Chapter 04
The thrown sphere spun on its axis, and hit the snow. A second later, a grey pokemon emerged. A skarmory. Tom almost groaned in frustration. It almost couldn't be worse. Even though a skarmory was powerful, and a rare find and near impossible to catch as well, it was virtually useless against the next gym. The fiery pokemon there would be super effective against skarmory, even overlooking the fact that it was far weaker than its teammates. Tom sighed, but moved forward to greet it, releasing all his other pokemon as well to meet their new buddy. The pokemon crowded around skarmory, all speaking at once. Only magmar somewhat restrained himself, knowing full well what the heat radiating from his body could do to a young, weak pokemon like the skarmory. True, he normally contained himself, and Tom had quite a bit of physical contact with him during training, but it was best to play it safe, at least until the skarmory was stronger.
Tom hesitated, the question sticking in his throat. It could be considered offensive, but would be even more so, should he put it the wrong way. Sighing, Tom asked, "Are you a male or female, skarmory?" All the pokemon lapsed into silence, making Tom wonder if he had said anything wrong. Kadabra explained, both in the pokemon language, and telepathically. *To a pokemon, the other one's gender is almost painfully obvious; you can tell by listening to the tone of his or her voice, and how he or she acts. For example, a male, especially the alpha male would be more aggressive and rough, but the females, generally would be gentler.* Kadabra paused, then added hastily, *With the obvious exceptions, of course.* Tom chuckled at this. The females for some pokemon did the hunting, and were naturally fiercer than their male counterparts.
*And did you notice how rude you were just now? And to answer your question, it is a he.* This last sentence was delivered telepathically only; without translating in the pokemon language. Tom just nodded sheepishly in response. *Looks like asking that wasn't such a good idea after all... For the next pokemon, I'll just ask kadabra, or hopefully, alakazam to tell me.*
Tom was interrupted from his thoughts by a curse. "You stupid thing!" It sounded as if it had come from somewhere down the mountain. Tom broke into a light jog, going over to the slopes and peered over the plateau. Approximately twenty students in navy blue blazers were in the small field. A small helicopter confirmed their method of arrival. Tom recognised the blazers easily; the school was rather well known, to say the least. *Ahh... the infamous Pokemon Tech... Looks like a field trip.* If anything, the people living in the Azure Mountains disliked the Tech students even more than the "normal" trainers. True, the Pokemon Tech pupils were masters at the pokemon simulators and pokemon theory, but that was all that could be said of them. Without journeying all over the place to collect badges, the students were, for the most part cooped up in their campus, having little experience in real battles. However, it is true that the school had churned out a few good trainers, but those were exceptions.
Tom re-focused on the "weaklings". The source of the cursing earlier was apparent. A few of the Tech students were trying to catch the wild pokemon, all failing miserably. One guy was even more distraught than the rest; the reason obvious to anyone who knew of the different between the pokemon here and those in the Southern regions. The poor kid was throwing pokeballs at a magikarp, possibly relying on the fact that magikarps were supposingly very weak. The kid was greeted by a splash-tackle combo that blinded and pushed the boy a small distance backwards. He could only lie there, stunned. A few more kids were facing similar problems, throwing pokeballs at pokemon that were rumoured to be "catchable" without weakening. Obviously, this was their first time in these mountains; a more experienced trainer would have taken another approach, one that would prove more economical, for the students were wasting many pokeballs without avail.
Tom called his pokemon over, allowing the young skarmory to perch on his shoulder. The others, he kept out, both for them to have some fresh air, and for company. A girl in her twenties approached, and challenged Tom to a battle. "Hi, my name is Giselle. My students, as you can see, are on a field trip to gain more first-hand knowledge about pokemon. I see that you're a trainer... would you like a battle? My students would benefit from it either way." Slightly taken aback, Tom just nodded, and proceeded to an open field.
Without the customary "I choose you!", both trainers released their pokemon. A ball of rock, with four stubby limbs appeared. Tom recognised it immediately as a golem. Just as a test of skarmory's abilities, Tom sent it out.
