Ch 9: Peltagrow Gym, Round 2
Lying in the darkness of a musty, foul-smelling cavern miles underneath the surface, with the only source of light being a dead Chinchou several feet away that was slowly dimming out, I could literally feel myself slipping away into unconsciousness. How the fuck was I going to get out of here? I was too stupid to bring a flashlight, I was too stupid to have an electric or fire Pokemon that could light the path, and I was too stupid to even think of a third option I could have thought of before venturing into these ruins.
Everyone was right. I was a terrible trainer. My asshole brother Evan was right. That arrogant prick gym leader Zach was right. That cocky bitch with the ridiculous hat Eliza was right. And that abusive sociopath Marvin was right. I was going to die, and no one would care. Not my parents, who were probably cleaning up the house after celebrating Evan's birthday party and forgetting to invite me. Not anyone from school, as if I had any friends there in the first place. Not anyone I'd met since I left my home a few months ago. Everyone I'd met so far just seemed to hate me or want to kill me. And I couldn't exactly blame them.
Okay, stop. Stop bitching, and solve this. How do you get out of here? I could perhaps lift Chinchou's oozing body, which had been cut in half from Kabutops' scythe, but the light emanating from its body had become so faint I doubt it would last another 5 minutes. What do I have on me? Nothing in my backpack but food and medicine. Could I offer the food to one of the rock Pokemon inside, ask it to lead me out of here? Then it hit me. I just caught a Kabutops that had lived in these ruins for what must have been a long time.
I crawled over to the pokeball that was nestled near Tropius' unconscious body. Tropius was laying with his head pressed directly into the floor, drooling. His wings were frazzled and cut up from fighting with Kabutops. There were slices all around his back from where Kabutops had stabbed into him. I focused on reaching the pokeball, then freeing Kabutops from inside, a part of me illogically fearing the possibility of it attacking me.
Kabutops stood before me, though it was looking weary and battered from taking so many hits from Tropius, swaying precariously like a pendulum, the threat of falling over imminent.
"Can you lead me…" I chose my words very carefully, flinching as it faced me with its beady little eyes. I still found myself scared of it. "To the entrance of this cave? Do you know the way outside?"
Without any kind of physical or verbal recognition that it could, the Kabutops simply scooped me up, making sure to avoid touching me with its scythes, and threw me onto its back. It began marching through the darkness, apparently with night vision that far surpassed my own.
"Wait! I need my bag. And Tropius." Kabutops changed direction, and scooped up my backpack. I reached my arm over his shoulder to take the bag from him, and found Tropius' pokeball. I recalled the grass Pokemon as Kabutops carried me like a sleepy child on its back through the ruins. I wanted to pass out while it was carrying me, since I feared he may just fall over from sheer exhaustion any moment, and incase we bumped into some other insane rock Pokemon that wanted to kill us.
But Kabutops walked for an incredibly long time, never pausing to take a break, maneuvering through the slate of black that was the innards of Duggie's Ruins. Finally, sunlight was visible through a gap on the other side of the entrance tunnel to the cave. Relief flooding through me, I hopped off of Kabutops, nearly tripping as I did as I'd forgotten how uneven and sharp the floor was. The two of us limped toward the entrance of the cave, the light shining bright and brighter as we did. A smile crept onto my face, and I began laughing out of such happiness that we had made it out. I stepped through the opening of the cave, passing by the large boulder that had once covered, it then fell onto my knees into the grass, kissing the earth that I'd missed so much. Kabutops sniffed at the fresh air, unfamiliar with the smell of it.
"Thank you," I whispered, unsure who I was talking to. A new wave of euphoria was making its way through my body. I had three Pokemon now. A Tropius, a Skorupi, and a fucking Kabutops. I could go face Zach now. He'd said I needed to evolve Skorupi into Drapion before he would allow me to challenge him again, but if I insisted that I could beat him with Skorupi, maybe he'd allow me to rematch him. Remembering his roster, I momentarily realized that my very purpose for catching a rock Pokemon, which was to resist his normal moves, was overshadowed by the fact that I caught a Pokemon that was weak to both Diggersby and Heliolisk. Which kind of defeated the whole purpose. But who cares. I caught a Kabutops. That was a bigger deal than Evan catching some piece of shit Skarmory.
