Ch 14: Parking Lot
It's odd how a gigantic hole in your motel room wall can start to feel like an everyday thing; just another piece of evidence that nearly every trainer I seem to bump into seems to be dangling somewhere between insanity and pure arrogance. That two punk teenage trainers thought they could just absolutely ravage a motel room over someone shouting at them to shut up reeked of some of the most overconfident little shithead trainers I could think of. They reminded me of the kids back in school at Lunaris: so cocky in their abilities yet so sloppy on the sports teams, or their disrespect for the teachers wishes to be quiet. Someone needed to take these kinds of bitches down a peg, and I had never had the balls to do something about it back in school, but I wasn't walking away from this now.
I made sure to grab my backpack, my cash, and all of my belongings before leaving and locking up. After all, this could all just be some kind of set-up to rob my room while I was sure to be out of it battling in the parking lot. Dealing with some shady characters in the Gord had its advantages. It forced me to be smart to survive. Also, the gaping opening between my room and theirs, while not anything out of the ordinary for me, was not comforting.
Celmont Motel was a typical low-rise building that overcharged its patrons for a pretty mediocre room, but the one benefit this one had over the one I had seen in Peltagrow City was that it had a pool in the backyard, complete with standard white lawn chairs circling the pool. It's just that there were dead leaves sprinkled all over the water as well as a wild Psyduck that was floating on its back napping, which showed me the owner didn't consider cleanliness a priority.
My room was one of the end rooms, on the far left side of the motel, conveniently right next to the parking lot, where sure enough the two boys were waiting. Jacob and Mikey. Jacob had been tossing rocks from the parking lot like a football, sending the rock in high, arching throws - aiming toward the pool, trying to hit the sleeping Psyduck. His little brother, Mikey, was sitting with his hands over his stomach on the hood of a car that definitely did not belong to him, still looking rather sickly and close to passing out. The Pangoro that had damaged my room was nowhere to be seen. Mikey was the first to notice me.
"Jayyycuhbb!" Mikey alerted his brother, who followed his brother's gaze to spot me stepping onto the asphalt of the parking lot. It was a rather dead one too, with only 6 cars scattered around the lot.
"See?" Jacob greeted me by looking toward his brother and casting the rest of his untossed rocks aside. "I told you he'd come. I'm never wrong."
"I know we originally agreed to a straight 100 for the winner," I said, approaching them slowly with hands in my pocket. "But considering how confident you are, I'm sure you wouldn't be opposed to upping the dollar amount."
"What you mean?" Jacob's brows furrowed in distrust, his arms crossing over his chest. He looked like such a child to me, even though we were likely the same age.
"How about we make it 500?" I asked.
Jacob's pouty expression did not change, but Mikey's sloppy face sure did.
"Sure," Jacob answered, unfolding his arms and offering one of them as a handshake to me. "Five hundred."
I never returned a handshake as fast as I did that night,
"Jayy-cubb - daz all our moneyyy doe!" Mikey, the drunk one, intervened. The drunk one had more sense than his sober brother.
"Shut up, Mikey. When am I ever wrong?" Jacob snapped.
I myself did not even have 300 dollars, and it is technically illegal to agree to a battle when you don't have the funds to back it up, but A) I wasn't going to lose to this punk, and B) I told myself I would anonymously leave some of the money hidden somewhere in the front office on my way out as some kind of payment for the damage to the room that wasn't even my fault.
"Jayyy-cuh! Juz becuh dis guy look like da uda guy - daz all uh our moniezz Jaycuh! Don' be so stupih!" Mikey impressively managed to construct a somewhat full sentence, though it came off a garbled mess.
"Would you shut the fuck up, Mikey!? They don't even look alike! Shut up!" Jacob screamed.
"What's he talking about?" I couldn't help asking, though I sensed Jacob wouldn't give that information away.
"Nothing," Jacob answered immediately.
"You loo' lie da uda asshoole who beat Jaykuhb!" Mikey hollered, and he started to clutch at his stomach no longer in pain, but in deep laughter, soon howling as if he had heard the most creative joke in his life.
