Chapter 23
From somewhere beside her, the girl, Nija, coughed into her hand. It appeared that she was the type who felt awkward if a lack of conversation stretched on too long. Azrael, on the other hand, had no problem with sitting in silence.
The state of the girl's hair was abysmal. Random twigs and leaves jutted out at odd angles, and an angry looking snarl was tangling itself at the back of her neck. Azrael couldn't believe that the girl honestly lived in such a state of disarray. It looked as if she'd never bothered to pull a comb through the mass in her life.
"Would you like me to comb out your hair for you?" she asked mildly as Nija turned to face her. "You've got sticks and leaves stuck in it."
"Ah—if you want to," she said, blinking and pulling some of the greenery out of it with one hand. "I warn you though, it's been responsible for many a death." She added solemnly.
"I'm sure I'll manage," Azrael said as she rummaged in her backpack for a brush. Locating it, she motioned for Nija to sit on a nearby bench and set to work. Extracting the foreign objects was easy enough, but the tangles were killer. Azrael's mind began to wander as she smoothed out the very bottoms first and slowly worked her way up. She often brushed out her mother's hair at home, even though it was quite short and thin now. Something about combing out hair was very relaxing to her.
Speaking of which, Azrael thought to herself. I should write home to Mom.
A few moments later Azrael had successfully detangled Nija's damaged hair and had unconsciously began twisting it into a braid. When she was done she snapped one of the six hair bands around her wrist to the end of the woven locks and said, "Okay, all done."
Nija turned her head one way and then the other. "Whoa," she said, blinking and reaching back to grab at the braid. "It feels so cool."
Azrael smiled slightly. "It keeps your hair untangled, too." She felt suddenly extremely girly and moved to get out her stationary from her bag. While she was waiting for Orion and Jason to return she figured she might as well get that letter home out of the way. Settling down on Nija's abandoned bench—the younger girl was now immersed with playing with her braid—she set her notepad on her knee, and, pausing a moment to think, touched the tip of her felt pen to the pages and began to write.
Dear Mom,
What a wonderful start, Azrael thought to herself blandly. Shrugging it off, she continued.
How have you been doing? I'm writing to let you know I haven't blown myself up or gotten hopelessly lost in a forest somewhere. The Pokemon are doing fine, and I'm about ready to leave Pewter City to go to Cerulean. I won't be able to write for a few days while I cross through Mount Moon, but I'll send you off a word as soon as I get out of there and into Cerulean.
Azrael sincerely hoped her mother wouldn't freak out and assume the worst if her daughter was a bit late with her next response. Nija appeared to have gotten over the wonder of her own hair and was now out training her Pokemon by the outskirts of the forested patches nearby. The blazes of fire, gusts of wind and sudden rustlings of attacks and Pokemon cries was a bit distracting, but Azrael had long since learned to tune out things she didn't want to hear. She continued, scrawling her loopy cursive down to the middle of the page and pausing.
Actually I met up with a few people my own age around here. The first guy I met is Orion—he's a sweet guy, if a bit clumsy. He refused to let me go through Mount Moon alone, so he and I will be traveling together for a spell.
Azrael knew that this news would put her mother's mind to ease at least a little.
And just about three seconds ago Orion's long-lost brother, Jason, and his friend, a girl named Nija, showed up. I'm not sure how this will affect our travel plans, but I'm willing to deal with whatever comes up. Not much else is going on right now, so I'll end this letter on that note. Take care, and I'll see you in a few months.
Love you,
Azrael
Azrael surveyed her letter over one more time for grammatical errors and folded it up into thirds. She let out Murkrow and removed her Town Map from her bag. The little black bird ruffled its feathers and observed her with keen interest as she fastened the letter to its right leg. She pointed at where they were right now, motioning around to the forest around them, and dragged her finger from that point back to the house she'd marked in red.
"Take that to Mom," she said, closing her fist near her chest and pushing it out from her while spreading her fingers. Murkrow took a second to comprehend the order and took to the skies, kicking up a flurry of dirt and dust in Azrael's eyes.
