Sunday, January 28th, 2018
"Come in!" I lazily called from the couch in reply to a knock on the front door of my new room.
A second later, the door swung open to reveal John with a wide smile on his face. "Hey, we're still neighbors!" No one else who was using the Brawl's provided housing had earned their fourth badge in the two weeks between the two of us earning ours, which meant that I was once again given the room right next to John. It had been my fault that we hadn't taken advantage of our proximity for the first few months, so I was glad that we'd been given the opportunity again. After shutting the door behind him, John asked, "So do you need any help moving in?"
I glanced around the room before answering with a hint of confusion, "What do you mean? I'm done." The only thing that I really needed to move from my old room was the nest that Blitz had made on the floor. Even that task had barely required any effort from me since Blitz had squawked at me when I'd tried to reassemble it. He'd continued to do so until I gave up and allowed him to put it back the way that he wanted.
John frowned and joined me in looking around the room, which I began to realize was completely empty. Unlike the ones in the Roggenrolla building, my new room had an actual living room and attached bedroom instead of a single space for both purposes. While it hadn't been terribly noticeable in my old room, the extra space in this one was painfully empty once I started paying attention to it. John winced suddenly. "Sorry, I'd forgotten you wouldn't really have things to decorate with."
I shrugged and waved off his concerns. "I didn't really do any decorating back home either." It was my turn to frown when I realized that I had been so busy with training that I hadn't done any research on getting home for the last couple of weeks.
Before I could start to feel guilty about that, John abruptly declared, "We should change that!"
"Nah, I'm good," I replied with a quick shake of my head. Even when I'd had a steady income, I'd never been interested in purchasing figurines, pictures, or other purely decorative items. Almost everything that I'd owned along those lines had been a gift.
"It'll be fun!" John insisted. "We can grab Cait and the three of us can head over to the Mississippi Mall for the day."
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. "What's that?"
John's eyebrows shot up, "Do you not have it back home?"
"Maybe? Where is it?"
"Bloomington," John succinctly replied, making me realize he was talking about this world's version of the Mall of America. Even my recognition of its name in this world made sense since I would have seen it listed as a stop on the light rail station the couple times I'd taken it.
It had been a few years since I'd last been to the MOA and I'd always enjoyed it in the past. I was also curious about what it looked like in this world and admittedly didn't have any other plans for the day. After considering for a few long seconds, I eventually relented and said, "Alright, sure. That does sound like fun."
"Yes!" John exclaimed with a grin and a small fist pump. He immediately pulled out his Poryphone to text Cait and got a reply less than twenty seconds later. John's smile only grew as he read the response before looking back up at me, "She's in. We're going to meet up at the skyway entrance."
After gathering up our Pokemon, John and I made our way to the skyway to meet up with Cait, and fifteen minutes later the three of us were on the light rail's blue line heading towards the Mississippi Mall. While the rail car was heated, enough cold air seeped in from outside that it was far from warm. As such, I was more than glad to have my friends with me since being able to converse was a welcome distraction that I'd lacked when I'd taken the green line the previous day.
"Congratulations on earning your badge," Cait said as the light rail pulled out of the Government Plaza station. "Have you heard about your first amateur match yet?"
I nodded both in thanks and to answer her question, "Yeah, got the notification this morning, my match is on Thursday. Format is a no-substitution inverse battle."
"Lucky," John said wistfully. "Wish I'd gotten one of those."
"You can have it," I replied blithely. "I'm almost completely sure that I'm going to mess up reversing the type chart."
"Don't try to reverse it. Just remember which of your Pokemon have an advantage against each of his," Cait suggested. "If you keep that in mind instead of thinking about types, you'll be a lot less likely to mess up."
That sounded like extremely sound advice to me. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Actually, my opponent is Grant, the guy you beat in the first week."
"You mean the guy she crushed," John interjected with a triumphant smile.
"He just didn't have a way to deal with Flit," Cait said with a small shrug, disregarding John's attempt to hype her up. "If any of his Pokemon had better area attacks, it would have been a much closer match."
