Chapter 11
Brian:
I slept well that night, thank goodness. No nightmares or bad dreams of any kind. I did dream that Phillip and I were on top of a giant clock that was floating in a bowl of soup and Nurse Joy was throwing broccoli at us. Don't ask, your guess is as good as mine, I assure you. At any rate, my alarm went off at four a.m. Normally it's unheard of, perhaps even criminal of me to get up that early, but I wanted to make sure we arrived on time and had no problems with anything along the way. Today was the day of the Vermillion City Teams Tournament and when I compete in something I compete to win. But it was early; really, really early. I kind of rolled over and fell out of bed, then crawled toward the bathroom door. Phillip's Ralts was out of its ball sleeping near a chair. It opened its eyes in time to see me crawling over to it, hair a mess and with dark circles under my eyes, and moaning like some zombie that had just clawed its way out of the earth. I believe I startled it, judging from the way it shrieked and jumped on top of Phillip, causing him to wake up with a yelp, getting his legs tangled in the sheets and having him come crashing out of his bed. It would have been funny if he hadn't landed on top of me.
"Oh geeze, my…my spine…" I wheezed.
"What…where…what's going on?" he cried, clawing at the sheets to get them off of him while climbing off me and trampling me at the same time. It hurt; a lot.
"My arm…" I gasped. Phillip helped me up and held the vibrating Ralts. He petted it to try to calm it down.
"Just what's going on? What happened?" he asked me, confused. I rubbed my arm, which was sore from Phillip smashing it.
"I think I scared Ralts," I answered with a shrug. "I didn't mean to but it seemed pretty scared." Phillip nodded.
"Ah, I see," he replied, stroking Ralts' head. "It's alright Ralts, Brian isn't really a horrible monster…he just looks that way is all."
"Hey…" I said, narrowing my eyes. We dropped it though and I managed to take a shower and brush my teeth without falling back to sleep. Phillip did after me while I packed up what I needed for the tournament. I gathered up our registration papers and the rules and guidelines, checked our supplies and finally sat down to rest for a minute about two seconds before Phillip emerged from the shower. "Nice timing…" I grumbled.
"Hm? What?" he asked. I waved my hand dismissively.
"Nah, nothing. Let's get going." He shrugged.
"Alright, breakfast first?" he asked.
"I sure hope so," I responded, starving. "But is the Center's cafeteria even open now? It's like fifteen 'till five in the morning. No one should ever be up this early." He held up his hands.
"Like I know. There's only one way to find out, right?" I nodded and we left the room. We headed for the cafeteria, expecting it to be empty and dark at this horrible hour, but to our surprise it was absolutely teeming with people. I don't think we could have gotten a seat if we were famous actors.
"I…I guess they're open…" I commented uselessly.
"I think you might be right." Phillip agreed stupidly. We decided rather quickly that it'd be best to try to find somewhere less crowded to eat. "So…where do you wanna eat?" Phillip asked me once we had stepped outside the Pokemon Center.
"How about that Mexican place again?" I suggested, my eyes no doubt full of stars. I could just taste the sweet flan in my mouth. Phillip gave me a funny look.
"Mexican for breakfast? Seriously? Nah man I want something else…pancakes or something…" he replied and started off down the street.
"I bet they eat Mexican food for breakfast in Mexico…" I pouted. I caught up with him and we just strolled around for a while until we found a pancake house. Wasn't really a house of course, just a restaurant. I always did wonder why they called them houses, no one actually lived there. I decided that it didn't make any difference once I bit into the food though. Oh man; I added it to my mental list of "Companies and Stores to Buy if I Ever Get Rich." We were wolfing down our food when someone called us from a few tables over.
"Hey you two, you might want to slow down before you choke or something." The kid said with a chuckle. I looked over and sized him up. Black hair and brown eyes, maybe five foot eight inches or so. His skin was a little too dark and even for it to be thought of as a tan, he was obviously someone of Hispanic descent. Brown baggy shorts, sneakers and a plain white t-shirt that was covered by a sleeveless black vest were all topped off by Vermillion Surge baseball team cap. He was finishing up a plate of just about everything I think.
"Uh yeah…sure…" I responded warily. I wasn't one who just talked like this to people I didn't know at all so I wasn't sure what to make of the guy. "We're in a bit of a rush though."
"Is that so?" he asked. "You heading over to the Team Tournament or something?" he questioned. I nodded.
"Yeah, we have to be there in an hour, so we have to finish up here pretty quickly." He looked at us with a puzzled expression.
"Why so early? It doesn't even start for another two and a half hours." Phillip shrugged.
"They told us to get there early for check-in, extra paperwork and stuff like that." He explained. The kid did a double take and looked like he was about to fall out of his chair.
