokemon we were using. In the black section was a circle with alternating slices of red and green. One would light, extinguish and then the next would light as the light swirled around the circle like a roulette wheel. It finally slowed to a stop, leaving a red slice as the final illuminated piece.
"Red trainer, you make the first move!" the ump declared as he pointed at my opponent.
She nodded and lofted a poke ball into the air. "Quagsire, let's go!"
"Right!" I said to myself. I knew all about quagsires since I had one of my own. It's dual type narrowed down my choice at least. "Crawdaunt, you're up!"
Crawdaunt was a lot bigger than Corphish had been. It also walked on two bigger back legs instead of the six smaller ones that its previous evolution had used. The pokemon still had two big pincers and now sported a smaller set of claw-like appendages. Most importantly, it had picked up the secondary typing of Dark. It stood there on its floating raft, trying to look intimidating to the quagsire on the opposite raft. Up on the video screen, a generic picture of a crawdaunt appeared in one of the blank spaces below my picture. A generic picture of a quagsire was already below Christine's picture.
"Quagsire, use rollout!"
"Counter with crab hammer!"
Quagsire dove forward and into a rapid spin. It actually rolled all the way across the surface of the water. Crawdaunt pulled back a glowing claw, waited for the right moment, and slammed it into Quagsire. Something happened and not what I wanted. Crawdaunt's claw almost seemed to liquefy and pass right through Quagsire. Unimpeded, Quagsire knocked Crawdaunt back before bouncing off and landing on one of the other four rafts.
"Interesting," I muttered. My quagsire didn't have that ability. My quagsire had the ability Damp. That was definitely Water Absorb. That was certainly going to make things a little more difficult.
"Crawdaunt, use-"
Christine cut me off. "Into the water!"
Quagsire took a step backwards and dropped out of sight. Its light blue skin made it hard to track in the water. I caught it making circles around the raft Crawdaunt inhabited like some lurking predator. It had the advantage underwater. The quagsire was more agile beneath the waves than my crawdaunt.
"Doesn't change a thing!" I pointed at the water. "Blast Quagsire out of there with dark pulse!"
Crawdaunt hefted its claws as balls of purple rings began to swirl inside them both. It lifted them above its head and then thrust them out, the balls bursting into beams of purple rings. The beams cut through the water and exploded. I could see Quagsire trying to flee. So could Crawdaunt. It tracked the swimming pokemon with a claw and then fired another beam. The dark-typed beam slammed into Quagsire, drove it to the bottom of the pool and exploded.
When all the water didn't start draining out, I wondered what in the world this pool was made out of.
"Quagsire, body slam!"
Quagsire came rocketing out of the water. It shot high into the air where it extended its arms and legs out as it began to drop. Having reached a considerable height, it was really starting to pick up speed. This could hurt a lot.
"Protect!"
Crawdaunt threw up its translucent shield. Quagsire crashed into it and bounced off.
"Focus blast!"
The second Crawdaunt had lowered its shield, Quagsire had begun to spin in the air. It did one complete flip and as it came up to face Crawdaunt again, it held the light blue orb between its hands. The water and ground pokemon heaved the orb at Crawdaunt. There was no chance to respond. The super-effective attack detonated against my pokemon and hurled it into the water.
"Rollout!" Christine yelled.
Quagsire kept up its spin and plunged into the water. The rotation it was creating underwater was sending pulses of water into my pokemon, keeping it from recovering quickly. Then Quagsire slammed into it, rebounded and reversed directions to slam into it again.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. "Metal claw!"
I saw the shimmer of silver and knew Crawdaunt had heard my command. The silver glow began blurry as it moved. Suddenly there were two things underwater heading different directions. One away from me, up one heading up. Crawdaunt burst out of the water and landed back on its raft. Quagsire regained control underwater and headed back for the surface.
"Muddy water!"
A jet of dirty brown water shot out of the pool. It caught Crawdaunt in the face and tipped it dangerously far backwards. Crawdaunt recovered in time to see a focus blast hurtling towards it. We tried to get a protective shield up but I wasn't fast enough in getting the order out. A charred Crawdaunt sizzled as it fell back into the pool. It clamped a pincer onto the raft to heave itself back up.
