Chapter 6: The Bug Gym.

Point of View Black

As Flare predicted, the pokecenter was going to allow me to leave this morning. I let out a tired yawn as I watched Alex fill out some paper work so I could leave. Alex cringed the moment he saw the bill for my minor surgery. I bet regret was rife in his mind about actually choosing not to put me down after my injury. After watching the long and tedious process of Alex filling out paperwork he finally finished and made his way towards me.

"Good news Black, we can finally get out of here!" Alex gleefully said with a smile, I couldn't say that the thought didn't sound too bad.

During my short, yet seemingly long stay at the pokecenter, I spent most of my time daydreaming about life. However, despite my attempts to block them out, my mind was still cluttered with thoughts of rage towards that absol. I looked forward to getting back at him. I was never the type to take crap like this.

"How're you feeling?" Flare asked me curiously.

"I'm living," I replied dryly.

After mostly everyone finished asking me if I was fine, we departed and headed back to the hotel. Every step on the way back was uncomfortable, and irritated my injury. After a long walk back, we finally made our way back into the hotel. The moment the door to the hotel room opened, my eyes looked towards the absol who assaulted me. The absol quietly lied on the couch as he noticed our presence. Rage began to build up within me, and I started to grind my teeth together as I tried to keep myself from exploding in fury.

"You," I said bitterly as I shot the absol a menacing glare.

"Great, your back," the absol scowled towards me. "I'm surprised you didn't run away crying back into the wild."

"Gray, that's enough. We're a team whether you like it or not, so we can't let our differences come between us," Flare said as he stood between Gray and I, although I don't know what Flare was thinking he could stop with his small body.

"Yeah, how about you say that when you're the one who got attacked," I snapped at Flare.

"Yeah I know Black… I wasn't the one attacked, but you can still be the bigger person," Flare tried to reason. "But what does getting even get you?"

"Sweet satisfaction," I bitterly responded as I looked towards Gray.

"And you think you can manage to take me on?" Gray responded as he began to stand up.

"I don't think you do stand a chance, you one horned freak," I said to Gray with a vicious growl.

"You're rather funny, joking about beating me," Gray replied to me as he jumped off the couch and stood in front of me, "Where would you like your next scar, I'll let you choose this time?"

"Shut your fucking mouth," I yelled back.

"You two stop it!" Alex yelled from across the room as he threw a pokeball. I flinched back expecting to get sucked in, but instead a bright light flashed and absorbed Gray into his pokeball.

"Sorry Black, I should have warned you that he's a bit antisocial," Alex said as he retrieved Gray's pokeball off the ground.

"A bit…" I replied in a low voice.

"Anyways, are you two ready to begin the first gym battle?" Alex asked Flare and I excitedly. "Well, obviously you won't be fighting Black, you're still recovering," Alex began to say, and the trainer directed his attention towards Flare, "I think you and Gray will have a good shot on doing this on your own, what do you say, buddy?"

"We can take them," Flare said, with newfound excitement, instead of the tense feeling he had moments ago.

"Let's get going then, I can hardly wait," Alex said excitedly as he grabbed his backpack and headed towards the door, with us following.

Point of View Gray

A scowl escaped my mouth as I looked down at the grassy ground below me. "Piece of shit umbreon," I said out loud with spite.

After a moment of standing, I began to grow a bit tired and I lied against a tree. Even though Alex made huge efforts to not constrain us in our pokeballs, I could still never stand being confined against my will. It was such a degrading feeling.

A few minutes passed by, until my eyes sprang open as I felt myself get sucked out of the pokeball, and thrusted back into the real world. My head spun for a brief moment, and my weariness left almost as fast as it came.

"Are you ready Gray?" Alex asked me, as he looked down at me with a small smile and patted me on the back, but I quickly moved away from him, avoiding his touch.

"Ready? For what?" I questioned.

"For the gym battle," Flare answered. As the fox stood by Alex's feet, I looked to the trainer's shadow and saw that cursed umbreon hiding it it. The two of us swapped hateful glares for a short moment, then my vision shifted towards the building in front of me, that I hadn't paid attention to until now.

'This is the first gym?' I mentally said, as I stared at the pokeball shaped logo on the building, with the lightning bolt shaped thing exiting the bottom right of the pokeball. As I observed the building, Alex walked up to the double doors and pushed one of the two open and held it for us Flare and that umbreon both walked in without much thought.