"Wait…wait you mean you two are in the tournament?" he gasped. I was taken aback.
"Uh…yeah," I answered him. "Is that like, special?" he stood up suddenly and came over right next to me.
"Of course it is! That means you two must be great trainers!" he wailed.
"Well you know…" I started to reply with a bit of a cocky look crossing my face.
"We registered early, so we didn't have to go through the qualifier battle." Phillip cut in and explained, ruing my fun. I let him know I wasn't happy with him by sending him a sour look.
"Oh I see now," the kid said with a nod, backing off a little. "Makes sense now, okay then. Sorry to bother you." I grabbed his arm before he could walk off.
"Hold on a second there, Jack." I said.
"My name isn't Jack, its Adam." He shot at me.
"Whatever, Adam then," I shot back. "Are you saying that we aren't capable trainers or something?" he shook his arm free of my grip.
"I didn't say anything like that dude," he responded. "I'm just wondering why you guys made sure you registered early and didn't have to participate in the trials."
"Listen you…" I started before Phillip cut me off.
"Because if we had participated in the trials then there is no telling what might have happened," he answered. "You can't know how anything would have turned out. We have confidence that we would have won, but what if one of our Pokemon was injured in the process? We would be at a disadvantage today in the actual tournament. So if anything it was sound strategy and not cowardice." I nodded.
"Yes! Yes that's good!" I looked at Phillip and nodded some more. "That's really, really good!" He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"You aren't helping, Brian…" he mumbled. Adam spoke up.
"Well I saw you two yesterday at my family's restaurant talking about strategy, but I couldn't hear much. I didn't know you were actually in the tournament," he held out his hand to me. "Sorry if it seemed like I was being rude and questioning you're ability. I'm just skeptical some times like that." I decided to be civil and shook his hand.
"Don't take our word for it. You can apologize later after we win it," I told him, not able to get the smugness out of my voice completely. Then my mind fully registered what he had said. "Wait…your family's restaurant? You mean the Mexican place we were at yesterday? Your family owns that place?" he cocked an eyebrow and nodded at me.
"Uh, yeah," he answered slowly. I must have had a rather frightening look on my face. Sort of like a drooling, rabid dog I imagine. I'm big on Mexican food.
"Wow," I whispered, my eyes full of stars no doubt. "That must mean you can eat there whenever you want. What are you doing here eating then?" Adam looked at me like I was crazy.
"Mexican food for breakfast? You have to be kidding. That sounds gross man." He responded. Phillip cleared his throat quietly and got a totally smug look on his face.
"Oh shut up." I told him, shooting him a half angry, half pouty look.
"Anyway," Adam started in again. "I have some things I have to do before the tournament. You two are Brian and…who?"
"Phillip," Phillip answered. Adam nodded.
"Brian and Phillip. Okay, I'll cheer for you from the stands. Good luck guys."
"Thanks." I responded. He nodded and walked off and out the door.
"Well," I said. "That was odd and distracting. Let's just finish eating and get out of here." Phillip still had that smug look on his face.
"Really Brian," he chuckled. "Mexican for breakfast. What were you thinking anyway?" I rolled my eyes.
"Whatever." He continued to tease me as we ate of course. Never fails, really. We called for the check when we were done and after I figured what we each owed and the tip we slapped the money down on the table and headed for the door. We had to be at the registration table line in a half hour and it was a thirty-five minute walk to the stadium; needless to say we ran; really fast. I swear, I try to plan ahead for these things and it just never works out. Four in the morning I woke up, and it sill wasn't enough. Next time I just won't go to sleep at all. We made it with about six minutes to spare, thank goodness. The line was short, mostly, we figured, because the rest of the trainers were smart enough to show up early enough to not have to run. We did make it though and got registered and our Pokemon checked out. We were ushered into a big locker room type of place where most of the other trainers were waiting. No one had their Pokemon out or anything of course; no need to let the competition see what's coming. I took the key out of my pocket that the registrar had given us and checked the number on it. We walked around and found the locker we had been assigned and opened it and stored our extra stuff and packs in it. It was a pretty big locker, just like the room itself. The roof was one of those almost semi-dome things; half of it was standard construction and flat, but the other half was sort of curved and with giant glass windows, allowing light to fill the room. We sat on one of the benches and watched a jumbotron screen to wait for the pairings to come up.
"Hey! Hey Brian! How are you?" came a familiar female voice to my right. I looked over and saw Christina standing near us smiling. I smiled back and sat up a little straighter.
"Hey there, Christina. How are you? And what are you doing in here? Are you in the tournament too?" She nodded.
"That's right, I sure am. I got into town yesterday and managed to register early so I didn't have to go through the qualifiers." She told us.
