"What am I looking at here?" Sasha murmured to Mewtwo as the two stood on one side of a gym battlefield.
The duo had scoured the databases to find gym locations and had marked down the rest Sasha would challenge to meet the badge requirement and the two found themselves challenging a Normal-type Gym somewhere between Pewter and Cerulean.
Upon arrival, Sasha wondered if she could take back her statement of wishing to challenge it.
The leader was a man calling himself Archmage Myrddin, wearing a wizard robe and hat, both in horrible garish clashing colors.
Mewtwo had never seen such designs and wondered how anyone could somehow manage to wear plaid, stripes, polka-dots and not go insane.
The Leader noticed their stares and rolled his eyes. "My pokemon decided to switch my wardrobe around. So I just rolled with it."
"No turning back now, little one," Mewtwo replied.
Sasha nodded and the leader sent out a cinccino who thankfully wasn't colored like her trainer.
Despite the gym's out-of-the-way location, Sasha was surprised to see a fair number of people in the stands.
Tuning them out, Sasha focused on her opponent.
The scarf pokémon curtsied to the eevee. "Good luck," it said cheerfully.
As the referee called for the match to begin, Sasha was already leaping backwards, swinging her tail in an arc to release a storm of star-shaped projectiles. The cinccino darted forward, forelimbs a blur as it slapped the stars aside.
"Fast, and judging from the speed of those strikes, it has Skill Link as its Ability," Mewtwo said, idly catching a stray Swift star. "Most pokémon get tired after two or three."
"So it relies on close combat to overwhelm its opponent with multiple weak strikes once they're forced into range. Wonderful," Sasha grumbled, using Quick Attack to dodge around the Unovan 'mon.
Unfortunately, it was faster and knocked her paws out from under her before swinging its tail around in a stinging smack. Instead of pressing the advantage, the cinccino simply took a few steps from the stunned eevee and allowed her to get back up.
"I trust you won't try that again?" it asked sweetly. Sasha shook herself and grimaced.
The eevee then launched herself at the startled pokémon and divided into a swarm of silvery-white blurs. Cinccino narrowed its eyes and watched them carefully.
A swarm of stars pelted it form behind and as it whirled to deflect the rest, more came from the direction it just turned from. Soon, it was being peppered from all sides by a storm of stars.
Mewtwo stroked his chin thoughtfully, eyes scanning the horde of eevee. It was slight, but he could see the real Sasha dart between the clones. "Make it quick, Sasha, you can't keep this up for long."
Abruptly, the extra eevee vanished and Sasha, in her umbreon form, appeared above the cinccino before twirling to deliver an iron tail attack.
Cinccino whipped its long fur around to catch the tail, then whipped its own tail to strike at Sasha's neck.
Sasha's eyes went wide as her collar was knocked off and she tore her tail free from her opponent's grasp before tapping into Metronome.
Sasha's eyes glowed briefly before a rectangular box expanded from her body, conforming to the battlefield.
Archmage Myrddin narrowed his eyes. "Trick Room. Oh dear...that's not good."
Sasha landed on the floor and stumbled as her body reverted to its base form. She caught herself and gazed around the odd room curiously before turning back to the cinccino.
The pokémon was moving towards her sluggishly and Sasha easily dodged its swipes.
"Uh...Mewtwo, what's going on?"
"Trick Room. Since you're slower than cinccino, you get to move faster for a while."
Sasha grinned. "Neat!"
She watched as the cinccino turned from her and made its way towards the wall, probably hoping to break it to get back the advantage of speed.
"Oh no you don't," Sasha muttered, knocking it away with an iron tail. She almost felt bad for hitting the poor thing, but such was the nature of pokémon battles.
It was over in a matter of minutes.
The walls faded and Sasha helped the woozy cinccino to its feet as Myrddin chuckled.
"Nice job taking advantage of a situation you weren't completely familiar with," he said. Mewtwo had retrieved Sasha's collar and repaired it before putting it and the scarf back around Sasha's neck.
