Thomas: Peren (Deerling), Blitz (Fletchinder), Scout (Pachirisu), Nin (Minnesotan Ekans), Shadow (Galarian Ponyta), Winter (Minnesotan Mightyena)


Thursday, April 26th, 2018

Continuing from the previous day, my Pokemon and I took it easy the morning before our gym challenge. I didn't want to tire anyone out by doing any training before the battle and it didn't feel like we would have enough time to start exploring Duluth, so we ended up wandering around Enger Park instead. Nin stayed draped around my neck like a long scarf, but everyone else either walked or flew around me. We got some attention from the locals, but everyone except for Winter had gotten used to the attention during the Brawl. For her part, Winter shied away from the first few people that we came across, but she quickly started following everyone else's lead.

After our leisurely walk, we made our way back to the base for lunch. It was still a bit on the early side, but I decided to head down to the gym when we were done eating. If we were going to be sitting around doing nothing, I figured we might as well do it by our destination. With that in mind, when I headed back down to the shore of Lake Superior I biked right past the ship that doubled as a gym and over to Canal Park, which was conveniently located right next to it. The wind coming off of the lake made things a bit chilly, but it was still enjoyable enough to sit there reading while my Pokemon relaxed around me.

Around one-thirty, I returned everyone except for Scout and Winter and then the three of us walked back over to the gym booth. This time there was a man behind the counter, and he asked the same question that the woman had on Tuesday regarding challenge or reservation. "I've got a two PM challenge," I answered, reflexively glancing down at my Pokemon as I spoke.

He quickly checked something on his computer before telling me, "They're still finishing up the setup, but they should be ready for you in a bit."

After thanking him, I stepped off to the side in case anyone else arrived and then knelt down to talk to my Pokemon. "Alright, so we're going to be going through a maze and I'm counting on the two of you to get us through it. There's some other trainers in there and if we run into them, we're going to have to fight them. I'm sure you two would win those battles no problem, but I'd like to avoid that if we can. Winter, I'm counting on you to sniff them out so we don't have any surprises, and Scout, I'm really looking for you to live up to your name and find us a way through." Both Pokemon nodded eagerly and I was glad to see there was no trace of Scout's previous twitchiness around Winter.

We waited for a few minutes longer before the gym employee called me back over. When he saw that he had my attention, he leaned out of the booth and pointed toward the top of the tall staircase going up the side of the large red ship. "Your challenge will start up there. It'll end once you find Louie or else you decide that your Pokemon aren't healthy enough to fight him and concede."

"Got it," I answered, confident that we wouldn't have to resort to the second option. He wished us luck as we made our way to the stairs and then ducked back inside the booth. I carefully started making my way up the stairs with Winter following a few steps behind, while Scout shot past us on her way to the top as she ran on the railing. When I caught up with Scout at the top, I found that the deck was completely flat and featureless apart from a single open trapdoor that led down into the ship.

I paused before descending down. I didn't think that there would be anyone waiting for us directly below, but it didn't hurt to start being careful right away. Turning away from the trap door to look at my Pokemon, I asked, "Do you guys think there's anyone down there?" Scout moved forward to sit right at the edge of the stairs while Winter leaned over the hole and began to loudly sniff the air. Scout's ears twitched for a few seconds before shaking her head. Winter was a bit slower to answer, but she eventually shook her head as well. "Alright, let's go then," I said, grabbing the railing to start the descent into the ship. Once again, Scout leaped past me as she practically jumped down the entire length of the stairs in one go. I shook my head, bemused, then followed her as quietly as I could with Winter silently padding behind me.

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, it was evident that we were already in the maze as we were completely surrounded by featureless steel walls. There was only one direction that we could go and Scout had already moved ahead to peer around the corner. While she worked, I took a few seconds to look around, but the only thing on the otherwise featureless walls was a camera with a slowly blinking red light.