"Ha, yeah that's what we did too," I told her with a laugh. "Guess that makes us just as lazy, huh?" She cocked an eye at me and put her hands on her hips.
"What do you mean 'lazy' huh?" she asked. "Say what you want but I'm going to go with 'sound strategy' thank you very much!" Phillip shoved me.
"We're going with that too, remember Brian?" he reminded me. I waved them both off.
"I know, I know," I smiled. "I'm just kidding guys, don't hurt me." Christina just shook her head.
"Oh I'm afraid it's far too late for that now Brian," she told me in a low, dangerous voice. "I'll see you on the battlefield and show you just how lazy I am." I gulped.
"That's right, go get 'em!" Phillip cheered. I shot him a half-angry half-shocked look.
"What are you saying? She'll be getting you too! Just who's side are you on, partner?" Phillip shrugged.
"The side that doesn't incur the wrath of women, partner." He informed me with a smile.
"Well she isn't really like…angry or anything…are you?" I asked Christina, shooting her a toothy smile. She just shrugged.
"Oh no, I'm not angry. That's doesn't mean I won't beat you two senseless today though." She told me with a wink.
"Ha, well…we'll just…uh…we'll just see about that!" I replied loudly. She just smiled.
"Sure thing Brian. Well, I'm going to go check over my things one last time. Jan e!" she said before walking off. Phillip shook his head.
"We'll see about that? Was that the best you could come up with? I mean…it was kind of lame man." He told me. I rolled my eyes.
"Whatever, I didn't see you saying anything better. Forget it, they're announcing the first round now." I said, looking up at the big screen on the wall. There were actually two battlefields in the one arena, so they would be holding two battles at once. The first match on field A was between a couple brothers, Steve and Craig, and a couple sisters, Iris and Katie. On battlefield B was Gregory and Max against Phillip and myself.
"Eh? Us already? Well, let's get going then." Phillip said, a little surprised. I shrugged and headed with Phillip to the arena entrance. Christina waved at us from her locker.
"Ganbatte you two!" she called with a wave. I waved back.
"Sure thing!" Phillip looked at me with a funny face.
"I didn't know you spoke Japanese Brian. I'm impressed." I chuckled.
"Please, I know like, six words. I can say "Good Morning" but not hello at other times of the day, so I'm screwed if I meet someone in the afternoon." I explained. We both fell silent as we passed through the stone archway and stepped into the bowl-shaped arena. The place was packed an loud, and Phillip and I got a round of boos as we took our place at one end of the battlefield when we were announced.
"Nice…" Phillip groaned. "They would pair us up against a couple of home-town favorites.
"Oh well, doesn't matter. We'll shut them up when we win." I told him. Our opponents came onto the field, waving at the cheering crowd and all the swooning women. Phillip and I both rolled our eyes.
"Give me a break," He sighed. "Well anyway, who's up first?" I thought for a moment.
"Well…we don't know who they have of course, so anyone is as good as anyone else right now really. So let's go with…Golbat and Ivysaur." I told him, sounding confident despite the fact that I was picking randomly.
"Well okay, guess any team is as good as any other right now." He agreed. He looked over at me then. "So, you think we can actually pull it off? I mean, there are a lot of other people in this tournament. Can we actually do this?" I was silent for just a moment.
"Who knows? One thing is for sure though, we're here now and there is no room for error and no room for doubt. We'll either succeed or fail, so the only thing is to try our best." He nodded.
"Okay, let's do it then." The announcer's voice boomed over the speakers and announced the start of the first round. The two home-grown idiots tossed out their Pokemon; a Sandslash and a Fearow. I nodded at Phillip and we both tossed out our Pokeballs. We actually had the advantage just looking at the type matchups, since Ivysaur is a Grass type against the Ground type Sandslash. It couldn't be that easy though, or at least we couldn't let our guard down thinking that way. We didn't have any time to talk it over though, Gregory suddenly had his Sandslash use Dig and the match had begun.
"Golbat, use Confuse Ray on Fearow!" I commanded. Golbat's eyes flashed and the air became wavy. I looked away a bit when I started feeling a little woozy. Fearow was taking the brunt of the attack. Before long it was flapping around and squawking like a total fool. I used the moment to call for a Wing Attack, and Golbat complied, striking Fearow with its wings hard. The big bird took a dive and headed straight for the ground, about ready to crash before it managed to flap and right itself a bit. I was starting to feel a little confident about our chances when Ivysaur cried out, struck by Sandslash from underneath. I had totally forgotten about the Sandslash for the moment. Ivysaur flipped through the air but landed on its feet as Phillip called for a Vine Whip. Ivysaur lashed out with its vines and ensnared the Sandslash, then flipped it up into the air like a catapult. It landed with a crash on the battlefield some ways away, sending a cloud of dust up in the sky. I thought for sure it would be down but tiny stars of brilliant light came zinging out of the dust cloud and struck Golbat as Gregory ordered Sandslash to use Swift. Golbat was nimble but it wasn't able to avoid the super-fast attack at all and the little stars of energy cut tiny lines of red across Golbat's body. I heard Phillip call for a Razor Leaf to try to interrupt the attack but Ivysaur instead had to dodge out of the way of the now-recovered Fearow.
