March 12th Part 2 (season 1 episode 14)
It's a few minutes before 10:30, I am in one of the ready rooms in the Wilcox Arena, ready for my match that I will be participating in soon. A person knocks at the door and opens it up. "Zane Arrington?" I nod and he opens the door wider to let me out. I follow him into the lower level of the arena till he brings me to an entrance to the field, tells me when to walk out, and then walks away. After a few minutes, just like with what happened in the last week, my name is called and I walk out onto the field to cheers. A minute later my opponent walks out to the field.
A woman standing taller than me walks out to the field. She has short, wavy, ginger hair that is just left unstyled. She is wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans. Her name is Amber Harley, a 5-year participant of the PEL. My opponent for the day. I look up in the stands and see Roddy looking down at me, and gives me a smile. I know he'll be closely examining this match for the both of us.
"This match between Zane Arrington and Amber Harley will begin." The referee announces. "This will be a one-on-one pokemon match with one pokemon each. When either trainer's pokemon is unable to battle the match will be decided. Send out your pokemon." He announces.
"Frosmoth, go." I say, throwing my pokeball and releasing my snow-white moth pokemon.
"Paras, you're up." She says throwing her pokeball and out appears a tiny creature with mushrooms on its back. I'm kind of shocked. In terms of size, I have the advantage. In terms of type, I have the advantage. But if there is anything I've learned as a trainer, it's that you never count out an opponent. If Amber is using Paras in an official capacity, it either means that Paras is stronger than it looks or she doesn't think much of my abilities.
"Let the battle begin." The referee announces. Well time to make a statement.
"Frosmoth, Icy Wind." Frosmoth flaps its wings and cold wind with tiny ice crystals comes off of them, heading towards Paras.
"Paras, dodge." Paras moves away from the wind, in an extremely fast fashion, completely dodging the attack.
"That's fast." I say surprised. Amber smiles.
"You've seen nothing yet, Slash." Amber commands. Paras leaps from the field, towards Frosmoth. It raises its claw and slashes at Frosmoth's face, with Frosmoth crying out. It keeps its flight in the air but it doesn't look happy now.
"Blizzard." I command out. Frosmoth opens up its mouth and breaths a large amount of ice crystals and snow pellets. They head for Paras but it immediately jumps up and dodges out of the way.
"X-Scissors." Amber commands. Paras uses the momentum to launch itself towards Frosmoth with its claws crossed in an X formation. Once it connects with Frosmoth's head it uncrosses it claws, completing the attack and pushing itself off of its opponent.
So, Paras is a quick based pokemon. Using its speed and agility to dodge attacks and strike quickly. But from what I'm seeing, its attacks aren't all that powerful, that's why it's based on speed, because it can't take much damage. What I need to do is get one or two good hits in. I have a good idea about how to do that.
"Frosmoth, Icy Wind again." Frosmoth flaps its wings, releasing more ice crystals from its wings.
"Paras, dodge it." Paras quickly moves away from the ice crystals. "Now Poison Powder." There we go. I knew there was some sort of weakening move in its arsenal.
"Frosmoth, Icy Wind to stop the powder." Paras releases a purple powder from the mushrooms on its back while Frosmoth flaps its wings, sending out ice crystals towards the spreading powder. The two attacks collide in mid air and the Icy Wind freezes up the powder, making it fall harmlessly to the ground. So, Paras poisons its opponent, weakening it, thus allowing it to come in with its Slash and X-Scissors attacks. So, it doesn't need to be powerful, just speedy to dodge attacks. Amber doesn't look to happy that I stopped a major part of her strategy.
"Paras, get in close and use Slash." Paras moves around the field quickly, almost to quickly to predict its movements. Eventually it leaps towards Frosmoth, claws ready to attack and I know that is where I need to take my chance.
"Frosmoth, Blizzard." Frosmoth opens its mouth and releases the large amount of ice crystals right when Paras is in front of it. Paras is engulphed in the ice crystals and thrown backwards towards its side of the field. It lands hard on the field and doesn't get up.
"Paras is unable to battle. The winner is Frosmoth and the winner of the match is Zane Arrington." The referee announces. I'm happy as Frosmoth comes back to my side of the field. Amber returns her Paras and walks off the field. I notice there is a smattering of applause from the stands as I return Frosmoth and walk off the field. I know that the battle wasn't as exciting and I probably wasn't expected to lose but still, a victory is a victory and it's my first official victory since my introductory match.
I leave the arena and walk outside. I find Roddy standing next to the walkway, we see each other and I walk over to him. A few people tell me good job and I feel good about it. I make it over to Roddy. "How did it look?" I ask.
