Disclaimers: I own ALL THIS! (spreads arms out wide) Even pokemon. No, I'm joking. Of course I don't, otherwise Ash would have a beard and Max would be called Pumple. Why? I've got no idea. Who are you laughing at, anyway? Haven't you got a chapter to read?
Plainstown was a crowded place. Possibly not as crowded as Rigol, nor as big, but enough for there to be pokemon and people everywhere, coming out of shops, laughing and joking, even having battles, others crowded around.
"See those?" Heron was saying, getting excited. They had just healed their pokemon at the centre, and now Heron was showing signs of being the expert. "Those are street leagues. You get them in loads of villages, towns and cities."
"How many villages and towns are there? Only five, right?" Mirus asked her. "And what are street leagues?"
"Oh, there aren't that many villages I guess," Heron was saying, still gazing at the nearest crowd of people, from which battle-cries where emerging. "More than five. Lots are quite far away from the Trainer routes, though. As for street leagues, come on, I'll show you!"
Mirus let himself be dragged to the group, where Heron pushed them through to the front, ignoring exclamations and shouts of annoyance. Once there, he could see two trainers battling, with a persian and a spearow. The bird seemed to be weakened, and one final pounce from the persian knocked it unconscious. Everyone cheered, except the girl who called the spearow back to its pokeball.
"I guess you really are the best, Mike," she said.
The persian's trainer didn't seem to hear, he just gave his pokemon a scratch behind the ear. "Any one else want to battle me?" he asked.
Murmurs were exchanged. Mirus sensed what was about to happen before it did; and he was right. Heron pushed further forward. "I'll give you a quick one-on-one," she said.
"Are you from around here?" Mike asked her casually, as he recalled his persian.
"Sort of. I know where I stand," she replied. "Are you the Plainstown champion or something?"
He grinned. "I wish. Well, since I'm not all that tough, I don't have to go easy on you then." He laughed and threw a pokeball. "You won't be too hard on me, will you?"
"Fat chance," Heron muttered, watching a sneasel emerge from the pokeball. She selected one of her own, imitating the boy's casual style by taking her time.
Mirus guessed that Heron would choose Onix, as it was strong against ice types, but instead it was Ekans who reared up, baring his fangs.
"A snake trainer, eh? Well, Frost; use Ice Beam."
"Ekans, dodge it. Get close enough for a Wrap."
Heron was calm; much calmer than when she'd watched the battles. She was probably just really into the battle, Mirus though, like he was, on the ferry.
Ekans expertly coiled aside as Frost's attack crashed into the concrete pavement, disintegrating away and leaving nothing but an appropriate layer of thin, fingered ice.
The sneasel, however, did not let itself be attacked. It leapt backwards with amazing speed, dodging every flick of Ekans's tail.
"Now, Fury Swipes!"
"Poison Sting!"
Frost got in there first, dashing forward, claws slashing. One slice found its mark and left a pale mark on Ekans's side; scarlet beads welled up before the whole injury was running with blood. The snake ignored it, and sent a volley of needles out of its mouth, which Frost avoided by jumping and leaping backwards.
Mirus watched intently, oblivious to the cries and cheers around him. He watched Heron's face; evidently this was a lot tougher than she had imagined. But she refused to lose her cool attitude, quickly calling attacks as Ekans's deep wound left curved red marks on the ground. He seemed as stubborn as his trainer, ignoring whatever pain he must be feeling.
"Another Fury Swipes," Mike said simply.
Ekans was dodging again; Mirus realised that the whole phrase was repeating itself, but with one difference- Heron was not attacking back.
"Come on Ekans!" she finally said. "Give it a Leer!"
Frost recoiled at the strength of its opponent's gaze, and stopped attacking. Its face went temporarily blank, and Mirus knew that all it could see now were those eyes, and they were making it nervous.
"All right, Poison Sting!"
Ekans's first full-on attack sent needles spraying into Frost's body, as it fell. When its eyes opened again, there was no confusion, just a battle-engrossed look.
"Get back in there," Mike said.
Frost obliged quickly, sprinting forward with more agility than ever. There was not that far to run, this being only a small battlefield, but after its short sprint the same scythes were scraping for a chance to win. Frost was tiring now, Mirus noticed, but it wasn't going to be an easy win. Perhaps Heron could pull through...
Ekans, instead of moving back, coughed out a thick liquid, sending streaks of it splattering across Frost and the pavement. For a few moments, Mirus was sure that Ekans was spitting blood- then he realised that it was a new attack.
Heron was thrilled. "Acid again, Ekans!" she said. The attack was better aimed this time, a lump of sludge spat right into the sneasel's face. It recoiled, screeching. Mirus slammed his hands over his ears, and shut his eyes, wondering if the trainer had called for the attack. He distantly heard; "Now Fury Swipes!" before the sound ended.
Opening his eyes, Mirus noticed that the battle was over; Frost was lying spread-eagle on its stomach. But a few feet away, Ekans was coiled up too, as if sleeping, though Mirus knew that wasn't the case.
Heron and Mike recalled their pokemon, and started talking. Mirus couldn't hear what they said; maybe that Screech had damaged his ears? He noticed many other people were also rubbing their heads and ears.
Heron walked up to him as they started to leave. "It was a tie," she announced, and Mirus dimly noticed that he could hear her, after all. "That means I could stay in the street league if I wanted to, but I think we have more important things to do. Unless you want to stay?"
"What? No, thanks," Mirus said, startled.