I made my way to the Peltagrow Pokemon Center, where Nurse Joy wasn't exactly thrilled to see my face. When she saw that state of my Kabutops and Tropius, however, she immediately rushed them off to treatment. She recommended I get some treatment there as well in the human ward, so I just went with whatever she said. Nothing had broken, and my injuries were relegated to just a few cuts and bruises that should be gone in a week or so, according to Nurse Joy, which may have been a lie because she hated me and probably would've enjoyed seeing me suffer.
After a few hours, my Pokemon and I were all released. I'd come up with a course of action: we go back to the Gord Woods, beat up a ton of those shitty trainers, take their money, and grind my Pokemon until they learned a damn grass move, or evolved, or I wasn't scared they might cut me in half at a moment's notice.
So that's what I did. I spent several weeks camping out in the Gord again, though this time I pushed those fuckers hard. Pokemon were not my friends. They were tools to be used to better my life. They were dispensable. They were problems, but if the problems couldn't be removed, use them to your advantage. Marvin may have been a tad psychotic, but I agreed with most of his philosophies. I'd been too easy on Skorupi and Tropius and all my deceased Pokemon. It was time to push them to their limits.
"Welcome to the Peltagrow Gym, how can I help you today?"
It had been two months since I'd stepped foot into this gym, but here I was again. Finding myself standing in the front lobby, facing that same pretty young secretary I'd casually flirted with all that time ago. The old me. The inexperienced, cocky me. But I hadn't been jerking around in the Gord getting uppity about my skill this time over beating children. I'd rehearsed specific battle strategies for my Tropius, Kabutops, and Skorupi, carefully strategizing over each plan of action they were to use if they were to end up battling Diggersby or Heliolisk, even though I had planned which Pokemon would face Zach's very specifically.
"Yes, hi. Adam Hunter requesting an official battle with Zach for the Normal Badge." I gave the girl a polite smile, and rested my hands on her desk as she typed away my information into the computer, asking me if I'd been with the gym before. The bitch had forgotten me.
After finding me in the system database, which had all my personal information regarding my Pokemon lineup (which she updated) and my contact information, she told me to have a seat in the waiting room and that Zach would call me in shortly. I sat down in a comfy lounge chair beside an open window that looked out into the nearby Pokemon Center, and held a pokeball in my hand, fidgeting with it, passing it from hand to hand to keep me from remaining still.
That Butterfree in my stomach feeling came rushing back to me, though much more contained than the last time I'd been here. I felt much more ready, much more alert and assured as to my plan. Before, I'd just banked on my underleveled Pokemon tackling head-on into weak ass pokes, but now I knew I was up against. A Diggersby, a Heliolisk, and some last 'mon I'd yet to discover.
I'd trained the shit out of my weak ass Pokemon, though. Skorupi had yet to evolve, of fucking course, despite being on my team for 4 long months now. He hadn't even learned any new moves. Bringing him into this gym, for his very first gym battle, I'd went with him using Poison Fang, Bite, Pin Missile, and Leer.
Tropius, despite being a goofy looking radish-looking mother fucker, went hard as hell during many of my Gord battles, which is what I needed and what I required from my team. He'd learned a grass move, even though it had a weak base power according to the Pokedex entry when I searched it up: Razor Leaf. But it was a grass move, so at least he'd get same type attack bonus, or STAB, from using it.
Kabutops, I learned, had a great movepool from the start. He began right away knowing Slash, Aqua Jet, Sand Attack, and Rock Tomb. Kabutops was by far the most agile and quickest of my team, using his speed to get powerful attacks into his opponents. He was my wild card, my Pokemon that went insane during battles and ravaged opponents. Skorupi used to be that way, but he'd learned to control his temper over time and listened to me more.
