What better place to have a pokemon battle? Mirus thought. Heron had let him fiddle with the switches, and now he stood in the red trainer box, with the battlefield set to Plain and Heron facing him. They'd agreed on a battle with two pokemon each, and now Mirus was waiting for their rematch to start.
"Ladies first," he said, grinning.
She wasted no time. "Ekans, go!" she yelled as she chose her first pokemon. The white shape dimmed into purple as her pokemon hissed and stared strongly at Mirus.
He thought briefly. If Grim was knocked out and he had to choose Chilli (he'd talked to the vulpix earlier and named him after her fiery colour) to battle with her onix, she'd have no hope. So he'd have to send her out now. The trouble was, she'd only talked and been introduced to Mirus in the last minute, and she hadn't actually battled yet. He had no idea how strong she was. And what about the strength of Heron's onix? How strong was it? Probably stronger than Ekans, if it was her first... he'd seen it battle, but only once. It had won.
"Hurry up," Heron shouted tauntingly.
He said the first thing that came into his head. "Don't you want to have more time before I win?"
She laughed. "Don't get cocky. I won't go easy on you."
Mirus didn't want her to 'go easy on him'. He unhooked Chilli's pokeball from his belt, tapped the button and threw it. "I know this is your first time, Chilli, but please try your best!" he called down to her.
She turned her head back to her and nodded, with no expression of regret on her flame-coloured face. "Vulpix vul," she told him.
Mirus took that as a promise. "OK, go! Quick Attack and Ember!"
Heron looked down on her pokemon. "Avoid it the best you can before striking," she advised him. "When it's clear, use a Bite."
Chilli was already on the move, speeding up to the snake, tails waving gently. Mirus thought he saw flashes of white trail after her, but he blinked and they were gone. He tried to concentrate on the battle, but if Ekans stayed where it was, it would be difficult to see. This was his first time battling on an official Olympic and league-sized field.
Ekans remained motionless until Chilli was less than a metre away, breathing snatches of fire that were whipped away in streaks behind her as she ran. He then shifted the coils of scales away from her path, as Chilli, unable to stop herself, slammed into Heron's trainer box. She spun round, angry but confused.
Even from his view, high up, Mirus found it hard to see more of his pokemon than the telltale wave of orange behind scales. "Chilli, dodge whatever it throws at you and run this way, quickly!" he shouted. If he could lure Ekans down here, Heron might have the same problem...
The vulpix heard him and tried desperatly to dodge scales and Bites. But she was dazed from her crash, which made it harder. Finally she saw a way through, and leapt over a coil, back to Mirus's end of the field.
"That's it, closer!" he shouted. "Come on, you're doing it. We can--"
"Ekans, Bite her!" Heron had called, and now the viper had launched forward with amazing speed Mirus had never thought possible. He slid in front of Chilli's path and reared up.
The orange fox, terrified, had backed slowly away, looking desperatly for an entrance.
"Ember," Mirus suggested, but the blast of flames only snagged on the side of the snake's head as he moved forward to attack.
"Don't worry, Chilli. I'm proud of you," Mirus told her, pressing the button on her pokeball and feeling the familiar warmth spread through the sphere in a flash of red. He wasn't going to make the mistake of letting his pokemon run off again.
Heron was looking smug, but as Ekans crawled back to his starting space, she called out, "That was pretty good for a new pokemon. Ekans is stronger than with his battle with Grim."
"But not stronger than Grim," Mirus muttered. That he was sure of. The beedrill he had battled was pretty tough, and Ekans was already weakened.
"Grim, it's all up to you now!" Mirus said, throwing his second pokeball. Grim's eyes focused immediately on his opponent and he growled in his throat.
"OK Grim, I need you to win this for me!" he said. It was one against two now, but he had a feeling Grim could do it.
"Ekans, the same as before," he heard Heron say.