With nothing else to take our attention, Winter and I crept after Scout, seeing that there was already a fork in the path. I could remember something about how always going left was the best way to get out of a maze, though I was pretty sure that would result in us running into almost all of the gym trainers. Ultimately, I would rather get lost than have to do any pointless fights so I was completely reliant on Scout and Winter.

I waited patiently as Winter sniffed each of the two paths ahead of us while Scout sat right in the middle of the passage with her ears twitching back and forth. The two quietly conversed for a few seconds before Scout scampered down the right fork and Winter lightly nudged me to follow her. I gave her a thankful nod as I did my best to quietly follow, glad to see the two of them easily working together.

For approximately ten minutes, my Pokemon and I slowly made our way through the maze. While Scout moved forward to check out a passage a few times, Winter stayed by my side the entire time. We'd come across a couple more staircases that led us deeper into the bowls of the ship on the way through the maze but I hadn't seen a trace of another person. We had just finished reaching the bottom of the third staircase when all three of us flinched at a sudden loud noise ahead of us. After a second, I realized that it was the sound of someone clapping, and after sharing a confused look with my Pokemon, we cautiously moved forward down the only path available to us.

That hallway opened up into a massive room with a battlefield painted on the floor. Standing on the far side of the room was a muscular man who I was fairly sure was the gym leader from the description that Cait had given me. Louie continued clapping for a couple of seconds after we walked into the room, and then stopped and loudly called, "Well done! It's been a while since we had anyone get through there without a single battle!"

"Thanks," I awkwardly answered, then gestured down toward Scout and Winter. "They did all of the hard work."

Louie smiled and gave me an approving nod. "Well, let's see if skipping past my gym trainers means that you're not ready for the main event!"

"We're plenty ready," I confidently answered, then muttered a quick thanks to Scout and Winter as I returned them. From what I'd heard, Louie was pretty easy-going for a gym leader, so I didn't think that it would be a problem to keep them out to watch the match. However, I didn't want to deal with a repeat of the suspicion that I'd received from Oliver when I'd left Shadow out of her ball to watch that match.

Louie selected one of the Pokeballs from his belt and pressed the button to send out a Ferroseed as his first Pokemon. With a barely repressed sigh, I sent out Blitz. Once again my pre-battle strategy was immediately ruined by my opponent's lead Pokemon. Blitz was the only one of my Pokemon that would do well against a Ferroseed, which meant that I was forced to take him out of the revenge sweeper role that I liked him to be in. I was at least able to console myself with the knowledge that since I was still in the amateur league, I was still allowed swaps against gym leaders so I could always pull Blitz back. As if he was reading my mind, Louie's first command was for Ferroseed to use Spikes.

With a small shake of my head, I called, "Focus Energy and then Ember!" Blitz turned to look at me with a squawk that sounded more bewildered than upset. "You can go for Flame Charge against the Pokemon covered in spikes if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it," I answered with a glib shrug. Blitz angled his head back toward Ferroseed who was busy shooting Spikes out of its body to completely cover our side of the field. He continued to stare at the other Pokemon as another round of Spikes shot out, and then Blitz's eyes glinted red. He started flying across the field, though he was moving at a pace almost glacial compared to his usual speed.

"Curse," Louie told his Pokemon, and wisps of black smoke started to rise off of Ferroseed just as Blitz reached it. Blitz strafed over the other Pokemon, exhaling a smattering of flames that only looked about half as strong as the ones that he normally made with Flame Charge. The attack was further weakened when a few of the black wisps blocked some of the Embers. Ultimately, I figured it all about evened out with Ferroseed's massive weakness so it was as if we had used a full-powered Ember on a Pokemon that wasn't weak to the move. While it wasn't ideal, it was still decent, low-risk damage, so I was more than fine with it.

Blitz apparently disagreed with that assessment since he decided to create flames surrounding himself and dive down for a Flame Charge. I watched him get closer and closer to Ferroseed, wondering if I should have him call off the attack. Even with its boosted defenses with Curse, Flame Charge would definitely do more damage. I just wasn't sure if it was worth the trade-off with the damage that he would take in return. My decision was made for me when Louie told Ferroseed to use Gyro Ball, prompting me to yell, "Pull up!" as Ferroseed began to spin in place.

