Roy and Antonia

by Besprizornye

Roy and Antonia are two new pokémon trainers who have found themselves traveling through the Kanto region together. Roy is impulsive and excitable while Antonia prefers to do everything by the book. Their personalities and approaches to pokémon training often clash, but they will need to learn from each other if they want to beat their common rival, Roy's brother Jesse.

19. Chapter 19

"So, you really think playing tag was the best way to get ready to battle a gym leader?"

Zach had caught part of Roy and Jackie's training session at the pokémon center, and even as he was walking with them and Antonia to Surge and his pokémon gym, he was making his disdain known.

"It helped Jackie's pokémon work on their speed, and it helped my charmeleon get better used to his new body since evolving," explained Roy, taking over for Jackie who had said the same thing plenty of times already. "Plus," he added, "having some fun with our pokémon might help them limber up before the big battle." Zach still didn't look convinced, but he let the subject drop. They were close enough to their destination that he figured it no longer mattered one way or the other.

Vermillion City's pokémon gym was located on a cape on the southern end of the city, within the entertainment district. As the sun was going down, that part of Vermillion City was starting to awaken with neon lights illuminated in all kinds of colors while discordant music swelled out the doors of the area's bars and restaurants. For Roy and Antonia, the seedy attractions drew their curiosity while Zach had been to and from the gym enough times that such sights no longer fazed him. As for Jackie, she shook her head at the others' interest and said, "I keep forgetting you guys are from Pallet Town. Any city which has boats coming in and out regularly has to have somewhere for the sailors to let off steam."

"Why?" asked Antonia.

Jackie looked as though she was about to launch into a long explanation when Zach cut her off before she could start by saying simply, "Here we are."

The four pokémon trainers were standing in front of a building as garish as any on the cape, with tubes of illuminated gas lighting up a crudely-animated pikachu taking swig after swig from a bottle in its paw. Loud music, an ugly marriage of electric guitar and fiddle, made the building's walls thump and bombarded the group with sound. "Are you sure this is the right place?" Roy asked. He knew that it was a stupid question as soon as it had passed his lips, so he tried to preempt Zach's snide comment by adding, "I mean, it's just not what we expected."

"No," Zach still managed to sneer, "I bet it isn't like anything you've seen before. Surge isn't like any other trainer you've battled before. The guy's a nut, but a really strong nut." The pinched-faced boy walked up to the gym building's door and held it open before offering with a gesture of mocking courtesy. "Ladies first."

Jackie and Antonia walked in together, followed by Zach who made a point of not holding the door open for Roy. In any case, the trainers found themselves inside of what looked more like a restaurant than a gym, with high top tables and chairs scattered across a wooden floor. A dusty old piano sat in the corner, long-overshadowed by the stage at the front of the main room where a few men were flailing away on their instruments and filling the air with a terrible din. All three were tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, with faces which looked like they had done hard things and wouldn't mind doing a few more.

"Which one is Surge?" Jackie asked Zach.

"The one in the middle there. The blonde with the sunglasses."

"Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't say that," said Jackie, but no one else joined in her laughter. "Well, one of us has to go challenge him," the girl said firmly when none of the others made a move towards the stage and its three occupants. Despite her bluster, Jackie was still slow to get going herself and she had only taken a few steps before checking over her shoulder to make sure that the others were still following her. Then, she strode up to the edge of the stage and hollered over the music, "Excuse me! We're here to battle the gym leader!"

"Why are you shouting?" one of the other men yelled back, and he laughed uproariously until Surge handed him his instrument.

The gym leader looked even more imposing up close, and when he jumped down from the stage to land in front of the gym's challengers all four of them shrunk back as the man rose to his full height. "So, you want to challenge my gym?" he bellowed loud enough that Roy, Antonia, and Jackie shrank back, and even Zach flinched despite having been face-to-face with Surge before.

"Yes, sir!" Jackie said back quickly. "All four of us want to challenge your gym, Mr. Surge, sir!"

"Excellent," Surge said with a smile of gleaming white teeth. He took off his sunglasses to fix Jackie with blue eyes that were much shrewder than his action hero physique had led her to expect. "But it's 'Lieutenant Surge', not 'Mister', understood?"

