Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.
Pokémon: Sinnoh no Isekai
Chapter Sixty-two: Marsh Madness
Dawn and Kenny, after having woken up at the local Pokémon Center in Saffron City, Kanto, got ready for the day ahead of them. This would involve both of them aiming to challenge the Saffron City gym leader, Sabrina, in their respective bids to earn the Marsh Badge, which would put the both of them at six out of eight Kanto gym badges. They also already knew ahead of time that Sabrina would be coming at them with psychic Pokémon, so they rotated their respective parties in order to be better prepared.
For Dawn, this saw her include Boss, Lucy, Marquess, and Coupins to deal with Sabrina's Pokémon, and Muten and Kowalski were back in her party so they could passively get stronger while Dawn's other Pokémon did all the fighting. As for Kenny, he got Roshi, Goofy, Cell, Elay, Shallot, and Slick in his party for facing off against the Saffron City gym leader. Kenny, when Dawn told him of her plan she had to face Sabrina with, expressed surprise that Dawn didn't have Chi-Chi in her party, despite how she's Dawn's first Pokémon.
"You ask that I bring a fighting type Pokémon," Dawn said with a wry eyebrow arched, "With no secondary typing to mitigate its weakness to psychic, to a psychic type gym. My reason is similar to what I told Ash when I was gearing up to face Lucian when I was still getting through the Sinnoh elite four a while ago."
"...Oh yeah," Kenny remarked, "I totally forgot about that." Stretching a bit, Kenny went on, "Well I suppose that I'm as ready as I'll ever be to give Sabrina's gym the business."
Dawn turned to face the door leading out of the Pokémon Center. Despite the confidence that she had, the reborn trainer was still a little apprehensive about battling Sabrina, vaguely remembering the events of the Kanto anime where Sabrina turned a few people into dolls with her psychic powers. Dawn could only hope that Sabrina remained the way Ash had left her in the anime after he was able to beat her using a Haunter that he had befriended.
A short while later, Dawn and Kenny were walking through Saffron City, making their way to the local gym so that the first among their pair (they rock-paper-scissors'ed for it and Dawn won best two out of three) could challenge Sabrina. "So we're going to be banging on the door of a girl with psychic powers," Kenny said, "Are we prepared for it if she tries using her powers to turn us into candy that she'll then eat?"
Dawn rolled her eyes in mild exasperation at Kenny. "Sabrina's not going to turn us into candy that she'll then eat." Dawn added 'I hope' in her mind as she and Kenny finally located the Saffron City gym and walked right on in.
Upon entering the gym, Dawn and Kenny were greeted by a male gym trainer. "Sabrina was able to foretell that strong trainers would be coming to the Saffron City gym to challenge her," the gym trainer said, "Might you two be the trainers in question?"
"Your boss was able to foretell that Dawn and I would be coming?!" Kenny said, sounding mildly alarmed.
The gym trainer nodded in confirmation. "Sabrina has a number of psychic abilities, you see. One of which is being able to foretell the future. She did say the strong trainers coming were a boy and a girl." Holding a hand to his chin, the gym trainer went on, "But..."
"...But what?" Dawn replied, trailing off in a manner showing she expected to be filled in.
"...Sabrina told me she couldn't accurately see what Pokémon the strong trainers were bringing when she tried pushing her future vision into that direction," the gym trainer explained, "Part of why Sabrina is so formidable of a gym leader is due to how she can foresee what Pokémon that her opponents will use before they challenge her, giving her an edge."
"So basically she cheats," Kenny said bluntly.
The gym trainer gently shook his head. "Is it wrong for Sabrina to make the most of her abilities?"
"If she does so to learn what her opponent is going to bring against her ahead of time so she's better prepped for it, then yes," Kenny replied.
Trying to get the conversation back on track, Dawn said, "You mentioned that Sabrina couldn't accurately see what the strong trainers she foretold would be coming had in their parties."
The gym trainer nodded in confirmation. "Sabrina said that when she tried pushing her future vision in the direction to see, two large shadows, one per strong trainer, rose up in her future vision to block her off," the gym trainer said, "As well as scare her off. As it stands, Sabrina is still a little bit jumpy due to the latest scare she got from those shadows who blocked her future vision to learn what Pokémon the strong trainers would be bringing against her."