Blitz hesitated for a moment before banking back up, which was long enough for Ferroseed to launch itself off of the floor and hit Blitz right in the stomach. Blitz cried out in pain and was knocked to the side as Ferroseed fell back to the floor with a loud clang. Blitz was able to stabilize himself before he joined the other Pokemon on the ground and hovered in mid-air for a second. When he'd gotten his breath back, he flew back over to where Ferroseed had landed, this time without the flames of Flame Charge. I breathed a sigh of relief that he'd been able to recover from the attack so quickly; given their speed differential, the Gyro Ball had probably been about as close to full-power as possible.

Moving slower than his last approach, Blitz flew over Ferroseed again, hitting it with another spray of Embers. Ferroseed didn't even flinch as the flames washed over it, and instead began to spin in place. "Bank right!" I yelled at the same moment that Ferroseed flew off of the ground again. Blitz was barely able to dodge the second Gyro Ball, making it so that Ferroseed flew right past him and hit the ceiling with another loud clang. As it fell back to the ground, I spotted a Ferroseed-sized dent in the ceiling, making me shoot Louie an incredulous look.

Louie glanced up and then chuckled. "Ah, that's nothing! It'll buff right out!" Meanwhile, Blitz came around for another wary pass, and the gym leader called, "Pin Missile!" The green barbs around Ferroseed's body began to glow before a few of them shot up toward Blitz, who evaded the attack with a burst of speed from a Quick Attack.

With Pin Missile being a bug type move, I wasn't even sure if it was worth dodging, but after the damage that Blitz had taken from Gyro Ball, I figured it would be better to be on the safe side. However, since we had never gotten around to revisiting using Quick Attack and Ember at the same time, I knew that any fire that Blitz had built up had dissipated. With none of his other moves being useful at the moment, I had him switch to flying around the ceiling using Double Team. The clones took some of the pressure off of him, allowing him to build up the fire for more Embers. I'd never considered teaching Blitz Agility before, but I started to consider it in case we got into another weird battle like this one.

Blitz ended up having to use Double Team three more times before we were finally able to take out Ferroseed. The barbed Pokemon was annoyingly adept at sniping the clones out of the air with Pin Missile and Gyro Ball, making it so Blitz had to keep creating more. Thankfully, he'd avoided being hit by another Gyro Ball, though he had been struck by a few more rounds of Pin Missile over the course of the fight. Louie returned Ferroseed, seemingly not at all upset to be down a Pokemon. I wasn't at all surprised by his calm since, despite a massive disadvantage, he'd been able to put down Spikes and tire out my strongest Pokemon.

I was in the process of wondering if I should give Blitz a break as Louie sent out a Cufant as his next Pokemon. The gym leader called for Rollout, prompting me to make up my mind and return Blitz before he'd even finished saying the attack's name. I had no idea how a Cufant would be able to reach Blitz in the air, but I definitely wasn't willing to find out. I wanted to take a few seconds to decide my next Pokemon, but I realized that I didn't have the time to spare since Cufant had already tucked itself into a ball and started rolling around, picking up speed.

Snatching Peren's Pokeball, I sent him out and called, "Camouflage!" Peren winced as he emerged from the Pokeball's red light and promptly stepped on some of the Spikes. Cufant turned on a dime and started heading straight for Peren, who was able to flash white barely a second before Cufant reached him. Another loud clank filled the room, and both Pokemon were knocked backward, sending Spikes flying from the force of the hit.

A now steel-gray Peren recovered his footing before his opponent, so I was quick to order, "Leech Seed and get in there with Double Kick!" Cufant had been slower to recover since it had landed on its side, making it an easy target for Peren to hit with Leech Seeds as it used its trunk to push itself back to its feet. While the seeds nestled on Cufant's body and began to sprout, Peren charged towards it, being careful to avoid as many Spikes as possible.

