Episode 7: Spitfire
"Ready?" Niko asked his friends as they met Fay at the Pokémon Center. They all nodded, affirming that their journey to Stark Mountain—and the Battle Factory—was to begin.
Niko felt in a better mood that morning—it was a moderate temperature, the world around him was beautiful, and he and Lauren had just earned their first print in the Battle Frontier. It was the Hall Print, given to them by Argenta, the Hall Matron. Now, they were off to earn their second—the Factory Print.
JJ, with Fay's assistance, figured that the road to Stark Mountain would take under a week, mostly because the terrain looked less than friendly. Made sense, since Stark Mountain was a supposedly dormant volcano.
The first day on the road was one of the harder treks the group has had to make. Route 226 led them along sheer cliffs that seemed to go on for miles. It reminded most of the group of their trip around Mt. Mortar in Johto, where Niko's hoothoot evolved. Due to the precarious environment around them, neither Niko nor Lauren trained, and they had to wait until they found a sizeable spot on the side of the mountain range where they could feed their pokémon. Even then, the space wasn't large enough for the teams of all five trainers, and so they took turns.
That night, Niko and Fay sat outside the small cave that the group had found earlier that evening. For a while, the two talked about their respective adventures—Niko in Sinnoh, Fay with his job. It was then that Niko learned about the extent of Fay's travels—he's been to regions Niko hadn't even heard of, and researched pokémon of all different shapes, sizes, and types. Apparently, there was a classification for the fairy type, and JJ's togetic was one of them. Fay explained that since Professor Rowan had not yet updated the Sinnoh pokédex—after years—to include the fairy type, togetic's pokédex entry classified her as a normal and flying, not fairy and flying.
Niko found himself fascinated by all of the knowledge Fay had accrued over the past two years since leaving their group, and wondered if he would ever be able to see some of the things Fay has. If he wanted to be a "pokémon master," then he would certainly have to.
It was then Niko's turn to share. He gave his friend a long account of their journeys in Sinnoh, including meeting Lauren; the Hearthome Tag Tournament; Hunter; the various contests and gyms they all competed in; the stories of how they obtained their pokémon; meeting Elite 4 members Aaron and Flint; the crisis at Mt. Coronet. From his perspective, Fay was equally impressed, and for a moment wished that he was still travelling with them all.
"What's next for you, then?" Fay asked when Niko finished. "I mean, once you've beaten all of these battle facilities?"
Niko shrugged. "Probably head back to Pallet Town with these three and laze around until we decided where to go next, just like we always do."
"Is that all you want to do until you have seen the entire world?" Fay inquired.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean that you just go back home, sit around for a summer, and then journey off again. Don't get me wrong—it's amazing. But have you thought yet about what you want to do?"
"You mean as a career?"
Fay nodded.
"Well, I want to be a pokémon master. And I want to see as much of the world as I can. I also know that when I eventually stop travelling, I don't want to live in Pallet Town anymore. I want to live in a bigger city, and in a region that I love. Maybe that's here, or Hoenn, or even Kanto still. But I just haven't gotten that far."
"Fair enough. I was just curious." Fay said as he looked up at the moon shining brightly down on them, its silvery light glazing them.
The following morning, the five trainers got up and continued on their journey. The second day was just as exhausting as the first—with the group having to trek up and down steep trails along the mountain range. Occasionally they would see other trainers towards the top of the mountains, presumably training with flying type pokémon. At one point, Fay saw a dragon trainer flying around on a salamence, the latter breathing jets of blue fire from its maw. Eventually Niko and JJ had to pry him away from the view so they could continue onwards.
On the third day, the group finally made it out of the mountains and descended closer to the ground, where they met the massive body of water that sat in the center of the entire island and extended up northwards to the mountain range that they had just exited.
"So…how are we getting across this?" Lauren asked, motioning towards the water. Smirking, Fay drew out two pokéballs.
"Gyarados, charizard, let's go!" He shouted, summoning two of his pokémon. "I'll fly on charizard, and the rest of you can ride gyarados. Don't worry," He said to a somewhat nervous Lauren. "Gyarados is pretty friendly, and he won't let you fall off. Just ask these three—we travelled with gyarados a lot."
Lauren tensely turned to Niko, who nodded in affirmation. She then walked up to gyarados and gently pet the water dragon before mountain him. JJ, Brittany, and finally Niko all got on while Fay jumped onto charizard, and the five were off. Traversing the water didn't take too long for the five of them. While they were riding on gyarados, Lauren grabbed Niko around the waste, which Niko took for her being scared to death of falling in the water. Smiling softly, he looked back to see her staring at the water cautiously.
Once they got off of gyarados, and Fay landed with charizard, the five of them continued on, with Fay returning his pokémon.
"Now, I guess we go north." Niko said, pointing to the mountain range that was slowly and progressively arching northwards. Fay nodded, and both of them could see a steady stream of smoke erupting dozens of miles off in the distance. "To…that."