"Crawdaunt, return!" I ordered. The crowd offered up a nice applause. It probably wasn't for me. "Swampert, let's go!"
Now the odds had evened out a little. Swampert was just as mobile in the water as Quagsire. They also shared the same type for what it was worth. Up on the video board, the picture of Crawdaunt dimmed as a picture of a swampert appeared below it.
"Earthquake, Swampert!"
"Swam-pert!" Swampert hefted its mighty arms into the air and slammed them down onto its raft. The raft itself quaked but that was about it. Shockwaves rippled through the water and did nothing but make the other rafts bob around. I muttered a word I hoped the cameras didn't catch as I took a small step back. I had just made a huge strategic error.
"Focus blast!" Christine shouted.
Swampert was just rising back up to its full height when the focus blast pounded into its chest and exploded. Being the defensive beast that it was, Swampert only took a pair of step backwards.
"Ice beam!" I ordered.
Quagsire went into a graceful backwards dive. The blue lightning bolts passed just above it as my opponent's pokemon slipped into the water. Some small particles of ice formed along Quagsire's underbelly to indicate how close it had been. I could see it arcing around underwater, building up speed for something. Christine and her pokemon seemed to have some preplanned routines in place.
"Rollout!"
Quagsire came shooting out of the water in a high arc. Already spinning before it left the water, it carried a trail of water behind it as it began its descent.
I pointed at the falling pokemon. "Ice beam!"
The jagged blue bolts found there target. It worked better than I had hoped. The water around Quagsire froze instantly, encasing the pokemon in a falling icy tomb.
"Wait for it," I called, holding up a hand for patience. "Now! Hammer arm!"
From elbow to the tip of its fist, Swampert's right arm glowed white. It lunged forward and swung its arm like a club. The glowing forearm smashed into the frozen Quagsire. Chunks of ice went one way and Quagsire went another. Frozen in a very aerodynamic ball, Quagsire flew all the way across the field and crashed into the side barrier. It slumped down amongst the pile of ice that had fallen from its body.
"One more ice beam for good measure!" I called out.
The icy blast slammed Quagsire back into the wall again. This time when it slumped down, it didn't get back up.
"Quagsire is unable to battle!" the ref announced. "Swampert is the winner!"
This time the crowd let out a real cheer. The square beneath Christine's picture on the video board faded to just show the outline of the quagsire picture, indicating it was no longer available for battle. A new picture bloomed to life below it as my opponent sent out her next pokemon.
I let out a low moan. "God dammit. I hate these things."
As big and pineapple-looking as ever, a ludicolo danced happily across the pond at me. Not only was it a difficult type combination to attack, it was equally hard to defend against. I was willing to bet that it knew at least one grass-type attack and that could be a death sentence for Swampert.
"Swampert, return!" I got my pokemon off the field before Christine could get an order out. I had an unused third pokemon but there was no sense in using it yet. Christine still had a third pokemon too. "Crawdaunt, come on back!"
"Ludicolo, use energy ball!"
"Protect!"
The green orb collided with Crawdaunt's protective green shield. The shield held up. Unfortunately, it was a decoy.
"Ludicolo, rain dance!"
"No!" I roared. "Crawdaunt, stop it with dark pulse!"
Ludicolo was already swaying side to side in its hula dance before Crawdaunt could get rid of its protect. The beams of purple rings slammed into Ludicolo, exploding and throwing it off its raft. It was too late. Dark clouds were quickly forming above the field. Rain began to fall. Not a heavy rain but still rain nonetheless. Now I just had to wait and see. Ludicolo was either going to get a speed boost or the rain was going to slowly heal the pokemon. I wasn't sure which was the worst case scenario.
"Hydro pump!" Christine yelled.
I got ready to call for Protect but instead of a huge blast of water coming out at Crawdaunt, Ludicolo came flying out of the water. It had shot its hydro pump at the base of the pool and was using the force of it to shoot itself out of the water. The big pokemon slammed into my crawdaunt butt-first. I was a little offended that Christine was using a variation of a trick that I had stolen from Dylan.
"Metal claw!"
I saw a flash of silver near the bottom of the pile of tangled pokemon limbs. Ludicolo was suddenly ejected from the pile. It belly flopped into the water but quickly climbed back up onto one of the platform rafts. Judging from how quickly it had gotten back onto that raft, I had to assume that it was getting a speed boost.