"Adam? Zach's ready to see you now." The cute secretary's voice called from over her front desk. Adrenaline rushing through my body, my hands slightly shaking, I placed my pokeball back into the backpack as I rose to my feet and made my way back toward the double doors that led to the auditorium where I'd previously lost to Zach.
"Well, look who stopped by after all this time," the voice of the normal gym leader called from no particular direction, as it echoed throughout the gymnasium. I searched around for where it had come from, but the gym floor was empty, and the stands were barren. "Up here."
My eyes jolted upward, irritated slightly by the bright lights of the stadium spotlights shining down, to notice box seats above the stands for the first time, where behind a glass window, Zach stood tall with his hands in his pockets, confident and ready for a battle if the gleam in his eye didn't give it away.
"Oh. Hey. Long time no see, unfortunately." I greeted, not meaning it. I hadn't planned out how to begin this awkward confrontation after having been chewed out by him two months ago. The haughty dickhead.
"Sounds like sarcasm to me," Zach smiled, despite picking up on it. "Be right down." He disappeared behind a curtain in the back of the box seats and I stood there at the entrance, unsure what to do with my hands and feeling incredibly self-conscious. Zach looked all clean and well dressed, whereas me being a trainer meant I was stuck wearing the same pair of clothes for god knows how long, before I went into town to purchase new ones and throw away the old. Also, I didn't get to use soap very often during baths in the nasty lake water. And this dude got to go home to a nice, fancy apartment that was paid for by the Gym Association.
Zach emerged from the double doors that I had entered through, and approached me with his hand out. I shook it.
"Hey, Adam. How've you been?"
"Good. You know, typical trainer stuff. Battling, sleeping in the woods, ignoring my parents. The usual." I replied, trying to decipher if he liked me or not.
"I've been there, believe me. So you've evolved your Pokemon, I imagine, since you're back here."
I dreaded him asking this, considering I was told I was banned until they were evolved. "Well...I replaced most of them. I have a new team now."
"You don't have any of your old team?"
Fuck. Just tell him. "I...do. I still have one. My Skorupi. He's gotten a lot better."
"You're speaking as if he hasn't evolved into a Drapion."
"He hasn't."
"Man, I told you-"
"Listen, listen, listen. You never got to battle Skorupi. He was always the best on my team, and he's way stronger now."
"It doesn't matter, Adam. An underleveled Pokemon is an underleveled-"
"I guarantee you my 'underleveled Pokemon' will beat your team." My voice was beginning to rise defensively.
"Oh, really?" His eyebrows cocked and his eyelids lowered a little, his eyes full of doubt.
"Besides, my other two 'mons are fully evolved anyway. I have a solid team, man. Give me just one battle, and if I lose again, I'll do what you said last time. I'll quit training and get a job in the city. I've been training all this time, man. I've spent 4 months of my life, a third of this whole year just being a trainer, and I still haven't got a single badge. I can't wait anymore, I've wasted so much time as it is. If I still can't beat you at this point then I never will. I need to face you - today. Right now." I withheld my yearning desire to go back home to sleeping in a warm bed, to not having to pay for my own food, to getting the chance to feel hot water on me as I showered late at night.
Zach held his tongue, although his face told me everything. He didn't think I could beat him; he felt that just because my Skorupi hadn't evolved that I was just another bad trainer who was forced into this by his parents. Which may not have been far off, but I was still definitely better than this guy.
"Okay. This is against my better judgement, but we'll have a rematch. Are you ready?" He was already walking backwards towards his side of battlefield, knowing my answer.
"Yes."
We took our places on opposing sides of the chalk-lined gymnasium, facing each other and both of us having our 3 chosen pokeballs resting on the ground beside our feet.
"Do you remember the gym policy-?"