Wiping the stuff from her face, Azrael idly wondered if that's what the Sand Attack felt like.
Nija seemed to have finished beating the tar out of a wild Pokemon and returned to the clearing. Trailing her were three Pokemon of various types—a Charmander, its orange flame tail swishing back and forth, a Pidgey, flying up to a branch to preen its brown and creamy-white feathers, and a small violet-blue rodent, Nidoran of the female type, scuttling alongside her sneakered feet. Nija moved to sit down next to Azrael, then seemed to change her mind and glanced up towards the imposing form of Mount Moon in the distance. Mount Moon was hard to miss—it was only the second largest mountain on all of Kanto, even giving the Indigo Plateau a run for its money.
"Dang," the girl muttered, shaking her head at the shape. "It's gonna be pretty dark in there. You think you'll be able to see much?"
"We shouldn't have too much of a problem," Azrael said without looking up. "Some light comes in from the center of the place. At night we'll have to stop, though."
"Yeah, definitely—" Nija paused suddenly, and Azrael looked up.
"Something wrong?"
"Well, it's just… you and Orion were going to leave tomorrow?"
Azrael nodded slowly. "That was the plan, anyway."
"Ah…" Nija paused again and tried to rake a hand through her hair, obviously forgetting that it was held back in its braid and getting her hand trapped. Pulling it free, she tried again. "Well, I just wonder if Jason'll want to go with you guys and all, since he and Orion obviously haven't seen each other in forever."
"That would make sense," Azrael said, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers. Unfortunately it did make a whole lot of sense. Azrael was nowhere near looking forward to what could very well become an enormous group outing. One person alongside her wasn't too bad—but three? Well, that was an entirely different matter altogether.
And yet, she'd promised Orion that he could see her through the cave, and she wasn't normally one to renege on her pledges. She knew that whatever the blond boy decided, she would have to abide by… she just hoped that he would be decent enough to decide something that wasn't too inconvenient for her.
Even the second after she'd had the thought she dismissed it. The idea of Orion doing anything inconsiderate at all was laughable. She'd only known the guy for two days and already she had a clearer judgment on him, a truer sense of his character than she would get from most people in a lifetime. The boy just exuded sincerity, which Azrael appreciated.
There was that bloody word again. Appreciate. A smile came to her lips as she wondered if there was a chronic illness of that sort, appreciatitis or something similar.
Azrael supposed that a decent chunk of time had elapsed, and sure enough she could make out the form of the two returning blondes in the distance. Nija hopped down and sat on the bench beside her, kicking her feet in the dusty floor a bit and stopping when she realized that the dust would be floating in the general direction of her sitting companion.
The two boys came into clearer focus, both of them walking along briskly and beaming at them. "Hey, Nija!" Jason called quickly to her, dashing the last few yards. "We're gonna go battle the gym leader! You're gonna do it, right?"
Nija seemed at a loss for words. "Well, yeah, I mean, I was planning on it, but… isn't it kind of…?"
"We gotta get it done today so we can get out of here tomorrow," Jason said, and at Orion's fierce elbow to his ribs, hissed out an "ow, what?" and visibly paled under his older brother's glare. "Um… right. Please won't you do this for me, Nija? It's been ages since I've seen Orion and all, and I kinda hoped we could all go to Mount Moon together, and I really, really want us to all stick together for a while… pleeease?"
He'd turned on the puppy eyes, and Nija squirmed uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Orion slapped a hand to his own forehead and dragged it down over his face. Apparently that hadn't been the desired effect he'd wanted to have on his brother.
"Oh, right," muttered the girl under her breath. "No pressure, then…" But she seemed quite all right with it on whole.
Jason seemed completely unaware of the girl's last statement. Either that, or he was choosing to ignore it. "All right! Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go kick some ass!"
Orion rolled his eyes and gave Azrael a wincing, deeply apologetic look. She smiled back to reassure him that she wasn't going to snap and go on a killing spree due to the detour. "It's going on five o'clock… we'd better do this quick so we can rest up for the journey tomorrow."