I took a second to remember what Grant's team had been when I'd looked it up and saw her point. At the time he'd faced Cait, his team had consisted of Dewott, Clefairy, Geodude, Raticate, and Nuzleaf, so sending out Geodude against Flit had been the right choice even though the Pokemon had accomplished next to nothing. "He might have figured that out himself since he's got a Snorunt now." An Icy Wind from Snorunt wouldn't have the type advantage that Geodude's Rock Throw had, but I figured that the individual bugs that made up a Minnesotan Cutiefly were weak enough that it wouldn't make much of a difference.
We continued chatting about our upcoming battles until the airport came into sight, reminding me of a question that I'd had the previous day at the St Paul gym. "I know this is out of the blue, but what's up with the different starting age restrictions between regions?" I frowned when I got a better look at the light rail's next stop and added, "And why is the airport so small?"
Cait glanced out the window at the airport that was less than half the size that I was used to before answering. "I'm not sure what it's like in your world, but here it's mostly used for getting around the region so it doesn't see that much use. Most people would rather drive or use a Pokemon to get around."
"It's a big international airport in my world," I explained. "What about going to other regions?"
Cait and John both started to answer at the same time and Cait waved for him to go first. "That's sort of related to your other question. Other regions have all sorts of extra rules, and the red tape means that it's pretty rare for anyone to travel to one of them." Seeing my questioning look, John elaborated, "We get to be lax about some stuff since we're a minor region, but the others can get pretty restrictive. They've got rules about who can own what Pokemon and stuff like that."
I was a bit surprised to hear about that since that wasn't something that I could ever remember being mentioned in the games or anything else. That said, restrictions like that certainly made sense, though I was glad that I wouldn't have to worry about that particular brand of governmental oversight.
"There's also the weird carry limit that the major regions have," Cait added, though that earned her a head shake from John who pointed out that we were the odd one there.
I actually did know about that difference already, which was that the Minnesota region didn't have the usual six Pokemon carry limit, instead opting for a hard-cap of ten battle-registered Pokemon per trainer. However, they still hadn't answered my original question, so I prodded, "And the age thing?"
"That one is the main reason we are a minor region," John answered. "Trainers in other regions can start at earlier ages because they have routes that are patrolled and generally kept safe. The people who formed the Minnesota region didn't want to clear out the land to create official routes, and you can't be considered a major region without any routes. All of the other differences like later starting age, extra gyms, the changed carry limit, and the lack of Pokemon restrictions are all because of that."
I mulled that information over for the rest of the ride, until about ten minutes after the light rail had left the airport, we arrived at the Mississippi Mall. Unlike almost everything else that I'd seen in this world, the mall was the exact same size and general setup that I was used to from back home. The outside edges of the mall were dominated by large department stores with tons of much smaller stores scattered around the inside. Another similarity was the amusement park located in the center of the mall and I was unsurprised to find that it was Pokemon-themed. John wanted to go on some of the rides in Camp Snorlax, but Cait and I quickly shot that idea down.
We spent the rest of the morning wandering around the mall, mostly window shopping. The only thing that I came across that would be particularly useful was when we found a store selling TMs, but I decided not to buy any. The cheapest TM in stock was a hundred dollars and I didn't have that much disposable income. John and Cait ended up buying a couple more Pokeballs each, but I figured that the four that I had were more than enough.
For lunch, we stopped at one of the mall's food courts, which took up noticeably more space than it did back home to accommodate Pokemon as well as humans. Between the three of us, we had quite the crowd of sixteen Pokemon which earned us some attention from our fellow shoppers, but for once no one bothered me about Shadow.
After lunch, we returned our Pokemon and spent a few more hours wandering around the mall. John continuously pressured me to get some decorations for my room and I eventually caved, buying a shiny Ditto plushie. John looked like he wanted to protest that a single plushie didn't count, but I think he realized that he should take the win and didn't press the issue.
After we'd been at the mall for about five hours, we returned to the light rail station and made our way back to Minneapolis. As we rode back, I decided that the trip had been a lot more fun than I'd expected and that we should try to make a habit of doing it in the future. However, that decision was quickly followed by the realization that it was almost February and it wouldn't be long before the window for such trips would close.