"Rock Smash!" Louie shouted as Peren raised up on his hind legs to kick down on Cufant. The elephant Pokemon's trunk darted to the side, smashing into Peren's side and knocking him off-balance. One of his hooves still hit Cufant, but the lost momentum definitely made the attack less impactful than it should have been. At the same time, a ball of green energy floated off of Cufant and into Peren, making the trade a bit fairer for us.

Louie's next command was for Cufant to use Iron Defense, which wasn't great for us given all of Peren's moves were physical other than Secret Power. Hoping to slightly even things out, I told him to match with Sand Attack. While Cufant's skin turned a shiny silver, a small mound of dirt rose out of the floor in front of Peren and he began kicking it at the other Pokemon. The conjured stuff wasn't nearly as effective as real dirt or gravel would be, but given that the battlefield was solid steel, it was as good as we were going to get.

Peren went back to attacking with Double Kick once his dirt pile had been depleted, though, as Blitz had in the previous fight, he began taking his time on attacks instead of rushing in. Each of his individual kicks didn't do much damage as they bounced off of Cufant with a clang, but I was still pretty happy with the situation given Peren's greater mobility, the sand, and Leech Seed slowly draining Cufant. Despite its disadvantages, Louie's Pokemon was still able to hit Peren with a few more Rock Smashes with its trunk, though it seemed to be tiring out first.

"Bulldoze!" Louie suddenly called as Peren was backing away after one of his kicks. Cufant immediately jumped up on its hind legs, used its trunk to push against the ground to get some extra height, and then slammed its front legs back into the ground. The whole ship seemed to shake violently as shock waves emanated from the point of impact. Unprepared for the sudden area attack that he was temporarily weak to, Peren lost his footing and fell to the ground. With the rocking of the ship, I was barely able to stop myself from doing the same.

With its target finally unable to dodge, Cufant lashed out with its trunk again, hitting Peren in the stomach with another Rock Smash. Though the move pushed him back several inches, Cufant didn't give him a chance to use the space to recover and lumbered after him. In the last second before Cufant hit him again, Peren managed to create a small glowing orb. Cufant flinched away from the orb, but it ignored him and floated to the top of the arena, leaving its knocked-out creator behind. "Thanks for the good work," I quietly said to Peren's Pokeball after returning him, hoping that I would be able to take advantage of his last-second Sunny Day.

I briefly considered going against my original plan and flexing Scout into the battle, but given that Cufant knew Bulldoze, I decided against it. Instead, I sent out Shadow, being careful to pick a spot where most of the Spikes had been cleared away. Though my new Pokemon wasn't weak to the move, Louie called for another Bulldoze anyway, and I answered with, "Avoid it with Agility." While Cufant raised itself off of the ground again, Shadow began to run in the other direction, sending me a few pangs of discomfort as she was forced to step on Spikes.

I was better prepared for Bulldoze's shockwave this time, which mean that I was free to send Shadow a mental message telling her when to jump over the attack she was facing away from. I hadn't taken into account the time that it would take her to transition from running to jumping, so she was still slightly jarred from the attack, but she was still able to avoid most of the damage.

The moment her hooves hit the floor again, I forwent the mental connection and ordered, "Confusion!" Cufant swayed on its feet as the psychic energy washed over it. Louie paused to think for a moment and then told it to use Rollout again. Even with Agility, I wasn't confident that Shadow would be able to outrun a Rollout, so I quickly amended her previous orders. "Keep using Confusion and then switch to Double Kick when it gets close."

Cufant had already started the process of rolling toward Shadow, though the psychic energy around it was clearly knocking it off-balance since it was taking much longer to build up speed than before. It was also followed by a couple of green balls that were a visual reminder of what Peren had been able to do to it. In fact, the damage turned out to be more than I expected since Cufant began to actually lose speed as it approached Shadow until finally collapsing into a heap right in front of her. The pair of green orbs washed over Shadow a second later, rejuvenating her slightly.