---------
A dark figure, Armstrong, Azrael assumed, glanced up as the gym doors opened, allowing the four kids to enter the gym. The lights were all off, which Azrael found odd, but Nija walked calmly over to a deceptively normal looking rock, and, after opening said rock, proceeded to flip a series of switches that quickly bathed the gym in light. Azrael stared at the shorter girl, bewildered, before Armstrong laughed aloud and said, "You remember that, I see."
Oh, Azrael thought to herself offhandedly. She must have been in here earlier.
"Yeah," Nija said, shifting somewhat uncomfortably and observing the dirt on her sneakers. Jason shuffled over to her and whispered something to her, at which Nija quickly backed away and sat down near the opposing wall.
"You sure?" he called, and Nija nodded vehemently, turning away and twisting a lock of hair that had somehow escaped the braid around her finger. Jason shrugged. "All right then, if you don't want to… I'd like to challenge you first, sir!"
Armstrong looked mildly surprised, before laughing. "Sure, son. No problem. One on one, two on two…?"
Jason frowned. "Er, one-on-one, I guess. I've got a level twelve B—"
Armstrong lifted his large hands to silence the boy. "No need to tell me what kind it is. Just needed to know the level." And with that the man sauntered off to the opposite end of the gym and began rifling in what Azrael could have sworn was an old shoebox for Pokeballs. Dismissing the idea, she turned to regard Orion.
"I take it this is Mr. Armstrong, Brock's replacement?" she muttered under her breath as Jason moved forward to stand somewhat awkwardly at the opposing side of the battlefield.
"I guess so," Orion said, brow furrowing slightly. "I've never been here before."
"You ready, son?" called Armstrong from some distance away, his voice echoing in the largely empty space.
"Yeah," Jason called, and Azrael winced at the slight squeak in his tone. Jason cleared his throat and, in a much deeper tone, repeated, "Yeah, I'm ready when you are."
"Alright then," Armstrong bellowed, and a beam of red light flashed out from the center of his Pokeball a split second before Jason jammed the button on his.
The shape of Armstrong's Pokemon was absolutely enormous. Azrael cringed for the second time in thirty seconds as the form of a young Onix materialized, lifting its shining head from the ground and regarding Jason's pathetically small by comparison Bulbasaur.
Jason's Pokemon glanced back at its trainer, red eyes wide with a look that unmistakably said, "What are you, insane?" Jason pointed ahead at the opponent and muttered quietly, "Dude, you'd better listen to me, just this once, okay?"
"Alright, Onix," Armstrong was beginning. "Let's try a little Screech attack!"
Onix straightened up even more, uncoiling its massive neck and emitted what Azrael was sure a noise to wake the dead. Clapping her hands fiercely over her ears, and catching Orion and Nija doing the same beside her, she fought inwardly to steel her mind off from the ear-shattering shrill. Bulbasaur staggered on the spot, burying its head under its front legs and shuddering as Jason lowered his head much in the same fashion. It seemed like eons before the sound ceased.
Amazingly, Armstrong hadn't covered his ears once throughout this ordeal. In fact, the man seemed downright bored. "Your turn, lad."
Jason was swaying on the spot, and Azrael's ears were still ringing as he said, "Right… Bulbasaur, Leech Seed him!"
Azrael regarded Jason with a new sense of interest. That was a remarkably good first move. Bulbasaur, however, seemed to think otherwise. It turned to glare at Jason over one leafy shoulder and proceeded to the beginnings of a Vine Whip attack. Jason shouted out, "NO!" just as Armstrong had begun to laugh at the obvious display of disobedience, but halfway through the attack the Leaf Pokemon appeared to abruptly change its mind, and out from its leafy back exploded a multitude of small, sticky-looking brown seeds. They were projected out of Bulbasaur like mini-rockets, most missing target but a select few glomming onto Onix like spitballs and sticking there. Almost instantly, small, neon-green vines erupted from then and began to wind their way all around the rock snake's body, one tangling itself in the long spine protruding from its head and leaning down to drape over its left eye. Onix now looked like an old Victorian house covered in ivy. It was almost laughable, but for the fact that it was now Armstrong's turn.
