AN: Gardenia refers to Bryce as a certain term. To this I say, most of my characters will most likely be this way because I think this way. So if it makes them smarter than they're supposed to be at that age, then so be it. I guess all my story characters will be geniuses :P
PS: Let me tell you, I really struggled with this chapter (Which is why it took so long) so it might suck because I'm a little rusty.
Ch. 20: The Mysterious Mini-Medi
Black haze filled the stadium, its dark depths leaving only a glimmer of sunlight to shine through the man-made forest. The Cherrim had returned to its bud form so it sat motionless where it stood when the sun's light no longer energized it. Bryce returned Omen's pokeball onto his belt and plucked off the next.
"Grotle, let's do this!"
In a white flash, the Grotle appeared half-obscured in the Haze. She snorted and tossed her head, eyeing the motionless bud. At the sight of the tortoise, Gardenia shifted in the shadows of the Haze. Bryce squinted his eyes to get a better look at her and found a completely different Gardenia than before. She looked as though she'd been lovestruck.
"OH MY GOD! THAT GROTLE IS SO CUTE!"
She quickly took off her poncho, exposing numerous pokeballs and started plucking them off one by one.
"I'll trade you my Jumpluff for it! No, no wait! My Bellossom! My Victreebel? How about my Vileplume?"
Bryce blinked for a minute, opening his mouth between each offer before getting cut off before he clenched his ears in frustration and roared,
"ARE WE GOING TO BATTLE OR NOT?"
Gardenia stopped in her tracks and threw her poncho back on. With a look of disgust on her face she nodded.
"That's a little rude, you didn't have to scream y'know. It was just a suggestion."
Bryce rolled his eyes before turning back to his pokemon, "Alright Grotle, Omen weakened it so now's your chance! Bite!"
Grotle lumbered towards the motionless pokemon with her hooked mouth open.
"C'mon Cherrim, Magical Leaf!"
The ends of Cherrim's petals fell off, their color changing to shifting rainbow hues before they went flying towards Grotle. However, all Grotle did was lowered her head so the leaves flew towards her back, glancing off her hard shell. She kept going towards Cherrim before biting the bud in its side, lifting the helpless pokemon in her mouth.
"Now toss it up and use Withdraw!"
With a toss of her head, the tortoise tossed Cherrim over her head. Grotle then tucked her legs under her body and held her head straight out so the top of her newly armored head was protected. The purple bud fell through the air before slamming into Grotle's shell. With a simple shrug of her shoulders, the grass type relieved herself of the fainted pokemon. The droid whirred down from its secure hiding place and hovered over Cherrim with a red screen.
"Cherrim is unable to battle. Grotle wins! The score is now 2-3."
Recalling her pokemon, Gardenia grinned.
"Looks like I have a strategist on my hands."
Bryce shrugged, he never referred to himself as a strategist but the word did define his battling technique. Practice battles with his dad when he was a kid didn't hurt either. Gardenia pulled off another pokeball and hurled it in front of Grotle.
"Go Turtwig!"
A familiar small turtle appeared before Grotle. This amused her a little bit, having to battler her pre-evolution.
"A Turtwig? Don't you think we'd have the advantage?" Bryce asked.
Gardenia's enthusiastic grin grew wider at his words. "Do you? In that case, you make the first move."
"If you insist, Grotle, Tackle!"
Grotle stumbled forward, rushing towards the smaller turtle as fast as her heavy body would allow.
"Jump for it Turtwig!"
When Grotle neared her smaller opponent, Turtwig waited a moment before jumping up onto Grotle's back. As the larger tortoise threw her full body weight at where Turtwig once was, she fell to the ground, her legs sprawled out. Turtwig left her back with a graceful leap before placing a playful nip on her tail. Bryce grinded his teeth before regaining his composure.
"That's ok Grotle! Try it again!"
Grotle grunted, slowly standing up after falling to her knees twice from her heavy shell. After her third attempt, she finally got to her feet and charged towards Turtwig. As the heavy tortoise came charging towards it once more, the Turtwig simply grinned and stepped aside as the Grotle came flying towards it, falling once more.
