A/N: Time for gym battle number 1. I'll be honest right now. I'm probably going to skip most of the gym battles. Just a word of warning.

"Oh wow! Oregburgh City is so cool!" Misaki screamed.

I silently followed behind her as she ran up to the view of the city available to us since we had just exited the cave connecting Jubelife and Oreburgh. It was an impressive view I thought.

The city was probably about half the size of Jubelife City. While it wasn't filled with skyscrapers, unlike Jubelife, it did have a cool look. Tent-like huts covered the city, except for the pokemon center, poke mart, and what I'm guessing was the gym. The city seemed to look like one giant excavation site, which made sense. After all, this city had not only a rock type gym, but a mine as well. It was a great place for finding rock type pokemon to catch.

I didn't have any need to catch rock types. They wouldn't be helpful for most of the gyms in Sinoh, especially the first few. I opened my menu to check out my current team.

Monferno:lvl16
Starly:lvl13

Starly would be useless at this gym, but Monferno's mach punch would probably be able to one-hit most of the gym leader's rock types. Come to think of it, I believe I heard the gym leaders were also players trapped in the game. However, since they had an unlimited number of copies of their team, they couldn't die here like the rest of us. Lucky them.

"So what about your team, Misaki?" I asked. "Do you think they'll win at the gym or do you want to train them some more?"

"Hmmm let me check." replied Misaki. She opened her menu and took a look at her team.

Piplup:lvl14
Budew:lvl 10

Type wise, it seemed like a good enough team. Their levels were a little lower than I would have liked, but she should be fine.

"I think I'll be ok." she answered.

"Alright then" I said. "Let's go heal and then challenge the gym."

"Yeah" Misaki nodded.

After a quick stop to the pokemon center, we headed to the gym. To some surprise, there was a large group of players there.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"We're having a lottery draw for the next round of challengers." one player said. "Just register over here and the machine picks names at random.

"Oh that makes sense." I figured.

Misaki and I registered at the machine by simply scanning our pokedexes.

"Ok time for the next round of draws!" the machine said with an electronic voice. The screen showed a list of 5 boxes with names rapidly flashing, as if the rounds of a tournament were being decided. Finally it stopped and 5 names were shown.

Ryota
Alice
Ren
Gao
Misaki

Lucky us. Both Misaki and I get to go right away. Since we weren't up first in the list we had to wait in the stands for our turn though. But in a way that was good too. It gives us a chance to see how the gym leader battles.

"Let's get to the stands" I told Misaki.

She nodded and we headed up. From here we had a good view of the gym floor. It was rocky like a mountain, with larger boulders scattered across the battlefield.

"First up is Ryota!" said the gym leader. His cursor showed the name Roark.

The guy known as Ryota came up to the battlefield. I finally got a good look at him. He was dressed in a white jacket with black pants. He had pitch black hair that was combed to the right. The most impressive part was that he didn't seem nervous in the slightest.

"I'll make this quick" said Ryota. "Lets do this Shinx!" he yelled as he threw his poke ball out. Out came a Shinx that roared with all it's might.

A Shinx! What's this guy thinking! Most of the crowd chuckled at his seemingly amateur move.

"Sorry kid, but I won't be holding back, even if you're a newbie!" Roark confidently said. "Come on out, Geodude!"

Shinx vs Geodude. Looking at the matchup, Geodude had the clear advantage. But something was off. If he had such a big disadvantage, why did Ryota seem so calm. Not just calm, he even cracked a small smile on his face. Just what was his plan?

"Geodude tackle!" cried Roark. Geodude closed the distance between it and Shinx in a matter of moments.

"Shinx dodge!" said Ryota. Shinx dodged it at an amazing speed, causing Geodude to crash into the rock behind Shinx.

"Tackle one more time!" yelled Roark.

"Dodge again!" countered Ryota. Once again Shinx dodged and caused Geodude to crash.

"Finish it with bite!" commanded Ryota. Shinx bit on the recovering Geodude with tremendous force.

"Throw it!"

Shinx tossed its opponet into one of the nearby rocks, causing Geodude to shatter with it's depleted hp from the earlier crashes.

Roark, Misaki, me, the entire crowd was speechless.

"No way" I whispered under my breath.

One thing was for sure: this guy was not the amateur everyone thought he was at first.

"Not bad kid." admitted Roark. "But now I'm gonna go serious. Onix let's go!"

"Shinx return." said Ryota. "Turtwig let's finish this!"

Smart choice. Even if Roark would fall for Shinx's trick a second time, Onix was too heavy to deal a finishing blow with the same strategy. Turtwig on the other hand could use its grass type advantage to easily take down Onix.

The rest of the battle didn't last long. Turtwig's absorb and razor leaf attacks finished both Onix and Roark's last pokemon, Caraniados with ease.

"Looks like I win." smirked Ryota. After receiving his badge from Roark, he walked away.

Both mine and Misaki's battles went smoothly as well. My Monferno took down Roark's team easily with mach punch, while Misaki's Budew and Piplup overpowered Roark with a barrage of water and grass moves.

Out of the 5 battles in the group I was in, four of them ended in Roark's defeat. My opinion of the players stuck as gym leaders changed. At first I thought they were lucky because they couldn't die. But now I realized that they really should be pitied. All they could do was take on challenge after challenge, most of the time losing. Not only that, they also couldn't do anything about their predicament. At least the rest of us could try to fight our way to the world tournament, and help everyone escape. That feeling of helplessness must be tough to deal with.

"Next stop is Eterna City!" exclaimed Misaki in her usual cheerful tone.

The trip to Eterna City would take us back to Jubelife City, then north to Floroma Town, and after going through the Eterna Woods, we would finally arrive at Eterna City. The trip would probably take about one to two days. If we left now, we could reach Jubelife before nightfall.

"Alright then let's head out." I said.

After returning to Jubelife, we ate dinner and went to the hotel. We had gotten accustomed to traveling together so there was no longer any awkward feeling between the two of us.

"Hey Ren... What do you think about that Ryota guy?" Misaki said suddenly.

It was an odd question. I pondered it for a minute and replied

"Well for one thing he's crazy strong at battling. But he seems to be that mysterious lone wolf type."

"Yeah I noticed that. Why do you think he's like that? You originally planned on going solo, but I don't get it. Why would anyone want to take such a risk and go solo when you could die?"

She must not have a lot of experience playing MMOs I thought to myself.

"Well there's many reasons that some players go solo. Sometimes they're just antisocial. Others might travel solo cause they think partners would just slow them down."

"Ren... d-do you think of me as a burden that will just slow you down?" Misaki asked shyly.

The question shocked me. To be honest, my pokemon would be at a much higher level if I went solo. But at the same time, it would get lonely and I wouldn't be safe if a group attacked me, like that gang of six from day 1.

"No way" I replied. "Your not a burden trust me. Your great company, and you can hold your own in a battle. If anything you help me improve as a trainer. That's what friends do after all."

And with that, we both drifted off to sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Misaki POV:

Am I really not a burden to him?

I'm thankful for all he's done, but what have I really done to help him? Sure, I fought against that group with him, but that was after he saved me. I can't just be some standby cheerleader anymore. I have to get stronger. Strong enough to help him just like he's helped me.

A/N: So how does everyone like Ryota? I know you all can't wait for chapter 5, and to be honest so am I. Look forward to it.