"It looked good. It was quick, decisive, but effective. You showed that you can easily counter an effective strategy even though you had the clear advantage. People won't think it's a big victory at all but you've put your foot in and those examining you will see that you know how to counter strategy." That's a good thing. First real match and maybe it wasn't against a huge opponent but it was enough to show what I can do.
"Good, shows I'm effective here. It means I'll have more chances in the future." Roddy smiles.
"We both did well today and that's all that matters. We should go celebrate at that The Grounds, talk about our next gameplan."
"That's a good idea, let's go." We leave the campus and head into town. We make it to the café in good time and it's not as busy as it was when we were here a couple days ago. We get in line and wait until we can give our order.
"I'll take a Vanilla Almond black tea and a chocolate chip cookie." I order.
"I'll take a small mocha and a chocolate chip cookie." Roddy orders back.
"That will be $7.15." The cashier says to us. Before Roddy can say anything, I pull out my card and hand it to the girl.
"I'll pay this time." I say to Roddy who just chuckles. We wait at the end of the counter to get our orders. When they come, we sit at an empty table and start eating and drinking.
"So, what's the plan?" I ask.
"Well, you have a double battle coming up on Thursday. Have you thought to what combination of pokemon you are going to use?" He asks me and it's a good question, one I was thinking about since I got the assignment.
"I have been and I think I know exactly what combination I'll end up using. But I think we should be talking about your match for tomorrow. You are in a one-on-one match and have to use a normal type pokemon. So far, in your team I know of just Wigglytuff as a normal type pokemon. Are you going to use it for your battle?" I ask him, curious if he might go for a new pokemon.
"Yeah, that's my difficulty." He begins, seeming worried. "If I had known I would need to use a normal pokemon for my second battle, I would have kept Wigglytuff as a secret. You see Wigglytuff is one of my strongest pokemon. So, I know how to decide if I should use it, knowing my opponent has probably prepared for it or try another pokemon as a surprise." That is a normal thought process. Do you go with strength or surprise when facing an opponent who knows one of your pokemon's full movesets.
"Well, that is your decision to make for tomorrow. But you also have to remember that your opponent will probably come after you with a rock, steel, ghost, or even a fighting type pokemon to have an advantage." He nods and we fall into silence, eating and drinking.
"So, about that tag team match we are in together. How do you want to train for that?" Roddy asks.
"Well, we have a couple of days off, on Tuesday and Wednesday so we might be able to train then and see what we can do about a team dynamic. But honestly, it seems that our only hope is to see how good we are on the battlefield. We won't know if we can work as a team without seeing how we do officially." I respond with. I look up to see a familiar face walking towards us. Roddy also looks up and smiles. The man walking towards us is Samuel Crawford.
"Do you mind if I sit with you?" He asks us shyly.
"No problem, take a seat." I say smiling and waving towards the chair closest to him. He sits down. I notice that he is holding onto a cookie and munching on it.
"So, Sam is it?" He nods. "How are you doing?"
"Doing ok. I just wanted to thank you two from before. For being so polite to me."
"No problem. We are quite nice guys honestly." Roddy tells him. Before he can say any more, the door to the café opens up and the two items of our discussion show up. Mason and Leonard. They look around and fix their eyes immediately on Sam and they smile. But I notice that Roddy immediately gives a harsh glare at them and I throw out one to them as well. Their looks go from smiling to frustration and they walk out the door. I can tell that they don't exactly get told off much. That or they don't usually have people standing up for people they pick on.
"They need to be taught a lesson." I say to no one in particular.
"That's what started this really. It happened two weeks ago, I had a two pokemon each fight against Mason and it went extremely poorly. I lost both of my pokemon without so much as him breaking a sweat. I think that's when they realized I was easy pickings." He looks quite down at telling the story.
"Hey, no need to be hard on yourself. Some people just have bad days is all." Roddy says with a smile and Sam gives back a meek smile in return but I can tell there is no passion behind it.
"I know but this big time stuff isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I did well in some local battling clubs but I realized that my training doesn't help me here. But its difficult when I need to keep battling and doing events to stay around. My rating is a measly 64. I haven't gone above 75 in the whole two months I've been here. It just keeps falling. Eventually I'm afraid I may be asked to leave." He looks so downfallen. Roddy gives me a look and I understand what it means immediately, we should help him.
"Hey, we would be glad to help train you at any time." I tell him. He looks up but doesn't look any better.
"Thanks, but you are still new here so I would expect you have more things on your plate than helping out someone else. Plus, I hear you are far more talented for me so I probably wouldn't be up to your standard."
Roddy and I look at each other again and know that Sam is someone that not only needs help but needs to be stood up for. We have found our first goal in the PEL.
Thanks for reading. Chapters like these (not really plot focused but more focused on the future) will happen more to establish either relationships between characters or where a character/team's direction for the future could be heading. Please review to tell me how you thought of the chapter.