Innocent Aims

Part I: Capture and Release

Chapter 6: Alias

A crowd of people surrounded him, but I easily pushed through, since most of them knew who I was, anyway. At the makeshift counter, I placed a fresh stack of updated schedules in front of Tracey, and then helped him hand them out. I saw him breath a slight sigh of relief. Now that he was more relaxed, I decided that now was the time to confront him.

"Hey, Tracey," I said. He went from slightly relaxed to alert yet again. "What happened to my second round?" I asked.

Tracey picked up a schedule, as he'd been doing since I came back and likely hours before that, opened it up, and highlighted my name with precision. "It's by the pond, starting very soon, actually. Do you need a map?"

"Tracey... It's me," I said blankly. "I think I know my way around here."

"Oh. Right," Tracey said. His looked away with embarrassment.

"I mean, what happened with my opponent. Who is this? Why did you change it?"

"I changed it?" Tracey said. "I mean, I don't remember changing it, but I very well may have. I'll check to see what happened right away," he said.

I shook my head. "Yeah, never mind that. I have to get going anyway. I'm late. See you." I casually waved to Tracey as I turned my back.

"Sorry, Gary! I didn't mean to make you late when I asked for your help," Tracey said.

He was just the kind of person to apologize for doing my work for me, I thought with a smirk. I waved my hand again to let him no it was no real trouble and then began to make my way across the crowded grounds. Eventually the crowd thinned, and disappeared until I was alone in the woods, at least until I got to the pond.

In front of the water, a female figure stood, her back to me. She wore a long, elegant dress and had her hair down. She had her arms folded in front of her, and almost seemed to tap her foot. She didn't make a sound, and with that plus the dim forest light, she almost seemed kind of ghostly. Well, if that was how she wanted to do it, I decided to play along. I walked up to the other side of the small pond, also making not a sound other than the leaves rustling under my feet. I just stood there in silence for a moment, giving her a chance to speak first.

And she did, without even turning around. "So, you finally decided to show up? You should never keep a lady waiting."

The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. "Miss?" I said. As she turned around, I was surprised, but only because I saw exactly who I expected to see, the one who I was supposed to face in the first place. It was really strange that she was in this getup, though. "Oh, so it's just you," I said.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"There's an error in the schedule. I wasn't sure if things got changed around. Who's this 'Kasumi', anyway?"

"It's me, of course! And you should know. It's my stage name and you've seen me on stage, right? I'm always introduced as the lovely Kasumi."

"Think so. I can't be bothered to remember any of that. But that still doesn't explain why this name shows up here."

"My fans will recognize me by my stage name, so I had Tracey change it. He's a friend of mine and was happy to help."

"Oh? So that's what happened. But man, isn't that kind of pretentious," I commented.

"Pretentious? Come on, Shigeru, you shouldn't be the one saying anything about that. This whole set up is pretty pretentious on your part. This is not what you should be doing right now."

I stopped a moment, surprised. This was all true, but she's the only one to even said a word of that. Other people thanked me for putting it together, and even my grandfather hadn't so much as implied it, as far as I'd recalled. This should not have been the next step for someone like me in my trainer journey. In fact, it was kind of silly. "Yeah, you're right," I said.

And this was how our arguments would always end. She'd make a good point, I'd agree, and suddenly she'd have nothing else to say. I smiled with a nostalgic recollection of my stops at the Cerulean City gym. Maybe I had made some friends on my pokemon journey after all, I considered. The few times I'd stopped there, the four sisters had always been happy to greet me, even this one, for the most part.

"It's good to see you again, Misty," I said. Then I turned away and let my smile drop. Yeah, they were all friendly to me alright, but to think we were friends would be pretty presumptuous.

Misty's demeanor was much calmer now, and she seemed to be a better match to that elegant dress now. "And you too, Shigeru. I've been looking forward to battling with you. But first I need to know. Why?"

I blinked silently, waiting for her to continue her question. When she didn't, I replied, "Why what?"

"Why are you even doing something like this? Don't tell me you're not ready to lose in the pokemon league to our regions top trainers. I've been looking forward to seeing who you lose against. You have to lose sometime, you know."

"Well, I already have. Twice, actually. I'm no longer undefeated," I said.

Misty's expression changed to surprised. "To who?" Before I could respond, she continued questioning. "Well, so this is a chance to regain your pride or something?"

"No, nothing like that. If I felt I had something to regain, I'd just battle those two again. They're amateurs, I've won against far more talented trainers. Like yourself, for example."

Misty smiled at that compliment. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Even if you didn't save that defeat for me, I'll show you just how lucky you were to win against me before in a moment. First, I'm still going to make you answer my question. No dancing around it."

"Okay," I said hesitantly.

Misty began to speak right away. "What's this all for? I know you want something out of it. So what is it? You say it's not glory, so? Revenge? Information gathering? Practice with people you're pretty sure you can win against?"

"Love," I said. Even while saying it, I became surprised. I hadn't even really completely admitted it to myself, and here I was, telling her. It was just natural to tell her the truth, but the truth seemed absurd, and left me feeling kind of foolish for mentioning it at all. I looked to the ground sheepishly.

