The sign near the Gym read:
Vermilion City Pokémon Gym
Leader: Lt. Surge
The Lightning American
That was a weird term to use, but okay then. I walked into the Gym, keeping my expectations low. This turned out to be a good idea because the Gym layout was appalling.
Lt. Surge's Gym
Safety: 8/10
There wasn't that much going on. An electric trap was there, but I probably don't have to warn anyone not to touch it, right?
Design: 3/10
The layout of the room was poor and lacked creativity. The floor was of nauseatingly yellow tiles. The entire structure of the Gym was so plain it came off as boring. The puzzle side of matters, which involved looking through trash cans, was pretty gross, as well as just plain irritating. Wasn't so much a puzzle than a matter of random luck.
Gym Trainers/Leaders: 4/10
The people at the Gym are not so clever as infuriating. I walked in normally only to find that because of the direction I wandered in, I was in the line of sight of not one but two Gym trainers. This of course meant to them that I had to be in a double battle with them, which is pretty absurd. On another note, the trainers were incredibly easy to defeat.
The leader was just annoying.
Lt. Surge chose to greet me by this remark: "Hey, you little tyke!"
It was odd to be addressed this way, not least of all because for a moment, I thought he said "dyke." He bragged about never losing on the battlefield and spoke only in explanation marks. I suppose this is why he's called the ultimate "All-American"—because he's white, macho, and pro-war. I allowed Lorcan to handle it while the Kanto gym music blared from speakers.
"All right, tackle that Raichu," I ordered. Lorcan bobbed his head, his eyes trained on the large mouse.
Raichu moved first, trying to hit Lorcan with an electric-type move, which didn't affect Lorcan much besides paralyzing him. Lorcan on the other hand blasted forward, tackling the Raichu to the ground with enough strength even I was surprised, which means the situation with the Raichu changed fast into a battle with an Electrode.
"Tackle again," I said. Lorcan missed hitting the Electrode, but his paralysis was healed in the meanwhile, so it wasn't a total waste. Then Lorcan continued to miss the Electrode at least three times more, which was getting pretty absurd so I switched him out for Cinder, who knew one move that could solidly hit each time he used it. This didn't cause much damage, but it was something. Meanwhile, the Electrode never did anything besides screech and try to be harder to hit. It was like Lt. Surge was trying to be as pointless as possible with this Pokémon, which made me amazingly cocky.
"Okay, Cinder, try that move again—"
He almost got it. He was right at that Electrode's nonexistent throat, so close to downing it so we could move onto a more fascinating Pokémon, when Lt. Surge bit back a smirk.
"Self-destruct, Electrode!"
"What—"
The Electrode destructed itself on the spot. My jaw lowered as Cinder fainted from the impact.
"Goddamn." I took Lorcan back out and prepped him as Lt. Surge looked through his remaining Poké Balls. "We had a minor setback, but try to hit the other Pokémon this time."
"I have a good one," Lt. Surge said, making a cheesy grin as he tossed out Electrode 2.0. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not.
"Lorcan, try to get that thing paralyzed." And this turned out to be my only good move all battle, because Lorcan continued to be unable to get hits in nine times out of ten.
I managed to get the Electrode into a whirlpool, which got it harmed every turn. This is a greater accomplishment than it looks on paper. With the Electrode paralyzed and doing nothing, and Lorcan missing most hits, we went through at least fifty turns with nothing going on besides the slow yet steady damage from whirlpool changing the course of the battle. At one point my progress was all negated by him using a Full Restore, so we had to go through it over again. Eventually, the Electrode fell, and I used a revive on Cinder so he could take down Magneton in one hit. Then I spent the rest of the match with Lugia, whose hits were far more reliable than Lorcan's.
After that, I got the Thunder badge and a TM, and instructions to head north to Saffron City. It was that systematic. So I went onto Route 6, battling a few Kanto trainers on the way. The night was unusually humid for this late in summer, and the sidewalk was clear of long grass for usability, which would surprise anyone used to the untamed Johto landscape. I thought it was going to be a trek to Saffron City, but one windy sidewalk later, I found myself in the gate.
"Welcome to Saffron City!" the clerk said.
I blinked. At the very least, one wouldn't think I could've hit the Vermilion City suburbs with that walk. I came out of the gate to find myself in a completely different place, the sidewalk made of dark gray brick, the buildings in bright colors subdued by age. In the dark and guided by streetlights, I couldn't imagine myself being in that city before, even as I had spent almost my entire pre-kindergarten life there. There was hardly anyone in the streets, despite the fact it wasn't that late in the evening at this point (I had stayed at Vermilion City one night before I challenged Lt. Surge). Overall, I wasn't totally impressed by everything that was happening. I could see Vermilion City buildings over the trees from where I stood in Saffron City, which was weird.