"Alright, Onix. Use your bide attack."
Azrael's heart sank even as Jason's face split open into a wide grin. This was not good. Unless Jason could sufficiently weaken Onix to the point of fainting in three turns, that one order meant that the battle was already over. Jason, however, seemed to take it as a perfect opportunity to attack without worrying about the possibility of counter.
"Okay, Bulbasaur!" he shouted as Onix coiled itself up and regarded the smaller Pokemon before it with steady, dark eyes. "Now you can use your freakin' vine whip!"
Bulbasaur seemed to be struggling to find something wrong with this attack suggestion, but, finding nothing, grudgingly shot out its vines, blistering them over Onix's flank with sharp, cracking explosions of sound like fireworks going off in a contained area. The effect was good enough, but not nearly close to taking out a third of Onix's health. Azrael gritted her teeth, feeling like a drunk in a bar watching as her favorite team threw away the playoffs on one of those TV's fixed the top of the wall.
Onix's gaze only seemed to intensify as the leech seed glowed all over its body and transferred floating bits of effervescent pollen over to Bulbasaur, who was now looking wary.
"Um, Razor Leaf!" Jason called even as Bulbasaur was executing the technique. Jason seemed daunted for a moment before pretending that his Pokemon had obeyed his command—on the contrary it appeared as though Bulbasaur hadn't waited for the order at all and was even now taking the battle into its own hands.
Razor leaf, to Azrael's delight, had a much better effect on the enormous Rock type. It appeared to be weakening considerably, although she couldn't tell much as it was curled tightly in upon itself and resting at the moment. She thought, however, that she had seen a cringe of pain as one of the leaves struck near its open eye. The leech seed glowed again, and Azrael felt frustrated watching as the perfectly good healing pollen met with Bulbasaur's already full-health body.
Bulbasaur seemed to enjoy the success of the Razor Leaf attack, and shot it out again, for the third—and final—round of Onix's complacent Bide technique. Azrael cringed as she thought of what was coming next.
As Onix unraveled itself, Azrael found that Jason's persistent attacks had indeed wrought a fair amount of damage on the creature—it was looking tired and very scuffed up, but all of that seemed to vanish in comparison to the fierce look of power that overcame its features as it leveled itself off to attack.
Now Jason appeared worried, though not nearly as much as Bulbasaur did. Onix shot forward without warning, releasing a burning torrent of red and gold as it did so, glancing off Bulbasaur in a way that had the small Pokemon flying backwards into Jason. Far more than three quarters of its health depleted, Bulbasaur seemed to be struggling to its feet on sheer will power alone as Jason picked himself up from the ground and Onix returned to its place near Armstrong. Azrael was astounded that the Pokemon hadn't fainted from that onslaught.
Jason was feeding Bulbasaur a Potion, and even as the Bulbasaur grazed his arm with a randomly fired Razor Leaf it was also getting an extra boost from the healing pollen. Azrael felt as though she'd gotten whiplash from Bulbasaur's fluctuating health status as the Pokemon returned to nearly-top shape.
Armstrong looked nonplussed. "Luck, pure luck," he seemed to be grumbling to himself under his breath before he gave the order of "Body Slam!"
Onix blocked out the lights of the Gym overhead as Azrael instinctively backed many hasty steps away. The Rock type seemed to hover in the air for a few moments before going down—with a crash that resounded all through the building and shook the foundation of it, rattling the long-suffering metal balconies and crumbling some of the intricate rock formations—right across Bulbasaur.
Azrael's stomach churned sickly. If it weren't for the Gym's floors, that were designed to give slightly under concentrated points of sudden weight, she was sure that Jason's Pokemon would be no more than a smear across the pavement. As it were, Onix pulled itself off of him slowly and she was granted the sight of Bulbasaur in a very painful-looking pit of dirt, sand and stone. It looked down for the count.
