When Bronze entered Anthien Gym, he was not expecting to to step into a entire repair shop.
Dozens of workers buzzed around planes, hovercraft, and equipment of all kinds. Welders glued parts together, while sparks flew and drills clanged, a raucous and unlovely cacophony. Pokémon climbed, dug, and meticulously attached parts together using psychic abilities. Grease and oil stains lay on the concrete floor, and new parts and tools continuously flew in from vast bay doors.. It was total, unashamed chaos, and Bronze hated it.
Through the din, Bronze approached a worker, yelling out his query. "HEY! Is this the Gym, or the City Repair Shop? Because it looks more like the latter!"
The worker yelled back his reply. "Yeah, this is Anthien City Gym, alright! Gym Leader Stephan has merged it with the Repair Department! Stephan is over by the old hovermodule, fixing the power converters!"
Gesturing with his wrench, the worker pointed to a spindly man, surrounded by several Flying-type Pokémon at the far end of the building.
Walking carefully through the unceasing repair work, Bronze walked to the Gym Leader, who was sitting on the ground next to a open circuit panel, callused hands taking wires out and putting new ones in with careful diligence.
"Uh, hello, Steven, I'm a Gym Contender, and I'd like to..."
Stephan interrupted him. "First, hand me that durasteel plate over there."
Bronze gave it to him, and Stephan popped it over the circuit panel, drilling a assortment of screws into the holes lining the plate.
"Second, it's not Steven, it's Stephan! I am not the Champion of Hoenn! I am the Anthien Gym Leader, and Head Mechanic! Anyway, you said something about being a contender. What was that, now?"
Bronze repeated himself. "Uh, yes sir, I'm Bronze, and I was going to complete the Gym Challenge. The sign out front says its open on Wednesdays. Mondays to Friday's in fact. Is that wrong, because you people really don't seem like you are ready for a battle..."
Stephan finally got up, and sized down Bronze. "I guess I should apologize for the state of mess around here, but the shop is only closed down for Gym Battles on Fridays. I hardly ever get a contender on Wednesdays. I suppose you do deserve a good battle, and I just finished rewiring these power converters, so...SALLY!"
A mousy woman popped out of a torn-apart transport. "Yeah?! Tell me that you don't need more Grimer slime for the heating conductors!"
"No, dear," Stephan yelled back. "Get the arena ready! We have a contender! On a Wednesday! I left the key by the 9mm bolts! I love you too! I'll get ready while you get the the key!"
Sally left the transport, and ran for a back door. Stephan smiled. "That's the wife. She's a peach. Anyway, before we get started, I would have you know that this gym is a bit different then any other. For one, there isn't any puzzle or nothing. Just a battle, my wits versus yours. Also, you have to have all your Pokémon out of their Poke Balls the whole time. Just so everyone can see them...Gym policy." Bronze nodded, and sent out his team.
Stephan eyed them, and smiled. "That's a pretty strong team. I can sense it. That Electabuzz looks like it's going to evolve soon, anyway, and Charmeleon is well on the way. When your as old as I am, you'll begin to see these things." Sally peeked her head through the doorway. "Hey, it's ready! Beat this kid to a pulp, will"
"I'll try, hon! Now, Bronze, just follow me to Sky Arena."
Bronze and his Pokémon followed him through the back door, across a hallway, down a flight of steelweave stairs, and out a double door that led to a platform, standing three hundred feet broad and wide, suspended off the side of the man-made island. Bronze peered into the void below, and wondered how he would handle his battle strategy with such a risky environment influencing his actions.
Seeing Bronze's worried expression, Stephan reassured him. "Don't fret. If one of your Pokémon falls, a tractor beam with just scoop them up put them back up here. Another thin that I forgot to mention is that you'll have to fight out here in the thin air! If you grab a oxygen mask, the battle is over. That is actually the reason that most people lose, not being defeated by me. Now, let us begin! May the Blessing of Rayquaza Sulumno guide me!"
Stephan sent out Skarmory. Bronze ordered Chameleon forward, and the metal bird and the fire lizard collided in the arena.
...
As Bronze and Stephan had just begun to fight, a sensor scope viewer in the city's central navigation tower noticed a faint blip on his radar screen, very far out, but coming closer to the city.
It wasn't in any of the standard shipping lanes, and no one had hailed a flight from that direction. The dot disappeared as soon as the worker had considered reporting it.
A half minute the dot reappeared again, about a mile closer. The worker looked through a observation window at the direction the dot was coming from. He only saw blue sky and the planet below.
The worker went to a storage closet and grabbed some binoculars and peered into the mile-wide distance horizon, sapphire seas crashing against the curve of the Rorian coast. He though a saw a faint shimmering, but it disappeared as soon as the dot on the console also vanished.
Probably just a meteorite, the worker thought. Sitting down again, he attended his various other duties, not even giving the mysterious dot another thought.
...
Chameleon caught onto the flying Skarmory, and bit into its wing with a red-hot bite. The two Pokemon flew over the side of the arena into the air below, only to have a tractor beam scoop them up, like the radioactive hand of a giant, and deposit them back onto the stage. Skarmory fainted from its wounds and burns, while Charmeleon nursed it's scratches and cuts.