Jackie nodded her head and so did the others, which made Surge let out a hearty laugh. "Well, I was wondering what I was going to do for fun tonight, and you four'll do just fine by me for entertainment." He glanced at the other trainers standing beside Jackie and asked, "Are all of your challenging me?" A blonde eyebrow shot up and he smiled as he asked, "Zach? Already back to try again?"

Zach nodded and tried to work through the lump in his throat, and while he did that, Antonia said more loudly than she would have liked, "Yes, Lieutenant Surge, sir. All four of us are here to challenge your gym."

Surge's eyes flickered over to Roy's face and he frowned for an instant before drawing up to his full height again and announcing, "All right, then I'm only going to make this speech once, so listen up! My gym will test your instincts! How fast can you and your pokémon react in the heat of a battle? You might already think that being quick on your feet is important, but I've learned that it can be the difference between life," the gym leader extended his index finger at Antonia and mimed shooting her, "and death. If you think that you're ready to take me and my lightning-fast pokémon on, then show me what you can do and see if you can win my Thunder Badge. All you have to do is beat me in a two-on-two pokémon battle. No substitutions, just like real life." Surge gestured to the other men who had been on the stage with him. "Cruise and Weathers will help referee after they're done clearing us a battlefield."

"What do you think?" Jackie asked the other trainers while the large men stacked chairs and tables off to the side so that the wooden floor could be used as an arena. "Is it okay if I take him on first?"

"Please!" said Roy and the others agreed, though Antonia and Zach both did a better job of hiding their relief at Jackie's offer than he did.

"Good luck," Zach said without much emotion behind it before he walked over to the side of the room to observe the battle.

Roy and Antonia stood next to him, and Antonia asked, "How do you think Jackie will do, Zach?"

"Well, I don't know what other kinds of training she's done with her pokémon, but I know Surge's pokémon pretty well by now," answered Zach glumly, "and if I had any money left to bet, I'd put it all on Surge."

Zach's glum attitude only galvanized Roy, and he cheered, "Go, Jackie! You've got this!"

Jackie smiled and waved at the others before she set her jaw and stared down Surge from across the battlefield. Between them, one of the gym leader's friends, Cruise or Weathers, it wasn't clear which, held up his burly arm and shouted, "A battle between the gym leader and the challenger! Both sides will be allowed two pokémon, with no substitutions allowed! Trainers! Choose your pokémon!"

Neither Jackie nor Surge hesitated before throwing out their first poké balls. Jackie went with her meowth and the gym leader sent out a red and white sphere with an angry expression on its face in twin flashes of red light. "That's a voltorb, right?" asked Jackie.

"That's right," said Surge approvingly. "It's one of the fastest pokémon alive. Let's see if you can keep up!"

"Don't worry about us," Jackie shot back. She started to give a command, but before she could finish saying Meowth's name, Surge snapped his fingers and his voltorb surged towards her pokémon. Voltorb didn't roll as would have been expected given its shape. Instead, it floated on a thin layer of electromagnetism which let it glide across the arena's floor with blinding speed.

Jackie's meowth saw the other pokémon coming, but it wasn't able to do much more than throw its body to the side before the voltorb could hit it dead center. Instead, Surge's pokémon slammed into Meowth's leg hard enough to make the feline pokémon yowl in pain and struggle to put weight on the injured limb.

Her pokémon's cry of pain at least gave its trainer an idea and Jackie said, "Howl and maul!" There was a look of visible relief on Meowth's face now that it had received some guidance for the battle. It opened its mouth and yowled loudly, but neither Surge nor his voltorb appeared affected by the harsh, grating sound. The attack at least made its speedy opponent slow down in curiosity, if nothing else, which let Meowth launch itself at the opposing pokémon with its claws flashing under the gym's hanging lights. The claws scored Voltorb's side and the already angry pokémon's eyes narrowed even further.

"Not bad," said Surge with a neutral expression on his hard face. Then, frowning, he snapped his fingers at Jackie's meowth as he said, "Sonic boom, Voltorb."

Without any other warning, a rush of air ripped through the air between the two battling pokémon, and a split second after a loud crack was heard, Meowth was thrown backwards violently enough that the cream-furred pokémon landed in a heap in front of its trainer's feet. "What was that?" wondered Jackie anxiously, and her nerves only frayed further when Surge snapped his fingers twice more in quick succession, followed by two more cracks as Voltorb sent a pair of attacks to follow up on the first. Jackie's meowth tried in vain to dodge the invisible onslaught, but it wasted too much of what little time it had trying to catch a glimpse of the sonic attacks and looking to Jackie for guidance.

