Finally. An update! This chapter is named after the song by Kevin Penkin. It's an upbeat tone with no singing. I liked the mood that it set, innocent and yet full of hope, a lot like how Serena is probably feeling today considering she is going to be seeing her first gym battle today.
Please enjoy and don't forget to review!
Today is the day.
All that hard work has lead up to this point. Lance's prepping for the past few days has him feeling confident. Serena has been a big help with training, despite not being into battling as much as him, she puts up a good fight. In school, they were the top two, able to bring the theories and basic strategies to life with ease. Now she seems to stumble over her words and struggle with picking a strategy.
Knock. Knock.
"Hey, you ready?"
Serena's voice filters through the wooden door. The light in the bathroom flickers as Lance finishes getting dressed. They decided to stay a few nights in the pokemon center before his scheduled battle with Flint. It's a small center with only one floor of rooms and even less with just two beds. The bathroom is cramped with little space to get dressed between the shower, the counter and the toilet.
Just this one battle and Serena's and they can be out of here. This battle can go either way and since he doesn't have a water type pokemon he wonders if his dragon type will fare well against rock types. Moreover, he wonders how Serena's pokemon will fare against the rock type. Espeon doesn't seem keen on battling, or listening to Serena to a certain extent. He hasn't said it, but he thinks that Espeon is not a pokemon for battling anyway. It may just be his new trainer eyes, but with the way she uses Confusion to lift rocks barely bigger than her body, he doubts that she is much stronger than a freshly given starter pokemon.
He's discussed as much with Serena, but she would rather not push the pokemon into anything considering the situation.
"Lance?"
"Yeah," he ruffles his hair. "Just pumping myself up is all."
When he opens the door, he finds all of their stuff packed and ready on her bed. Serena's organization has been his saviour these past few weeks, he's going to miss it when they split up. The two grin at each other, a spark of nerves bouncing between them as they race to grab their things.
Pewter City Gym overlooks city, its bluff sticking out over the smaller trees slipping into the city from the surrounding the area. The hike to the gym is short, just a few blocks past the Center and the Mart, and up a small hill. It doesn't even look like a gym, the only way to know it is is by the league official statue in front. The entrance to the gym is made of bulging boulders, a lower corner of it is clean cut, as if someone started fixing it and then stopped. The rest of the building is longer with an extremely tall ceiling.
Lance takes a deep breath before walking up to the door with Serena not far behind. The door swings open to reveal an older gentleman with light brown hair, blue shorts, a striped shirt and round glasses resting on his rounded nose. He greets them with a wave, two water bottles and a gesture towards the battlefield. Serena accepts both water bottles knowing Lance is too nervous for a drink of water.
"Hello!" a different brown haired man greets from the side of the room. His boots shuffle across the dirt of the gym, kicking up little dust clouds as he approaches. He's wearing dark jeans with a brown tank top. His shaggy dark hair looks messy as if he ran his hands through it a few times. His thick beard is dark brown and his skin a rich brown color. He raises a hand to Lance, "Name's Flint, you're Lance?"
"I am, sir," Lance responds with a firm handshake.
"No need for the formality, are you ready to battle?" he waves off Lance's choice in words and swings his arm in an invitation for Lance to head to the other side of the field.
Lance glances back at Serena, she gives him two thumbs up and a nod. As supportive as ever, he manages a grin back at her before turning to the gym leader and nodding. "Let's do this!"
The two take their places on either side of the field, the guy at the entrance of the gym comes up and escorts Serena to the stands placed nearer to Lance's side. From there, he strides over to the sidelines of the battlefield and picks up a black flag and a whistle. Serena feels a jolt of electricity run through her as the two trainers gaze at each other across the field. She feels as though the air managed to thicken in the few minutes it took for them to take their stances.
This feeling always makes her jittery. It's the pre-battle nerves and tension. It infiltrates the immediate area surrounding a battle, it's get adrenaline pumping and blood racing through the body of any viewers and participants. The blinding lights focus on the field, darkening the stands as the ref calls out all the rules.
"Are the contestants ready?" the ref announces, his voice echoing through the gym.
"Yes!" both sides chime in unison.
"Then begin."
