Chapter 10
The Spearow bore down on my two Pokémon, it's eyes glinting evilly.
"Alright guys, just like we practiced! Steel Flail!" Kakuna and Metapod both spat a string of silk out to the other, the strings wrapping around each other and interweaving to form a cord. As the ends of the cord spak-ed into the hard sides of their shells, Kakuna began to spin around on his pointed bottom side. Meanwhile, Metapod began to vigorously use Iron Defense on herself, while Kakuna spun faster and faster.
Centrifugal force lifted Metapod off the ground, until she was essentially a projectile on the end of a silken flail. With a flick of his head, Kakuna angled Metapod into the oncoming Spearow, slamming her into the side of its head and knocking it senseless. However, the sharp crack I heard made my heart stop painfully in my chest.
It was not a reassuring sound.
Then I heard it again, from Kakuna's position.
My two cocoon Pokémon stopped their maneuver as I rushed over to inspect their shells. This was the first time we had tried this strategy, and I was immediately guilty at the thought that I had unintentionally hurt my Pokémon.
Two large cracks spiderwebbed down the back of each Pokémon, deep, nasty looking ones. Then, I smiled as bright light flooded out of them.
The two cocoons cracked even more, finally shattering as the two, now fully evolved, Pokémon emerged.
"Beeeeeeee!"
"Freeeeeee!"
"That was fast! Congratulations guys!"
And indeed it was. Barely a week had passed since I had captured Caterpie and Weedle. Now they were Butterfree and Beedrill. The two smiled at me as they extended their wings to dry in the sun.
"I still don't like bugs, but even I've gotta admit, that's pretty cool."
"Awww thanks Misty."
The next few days passed quickly. I had mostly fully recovered from the Beedrill poison and we had been training non-stop for the Pewter City gym challenge. Ralts had been spending a lot of time in deep meditation, trying to refine her psychic attacks, while vulpix had been training up her pyrokinesis and general fire power. Pidgeotto was still improving in leaps and bounds, quickly mastering wing attack, aerial ace, and air slash. I had crafted a handmade capacitor for pichu, and she had quickly fallen in love with the thing. It was little more than two metal plates with a thick rubber disk separating them, but it was helping her to train her electrical control.
Each day, she would charge the capacitor, discharging electricity until she was out, then I'd put the capacitor into a storage ball, locking it in stasis until she had recharged. Then we'd take it out and let it slowly discharge into her reserves. It was a bit of troll logic I had figured out, but it was doing absolute wonders for her. Already, the weak Spark she was capable of was shaping up into a moderately powerful Thundershock, and I was happy with her progress.
My Nidoran were both also growing rapidly. They had grown in size by almost double, and from the personality changes, I knew it wouldn't be long before they evolved. My male was becoming almost pathologically aggressive, picking fights with anything that didn't run away fast enough, while my female was becoming so motherly and overbearing that it was almost a problem.
Still, this was the team for my first badge, and I was more than happy with our progress.
The day of our challenge rolled around, and I had called one last team meeting before the attempt.
"Alright poké-people, today we face the man of stone himself, Brock Slate, the rock type specialist. Are we ready?"
A small cheer went up from all six of my Pokémon.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I said, ARE WE READY?!"
Nidoran and Nidoran outright roared, pichu cut loose a small bolt of lightning, Pidgeotto trilled excitedly, vulpix loosed a gout of flame, and ralts, Arceus bless her, clenched both fists and gave me the cutest little yell I'd ever heard.
"That's more like it! We're going to shatter those stones!"
Another excited yell washed over me.
"We're going to shake the foundations! We're going to make the mountain crumble! Let's do this thing!"
"Wow Scott, that's quite the speech." Misty snarked from the peanut gallery.
"Motivation is key." I crossed my arms, putting an over the top arrogant look on my face. "Brock won't know what hit him."
"Welcome, challenger, to the Pewter City gym. I am Brock, the leader here. I command Pokémon with rock solid defense and determination! My rock-type Pokémon are all but impervious to physical harm! Can you even scratch them?"
"Brock! I am Scott Hall from Pallet Town! I challenge you for the Pewter City gym's boulder badge!"
"Very well." A referee appeared on the field.
"This will be a two on two match between the gym leader Brock and challenger Scott. A winner is decided when both Pokémon are unable to battle. Trainers, are you ready?"
Brock stood alone with his arms crossed, he nodded. My hands fluttered over the pokeballs at my belt. I locked eyes with the ref, then shook my shoulders out.
"Ready."
"Then begin!"
Brock threw a pokeball in a high arc, landing on the boulder-strewn field. The energy coalesced into a craggy, two armed boulder with a perpetually stony expression. "I choose geodude!"
"Dude!" The Pokémon flexed its arms in a show of strength.
"Very well, I choose Nidoran!" I threw her ball onto the field, my hand outstretched for the ball to return with the recoil.
For a split second, we studied each other and the Pokémon on the field. Brock's expression was every bit as stony as his Pokémon. I could read nothing. Taking a breath, I made the call.
"Tail whip, Nidoran! Then you know what to do!"
"Nida!" The small blue lagomorph darted under the slow moving geodude, tripping it up with her stubby tail. The geodude rolled with it though, righting itself with its spherical body.
"Rock throw."
"Geeeeeeoooooo Duuuude!" The living rock plunged its hands into the earth, hauling out a sizable boulder, then flinging it in an overhead hammer-toss towards Nidoran.
"Dodge it, quickly!"