Jackie's mouth worked wordlessly as she tried to formulate some countermeasure to protect her pokémon, but it was hard for her to concentrate when her meowth was struck again and again by the powerful sonic boom attack. By the time that she had found her voice, Meowth was lying limp on the ground and the match's referee raised his thick arm and announced, "Meowth is unable to battle! The winner is the gym leader and his voltorb! The challenger will send out her next pokémon!"

"Good work, Meowth," Jackie ground out through her clenched teeth. She returned her pokémon to its poké ball and quickly replaced one red and white sphere with another. "Eevee won't let me down," the girl said quietly to herself and then she sent out her next pokémon and hastened to order, "Don't stop moving, Eevee! No matter what!"

The command was prescient for no sooner had the furry pokémon materialized from its poké ball did Surge start ordering his voltorb to unleash more sonic booms with his snapping fingers heralding each one. Eevee trusted in its trainer's orders enough to leap out of the way of the first invisible blast which still was close enough to slice a few hairs from Jackie's pokémon's tail. With a startled yip, Eevee started running around the battlefield, trying desperately to keep ahead of the stream of sonic booms while its claws scrabbled worrisomely on the wooden floor.

"What are you going to do, trainer?" Surge demanded as he continued to snap his fingers. Voltorb was rotating around in the center of the field and taking a shot at Jackie's dashing pokémon with each of the gym leader's signals. "Better act quickly!"

Jackie didn't respond to Surge's question, instead she was mouthing something silently to herself while her fingers tapped against her shorts, trying to keep time with Surge's snapping fingers. Finally, she said, "Eevee, diving tackle!"

At once, Jackie's pokémon stopped running and leapt over the next blow so that it could drive its body into Voltorb's. With the aid of gravity, the blow was enough to dislodge the round pokémon from its position in the center of the battlefield. But Jackie's cheer of triumph was cut short when Surge quietly said, "Self-destruct, Voltorb."

The red and white pokémon's eyes scrunched up and then there was an explosion which filled the room with a heavy cloud of white smoke. As the trainers coughed, the one of Surge's friends who wasn't refereeing the match grabbed a fire extinguisher from off of the wall and covered the two pokémon with a layer of white foam which also helped to stem the haze rising off of Voltorb's body. When the smoke cleared, the assembled trainers saw Jackie's eevee lying on the ground next to Surge's unconscious voltorb.

"Eevee!" Jackie cried and she rushed to her injured pokémon, heedless of the referee's announcement of her loss. Her attention was so focused on cradling her eevee in her arms that it took the girl a moment to notice the looming shape of the gym leader standing over her.

"You did well, kid," Surge said and he offered a hand to help Jackie off the ground, but she refused it to continue holding her pokémon. "What's your name?"

"Jackie," came the trainer's distant response.

"Well, Jackie, like I said, you did well," Surge said softly. "You'll want to get your pokémon to the pokémon center right away, and then you can start making plans for your next challenge." When Jackie finally tore her eyes away from her eevee, it wasn't to look at Surge but at the other trainers. "You want to watch their battles, too?" asked Surge. "But you also want to do what's best for your pokémon. Two admirable impulses, Jackie. I'll tell you what, if you'd like my man Weathers here can take your pokémon to the pokémon center for you. He was going to take my voltorb there, so it's not imposing anything on him. That way, you can stay and watch your friends' battles and have a healthy eevee and meowth waiting to see you when you go back to the pokémon center."

Numbly, Jackie looked to Roy and Antonia for some kind of guidance, but they didn't offer any. It was a decision that she had to make on her own. With a heavy heart, Jackie returned her eevee to its poké ball and handed it and Meowth to the man who had grabbed the fire extinguisher. "Please take care of my pokémon for me," she said quietly as Surge recalled his own exhausted pokémon in a flash of red light.

"You heard the girl, Weathers," Surge said as he handed over his own poké ball. "Go straight to the pokémon center and wait there until Jackie gets her pokémon back."

"Yes sir," replied Weathers with a sharp salute and then he headed out the door, a man devoted to his mission.