Louie's swap was once again done with perfect calm as he replaced Cufant with a pink Wormadam. One of the other tidbits that Cait had shared with me was that, around the fifth or sixth badge, gym leaders started picking Pokemon to counter their challenger's roster, but I thought this was a bit ridiculous. Blitz was the obvious counter to a Trash Cloak Wormadam, but I also wanted to give him some more rest after the hits he'd already taken. Mind made up, I called, "Secret Power, Shadow!" The move wouldn't be terribly effective given the typing at play so I was mostly hoping for a lucky status.

"Quiver Dance," Louie said, crossing his arms. Wormadam began to sway in place where she'd been sent out while Shadow was forced to run across the Spikes again in order to get in range. Shadow unleashed a ring of dark yellow energy the moment she got close enough, but Wormadam simply dipped as part of her dance and slid right under the attack.

"Disrupt with Confusion!" A moment after that call, Wormadam gave a small jolt and while she continued her dance, it didn't have any of the same surety as before.

Louie nodded to himself, then called, "Bug Bite!" Even with the speed that Quiver Dance would have given Wormadam, I was confident that Shadow would be able to outrun her until a lightning-fast strand of String Shot came out of Wormadam and hit Shadow's side. Shadow craned her neck around to see the point of attachment, but her small horn couldn't sever the strand as Wormadam began pulling herself in.

Keeping my hand on her Premier Ball so I was ready to return her, I told Shadow, "Give Secret Power another shot." The second wave of yellow energy clipped Wormadam, but it didn't slow her as much as I was expecting so she was able to clamp a Bug Bite on Shadow's leg before I could return her. I hoped that she wasn't hurt too bad by my slowness as I quickly replaced her Pokeball with Blitz's and called, "Flame Charge!"

Powered up by the tail end of Peren's Sunny Day, Blitz instantly formed the attack's flames around himself and dove toward Wormadam, picking up speed and looking much more comfortable than he had against Ferroseed. He wavered slightly as he was surrounded by the familiar pink energy of Confusion, but managed to maintain the dive.

At the very last second, Louie called, "Protect!" and a pink domed barrier flashed into existence around Wormadam. Blitz smashed into the dome at full speed and while he tried to push through it, he was ultimately repelled and forced to take back to the sky. The moment that he flew away, the barrier dropped and Blitz twitched as he was once again affected by Confusion.

"Double Team again!" I called up at Blitz. There was nothing that we could do against Protect except to continually batter it, but we needed a defensive measure first in order for that to be possible. I guessed that it was because of how many times he'd needed to use the move against Ferroseed, but when Blitz flew up the top of the arena, he stayed up there until he'd made a veritable flock of clones. From the way that the Double Team worked, I knew that the first Fletchinder to dive down and bounce off of Wormadam's Protect was Blitz, but I lost track of him almost immediately after that.

Wormadam was only able to destroy a few of the clones with Confusion because she was forced to stop and use Protect almost exclusively. With its repeated use, Protect became weaker and weaker until one of the Blitz flew right through it, shattering the barrier and slamming into Wormadam. With a triumphant cry, the one that must have been the real Blitz quickly looped around and came around for what looked like it would be the final pass.

"Metal Burst!" Louie ordered, and while I wanted to warn Blitz, I couldn't remember what the move actually did. Blitz's Flame Charge knocked Wormadam to the ground, but before Blitz could fly away, glowing silver balls appeared around both Pokemon and then exploded. All of the clones that were still in the air vanished in an instant and both Pokemon slumped to the ship's floor, knocked out.

"What was that attack?" I asked Louie, for once not feeling self-conscious in my ignorance of something in the Pokemon world. In the months that I'd spent at the Brawl, I'd seen a lot of moves from Pokemon of all levels, but I hadn't seen anyone use Metal Burst a single time.