"Dark pulse!" I ordered.
My suspicions were confirmed as Ludicolo pirouetted around the two dark-type beams. That wasn't good. Neither of my two active pokemon were exactly speed demons. I was pretty sure Ludicolo might have been faster than Crawdaunt before its boost. Now it was probably faster than Swampert too.
"Hydro pump!"
"Get into the water!"
Crawdaunt jumped into the water a mere second before the huge blast of water would've blow it clear off its platform.
"Metal claw!"
Crawdaunt came rocketing back out of the water trailing a pincer glowing silver. Ludicolo managed to dodge the overhand swing. Crawdaunt landed on Ludicolo's raft and swung its claw in a backhand now. Ludicolo twirled on one leg to avoid it. Crawdaunt lunged with its other claw now. The big grass pokemon actually leapt over my pokemon and landed just behind it. I was actually surprised that the two pokemon could manage to stay on the same raft. There was barely any room left on there.
"Energy ball!"
The grass-type attack took Crawdaunt in its unprotected flank. The explosion pitched it forward and the pokemon crash-landed on another raft.
"Crawdaunt is unable to battle!" the ref announced. "Ludicolo is the winner!"
I grimaced as the crowd cheered and Crawdaunt's picture on the video board went dark. I returned the pokemon to its ball and said to it, "Good work out there. You earned your rest."
Now I had to consider my options. I had Swampert already warmed up, having defeated Quagsire and taken very little damage. On the other hand, I still had my third pokemon completely undamaged but so did Christine. I looked up at the rain clouds. They were still there but they were thinning out. They'd be there for a bit longer still. I decided to hedge my bet that my third pokemon would be more useful against her third pokemon.
"Swampert, come on out!"
A low murmur ran through the crowd. I'm sure a lot of them didn't agree with my choice. Swampert's dual-typing made a grass-type attack like the energy ball Ludicolo had already shown incredibly dangerous. They didn't know what I knew though. They also didn't know what I was about to try.
"Ice beam, Swampert!" I shouted but instead of pointing at Ludicolo, I pointed up into the sky. "Use it on those rain clouds!"
Swampert reared back and blasted its ice beam into the sky. Confused by what I was attempting, Christine didn't order her pokemon to attack or anything. She simply watched what was happening along with the bewildered crowd.
The jagged blue bolts found the clouds and poured icy energy into the dark clouds. Slowly the color of the clouds began to change. They blackness of them faded to a light grey. The rain began not to stop but change. Some of it began thick and fluffy while some of it froze instantly. Swampert had just turned the rainstorm into a snowstorm.
"Holy shit that actually worked," I muttered as the crowd went wild. My eyes dropped back down from the sky to Ludicolo. "Swampert, use hammer arm!"
Christine was still so surprised by what had transpired she didn't react right away. Swampert launched itself from its platform and swatted Ludicolo off of its with a thunderous blow. Ludicolo turned its fall into a dive and came back up behind Swampert.
"Energy ball!"
"Block it!"
Swampert swung around and tried to club the energy ball out of existence with hammer arm. The attack detonated but the explosion still washed over my pokemon. The block had only been partially successful.
"Zen head butt!"
The top of Ludicolo's head glowed blue and Swampert was hit by a powerful psychic wave. The impact was strong enough to pitch it off its raft. Now both submerged, the two pokemon began chasing each other around. Ludicolo proved to be more agile in the water than I had expected. Swampert had it on the run using ice beam. Ludicolo was throwing energy balls back in response. The ice beams had the side effect of freezing large portions of the water. The two pokemon were quickly running out of room to swim.
"Back on the surface, Ludicolo!" Christine yelled and when Ludicolo had made it safely onto a raft, she added, "Keep Swampert pinned down there with energy ball!"
Ludicolo began hurling energy balls for all its worth. Swampert was able to avoid them but had no opportunity to retaliate. I wasn't sure what the point of this was. It wasn't like Swampert was going to run out of breath any time soon. I mean, the pokemon had gills. Then I noticed that the huge ice chunks Swampert had inadvertently made were now becoming smaller ice chunks when hit with energy balls and beginning to spread out. My pokemon was having to work harder to navigate through the ice pieces and was starting to have some close calls.
