Chapter 3: Jumpstart
"It's been two weeks since you passed your exams, even with your insane schedule for getting into the conference this year I thought you didn't plan to challenge anyone for at least another two months?" Anya, one of my few classmates that could be called something close to a friend, questioned me.
"Estella's evolution got me fired up, I guess!" I replied, giving an evasive half-truth of an answer.
I'd sound crazy if I said I had foreknowledge that the SS Anne was going to be attacked in two weeks by Team Rocket and since I was gonna be there I needed to test myself out against some stronger opponents.
Somehow I doubted I'd be lucky enough to only fight Jessie and James or some even more generic grunts.
"Hmm...you've never been this rash before, and seriously is that going to be your trainer outfit at the conference? You're going to wear a Stetson now?"
"Hey!" I protested, "Stetsons are cool!"
She looked even more annoyed at me when I laughed at my own multiversal meta reference, luckily the Pokémon world tolerates a lot of eccentricity.
"Whatever, just get out there and show my mom you are serious about this I guess," Yep, the reason why I was friends with Anya was because a lot of the other kids did not want to be friends with the daughter of one of their teachers for the right reasons. And now I was about to do a number on her mother's normal-type themed team.
Shaking my head at her surly departure I finished securing my pokeballs to my belt and exited the dressing rooms of the main school arena.
"Alright, this is Isaac Cedar challenging in his first staff battle against Mrs. Temple. Battle will have the staff member using three pokemon and the challenger can switch out their own pokemon from their full team to simulate a gym challenge," Frank, the announcer, was thoroughly bored of ninety-percent of the battles he saw at this school.
I couldn't exactly disagree with him either. While Pokémon were highly intelligent it seemed like the ability to truly connect with them and accelerate their training on any level higher than pets or to help with pest control was actually quite rare. Obviously in the games and show most people you see have that ability, but when you're living in the world it becomes quickly apparent that communication with them was a rare skill, and the ability to motivate and control them even rarer.
Mrs. Temple was a short woman who walked the line between curvy and pudgy, but dressed for all the world like a Mary Poppins knock-off she turned it into something that demanded respect at the very least in the classroom.
"Oh wow," The announcer said out loud as Mrs. Temple released a magnificent specimen of a tauros, "Does Mrs. Temple know something we don't? She's starting with the big guns!"
Sure Frank, now you're interested, I griped to myself internally as I licked my lips in nervousness. Tauros was her strongest pokemon and an extremely flexible battler. Similar to Ash's future acquisition actually.
Furthermore while it didn't know Earthquake it definitely knew Iron Tail which meant...
"You wanted a real fight buddy, well you're getting it! Get out here, Artagnan!"
My moody scyther took to the field with a menacing flourish of his blades. Truthfully I was hoping to have him do some damage to the tauros but also get taken down a peg or two in the process.
"Agility!" I called out, deciding that was the best way to get some damage in and hopefully help Artagnan to sync up with my own wishes and style.
"Smash the bug, darling!" Mrs Temple called out to her pokemon.
The tauros complied easily, his massive form burst up into the sky and his hooves created shattering impact craters where he landed with a vicious Stomp, barely missing the speeding Artagnan.
I whistled audibly, that was powerful.
"We're going death by a thousand cuts here!" I called out to my pokemon, and as it was one of his favorite strategies against bulky opponents he complied easily.
Darting around the battlefield like a vicious mite he hit the tauros with Fury Cutter after Fury Cutter, slowly building momentum and power by attempting to his similar points in quick succession.
"Swat it!" The teacher called out, and with a snort the bull's tails glinted silver and a meteoric Iron Tail snapped out and slammed into Artagnan's thorax as he went past for another slice.
I thought for a moment he'd keep his balance as he went skidding backwards, but a piece of debris from the earlier Stomp caught his foot and he went spinning ass over tea kettle into the wall.
"Can you still fight, Arty?" I called out, and the scyther chittered angrily as he stood up and nodded.
He could take maybe one more hit, and now I knew I needed to drive the point home.
"Keep your distance with your speed and use Air Slash!" I commanded, knowing it went against his instincts.
Either he'd listen and we'd get a few more good hits in or…
He blitzed in with a Slash only to smack straight into a raised Rock Tomb.
I returned him, "Thanks for teaching Arty a lesson, Mrs. Temple. He'll remember that one, to arms, Brinker!"