"Thanks for the battle. It was a lot of fun," Sasha replied, wagging her tail.
"Good luck in the League," Myrddin replied.
Turning away from the leader with a nod, Mewtwo and Sasha departed.
"What's your experience with the Dark type?" Sasha asked as she and Mewtwo strolled into the newly re-opened Viridian Gym.
"Some good, some bad. They tend to be sneaky and use underhanded tactics to win battles. In some cultures, they're known as the Evil type." Mewtwo replied, gazing around the entryway. "Quieter than I was expecting."
"I'm quite content with not having screaming crowds watching me make an idiot of myself while millions more watch it on television. Although at the League, I'm gonna have to get used to that, aren't I?" Sasha said with a flick of her tail.
"That is usually the case, yes. On the bright side, you're hardly the first pokémon to have stage fright in the Leagues."
They entered the gym arena and were greeted by a rather barren field.
On the far side stood a solitary figure who simply gave them a nod before flashing a gym badge and tossing out a pokéball, revealing an umbreon.
"Oh good, the silent type," Mewtwo said. "And a bit of a mirror match to boot."
"I'm a neon-white umbreon with blue rings. How is that a mirror match?" Sasha asked.
"Same species. Kinda. Shut up. Go battle."
Sasha stuck her tongue out at him and leaped down to take her place on the field.
The umbreon greeted Sasha politely before inclining her head.
"You're quite popular in some gossip circles. I look forward to seeing what you can do personally."
"Thanks?" Sasha asked before dodging under a swift sucker punch. She retaliated with a shadow claw of her own that the umbreon caught in her mouth and shattered with a bite.
Disengaging, Sasha leaped backwards under a cover of swift stars that had the umbreon dancing to avoid. She watched the umbreon track her and then used Double Team to create a horde of copies.
The moonlight pokémon stood poised before settling back into an idle position, clearly not willing to expend undue energy going after her.
Sasha doubted she'd get anywhere with her base form and ascended, causing her doppelgangers to vanish. The opposing umbreon tensed before Sasha fired off a shadow ball, which was deflected with a swift light screen.
"Go figure," Sasha griped, bringing down a brick break that cratered the umbreon.
She helped the umbreon to its paws. "Sorry about that."
The umbreon shook her head sheepishly. "As an umbreon, I should've guessed you'd have a fighting type move to deal with fighting the same type. Brick break was a little unusual though. I was expecting rock smash or something lighter."
"The perks of being able to control the randomness of Metronome with eviolite," Sasha replied, using heal pulse to restore the pokémon. The umbreon glanced at her own trainer, who had already given Mewtwo the badge and was walking away. She gave Sasha a polite bow and trotted off.
Mewtwo pinned the badge to Sasha's scarf and tied it around her neck.
"Congratulations on your last badge," Mewtwo said. Sasha stroked the scarf lightly and smiled.
"I...was expecting something a little more challenging," she said. "But...sometimes it's just easier to get it over with and not drag the fight out any longer than necessary. Why win by outlasting your opponent or coming up with stupidly complex and flashy moves? That just seems like a waste of everyone's time."
"Paying an arm and a leg to sit in a cramped seat watching pokémon fight for ten seconds seems like an insult to the random League-goer," Mewtwo replied, scooping her up.
"Why not just watch it online?"
Mewtwo's lips twitched in amusement. "Because some people enjoy wasting money. It's how sports make a living."
"If you say so. Did you happen to get the leader's name?" Sasha asked.
"Not a clue."
"Is being weird some kind of prerequisite for becoming a gym leader?"
"It helps stir up business if nobody knows who you are," Mewtwo replied. "Some trainers like a mystery."
"If you say so. Shall we depart?"
"If that is what you wish."
Special thanks to Archmage Ansrit for being the basis of Myrddin (It's Welsh; better known as "Merlin")