"Well," Misty began. I could tell she was trying not to let her amusement show too much. "Can't say that people haven't done crazier things for that. Who's the lucky guy?"

I looked up in surprise, but quickly regained my composure. "How did you even know that?" I asked.

"Just a good guesser. Anyway, I won't really make you answer that question. It's enough that I made you admit to being as much of a sap as me," Misty said. She then held up a pokeball. "Enough with the small talk. Let's just get started with our battle already."

I had no problem agreeing to that, and I quickly chose my first pokemon. We both threw the pokeballs out at the same time.

"Go, Starmie!" Misty shouted.

"Electivire!" I said.

"Starmie, harden! We won't lose on type advantage alone," Misty said.

Maybe Misty was used to beating other trainers who thought they had an easy win with an electric type pokemon, but I was pretty sure I could win here. "Thunderbolt," I ordered. My electivire's attack hit dead on. To Misty's starmie's credit, it didn't falter. It flew up in as perfect as stance as always. But it couldn't hide at least one sign of weakness. The blinking gem let everyone know that its power was low.

"Starmie, do your rapid spin attack!" Misty ordered.

It was a somewhat powerful normal type attack, and this is where she likely caught her amateur opponents off guard. But I was confident in my electivire's ability to defend. Her starmie hit at a great speed, causing some damage, but it was soon knocked aside by my electivire, who had a pretty quick reaction time.

"Thunderbolt," I said again.

My electivire let lose another large bolt of electricity, and had another direct hit. Starmie was likely knocked out then, and fell into the water.

"Starmie!" Misty cried. She reached for her pokeball and quickly returned the other pokemon. Her eyes narrowed with determination, and she didn't hesitate before sending out the next pokemon. "Go on Dewgong, do your best to win this one!"

Do your best. It seemed optimistic on the surface, but ultimately implied that its best wasn't good enough to win. I could see Misty was going for close physical attack, so I got ready to counter.

"Try your headbutt attack!" Misty shouted.

Sure enough, I'd been right. "Thunder punch," I said immediately.

My electivire's punch hit Misty's dewgong first, but not soon enough to stop the momentum of the headbutt attack. The two pokemon both scattered apart from their impacts.

"Dewgong, aurora beam! I know you can do it!"

"Electivire, thunderbolt," I ordered.

My electivire dodged the attack, and the dewgong also would have got away clear, if not for the wet landscape. As the other pokemon retreated backward it hit the water, the attack followed it, allowing for the effect of the devastating electricity. An avoidable mistake, but at least the time to the dewgong's eventual loss had been lessened.

As the nearly, or perhaps completely unconscious dewgong floated to the surface, Misty was forced to return it.

"One more chance," I said to Misty. Like all of the other matches in this tournament, this one was three on three.

"I know," Misty said. "And I won't let their efforts go to waste. It's your turn, Goldeen!"

Misty gracefully let go of her last pokeball, and the fish pokemon now jumped above the water. As it dove beneath the surface, I could see a few things wrong with this strategy. Might as well get this over with. "Thunderbolt," I said.

"Goldeen, your horn attack!" Misty said.

The timing was perfect. Her goldeen's horn came stabbed my electivire at the most vulnerable moment of its stance for its attack, right at a critical area that both stopped it and, while it didn't quite knock it out, left it possibly unable to continue to attack. Rather than take the chance that it might be disabled, I took out my pokeball. "Nice job, Electivire," I said, and then returned it. "That was a stupid mistake of mine. I should have seen that move coming," I said. What other non-water based attack could it have effectively used, anyway?

"It's not like you can predict everything a trainer's going to do. That's part of the challenge," Misty said.

"Just almost everything," I said. "At least it wasn't like some of the stupid mistakes you've made here. I chose this battlefield to help you out, but you really should know when to stay away from that water, or else it'll be a real disadvantage."

"Stop stalling and just send out your next pokemon," Misty snapped.

I promptly threw out my next pokeball at her request, purposefully not calling out which one it was.

Misty didn't noticed. "Goldeen, horn attack, right now!" she said before my pokemon was even out of the pokeball.

"Blastoise, rapid spin!" I said. I used the attack she'd tried on me earlier, only this time of course on a larger scale. As my blastoise began to spin rapidly, water spun all around, but it was too late for Misty's goldeen to stop its attack. Hitting my spinning blastoise right on its hard shell, her goldeen sailed in an unexpected direction, hitting various foliage.

"Goldeen!" Misty ran off to find her pokemon. It lay on the forest floor, obviously disabled. Misty picked up the fish in her arms and spoke to it gently. "I'm sorry, Goldeen, I'll get you fixed up right away. We'll just try better next time, okay?"

"Goldeen," the pokemon responded. With that, Misty returned it to her pokeball.

Misty was of the "pokemon are friends" mindset, so I'd just given her a moment rather than intruded on the unprofessional scene. But now that she was done with that, I walked over to her. "Nice battle, Misty," I said and held out my hand.

Misty soon shook it. "And as always, you're the winner," she said.

I shrugged. "Might not have been if you'd tried something different. There's one glaring weakness stretching across all of your strategy. It makes defeating you easy, and not just for me."