Kenny, with his hands on his hips, said in a dry tone, "She's scared because she doesn't know what her strong opponents will bring to the table, meaning she can't prep to face them, meaning that she has to go in blind."
After getting Kenny to back down, Dawn said to the gym trainer, "May we try seeing Sabrina anyway? Chances are that Kenny and I aren't even the trainers that Sabrina supposedly foretold the arrival of, and we can try battling her without interference."
"I wish you luck," the gym trainer said, "Sabrina is still a powerful foe to face off against in battle. You two will need all of the luck you can get a hold of."
The two reborn trainers went on ahead in the direction that the gym trainer gestured to, hoping that one of them would get to battle the Saffron City gym leader to try to earn the Marsh badge. It would put them at six out of eight Kanto gym badges, meaning only a quarter of the way left to go before the Kanto region had effectively been conquered in their gym challenge tour.
It was an exciting prospect that both Dawn and Kenny were looking forward to.
A short while later, Dawn and Kenny walked into a large room with a ceiling going up fairly high. At the end of the room was a moderately short platform of stairs, at the top of which was an ornate, high backed padded chair, almost like a throne. Even though her memories of the anime from her previous life were somewhat vague before Sinnoh (parts of Unova were also hazy, but starting from Kalos things got clearer), Dawn did remember that this was the room in which Sabrina faced gym challengers aiming for the Marsh badge.
"...Hello?" Dawn called out, "My friend here and I are looking for the gym leader here so that one of us can challenge her?" A few moments later, a door that was off to the side in the room opened, and in walked Sabrina herself, dressed as she was in the Kanto games from Dawn's previous life, with a few more cues taken from the FRLG games.
The Saffron City gym leader, giving the two reborn trainers a curious look, spoke up. "You both wish to challenge me?" Sabrina asked, "It'll have to be one at a time."
"Well we know that," Kenny replied, "Hence why Dawn here said that 'so one of us can'-"
Kenny, as well as Dawn, took pause when Sabrina, with a mildly rattled look on her face, took a step back as if frightened. "The girl's name is Dawn?" Sabrina said.
"And this is Kenny," Dawn went on while gesturing to her friend, "We both came here ho-"
"No, not you two," Sabrina said as she looked like she was beginning to panic, "You two are the ones that I saw in my vision! The ones cloaked by those frightening draconic shadows!"
Pointing accusingly at Sabrina, Kenny said, "Aha! So Dawn and I are the trainers that you tried using psychic powers to spy on to learn what we would be bringing!" As Kenny verbally tore into Sabrina for doing what amounts to cheating, Dawn took note of what Sabrina said about the shadows that frightened her off from psychically spying on her and Kenny, saying that they were 'draconic'. That had to be an important clue.
Sabrina actually cowered as Kenny gave her a tongue lashing. "I'm sorry!" Sabrina said, sounding like she might start crying out of fear, "I couldn't help it! It's just what psychics like myself are want to do! Please spare me!"
"Spare you?" Dawn said, now an even mix of curious and concerned, "Look, I don't know what it is that got into your head, but Kenny and I are only here to respectfully challenge you-"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Sabrina screamed as she dropped down into a crouching fetal position, covering the top of her head with her hands as if she were crouching under a school desk during some manner of disaster, natural or otherwise.
As Sabrina was cowering, the same male gym trainer from before came running in. "What's going on?" asked the gym trainer, "I heard Sabrina scream out of fright!"
Shrugging in confusion, Dawn said, "I don't know! She started freaking out the moment we told her who we were! Now she's too scared to battle us!"
Looking over and seeing Sabrina cowering, the male gym trainer let out a resigned sigh. "...I think that it's best that we give her time to calm down," said the male gym trainer, "Come, we can talk about this outside." Seeing that Sabrina was in no proper state of mind at the moment, Dawn and Kenny agreed and left the large battle room, leaving the frightened gym leader be.
...
Gesturing to the doors that led into the large battle room, Kenny said while looking at the male gym trainer, "The heck was that all about?!"
"Sabrina... obviously is in no condition to battle any challengers right now," the male gym trainer said in an understanding tone.
"Yeah, no kidding!" Dawn said, "She freaked the moment I pointed out, or rather tried to point out, that all Kenny and I wanted was to officially challenge her because we both want to try to earn the badge here!"
