Episode 14: Pewter City Gym (Part 4)
No one challenged to a battle on the day of the Gym Leader Battle. They all knew I'd turn them down anyways.
I went in the gym, checked in with the receptionist, and prepared for my battle in the locker room. Similar to the coach battle, today's contest was limited to me using 3 Pokemon, and Brock using up to 2. No items were allowed. Refer to my previous narrative for the other details.
After a few minutes, a staff member came to escort me, and told me to stand on a platform in a small room.
"Keep your arms and legs inside," she said.
I was just about to ask "inside what" when the platform started to rise, like an elevator. It was very Hunger Games-esque. I came up to the sound of cheering and loud spectator noises.
It wasn't a full blown-out crowd like it was in the anime, but there was a good number of spectators in the seats. Most of them were Brock fans, of course. There were, however, a fair number of people that were looking at me. They weren't cheering at all, but were studying me with something akin to antagonism… or fear.
I noticed immediately that the boundaries of the battlefield were significantly bigger than the coach battles. It was like those middle school PE classes when your teacher uses the whole game instead of half the gym, you know? This felt more like an entire basketball court, official NBA size, but slightly wider.
Brock was already standing at his end of the trainer zone, arms crossed and with a confident smile. Judging by his smile, he seemed much more humble than his coaches.
The referee/announcer didn't waste her time. Over the PA system her voice rang out.
"This is an official Pokemon League battle between Pewter City Gym Leader Brock and a challenger! Brock will use up to 2 Pokemon, and the challenger is allowed to use up to 3. No items are allowed during battle!"
So on and so forth. Same as before.
"START THE BATTLE!"
"Go, Geodude!" Brock shouted, throwing his Pokeball. A Geodude came out. He looked different from all the other Geodudes I've faced in the past few days. It was only slightly bigger than the others, but seemed much more focused and ready. Its eyes were sharp. I could definitely tell that it was more battle-hardened and well-trained.
(By the way, a Geodude is a weird Pokemon. He just kinda floats in the air. I honestly think he should be part flying type).
"Let's go Bulby!" I brought out my boy.
"Geodude, use tackle!" Brock shouted.
Bulbasaur stood still, waiting for Geodude to reach his maximum velocity, then moved out the way at the last possible second, before contact was made. Geodude went flying past Bulbasaur, and was about to decelerate when Bulbasaur pushed him in the same direction with his vines. Geodude went crashing into the ground really hard.
Imagine if someone was committed to full-speed tacking you (don't try this at home), but instead of letting him hit you, you move out of the way and push their back. His original velocity and the velocity of your push gets added into the same direction, and he goes high-fiving the pavement with his face.
There were sympathetic "oohs" from the crowd, the kind you say when you just witnessed someone faceplant and it looks painful.
"Geodude, get back up before Bulbasaur attacks you- huh?"
I think everyone in the building expected Bulbasaur to not give Geodude any time to recover. Geodude was visibly hurt, as evidenced by his wincing, but when he got back up, Bulbasaur was totally ignoring him. Instead, Bulbasaur was standing at a particular spot of the battlefield, releasing a bunch of leech seed spores from his bulb. Once he was done, he moved on to another part of the field, doing the same thing.
Geodude was confused, and floated still. And I didn't even use confusion, HA!
Brock was equally confused, and he didn't know what to do in this situation. I'm sure the usual challengers he faced had their Pokemon go straight into full combat. In this case, Brock's Pokemon had much more experience dealing with this kind of situation, and had higher defensive skills and abilities. Why fight your enemy on his terms?
Bulby was done with leech-seeding 3 of the 4 pre-determined spots when Brock finally snapped out of it.
"Geodude, don't let the seeds hit you!"
Geodude floated out of the way, and when Bulby went running to the last spot, coincidentally towards Geodude's direction, the rock Pokemon actually moved away from him.
Bulbasaur leech-seeded the last of the spots that we planned on. Have you ever played Harvest Moon, the video game? You know how you have your character stand in the middle of the 3 by 3 area and seed the area? Imagine that's what Bulbasaur did, covering the entire field with leech seeds.
"Geodude, good job, none of the seeds hit you, ha!" Brock smiled. "Bulbasaur looks tired, tackling again!"
It was true. The battlefield had been quite big, and despite the special training I did with Bulbasaur, covering the surface area of such a big space with leech seeds made Bulbasaur tired.