"Grim," Mirus said, thinking fast, "I want you to go to the centre of the battlefield and sit there." He lowered his voice. "When I say, pretend you're going to attack, but run straight back to my end."
The poochyena wagged his tail and bounded happily up to the centre circle. He sat inside it and waited. Ekans watched him accusingly, and did nothing. For some time neither pokemon moved. Then: "Now!" Mirus shouted, and Grim leapt at the snake.
"Go!" Heron said, putting her foot in the trap. All Mirus needed to do now was pull on the rope.
Ekans reared up to attack and slithered forwards with its speed. Grim gave Ekans a quick nip, then immediately pulled out and ran backwards. Ekans was angry at this, and spared no thoughts for being too far away for Heron to see. He sped after a running Grim until they were both at Mirus's end of the field.
"Now, confuse it and Bite!" he said.
Ekans was still intent on attacking Grim; he was letting his guard down. Grim was running quickly, leaping over coils of scales and dodging fangs. In short, he was practically being tied in a giant knot. Then Grim attached himself onto Ekans's neck and sung his small, sharp teeth into his neck. It didn't bleed, but bruised, and Ekans hissed wildly.
"Finish it!" Mirus called.
Heron was shouting orders to Ekans, but she must have been having the same problem Mirus had, and her shouts were ineffective. One more Tackle from Grim knocked the tired snake to the ground.
As Heron called her pokemon back, he saw that Grim was tired. Heron had not even used her onix yet; how would he react to that?
"Go, Onix!"
Mirus couldn't hide his worry; the snake was massive compared to Grim. Rearing higher than he had imagined, the rocks in Onix's body grated slightly as he moved.
"If you found Ekans hard to beat, you won't win against Onix," Heron told him. She seemed to have picked up his worry, or was trying to encourage it.
"Watch me." Mirus turned to Grim. "Even if you think you can't beat Onix, give it your best shot."
Grim's tail was between his legs, but at his words it gave a small twitch. After all, Mirus reminded himself, Grim was only a few days old- he'd never seen an Onix before, and only battled a handful of pokemon.
"Use your speed, Grim!" Mirus said.
"Onix, this can be over quickly if you do this right. Your opponent's weakened and you have a tough resistance."
Onix roared in reply and shook its tail. Grim's muscles twitched as he tried not to back away.
"Right, now Quick Attack and climb on its head!" Mirus said. "You can attack from there."
"Tackle it and use your tail," Heron ordered the rock snake.
Grim sped forwards, and Onix moved towards it in its own fashion, swinging its tail from side to side. Grim jumped each time to avoid the blows, but he slowed down his pace with tiredness, and immediately a tail was slammed into his side. He went flying, landing in a heap some feet away.
"Now finish it!" Heron called.
"Jump up, Grim," Mirus said. If he could get on Onix's head, he might stand a chance.
Grim's eyes opened and he spun round, taking a leap on the snake's head. His body fitted over Onix's head and his feet waved in his eyes, making him rear around angrily.
"Get rid of it, Onix," Heron said, sounding almost bored. "Then a Whiplash and you've defeated him."
Onix tossed his head, but Grim clung tight. Mirus began to have a hope that they might win, but Grim's tiredness finally showed, and he started to slip off. A flick of the head and tail tossed Grim off, and Onix's tail slammed into him again like a bat hits a ball. The dog lay motionless, and Mirus had no choice but to call him back.
"I think you inherited your mum's battle style," Mirus told her as she called back her pokemon too.
"Thanks," she said, smiling fully. "You battled well, but I've been training Onix for some time; I did have a head start."
That made Mirus feel better in himself. He handed Heron a few notes, but she laughed. "You keep your money," she told him.
"Right. Let's go back to the rest of the ship," he said. "I need to heal my pokemon."
A reluctant Heron flicked the row of switches to "lock" and shut their case before they left the room and signed out. Mirus found a pokemon healing machine outside one of the battlefields and they both healed their pokeballs, while Heron looked down the hall at the row of doors.