"Sandslash, use Dig again!" I heard Gregory call from across the field.
"Blast!" I thought to myself. "I can't take care of Fearow and just forget about the Sandslash, Ivysaur will take another hit from Sandslash, it can't fly away from it like Golbat can." Suddenly an idea struck me. "That's it! Well, it's worth a try at least." I called over to Phillip. "Phillip, use the vines! Golbat's legs!" I told him. He must have been thinking the same thing about Sandslash's Dig attack because he understood what I was saying instantly.
"Ivysaur, use Vine Whip on Golbat to grab on to its legs!" Phillip ordered. Ivysaur shot out its vines and wrapped one around each of Golbat's legs then reeled itself up into the sky and away from the ground just as Sandslash burst through the ground where Ivysaur had been a moment ago. It had saved Ivysaur from Sandslash but there was still Fearow to worry about, and Golbat was too bogged down with Ivysaur's weight to dodge anything. Max realized this and smiled.
"Fearow, give that Golbat a Drill Peck!" he yelled at it. The Fearow came screeching in like a banshee and all I could do was flinch as I thought it was about to land a huge hit. Instead I heard Phillip scream at Ivysaur.
"Quick, Stun Spore!" I looked up and saw Ivysaur flip with its vines like a gymnast and aim its flower towards the Fearow. Golden dust sprayed everywhere in the air and the charging Fearow didn't have a chance at stopping its attack. It flew right into the dust and began hacking and convulsing. Its muscles began to go weak from the Stun Spore's effect and soon it couldn't move its wings any more and plummeted to the ground, landing with a horrible crash. When the dust settled the giant turkey was lying on the ground, unconscious and unmoving. Gregory didn't miss a beat and called for another Swift attack. It was all he could do really; he wasn't going to give up, but he had a Ground Pokemon against a Flying type and a Grass type. Those are not very good odds for any battle. The Swift attack was just as fast as the first one, and it caught Golbat and Ivysaur as they flew through the sky. However, we were right over the Sandslash now and Phillip called for a Headbutt. Ivysaur released its grip on Golbat and went diving through the air like a missile. It must have looked impressive, like a bomber plan dropping a payload onto its target, because the crowd started oooing and ahhing. Sandslash stopped its attack, presumably to get out of the way, but it was too late for that. Ivysaur crashed head-first into it and sent it sprawling back across the field. It got up and wobbled around like it wanted to keep going, Gregory telling it to come back. Phillip decided to oblige it and called for a Razor Leaf. The sharp leaves slammed into it and even though Sandslash had some tough skin this attack was too much for it to endure head-on. It collapsed to the ground and the referee called the match over, and Phillip and I had one the first round battle. The crowd was really going and cheered us on, even though we had beaten up on their home-town boys. Phillip and I exchanged hi-fives and then withdrew our Pokemon back to their balls. We trudged across the field to meet Gregory and Max and shook their hands.
"Good battle guys, thanks a lot." I told them. Gregory nodded.
"It was, I had a good time. You two had better keep advancing, if you loose it will make us look even worse!" he joked.
"Sure thing," Phillip assured him. "We came to win." We waved and then turned our backs to them and headed back for the locker room, or at least the locker room we were in. Turns out there were more than one. Christina was waiting for us when we got back.
"I knew you guys could do it! Congrats." She said with a smile. I nodded.
"Thanks, but that was just round one, and not to brag but they weren't the toughest trainers I've ever battled before. We can't get big heads now." I told her.
"I know I know, sheesh, lighten up a little Brian." She giggled. She looked over at the big screen. "I'm up next, wish me luck you two!" she told us.
"Good luck!" Phillip and I said in unison. She smiled and then walked off towards the arena. Phillip and I took Ivysaur and Golbat to the Pokemon Center area they had set up in the back of the locker room to get them checked out. They were obviously a little roughed up but they were both given the green light to keep going in the tournament. Phillip and I decided that we would still give them a rest next round anyway.
"Let's go watch the next round." I suggested, pointing to the battles that were about to begin on the big screen.
"Yeah, lets." He agreed. We strolled over to a bench that had a good view of the screen and waited for our next time up.