The metallic bird glided over, and landed, not wanting to expand too much energy before the battle. Not really knowing just how strong or how weak skarmory was, Tom just ordered it to stay back, and use ranged attacks as much as possible. Skarmory gave a barely noticeable nod, and scrutinised its opponent, not knowing what to make of the chunk of rock.
As the battle began, skarmory immediately lifted off, and started circling golem at high speed, utilising its agility against its slow moving adversary. The golem started to chuck small boulders at skarmory, missing everytime. However, as skarmory slowed down for a swift attack, some of the speeding projectiles smashed against the lightweight steel type, drawing a irritated screech from it. It swooped down, making a beeline for the golem, and gave it a mouthful of sand in return. Golem spat out some of the sand, and struggled to clear its eyes of the irritants, all the while trashing around blindly. At this, skarmory drew back, firing volley after volley of bright stars from the pinkish bottom of its wings. The ranged attack, although ineffective against the sturdy rock type, eventually took its toll. The golem collapsed from the numerous hits.
From across the makeshift battlefield, Giselle withdrew golem, and mouthed a silent "Great battle". Smiling, Giselle made for her students, explaining the battle, analysing the strategies. Tom, a little surprised at skarmory's rather remarkable skill and Giselle taking the defeat well. *Maybe not all Pokemon "Techies" are bad loosers.* Skarmory returned to the pokemon, receiving numerous cheers and good natured claps on the back. "Good job skarmory, now lets go get some serious training done, and to get you all a new friend."
Tom walked off with a wave to the students clustered around Giselle, and sprinted back to the pokecentre to get skarmory completely rejuvenated before heading off. His pokemon follow, with kadabra levitating itself and seadra in order to keep up.
Ten minutes later, Tom is found outside the pokecentre, asking his pokedex for information about good rock types that could be found near the area, or on the way to the fire gym. Nurse Joy, overhearing him, walked forward to help. "Actually, if you want something that's resistant to fire, one of those rhyhorn would be of help. But I warn you, they are very temperamental, prone to anger, aggressive, difficult to handle, not to mention *very rare*" She emphasized this last word for good measure. *Heh, sounds like just the right pokemon for me -- and for the next gym...* Following Joy's instructions, Tom headed downhill once more, this time headed for the volcano near the fire gym, where he would, hopefully find a rhyhorn, and earn his next badge.
***
Tom faced the pokemon, shivering. His plan to capture a rhyhorn had succeeded, in a way. Instead of finding a rhyhorn, he was now confronted with its evolved form, a rhydon. He had been tracking the footprints in the thin layer of dirt for weeks, and even then considered himself lucky, and with good reason. In a place where even pidgeys were rare, finding the pokemon that you sought was a near-impossible task. This high up in the volcano, few pokemon lived. Even though the volcano was dormant, people and pokemon alike tended to stay away from it, exempting only trainers seeking to challenge the gym leader, and the gym leader himself. To tell the truth, Tom still had no idea as to the location of the gym, or even the identity of the gym leader. Not that it was surprising; the pokegear map only provided the approximate location, and not even a description of the gym or its leader. This adds a whole new level of difficulty and originality to the league, setting it apart from the other leagues.
Tom focused on the task at hand once more. The only downfall to the entire episode with the rhydon was that it was mad -- very mad. In a horrible rage, it charged, standing upright on two legs, unlike its unevolved counterpart. Seadra, ready to battle, stood firm, and then unleashed its bubble attack, hoping desperately to slow down the living tank heading for herself. The bubbles came, all hitting the rhydon head-on, but barely even affected it. Surprised, seadra barely had time to let loose a quick water gun, but its opponent just shrugged the super effective attack off. The rhydon wasn't visibly affected; if anything, it seemed to get even more angry. It slammed, horn first, into seadra's mid-section. Still recovering from her shock at rhydon's seemingly immunity to water-based attacks, seadra fainted. Tom barely returned seadra before rhydon gored the fainted pokemon.