"Rhyhorn, battle time!"
"Dratini, let's go!" Lance shouts, tossing the ball in the air.
The ref drops the flag from above his head to signal the beginning and the two are off. Flint starts off with Earthquake making the entire gym tremble beneath Serena's feet, she feels it rattle her core as her heart surges with the energy. The attack tosses the serpent-like dragon onto its back, again and again, preventing him from getting up. Serena clutches her seat, watching as Lance commands the pokemon to slam his body into the Rhyhorn as the tremors subside.
Dratini rights itself and slithers up the field moving at a faster pace than expected. He twists his body around, swinging the back end of his body forward to smack Rhyhorn right on the head. The quadruped pokemon takes a quick leap back, and out of the way of the serpent.
"Use horn attack to gain some space!" Flint commands in a booming voice.
Rhyhorn tucks in his chin and pulls himself forward, his horn slams right into the Dratini's body. Serena flinches at the impact, her hands fly up to her eyes as the dragon type rolls away. Dratini cries out but gets up at Lance's command.
"Twister!"
Dratini wags his tail in a quick erratic motion, creating a plume of wind that blasts through the several boulders littering the field. It gains traction and debris on it's way to Rhyhorn, the ground type tries to dodge, but the twister slams into the ground right in front of it. The ground explodes with dirt and rock, sending the ground type flying towards the edge of the field. Flint encourages his pokemon to stand as Lance congratulates his pokemon on fighting so well so far.
"We're not done yet," Flint reminds his competitor. "Rhyhorn use Earthquake and then Fury Attack."
Serena holds her breath as the ground trembles at each foot fall forward. Dratini struggles to gain its balance as Rhyhorn approaches. Lance tries to call out to the pokemon but it is useless. The gray ground type slams into his pokemon, jabbing his horn into him multiple times, driving him back towards Lance.
"Twister!" the young man cries out. His eyes wide and shining with fists clenched beside him.
Dratini closes his eyes and continues to spin, his body twisting and twisting until a funnel of winds surrounds him and releases him from Rhyhorn's wrath. The cyclone curves around and charges straight at Rhyhorn. Serena clutches her bag as the air in the gym starts to swirl around.
"Go straight for it with horn attack!" Flint calls out, pointing forward with a determined look.
Serena watches as Rhyhorn's horn begins to glow as the pokemon concentrates all of its energy on it. He takes off with a powerful kick and sprints straight into Dratini's attack. There's a huge gust of air that knocks Serena backwards. Dust is sent up, covering the entire field and preventing the pokemon from being seen.
"Rena!" Lance calls having caught sight of her being blown back.
She scrambles up to her seat, dusting off bits of dirt from her face before grinning at him. "I'm fine! Keep going!"
Looking relieved he nods and turns to watch the dust encompass the field with a half smile. On the other side, Flint is frowning and searching for signs of his pokemon. The judge does his best to find each pokemon, he squints and bends over, trying his best to see who is down and who isn't.
Lance takes a breath in the silence, and to Serena's surprise calls out an attack, "Dragon Rage."
Amidst the smoke a fiery orange orb forms in front of Dratini's mouth, it flies across the field and collides with the unsuspecting Rhyhorn. It sends the quadruped flying back in an explosion. He lands in the dirt in front of his trainer, his body limp. Dratini, looking beat up, slithers to sit in front of Lance. Both trainer and pokemon watch Rhyhorn for any signs of a fight.
"Rhyhorn is down!" the judge calls, raising his flag on Lance's side.
"Not too bad, kid," Flint recalls his pokemon, he holds the pokeball close before slipping it into his back pocket. He takes another ball off his belt and tosses it over the field. "Graveler let's go."
Lance wipes some sweat off his brow and offers Serena a smile after she claps at the decree of his win. She has adjusted back into her seat, leaning forward as the pokemon let out their battle cries. The adrenaline rush has her heart pumping and mind racing. This feeling is different than the battles she had to watch while in school, now that it's real and up close, she could get used to this.
Lance's teeth show as he grins at Flint. "Now, we're just getting started."
April 5th
Mom bought me a journal and asked me to write in it as often as I can about anything I want.
