Erin was walking at a leisurely pace throughout the town the next morning. It was a beautiful day. The sun was out but not too bright or hot, the sky was blue, and there was a lovely breeze. She was almost near the edge of town and would soon be traveling through a forest again. The Old City did not exist on this side of town, so she should have no trouble passing the border. Abadon was walking a ways behind her, always curious; he was looking in windows and searching through anything that seemed remotely interesting. A number of times he had been chased away by an angry person yelling threats in his direction.
As she came to the edge, Erin slowed down and took notice of a patch of dirt that had gathered a minute crowd of people slightly older than her. She made her way across the street to see what was going on. It was a pokemon battle! It appeared as though it had already ended though, she thought, disappointed. Erin made her way around the circle and asked someone what was going on.
"You see him?" the man asked, pointing to a kid a few years older that her that had a geodude sitting close by. The kid was sitting by a tree stump that had some money on it. "That kid made a proposition to anyone that wanted to battle his geodude. He said that all a person would have to do would be to pay five dollars and they could fight. If they lost, then the five dollars stayed on that tree stump, but if they won, then that person could take all the money. No one's beaten him yet." The man then forgot about Erin's existence and went back to looking around the lot.
"Wow, I sure could use that money," thought Erin. All she had was six dollars.
"Isn't there anyone left in this city who would be willing to hand us a measly five dollars in hopes of gaining all this cash?" the kid was yelling to the crowd. He seemed to be full of himself and thoroughly enjoying himself. He continued to shout threats of the same sort as Erin left the crowd of people who had congregated around the small clearing and went in search of Abadon.
She jogged past a few homes and stores, glancing right and left for any sign of his orange hide. She finally spotted him running out of an alley away from a frustrated man in an apron.
"What were you doing?" she asked him.
"I found a bakery and wanted to know if they gave out any free samples," he answered with a laugh. "I'm hungry."
Erin pulled a travel bar out of her pack and handed it to him. " I don't have enough money to buy anything after we finish this, but I think I know how we can get some," she said, glimpsing back to the direction of the fight. "Would you be willing to battle now?"
"What?" the question was so sudden he had to have time to think.
"Do you want to battle, yes or no?"
"Well, yeah," he replied. "But where?"
"Come on," Erin said, grabbing Abadon's hand and pulling him in the direction of the dirt filled lot. "I'll explain it on the way."
They reached the crowd of people once more and that same kid was still spouting off about how strong his geodude was and how he couldn't be beaten.
"We'll fight you!" yelled Erin to him, startling the people around her as she and Abadon ran into the center of the lot facing their opponent. The crowd began to murmur among themselves.
The guy stood up and looked with distain at Erin. "Humph," he said. "A charmeleon. At least you might give me somewhat of a fight before you loose." Then he noticed the black marks on Abadon's back and scoffed. "Ha!" he laughed. "Your pokemon appears to be in poor health. Pity."
"Here's your five dollars," Erin said, shoving it in his face and turning back to Abadon. "Don't trip over your moving rock." She really shouldn't have said that about the geodude, because it wasn't his fault that he had a stuck up trainer. Oh well. "Abadon," she said, giving him a slight push of confidence. "Remember, that geodude is a lab clone and isn't as strong as you. Plus, he hasn't evolved yet and you have. But that's no reason to get cocky and over confidant; you always have to be on the defensive, even when attacking." She gave him on final push. "No go and fight your best!"
"Wow," thought Abadon. "She certainly has the basics down. I've never fought a rock type before, so I'll have to trust her."
"All right, Geodude!" yelled Erin's opponent. "Let's show this little girl what you can do! Head Butt!" His geodude threw himself at Abadon, preparing to make contact with the charmeleon's chest. But, a geodude, being made of rock, was not made for speed and Abadon was able to easily dodge.
"A head butt?" thought Erin, surprised. "This guy's nothing more than an armature. You don't start off with an attack like that with an opponent you've never fought. A trainer should begin with more defensive moves before they are able to decipher their opponent's strategy and use more advanced attacks." Much of Erin's skill and knowledge of fighting did not come from her classes at the academy, but rather actual fighting with the other students in training courses.
Erin's knowledge on pokemon however, did come from a classroom. The geodude and its evolutions take advantage of their hard, rock-like skin and heavy weight to overcome their opponent with strength. But their mass weighs them down severely and limits their speed. Erin and Abadon had the advantage in this area, and were more than willing to take advantage of that fact.
