AN: Hello again readers. Here's another fanfic right on the heels of my previous one to make up for the long hiatus I took.
Hooray, Marnie's finally going to be in the anime. It only took 90+ more episodes than I would have liked for her to show up, and unfortunately she's not the Misty/May/Dawn/Iris/Serena/Lillie of the show. No offence intended to any Chloe fans out there.
Here's hoping we see more of her in the show pasts this upcoming episode. (Like I'm hoping Bea will show up again before the Journeys series is up.)
Anyway, time to get on with the Fanfic.
1! 2! 3! Let's Go!
Disclaimer: Don't own Pokémon or the Anime. I wouldn't mind owning a Marnie body pillow like the ones Team Yell's got in the games. Would I have to get in contact with Piers to get one? (And isn't that a little weird your brother's selling body pillows of you?)
Spikemuth, Galar Region. The Spikemuth Gym. (Take 1: The Defeat.)
Marnie recalled her Grimmsnarl and looked across the battlefield to her opponent, a small downturn of her lips the only sign of an expression on her face. Her opponent quickly shook off his shock at losing as he made ran over to check the condition of his KOed Gengar, not caring the loss has sent his WCS ranking down to 49.
She walks over, sparing her older brother and the boy that her opponent brought along a glance before refocusing on the Trainer from Kanto who gives the Ghost-Type words of consolation to hopefully cheer him up about his loss.
'Least he isn't the kind of Trainer to lash out at his Pokémon or others when he loses.' Marnie noted, her thoughts going back to a past rival of hers when she competed in the Gym Challenge who once had preferred battling with Psychic-Types but has since devoted himself to Fairy-Types after Opal took him under her wing.
Pushing thoughts of the boy she had been fond of agitating by calling him Granny, Marnie voiced the thoughts she had more relevant to the boy before her, "Why do you think you lost this battle?"
The boy turns from his Gengar (Who up close, Marnie notes that his color isn't the deep purple shade she's seen most Gengar here in Galar have. It's more a lighter purple shade and Marnie muses if Kantoan Gengar are just like that.) to Marnie, his brown eyes meeting her green ones, and takes his time to come to an answer.
"I guess it was because Gengar couldn't Gigantamax here." Is the answer the Kantoan boy gives which causes the downward curl of her lips to turn to a frown as she closes her eyes and shakes her head from side to side whilst sighing, "What? Was that not it?"
'Here I was hoping you didn't think the same as the rest of the Region.' Marnie thought disappointed hoping someone from outside of Galar would have an opinion different from the norm as she turned around and started walking away.
"Come on, at least tell me what you think the reason I lost was?" The boy called out getting Marnie to stop for a moment.
"What good will telling you that do?" She questioned back, not interested in seeing the expression he's making in response to her words.
"If I know, then I'll have something me and Gengar can work to fix so next time we battle you, things'll be different." He answers, speaking with such confidence it'll be that easy to do, that Marnie imagines he has that massive grin on his face that Marnie has thought in slight envy could bring light to a pitch-black cave.
"And what makes you think I'll want to battle the two of you again?" Marnie points out turning to him to see his smile drop. (She tries not to think too much on how unfortunate it was she didn't get to see that smile of his that he had been directing her way moments ago.)
"Why wouldn't you? You and Grimmsnarl seemed to be having as much fun fighting me and Gengar as we were having." The boy- Ash responds giving Marnie pause as his Gengar and Pikachu nod along with him, "You were smiling a bit when we were battling. It was a nice smile."
There's that smile of his she'd wanted to see aimed at her moments ago, it's a bit softer than Marnie pictured and there's a warmth in his brown eyes as he says those words to her.
Marnie glances away and to the ground, internally confused why she seems to be coming down with something all of a sudden.
"Okay, maybe I was. But we're both competing in the World Coronation Series, what will fighting someone who is at your rank again do for me when I'm at Rank 17 now?" Her question does Ash give pause whose uncertain how to answer that, after all she'd need to fight someone who is at a higher rank then her to advance to hopefully reach the Master Class of the WCS, "You'll need to fight three more people who are higher ranked than you to reach me again and, in that time, I might break into the Master Class. I can't afford to lose to another competitor when the Finals of the World Coronation Series is only a month away from now."
She pauses after explaining all that and waits for those words to sink in for Ash before she speaks in an urgent tone, her expression serious as the grave, "Spikemuth needs me as its future Gym Leader to make it as far in the World Coronation Series as I can. I'm not just competing for bragging rights like some other people participating are."
Ash winces hearing that, is that what she thinks of him. That he's really so selfish about why he got involved in all this, "I'm competing so I can fight Leon. Beating him will bring me a step closer to my dream!"
His bold declaration doesn't rattle Marnie much whose expression grows more severe, "If you wanted to do that then you should have just taken on the Gym Challenge or wait for the next one to start once the World Coronation Series is over."
The truth of her words hit home for Ash who scratches the back of his head awkwardly and notes he probably would have done that if he hadn't met Gou and become one of Professor Cerise's Research Aides.
Marnie sighs again, "The reason you lost is because you thought you needed Gengar to Gigantamax to win. The moment you think you need something like that or other cheap gimmicks like Mega Evolution and Z-Move to win, you've consigned yourself to never being able to make it to the major leagues where Trainers like Leon, Cynthia, or Lance are at and where I plan to be someday."
She gives a pointed look to the Z-Ring and Mega Glove that Ash has on along with the Dynamax Band before she turns around and walks away once more, "Try being an actual Pokémon Trainer and train your Pokémon to bring out the hidden potential they've got inside of them before you try transforming them or having them use super moves. It doesn't matter if you Mega Evolve a Charizard. It can't beat the Pokémon of someone whose put serious dedication helping them grow powerful since all Mega Evolution does is amplify power that's already there."