"Is that Stark Mountain?" Brittany asked.
Niko nodded affirmatively. "Looks like it. Which means we're close to the Battle Factory. Maybe a day's journey?"
Fay turned to Niko. "Yeah, think you and Lauren will be ready for it?" He asked as they began walking into the jungle in front of them.
"Well, Argenta said that her Battle Hall is a combination of the Battle Tower—which is just an ordinary pokémon battle—and the Battle Factory. Since part of her facility is using random pokémon, I'm thinking that maybe the Battle Factory uses randomly chosen pokémon as well."
Lauren shuddered at the suggestion, meaning it was the first time she was even hearing of it. "I don't like the idea of using random pokémon, honestly."
"Why not?" Niko asked, turning and looking to his right. His blue-haired girlfriend shrugged.
"I've built up strong relationships with all of my pokémon. It would just seem disingenuous to not participate with them."
"I get that." Niko said with a smile. "To be fair, I've never battled with random pokémon, either. It'll be weird for sure."
They continued on for the rest of the day, eventually stopping on the edge of a mountain. Near their camp was a path up the mountain, but it wasn't the way to the Battle Factory, as it moved west instead of north, and so the group largely ignored it when they were setting up camp.
Occasionally, while they were resting from the long walk that day, they would see wild pokémon walk off in the distance. This was a usual occurrence, but hardly anything noteworthy happened. Usually they would watch the pokémon in their natural habitat, and the pokémon would leave them alone, especially when the group was training.
On that day, they watched as numel and camerupt were walking off near the crags in the distance. Niko smiled; the sight made him think of his own numel, and wondered how the numb pokémon was doing. It was his first fire pokémon, and in that moment, he wondered if he would ever catch another one. His experience training numel was not an easy one, to be sure, but Niko did learn something from it—not necessarily on how to train pokémon, but how to deal with different types of pokémon. Numel, he remembered, was not fond of training, but when it came to actual battling, the fire type was always ready to compete. In this mode, he had as much determination to win as any of Niko's other pokémon.
Just then, he saw a jet of fire hit one of the camerupt in the nose—a sensitive part of their body that usually causes them to go into a rage—and out of nowhere came a red and orange pokémon in the shape of flames jump off of a short cliff and land on the angry camerupt. The eruption pokémon started roaring loudly, grabbing the attention of everyone around it.
"Niko, what's going on?" Brittany asked as she got up, pikachu at her side.
"Looks like a…magmar…pissed off a camerupt." Niko said, squinting his eyes to get a better look at the perpetrator. It was indeed a magmar, and a bully at that. He pulled out a pokéball, and then ran off in that direction.
"Niko! What are you doing?" Lauren shouted. "Ugh…" She got up and ran off, slowking running right behind her. "Niko!"
"Hold on, we need to settle this."
"Let them settle it on their own!" Lauren snapped back. Niko spun around, pokéball still in hand.
"Listen…that magmar is clearly a bully. That means someone should stop it, right?"
"Right…but why you?"
"Because I can." Niko said with a wink before turning back around and continuing on. "Prinplup, let's go!"
"Slowking…c'mon." Lauren said, motioning forward. Slowking lumbered onward behind his trainer, trying to think of more diplomatic ways of solving this.
Niko reached the site of the conflict, and watched at camerupt summoned a rock slide to attack magmar. The spitfire pokémon, in retaliation, dodged each rock in turn, leaping over and under them, and occasionally—and magically—throwing lava from its hands to melt others. Niko then looked cautiously at prinplup.
"Be careful, alright buddy?" The penguin nodded without looking back in return. "Alright, use bubblebeam on magmar!"
As if anticipating the attack, magmar dove to the side before fire punching camerupt, again in the nose. This time, the eruption pokémon used the eruption attack, firing off molten rocks from its twin humps. Magmar dodged and dove around each attack before turning to prinplup, its fist on fire. The spitfire pokémon planted a fire punch across prinplup's face, knocking it backwards, but was unable to get the penguin knocked off of his feet.
"Drill peck!" Niko commanded. The penguin's beak enlarged, glowing a bright white. Prinplup then charged forward and nearly struck magmar, who dodged and spun around to kick prinplup in the face, only to meet the penguin's two claws latch onto it. "Throw it down!" Niko then turned to Lauren and slowking. "Can you calm down the camerupt?"
"How!?" Lauren shouted.
"No idea!" Niko responded. "I've never seen this before."
"But you caught one!"
"A numel, not a camerupt!" Niko snapped back. Meanwhile, prinplup and magmar were engaged in a vicious close combat with one another, neither giving any ground. Finally, prinplup knocked magmar back with drill peck. The spitfire pokémon rolled backwards through the air before landing on its feet and shooting out a powerful flamethrower. "Bubblebeam!" Niko said, turning back just in time.
Prinplup shot out a heavy stream of bubbles, which was somehow strong enough to match with magmar's flamethrower. They maintained their attacks for some time before both letting go at the same time.