Sighing, Tom sent out kadabra, hoping for him to fare better against the ground-rock type than seadra. Coming out of its pokeball, kadabra was greeted by a takedown from the rhydon. He set up a reflect, and teleported away just before the rhydon hit the near-invisible wall. The rhydon, unable to curb its momentum, shattered the barrier, but got damaged in the process from the takedown recoil. Not knowing what happened, rhydon once again charged, towards kadabra who was now some distance away. Kadabra adopted a similar tactic, and this time, rhydon didn't manage to break through. It was left taking both the natural recoil and the takedown damage originally intended for its foe. Rhydon collapsed, but struggled to get back up, its arms, or forelegs straining.
Tom took this chance to throw a great ball, knowing that a standard pokeball may not hold the rhydon, and remembering the last incident when capturing horsea. The "Ding!" came almost immediately, with rhydon in its severely weakened condition. Tom let out a cheer, not forgetting to congratulate kadabra -- telepathically of course. He rushed to the pokecentre, anxious to revive his new catch, and to begin training.
***
A few hours later, Tom asked him -- the rhydon questions, with kadabra's help, of course. It turned out that the rhydon wasn't exactly "native" to the volcano. Rather, it used to live on one of the surrounding mountains, but because of scarcity of prey, had been travelling around. It turned out, that the ice and frequent rainfall, coupled with occasional earthquake -- tremors actually, gave the rhydon a partial resistance to ice, ground, and most importantly, water based attacks. *This last factor will prove very useful... Most rhydons receive quadruple damage from water guns and the like, but this one...* Tom decided to check the pokedex for more information. However, when the picture on the pokedex showed up, Tom literally jumped in surprise, not to mention delight. While the picture showed a pokemon of different shades of grey, the rhydon that he had captured was different. It was purple. Actually, more like a darker shade of violet, but who cares; it was different, it was a shiny.
When skarmory looked at him quizzically, Tom explained. "Rhydon here, is a shiny, meaning that he is more powerful than the average rhydon. Since the odds of seeing one, much less capturing one is more than sixty-five thousand to one; I never expected to see one. But now... Anyway, shinies are usually the head or leader of a herd, flock or swarm, seeing as how it would be stronger than the rest. This also explains, partly rhydon's unusually high resistance to water, even for a pokemon that encounter rain often. Shinies also have special qualities. The only physical difference between a shiny and a normal pokemon is that the shiny is of a different colour. Supposingly, the shiny would be more intelligent and have much higher stats than the average pokemon of the same species."
Skarmory didn't quite understand, but he got the gist of it. The pokemon soon got down to training once more, but now with a new companion, one that is extra special.
***
Tom looked down into the crater, shivering. It was noon, a month after he had captured his rhydon, a month spent training and searching for the gym. He was standing on the edge of the crater of the volcano. The *dormant* volcano, Tom reminded himself, in an attempt to calm his nerves. The crater itself was huge, and it looked even bigger from Tom's perspective. Conical in shape, standing half a kilometre high with steep slopes, the volcano was magnificent. Its diameter at the base was around its height, and the crater was easily a hundred metres across. How it must looked like, with lava boiling out, with ash and poisonous fumes being expelled out of the same hole that he was about to descend. Tom couldn't help shivering again.
After a month of searching, Tom had become desperate enough to try anything, and that anything was to go into the crater, where he hoped to find the gym. Tom didn't regret not going down sooner though; the month had been well spent, using TMs, and training for his most difficult challenge yet.
Taking a deep breath, Tom uttered aloud a prayer to Entei, praying that the volcano wouldn't erupt anytime soon, and took the only way down, a long flight of crude, crumpling steps carved out from the black, glossy remains of lava. Tom sighed. *If only skarmory is old and strong enough to carry me down there...*
Tom started his descent.
***
It had been a tough climb, or rather, tough slide. The steps, if they could be called that, were ancient, remarkably well preserved, but still dangerous. It had crumbled away altogether in some places, and in those places, Tom was forced to jump over.