"You'd think that a gym leader like Sabrina," Kenny began, "Who is expected to be a professional, would conduct themselves better."
The male gym trainer gave Kenny a mildly firm look. "It's much more than that."
Kenny returned the firm look with an equally firm look of his own. "Oh? And what do you mean by that?"
The male gym trainer relented after a short while. "...It goes without saying that Sabrina is a strong psychic," began the male gym trainer, "But the stronger a psychic gets, the more easily they can be tripped up by fear, as it were."
"...Go on," Dawn replied, wanting to learn more about where this was going.
"You know what types of Pokémon a pure psychic type Pokémon is weak to, right?" the male gym trainer went on, "Ghost, bug, and dark. Three common things to be afraid of."
Kenny nodded in understanding. "Yeah. Dawn and I are each packing multiple Pokémon of those types. Is that why Sabrina is afraid to battle us?"
Dawn held a hand up to get Kenny's attention. "Hold on there, Kenny," Dawn began, "Sabrina said that the shadows she saw when trying to use her future vision thingy to see what Pokémon we were bringing were draconic." Turning to look at the male gym trainer, Dawn asked, "Has she encountered a tough opponent who used a dragon Pokémon against her and beat her so bad she was left reeling a bit afterwards?"
The male gym trainer held a hand to his chin, wore a look of contemplation. "...The only time I can recall that she fought someone using any dragon Pokémon at all was an exhibition battle she had against Indigo League champion Lance to promote the grand opening of a new buffet here in town. But there's no way that would have frightened her, especially since she went in fully expecting to lose, which she did by the way. And that was ages ago."
Dawn, with a look of concentration on her face, tapped the side of her head with the tips of her right fingers while holding her right elbow with her left hand. "...Hmm... draconic... draconic..." After a few moments, Dawn snapped her fingers. "I got a theory. But we'll need Sabrina to be willing to talk to us for a moment.
A few moments later, Sabrina was led into an office room by the male gym trainer. Right away, she saw Dawn and Kenny in there, as if waiting for her. Which they were. Upon seeing Sabrina tense up, Dawn said, "Before you start panicking, I want to run something by you."
"W-What is it?" Sabrina asked, stammering a little.
Dawn took out her pokédex, flipped through it, then pulled up a page on one of the Pokémon that she had caught. She then turned her pokédex around to show Sabrina the Pokémon that she had pulled up on it. Sabrina tensed up a little bit more upon seeing the Pokémon that Dawn had pulled up on her pokédex. "Would this Pokémon by any chance resemble either of the two shadows that you saw in your future vision when you tried to see what Pokémon Kenny and I were going to bring to challenge you with?"
Somewhat hesitantly due to fright, Sabrina said, "Y-Yes. It resembles the shadow I saw covering you in particular."
Kenny, being curious, got up to see what Pokémon Dawn was showing to Sabrina with the pokédex. To his surprise, it was Palkia. "...Why are you showing her Palkia on your pokédex, dude?"
Closing her pokédex and putting it away, Dawn explained, "I had a theory about why Sabrina was so frightened of us when she mentioned that the shadows she saw on us in her future vision were draconic. Sabrina confirming that Palkia resembled one of the shadows, the one on me no less, has just settled the matter."
"...Are you thinking that Palkia might have had something to do with scaring Sabrina off from spying on you with psychic powers?" Kenny asked.
Dawn gestured to Kenny. "And I bet your Giratina was covering you in a similar manner." Just to be sure, Kenny pulled Giratina up on his pokédex and showed it to Sabrina, who did indeed confirm that it resembled the shadow covering Kenny in the future vision.
"Wait, how could they even do that?" asked Kenny, "Neither are psychic type Pokémon."
"True," Dawn began, "But they're both legendaries. Powerful ones too, up to the point that some folks view them as part of the divine. Obviously being a being of such stature like that gives one certain abilities, if only an aura that blocks off psychic spies."
Kenny, after thinking on it for a moment, nodded in agreement. "...Yeah, that makes sense. As for why Sabrina would be afraid of them, aside from how they blocked her psychic spying on us, they are like you said powerful legendary Pokémon. She'd probably be especially afraid of Black due to how it's part ghost type."
Sabrina sighed in a troubled tone. "I really had acted unprofessional. Letting my fright get the best of me-"
"-Using psychic powers to spy on people," Kenny said dryly.