"Alright, enough of this!" I declared with a wave of my hand. "Swampert, get to the bottom of the pool!" I could just barely see my pokemon follow my orders through all the ice pieces. "Now use earthquake!"
When Swampert had used earthquake while on a raft, it had just sent out small waves. When used on the base of the pool, water began to churn and froth in a frightening way. The calm pool had turned into a stormy sea. Waves buffeted Ludicolo's platform and it had to fight to stay standing.
"Surface and use ice beam!"
Swampert exploded out of the water, limbs arched over making it look it was in some type of martial arts pose. It was launching its ice beam before it even landed on a raft. Ice beam knocked Ludicolo clear off its feet. It splashed down in the still churning pool.
"Hammer arms!"
Swampert launched back into the air, both arms glowing from tip to elbow. Ludicolo had just broken the surface when Swampert brought its arms crashing down on the grass-type pokemon's head. The two pokemon disappeared beneath the waves. There was a green explosion followed shortly there after by separate a shockwave of water. I had to hope that the second shockwave was Swampert retaliating. The water began to calm and a form floated to the surface.
"Ludicolo is unable to battle!" the ref announced as Ludicolo bobbed face up in the water, its jaw slack. "Swampert is the winner!"
A tired Swampert climbed back up onto a raft. Now the crowd was really going nuts. They had really enjoyed the drama of the underwater battle despite not being able to see much of it. Christine caught my eye across the field and nodded towards the crowd with a raise eyebrow. I gave her a small but genuine smile along with a miniscule shrug. No matter who won, we had at least put on a good show so far.
"Sharpedo, it's your time!" Christine called.
Unlike all the other pokemon we'd sent out, this one dove directly into the water. It jetted around the pool and I could occasionally catch glimpses of the big dorsal fin or the yellow star making on its dark blue snout. When it leapt out of the water gnashing its teeth, it was obvious that it was basically a giant head with lots of sharp teeth. It was clearly a vicious pokemon.
I, for one, was relieved to see it.
"Finally!" I exclaimed with a sigh. "Swampert, return!"
I pitched my next pokemon onto the field. Christine gasped. Big orange and brown ears perked up at the noise the crowd was making. A long tail swished through the air, its lightning bolt-like tip sparking as it snapped in a direction change. Orange fur rippled in the slight breeze.
"Rai rai rai," it cackled.
Using the thunderstone on my pikachu had resulted in almost a bipolar raichu. It had been a little vicious as a pikachu but now it was downright bloodthirsty in battle. Outside of battle though, Raichu was loving and cheerful as could be. It had even taken to giving people and pokemon "pounds" after it had seen me and Dylan do it once. I was just glad that there was finally a pokemon weak to electricity on the field.
"You know what to do, Raichu! Thunder!"
Raichu plunged its tail into the water. The whole pond exploded in a brilliant column of yellow light that reached for the sky. I tried to stand there and look awesome but I eventually had to throw an arm over my eyes to shield them from the light. It only lasted for less than ten seconds but that was probably seven seconds too long. When the light faded, Sharpedo floated in the steaming water.
"Sharpedo is unable to battle!" the ref declared. "Victory to the green trainer!"
"Yes!" I threw my hands into the air in a victory pose. Raichu turned to me, a look of pure joy on its face. It extended a paw and I gave it the air pound it was waiting for. The crowd was going ballistic now.
After collecting my pokemon, I headed back into the locker room. I was stopped by an event staffer to remind me to check the website for my match time and place tomorrow. I had to swipe my ID card to register my victory and then I was free to go. My phone was blowing up with text messages. My mom, a school teacher, had been allowed to stream the webcast in her classroom since it was the final day of school. Exams at my and Dylan's high school had apparently been rescheduled so anyone there could watch both my match and Dylan's. I had collected at least thirty messages in the last ten minutes.
One popped up from David that read Did you see the light show at water field?
I responded with Yeah, my bad.
Another one came back that said Seriously.
To which I replied Seriously.
He sent one final one saying that he was in the stands of grass field number two where Dylan was battling. I found my way out of the area surrounding the water field I had just won on and began navigating the crowds to get to the grass fields. It was just my luck that the grass fields were on the complete opposite side of the complex than the water fields. By the time I found my way there and found David in the crowd, the battle was well underway.