It's been a few weeks since the start. Lance and I split up last week, but I have to say: he's amazing!
He had to battle a man named Flint for the first badge, the Boulder Badge. It's a rock type gym and even though it was the first gym, it was pretty tough. Lance decided to do some extra training beforehand and it paid off. He's a fantastic battler, he kept a level head and ordered his pokemon around with confidence. He waited to see what Flint's tricks were before he went in for an all-out attack. Flint never stood a chance against him! It was amazing.
Since I never said no to battling the league I took a few days of training myself and battled against Flint. My battle wasn't as good, it was a disaster. I barely scraped by! Thankfully, Dratini was there to help me out. Battling is not as easy as Lance made it look, there's a rhythm to it that I just can't seem to find. He promised to help me get better at it and up until last week we were battling each other for practice. He says I'm much better now, but I think he just said that to leave on his own. I didn't want to ask for more help and slow him down, besides, I just gotta stick to what I learned in school and I'll be catching up to him in no time!
When we split up, I stayed behind near Cerulean City to take training seriously. Mt. Moon was the perfect place to train, between the rock types there are a bunch of other types that we can fight. We started out struggling with how to fight when we came across a black belt named Kent. He saw us struggling and decided to tutor me in training. He taught Cyndaquil how to use Dig and Dratini how to strengthen her Twister.
Espeon didn't want to train, but she is such a good cheerleader. Having her there really brings a calm presence to the sessions. She sometimes helps Kent by lifting up lighter rocks to toss at Dratini, but other than that, she just watches.
Dratini is such a small thing, she really has to try hard to smash through anything with her moves. I hope she gets bigger soon...
"That's right, kick and punch!" Kent instructs with his arms folded.
Serena and Cyndaquil follow along to his words, the two looking comical with how serious they are listening to this man. It has been months since he has found people to train and was delighted to stumble on this young girl struggling with her pokemon. He saw a fire in her and her pokemon, but there just wasn't enough 'oomph!' for them to follow through. Normally, he tutors pokemon to learn Mega Punch, but the little fire type couldn't learn it. So, he settled for tutoring them in battling.
It's been three weeks since they've started training and her pokemon have been faring well. Cyndaquil is quicker than before, his defense was already strong, no doubt from training with dragons back home. His Ember burns hotter than he has seen, he is shocked that it's not yet Flamethrower. Though it will be extremely powerful when he gets there.
Dratini was a major concern for him. The pokemon is clearly the runt, small and unimposing. However, after weeks of training with Serena, the pokemon has learned to move with confidence and a little more strength.
Overhead the sun lays low in the sky, casting the afternoon in a warm, orange glow. The area is rocky with a small dirt path leading the way to Cerulean City, it's normally empty this far outside of the city, perfect for training. A gust of wind rustles Serena's braided hair and cools off her warm head. She glances to the side to see Espeon watching her from beside her bag. The pokemon looks so serene laying down in the afternoon light.
"Alright, next up is a battle," he announces and smiles at Serena's look of surprise. "I want to see how you do."
"Right," she nods, her face turns serious. Her Cyndaquil lets out a small plume of fire.
"One on one!" Kent calls out as he jogs a few feet away and tosses up a pokeball. "Machoke, I need you."
The fighting type pokemon erupts from the pokeball and stretches himself out on the rocky terrain. Serena can't help but be jealous at the stance pokemon and trainer take at the same time. Kent lifts his chin, his eyes meeting hers and she motions Cyndaquil to run forward and take his position. Machoke flexes his muscles at the ready, waiting for the first call.
"Focus energy," Kent starts out.
"Ty, use ember!" Serena dives in right away.
Machoke's body begins to glow, his muscles growing larger and his face more aggressive. Cyndaquil sprints forward on his tiny feet, his squeaky voice letting out a battle cry that isn't as intimidating as he wants it to be. From his mouth little embers fly out colliding with the larger pokemon and knocking him on its butt.
"Low kick!"
In one fluid movement, Machoke turns his body with one arm on the ground and he swings around with his leg stuck out. Cyndaquil cries out, his body tumbling across the ground and into a pile of rocks. He shakes his body off and rears up for another attack.