Armstrong looked confident, and for a moment Azrael thought that the match was over. Bulbasaur was twitching, however, and at this Jason seemed to snap out of his reverie, rushing over and extracting another potion bottle from his pack even as Onix was sapped by the Leech Seed again.
It happened very fast. Azrael thought for a moment that Bulbasaur was attacking Onix again without Jason's permission—hundreds of leaves were searing through the air suddenly. It took her a moment to realize that most of them were aimed at Jason himself. The blond boy was struggling to reach his Pokemon nonetheless, batting irritably at the small leaves that nicked his arms and legs. Finally crouching by Bulbasaur and practically shoving the bottle down its throat, Azrael could make out the words, "ungrateful" and "brat." The leaves gradually subsided, and as they did she could sense a change in the words, the mutterings going from indignant to encouraging, as a cheeky grin broke out onto Jason's face. The bottle was empty, and he gingerly lifted Bulbasaur out of its dirty trench, placing it on its feet some meters away. "You're doing great," he said louder. "You feeling alright enough to continue, though? I can forfeit any time."
Orion beside her gave a small start. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and studied his expression of impressed shock. Apparently surrendering wasn't normally in Jason's forte. Azrael couldn't really blame the boy, though—if she had to chose between seriously injuring her team and selfishly winning a trophy for herself or keeping one of her oldest friends happy and intact, it was no tossup which one she'd chose. Then again, Azrael wasn't as focused on her Pokemon journey as she was on her other mission… Jason, however, seemed to surround his very world on becoming a great trainer. To him, it would indeed be a sacrifice to bow out this close to a victory.
Bulbasaur seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Orion. He was glaring at Jason out of one angry red eye as if asking him incredulously, You're kidding me, right? After the trainer and Pokemon had a stare down, Jason repeated, very slowly, "I can forfeit any time. Dead serious."
A very subtle change seemed to come over Bulbasaur's face. The red eyes lost some of their ferocity, and Azrael could have sworn he was analyzing Jason very closely. Then, at last, he snorted and faced forward, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust with a back leg and staring intently ahead, waiting for an order.
Jason looked as if he would faint. He even put a hand to his chest as though he were feeling weak with shock. "You're going to listen to me?" Bulbasaur caught the sarcasm and the red-eyed glare was back. "Oh, wow. Stop the presses! This is a day to live on in history!"
"Are you ever going to attack?" Armstrong interrupted, bored, twirling one stubby finger in his brown beard. "I don't have all night."
Jason and Bulbasaur snapped out of their theatrics. "Right!" Jason called happily, seeming to regain every ounce of his pazzaz. "You know what to do, buddy!" he called to Bulbasaur, surrendering his newfound power as a trainer to his Pokemon.
If Bulbasaur was surprised by this sudden end of attack dictation, he didn't show it. And, as what looked like thousands of large, shining, razor-edged leaves shot out of Bulbasaur's seed in a frenzied flurry, Azrael also realized that the baby leaves Bulbasaur had used on Jason had been a mere fraction of its true abilities. Onix, already weak from the seed and the endurance of the bide attack, went down in a glory of what looked like green confetti, striking the ground almost harder than during Body Slam. The sound was deafening, and Azrael swore she saw a few bolts rain down from the rusty-looking balcony.
There was a moment of silence as the leaves lost momentum and fluttered uselessly to the floor and the enormous cloud of dust settled around the gym and the trainers both on it and witnessing it. After what seemed like an indetermined amount of silence, Armstrong gruffed out a "Good job, lad," and recalled Onix quite suddenly in a flash of red. The sudden absence of the rock snake on the gym seemed to finally spur Jason into action, and he lifted a hand shakily to brush his bangs from his face.
"I… what?" he inquired unintelligently as Bulbasaur crowed in satisfied triumph, sending a shower of pollen up into the air. The glittering stuff floated down around them and Jason finally seemed to comprehend his victory. Armstrong was walking over to him, making slow progress across the gym floor. "I… won?" Jason inquired, and the heavyset man nodded, looking terribly amused as he shoved a hand in the pocket of his vest and extracted a small badge to prove it. "I won." The words were heavy and dense, like two stones falling through water. Expressionless, he held out his hand as the badge was deposited in it, and he stared even longer before a twitch began at the corner of his mouth and rapidly spread over his entire face into a manic sort of grin.