"How do they fit all those battlefields in?" she asked.
"You know... probably the rest are smaller," Mirus suggested. He waited for a few moments while the machine did its work, listening to the battle cries that came through the nearby doors, and the occasional roar of attacks.
"Here," Heron said, pressing two pokeballs into his hand.
"Thanks," he replied, tearing his attention away from the battling her could hear.
They found the stairs and climbed them quickly, until they reached the main floor. Heron ran to a nearby window as she glimpsed sea. Then she looked back to the opposite window, before focusing through this one again.
"I missed it," she said, hands pressed against the thick glass, her breath issuing clouds of fog. "We've left Kanto behind, and I didn't see it leave."
She turned back to Mirus and smiled. "Well, I'm safe from my dad now. He won't even know I've gone truly away till tonight, and I bet he won't care if he finds out."
"I didn't even know we began moving," Mirus admitted.
"Me neither. Hey, let's have look around."
A notice tacked to a nearby pillar read that only pokemon under 1m in height were allowed out of their pokeballs anywhere but the battlefield, and no more than two at a time per trainer. Battles could only take place on the battlefield or on deck, though on deck the same height rules applied.
Heron and Mirus took this as an opportunity to let their pokemon have a walk, or in Ekans's case, hang around Heron's neck lazily. By this time the clocks read after four, so the two trainers decided to get something to eat.
Food, to Mirus's relief, was free. He had already experienced Grim's eating, and dimly suspected Chilli wouldn't be much better. They were both battling pokemon, and they needed to keep their strength up.
"I won't be able to feed Onix," Heron said, seemingly to Ekans. She turned to Mirus. "Still, the pokeball looks after them, as long as they do have a meal every few days."
He nodded. "And you have to feed them more if they battle a lot."
She smiled at him. "So you do read a lot," she said.
"I try."
As they reached the end of the queue, Mirus modestly took some chips and sausages, while Heron piled her plate high with all kinds of food. He stared. "I thought girls only ate a little?" he asked her.
"Think again," Heron said, still smiling. "I'm so hungry- I haven't eaten since breakfast."
At which Mirus remembered he'd had a sandwich earlier and said nothing else. Heron, however, continued to smile at him. "I'm always hungry," she explained.
After they had finished their meal, with Grim, Chilli and Ekans snatching food off Mirus and Heron's plates instead of eating their own meals, Heron thought it would be a good idea to go to bed. "I want to get up early tomorrow," she said.
Mirus wished he'd remembered to bring his alarm clock, but then recalled it had to be plugged in to work. Not much good in the middle of a route with no towns for possible miles. For the first time he wondered how tough the terrain would be. But instead of being nervous, it made him feel more excited. "Could you wake me up too?" he asked.
She laughed again. "If I can actually get up, sure."
They were walking to their cabins now. Grim and Chilli were playing as they walked, while Ekans could probably be mistaken for being asleep, save for one yellow eye that opened slightly for every step Heron took. Finally they reached them, and said their goodnights.
Someone was screaming. The voice sounded totally unfamiliar. Mirus's first instinct was that it was a lost soul on the ships or someone thrown overboard, but he dismissed that idea immediately. It was most likely a pokemon like a Wingull, screeching as it flew.
The voice was muffled now, and he concluded that it could not have been that loud in the first place, or someone would have noticed. He tried to sit up and go to look at the window, but he couldn't move. This convinced him that it must be a dream, and he fell back to sleep, glad of the escape.
E/N: Another chapter finished. Please review if you haven't already. If you have, please review this chapter too. Thanks!
Anyways, Lunar Sphinx: how'd I get the name Mirus?: I don't know, I just thought of it I'm a great fan of strange names. Keleri, I often go into long 'writing sprees' for a certain story, then don't add to them for ages. At the moment I'm writing pages of this one, so I should be able to keep it up for some time. I'm guessing that's a long one then?