It takes waiting around all day and a loss so fast it was almost comical, but it's worth it as Maggie watches Lucy challenge the Goldenrod Gym.
The gym trainer, a kid maybe nine or ten, sends out a clefairy. Lucy sends out her pikachu.
In a gold blazer and black skirt, Lucy points at the opponent and gives a command. Her pikachu's cheeks spark as she twirls in place, generating a ball of lightning within the coils of her tail. She steadies itself, then throws the electro ball at the clefairy.
The clefairy chants and waves its hands. At the last second before the ball of electricity hits, a translucent sphere forms over it, the electro ball breaking into bits of plasma that flicker out harmlessly.
Lucy pauses a moment to think. She calls out, "If they want to take this slow, we have to move fast! We can't paralyze it, so use agility!"
Her pikachu begins running laps around the clefairy, a good distance away from the clefairy's stubby arms.
The gym trainer looks surprised. "What? Can't paralyze - how did you know about Clefairy's magic guard? Oh well. Two can play at that game! Clefairy, minimize!"
"Clef!" The clefairy begins making a series of twisting and folding hand motions, each iteration making it a bit smaller.
"Swift, quickly!"
Pikachu stops running and twirls, throwing out a wave of spinning stars. The clefairy cries out as the stars hit it, interrupting it from its shrinking.
"Your pikachu knows swift?" Yes, and? The girl sounds like Lucy had just ordered her pikachu to use fire blast.
Lucy doesn't respond. "Keep using agility, Pikachu!"
Maggie knows Lucy's strategy here. Electro ball grows more powerful the faster Pikachu is than her opponent, so the more time she had, the stronger she would be. As long as the clefairy couldn't buff itself in the same way, Pikachu's electro ball would eventually be too powerful for opponent to withstand. Even if it used protect again, all it would take is one good hit and Pikachu would be able to sweep through the rest of her team.
"Pound, Clefairy!"
The clefairy runs towards the pikachu, but she easily moves out of the way, each hop and dodge as graceful as the movements of a dance compared to the blunt movements of the clefairy. Clefairy makes a whiny mewling sound.
"Keep it up, Pikachu!"
"Um, uhh, metronome!"
Lucy smiles coolly as the clefairy waves its hands. It glows briefly white and then spits out a wave of bubbles, which Pikachu easily hops over.
"Stay focused, Clefairy! Metronome!"
This time, Clefairy stops waving its hands to open its mouth and scream. The sound is nails-on-chalkboard with a variety of rising and falling sounds as if it was swearing at Pikachu. Obligingly, Pikachu makes a hissing noise back. Neither action seem to slow her down.
"All right, Pikachu, now electro ball!" Lucy orders. A bright sphere of electricty starts growing in Pikachu's tail, expanding quickly as her tail rotates in quick coils.
The trainer's eyes glint suddenly, and a smile fills her face as she shouts, "Clefairy, psych up!"
Maggie is as surprised as the expression on Pikachu's face as the clefairy begins to glow a sucking pink, the air around it chopping with noise. The electro ball that hits it only shines for a moment before Clefairy bursts out of it, glowing malevolently bright and moving as fast as Pikachu. She shrieks as Clefairy chases her around the arena.
Lucy's mouth is open. With a quick glance at Maggie–who stares back, feeling just as surprised–she shouts, "Quick attack!"
Her pikachu swerves. But the clefairy trainer's smile only grows wider.
"Clefairy, stored power!"
The next glow is bright purple, and when it's gone Pikachu is fainted on the ground.
"One down!"
Almost robotically, Lucy slides her hand to her belt and sends out her other pokémon. Maggie only gets to see the drifloon for a second before the arena is overtaken with a purple flash.
Lucy recalls her pokémon as the gym trainer does a flourish. Did that really just happen? They got unlucky, Maggie thinks dazedly.
"Oh my god your pikachu was adorable!" the trainer squeals. "The way her tail moves is just too cute, and she was so adorable running away from Clefairy on those eeny weeny feet!"
Maggie winces as Lucy looks away. Something stings about losing to a kid years younger than you are. The gym trainer isn't deterred until they leave the gym itself.
The crowd outside the gym is as large as it was when they arrived in the morning.
"Was it Whitney?" one of the trainers calls and Lucy nods stiffly. Bad luck, bad luck. When they had arrived, the crowd had been talking about it in the front, how with all the trainers nowadays it's not only the gym leader, it's battling one of three trainers to weed out the weak, but Lass Whitney is the strongest, maybe even stronger than the gym leader, a real prodigy for her age.
But Whitney was wrong, anyway. Maybe not about battling, but Lucy's pikachu has a long rangy tail, a grace to its movements, a butter yellow coat, and a despicable personality. None of those things are cute. Even scratched up and held in Lucy's arms she only sparks at anyone that comes too close, hateful instead of pitiable.
Upon hearing that Lucy fought Whitney, the mob of trainers swarms Lucy for tips. Most of them have new red and white pokéballs on their waists, but a few have apriballs as well.
A few on the very edges of the crowd approach Maggie instead, but upon hearing of her loss to a trainer that wasn't even Whitney and with a hoothoot, they return to trying to reach Lucy. Maggie crosses her hands behind her head.
"Hey, what's wrong with her pikachu?" a girl with apriballs on her belt asks.
"Oh, that's just her personality," Maggie says, glancing at the pokémon held in Lucy's arms. She was enthusiastically reenacting the battle with little movements of her paws, and shocking at anyone that reached too close.
"No, I mean, their tails are supposed to be jagged right? Like a lightning bolt? That's why they're called thunder mice." Maggie hums, unconvinced. "And they're kind of fatter. This one looks weird."
"Nah, it was like that when it was a pichu. I saw it evolve, it didn't suddenly mutate when I wasn't looking. And that's how pikachu tails are supposed to look, their tail is like that to use electric moves," Maggie says. She'd seen its electro ball just a few minutes earlier, after all.
"That's not right at all. What the hell, pikachu are supposed to-"
Whatever. Maggie turns her attention back to the person that matters. Actually... looking at it, if anything, the pikachu kind of looked like it was meant for Lucy. Her fur was the yellow of Lucy's jacket, the black of its ears the same color of her skirt. And in battle, they were so in sync, with Pikachu not hesitating to follow her instructions at all. It wasn't like Maggie and her peck-filled relationship with her hoothoot. How graceful Lucy was with her talented pokémon friends. That pikachu wasn't the odd thing out. Couldn't be.
As the crowd dissipates, Lucy is glowering more than Maggie expects. As her words grow more brusque and she pushes away, the crowd dwindles in response. It seems like the trainers are bothering her more than the loss itself.
Lucy ends up breaking the silence. She says, "All these people here gathered up like this are wrong. It's not like... well, it's not like being a trainer is only about being good at battling. You're supposed to be responsible too. In Kanto, you need to show that you can own pokémon, you know, go to trainer school and learn about the environment and how to take care of pokémon and stuff. But since these new pokéballs are taking off people care less, and so now just anyone can be a trainer. There's going to be kids starting off at ten years old everywhere soon enough."
Feeling vaguely admonished, Maggie says, "I don't think... um... I wanted to be a trainer. As a kid. See new pokémon, like how everyone does, it's just. I don't know, I guess wanting something doesn't mean you'd be-"
"Oh no, not like you. Anyone can tell you'd be a good trainer. That's why you're with me. It's just the trainers around this gym, you know?"
Lucy smiles at her and Maggie feels her hesitation melt away. "Yeah," Maggie says, and relievedly smiles back.