Dylan was in firm control of the battle. The video board showed that he had already knocked out two of his opponent's pokemon and only lost one of his own. I squinted at the board. It looked like he had lost Croagunk and still had Gliscor and Venusaur at his disposal. I wasn't sure what his opponent had lost but he still had a tangrowth on the field facing off against Gliscor.
"So that big flash of light from the water fields was you?" David asked as I dropped into the seat he had managed to save for me. He offered me some of his popcorn which I gladly accepted.
"Guilty as charged," I replied through a full mouth and explained what Raichu had done. "Totally worked better than I had expected. One-hit knock-out."
On the field, Dylan shouted, "Gliscor, X-scissor!"
"Your battle went well," I guessed, snatching another handful of popcorn. "I assume you wouldn't still be here if it didn't."
David nodded. "I don't care much for the ice field. I don't have any pokemon that it favors."
On the field, Gliscor drove its glowing claws into Tangrowth. The big mound of vines was thrown violently backwards. Tangrowth retaliated with a power whip that Gliscor flew around. Dylan's pokemon latched on with its claws and drove a fire fang into Tangrowth's midsection. Only one pokemon emerged from the explosion. Dylan was declared the victor.
"Well that was fun," I said, standing and stretching like I had been there for hours. "Glad I raced over for that."
David didn't stand. Instead he pointed at one of the trainers emerging for the next battle. "Hey, see that guy? I remember him from that tournament in Virginia."
I looked at the guy David was indicating. He was fairly built, pretty tall and had spiked hair with frosted tips. He looked like he was probably a world-class douche. I said as much.
"He is," David confirmed. "I remember him complaining because he wasn't allowed to use the same pokemon for every battle. Apparently he has a machoke that he thinks is the shit. He only uses that, I guess."
"A machoke?" I asked, sitting back down. "Why doesn't he evolve it into a machamp?"
"Probably because he's a world-class douche and no one will help him out."
I got a good laugh out of that. Out of sheer curiosity, we waited until the next match started. Apparently the guy had found someone to help him out because his machoke had evolved to a machamp now. They flexed their muscles and posed in sync. Other trainers were looking away, embarrassed to be associated with him.
"I hope he gets stomped," I said as we got up to leave.
"I wouldn't count on it," David said over my shoulder as we descended the steps to the exit. "If he only uses that one pokemon, it's probably quite strong. Although, I'd guess he mostly works on offense. Maybe it sucks defensively."
Outside the stands we met up with Dylan. He and I still had to heal our pokemon. After we waited in line to get them restore, we loaded up on snacks and headed back into the stadiums. We spent the rest of the day hopping from stadium to stadium and taking in as much as we could. It ended up being worth it in even more than an entertainment sense. Seeing almost a dozen battles started to give us an idea of what kind of pokemon we might run into. Thankfully, we didn't see any trainers wielding legendary pokemon. Although we didn't see any pseudo-legendary pokemon, there were rumblings through the crowd that there was at least one trainer with one. What we did see was a surprising amount of Generation Five pokemon. I would've expected to see maybe two or three. We saw eight.
Darkness had fallen by the time we got back to the hotel. Instead of all being by ourselves like the previous night, we gathered up our computers and congregated in David's room. We decided that it might be a good idea to have someone to bounce ideas off of as we planned for our next bouts.
The website was completely updated. I found myself in the schedule for Rock Field Three at four in the afternoon. Dylan and David were both battling on water fields. David on field one at noon and Dylan on field three at six. They asked me my thoughts on the water fields. There wasn't a whole lot to say. I compared it to battling Lucas at the water-type gym and recommended that all their pokemon be able to swim.
I pulled up my opponent's profile and studied it. He was actually from Canada but with his blonde hair and striking blue eyes, he looked more Swedish. Kevin was his name and he was closer to thirty than twenty. As I scrolled through the list of his known pokemon, I began to wonder the use. A rock field didn't really dictate the type of pokemon you had to use like a water field did. Any pokemon could operate effectively on a rock field. There was no real boost to rock-type moves. Some pokemon might feel more at home but that was it. Keeping this in mind, I assembled my team.
