The next day something unique happened. I overslept. I overslept to a horrendous degree. I woke up by 9 am and my challenge was set for 10. I was barely able to brush my teeth, take a quick shower and have breakfast before I bolted out the door. I hated being late. It was one of my few pet peeves. I'd rather be an hour early than 5 minutes late.
My father (from my first life) always said, 'if you're going to be late, you might as well be rude. It won't reduce their opinion of you any more than your lateness already did'. The statement was a bit of an exaggeration, but it served to show much he hated lateness.
It was one of the few values he'd managed to instill in me that stuck through my body swap. I got to the gym around 9;57. I was barely on time. I was able to quickly confirm my appointment with the secretary before I was ushered towards the arena. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and walked in.
It was nothing like Pewter's that's for sure. Like the training grounds in the pokemon center, most of it was submerged and there were small, light platforms scattered across. This area was made to favour water types and it wasn't even shy about it.
I let my eyes rove around the audience as the referee announced the rules of the match. I'd watched a few of Sandor's gym battles so I knew how it was going to go. Once the referee was done, Sandor, the gym leader of Cerulean city stepped into the arena. The crowd went wild. He was tall, muscular, had blond hair and was only putting on a pair of swim trunks.
He had it and he wasn't shy to flaunt it. I could respect that. After he was done waving at the crowd, he focused on me, and silence fell. The referee asked if we were both ready and Sandor started the battle by releasing a Poliwhirl on one of the platforms.
The pokemon looked healthy but not particularly strong. This was a two-badge challenge after all. I let all the worries that had been building since I found out that Quicksilver could not participate in this one fall away and released Kisame into the waters.
She wasted no time in fully submerging herself like we had discussed. Sandor stared at where he had disappeared with unwavering concentration. I guessed he was trying to figure out what water type pokemon I had. He kept staring while I issued my first orders. I told Kisame to charge up a dragon breath while remaining submerged. Sandor had his poliwhirl keep an eye on the waters around him. It was a very smart choice to not order his pokemon into the waters with an unknown water type.
When Kisame was done, she poked his head out of the water and unleashed her largest dragon breath yet. The beam of concentrated dragon fire blasted into the Poliwhirl and sent him flying at the arena walls. Sandor returned him before he hit and sent me a very inquisitive look.
I had Kisame submerge herself the moment she was done with her move, but I knew Sandor had already figured it out. The cat was out of the bag so to say. He drew no attention to it and released his next pokemon, a healthy Seadra into the water. He had this one head straight into the waters to battle my pokemon in there.
This was bad. Kisame was a long-range fighter. I didn't have the time to train her into anything else. I had her try to dodge around the Seadra for as long as possible but she eventually got tackled with that crest. It hurt. I could tell that. I felt the pain a bit.
I had her leave the water since she clearly wasn't going to win there. The good news was that the size difference between Kisame and the Seadra was so great that the tackle had only caused as much pain as it did because of surprise. It was a bit like stubbing your toe. Did it hurt? Like a motherfucker. Did it cause lasting damage? Probably not.
I ordered Kisame to rest on the platform and prepare a hydro pump to blast the seadra when she eventually came out. It seems like Sandor had trainer it for this situation. The Seadra popped in and out of the water like a pro. Kisame couldn't predict its movements at all and so she began to take glancing blows here and there.
I grit my teeth. I needed a way out of this and then the idea came. 'Release brine into the water around you.' She spun in a circle and released to inky smudge into the water. The Seadra didn't seem to like that as she sped away from the spreading ink. I had her prepare her next move quickly.
Eventually, the brine stopped and the Seadra surfaced a fair bit away from Milotic's platform. Sandor opened his mouth to issue orders and that seemed to be Kisame's signal to attack. She released a dragon pulse straight at the Seadra. The pokemon managed to dodge but the attack was so powerful she was dazed in the water. I had Kisame end the fight with an ice beam barrage.
Sandor wasted no time in sending out his next pokemon; a Slowbro. This one also looked healthy but not strong. I'm guessing the Seadra was the ace of his 2-badge team which is such a weird thing to say. He landed on a platform and then had to jump to the next one to avoid a hydro pump. Kisame must still have been a little pissed off at the previous battle because she hit the slowbro on her third attempt and didn't stop attacking.