Magmar glared at prinplup, and only prinplup, watching to see what the penguin would do next. Seeing nothing, the spitfire pokémon nodded to prinplup and Niko, and then turned to run away, jumping up onto small ledges, one at a time, until it got back up to the top of the crags and disappeared behind them.
Meanwhile, Lauren and slowking were attempting to calm down the camerupt. At first, Lauren and slowking tried to use a gentle water pulse, but that was unsuccessful, as it only made the eruption pokémon angrier. Then prinplup tried bubblebeam, and it slowly calmed camerupt down, with slowking adding another water pulse right on the nose to further sooth the burn mark. Afterwards, camerupt turned and left the couple, nodding as it turned and walked away, some numel at its side.
"Well, that was…something…" Niko said, scratching his head.
"Yeah! It was!" Lauren shouted, much to slowking's, prinplup's, and Niko's surprise.
"Why're you so mad?" Niko inquired, genuinely curious.
"We don't have to go around and solve every problem we see! Nature has a way of working these things out."
"But I wanted to, how hard is that to understand?" Niko snapped back. "I know I didn't have to, but I did!"
"Fine. You're right. Let's just go." Lauren said, shrugging and turning back towards the camp. That evening, Niko and Lauren described their small adventure to the other three, who all looked interested, and slightly regretted not joining in.
"No worries. We had it covered. But, man…that magmar was something else."
"Then why didn't you catch it?" JJ asked, drinking from his soda.
"Didn't cross my mind. Plus, I already have six pokémon with me. What happens if I catch a seventh? Am I even allowed to?"
"Of course you are." Fay response. "You just can't use it, unless you don't want to use another one from your other six. Make sense?"
"Yeah, I get what you're saying. Well, it's too late anyways. That magmar is probably long gone."
The group continued talking about their journey to the Battle Factory. Since they figured the facility was require them to use rental pokémon, Niko and Lauren both settled on looking to challenge the Frontier Brain as soon as they could which, by their estimates, would be in the afternoon of the following day, as they were relatively close to Stark Mountain at this point.
An hour later everyone had gone off to bed. Niko stayed up, watching the palm trees rustle in the light wind that nature was providing. For being so close to a volcano, the air was oddly crisp, although he could still see ash falling off in the distance, over near the crags that magmar appeared from.
"Wait a minute…" Niko said, squinting into the darkness. There, atop the crags, was magmar. The spitfire pokémon was standing and looking off towards the forest that Niko was admiring moments previous. Then magmar and Niko made eye contact, and the fire type leapt off of the crags and onto the ground with unusual grace. In a panic, Niko quickly scrambled to grab a pokéball and waking Lauren and Fay up in the process.
"Niko…what the hell…" Lauren said, rubbing her eyes just as a jet of fire soared a dozen feet above her. "WHAT THE HELL NIKO!?"
"Prinplup, drill peck!" Niko shouted, now standing up. The penguin erupted out of his pokéball and charged at magmar, his beak half a foot long and glowing white. Magmar collided with a fire punch, and the two quickly exchanged blows, just as they did earlier on.
"Niko…geez." Lauren said, getting up and gently grabbing his arm. "Why so late?"
"I was up and we locked eyes and then it just attacked me…" Niko explained. "Bubblebeam!"
"Are you going to catch it?" Fay asked, turning to Niko. The brown-haired trainer responded with a smirk, and an empty pokéball in his hand. "Nice. Good luck."
"Thanks. Prinplup, water pulse!"
After dodging a flamethrower, prinplup conjured a glowing orb of water and slammed it down on magmar. The spitfire pokémon stumbled briefly, giving Niko the chance he needed. He threw the pokéball at magmar, and a shining red light enveloped it before sending it into the ball.
The pokéball fell to the ground, wiggled a few times, and then clicked. Niko caught magmar.
He walked over to pick up the pokéball, and then looked at prinplup as the ball clicked red, presumably indicating that he couldn't use it.
"Well, guess we have to wait until we get to the Battle Factory to properly introduce you to everyone, magmar. But, if you can hear this, welcome to the team, buddy. I'm Niko." He looked up at Fay and Lauren. "Now, let's get back to bed."
The two trainers nodded, the girl yawning loudly as they walked back to camp, only to find Brittany and JJ now awake as well. All Niko did was hold out a pokéball, indicating his newest catch, for the other two to nod and immediately fall back to sleep. Lauren and Fay quickly did minutes later. Niko went to sleep last, staring up at the stars above.
Author's Note: I've always liked magmar personally, and wanted Niko to get one as early as Kanto in the first season. However, I had a team planned out for Niko back then, and didn't feel like giving him 7 pokemon at the very start of his journey. Plus, i'm pleased with how I wrote Niko catching his first fire type, and I don't think his character could have handled a magmar so early in his journey. Given this, I feel like this season was the prime opportunity to give him one-his second-and make it a little more powerful than usual. I hope you enjoyed how I wrote it all. Enjoy!