"Smokescreen!" Serena calls out, her heart hammering in her chest. Black smoke pours of out Ty's mouth covering the battlefield. Machoke coughs as it covers him, allowing Ty the time to hide. "Use quick attack to move faster, then use Ember again!"
Cyndaquil bursts forth, much closer to Machoke, and blasts fire into the fighting type's unexpecting face. The fighting type cries out in pain and starts flailing to get out of the plume of embers. Serena fist pumps and moves to make another attack when Kent suddenly shouts out.
"Thunderpunch!"
"Cyndaquil, uh, run away!" Serena panics as the fighting types hand glows yellow with electricity.
Kent laughs and waves his hand at his pokemon. Machoke stops in his tracks and waves the sparks from his hand. "Okay, that's enough for now."
"S-sorry. I panicked," she fiddles with the end of her braid as the older man approaches.
"I can tell," he points out, patting his pokemon's his shoulder. "Try not to do that so much. You were doing great."
"Thanks," she blushes, rocking back and forth on her feet.
"You still have to do your run though."
"Darn it!"
OoOoOoO
"Finish up!"
Serena wipes off the sweat on her brow and gazes up at the sky. Behind them Mt. Moon rises up into the clouds. "Are we done already?"
"Yes, we are," he smiles at her. Despite knowing her for three weeks, he feels a small connection to her. Passing along knowledge has always brought him joy as she will now take his knowledge and travel all over. Even if he helped only a little bit, she's farther than before.
"Like done-done?"
He chuckles. "Yes, we are done-done."
"Are you sure?" she presses further.
"You have to be confident in yourself," he nods his head. "You are doing good for just starting out. I have faith that you will find your bearings along the way."
Serena puffs out her cheeks. She feels a little better at Kent's reassurances and offers him a smile. "I guess you're right. Thank you for helping me."
"Of course, good trainers help other trainers out," he holds out his hand to her. "The path I showed you will take you straight to Cerulean City. May our paths cross again, someday."
"I hope so," she shakes his hand with a wide smile.
They split ways then.
Kent lives out in Route 4, Serena has never seen the place, she won't trust a stranger that much. He met up with her every morning for their training and walks her to the edge of the mountainside trail. Today he kept their session close to the city just for Serena to get back without his help. She turns on her heel, backpack hitched up tight, and heads towards the city without another glance back.
You did great, Espeon joins her, trotting to keep pace.
Espeon had been keeping a keen eye on Kent, since the first moment they met. She was making sure he didn't have ill intentions. It's the major reason she agreed to training with him, she herself could tell he was a good person, it was just nice for the extra reassurance. The pokemon was suspicious at first, but Serena's gut instinct seemed to be good at picking up well intentions. The pokemon doubted that the girl even thought that the man would hurt her and was proved wrong today.
Espeon knew better. The same thing happened when she was with her trainer back home. There was a flash, a loud noise and everything went dark. When she came to, this little one was staring at her with a mixture of fear and concern. It is a nice memory, she knew she was safe but her first thought was that she wanted to go home. She wants to see her trainer, one last time...
"Are you okay?" Serena asks the pokemon out loud.
Yes, I am just remembering my trainer.
Are you going to show me where you live?
The pokemon contemplates this while trotting beside her partner. In all honesty, the pokemon doesn't remember much about where she lived, she rarely ever left the house. She remembers a line of tall buildings and city lights at night. So, why won't she show the trainer? If it gets her to her beloved trainer, why won't she do it?
I will not, she responds instead.
Serena remains silent as they enter the city. She follows the cobble stone path all the way to the gym. It's getting to be late afternoon, but it doesn't close for another hour.
This gym is much bigger than the Pewter gym as it doubles as a space for the leaders to do their water shows. The building is colorful and dome shaped. Along the front of it is a Dewgong painting, welcoming of visitors. Its whimsical coloring is a welcome invitation for audiences, but a taunt for challengers.
The doors slide open as Serena steps up, a blast of cool air sucks her into the well lit reception area. White tiled floors gleam up at her, the smell of chlorine fills the air, reminding Serena of the pool in the school at home. Along the walls are pictures depicting a future renovation of the gym, turning part of it into an aquarium. She grins at the photos, she's never been to an aquarium before, she'll have to come back and view the water types displayed here.