The Saffron City gym leader nodded once in agreement. "...Yes. But anyway, the point remains that I had acted unbefitting of my station as a gym leader."
Giving Sabrina a wry look, Kenny said, "...If it makes you feel any better, neither Dawn nor I have our respective legendary Pokémon on hand. We were simply going to come at you with run of the mill Pokémon." Dawn nodded in confirmation.
Sabrina gave a sigh, one that clearly showed she was trying to calm herself down. "...Yes. I suppose that I am settled enough to accept a challenge from either one of you."
"I won the rock paper scissors between me and Kenny to decide who among us would get to go up against you first," Dawn said as she raised a hand.
Turning to look at Dawn, Sabrina offered her a small but warm smile. "...Indeed. Very well, let's make for the stadium room." Everyone, including the male gym trainer, got up and left to go back to where Sabrina battled challengers to her gym.
Similar to her outfit, Sabrina's party took some cues from the FRLG games, but replaced the Kadabra with a Hypno and the Venomoth with an Exeggutor while keeping the Mr. Mime and the Alakazam. Regardless, Dawn still won against Sabrina relatively easily, seeing Lucy take down the Mr. Mime, Marquess take down the Hypno, Coupins take down the Exeggutor, and Boss take down the Alakazam. As such, Dawn earned the Marsh badge.
As for Kenny in his battle against Sabrina later that afternoon, he used a mix of Goofy, Cell, Shallot, and Slick to score the win and his own Marsh badge. This victory now put the reborn trainers at six Kanto gym badges each. With only two more badges to go before their trek through the Kanto region was done and over with, Dawn and Kenny both felt a little bit more excited for what all lays ahead of them on their Kanto region adventure.
...
"So part of why you never get in trouble for cheating when you use your psychic powers is because no one outside of those who immediately know will believe it," Kenny said.
Sabrina nodded once in the affirmative. "Indeed. I like to maintain as much of a win to loss ratio as possible. It's especially important considering I need it to keep the Saffron City gym from getting into trouble."
Dawn arched a wry eyebrow at that. "Oh?"
Nodding once, Sabrina said, "Here in Kanto, gym leaders need to maintain a more than five wins to five losses ratio. If their win to loss ratio drops to five wins to five losses, then they'll be subjected to inquiry by the Pokémon Inspection Agency. If, after that, the gym leader's win to loss ratio drops to three to seven or worse without rising back up a bit first, then the gym leader in question will be required to step down from their position and undergo Agency mandated training and classes, and won't be allowed to step back into their gym leader position until certified by the Agency."
Dawn nodded in understanding to that. She remembered, from her previous life, that one incarnation of the series required it that a gym leader be stripped of their position if they lose three or more challenges to their gym in a row. The system that Sabrina mentioned was in play here was a bit more lenient, as it cared more about a gym leader's overall win to loss ratio. It was also more lenient in the sense that gym leaders who are made to step down from their position can get back into it after going through training and being certified.
Kenny, looking curious, asked, "Has any gym been taken down by the Agency due to that rule? At least as far as you know."
"Actually yes, I do know one," Sabrina said, "And it was my direct personal efforts that took that gym down."
"What do you mean?" Dawn asked, both her and Kenny looking surprised.
Gesturing to the reborn trainers, Sabrina said, "There actually used to be two gyms here in Saffron City. The gym I run which uses psychic Pokémon, and the now defunct other gym that uses fighting Pokémon. We were often at odds at who would be allowed to be the official gym for Saffron City, as the Agency said Saffron City could only have one official league gym."
Kenny folded his arms over his chest. "So your gym and the fighting gym had turf wars with one another. And given psychic is strong against and resists fighting, I can only assume that your gym ended up costing the fighting gym their status."
"Trainers working at my gym," Sabrina said, "Issued and won enough official challenges to the fighting gym that used to be in Saffron City in order to tip the win to loss ratio for the fighting gym to the point that the Agency made them step down. The people running the fighting gym gave up and decided not to try to reclaim their official gym status, knowing full well me and the trainers working at my gym would just overwhelm them again with our type advantage."
Both Dawn and Kenny looked surprised with how Sabrina described the struggle between the two gyms of Saffron City before Sabrina's gym won out. "...So you guys basically bullied people who were at a disadvantage against you into giving up and letting you be the only gym in Saffron City," Kenny surmised.