Now Tom stood in front of a huge arch, adequately lighted somehow by the sun peeking through the crater. All of the searching had paid off; the light illuminated many things, but Tom was only interested in three of the letters: GYM. There was a carving of Entei, the legendary beast in charge of volcanoes, and many other fire types, battling, fighting for supremacy.
Tom smiled nervously at the carvings, doing a little bow to the Entei, and pushed open the doors in front. He gasped. The door opened, revealing a flight of well maintained marble steps leading to a huge, presumably underground cavern, or to be precise, a trainer box, and a huge, dirt based arena. There were numerous carvings on the cavern walls, telling one myth or another. But what really drew Tom's attention was the battlefield. It was the size of an Olympic sized swimming pool, and had many cracks in the ground. But the main feature was that the cracks were all filled with red liquid -- molten lava. These rivers of flame made the field a place where only pokemon resistant to fire may battle. But even then, with some exceptions, one wrong move, and the pokemon may cease to exist.
A green haired lady hailed Tom, herself sitting on top of a charizard. She seemed to be in her thirties, and was quite attractive. The lady got off from the charizard, and leapt the six metres separating her and the ground. She landed lightly, as if used to jumping off from high places.
"Good afternoon, I am Lisa, the gym leader who specialises in fire pokemon, as you undoubtedly already know. I used to guard the Charisific Valley in Johto, but now my daughter has taken over the job, allowing me to take up this position." Lisa paused for a while, and continued, "I presume you are Tom, the trainer who as already defeated two gym leaders. A trainer with remarkable skill, they said. I have been expecting you."
Tom just nodded, not really knowing what to say.
"Alright, four on four battle, no time limit. Beware the lava; they are real." This last comment elicited a nervous chuckle from Tom. Although surprised by the number of pokemon required, Tom agreed. After all, the gym leaders decided the rules, not him.
At the customary ring of the bell, both trainers threw their pokeballs. What emerged from Lisa's ball drew a curse from Tom.
The thrown sphere spun on its axis, and hit the snow. A second later, a grey pokemon emerged. A skarmory. Tom almost groaned in frustration. It almost couldn't be worse. Even though a skarmory was powerful, and a rare find and near impossible to catch as well, it was virtually useless against the next gym. The fiery pokemon there would be super effective against skarmory, even overlooking the fact that it was far weaker than its teammates. Tom sighed, but moved forward to greet it, releasing all his other pokemon as well to meet their new buddy. The pokemon crowded around skarmory, all speaking at once. Only magmar somewhat restrained himself, knowing full well what the heat radiating from his body could do to a young, weak pokemon like the skarmory. True, he normally contained himself, and Tom had quite a bit of physical contact with him during training, but it was best to play it safe, at least until the skarmory was stronger.
Tom hesitated, the question sticking in his throat. It could be considered offensive, but would be even more so, should he put it the wrong way. Sighing, Tom asked, "Are you a male or female, skarmory?" All the pokemon lapsed into silence, making Tom wonder if he had said anything wrong. Kadabra explained, both in the pokemon language, and telepathically. *To a pokemon, the other one's gender is almost painfully obvious; you can tell by listening to the tone of his or her voice, and how he or she acts. For example, a male, especially the alpha male would be more aggressive and rough, but the females, generally would be gentler.* Kadabra paused, then added hastily, *With the obvious exceptions, of course.* Tom chuckled at this. The females for some pokemon did the hunting, and were naturally fiercer than their male counterparts.