Thursday, February 1st, 2018
I walked onto the Midway's field for the first time as the stadium's speakers crackled to life to introduce me. "Thomas Fitzgerald is the league's newest amateur trainer and he's making his debut in the division coming off of a commanding victory over Oliver!" The crowd clapped loudly and I could make out a couple of yells of 'congratulations,' but all I could think about was that I didn't agree with the sentiment that it had been a commanding win. That said, I was still happier about my fourth gym win that I had been with the one I'd earned over Meggan.
Once I was in place, my opponent emerged from the opposite tunnel as his own introduction played. "Grant Resona didn't have the strongest start in the Brawl, but he's really hit his stride after the break. Will he be able to keep his streak going?"
The moment that the prerecorded message ended, the referee's voice came through the earbud that I was wearing, telling both of us to select our first Pokemon. As I unclasped the Pokeball that housed my team member that I'd decided to lead with, I idly noted that the referee was different from any of the ones that I'd had back at Nicollet Park. Across the field, Grant likewise selected his first Pokeball and we sent our respective Pokemon out after nodding to each other. When the red lights faded, it looked like he had also opted to lead with a safe pick since the first matchup would be Scout versus a Raticate.
"Thunder Shock!" I called out to Scout as the large rat Pokemon immediately started loping towards her on all fours. While I normally would have liked to get started with a Thunder Wave, I wanted to avoid the move in this particular case. Due to the match's weird rules, I'd prepped more for it than I had than any other and one piece of information that I'd gathered from my research was that Raticate could have Guts. Since I hadn't been able to find out if Grant's Raticate had the ability, I wanted to mitigate that particular risk.
Even with all of the extra training that Scout had put in over the previous month, she was only able to fire off two Thunder Shocks before Raticate reached her with Quick Attack. I tried to order a Protect, but Scout was already in the process of using a third Thunder Shock and ended up electrocuting Raticate at the same time that it barreled into her.
"Hyper Fang!" Grant called from the other side of the field and Raitcate opened its mouth, exposing large front teeth that dwarfed Scout's.
"Get behind and Bite it!" I quickly said and Scout jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding Raticate's teeth as it tried to chomp down on Scout. Like she'd done against Oliver's Zangoose, Scout jumped at her opponent and Bit down on Raticate's thin tail. Unfortunately, it turned out that the rat Pokemon had significantly more control over its tail and it began whipping it back and forth, sending Scout flying off.
She somehow managed to land on her feet and zapped Raticate with another Thunder Shock while the larger Pokemon dropped back down to all fours and charged at her once again. This time Scout was able to put up an electric Protect before Raticate reached her, but between its speed and size, it was able to force its way right through the barrier. I made a mental note that we needed to do some more training on making Protect more sturdy before ordering, "Thunder Fang!"
The two rodent Pokemon ran around each other for almost a full minute trying to bite the other. With her extra agility, Scout was generally able to dodge Raticate's attacks, though its extra-powerful jaws made her loudly cry out the couple of times it did make contact. Eventually, Scout managed to win the battle of attrition and Raticate fell to the ground with a loud chomping noise as it hit the floor chin first.
Without hesitating, Grant recalled his first Pokemon and then sent out his next Pokemon with a call of, "Finish it Geodude!" Before the ground type had even finished materializing, there was a loud smack as Grant facepalmed when he realized his mistake. I didn't know how we were supposed to deal with the obvious blunder so I stood there awkwardly, unsure what to do. Scout looked a bit confused at the sudden lull in the battle, but she seemed glad for it nonetheless and took the opportunity to catch her breath.
Any hopes that Grant had for being able to fix his mistake were shattered a second later when the referee's voice came from our earbuds. "A Pokemon can not be recalled without removing it from contention. Please continue the battle with the Pokemon that are currently on the field."
Grant sighed deeply at the news before despondently calling out, "Rock Throw." While Grant's Pokemon gathered the materials for its attack from the stadium's floor, I told Scout to use Thunder Shock on Geodude, which was a very novel experience. Geodude was a bit out of range of Scout's attacks and it seemed perfectly content to stay where it was, so for once Scout had to be the one to close the distance. That gave the rock Pokemon plenty of time to prepare its first round of Rock Throws and while Scout was able to dodge the larger chunks with how much time she had to react, she was still pelted by a good number of pebbles.