"I won!"
Orion and Nija were already making their ways across the floor to him, and Jason was running for Bulbasaur, scooping him up and tossing him up in the air. This didn't agree with the Pokemon, who shot out twin vines to latch onto Jason's arms in shock. Jason caught him again and was greeted by his brother and his friend. A three-way hug (or, four-way, as Bulbasaur was trapped in the embrace) ensued, and Azrael couldn't bring herself to join, but couldn't stop herself from grinning.
Armstrong seemed to be chuckling too as he rifled around in the grubby shoebox (for there was now no doubt in Azrael's mind as to what it was). Jason's euphoria was contagious, and Nija was soon engaged in an odd little dance with him while Orion clapped his hands in time to some unknown song. Azrael's smile turned into a laugh.
They carried on like that for a while, until it became very apparent to them all that Armstrong was waiting. Jason couldn't seem to sit still even as he made his way to the sidelines, toying with his new prize.
Nija was now up to bat, and Azrael noticed with no small pang of empathy, just how unconfident the girl looked. "Same old?" Armstrong called, as if they made it a practice to have Pokemon battles every day after watching the game. He was rifling through the shoebox again.
"Yeah," Nija said, barely above a mutter, and Armstrong, who hadn't heard her over the clattering of metal on metal, grunted "Eh?" before Nija reiterated her response, louder.
As the two prepared to face off, Azrael caught Orion and Jason muttering happily to themselves and observing Jason's new badge with shared pride. A pang of longing jolted through Azrael's middle as she forced herself to look away. What she wouldn't give to be there when Blake started out on his journey and won his first badge…
Struggling to keep her mind focused on watching the match, Azrael noticed that Armstrong had selected a Geodude and Nija had Charmander out at her side already. Charmander looked particularly fierce, and Nija had a strange, unreadable expression on her face as she regarded the bi-limbed boulder, one that was hovering between shame and indignation. Armstrong laughed, seeming to correctly interpret her look.
"I'm not going easy on you, I assure you. Geodude's a few levels tougher than the Onix your friend here just fought."
This seemed to settle Nija's dark look of anger, and she nodded sheepishly, as if to deny that she had been thinking just that. "Ready," she said, before Armstrong had asked. He chuckled again, as if deeply amused by her.
"Alright then! Geodude, tackle!"
The Rock type sailed through the air at Charmander, who dived out of the way, avoiding most of the damage but getting clipped on its hindquarters. Staggering a little from the blow before righting itself, Charmander hissed fiercely at Geodude, who was picking itself up and returning to its fixed spot on Armstrong's end of the gym.
"Not bad," he said, nodding. "Your Pokemon's gotten better already."
"Ember!" Nija shouted, seeming too worked up to carry on a friendly conversation with her opponent. Jason let out a sharp breath beside her, and Azrael realized that he hadn't known of this technique.
Surely enough, not a nanosecond later he murmured, "That's new!" but before he could say more, Charmander was in action.
Charmander's new Ember attack exploded from the impossibly small Pokemon, showering Geodude with sparks and chars and small flames of smoldering intensity, a fray of heat that had Nija wiping sweat from her brow, the heat scorching a nearby rock and causing mirage-like ripples to waver through the air around them. Azrael squinted her eyes and struggled to see through the shimmering air to Geodude's current state.
Much to her surprise, the Ember attack had had a pretty good affect. The Rock type was looking a bit worse for wear, scuffed and burned around the edges and sporting a very large, charred black spot across its left arm. It appeared to be wincing, as if in a considerable amount of pain.
"It looks like it's been burned," Orion muttered to Azrael just as she came to the conclusion herself. "That's good for Nija! Hopefully with it losing a little more HP with each passing turn this won't be so difficult."