"I may have spoke to soon about you being a strategist." Gardenia said with a shrug.
Bryce frowned and asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, evolution's not an advantage. Sure they're going to get more power behind their attacks, but notice that my Turtwig has way more speed than your Grotle was. Until you learn how to use your Grotle's strengths, I suggest you recall it."
Bryce sighed before realizing that she was right and recalled Grotle back into her pokeball. He hastily pulled off the third pokeball in his arsenal.
"I guess that's something to work on. Go Lash!"
The aggressive Lickitung appeared before him. His tongue withdrawn, he used his white thumb to lower his sunglasses. Whether this was to see better or look cool, Bryce couldn't say. By now the Haze had faded away and the sun bathed the arena in its gentle white light so Lash could eye down his opponent before grinning mischievously to himself. Bryce reached forward so he could get the sunglasses but the cocky Lickitung smacked his hand away. Rubbing the tender area on his wrist, Bryce could only say one thing,
"I'm not buying another pair if you break those..."
Gardenia giggled to herself behind her hand.
"A Lickitung? I haven't seen one of those in this arena before. You sure it can handle it?"
At this remark, Lash started to fume. Clenching his fists to his sides and furrowing his brow, Bryce could almost see the steam coming out of his non-existent ears.
"Now you've done it." He muttered as Lash brought his tongue into play, shooting out his slimy appendage at Turtwig. Too surprised to respond, it simply gasped before the sticky weapon wrapped itself around its body, squeezing before hurling it in another direction. In the blink of an eye, Lash whipped his tongue around in the other direction, meeting the Turtwig in mid-air and knocking her towards the Lickitung's feet. With the grass-type in his mercy, Lash lifted a foot and slammed it into its shell, sending a tremor throughout the small pokemon's body until a crack appeared in it while Turtwig's eyes clenched tight in pain.
"Well that's new." Bryce muttered before noticing his pokedex was vibrating. On the screen was picture of a giraffe with a vicious grinning black face for a tail.
"C'mon... Stupid thing." He said as he tapped the device against his leg. The screen flickered for a moment before going to another screen with Lickitung on the screen. Blinking on the screen in red were the words, New Move: Stomp.
"Once again you surprise me Bryce." Gardenia said with a laugh. "Looks like I'm going to have to stop underestimating you. Turtwig!"
The small turtle who was once at Lash's mercy suddenly looked up, its eyes snapping open before it suddenly dashed out from under Lash's foot causing the Lickitung to stumble forward in surprise as he lost his footing. Turtwig dashed around him before dashing around him, lowering his head before ramming him in the back. Finally losing his diminished balance, Lash fell flat on his tongue.
"You're going to let a Turtwig do that to you Lash?" Bryce called out. Getting the effect he sought for, Lash snorted and lept to his feet, glowering at the turtle. "Now Knock Off!"
Not missing a beat, Lash's sinister attack caused his tongue to whip out, enveloped in a dark aura as it went after Turtwig who dashed to the right, narrowly dodging it. "Tackle Turtwig!" Gardenia cried out as Turtwig swiveled around and dashed towards Lash's vast stomach. "Defense Curl then Lick!"
Lash retracted his tongue and inhaled a massive amount of air, visibly inflating his stomach to twice its size. As Turtwig rammed into it, it was immediately reflected with an audible, "Boing!" As the Turtwig went sliding across the ground, Lash whipped his tongue out once more and hit the Turtwig right across its forehead.
"Bite Turtwig!"
Before Lash could get a chance to retract his weapon, Turtwig used its hooked mouth to bite it hard, tugging it in the process as if it was nothing more than rope in a game of tug-of-war. As Lash was yanked towards his fierce competitor, he heard a voice cry, "Leech Seed!"