"Look, Geodude can float over the seeds!" I heard one spectator shout from the stands.
"Haha, what a bad play!" Another critiqued my strategy.
"Oh~ no~" In feigned panic, I recalled Bulbasaur into his Pokeball safely.
"Go, Charmander!" I shouted. Charmander immediately started to sprint towards Geodude.
"Geodude, watch out for his flame!" Brock shouted.
Charmander started to whip his flame towards Geodude.
"Dodge and counter, Geodude!" Brock shouted.
Geodude floated over to evade where Charmander's tail was projected to go, when Charmander suddenly stopped the attack and spun the other way, swiping at Geodude's eyes with his claws.
Since Geodude was already moving out of the way of the tail, the direction of his movement was telegraphed. It was easy for Charmander to land the critical hit. Geodude could not open his left eye.
"Straft 90 Right, Combo 42!" I said.
Brock heard my instructions to Charmander, but he couldn't react because he had no idea what I was talking about. It was one of the funniest things in this Pokemon world, that trainers would depend on verbal commands without secret codes.
Charmander quickly knocked out Geodude by always turning towards Geodude's left side, thereby always being in the blindspot. Charmander's flurry of claw jabs and hooks were too much for Geodude. At one of the punches, he couldn't get up from the ground. The crowd became silent, incredulous at what they'd just seen.
"Geodude is unable to battle! Brock will use his second and last Pokemon!" The referee shouted.
"Let's do this Onix!" Brock brought out his main Pokemon.
"Woah!" There were shouts and cheers from the crowd.
"It's THE Onix!" an especially avid fan commented.
It was a particularly strong looking Onix, slightly darker in color than all the other Onixes that I'd later see in the future as well. Later I heard that it was the leader of a den of Onixes that lived in the heart of Mt. Moon. Brock had gone and battled for 2 days before finally being about to catch him.
"He almost never uses this Onix in public!" another fan shouted, excited.
So from what I gathered, this was Brock's special Onix that he almost never uses for gym battles, because he never had to. He must've changed his selection of Onix after seeing how Charmander defeated Geodude with ease. Alan told me this might happen when I talked to him on the day the night before, when I told him I was going to finally battle Brock.
"You know the Gym Leaders aren't really using their best team, right?" Alan said.
I didn't say anything, because it was different from the games. In the games, the gym battles get progressively harder (in terms of gym Pokemon levels and stats) because it takes into account the progression of the player. You start with Pewter City, and you train and get strong enough to eventually defeat Elite Four. But not every "real" Pokemon trainer starts from Pallet Town like I did. Some are born in different towns and might start there. It didn't make sense that their gyms would be much harder to earn a badge from.
"When you register with the reception, they check how many badges you have, and the gym leaders go easy or harder on you depending on your achievements to date," Alan explained. "No, you can't lie, because they check your progress at the Pokemon League anyways. You are registered under your own unique identity."
So back to Brock: he had prepared one of his not-so-hard Geodude and Onix team, but after seeing how I dealt with Geodude, he changed his plans and sent out one of his best Pokemon: this darker Onix. It seemed longer and harder than the others.
"Onix, body slam!" Brock shouted.
The giant rock snake put all of his weight on his tail, raised his head/torso really high in the air, then came slamming down towards where Charmander was standing.
It happened in the blink of an eye, and if it wasn't for my non-verbal commands, Charmander might not have been able to dodge it.
Body slam? It was more like just… slamming down with his body. It was a brutal attack.
As previously instructed, Charmander started running towards Onix's eyes, but he had a lot of ground to cover, due to the sheer size of the rock-hard snake.
"Come back up for another one!" Brock shouted.
Before Charmander could even get near his face, Onix raised himself again. Charmander was suddenly without a target, as Onix's tail was all the way at the end of the field. By the time Charmander could get there, the second slam would fall down.
"Click B, Pattern 8!" I shouted, and Charmander immediately went to the corner of the field, to my right.
As Onix came crashing down, Charmander had already been in a sprint to the other corner to my left. Onix tried to change the direction, but of course he couldn't. You try standing on your mattress, start falling down face-first, then try to change the direction mid-fall.
One Charmander was clear of where Onix would land, he immediately jumped towards me. The crowd gasped and Brock's eyes widened a bit at Charmander's supposedly dumb move of going out of bounds. But I held up my Pokeball just in time to recall my Pokemon.
While this was happening, Onix suddenly screeched in pain.