The moment that she got in range, Scout fired off an arc of electricity which made Geodude shudder before it started digging at the ground for more ammo. Across the field from me, Grant suddenly perked back up and called out, "Use Mud Sport!" Geodude momentarily paused from its task to bounce up and down, making a thin layer of mud shoot out from underneath it to cover much of the field, including Scout.
I couldn't help but be amazed that we were in one of the only situations where Mud Sport was useful. "Just keep at it," I called out to Scout who was trying to wipe some of the mud off of her previously white fur. It took a few seconds longer than usual for her to build up a charge and when she did hit Geodude with another Thunder Shock, the attack was predictably weaker. I didn't think that trading ranged blows would go in our favor at this point, so even though I was far from happy about the idea, I called out, "Get in there with a Bite!"
My bad idea turned out to be much worse than I thought, considering that Scout almost slipped on the mud several times as she ran. Thankfully, she was at least able to mostly avoid the additional Rock Throws that Geodude sent her way. As soon as she reached her opponent, Scout opened her mouth to Bite down on the boulder Pokemon and her dark-empowered teeth were up to the task of chomping down on a rock. However, it only took Geodude a second to recover from the hit and it used both of its hands to stabilize itself on the ground before pushing its body forward and directly into Scout.
The unexpected hit knocked Scout back and she slid for almost a full foot on the muddy ground before skidding to a stop. I waited several seconds to see if she would be able to get back up but was forced to return her when that didn't happen. I paused to consider my next Pokemon, in part to make sure that I didn't make the same error that Grant had made with his second Pokemon.
While Blitz was the obvious choice to use against Geodude in an inverse battle, I knew that Grant would be all but guaranteed to use his Nuzleaf as his third Pokemon then and none of my Pokemon had a great matchup against it. That would have been a different story if Shadow had a better handle on Confusion, but she wasn't quite there yet. I'd previously decided that odds were good that Geodude knew Magnitude, which made Peren not a great choice either if it turned out that he wasn't able to use Camouflage through the attack.
With no better options, I sent Nin out and as usual called, "Glare and then Headbutt!" However, before Nin could paralyze his opponent, Grant called for Rollout and Geodude tucked its arms in to start rolling forward, dispersing some of the slowly disappearing mud. "Headbutt it before it can pick up speed," I quickly called to Nin, and he slithered forward to meet his opponent halfway. A second before the moment of impact, Nin stopped and lowered his head so he was able to meet Geodude's attack with his own.
While Nin was forced back a couple of inches from the impact, Geodude took off like a pinball and was launched away from Nin to land in a heap on the ground. As Grant returned his second Pokemon, I realized that Scout must have done more to it than I'd thought and that she was unexpectedly turning into somewhat of a powerhouse considering her recent victories.
My thoughts on Scout's prowess were halted when Grant sent out his third Pokemon, which unexpectedly turned out to be a Froslass. I paused instead of giving Nin a command, expecting the referee to call him out on using an unregistered Pokemon. When that didn't happen, I realized that he must have evolved the Pokemon after I'd checked his roster, leaving me unprepared for the change. While I hesitated, Grant jumped right into the battle and ordered, "Hex!"
Froslass conjured an unusual-looking swarm of purple shapes that flew towards Nin. "Dodge left!" I quickly called, but the attack started to curve towards him as he tried to slither away. Since it didn't look like he would be able to get out of the Hex's way, I changed tactics and called, "Glare!" Nin stopped moving in order to lock eyes with Froslass, meaning that he was hit dead-on by the Hex and his entire body shuddered at the blow.
Whether because of the Hex or because he was trying to paralyze a stronger Pokemon, Nin's Glare didn't do anything beyond slightly slowing Froslass down. Even that didn't have much effect since Grant called for Hail a second later and Froslass raised her arms as small chunks of ice began falling from above. Nin winced as he was pelted by several pieces of Hail, breaking his concentration and allowing Froslass to fade from sight.
"Keep a close eye out for her," I told my Pokemon while cursing Snow Cloak. Nin moved his head back and forth, trying to spot Froslass, though I noticed that he was moving much slower than usual because of the cold. After about five seconds, another Hex seemingly came from nowhere and hit Nin, making him shudder again. He swung his tail out in the direction that the Hex came from, but it didn't make contact with anything.