Turtwig let go of the tongue, sticking his own tongue out in disgust for good measure, and lowered his head so the twig was pointing directly at Lash. A bulge that seemed to have come from one of the leaves traveled up the wood and was launched form the twig's tip. The brown seed hit Lash directly in the tongue, the energy sapping roots wrapping itself around it. Twitching violently, Lash fell to his knees, furiously clawing at the seed in a desperate attempt to rid himself of it.
Gardenia grinned and pulled out Turtwig's pokeball from her poncho, returning the turtle into its pokeball as the droid whirred down from its hiding place.
"Turtwig has been forfeited, Lickitung wins! The score is now 1-3."
Bryce stared in disbelief as Gardenia shrugged.
"As the gym leader I'm not allowed to withdraw my pokemon."
"Then why did you do it?"
"You have to know your pokemon's limits Bryce, and getting stomped in the back by a fat Lickitung is bound to do some damage later on. Besides, I've done all I needed to do and you'll find this next pokemon will be more than enough."
With a grin, she pointed at Lash who was rolling on the grassy ground, twitching violently while swinging its tongue around.
"Oh right!" He said as he returned the Lickitung.
The gym leader laughed before pulling off her last pokeball from her poncho.
'Haunt?'
Haunter whirled around and put a claw to where his ear would be. He drifted closer and closer to the wall before phasing through to the outside.
"Haunter, where are you going?"
Stormie dashed down the stairs and out the gym doors. There, Haunter was floating next to the road, staring down the road as a dirt cloud started to rise. Something very fast was coming his way.
"Ponyta! Stop!" Came a small voice. No sooner was this call carried on the wind when a white horse with a flaming mane and a flared tail came flying by, its hooves picking up dust in the cracks of the stone, creating a large dust cloud behind it. Following after it came another Ponyta with someone on its back. A little girl with freckles and red hair tied in hasty pigtails. The dust speckled her hair with gray and yellow. One arm was wrapped around her steed's neck while she held the crook in her elbow in her other arm up to her mouth to keep herself from swallowing the sand and dust. When she saw Stormie and Haunter, she reigned the Ponyta in by pulling hard on the horse's neck. With a whinny it stopped in front of Stormie.
"E-excuse me. You're a pokemon trainer right? C-could you please?..." She asked panting hard before Stormie stopped her.
"It's fine, I got it."
With that, she took off down the street with Haunter in her wake, pokeball in hand she threw it behind the runaway Ponyta.
"Lets go Combusken!"
The young fowl appeared before her, looking around confused at the commotion before Stormie ran past her. Astounded, she dashed after her trainer, when she caught up Stormie pointed at the flaming equine.
"We need to stop that Ponyta! Focus Energy!"
Her powerful legs still running, Combusken squinted her eyes and held her claws together in fierce concentration, focusing hard with her other four senses to note anything that could stop the Ponyta. When she spotted her target, her eyes snapped open and she nodded to Stormie.
'Combusken!' As she pointed at the horse's legs.
"Good! Now Double Kick!"
With a mighty leap, already backed up with a running start, Combusken went flying into the air, landing in front of Ponyta. Before the bewildered Ponyta could respond to the sudden obstacle, Combusken dropped to a crouch and shot out a sharp kick in its left knee before swiveling around and kicking the pony in the other knee. Ponyta let out a loud whinny before it succumbed to its wounds and fell forward onto its front legs, her hind legs outstretched.
Stormie gasped, putting her hand up to her mouth in surprise. She didn't mean to hurt the poor pokemon. She ran towards where the injured pokemon lie in the road. Its eyes were wide open as if afraid its attacker would come back to finish the job. Her flanks were covered in sweat and bruises were on her front knees.
Combusken and the girl came running up, she seemed just as afraid as the incapacitated Ponyta. She put a hand on its side to calm it and looked up at Stormie.
"Is it alright?" Stormie asked, shooting a glare at Combusken.
"Yeah, I think she's more scared then anything. I'm more worried about what spooked her."
"What's responsible for scaring her so badly?"
"Mini Medi"
AN: Sorry I didn't intend to end the chapter so soon but I'm having writer's block which will probably mean an update on Stupidity of a Pokemon Trainer is coming up. Sorry! ^^