Shrugging, Sabrina said, "Hey, it was either us or them. The Agency won't allow more than one official gym in Saffron City." Looking to the reborn trainers, Sabrina went on, "But the now defunct fighting gym revitalized itself and became something different. It's now the Fighting Dojo."
Dawn did vaguely remember the Fighting Dojo from the Kanto games in her previous life, as it's where players could get one of the Hitmon Pokémon, either Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan. And the tale Sabrina gave on how the Fighting Dojo came to be did match up with other tales Dawn remembered hearing about it back in her previous life. "...Well so long as they're still able to work with what they love," Dawn remarked on the matter.
Sabrina nodded in agreement. "Indeed. So anyway, where do the two of you plan to go next?"
"I'm feeling that Cinnabar Island would be a great idea," Kenny said, "I heard that the local gym leader was forced to rebuild the gym there as he had his gym battles since the original gym building burnt down in a volcano."
"Yeah, Cinnabar Island gym leader Blaine is a bit eccentric," Sabrina remarked, "Not to mention skilled and powerful as a gym leader who uses fire Pokémon. I heard this one time that Blaine's win to loss ratio against official challenges to his gym has never dropped to below six to four. Trainers here in the Kanto region tend to develop some degree of fame simply by winning against Blaine for the Volcano badge on their first try."
Standing up from his seat, Kenny said, "So he's pretty ace as a gym leader, is what you're saying. Well now, color me intrigued." Pounding a fist into his hand, Kenny declared, "I aim to be among the lofty few who managed to net a win against Blaine on their first go at his gym!"
Sabrina nodded once to Kenny, out of admiration for his confidence. "I wish you and your friend here luck in your efforts against Blaine." Dawn and Kenny thanked Sabrina for her time, as well as for her courtesy as a gym leader they won against, before taking off from the Saffron City gym.
...
"So we got gym number seven ahead of us tomorrow, my main man," Kenny said to Dawn while they, in the dead of night, zoomed right on over to Cinnabar Island on the backs of Black and Tsukune respectively; after both of them had gotten their respective Marsh badges, they returned to the local Pokémon Center, rotated their parties, rested until nightfall, then snuck out to zoom on over to their next destination.
Dawn nodded in agreement. "Yes. Blaine will be coming at us with fire Pokémon. The first fire type gym leader we've dealt with."
"Well Kanto has a number of first type gyms for us," Kenny pointed out, "Koga and his kid were the first poison Pokémon gym leaders we've encountered, and Sabrina was the first psychic Pokémon gym leader we've encountered. And now we're getting ready to encounter our first fire Pokémon gym leader in a bit."
Kenny was right; due to their trek through their home region of Sinnoh, Dawn and Kenny have encountered rock, water, electric, and grass gym leaders before, so Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, and Erika had nothing new for the reborn trainers to see when it came to Pokémon gyms. Koga and Janine, along with Sabrina, were new experiences for Dawn and Kenny when it came to challenging gyms, and Blaine will be the same when they encountered him.
Dawn was already thinking of what Pokémon to bring to douse Blaine's flames. She had a number of Pokémon who were at an advantage against fire type Pokémon; as a matter of fact, Dawn was actually riding her best bet against fire Pokémon right now. But Tsukune, as always, was going to be a last resort option. Besides, she already had an idea or two of what party structure to go in with when she challenged the Cinnabar Island gym.
The reborn trainer was not worried. She was approaching the challenge logically.
END, CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Author's notes;
Here we see Dawn and Kenny each get the Marsh badge, although Sabrina had to calm down first after she accidentally gave herself a fright triggered by certain dragons telling her off for trying to spy on others with her psychic powers. This chapter also delves a bit more into some background lore, as well as set up some anticipation for the next chapter, where Dawn and Kenny will be over on Cinnabar Island in their respective bids to try to earn the Volcano badge. See ya later, and stay safe.
Dawn's Pokémon: (on hand) Chi-Chi (female Infernape), Souji (male Rampardos), Germany (male Garchomp), Tsukune (Palkia), Muten (male Turtwig), Kowalski (male Piplup)
Kenny's Pokémon: (on hand), Kermit (male Politoed), Elay (male Sandslash; shiny), Slick (male Snorlax), Zarbon (male Machamp), Roshi (male Torterra), Black (Giratina)