"Why not? You know, Mirus, you need to stand up for yourself more. Don't let me push you around. I'm going to regret saying this later, but you're too soft, and you mostly do what I say. Not that I'm complaining..." she laughed softly.
Mirus was a little shocked. "Sorry."
She laughed again. "Don't be- I'm trying to be nice to you." She looked at him and stopped walking. "You could enter the street league, you know. You'd be great."
He stopped walking too. "What? No thanks."
"Stand up for yourself, Mirus!"
"I am! I just don't want to enter, OK, so stop making me!" He started laughing. "Anyway, I know I'm not the expert, but why didn't you use Onix in that battle? He could have won easily."
They started walking again as Heron delighted in explaining. "Street leagues have a height limit, you know, being on the street with all those people close by. Anyway, an Ice Beam from that Frosty thing would have wreaked havoc- you know, he's half ground."
Mirus nodded. "So what's the league part?"
"It's kinda weird, I suppose. Each town or city or whatever has its own mini league. There's the champion of the town, and people just try to get the champion spot, it gives them more respect. Often a gym leader is the champion, but if it's not, the leader can try and get that spot. If they loose, though, there's the badge thing. Street leagues aren't official, but the gym leaders still have to give a badge to anyone who beats them- it's the Tyoke League rules."
"So you could beat the gym leader that way?"
"Naturally, yes. But if you beat a gym leader in a gym battle, and they're the head of the street league, you don't automatically become street champion. It has to be a street battle. There's a ranking system for most of these- you can find them on websites, lists of all the leagues and positions. People battle when they feel like it, so if there's someone in the league you want to battle, you can either wait for them or turn up on their doorstep.
"There's a time limit for not battling though, to make sure you don't turn down too many battles- everyone has a right to challenge the champion. It's not very organized; but the ranking system's a bit complicated. You get all these so-called tough guys who are close together in ranking fighting it out."
By this time they had reached the pokemon centre, and both trainers entered through the glass doors, conversation ended. Heron put her pokemon up for healing, and Mirus waited, watching tropical fish swim about in a huge glass tank near the desk.
Maybe he could try entering one of these street leagues. But he decided he preferred the simple league path, battling gym leaders and following the other trainers like mareep.
The gym was modern and metallic, with a pair of shiny metal doors set firmly into the wall. But wear was beginning to show through, although it looked like the building was cleaned regularly, there was a bit of perniment marker graffiti.
Mirus felt for the handle in the door and pushed. The handle was shaped like an eye with a raticate tail curled around it. Beneath it was a stretch of black scrawled writing: "Will you make your own choices or let your conscience take you down the good-boy road?"
Inside the first room it was cool and dark. Mirus could hear Heron slapping the walls, and finally a light overhead flickered on. Music started playing from speakers on the ceiling, and the two trainers appeared to be in a passageway. Shrugging at Heron, Mirus followed it.
Everything was too shiny, he decided. The floor was polished, the walls were painted a metallic colour, and the whole place stank of hospital. Eventually, though, they came to a set of double doors with a button and label sunk into the wall: IF RED LIGHT IS NOT FLASHING, PRESS BUTTON BEFORE ENTERING. The red light was flashing, so he sat down next to Heron and breathed in the disinfectant vapor, wondering how anybody could bear to live in this place. His eyes were stinging.
Suddenly, Mirus thought he heard something, like a rustling or scraping. But he looked around, and there was only Heron sitting next to him, eyes closed. She probably found the cleanliness as hard to bear than he did.
He was about to get up and investigate when there was a bleeping sound, and the button stopped flashing red, and lit up green. Heron immediately brushed her hair out of her eyes, stood up, smiled, and pressed the button.
"You ready?" she asked, pushing open the double doors.
Before Mirus could answer, he found a gaping entrance in front of him, and followed Heron into a room that thankfully did not smell of hospital.
E/N: I think this chapter's a little shorter, but I wanted to save the lovely gym battling for the next chapter. Either that or face a massive long rambling thingy. Mwhahaha! By the way, does anyone read the battles or just sometimes skim through them? Go on, admit it! I do it sometimes, when I'm pressed for Internet time. If you do, tell me! I'm just interested to know; I won't stop with the battle detail- mwhahaha!
O-kays. Well Lunar Sphinx asked a very interesting and logical question (logical compared to my constant E/N's, anyway) so I will do my best to answer. She asked about Juniper. All you die-hard BTM fans (And I am thrilled and surprised if you are one) might know that in the last chapter, Laura's treeko was called Juniper. It's a type of herb, and if you don't believe me, ask a gardener. Or David Dickenson, I don't mind. Mirus WILL get a grass type-dog (And I've got one in mind- an invention, yes) but it hasn't got a nickname, for Mirus's collection of amazing nicknames. Any grass type-ish names suggested will do, and I'll pick one. Maybe...
Last thing(ish): Mike's a cat trainer. in my eyes, sneasel is a cat. Ha. Oh, and Lucia was an eon trainer. That includes all the eevee evos. legendaries are Latis.
So, if you are planning to leave a review (which you will, won't you? Or else I might ramble on some more) please state:
1) Do you skim through battles sometimes?
2) Do you prefer rambling long chapters to nice, sizeable chunks like this?
3) Got any ideas for a grass-type dog's nickname? Just grass-type names, universal, you know.
4) What did you think of this chapter? Did you like it? Huh? Did ya?
5) Should I stop making such long and usually hyper Emerald Notes at the end of every chapter? (Cause I won't!)
Muchos gracias; Merci boucoup; Cheers mate.