He tried everything; from jumping to a different platform to going underwater. Wherever he went, my pokemon waited for him to land or resurface before blasting him with a hydro pump. This went on for a few minutes before Sandor eventually returned his pokemon and forfeited the battle.
The crowd groaned in disappointment, and I almost joined them. I could guess why he did it though. His pokemon was tiring and even if he did manage to beat Kisame which was doubtful, he'd be much too tired to take on two other pokemon.
He was simply cutting to the chase. Ending the battle before his pokemon suffered an unnecessary injury. I could respect him for that. He dove into the water from his end of the arena and swam to mine in a blur. He got out of the water and stretched his hand for a shake.
We shook hands and he finally spoke, "That Milotic of yours was a monster. Definitely too overpowered for a two-badge challenge. Seemed to be on the four-badge level already. What did you say your name was again?" I had never introduced myself but the fact that he didn't know my name shows he didn't bother looking at my trainer profile after seeing it was a 2-badge challenge. Can't really blame him for that.
"Donnell Oak" I introduced myself. The face he made at hearing the Oak part of my name stirred up lots of negative emotions. It was like he finally had the answer to everything. He must have been like; 'That explains it, you're an Oak' He'd probably be attributing all my efforts to my parentage in his head.
That spoiled the encounter for me, so I wasted no time in getting my badge and leaving. I dropped Kisame off at the center to rest and then went to the lakes with Broly to train. I feel like I'd neglected his training a bit so I had to rectify that.
I had him use every single one of his moves after putting on the gravity brace. The next thing I did was I had him spend more time running around the Beachfront. I opened up my pokedex and searched for a video on poketube. I knew I'd find it. It was Gym leader, Bugsy's Scyther. He used it for eight badge challenges so there weren't a lot of videos of it in action but the videos that existed, possessed what I needed.
I had Broly pause his runs and join me to watch the video I was on. It was of Bugsy's scyther against a challenges Machoke. The battle was eight minutes long and when I put it in slow motion so we could see the fight clearly, it was a 32- minute watch.
Every second of it was riveting and choke full of applicable techniques. We ended up taking a lot screenshots and recordings. It was going to be the foundation of Broly's martial arts. From the video, he learned to slap, stab, parry and thrust. He copied the techniques Bugsy's scyther used to get extra bursts of speed in his attacks and even the little tweaks he used to get more force and economize motion.
We devoured it all, stored it and then Broly began to try them. The name I gave him was truly fitting, because he took to martial arts like fish to water. Don't get me wrong, Broly was never a bad fighter per se but Bugsy's scyther was so much better and Broly was going to learn as much as he could.
I set up the pokedex to continually replay the fights and Broly went over the moves over and over again. It was slow-going but his improvement was steady and apparent.
After a few hours, we left it at that and chose to turn in for the night. We'd be travelling tomorrow. We were going to be heading to Saffron for our third badge. The fighting type gym over there was a low level one that wouldn't pose much of a challenge at the three-badge level. This would be my first deviation from the canon game route. I'd love to challenge Surge first, but my entire team was weak to electric types and that man was no fan of holding back. I'd go back for him when I had a few ground types at my back.
We got to the center and after I took my pokeballs from the nurse and dropped Broly off for a checkup, I went to my room and started watching some funny meowth videos. I didn't even know when I fell asleep.
AN; How'd you find the gym battle? Let me know in the comments.
The next chapter is available completely for free on my pa-atreon. The username is the same as the one I've got here, and the link is in my bio. Sadly, you'd have to toss a few in the cookie jar to read the seven chapters after that. Never fear though, they'll all find their way here eventually.
Name; Donnell Oak
Age; 15
Hometown; Pallet
Next of Kin; Samuel Oak
Account balance; 2,170 Pokedollars
Pokemon;
Scyther (Nickname; Broly)- Male. Bug/Flying type
Moves; Signal beam, agility, steel wing, fury cutter, quick attack, slash, swords dance, and wing attack.
Pidgeot (Nickname; Quicksilver)- Male. Flying/Normal type
Moves; Brave bird, aerial ace, steel wing, agility, roost, hypervoice, gust, whirlwind, and thunderbolt
Milotic (Nickname; Kisame)- Female. Water type.
Moves; Brine, ice beam, hydro pump, dragon breath, dragon pulse, water gun, and bubble beam.