You could basically hit Vermilion City with a brick from Saffron City. Well, you would have to be a good thrower, and the brick a good brick, but I'm sure a person could accomplish the feat. Really.
I wasn't sure what to do other than to beat the gym and leave, so I walked about the city idly in deep philosophical thought. I came across a hotel and decided to spend the night there to see if I would garner childhood memories in my sleep, but no such thing happened.
In fact, this ended up being a questionable decision. I couldn't wake up at noon like I usually do because a massive festival had developed right below my window. I didn't notice anything exceptional the night before, but that morning, I looked over and saw a decent crowd of people frequenting food stalls. It was incredibly strange. I couldn't leave my hotel without getting caught in the middle of the whole thing either, with couples holding hands in the streets and people making paper lanterns with heart drawings on them. I gathered from a couple that could barely keep their arms off each other that it was the Kanto Shipping Festival, because apparently since Saffron City has so many psychics, they've been making a good profit off people to tell them the name of their soulmate (or at least next significant other). That was pretty absurd.
Since I felt like I had too much money these days, I decided to try and see what this bullshit was all about. I went into a fortune teller's booth and paid the necessary money to get a reading. The fortune teller was old and wore red lipstick. She looked kind of snobby.
"Are you ready for your reading?" she asked. I nodded.
"We'll do a palm reading first," she said. She took my ticklish palm and traced the lines there, and I bit back the urge to giggle. "Hmm, okay...you want to successful in your life and work hard. Eh...this one means you live a long life. This line means, uh, you will move to a different place one day."
"What about finding out the name of my soulmate?" I asked.
"One hundred," she ordered, reaching her hand out. I felt as though I had no chance but to give her the money.
"Okay," she said. "Your soulmate is a boy around your age named Silver. You've already met him."
I almost choked on my spit. "What? What the fuck!"
"Well, if you want more possible suitors, you need to meet more boys," she pointed out. "As of right now, the person you spend the most time with is him because you have no other friends. That means your soulmate is ending up to be him because you're not getting closer to any other boy right now."
For once, the fortune tellers had actually read someone's mind, and then they cheated.
"I want to take my money back."
She pointed at the sign in front of her, which read: "NO REFUNDS."
So after getting unsatisfactory results, I was about to leave the shipping festival when I noticed there were other fortune tellers around. My money was apparently feeling too heavy in my wallet so I decided to go for a second opinion. The second fortune teller was a girl around my age with a ponytail and a friendly smile. According to the sign outside of her tent, her name was Amy.
"Hi," I said, "tell me the name of my soulmate."
She asked me a bunch of questions, like what my birthday was, height, weight, scores on nationwide exams, GPA, etc. I was beginning to realize that she was being nosy and competitive. We were short of both height and age.
"Okay," she said. She put her head on the table with her fingertips on her temples for a few moments, and once her spiritual energy reached a peak, put her head back up. "You haven't met your soulmate yet, but you will meet him soon. His first name begins with the letter 'B.'"
It was marginally more helpful than the other one, so I decided to accept this answer and was starting to leave the festival. There was some games and stuff for couples or people trying to find their soulmate, but I had lost faith in the power of the shipping festival at this point.
I thought it was time for me to defeat Sabrina. I've heard stories about Sabrina, of course, and practically none of them complimentary besides the fact that she was a strong trainer. She was...a controversial member of the Pokemon League because she was in Team Rocket, and I would say that I don't know why she has the job, except it's plain to see that the League can't bother to care what kind of records its members have. I've seen her on television before with straight long bangs and long hair, and she's definitely got one of those iconic looks that could permit someone to dress up as her for Halloween.
On the Ash Ketchum show, they said that she turned her mother into a doll, but I don't know if this is true or not. The Ash Ketchum show is full of shitty information, like that Lance is an upstanding citizen.
In fact, things had got even worse with how Lance is portrayed in the media. Like I said, I was heading out of the festival when I saw Clair. I saw her, and she saw me too. There was no choice in the matter—we bumped into each other by complete coincidence, and when we turned we immediately locked eyes. At that point, the crowd that had surrounded us seemed to dissipate when I didn't pay any attention to them anymore, and there was no use trying to act like I haven't seen Clair.
She made a small nod, then moved closer to me. She was wearing pretty typical clothes, with a blue tank top and some jeans. I think that's why nobody was surrounding her despite her high status as one of Johto's gym leaders. She wasn't that recognizable to these people in Kanto, who consider Johto to be beneath them, and in this casual attire, far from the strange and elaborate costume she was known for wearing in the public eye, she was practically a different person. Even her being easy on the hairspray that made her side bangs stick out would've made her look totally different. Now, with her hair down, the bangs not aggressively differentiated in an upward fashion from the rest of her face, she looked almost innocent.