She follows the blue carpet to the front desk, the receptionist in the front greets her with a thin smile. Her tan skin looks pale under the harsh lighting as she musters a nice greeting. Her bun is falling out of her hair tie, brown strands are splayed against her forehead, damp from the humidity of the pools lurking around the building. She looks dressed to exercise, running tights and tank top tucked beneath a zip up coat. Her eyes slide to the computer in front of her and she begins to type away.
"Here to schedule a battle?" she guesses in a monotone.
"Yes, I am," Serena takes a deep breath and pulls out her trainer card. "Tomorrow morning please."
The receptionist takes the card and types out her information. This process is new and lets trainers schedule their battles so that they can plan for the next one. It also reduces the amount of physical fights over who gets to fight the leader next.
"Of course, be here by nine," the woman hands her back the card. "Good luck."
On the way to the pokemon center, Serena can barely contain her excitement for her second official battle the next morning. Espeon watches her with a fond smile, as she trots at the same speed as Serena, drinking in the girl's happy energy and dancing with her. The late afternoon light casts a golden glow on the city. Many of the day workers are going home for the night and many nocturnal pokemon are starting to come out.
Back in the Pokemon Center, the trainers are retreating to their rooms with their faithful companions beside them. Serena makes a pit stop at the phones to call Clair as promised to update her on her journey so far. Her studies have been going well and she demands an update at each town Serena stops in. Lance is so far ahead of her, she's sure that Clair already knows about the news of the upcoming battle...
"Your first gym battle all by yourself!" Clair coos over the phone as a greeting.
Serena rolls her eyes at the screen, "Always treating me like a baby."
"You're fine," she waves off her friend's complaint. "Are you nervous?"
"Of course!" Serena exclaims. "I can't battle as well as Lance, he's already been through here, did you know? I'm surprised he doesn't have all eight badges now."
"Don't act like Lance can do everything, it's gross," Clair wrinkles her nose at her friend. "You're doing just fine. It doesn't matter that he's going through it faster than you, you're putting in as much effort as he is."
"I didn't mean it like he can do everything," Serena replies with a pout. "I meant it as he's already so much farther than I am... But thank you. I wanna work faster, but I have three pokemon. Two of which, I need to train and the other I can't train because she doesn't want to battle. She's still another mouth to feed and a pokemon to take care of."
"How is the mystery of Espeon?" Clair leans closer to the screen spying the psychic type next to her.
"I haven't found anything yet, Cerulean isn't big enough for her. She didn't recognize any of the buildings here."
"Huh, I wonder where she came from," Clair muses. "Does she like to battle?"
"Kind of? She gets excited at the thought. To be honest, I don't think she was ever used to battle."
Clair tilts her head, her brows furrowing together. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, she doesn't have that much strength and she's kind of clumsy. I think she was just a pet more than anything," Serena speaks in a lower tone into the phone. Besider her, Espeon stares at the empty main hall. She feels terrible talking about Espeon like this, she's not her concern. But if the pokemon wants to fight why wouldn't her trainer, well, train her? It's just strange. "I ask her to join me, but she doesn't want me to be in charge of her."
"Do you want to keep her?"
Serena ponders this question for a moment, sucking in her bottom lip and tilting her head side to side. Espeon is a sweet pokemon, a little defensive and sassy, but she means well for herself. Being a new trainer may not be good for the pokemon. Serena can barely handle a battle, how is she going to be the trainer of a pokemon like Espeon?
"I'm not sure."
"I think you could make her into a powerful team member," the blue haired girl clenches her fist and grins at Serena. "You're going to be a great trainer, stop lollygagging and get out there!"
Up until now, Serena's uncertainty was about whether or not she was going to take on the league. She doesn't feel like that is just it for her, take on all those trainer and then what? Oooh, a trophy, how great. She wants to do something meaningful, that will last longer than a news headline. Now that she has started the challenge, the problem is that her battling skills aren't as good as they should be for it. She wanted to solve the mysteries in her life and get Espeon home, the side quest is the Indigo League and she can't take it lightly.
"I'll do my best."