I summoned out the pokemon that was likely my most flexible fighter. Brinker had a combination of speed and disorientation based moves and the ability to tank anything south of a Fighting or Fire type hit.
And needless to say, disorientation would work great here.
"Mist!" Spinning around in a Rapid Spin simultaneously he distributed a quick icy fog across the field.
This was going to be fun, as far as I knew the tauros had nothing to deal with this.
And indeed, I saw Mrs. Temple gritting her teeth across the field, "Work Up!" She commanded, guessing that the boost in offensive capabilities would make me more cautious to attack even in the Mist.
She wasn't wrong, my strategy did change mildly, "Strafing Powder Snow!" I commanded and while I couldn't really see directly, there were what looked like waves of the Mist turning to ice rippling through the field at where the tauros had been.
"Up!" The professor called, and out of the mist her tauros leapt, clearing half the field in a single bound, towards the source of the wave of snow.
But I was right in my confidence that Brinker was no longer there, I'd told him to strafe and he was one of my most collected and intelligent team members as well as being versatile.
And I had trained him to improvise. From the moo of pain that echoed out and the lack of a second wave of snow I could only assume he'd ambushed the bull with a Metal Claw or similar. A Fury Swipes would have been over committing so I doubted it had been that.
A few more moments, a few more echoes of combat, and Mrs. Temple returned her tauros.
"Blow that away, Noctowl!" She called out, releasing a rather large specimen of a noctowl that immediately released a Whirlwind.
What followed started out as a close fight. The noctowl couldn't do a whole lot of damage to Brinker, who danced around the arena like his namesake on an icy pond. However the powerful winds the noctowl could put out made it very difficult for the Powder Snow to land, the only move Brinker had that was super-effective and long enough range to hit a flying target.
I thought we were winning, or at least setting up my next pokemon to win easily, when the noctowl managed to pull off a combination Double Team and Hypnosis, putting Brinker to sleep and allowing it to drain energy off of him with Dream Eater.
I winced as I returned him, that was a rough finisher, it would mean my next pokemon was not going to have as much of an advantage.
But that was okay, "Bring 'em down, Alberich!" I called out, releasing my rhyhorn.
The release line was a code, the first thing Alberich did was start firing off Smack Downs, spinning bursts of rock that would slam flying-types down into the ground.
I had trained Alberich to, instead of functioning as a charging brute, master his earth-manipulation and function as a kind of artillery or tank. Standing his ground and firing off blasts of rock and earth at enemies and then quickly repositioning with his charging when needed.
It was a non-traditional strategy for a rhyhorn and took my opponent by surprise, putting the teacher on the back foot once more.
The owl tired of his aerial dodging of Smack Downs, Rock Throws, and Rock Blasts long before Alberich did. Finally a few solid hits landed and the owl went down.
"So that is how you want to play then, boy?" She called down to me, returning her pokemon.
"Very well, I have some surprises up my sleeve as well," With that she called out her wigglytuff.
The chubby rabbit-esque pokemon laughed somewhat ominously as it appeared.
And she was right, I was unprepared for what followed.
Reflect and Disable quickly neutered Alberich. Allowing him to be finished off by a vicious Ice Beam I had not seen coming.
Because, while wigglytuff actually have very respectable special attacking stats, they don't naturally learn much to take advantage of it.
This one had been very well trained or given TMs or both.
With a sigh I returned my rhyhorn, contemplating my next move.
I'd have to play pretty dirty to come out even a little ahead.
"Huckleberry! You're up!" I called out my quagsire, a dopey pokemon if there ever was one. But a fantastic attrition fighter. Though he wasn't quite where he would need to be to fully utilize that skillset.
I quickly had him use Amnesia to stonewall almost any special attack a wigglytuff might conceivably know.
A purposefully wasted Water Gun allowed my follow-up, a bunch of mud slinging from Huckleberry. Slaps and Bombs to lower speed and accuracy.
As Huck shrugged off Ice Beams his mud covered opponent got extremely angry, cheeks puffing up in rage.
This was all a part of the plan, trick the creature into ignoring its trainer and attacking at close range.
It took much longer than expected, but eventually the wigglytuff leapt in for an enraged Double-Slap.
"Yawn!"
The status move hit the wigglytuff right in the face and with a sigh my teacher returned her pokemon.
"Well what do you know?" The announcer called out, "Isaac's got his first win! And it was a four to three! Could we actually end up seeing him make a good showing at the conference this year?"
I glared at him as the crowd cheered.