"Hello, Lyra."
"Hi," I muttered.
"I heard from a source that you helped Lance at Lake Rage."
I narrowed my eyes, not knowing where she was going with this.
"Was there anything wrong with it?"
"Nothing," she said, smiling strangely.
"Well, anyway, I think you would be pleased to know that Lance is working at the Cherrygrove Poké Mart. I saw him literally the other day when I was getting something for my mom."
Her smile vanished. She made a tsk of disappointment. "Have you been living under a rock?"
"What are you talking about?" My Pokégear didn't have Internet, so I was pretty isolated from the rest of society, but Clair didn't need to know that.
She took out her smartphone. "The trailer came out this morning. They're making a new show called Pokémon Generations, and they're including Lance."
"What losers."
"I really think you need to see this."
She tapped on the video. What I saw was Lance and his Dragonite fighting against a red Gyrandos at Lake Rage. My jaw dropped.
"Did you do that or Lance?" Clair asked, smiling.
"I did that!"
While the video showed fake footage of him against the shiny Gyrandos, Lance made a shitty voiceover to convey how awesome he was. I was so angry, I had to restrain myself from throwing Clair's phone to the concrete sidewalk. After that, it showed Lance going through the Team Rocket hideout by himself, passing by all those Persian statues. There was fake footage of Team Rocket members saying they were seeing intruders while of course, I wasn't mentioned at all. I basically didn't exist. Then the video went on to show how valiantly Lance was when he was running in the hideout, how heroic he was fighting against the drunk Team Rocket members, how brave he was against the four of them. Him against Petrel—
"He never fought against Petrel."
"I believe you," Clair said, "but I don't think the rest of the world does."
The disgusting video clip went on. After Lance was shown using one of those cool walkie-talkie things spies have, he proceeded to approach where all the Electrodes were.
"Don't worry," he said suavely, "we'll free you all shortly."
Then his Dragonite did some extreme action moves to stop the generator, and all the Electrodes woke up. So much different from how I knocked all the Electrodes out in reality.
"You need to escape quickly!" superhero Lance yelled. The Electrodes went over to shock Petrel. At the last scene of the clip, Lance was shown looking over Lake Rage with the Gyrandos, his hair and clock blowing in the wind with a determined look on his face. What a legend, right?
"I can't take this shit anymore," I said. "I can't."
Clair scrolled down to the comments, where Lance's legions of fans had written on how much they loved their macho role model and how hot and romantic he is. Apparently, he's some kind of sex symbol.
"How do you feel about this?" Clair asked.
"I've never been more angry in my entire life."
She beamed. "I don't think I've met anyone who hated Lance as much as I do."
"I need to talk to someone and reveal the truth." My blood was literally boiling in my veins. "Know any good reporters? We should shake this up."
"Hmm...I can email one on your behalf," Clair said. I agreed, and exchanged phone numbers and emails with her with the warning that she doesn't Youngster Joey me and abuse these privileges.
"By the way, there's something I don't understand," I said. "You gave me that weird letter saying I have unfinished business. I'm stupid, so spell it out."
She waved it away. "It wasn't anything. Just explaining you how to get to the Pokémon League from New Bark. You seemed like the type of the person to challenge the League, for better or worse."
"It's funny. I was trying to go there, and my annoying neighbor stopped me."
Clair snorted. "He probably thought you were going to get crushed."
"That's truly sad. His name is Ethan, by the way. He also hates Lance. Do you have any idea how they know each other?"
"Ethan?" Clair wrinkled her nose. "Vaguely. There's a lot of people who don't like Lance. What's his last name?"
I told her.
"Yeah...he defeated me a few years ago with his girlfriend. I don't remember if Lance or my family ever said anything about them, though. I assumed they were going to the League after defeating me."
"Wait..." Up until that point, it never occurred to me that Ethan could be good at battling, much less capable of defeating all eight of Johto's gym leaders. He always seemed uninterested in Pokémon training to me, always clinging to a little Marill like he preferred to think of Pokémon as cute rather than suited for battle. Also...
"Girlfriend?"
"Yeah." Clair's eyes lit up. "I remember her too. Her name was Kris."
"How do you know they were a couple?" I asked. "Are you just assuming that because a boy and a girl can't have a platonic friendship?"
"They were making out right after the battle," Clair said. "With tongue. I don't know any culture where that's platonic."
"How do you even remember this?"
"Kris was brutal in battle. Also, I told them to get a room and they said they already had one. I was floored by that response. Still, I guess they weren't as rude as you, though who is?"