Azrael nodded absently, but her eyes were fixed securely on Nija's face. The younger girl didn't seem to be as happy and relieved as Orion was—in fact, she was looking rather pale and wasn't taking this as a sign to relax in the slightest. This brought a slight smile to Azrael's face—she respected the fact that Nija wasn't overestimating her luck or underestimating her opponent.
Armstrong was speaking. "Alright, Geodude. Let's finish this—Body Slam!"
Azrael winced and fought not to look away as the boulder Pokemon jetted forward and landed with a sickening thud across Charmander's flank. Nija uttered a strangled sound of dismay and frustration, rifling in her pack for a potion bottle. Once Geodude had removed itself from Charmander and the scuffed-up dent it had made in the gym floor, it staggered in mid-air. It certainly looked as though Geodude had tripped on absolutely nothing, and Azrael knew it was the burn acting up. She wasn't much good with Rock types, but she thought that it should be at about a two-thirds of its health by now.
Charmander, on the other hand—well, it didn't take a PokeManiac to see that Charmander was barely clinging to consciousness. This was what was known as Death Row to most trainers—the Potion-wasting, torturous last rounds of a mismatched battle, where the losing trainer spent all their turns providing healing items to a Pokemon only to have that Pokemon shot down to within the red zone the very next turn. Death Row ended one of two ways—when the Pokemon's trainer ran out of Potion or decided to just give up—or when a surprising turn of the tables occurred, which was rarely.
Nija got up from a still woozy but mostly healed up Charmander and regarded Armstrong evenly, but with no small amount of dread on her face. Armstrong was, however, regarding Geodude. Azrael wondered if the man bothered to carry extra burn heals on his person. If he did, he should be using one now, because each passing moment Geodude was looking more and more disgruntled and distracted by its charred arm. Armstrong returned his attentions to Nija and Charmander and said, "How's about a Tackle Attack, Geodude!"
Geodude shot forward with a determination; Charmander poised to leap out of the way—and amazingly, Geodude stumbled yet again and went down on the ground a few mere inches from the orange lizard. It had missed.
Nija appeared to breathe again while Armstrong fumed. "All right, get over here you!" he barked to Geodude, who obediently hovered over to the stocky man. Armstrong fished around in one of the pockets of his enormous cargo pants and removed what appeared to be a dusty, slightly-cracked, half-empty bottle of Burn Heal. Azrael felt like slapping herself on the forehead. So he had had a Burn Heal and had merely decided that it wasn't worth it to take precautions with his Pokemon battle? How entirely arrogant, she thought to herself, liking the replacement-Brock less and less.
It was Nija's turn now, and predictably the girl called out the order of "Ember!" again. Azrael wasn't expecting it to sustain a damaging, health-depleting status effect on Geodude yet again—that would have indeed, been too much to ask for. However, this second burn seemed to cause the Rock type considerably more damage than it had initially, probably because the other Pokemon was weakening. Azrael's eyebrows lifted as she roughly calculated a third of Geodude's health remaining. Judging by the way it was hovering in midair, sort of dazed and confused looking, Nija actually had a fighting chance to turn this battle in her favor.
The second she thought it Azrael wanted to take it back, feeling as though she'd jinxed the match. Geodude's Tackle attack met target this time, and Charmander was sent positively flying through the air, to land on its back with a sickening crack against a brittle looking rock that began to crack and crumble from the impact of the Fire type against it. Nija swore under her breath. Armstrong was looking confident.
And then something that Nija had never quite seen before happened between Nija and Charmander. Nija had been rifling in her pack again for a Potion, no doubt, when Charmander shakily pulled itself to its feet once more, shook out its scaly head and shot Nija a venomous glare. The girl had just removed a blue bottle from her pack and was about to head over to her Pokemon, and, catching sight of Charmander's death look, paused, looking bewildered. Charmander snorted a few burning embers at the ground as if scorning Nija's Potion, and turned its back on her, turning that icy teal gaze instead on its opponent.
"Charmander," Nija began, muttering so that Armstrong wouldn't be able to hear her from across the gym. Azrael and the others could hear her quite clearly, though. "You've got to be kidding me. You need to heal up!"