*And did you notice how rude you were just now? And to answer your question, it is a he.* This last sentence was delivered telepathically only; without translating in the pokemon language. Tom just nodded sheepishly in response. *Looks like asking that wasn't such a good idea after all... For the next pokemon, I'll just ask kadabra, or hopefully, alakazam to tell me.*
Tom was interrupted from his thoughts by a curse. "You stupid thing!" It sounded as if it had come from somewhere down the mountain. Tom broke into a light jog, going over to the slopes and peered over the plateau. Approximately twenty students in navy blue blazers were in the small field. A small helicopter confirmed their method of arrival. Tom recognised the blazers easily; the school was rather well known, to say the least. *Ahh... the infamous Pokemon Tech... Looks like a field trip.* If anything, the people living in the Azure Mountains disliked the Tech students even more than the "normal" trainers. True, the Pokemon Tech pupils were masters at the pokemon simulators and pokemon theory, but that was all that could be said of them. Without journeying all over the place to collect badges, the students were, for the most part cooped up in their campus, having little experience in real battles. However, it is true that the school had churned out a few good trainers, but those were exceptions.
Tom re-focused on the "weaklings". The source of the cursing earlier was apparent. A few of the Tech students were trying to catch the wild pokemon, all failing miserably. One guy was even more distraught than the rest; the reason obvious to anyone who knew of the different between the pokemon here and those in the Southern regions. The poor kid was throwing pokeballs at a magikarp, possibly relying on the fact that magikarps were supposingly very weak. The kid was greeted by a splash-tackle combo that blinded and pushed the boy a small distance backwards. He could only lie there, stunned. A few more kids were facing similar problems, throwing pokeballs at pokemon that were rumoured to be "catchable" without weakening. Obviously, this was their first time in these mountains; a more experienced trainer would have taken another approach, one that would prove more economical, for the students were wasting many pokeballs without avail.
Tom called his pokemon over, allowing the young skarmory to perch on his shoulder. The others, he kept out, both for them to have some fresh air, and for company. A girl in her twenties approached, and challenged Tom to a battle. "Hi, my name is Giselle. My students, as you can see, are on a field trip to gain more first-hand knowledge about pokemon. I see that you're a trainer... would you like a battle? My students would benefit from it either way." Slightly taken aback, Tom just nodded, and proceeded to an open field.
Without the customary "I choose you!", both trainers released their pokemon. A ball of rock, with four stubby limbs appeared. Tom recognised it immediately as a golem. Just as a test of skarmory's abilities, Tom sent it out.
The metallic bird glided over, and landed, not wanting to expand too much energy before the battle. Not really knowing just how strong or how weak skarmory was, Tom just ordered it to stay back, and use ranged attacks as much as possible. Skarmory gave a barely noticeable nod, and scrutinised its opponent, not knowing what to make of the chunk of rock.
As the battle began, skarmory immediately lifted off, and started circling golem at high speed, utilising its agility against its slow moving adversary. The golem started to chuck small boulders at skarmory, missing everytime. However, as skarmory slowed down for a swift attack, some of the speeding projectiles smashed against the lightweight steel type, drawing a irritated screech from it. It swooped down, making a beeline for the golem, and gave it a mouthful of sand in return. Golem spat out some of the sand, and struggled to clear its eyes of the irritants, all the while trashing around blindly. At this, skarmory drew back, firing volley after volley of bright stars from the pinkish bottom of its wings. The ranged attack, although ineffective against the sturdy rock type, eventually took its toll. The golem collapsed from the numerous hits.
From across the makeshift battlefield, Giselle withdrew golem, and mouthed a silent "Great battle". Smiling, Giselle made for her students, explaining the battle, analysing the strategies. Tom, a little surprised at skarmory's rather remarkable skill and Giselle taking the defeat well. *Maybe not all Pokemon "Techies" are bad loosers.* Skarmory returned to the pokemon, receiving numerous cheers and good natured claps on the back. "Good job skarmory, now lets go get some serious training done, and to get you all a new friend."
Tom walked off with a wave to the students clustered around Giselle, and sprinted back to the pokecentre to get skarmory completely rejuvenated before heading off. His pokemon follow, with kadabra levitating itself and seadra in order to keep up.