I was still trying to compute what she told me. I couldn't imagine Kris and Ethan as a couple. It made more sense the more I thought about it, because New Bark Town is extremely small and lacking in teenaged suitors. It also made less sense, because Kris and Ethan?! They were opposites of each other, and not just in gender. Opposites do not stand next to each other, much less shamelessly make out in the middle of a Pokémon gym.
Who else know? Ethan and Kris would've lived right next to each other. Their parents would've known, unless those kids were hiding it. Even Professor Elm could've known, because New Bark is such a little town. It seemed like I was the only person in the dark about everything.
"Anyway, Lyra, I need to go find my date," Clair said.
After parting from Clair and making my way to leave the shipping festivals, I stood by the side and thought some more on the topic of Kris and Ethan. My stomach felt like it was in a twist. I was no mood to battle Sabrina.
I was going to call Elm—I couldn't trust my mother, and I instinctively didn't want to bring up anything with Ethan. Elm seemed like the right person to call, the more I thought about it. The worst thing that could happen was that he wouldn't know. Still, he was a neutral party to this topic and wouldn't get all worked up like everyone else I could think of contacting. He'll maybe get all flustered, but he ultimately he wouldn't get too irritated. But then I paused, my hand hovering his name. Was it really any of my business that my neighbor and late sister were dating? Maybe there was a reason why nobody bothered to tell me this.
It occurred to me that I didn't have any allies in New Bark Town. Nobody to call and be certain I'll get a decent answer from. I guess this was something that happens when everyone dislikes you.
I decided not to call anyone.
So before I went against Sabrina, there was something very important that I had to get done.
"How dare you lie about your achievements?!" I said, bursting into the Cherrygrove City Poké Mart. Thank God Lance happened to be working, because it would've been embarrassing if he wasn't. "How dare you work here and make me feel even a little bit bad about you when you're actually acting in a well-paid episode about stuff I did?"
I was recording everything going on with my Pokégear because the Internet said that recording at least should be legal. I thought I'll figure the rest later.
Lance crossed his arms, looking snide. "One, I am free to work wherever I choose. Two, you have never trademarked the stuff you did, last time I checked. It's welcome for anyone else to take as they want."
"I think it's highly concerning that you're coincidentally working at a city very close to my hometown."
"I had no idea you lived near here up until now, and I really don't care about you. I only work here because nobody else wanted to be out in the middle of nowhere." The other employee shifted uncomfortably.
"Why are you even working at retail anyways?" I asked. "Shouldn't you be busy ripping me off with your stupid production?"
"Well, I have other goals in mind besides being a celebrity on television," Lance said. "Shoo."
"Okay, well I'm letting you know right now that I have a lawyer and I will press charges against you. I also have the press on my side—"
At this point, Lance bursted into laughter. I stared.
He waved me off. "Sure, sure. Go see how much public opinion is going to be on your side. Yeah, I'm not scared of an angry sixteen year old girl."
I was sizzling with anger. "You know what, why don't we have a Pokémon battle? Right now."
"Oh, sure. You're good for a sixteen year old, but not as an adult, and especially not at my full strength. I'm not even going to satisfy you with that one."
I crossed my arms. I realized that made me and Lance both crossing our arms and it looked like I was copying him, but it was too late for me to stop. "I'm not a weak person. You can't just take my accomplishments, and make them yours to profit from them. There are other people who know what you've done. There are Team Rocket grunts in jail or on the run right now, and they can certainly back up what I'm saying to annoy a former Pokémon champion."
Lance sighed. "Okay, Lyra. You should be happy that you even got to go on that mission. You would've never done what you did without me. And then when I brought you there, you were so unenthusiastic the whole time like you didn't even want to be there. Most Pokémon trainers would dream of working with the champion."
"'Unenthusiastic?' I did all the work. And then you quit halfway, after almost killing someone."
The other employee made an uncertain smile then headed out into the back. Another witness to Lance's depravity, I suppose.
"Okay, if you are so very offended of me profiting off my own mission, we can settle this out of court," Lance said. "I'll give you a small share of my earnings. It may not seem a lot percentage-wise, but it will be enough for you to sustain yourself for quite a few years. My lawyer can give yours a call."
I opened my mouth, but no words could come out because no thoughts came to mind.
"Um...mine will call yours first," I stammered. "Or take my email. I'll forward everything. I want to see everything first."
I found a slip of paper, scribbled my email, and gave it to Lance. He made a face holding it up.
"Does this say Lyra underscore batman, or—"
"If you can't read it, then give me yours," I said. He gave me his business card. "Okay. People will be contacted. Goodbye."
I left the Poké Mart and went around a corner before taking out my Pokégear and trying to access the recording. While I was tapping on its unresponsive screen, it suddenly became too responsive and accidentally deleted my file. Since it was a cheap phone, there was no place to recover it adfjasdfasdf