"I look like something asshole something Jacob?" I tried understanding, turning from Mikey to Jacob to clarify what his brother was talking about. It seemed oddly personal, like something I should keep pushing.
Jacob rolled his eyes and grunted. "You have a brother, don't you?"
"Yeah," I replied. "You've met Evan?"
"Uh, yeah, we've met your brother," Jacob said in a sardonic way that indicated it was not a good experience. "You look just like him and you sound just like him. We thought it was him when we heard you telling us to shut up from the other room. When I saw it wasn't I was a little unsure what to do, but then I saw you were a trainer and I figured you had to be brothers."
"For the record, I don't like Evan, either. But don't act like you're so much better than him."
"I don't give a shit what you think, kid. I'm gonna beat you like your jackass brother beat Mikey when he agreed to a battle with a drunk kid who could barely stand. What kind of bitch move is that, huh?" Jacob spat. "Who agrees to battle a drunk trainer? Only a pussy does that."
"And why exactly is your underage brother getting shitfaced and challenging trainers who far outclass him? Seems to me the problem lies in your brother's drinking problem, and who's supplying him with all this alcohol anyway? Do your parents know? I wonder if the Celmont Police Department would like to know about this underage illegal trainer getting wasted and damaging private property over his fragile ego on at least 2 occasions?"
"That's it! I'm done talking!" Jacob jumped back, pulled a pokeball out from nowhere, and hurled it aggressively toward the ground. A familiar hue of bright red energy emerged from the pokeball and formed itself into a rather small, blue, igloo shaped Pokemon that I was not too familiar with.
I whipped out my pokedex to do a read on this thing. Water and poison type, generally defensive, and in the comments section of the pokedex where trainers worldwide could put their input on the pokemon, someone had left the top comment: "IT DOESN'T DIE! FATTEST POKEMON EVAR!" and its name was Toxapex. Origin from Alola.
Jacob's Toxapex in particular looked a little on the smaller side than the Pokedex statistics suggested, so maybe it wasn't that strong? Then again, the comments section pretty much confirmed that this pokemon wasn't exactly powerful, but it sponged hits like no other. So I'd need something that can break through it by powering up, and only one of my pokemon had that capability.
"I pick Kabutops."
Another flash of blinding red, and then in the middle of the parking lot a tall, brown, gangly Kabutops stood poised ready to strike with its scythes held in front of its face like a professional boxer would hold his fists. The Toxapex, which was actually smaller than my hand, actually hovered several inches over the ground by using its tentacles that sprouted from its head to hold it up proudly. The tentacles appeared to be able to be used as some kind of protective shell for the pokemon to retract inside when it was taking hits. I could see how this could be tough to take down, despite its small size.
"Ready, loser?" Jacob catcalled, backing up several feet to join his younger brother on the hood of the car.
Jacob may be young and arrogant, but he had some strong mons. A Pangoro and a Toxapex is nothing to scoff at, and despite his age and ugly attitude, he somehow had the air of a trainer who's put in the work. Up until now, other than Zach, the only trainers I had ever faced were other clueless young kids kicked out of their homes in Lunaris by unsatisfied parents and the rare mediocre out-of-town trainers thinking the best place to catch pokemon was in those shitty woods. I hadn't had much of a trainer who could hold their own with me, and I got the feeling Jacob would be that trainer.
"Ready."
"Toxic it!" Jacob ordered. Toxapex reeled a few of its tentacles back, then hurled a purple ball-shaped glob straight at Kabutops.
Time was going fast, and I knew that poison types never missed toxic. Thinking on my feet, I cried out, "Slash that shit! If you let it touch you -" That was all my Kabutops needed to hear, as the fastest Pokemon on my team used its scythes to slash down in a dramatic X motion, destroying the glob before it could touch any part of him. He remained unpoisoned.
"Forget poisoning it, just burn this thing! Scald!" Jacob said.