Charmander snorted yet again, and Nija hissed out, "Don't you give me that! I'm not making the same mistake twice."
The lizard whipped around to regard Nija again, and Azrael could have sworn that the glowing flame at the tip of its tail flickered, sputtered, and grew higher as it did so. The trainer and Pokemon were engaged in a silent battle of wills for a few moments, and Armstrong seemed to grow antsy.
"Come on, girl," he bellowed to her over the dusty, charred gym floor. "What's taking so long? It's your turn!"
Nija growled at Charmander to get over here now, but Charmander abruptly turned its back on Nija once again and stared down Geodude instead, who was looking grouchy and impatiently tired. "Charmander," Nija hissed. "Don't you dare… if you think I'm going to give you the order to attack, you're cr—"
But before Nija could even finish her sentence, Charmander had let loose a torrent of burning, quick-flying little flames, a considerable amount more than his first two attacks. Geodude writhed under the onslaught, attempting first to move out of the way, and then to shield itself with its rocky arms. Nija was shouting something Azrael couldn't hear, Charmander's attack was deafening and the temperature in the room was rising steadily—but suddenly, one noise rose above all the others.
THUD.
It took Azrael a little while to realize what the source of the sound had been. She glanced warily over the gym floor, and noticed that Geodude was no longer floating in midair… and that there was a new, slightly different looking boulder laying face-down on the ground.
She had done it?
Nija's thoughts seemed to mirror her own. For a long moment, every eye was trained on Geodude, waiting to see if the Pokemon was really down for the count. Collective breaths were held, and Azrael caught movement out of the corner of her eye as Jason shakily moved forward to stand beside her and get a better look.
And then—Azrael's heart sank to her stomach—Geodude stirred. Nija seemed to deflate, and Charmander stiffened, the not-yet-grown spines in his shoulder blades shooting straight up in shock, much like the hackles of a dog rising. The living boulder pushed itself upright with its two chiseled arms, began to hover towards Charmander—and abruptly collapsed in a heap, upsetting a flurry of dust as it did so and laying still.
It was, unsurprisingly, Jason who broke the silence seconds later. He let out a strangled sounding whoop that quickly mutated into an all-out cheer as he leapt into the air and punched it fiercely. Orion, Azrael noticed, had lifted a shaking hand to his pale brow to mop away the sweat there, and now broke out into a wan smile of intense relief. Nija collapsed to her knees in the dust, staring blankly ahead at nothing in particular as Charmander sauntered sheepishly over to her and, after a paused, nudged her hand with its nose.
This seemed to snap Nija out of her reverie, and she blankly regarded her companion with no expression for a moment before scooping the creature up in her arms and positively throwing it up in the air to catch it once more, hollering just as Jason was.
"You disobedient, cheeky little devil, I love you!" Nija shouted, squeezing Charmander so tightly that the lizard began to squirm, desperate to escape the embrace.
Armstrong had made his way over to them, pausing to recall Geodude into his Pokeball. He paused while Nija went through her hysterics, and once he had the young trainer's attentions again, commented lightly, "Well, good job girl! You more than earned this," he tossed her a shining point of pewter grey, which she caught in one outstretched hand. "For being so uppity as to win a rematch in the same day!"
Nija muttered something incomprehensible—Azrael was having difficulties hearing over Jason's shouts, and the blond was still beating at the air around him as if it had slighted his mother. Orion laughed aloud suddenly, and Jason, alerted to his brother's presence, threw himself at him and began pounding him in the shoulder.
"She did it!" He crowed, and, catching sight of Nija approaching them, "You did it!"
The two engaged in a strange little victory dance and Azrael couldn't fight the smile from her face. Over Jason's head Orion caught her eye. She'd been standing off to the side of the festivities, taking it all in from a distance. Now, though, as she glanced up to meet his gaze, The taller of the two boys gave her such a grateful, fond, joyous grin then that Azrael could scarcely say that she'd have minded much even if the trip had to be delayed for another week.