"Well, sometimes the best maneuvers are the simplest ones. Abadon! Agility! Don't let the geodude know where you are!"
"Right!" he replied before suddenly becoming a blur and darting quickly all over the field. He dashed closer and closer to the geodude and was soon circling him so fast that there was no way he would be able to touch the Char. The geodude was becoming dizzy trying to figure out where Abadon was and would soon collapse.
His trainer was noticing this and yelled, "Geodude, get a hold on yourself and do a Pound Attack!" Geodude stopped trying to keep an eye on Abadon and clenched his fists, raising them over his head about to pound the ground to make a crevice that would slow down the speedy charmeleon.
As he brought down his fists and made contact, Erin called out, "Flamethrower, hurry!" and immediately wished she hadn't, knowing how high a level Abadon would have to be at in order to use an attack of that magnitude. An instant later however, she was just as amazed as the rest of the crowd as, at the same time, giant chunks of rock and asphalt flew in every direction and a enormous pillar of flame erupted from the mouth of Abadon and people screamed and ducked, hoping that a rock would not collide with them and they would not become singed from the flame. Looking up a few seconds later, it was impossible to see the outcome of the match due to the amount of dust and smoke that had accumulated.
When the smoke cleared and the dust began to die down, the geodude was found immobile in the crevice of his creation, but the charmeleon still able to stand, though breathing hard and slightly woozy.
Erin simply stood in silence, amazed at what had just taken place.
"Hey!" someone from the crowd called out. "The girl won! Her charmeleon beat the geodude!" This jolted Erin and the other onlookers out of their daze and the crowd began to holler and applaud Erin at her victory.
"We won?" she asked. "We won!" she said again, only as a statement instead of a question. "Abadon!" Erin yelled, running over to him and giving him a hug. "We won! You did awesome!"
"Hey," he said slowly. "We did win. I beat the geodude. All right!" he yelled, jumping in the air and giving a shout.
"Erin walked over to the geodude's owner looked him full in the face. "My charmeleon and I have defeated you and your geodude. And I believe the terms of agreement were that I now own this money?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
The kid looked like he was about to open his mouth to argue, but then glanced past Erin to the crowd who was watching and changed his mind. "Fine," he said reluctantly, walking over and picking up his geodude. "Take it." He didn't take any more notice of her, but simply stood up and walked away.
Erin watched him leave. "Sheesh, talk about sore looser." Then she turned back to Abadon and became excited again. "We won! We really won!"
He tried to calm her down. "Hey, settle down, would you?"
"But it was my first pokemon battle, and I won. I can't believe it."
"Get used to it; I was the one doing the fighting after all. You shouldn't have expected anything else," he said, trying to pass it off as nothing. "And besides, you're embarrassing me."
Erin stopped yelling and calmed down, even if it were just for Abadon's sake. She bent down and counted the money as she folded it and put it in her bag. "Thirty-five dollars. Not a bad haul," she said to Abadon as she stood up and slung the bag over shoulder. She looked around the lot and noticed that most of the people had dispersed. The fight was over there was nothing left to see. Erin continued walking in the direction that she had been headed before the battle: the direction that would lead her out of town and back into the surrounding forest. "I could get used to this life. What about you, Abadon?"
"It wouldn't be too bad," he replied indifferently.
They wandered past an old antique store on the side of the road and Erin glanced in the window. "Oh, wow, come look at this Abadon. It's an old TV. I didn't know they still had these around; it's like a box with a screen. How odd. It still works though." The news was playing on the ancient TV and Erin stopped to watch for a while.
A lady with large brown hair was sitting at a desk, scenes with explosions and destruction behind her. "The war between the neighboring countries of Jhoto and Kanto is only becoming worse. It is spreading into Honen territory and it appears as though that country as well will soon be joining the war. I can only hope that our country does not become involved in what appears to be a full-blown world war." The screen behind her became black as a single light remained on the announcer. "This is Katie Klarus, signing off. Have a good afternoon." Cut to commercials.
Erin walked away, still excited about their match, but the level of elation had clearly dropped as she became lost in her thoughts. Abadon followed close behind. He hadn't paid close attention to what had been on that old television and wondered in the back of his mind why Erin was suddenly silent.