"Yeah, I remember. Let's just do this." I cut him off, anxious and eager to prove how much stronger I'd gotten.
Zach simply grinned in an assured manner, picked up the pokeball closest to his feet, and released his first Pokemon whilst calling out, "I choose Heliolisk."
The yellow reptilian Pokemon stood on its hind legs, its thin tail weaving like a coil of yarn behind it as it stood perfectly still, besides its dark skinned head which was surveying its surroundings with curiosity.
I chose Tropius, seeing as my other two Pokemon took hits hard from this thing, and didn't have much to hit it back with anyway. Tropius took to the air in his usual dramatic style upon being released, and he glided along his side of the field, ignoring everything that he should have been focused on and instead showing off. I wanted to scream at Tropius to fly back down so he could mad dog Heliolisk or I'd chuck my shoe at him, but that would make me look like I had no control over my team, so I stayed silent.
"A Tropius. Very cool. Haven't seen one of those in a while." He remarked. Shut up, Zach.
"Ready, Zach?" I asked the Peltagrow gym leader.
"Ready, Adam." He replied.
"Let the battle begin, then." I mimicked from our previous battle two months ago.
"Thunderbolt!"
"Fly!"
Heliolisk sprang to action with incredible speed, cocking out of its statuesque position to shoot a bolt of lightning from its mouth directly at Tropius. But Tropius' speed had increased greatly over my training, and he soared to the top of the auditorium, dancing among the ceiling spotlights, using them as shields to block the electricity.
"Don't let up, keep firing! Break the lights!" Zach called out. He was so into the battle that he was willing to destroy his own gym equipment. This guy was determined to see me lose.
Tropius was darting behind the large, brightly lit ceiling spotlights, briskly moving from one to the other as Heliolisk fired Thunderbolts relentlessly, doing so much damage that most of the spotlights not only shattered, but two of them somehow became detached from the ceiling and went falling straight down to the wooden floor, crashing with the scream of broken glass and metal tearing apart. Zach and I barely noticed. There were only so many lights. I needed to go offensive or Tropius would take a hit.
"Yo! Razor Leaf!"
Tropius heard, and shot like an arrow toward the ground while Heliolisk was destroying one of the last spotlights with his electric power, hoping to outspeed Heliolisk's reaction time. As Tropius neared the ground, he turned at a 90 degree angle so he was now using all the speed he'd propelled downward straight toward Heliolisk. With that, Tropius fired off an insane amount of sharp leaves from his wings that would've bombarded that skinny little twig with a nice amount of damage.
"Surf."
Out of nowhere, a wall of water emerged from behind Heliolisk, then descended upon him like a backwards cape, shielding him from the razor sharp leaves as the thick wave of water swallowed them up and eliminated their threat. Tropius swayed out of the way of the water to avoid splashing into it, and he retreated back into the air as Heliolisk opened up its mouth to fire off another blast of power. He shot that dangerous cone of energy, that Hyper Voice, without even being ordered by Zach. Even with Tropius' great speed, he couldn't avoid taking a hit from the edges of the Hyper Voice. Thankfully, it didn't hit him at full force. He momentarily lost his balance, almost colliding into the stands, but then he regained his composure, and swerved out of the cone.
"Heliolisk, Hyper Voice. Give it everything." Zach ordered.
I had to think fast. All of the spotlights were too damaged, hanging loosely from the ceiling or sprinkled with holes, to give Tropius the protection that he needed.
"Get behind one of the spotlights on the floor! Now!" I shouted to be heard over the stirring of the screech coming out of Heliolisk's gaping mouth as he fired off his biggest attack yet, encompassing nearly the entire field, the ground up to the ceiling.
Tropius went for cover behind the fallen spotlight, crouching like a soldier in war behind it as Heliolisk's wave of energy shot everywhere. The pressure from the Hyper Voice was forcing the spotlight to drag along the floor, away from Heliolisk, pushing Tropius. Luckily, the spotlight was made of steel and so it gave a nice resist to the powerful move, but it was still too much seeing as Heliolisk was putting all his energy into this finishing blow.