Ten minutes later, Tom is found outside the pokecentre, asking his pokedex for information about good rock types that could be found near the area, or on the way to the fire gym. Nurse Joy, overhearing him, walked forward to help. "Actually, if you want something that's resistant to fire, one of those rhyhorn would be of help. But I warn you, they are very temperamental, prone to anger, aggressive, difficult to handle, not to mention *very rare*" She emphasized this last word for good measure. *Heh, sounds like just the right pokemon for me -- and for the next gym...* Following Joy's instructions, Tom headed downhill once more, this time headed for the volcano near the fire gym, where he would, hopefully find a rhyhorn, and earn his next badge.
***
Tom faced the pokemon, shivering. His plan to capture a rhyhorn had succeeded, in a way. Instead of finding a rhyhorn, he was now confronted with its evolved form, a rhydon. He had been tracking the footprints in the thin layer of dirt for weeks, and even then considered himself lucky, and with good reason. In a place where even pidgeys were rare, finding the pokemon that you sought was a near-impossible task. This high up in the volcano, few pokemon lived. Even though the volcano was dormant, people and pokemon alike tended to stay away from it, exempting only trainers seeking to challenge the gym leader, and the gym leader himself. To tell the truth, Tom still had no idea as to the location of the gym, or even the identity of the gym leader. Not that it was surprising; the pokegear map only provided the approximate location, and not even a description of the gym or its leader. This adds a whole new level of difficulty and originality to the league, setting it apart from the other leagues.
Tom focused on the task at hand once more. The only downfall to the entire episode with the rhydon was that it was mad -- very mad. In a horrible rage, it charged, standing upright on two legs, unlike its unevolved counterpart. Seadra, ready to battle, stood firm, and then unleashed its bubble attack, hoping desperately to slow down the living tank heading for herself. The bubbles came, all hitting the rhydon head-on, but barely even affected it. Surprised, seadra barely had time to let loose a quick water gun, but its opponent just shrugged the super effective attack off. The rhydon wasn't visibly affected; if anything, it seemed to get even more angry. It slammed, horn first, into seadra's mid-section. Still recovering from her shock at rhydon's seemingly immunity to water-based attacks, seadra fainted. Tom barely returned seadra before rhydon gored the fainted pokemon.
Sighing, Tom sent out kadabra, hoping for him to fare better against the ground-rock type than seadra. Coming out of its pokeball, kadabra was greeted by a takedown from the rhydon. He set up a reflect, and teleported away just before the rhydon hit the near-invisible wall. The rhydon, unable to curb its momentum, shattered the barrier, but got damaged in the process from the takedown recoil. Not knowing what happened, rhydon once again charged, towards kadabra who was now some distance away. Kadabra adopted a similar tactic, and this time, rhydon didn't manage to break through. It was left taking both the natural recoil and the takedown damage originally intended for its foe. Rhydon collapsed, but struggled to get back up, its arms, or forelegs straining.
Tom took this chance to throw a great ball, knowing that a standard pokeball may not hold the rhydon, and remembering the last incident when capturing horsea. The "Ding!" came almost immediately, with rhydon in its severely weakened condition. Tom let out a cheer, not forgetting to congratulate kadabra -- telepathically of course. He rushed to the pokecentre, anxious to revive his new catch, and to begin training.
***
A few hours later, Tom asked him -- the rhydon questions, with kadabra's help, of course. It turned out that the rhydon wasn't exactly "native" to the volcano. Rather, it used to live on one of the surrounding mountains, but because of scarcity of prey, had been travelling around. It turned out, that the ice and frequent rainfall, coupled with occasional earthquake -- tremors actually, gave the rhydon a partial resistance to ice, ground, and most importantly, water based attacks. *This last factor will prove very useful... Most rhydons receive quadruple damage from water guns and the like, but this one...* Tom decided to check the pokedex for more information. However, when the picture on the pokedex showed up, Tom literally jumped in surprise, not to mention delight. While the picture showed a pokemon of different shades of grey, the rhydon that he had captured was different. It was purple. Actually, more like a darker shade of violet, but who cares; it was different, it was a shiny.