Stephen considered this turn of events, and sent out Archeops from the arena bench. Charmeleon managed to send out a Ember at the flying fossil, but it simply grazed off its chest, due to it's nature as a Rock-type. After sending a massive hewn stone at Charmeleon, the exhausted Pokémon finally fainted.
"Looks like we're even now." Stephan said. But that wasn't the most pressing of Bronze's problems. Despite not having any problems with the thin air before, Bronze could feel his exertion getting the best of him. If he couldn't make it to the end of the battle without needing emergency oxygen, then he would have to quit. It seemed like Stephan was unjustly taking advantage of a characteristic of his terrain, which his opponents would not be accustomed to.
Thinking and observing patterns and signs, Bronze called over Magneton. If Archeops was a part-rock type, then that meant...
"Magneton, keep using Flash Cannon, until you knock it out! Hold your ground! Do not give a inch!"
Magneton whirred, not affected by the thin air due to quite literally not needing to breath. Archeops continued dodging the glowing beams of internally generated energy, but the immensely logical Magneton gradually locked onto the enemy's flight patterns, and finally got a square hit, knocking the Pokémon out.
"Staraptor, go!" Stephen yelled. His last Pokémon flew at such speed that Magnetons eye-like sensors couldn't even get any readings.
As the Staraptor sent out volleys of Hyper Beams, Magneton was slowly beaten down. Bronze gasped for breath, and ordered Magneton back. Sending out Electabuzz, Bronze thought through his options, desperate for a solid plan.
Electabuzz was fast enough to at least get some light electrical charges fired at the bird, but Staraptor continued to send Hyper Beams from afar. Sensing defeat, Bronze tossed a small item, which Electabuzz caught and devoured, plastiweave coating falling discarded to the arena.
Suddenly glowing, Electabuzz launched into the air as a elongated white flash, which grabbed the hovering Staraptor and slammed the bird to the rough-hewn floor. As the light cleared, a fully grown Electavire was standing over the wounded Pokémon.
Stephan quickly tossed his own item to the Staraptor, which caught it and managed to fly away, healing as it snacked on its berry. Launching another Hyper Beam at Electivire, Staraptor swooped in closer to finish the job with yet another Hyper Beam.
Suddenly, Electivire caught the blast midair, absorbed it, gave a flying leap, and sent such a electric field into Staraptor so powerful that it temporarily short-circuited the arena lights. Staraptor shrieked and twitched, fell to the ground, unconscious and smoking. The battle was over.
Stephen clapped, sending back his unfortunate Pokémon. "What did ya do there, kid? How did ya make it evolve? I though those things only evolved through an Electrilizer!"
Taking a deep breath from an oxygen mask, Bronze cleared his head, and explained. "While I was thinking about how I was going to beat you, I injected the electrical field from an Electrilizer into a Rare Candy. Pretty simple, since the place I was staying has all the tools for energetic transfusions. Since Electabuzz usually evolves when traded with an Electrilizer, I guessed that the punch provided by the Rare Candy could make it more likely to evolve. A risky move, and I was intending on using a combination of Glare and Thunder Punch to do the trick if the evolution failed. I was actually just getting it ready when you were talking with your wife. It worked in the end!"
Stephan though for a moment. "Interesting. I haven't ever seen a trainer purposely try to evolve their Pokémon mid-battle to gain power. And how in the world did you inject electricity into a Rare Candy? Wouldn't it just disperse? Also, wouldn't Electivire still need to have been traded? As I was saying, does-"
Stephan noticed Bronze smiling.
After a shared laugh, Stephan gave Bronze his reward. "For your skill, I give you...the Soaring Badge! Named so that you may remember how you soared above the sea in Anthien!" Bronze clipped it to his bag along with a his other badges.
After talking a bit about their lives and healing their Pokémon, Bronze left Stephen and went back through the Repair Shop, glad to breath surface-level air once again. After pausing for a moment to catch his breath, he stepped outside, to be greeted by none other then Jake and Tess, returning from their excursion, as promised.
"Hey, guys! Apparently, I won. The end." Bronze exclaimed, showing them his new badge. "It's interesting in there, perhaps you could try your luck...or skill."
"Amazing" Jake replied. "We saw some pretty weird things too. There were these Pokedex Holders doing a comedy routine in the Central Square. I mean, all the jokes were about falling and thin air, so..."
"So, do we want to stay and look around for a little while?" Tess interrupted. "Or should we go to Gerald's place and get our stuff? And what is that noise?"
Bronze felt a uncharacteristic rumble, but he didn't think much of it. Before he could answer Tess, he felt it again, although now he could see that it wasn't coming from the city underbelly or the Repair Shop. It was coming from somewhere...outside the city.
"Guys, did you feel that?"
Tess and Jake affirmed Bronze's suspicions. Now a winding drone like massive engines running started getting louder and more and more permeating, coming from...somewhere.
Then, a shadow fell across the Gym district.
Bronze, Tess, Jake, and almost everyone in the city looked up. One by one, their jaws dropped.