The blue rabbit jumped to the side quickly, then bolted towards the geodude. She launched herself into the air, spinning to build up momentum, then stomped an absolutely devastating double kick into the middle of geodude's face. Reflexively, the mobile rock monster swatted her away, and I smiled.
See, while I had been training both my Nidoran in their double kick attacks, I had also been teaching them to utilize their ability, poison point. A Nidoran during a battle could protrude poisonous spines, which had a chance of poisoning their opponent on contact. Geodude had inadvertently poisoned itself with that swat.
Geodude began to look physically ill, slowing down as the poison coursed through its body. As it continued to move, it was slowly losing health due to the toxins that Nidoran had injected. It wasn't long before Brock noticed however.
"That was a decent strategy, not many beginner trainers think to use their Pokémon's abilities. Not many young Pokémon are able to use them yet either. Very well done. Geodude, we're on a timer! Try to knock Nidoran out with rock blast!"
"Nidoran, keep it up! Don't let those rocks hit! We're almost in the home stretch!"
My little poison pin Pokémon pirouetted perilously through the stunning stony shots of rock blast, making a wide circle around the desperate geodude. As practiced, she tail whipped it again, knocking it to the ground before landing another double kick to the back of its body.
The geodude smacked into the wall of the field, before falling to the ground. Geodude didn't get up.
"Geodude is unable to battle, the round goes to Nidoran!"
As Brock returned his boulder, I cheered for Nidoran. "Outstanding! I knew you could pull it off Nidoran!"
"Nida-nida!"
"You have obviously trained your Pokémon very well. Let's see how you do against… Onix! Go!"
Brock's pokeball opened, spilling out a deluge of light. Like for real, it just kept coming and coming, the light coalescing into a truly monstrous rock serpent. As Onix took the field, the twenty foot serpent towered over my small rabbit. It stretched its face to the sky, bellowing out its war cry.
"Iwaaaaaaaaaaaark!"
"Onix! Use rock slide!"
"Nidoran, you got this! Keep up the speed and see if you can get in close! Its defenses are too high for any tail whip tricks, so full on assault! Double kick it as many times as you can!"
My blue girl nodded at me, then burst into motion, adroitly dodging the falling rocks as she made her way closer to the giant snake. She launched into the air and managed to land two double kicks, one after the other, but that's when our luck turned.
The Onix took both attacks, and a fair amount of damage, but then rotated on a central boulder to Slam her with a stony tail. Nidoran went flying, smacked into the wall, and collapsed to the floor.
"Nidoran, return!"
"Nidoran is unable to continue, the winner of the round is Onix! Challenger, choose your next Pokémon."
"You did a good job Nidoran. Excellent work." I whispered to her ball. It shook weakly in my hand in acknowledgement.
"Nidoran, you're up!" I threw the ball out, summoning my male to the field. "Nidoran, Onix took out Nidoran! You know what to do!"
"Doran!" He began pawing the ground, glaring at the large Onix with a covert Leer attack.
"Onix, rock throw!" The Onix began to, well, throw rocks at Nidoran, who dodged them for several minutes, all the while appearing to do nothing. This, of course, was a ruse.
As Nidoran jumped and dodged again and again, he began to slowly glow with a built up charge.
"Onix! It's using focus energy! Don't let it hit!" Ah well. Looks like Brock is no fool.
"The jig is up Nidoran, we've done what we can! Full on assault!"
"Doraaa!" The focus energy was still coursing through Nidoran as he launched himself at the giant rock snake Pokémon. Taken aback by the sheer ferocity, Onix flinched as it endured double kick after double kick after double kick, all along its twenty foot length.
When Nidoran finally landed, he was breathing heavily, and Onix swayed in the air, dazed. Finally, it fell still, locking gazes with Nidoran, then its eyes rolled into the back of its skull and the giant snake collapsed.
"Onix is defeated! The winner is Nidoran and his trainer, Scott!"
I jumped onto the battlefield with a smile, releasing Nidoran from her ball as I did so. As we ran over to Nidoran to celebrate, both small Pokémon began to light up with infinity energy. Nidoran began to bulk up, her back legs becoming strong and sturdy. Her stubby tail grew out, and she adopted a bipedal stance. Nidoran became front heavy, his shoulders and front legs becoming thicker and tougher, his horn lengthening out into a true weapon.
As the light faded, Nidorino and Nidorina both stretched and roared, examining themselves and each other.
"Congratulations, you two! That was an amazing match!" Both dinosaur/rabbit Pokémon leaned into my shoulders as I gently stroked them, growling contentedly.
It was the sound of a throat clearing that finally broke me from my musings. "That was indeed a hard fought battle, Scott. You have obviously spent a lot of time training your Pokémon. They look extremely healthy and their attachment to you is obvious. Here." He held out a grey, octagonal metal pin to me. "This is the boulder badge, proof of your victory here. Also, if ever you find yourself in possession of a rock type Pokémon, feel free to come back here. Whether it's as a Gym Trainer, or just to learn more about rock type care and keeping, this badge means you are always welcome here. Additionally, your gym winnings have been credited to your online account. I wish you the best of luck on your journey."
And with that, Brock turned and walked off to heal his Pokémon.
Scott's Pokédex:
Caught: Caterpie, Metapod, Butterfree, Weedle, Kakuna, Beedrill, Pidgey, Pidgeotto, Rattata, Raticate, Spearow, Fearow, Nidoran(F), Nidorina, Nidoran(M), Nidorino, Vulpix, Pichu, Ralts