"It returns the damage that the user has taken," Louie replied easily, and I grimaced since that definitely made sense. "This has been a good battle, but now it all comes down to this!" Louie declared as he sent out a Honedge as his last Pokemon.

I couldn't help but agree with the gym leader's assessment as I sent out Nin. I didn't like Shadow's prospects against a ghost type so I definitely wanted to try to finish off the battle with Nin. Thankfully, the typing was slightly in my favor since Nin would be immune to any of Honedge's ghost attacks. The Spikes were another matter, but he didn't even wince when he materialized on top of a few of them. "Start off with Foresight," I called so the immunity wouldn't go the other way. I wasn't sure if any normal moves would be useful, but I wanted to make sure we had the option.

"Automatize," Louie called and I quickly told Nin to switch to Glare. Honedge was already more of a mobile Pokemon than Nin, so stopping it from speeding up further was more important than making sure our moves could hit. Thankfully it was an easy transition between the two moves and while I couldn't see Nin's eyes, I knew they would be turning from white to yellow. Unfortunately, Glare didn't seem to affect Honedge in the slightest as it pulled itself out of its sheath and began slicing through the air, moving faster with each swipe. It only took Louie a few seconds to be satisfied and order, "Shadow Sneak!"

Honedge's blade began to glow with a sickly purple aura and then it sunk into the floor, disappearing from sight. I stayed silent, unsure of anything useful to say beyond to tell Nin what he was already doing, which was to slowly pan his head around the stage, looking for any sign of Honedge. After a long and terse pause, Honedge suddenly erupted from Nin's shadow and swiped at him. With astounding speed, Nin's tail shot up and blocked the sword Pokemon's body. Given the types at play, I figured that the block didn't actually matter, but since he'd known when Honedge would emerge, I knew that Foresight must have been successful.

Without missing a beat, Honedge pulled back slightly and allowed its shadowy aura to fade before swiping at Nin again. The Ekans tried to block the move, but it didn't go nearly as well as the previous time and he flinched at the impact. I'd mostly planned on having Nin use Fire Fang in the gym battle, but biting a sword didn't seem like the best idea. Thankfully, his latest move was the perfect replacement, though he couldn't use it with the current battle situation. "Glare!" I ordered and as I'd hoped, Honedge pulled away from the parry rather than risk getting paralyzed. The moment that Nin had the necessary room to work, I called, "Brutal Swing!"

Nin rolled his body slightly so that he could swing his tail at Honedge, the move making the appendage softly glow black as it cut through the air. However, Honedge had backed away enough that it was able to react in time, allowing it to once again use Shadow Sneak and dip into the ground, narrowly avoiding Nin's tail. This time Honedge didn't stay hidden nearly as long and within a second it had popped back up, slicing through the air at Nin. The attack was blocked once again, though this time both Pokemon were hurt with Honedge seamlessly transitioning to Slash while Nin's tail was still covered with residual dark energy.

With the Pokemon in a stalemate again, I decided to go back to my original plan and told Nin to Fire Fang Honedge's sheath. I wasn't sure if the move would actually hurt Honedge since I didn't know if the sheath was technically part of the Pokemon's body, but figured that since Nin's head was free, it made sense to attack with it.

"Back up again!" Louie ordered as Nin's head shot forward. The sword was quick to float away, but the tassel holding the sheath apparently hadn't gotten the same speed boost from Automatize and was stopped when Nin clamped onto it with his dull red fangs. Unable to pull away, the sword part of Honedge flew back toward Nin's head, forcing him to let go to avoid getting hit. With both Pokemon separated again, Louie began to laugh boisterously. "A Fire Fanging Ekans is a new one. I guess we'd better get serious too! Brick Break!"

Honedge flew back toward Nin, but my worry turned into confusion when it looked like it was going for another Slash attack. Nin once again used Brutal Swing to block with his tail, but since he was focusing on the parry, he didn't see the sheath swinging down at him. I tried to shout a warning, but it was too late and Nin was smacked right on the top of the head. The disorienting blow made him lose the strength to maintain his parry and Honedge was quick to take advantage and made another quick swipe across the length of Nin's body.

