Episode 13: Pewter City Gym (Part 2)

My palms were sweaty, knees were weak, arms were heavy. Yadi yadi yada.

Of course I was nervous. I know it wasn't Brock, and this was only the first gym, but I've never had to do this for REAL, you know, in the flesh. In the games, it's so easy to just give your Pokemon commands, and yes, there are fight (move) animations, but at the end of the day it's just pixels.

Here, everything was real. I've battled before, but this was my first GYM. My heart was beating like crazy and I wasn't sure if I could come out on top. Only one way to find out.

The referee on the sideline counted down loudly: "The battle will start in three, two, one… BATTLE!"

We both threw our Pokeballs at the same time. It was Geodude vs. Bulbasaur.

The gym coach started to speak. "A Bulbasaur, huh? I haven't seen one in a while, most of the time it's Pidgeys or Ratta- HUH?"

You know how in movies or games, the villain or even sometimes the MC just goes on "the talk" and wastes time? Yeah, none of that for me. I had instructed all my Pokemon BEFORE the battles how to react, depending on the Pokemon that they could possibly face.

The strategy I told Bulbasaur was the same as the last time he faced Geodude: he wrapped his vines around both of Geodude's arms and started to slam him on the ground. It damaged Geodude badly.

"Pattern B, Bulbasaur!" I shouted.

Bulbasaur stopped slamming Geodude left and right with his vines extended to the optimal length. Instead, he extended his vines a bit further and slammed him OUTSIDE the arena boundary. Bulbasaur was careful not to touch the outer boundary with his vines. It was a test of the arena limit rules. I had wondered what would happen if one Pokemon physically forced another to go out of bounds.

"Geodude is out of bounds! He receives his first warning!" The referee shouted. A red hologram counter of 10 seconds popped up in the middle of the battle arena. "Geodude must return to the arena. TEN! NINE! …"

"Geodude, get a grip!" the gym coach shouted. "Get out of there!"

"Press him down and remember the angle, Bulbasaur!" I shouted.

"SIX! FIVE!"

"Urgh!" The gym coach shouted with exasperation and took out his Pokeball. "Return!" The red laser from the Pokeball tried to extract Geodude from Bulbasaur's grip. Cheap move.

"Huh?!" the gym coach gasped in surprise as my Bulbasaur blocked the beam of light from the Pokeball with his body.

Because Bulbasaur didn't belong to the gym coach, the beam did nothing to Bulbasaur.

"TWO! ONE! Geodude was unable to return within the boundary on his own! He is disqualified!" The referee shouted.

The gym coach was visibly livid. This obviously hasn't happened to him from a newbie (or so he thought).

By now the crowd's attention was on this battle. The other battle courts haven't started new matches since ours began.

"Let him go, Bulby," I said, trying out a new nickname. Bulbasaur released his grasp of Geodude, who sullenly floated back towards his trainer.

"The gym coach is down to his last Pokemon!" the referee shouted.

"Alright kid, I see you," the gym coach seemed to get in control of his emotions, and smirked. "Let's see how you deal with this. Go, Sandshrew!"

I expect him to use Sandshrew, but not one this BIG. It was a MOTHERTRUCKER of a Sandshrew, gigantically big. It probably came up to my chest, and for a Sandshrew, that was huge.

This time, the coach didn't waste time talking either and immediately commanded Sandshrew to curl up into a ball and attack with a tackle. The natural move would've been to tell Bulbasaur to use his vines to attack, or tackle in return. That would've been an amateur move.

"Bulbasaur, PAIN TRAIN," I said. I know, kinda lame, perhaps. But it was two syllables and it rhymed.

Bulbasaured drove his two vines into the ground hard and deep (don't say anything, please) into the ground, parallel and close to one another. Because Sandshrew was coming directly towards him, it was easy to do what he wanted next. The ball that was Sandshrew contacted the vine "rails" and he launched off the makeshift ramp and out of the arena boundaries.

"Sandshrew is OUT OF BOUNDS!" the referee shouted. "He receives a warning!"

But this time, without any fetters on him, Sandshrew was able to return within bounds.

The gym coach was mad, but kept a cool head. He realized that balling up wasn't the way to go with Sandshrew.

"Claw your way towards him, Sandy!"

Sandshrew used his sharp little claws (good thing he wasn't a Sandslash yet) and started advancing menacingly towards Bulbasaur. It was enough.

I withdrew my Bulbasaur into his Pokeball and threw out the second.

"Pattern C, Squirtle," I instructed.

Squirtle got down on his four legs and got down, lowering his center of gravity. He half extracted his head all the way into his shell.

Just as a side note, all my Pokemon and I figured out a system (which got more elaborate and better as time went by) so that even if they lost sight of the opposing Pokemon, they can determine the relative position and distance (and later, angle of elevation and depressions) from their current location. For example, the first branch of protocol was audio cues. "Six-Twenty-Flat" or "Six-Twenty-Zero" meant that the opponent was at the relative six O'clock (directly behind), twenty feet away, "flat" on the ground or "zero degree of elevation." That's just one example, but I'm not going to give this trade secret away.

Long story short, with audio and sometimes visual cues (e.g. me giving hand and other body signals), I was able to communicate things clearly, quickly, and most importantly, SECRETLY to my Pokemon.

This is how Squirtle was able to keep his vital areas (head) in his hard shell while Sandshrew was advancing with his claw strikes. They were met with the hardened shell like a shield, and could not do any damage.

"Leg sweep, Angle 20, left-2 Delta fourty-three… now!" I calmly communicated.

Squirtle used his left hind leg and did a spinning low sweeping kick on the Sandshrew at my signal. I had timed it when the guard was down, and Squirtle's leg took out both of Sandshrew's legs and he went down on the ground on his back.

But even before Sandshrew hit the ground, I was already giving the next command.

"Pattern 1, force 40%, then move to frame position give 1 take."

To everyone else this was pure gibberish. But what I said to Squirtle was: "Tackle strategy, using only 40% power (because I didn't want Squirtle to accidentally go out of bounds), then move secretly towards the outer edge of the battle area 1 yard away from the line."

Squirtle's tackle did some damage, even at 40% power. I had practiced, with all my Pokemon, tackling and taking tackles. Did you know that professional boxers sometimes train just getting hit to build up their physical endurance? Without going into details, let's just say that all my Pokemon had made multiple visits to the Pokemon Center.

The Sandshrew just barely managed to hold on. He looked hurt.

I wish I could say that the rest of the battle was as exciting as the first few minutes, but it wasn't. The gym coach was overthinking about not having Sandshrew go out of bounds to use Sandshrew's ball attacks, which is actually quite strong (Force equals Mass times Acceleration, and Sandshrew's acceleration is something to note). Without the Rammus-style attacking patterns, which I was prepared for anyways, Sandshrew's tiny claws were no match for Squirtle's first-defend-then-counterattack strategy. Even with tiny legs, Squirtle was very flexible and quick. Very, very quick.

"Sandshrew is unable to battle! The challenger wins!"

I couldn't help but notice that the audience had grown. Most people were just happy about the exciting battle they had just seen. No doubt it was different from the other battles they'd seen today. Others seemed to be deciding whether the result was because the gym coach was bad, or if I was just good.

The gym coach was mad as hell but still showed good sportsmanship by coming over to shake my hand. A gym staff came and gave me a ticket with the gym leader battle date on it… two weeks later. TWO WEEKS?

I groaned. I didn't want to be stuck here for two weeks. But then I remembered what Alan told me and smiled devilishly.