When skarmory looked at him quizzically, Tom explained. "Rhydon here, is a shiny, meaning that he is more powerful than the average rhydon. Since the odds of seeing one, much less capturing one is more than sixty-five thousand to one; I never expected to see one. But now... Anyway, shinies are usually the head or leader of a herd, flock or swarm, seeing as how it would be stronger than the rest. This also explains, partly rhydon's unusually high resistance to water, even for a pokemon that encounter rain often. Shinies also have special qualities. The only physical difference between a shiny and a normal pokemon is that the shiny is of a different colour. Supposingly, the shiny would be more intelligent and have much higher stats than the average pokemon of the same species."
Skarmory didn't quite understand, but he got the gist of it. The pokemon soon got down to training once more, but now with a new companion, one that is extra special.
***
Tom looked down into the crater, shivering. It was noon, a month after he had captured his rhydon, a month spent training and searching for the gym. He was standing on the edge of the crater of the volcano. The *dormant* volcano, Tom reminded himself, in an attempt to calm his nerves. The crater itself was huge, and it looked even bigger from Tom's perspective. Conical in shape, standing half a kilometre high with steep slopes, the volcano was magnificent. Its diameter at the base was around its height, and the crater was easily a hundred metres across. How it must looked like, with lava boiling out, with ash and poisonous fumes being expelled out of the same hole that he was about to descend. Tom couldn't help shivering again.
After a month of searching, Tom had become desperate enough to try anything, and that anything was to go into the crater, where he hoped to find the gym. Tom didn't regret not going down sooner though; the month had been well spent, using TMs, and training for his most difficult challenge yet.
Taking a deep breath, Tom uttered aloud a prayer to Entei, praying that the volcano wouldn't erupt anytime soon, and took the only way down, a long flight of crude, crumpling steps carved out from the black, glossy remains of lava. Tom sighed. *If only skarmory is old and strong enough to carry me down there...*
Tom started his descent.
***
It had been a tough climb, or rather, tough slide. The steps, if they could be called that, were ancient, remarkably well preserved, but still dangerous. It had crumbled away altogether in some places, and in those places, Tom was forced to jump over.
Now Tom stood in front of a huge arch, adequately lighted somehow by the sun peeking through the crater. All of the searching had paid off; the light illuminated many things, but Tom was only interested in three of the letters: GYM. There was a carving of Entei, the legendary beast in charge of volcanoes, and many other fire types, battling, fighting for supremacy.
Tom smiled nervously at the carvings, doing a little bow to the Entei, and pushed open the doors in front. He gasped. The door opened, revealing a flight of well maintained marble steps leading to a huge, presumably underground cavern, or to be precise, a trainer box, and a huge, dirt based arena. There were numerous carvings on the cavern walls, telling one myth or another. But what really drew Tom's attention was the battlefield. It was the size of an Olympic sized swimming pool, and had many cracks in the ground. But the main feature was that the cracks were all filled with red liquid -- molten lava. These rivers of flame made the field a place where only pokemon resistant to fire may battle. But even then, with some exceptions, one wrong move, and the pokemon may cease to exist.
A green haired lady hailed Tom, herself sitting on top of a charizard. She seemed to be in her thirties, and was quite attractive. The lady got off from the charizard, and leapt the six metres separating her and the ground. She landed lightly, as if used to jumping off from high places.
"Good afternoon, I am Lisa, the gym leader who specialises in fire pokemon, as you undoubtedly already know. I used to guard the Charisific Valley in Johto, but now my daughter has taken over the job, allowing me to take up this position." Lisa paused for a while, and continued, "I presume you are Tom, the trainer who as already defeated two gym leaders. A trainer with remarkable skill, they said. I have been expecting you."
Tom just nodded, not really knowing what to say.
"Alright, four on four battle, no time limit. Beware the lava; they are real." This last comment elicited a nervous chuckle from Tom. Although surprised by the number of pokemon required, Tom agreed. After all, the gym leaders decided the rules, not him.
At the customary ring of the bell, both trainers threw their pokeballs. What emerged from Lisa's ball drew a curse from Tom.