Misty grinned at this critique proudly. "I'll be a water pokemon trainer until the day I die. Besides, I'm able to get over any 'weaknesses'."

I nodded. "You've improved your overall technique, but you still have to learn how to modify it for tougher opponents."

"I can't believe I have to listen to this critique from you when I've already beaten so many tough opponents," Misty vented. Then she just sighed. "I guess beating you was really too good to be true. The next battle was going to be a public one, too. I could have been surrounded by adoring fans, with more curious spectators for having broken your undefeated streak. I could have made it big... Well, bigger than I am already."

"I already-"

"I know, it was just a daydream of mine, okay? Pretend you didn't even hear it," Misty said. She began to walk away from the pond area, and I followed.

"Didn't think you really liked performing, anyway, so what's with the outfit?" Misty's normal attire was very tomboyish, not at all like this dress. "And the... Um, 'stage name'..."

"I've always used a stage name, and it's just what fans know me as now. My sisters chose it. If I had it to do again, I'd just be Misty, but what can I do now? And I don't really like those performances and plays that much. I'd rather get attention for other things, like my pokemon training. But who says I can't get attention for both? I'm a multi-talented star. Unlike my older sisters, I won't lose the spotlight when I'm too old to be an idol. And my pokemon get attention from my sisters' productions too, you know. And they like it. So I'd keep doing it for them if no nothing else." Misty continued rambling as we walked into town, and I somewhat listened. I can't say it wasn't boring, but at the same time, having someone who was willing to talk to me on a personal level was nice. I stayed by her side as we walked back into the park.

As we walked in, Satoshi came running over to us, a happy expression on his face. "Hey, Gary! I won! I'm in the third round."

"Of course you are, I didn't expect you to have any trouble," I said.

Satoshi beamed. "So now-"

"So it's you!" Misty interjected. "I'm almost surprised to see you here, though I heard lots of talented trainers were invited."

"What, who?" Apparently they knew each other, but like with me, Satoshi hadn't recognized her right away. "Misty?" he realized. "Hey, I'm talented!" he insisted.

"And you'd better stay that way, wearing my Cascade Badge around and all," Misty warned. Her expression grew softer as she looked toward Satoshi's shoulder. "Pikachu, come here!" Misty held out her arms.

"Pikachupi!" Satoshi's Pikachu jumped into Misty's arms.

Misty giggled a little. "Good, it looks like you've been taken care of," Misty said. "I missed you, Pikachu!"

"Of course I take care of it... Pikachu's my best friend," Satoshi said.

"I know, I'm just teasing you, of course," Misty said with a smile.

"Pika!" Pikachu shouted, smiling along with Misty.

"I actually miss hanging around with you and Brock sometimes... But I really couldn't do that forever," Misty said.

"Yeah...." Satoshi said, frowning, but then he smiled back at Misty. "It's good you went back home, anyway! You couldn't wear that running around with us. Hey, I can't even recognize you in it. Something that pretty's not for you!"

"Are you trying to say I'm not pretty?" Misty said.

The two continued their banter, and I stood by silently. I couldn't help but feel jealous. I was jealous of Satoshi, who seemed to become good friends with Misty just even more easily as I had. I was jealous of Misty for being yet another person that Satoshi could battle and then become close with, while he didn't seem to want to see me at all for years. I kind of faded into the background as they went on and on.

"Anyway, Gary's going to help me get ready for round three! Brock's in round three, too," Satoshi eventually said.

"Well, thanks to just battling Shigeru, I'm not in round three."

"So it's kind of like I beat you again, since I'm getting farther than you here, too!" Satoshi said.

"Win against Shigeru, then start bragging," Misty said sulkily.

"I did," Satoshi said.

"You did what?" Misty asked.

"I beat Gary."

"Gary, meaning him?" Misty pointed at me.

"Yeah."

Misty's face was shocked, and then she glared at me, not saying the question she was likely thing, which was the same as before -- why? Then she sighed. "At least his fluke of a win in Cerulean Gym doesn't reflect as badly on me now," Misty said. "That kid has a tendency to surprise a lot of people," she said directly at me. "I know he seems like a flake, but he treats his pokemon well, and has an entire ocean of luck on his side."

I nodded. Satoshi pushed between the two of us. "I'm right here, you know," he said. "Come on Gary, we don't have a lot of time before tomorrow. I want to train!"

"Sure," I said, and allowed Satoshi to put me away.

"I'm still sticking around for now, maybe I'll see you later," Misty said. I nodded to her as Satoshi and I began to walk away. "Have fun, boys! And you too Pikachu, you little sweetie pie!" Misty said.

"Pikachupi!" Satoshi's pikachu and Misty waved at each other.

Satoshi eventually stopped pushing me when we were alone, and then just walked alongside me. I looked over at him, and saw a determined yet excited look on his face. "I know you're going to help me now," he began. "But that doesn't mean I can't beat you later on my own, right?"

I stopped myself before saying how it wasn't very likely, and I just gave a placid smile in response.

That was more than enough for Satoshi, though. "Okay!" he shouted vigorously. "Let's train!"