"You coming Gray, we can't do this without you," Alex said to me. I just looked at my trainer for a moment, then obeyed his order and headed into the gym.

Inside the gym was a wide open arena with a stone floor, and a giant white outline of a pokeball in the middle. On the outskirts of the arena, there were bleachers for spectators, and the ceiling had multiple lights that shone down on the entire area.

"Good afternoon, I assume your party is here to challenge me?" a lady with blonde hair hair asked Alex. This lady appeared to be in her early thirties, and she wore a white tank top, with some olive-green pants.

"That would be correct," Alex said with a smirk on his face.

"Alrighty, I'll just need you to sign a waiver, and we can begin momentarily," the women said in a rather cheerful voice, "Also, my name is Viola, and you are?"

"Alex Hayter, nice to meet you," Alex said as she handed him a waiver, and the two shook hands. "What are these for anyways?" Alex asked as he began reading the book of pages, that was the waiver.

"Ah, it just say's we're not responsible in the event that you or your pokemon get injured, die, suffer permanent injuries, and etcetera," Viola answered.

"Oh…" Alex said nervously as he scratched his name down on the waiver and handed it over to the gym leader.

"Alrighty, are you ready to get this show on the road?" Viola asked as she eagerly placed her hand over one of the pokeballs on her belt.

"Ready as we'll ever be," Alex said as he looked towards out group.

"Excellent, step onto the field, and choose your starting pokemon," Viola said as she walked to the other end of the arena. It took a moment for the two to get fully prepared, but after a moment, the two had fiery determination showing in both of their eyes.

"Gray, you want the honors of going first?" Alex asked me, as he looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Do I have a choice?" I said as I stepped onto the arena.

Viola unclipped a pokeball off her belt, and she tossed the ball up and down, as she observed me carefully while she wore a displeased look.

"You know, an absol would not be the first pick for most trainers, are you sure you want to start with a dark type?" Viola questioned Alex.

"I'm positive, don't underestimate him, he's a handful at times, but he's far from weak," Alex said with confidence, and his words managed to spark a confident smirk on my face and I glared at the gym leader.

"You're absolutely right, I'm not weak."

"You're weak," the shitty umbreon yelled at me from the sideline. The moment I heard those words, my smirk disappeared and turned into an unpleasant frown as I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes.

"I'll deal with you later," I muttered to myself.

"Well, no need for delay," Viola said as she stopped tossing the pokeball, and threw it, "Go surskit!" Viola shouted as the pokeball deployed the pokemon she just announced.

"Are you ready?" Viola asked, for the final time. Alex responded with a nod. "Excellent, then get ready," Viola began to say as I lowered my front end low to the ground, and got ready to attack. "On your mark," Viola continued, and my heart rate began to spike up, "Go!" Viola yelled, and my perception of time slowed down as I sprinted towards the surskit, without even waiting for Alex's command.

"Gray, use ice beam!" Alex commanded. Doing as he commanded, I slid to a dead stop, and concentrated my powers into an ice beam as I opened my mouth with a concentrated energy in my mouth.

"Dodge and use bubble," Viola commanded with tranquility, right as the beam shot towards the surskit. The surskit lept out of the way, and the beam zoomed past it, freezing the ground below the beam, before it collided with the wall and left a patch of ice frozen to the wall.

Phase two of the gym leader's command went into progress, and the surskit opened its nearly invisible mouth, and multiple bubbles floated out of its mouth. The bubbles grew in size as they exited the mouth, and they floated towards me at a slow pace. I stood in place as I stared at the bubbles slowly floating my way. In all honesty, I wasn't really sure how I should have felt at the moment… I mean should I be intimidated by these bubbles? So, not sure on how to respond, I just stood there in disbelief.

"Gray… you may want to move," Alex said calmly, as he gestured for me to move to the side.

"Right…" I said as the bubbles closed in on me, and not feeling threatened, I decided not to move, just see how harmless this attack was. The bubble bumped into me, and the instant it touched my fur, it popped thundering a sound like a balloon popping through the air, and a strong forced threw me back skidding across the ground.

I looked across the arena with my dazed vision, and I could see the other bubbles closing in on me. Alex began to tell a command at me, but the ringing in my head muffled him out. Despite my weariness, I forced myself up, and I tried to move, and the instant I moved, I felt my paws sticking to the ground.