"Tropius! Listen!" I shouted as Tropius was being shoved along the floor by the spotlight, his eyes shut tight in concentration and to not have to stare at the shimmering air all around him that the Hyper Voice caused, waiting for my guidance. "Headbutt the spotlight! And push! Fucking push hard!"
Tropius hesitated momentarily to slam his head into a steel light fixture, but he did as he was told, and he lodged his head into it, creating a dent in the metal. He planted his feet onto the floor so he could get good footing and finally push back against the force of Heliolisk's Hyper Voice. Tropius was grunting with effort to just shove it back, and his normally cheerful, green-and-brown face was turning bright red fast.
"Push that fucker! Headbutt it!" I repeated for emphasis. Tropius cried out in effort, even flapping his wings to get some friction going. He had stopped the spotlight from being dragged along the floor, but he couldn't push it back forward toward Heliolisk. It was a draw.
"Heliolisk, come on! Hyper Voice through the light and we win!" Zach was too prideful and cocky that even though he could have just Thunderbolted and broke through the spotlight like he previously did, he wanted to win using the flashy move.
"We are not losing this, Tropius! Now push!"
"Hyper Voice through the light and we win!"
"Headbutt it toward Heliolisk! Where's all that training we went through!?"
"Hyper Voice!"
"Headbutt!"
The two Pokemon were tethered down to their respective spots, both of them refusing to budge. Tropius had his head lodged into the damaged spotlight, which was slowly being torn apart like paper in a fire through the sheer power of Hyper Voice.
Then, through Zach and my own screaming at our Pokemon, one of them finally started to wear down. And that was Heliolisk, whose mouth began to close from holding it open for so long and exerting so much energy from it. And that opening was all Tropius needed.
With Hyper Voice's power significantly decreased, the spotlight fired toward the lizard pokemon with Tropius' strength backing it up at a rapid pace. It reminded me momentarily of a time long ago when my brother, Evan, and I were arguing over who got to use the comfortable blanket before bed, back when we shared a room. We were both tugging on the blanket, trying to wrench it out of the other's grasp with everything we had. And in one swift moment, I let go of the blanket and Evan went flying backwards. It was like that, except the exact opposite. Tropius was pushing the spotlight so quickly, Heliolisk barely had time to register what was happening.
"Gust the spotlight at him!" I ordered. Tropius released all the pressure he'd been putting on his soft head, reeled back slightly, then used his wings to send off one of his mini tornado's, his Gust, at the spotlight. The light, being carried by the Gust, sailed directly at the tired Heliolisk's head.
"Dodge it!" Zach shouted desperately. When a trainer screamed out 'dodge it', they had no plan.
Heliolisk found the energy to leap into the air, the flying light whizzing inches underneath him. Another opening.
"Razor Leaf!" Tropius flew toward the airbound Heliolisk and sent another barrage of deadly leaves its way.
"Surf yourself!" Zach shouted reflexively, already knowing how to deal with this move.
Like before, the Heliolisk sprouted a wave of water and used it like a bubble around itself for protection from Tropius' attack, which was absorbed easily. Now was our only chance.
"Headbutt through the water!" Not missing a beat, Tropius flew directly at the Heliolisk as it still sailed downward through the air. Nowhere to dodge this time and not expecting an attack through its Surf, the Heliolisk finally took a hit as Tropius landed his Headbutt right in the lizard's stomach. Heliolisk went flying to the ground, and landed on his stomach with a loud thump."Razor Leaf!" I shouted out, and Tropius was finally able to land his bombardment of leaves on the Heliolisk, who could only lay on the ground and take hit after hit of it, the leaves slicing his skin up and drawing blood. When Tropius finally let up, exhausted and nearly falling to the floor himself, it was clear to everyone that Heliolisk had been knocked out, and that I had won the first round.