After Nin failed to land his Pound attack, another Hex emerged from the hailstorm in a completely different direction from the previous one. The Hail and the three effective moves turned out to be too much for Nin and he unceremoniously dropped to the ground. I returned Nin with a frown, disappointed that the unexpected matchup had completely negated the advantage we'd gotten from Grant's incorrect Pokemon selection. In the hopes of avoiding something similar to this from happening again, I decided that I should look into teaching Nin Foresight. I never would have given the move any consideration back home, but it would definitely be a nice one to have here.
I didn't need to give any thought to my final Pokemon and sent Peren out as soon as I had finished returning Nin. For the second time in only a few minutes, I wished that Shadow was ready for a real battle. Her matchup against Froslass would have been especially great given that she would resist Hex and had an effective move with Tackle. Plus, there was a good chance that she'd be able to psychically find Froslass in the Hail. Despite those advantages, her lack of experience eliminated her from contention and the Hail was enough to eliminate Blitz by itself. I didn't think that he'd be able to fly in the storm without Flame Charge, and considering that we were in an inverse battle, that was far from ideal.
I shook my head slightly to stop thinking about hypotheticals before calling, "Worry Seed. Cover the field if you have to." Peren gave me a short nod before firing a seed at a random point on the battlefield. When nothing happened other than the seed bursting into a cloud of powder, Peren sprouted another seed and fired it towards a different spot. While he was doing that, I kept watch for any sign of Froslass, which meant that I was able to spot the next Hex the moment it appeared. "On your left! Dodge!"
Peren still had his winter coat, so he wasn't nearly as affected by the Hail as Nin had been and he managed to lithely jump out of the way of the Hex while firing another Worry Seed towards its source. This time, Froslass was caught in the resulting powdery explosion and faded back into sight as Snow Cloak was replaced by Insomnia. "Get in there before she can escape! Tackle!"
Peren switched tracks without hesitating and charged directly for Froslass, pushing through another Hex along the way. I briefly considered having him use Camouflage to become an ice or ground type and deal with his weakness to the ghost attack, but didn't want to risk it backfiring if he ended up becoming pure normal instead. At any rate, Peren's decision to run straight through Froslass's attack clearly surprised the other Pokemon and she didn't move out of the way when Peren charged into her.
Froslass was knocked back several feet from the hit and wobbled for a second before raising her arms towards her opponent. Froslass's sleeves waved softly as a gust of cold air blew past her and into Peren, but he completely ignored the instinctive Icy Wind and charged forward again. This time, Froslass was knocked to the ground by Peren's Tackle and he pushed his advantage by starting to raise a hoof to Stomp on the other Pokemon.
From across the field, Grant called out something, but I couldn't quite hear his command due to the noise that the Hail was making as it continued to pelt the ground. However, Froslass must have heard him, since she quickly created several purple small orbs that flew out of her body and into Peren's. My starter hesitated for a second, but when the orbs didn't have any immediate effect, Peren finished his attack and brought his hoof directly down onto Froslass.
The moment that the two Pokemon made contact, Peren stiffened and then unexpectedly collapsed to the ground, narrowly avoiding falling on top of his opponent. The psychic barriers around the field disappeared a moment later and the noise from the Hail was replaced by the clear sound of the crowd cheering. After a confused second, I realized that Froslass must have used Destiny Bond, making the battle a tie. Feeling a bit cheated, I returned Peren while Grant did the same for his Pokemon, and the two of us started walking around the edge of the arena to shake hands. Even though Froslass had been knocked out, the Hail was still falling and I had absolutely no interest in walking through that.
"Good recovery," I said to Grant as I shook his hand, but he just grumbled something in reply before abruptly turning around and walking back to his side of the field. I shrugged before heading back to my side as well, deciding that, unlike my opponent, I ultimately wasn't disappointed with the result of the match. My debut in the amateur league being a tie was a whole lot better than the three-match losing streak that I started with in the novice league.
A/N: I actually took an unplanned trip to the MOA yesterday. Its existence is just so weird and walking around is always a bit surreal.
If you're looking for writing advice or just want more things to read, come join our Discord: 9XG3U7a.
Thanks to Star for betaing. Next up is something completely different with Chapter 27: Show Daze