Toxapex used its tentacles to scurry around the parking lot, moving in a zigzag pattern as it fired off streams of steaming water from its mouth. Kabutops was not intimidated though, and was rapidly jumping from left to right, back and forth, avoiding the hot water with an amazing acrobatic display of agility and grace.
"Come on, concentrate, Pex! Scald!" Jacob repeated. His Toxapex paused briefly in its efforts to spray the Kabutops that was simply too fast for it, but this brief pause was enough to cause Kabutops to slow just a hair, and in that instance, Toxapex fired a dangerously bubbling amount of hot water straight at Kabutops face.
"Up!" I ordered. "And Slash!"
Kabutops' instincts were phenomenal, as he narrowly avoiding the stream of water by sailing directly over it, and then descending straight on top of Toxapex, its scythes held threateningly high as he was using the downward momentum to strike Toxapex with a big hit, finally. This is how you do it. This is how good trainers win-
"Baneful Bunker!" Jacob shouted. I had never heard that move before. A purple shield temporarily engulfed Toxapex for a brief few seconds, but Kabutops could not stop gravity. Instead of being able to jab his scythe hard into the Toxapex for some good damage, Kabutops instead went slamming painfully hard into the Baneful Bunker, and Kabutops immediately started glowing purple and trembling with sickness, as if he had suddenly developed a terrible cold. So Baneful Bunker poisoned Pokemon that made contact with it. Noted.
"Yeeeayyyy!" Mikey drunkenly cheered for his brother, fists pounding the night sky above. "Iz poisoneded!"
"Kabutops, take advantage while Toxapex can't use that move again! Slash!" I ordered, not missing a beat, seeing as pokemon have a lot of trouble using a protective move twice in a row. So Kabutops was on a timer and this Toxapex had some special version of Protect that poisons upon contact. I just needed to start applying some good damage with Kabutops and any little bit of chip against this thing helped for my next Pokemon to take it down. Kabutops got a good hit in, actually slicing off several tips of Toxapex's tentacles as the small creature squirmed to get away, retreating under a nearby parked two-seater car.
"Pex, get a nice Recover while you're under there and heal all that damage off," Jacob said confidently, no edge of panic or stress in his voice over Kabutops. He viewed it as no threat.
A bright white light emanated from under the sports car as Toxpaex recovered his health. Kabutops stood several feet away from the car but watching it closely, waiting for an idea or a move from me.
Knowing Toxapex's full range of attacks now was helpful, but at this point my Kabutops was beginning to show signs of fatigue from dodging so many scalds and fighting off the poison that was draining it faster and faster by the minute. I had to begin breaking through this thing fast or my Kabutops would have accomplished nothing with this Toxapex just spamming recovery.
"Kabutops!" I cried. "Swords Dance!"
"Fire off a Scald while it's setting up, Pex!"
From under the car, a jet of steaming water burst forth reminiscent of a damaged fire hydrant, and it connected right into Kabutops' feet, causing Kabutops to dance from one foot to the next in pain as it was too busy concentrating on raising his attack to defend itself. But those brief moments were what we needed to win.
"Get under the car and force it out!" I ordered, knowing that Kabutops, with his slim figure, could get under the car and use its scythes to force the Toxapex to move elsewhere. A part of me wanted to just order Kabutops to try tearing right through the car to get to the Toxapex in the most intimidating way, but that was someone's car and I wasn't about to ruin someone's week over battling recklessly.
Jacob, Mikey, and I observed as the Kabutops, shaking off the chills associated with poison, made a beeline straight under the car, sliding under it with its arms outstretched so it could easily claw at the Toxapex, but it was waiting. Toxapex narrowly dodged the Kabutops by using its slimy tentacles to latch onto the side of the car and used its suction pads on its tentacles to climb out from under the car, up the side (leaving purplish slime all over the blind side mirror) until it at last came to a stop on the hood of the sports car as Kabutops was fumbling around underneath it, wondering where it went.