"What the?" I said as I forced myself to move out of the attacks way, even though my paws were sticking to the ground. A slimy substance drenched my fur. I tried to shake it off, but the material managed to stay on my body and stiffen the fur on my body.

"Gross," I said as I continued to try and shake it off, but had no luck. "Seriously, what the hell, explosive bubbles?" I said in disbelief as I looked at the surskit. The creature just stared at me with a blank expression, and the lack of emotions just sent a chilling tremor down my spine.

"Surskit, use mist," Viola commanded. The surskit inhaled a deep breath and it exhaled a thick mist that covered the entire gym arena.

"Now, finish him up!" Viola yelled.

"Gray, stay on the move, and don't let your guard down," Alex said to me through the thick mist.

I looked left and right quickly, and seeing that my vision was lowered, I decided to go with Alex's plan. I took of running in a random direction, each step I took my paws stuck to the ground and took effort to rip off the ground, due to the sticky bubble substance covering me.

After a moment of running, I slid to a stop as I began charging an ice beam. I aimlessly fired the beam and I prayed that my attack would land, but all I heard from the attack was it hitting the wall

on the other side of the gym.

"Surkist, use bubble beam!" Viola's voice yelled through the thick mist.

"Bubble beam?" I repeated to myself.

"Gray, move and counter!" Alex said as the mist was blown away by multiple bubbles that were flying towards me at high speed. I quickly dove to the side, and the bubbles barely missed. As I fell onto the stone ground, I launched an ice ball out of my mouth in the direction that the bubbles came from. The ice ball zoomed through the air blowing the mist from its path and opening a small line of vision and revealed the surskit.

The surskit quickly jumped to the side, and responded with more bubbles. I quickly got up to my feet, and sprinted towards the surskit carefully maneuvering around each bubble. As I neared my foe, I jumped into the air with an attack charging in my maw, and as I reached the peak of my jump, razor sharp shards of ice shot of my mouth, and rained down on the surskit. The surskit flinched back as multiple pieces of ice stuck out of its form.

Not wasting a single chance, I lunged towards the surskit and swung my claws at it. My claws scraped its side, and left three decent sized scratches, but the surskit managed to move out of the way, and saved itself from any real damage. Once again I jumped towards the surskit, but this time the surskit stood in place, and opened its mouth. My eyes widened as a bubble blew out, and collided into me. A loud pop echoed through the arena as I was blown back, and I was sent rolling along the ground, scraping up my body.

"Gray?!" Alex yelled at me with fear as he began to withdraw my pokeball from his belt.

I looked at him in defeat for a moment, I couldn't believe I was losing to a bubble spitting surskit. "No," I said to myself as I pried myself up off of the ground and faced the surskit.

"I'm not losing to you, it'd be degrading?" I said as I panted in exhaustion and I faced the surskit. I took in one final breath, and I ran towards the surskit as fast as my body could handle.

"Surskit, use bubble beam," Viola commanded.

A series of bubbles left surskit's mouth and flew towards me. I quickly dodged to the right, and ducked as a few of the killer bubbles flew over me. Once I got within range, the surskit lept back and blew another bubble towards me. I quickly sidestepped the attack and leapt towards the surskit, and I swung my jagged claws towards it. My three jagged claws tore into the surskits skin and left three scratch streaks on its face, luckily missing the eyes and thankfully the injury was nothing fatal.

The surskit fell to the ground with a high pitched whine and refused to move after my attack. Viola looked at surskit for a moment, before she gave a nod and returned the surskit to its pokeball.

"Good job surskit, you fought well," viola said as she attached the pokeball to her belt. "Well, congrats, you've won against one of the three competitors," Viola said with a smirk. "I hope you're ready, because we're not going down without a fight."

"Neither do we," Alex responded with a confident smile, and then directed his attentions towards me, "Hey Gray, you did an awesome job, why don't you swap out with Flare, so you can catch your breath," Alex suggested.

I responded with a nod, and I walked off the battleground and I as I walked to a spot to take a nap, I passed Flare, "If I can win with a type disadvantage, then you better be able to do your part," I said to Flare as I walked past him.

"Don't worry, I don't plan on leaving here as a fire type that lost to the bug gym," flare said to my back, even if I couldn't see him, I could still sense that smile that he always wore so proudly.

To be continued...

Chapter End

Thanks to genericgamer207 for editing