After a couple more Slashes, Nin was finally about to recover enough to start blocking again, but this time, instead of his tail being shadowed in dark energy, it was covered in water. I stared blankly at the move for a second and then began to grin as Nin started to glow. The immediate and obvious change was that Nin's body began to extend significantly until he was slightly more than twice as long as before. His body's girth also grew slightly, but those were the only changes to his silhouette. The other changes became evident as the light faded, revealing that his black coloring had faded to a dark gray and the yellow lines that went down the length of his body had increased in number and turned blue.

"Congratulations!" Louie said with a wide smile, then immediately added, "Brick Break!"

While his evolution had given him new water typing, Minnesotan Arbok was still normal type, so he was just as weak to the attack as he had been before. However, his extra size and length opened up some new possibilities. "Keep your head back and use Brutal Swing again!"

This time the dark aura covered most of Nin's newly lengthened body instead of only the end of tail, allowing him to swing at all of Honedge instead of just the sword. Honedge narrowly dipped below the attack and the tassel swung the sheath at Nin's midsection. The attack was stopped when Nin's head darted forward and caught the sheath in his mouth. The sword tried to Slash at Nin's head in order to make him drop it, but it was blocked by another Aqua Tail. The sheath in Nin's mouth slowly began to glow red as he used Fire Fang, causing the sword to slow as it made several desperate swipes at Nin, only for each to be parried. Finally, both ends of Honedge went limp and the sword clattered to the ground.

"That was an excellent battle," Louie said with another grin as he returned his Pokemon, completely unphased by the loss.

I replied with a smile and quick nod before stepping forward to give my full attention to Nin. Knowing his stoic personality, I was pretty sure that he wouldn't want me to make a big deal out of his evolution, so I simply said, "Good job." Nin bobbed his head in reply, which made me realize that evolution had brought another slight change that I'd missed. As an Ekans he'd kept his entire body flat on the floor, but now he kept his head lifted up in the air. "You definitely deserve some rest. We'll celebrate with everyone else tonight." That got another nod from Nin so I returned him and made my way across the stage to Louie, being careful to avoid the remaining spikes and the dent in the floor that Cufant had made.

When I got close, Louie held up two TM discs. "You can have either Steel Wing or Iron Tail for winning."

I nodded, having already known that the choice was coming. "I'll take Steel Wing," I answered, which earned a raised eyebrow from the gym leader. I had a feeling that was because I'd just won a battle using primarily tail attacks, so I clarified, "I've got a friend coming to challenge the gym soon and he doesn't have any flying types."

Louie laughed. "I like that kind of thinking!" He pocketed one of the TMs and handed me the other, along with a silver badge in the shape of a ship and the usual debit card.

"Thanks," I said as I took the items, about equally happy to receive all three. I still had plenty of money stored away after my Brawl winnings and the sponsorship, but given the recent trend of my team growing in both quantity and size, I was definitely glad to get a bit of extra food money. Then again, since I was financially stable and we had reason to celebrate, I thought it would be good to use it on something fun instead of just supplies. I wasn't quite sure what that meant yet, but we would have plenty of time in the city to figure it out.


A/N: Minnesotan Arbok is based on the northern watersnake, which like the garter snake that Ekans is based on, is nonvenomous. In the Pokemon tradition of scaling regular animals up, that made me look more at a python instead of a cobra for inspiration, which is why Minnesotan Arbok doesn't have the regular version's hood.

This chapter marks two years since I posted the first chapter of TMLiM. Thank you to everyone who's read this far. There's still a lot of story to go. As a related fun fact, I've been working out of the same Google Doc for the last two years. I've finally hit the character limit so it's time to start a fresh one.

Thanks to Star (quarknova on this site) for betaing. Next up is Chapter 33: Bumming Around Town