"It's on top!" I said, slightly embarrassed because Kabutops looked rather stupid with half its body sticking out from under the car. Mikey guffawed at the sight in the most over-the-top drunken way one could imagine, and cemented my opinion of him as an annoying little shit.
Kabutops pulled himself out, stood upright, and faced the Toxapex with the two pokemon at the same eye-level now. Both of them looked angry, and neither was anywhere near backing down. I had to give Jacob some credit: most of the 3v3s I had in my time were pretty much over by now, but both of us were still on our first mons, and even though Kabutops was poisoned and slowing, he wasn't out.
"Kabutops. Rock Slide!" Rock Slide was his most powerful move at this point, and although he hasn't used it that often, now was the time to go for power over accuracy.
"Scald the rocks!"
As Kabutops used his scythes to summon a handful of jagged, sharp rocks above his head, and hurl them directly at Toxapex, who fired off an equally powerful jet of water to stop the onslaught of stones. But one rock in particular evaded the hot water, managing to slam into Toxapex's head, knocking the pokemon off the car, sailing into the air briefly, and landing on the parking lot gravel with a squelch.
This was our opening.
"Kabutops, get a good Slash in! Use all that energy you piled up with that Swords Dance! I want you to finish this!" I commanded, though I could see my mon shuddering and nearly falling to his knees from the pain of the poison racking up in his body, wearing him out.
"Baneful Bunker!" Jacob countered.
The familiar purple hue of protective shielding surrounded the front of Toxapex. But if it just covered the front-
"Over it and finish him!" I demanded.
Kabutops was beautiful: even though he was charging straight at Toxapex, without a moment's delay, he used his right foot to lift his entire body directly over Toxapex, even adding n an unnecessary flip as he did, just barely evading the top edge of the Baneful Bunker's protection. But the shield only covered the front half of Toxapex's body, leaving the back half fully exposed. Before Kabutops even landed behind Toxapex, he had managed to fully stab one of his scythes directly into the back of Toxapex, with the front half sticking straight out of Toxapex's body, much to the horror of Jacob and Mikey.
"We forfeit!" Jacob screamed, tears starting to well in his face. Toxapex has fallen unconscious, and Kabutops removed his arm from its body. The pokemon was nowhere near dead. A simple visit to the pokemon center would take care of its injuries overnight, that was a very durable Toxapex. But the sight of seeing one of his undoubtedly fattest pokemon impaled was probably a little much for the two teenage boys.
"We forfeit," he repeated to himself through tears of embarrassment and guilt as he recalled the Toxapex to his pokeball. "No need to go through with any more. You win." Jacob shamefully handed me my reward money, all 500 of their last dollars, to Mikey's horror.
"And you're going to talk to that hotel owner and repay him for the damage to that room that I didn't do and that I'm not going to get blamed for," I told Jacob with the most serious face I could conjure.
"Yeah, I will. Now for the love of Arceus, just please leave us alone," Jacob pouted, returning to his drunk and messy younger brother, who was sitting in a state of shock over his brother's sudden forfeit.
While finally having the chance to be rid of these two was appealing of course, a thought occurred to me.
"Before I leave," I said, catching Jacob's attention. "Is there a faster way to get to Wintervale from here than the bus?"
Jacob and Mikey were quiet. Jacob was just glowering at me, as if he was outraged at the fact that I would ask for his help after just beating him.
"I mean, I ask 'cause you're a trainer. So I assume you know about the cities where the gyms are at. And since you have some decent mons on your team like Pangoro and Toxapex, I'm assuming you don't come from the Gord or Lunaris or Peltagrow, where's it's just crappy bug pokemon and normal types and whatever's in Duggie's Ruins. So maybe Wintervale? Or just somewhere east. So, tell you what, I'll give you half your cash back if you offer me a superior alternative route. Maybe someplace I can catch some more decent pokemon, it's been a while since I got a new one. Alright, I'm ranting. So - do you know a faster way to Wintervale or am I keeping all your money?"
Jacob shared a quick glance with Mikey, then looked back at me with a smile.
"Yeah," Jacob answered. "I know a pretty good shortcut."