She throws Ash one final look over her shoulder before she departs hoping for his sake that her words stick with him, "If there isn't much for the transformation to amplify all you've got is a strong Pokémon, not a truly powerful one."
AN: Yeah, probably a lot shorter than people were expecting, but I plan on doing a different take as a follow-up chapter depending on how the episode tomorrow goes.
The preview shows Marnie's Grimmsnarl Gigantamaxing in a stadium so the anime's probably either ignoring the fact Spikemuth isn't built on a power spot or Ash and Marnie are having their battle elsewhere. (I'm hoping for the later, because the former feels a bit insulting.) Maybe in the battle Gengar won't get time to Gigantamax, but I might be a little put out if the reason Ash loses is because he couldn't super-size his Pokémon in time.
It'd be a repeat of Ash's first battle with Hau where they justified Hau winning because Ash uncharacteristically fumbled around getting his Z-Crystal into his Z Ring. Which is both an insult to Ash and an insult to Hau. (Not that Junichi Fujisaku wasn't satisfied with Hau being insulted that one time.)
Here's hoping Hop doesn't get the Hau treatment and that Junichi Fujisaku stays far away from any episodes involving him. It's terrible like Hau that he is showing up so late in the series.
More relevant to what Marnie was talking about, given I like to figure she's a bit disillusioned with the Dynamax phenomenon going on in Galar along with maybe Z-Moves and Mega Evolutions that she'd be best voice my problem with how the anime treats them in battles.
Due in fact to how the first phenomena has partially led to Spikemuth falling to the state it's at where it's struggling to not be considered a Minor League Gym town and a den of the less-than-reputable elements of the region (Different sort of crooks than Piers's 'evil' Team of Fanboys/Fangirls.) to the point it doesn't get much tourism and thus it's economy suffers as a result.
Of course, Rose is also probably to blame for Spikemuth's situation but in the anime he's probably in jail right now whilst Oleana is doing community service picking up garbage.
But getting back to my point, if I were to use game terminology for a metaphor here.
A Charmeleon that's just evolved who had Flamethrower taught to it via a TM/TR whose got low EVs is likely going to get beaten down hard by a Charmander at level 50 or 98 (so at 99 it can evolve to Charmeleon and then at 100 it can evolve again to Charizard.) whose EVs are as high as it can get whose using Ember to beat the previously mentioned Charmeleon's Flamethrower.
Or were I to draw an example directly from the anime:
Alain's Megazard who when have we ever seen it land a big win outside of it's Mega Form whose only notable defeat in the anime came from Siebold's Mega Blastoise.
Alain Megazard is strong, but it can be so much more powerful along with Alain's other Pokémon if he trained it outside of it's Mega Form to be ridiculously more powerful so that the gains it gets from Mega Evolving is so much more.
Siebold's Blastoise I'm figuring had to go through a lot of battles, and training before Siebold likely gave it a Blastoisite unlike Alain who slapped a Charizardite X onto his Megazard the second he got it and never looked back.
The only reason I figure Ash lost to Alain at the Kalos League is that he made the same mistake with Greninja's Battle Bond form that Alain made with Megazard: Overreliance on it to the point Ash became deluded about how strong Greninja has become through Battle Bond that his other Kalos Pokémon didn't need to try as hard since Greninja was pretty much carrying the team.
Like if Greninja had learned Dual Chop or Night Slash and replaced Cut with either of those moves after it evolved from Frogadier and he and Ash worked out ways to make Megazard's sheer overwhelming power a non-factor instead of putting their hope on Greninja's giant Water Shuriken Z-Move before Z-Moves were a thing, they would have won probably because Alain is still sticking to his Megazard Simping nonsense at the expense of his other Pokémon's growth.
Pikachu being able to down Alain's Metagross and Tyranitar speaks a lot about how much of a monster Pikachu is on the battlefield, (I still don't think he's back to where he was at then before Zekrom nerfed him to level 1 at the start of the BW anime.) but if Alain put as much precedence in their training that he likely does with Megazard, Ash would have had to use Ash-Greninja a whole lot sooner in that battle.
Let's shift gears to the Alola series where 95% of the battles or conflicts in that show that the Alola cast face are resolved because of a Z-Move one shot, I think it's safe to say that seeing things end that way got old fast. Can't blame the Alolans much since they put Z-Moves up on a pedestal, but Ash should have figured soon enough to not repeat the same mistake that happened with Greninja with his Alola Team.
On a meta level I can understand the anime has to show off how awesome Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, and Dynamax/Gigantamax stuff is to get kids to buy the games, (Along with what few things Pokémon GO has to show off if it's got anything.) but it feels a bit unbalanced when I start to ask what Alain or Ash's classmates would be as battlers if you took his Megazard or their Z-Moves away?
TLDR;
Alain: (Crying with his Charizard as Ash and his Charizard look disappointed with him, having taken his Mega Ring and Charizardite X.) No! You can't take Megazard from me, I'm nothing without it.
Ash: If you're nothing without the Megazard then you shouldn't have it.
Just apply the above with Ash's Classmates as Peter, Ash as Tony, and the Z-Moves as the Spider-Man suit. Or Ash as Peter and Marnie as Tony whose taking his Dynamax Band.
With that said, this long end of chapter author's note you likely got bored of and skipped is over. Until this weekend when I probably do a follow up chapter in response to how the Ash vs. Marnie episode goes tomorrow, bye-onara!