The mood in the gym was melancholy even after Surge clapped Jackie on the shoulder and offered her his encouragement again. Then he looked in turn at Roy, Antonia, and Zach and announced, "Well, who feels like going up against me after that?"

Zach put his hands up in a gesture of warding off danger while Antonia looked down at her shoes. Roy looked first to Antonia and then, frowning, he turned to Surge and said loudly, "I'll do it! I'll challenge you!"

Surge's mouth twisted up into a grin and he said, "Well, glad to see that I didn't scare all of you off." His sharp blue eyes narrowed and he said, "Hold on, kid, you've already beaten my gym, haven't you? Yeah, I remember, you were with Zach the first time that he came here, and used a squirtle against me."

Jackie snapped out of her fugue state so that she could exclaim, "Wait, somebody tried to beat you with a squirtle?"

"He didn't just try, he did it," admitted Surge in an admiring tone. "So, why are you back here, Jesse?"

"I'm not Jesse," said Roy with growing bravado, "I'm his brother, Roy! And I'm going to beat you so you remember both of our names!"

Surge laughed heartily and said, "I like your attitude, Roy! We'll see if you have the talent to back up that big mouth of yours!"

The gym leader started walking to his side of the battlefield and Roy went to follow when he was grabbed by two sets of hands.

"Don't be stupid, Roy. He's going to tear you apart!" insisted Zach with wide, fearful eyes.

Grabbing Roy's other arm was Jackie, who said, "Roy, think about it. You lost when you battled me, and look what he did to my pokémon. Do you really think you have a chance?"

"What do you think?" Roy asked, but his focus wasn't on Jackie or Zach, but on Antonia. His gaze was so intense that Antonia shrunk away from it and quickly cast her eyes back down to the floor.

"I don't know, Roy," Antonia said quietly. "Maybe you shouldn't-"

Before Antonia could finish, Roy shook himself free from the other trainers' hands and announced, "I'm sick of everyone looking down on me and thinking that I can't do anything right! I'm sick of being compared to Jesse and always losing! I'm just plain sick of losing! So, starting now, I'm going to win! Just you watch!" With that he strode off to face Surge with his head held high, pointedly ignoring the worried looks the others shot his way.

"This is just like when he faced Misty," Antonia said ruefully. "Roy rushed in without a plan and he lost, very badly."

"Poor guy," said Jackie and even Zach nodded along in sympathy.

In contrast to the funereal pall which hang over the spectators, Roy looked to be brimming with confidence. He bounced on his feet, he stretched his arms across his chest, and he smiled brightly enough to put the gym's lights to shame. "All right!" he said. "I'm ready when you are, Lieutenant Surge, sir!"

"Excellent! Same rules as last time! Two pokémon each, and no swapping them out!" said Surge with a similar level of excitement. "My man Cruise there will be our referee." The gym leader's fingers dropped down to one of the poké balls on his belt and he asked, "Are you ready, Roy? Ready, set, go!"

The two trainers' pokémon erupted onto the battlefield with dueling flashes of light. Without waiting for its owner's command, Surge's second voltorb blazed across the battlefield with the same single-minded focus that its sibling had demonstrated. This time, however, the gym leader's opponent did not suffer to a violent opening blow. Instead, Roy's nidoran had similarly taken off without waiting for his trainer's order. The purple pokémon was off and running as quickly as it could, leaving Surge's voltorb to hastily adjust its course to give chase.

"Way to go, Nidoran!" shouted Roy. "Don't slow down for anything!"

"Not bad," Surge remarked, "but my voltorb are trained to hunt down any opponent, and once it gets going it will be more than fast enough to catch your little pokémon."

Sure enough, the gym leader's round pokémon was gliding along the wooden floor at ever greater speeds and was soon threatening to catch up to Roy's fleeing pokémon, only for Roy's nidoran to nimbly jump to the side and turn to run off in a different direction. Surge's voltorb had a harder time changing direction and its efforts to slow down and change direction came too late to prevent the red and white pokémon from hurtling into the side of the stage at the front of the gym. The round pokémon's normally angry eyes looked dazed instead when it rolled back to an upright position. Surge's voltorb's expression quickly hardened again as it found Nidoran and it set off at the small purple pokémon with a single-minded focus, only to stop at its trainer's command.

"Stop, Voltorb!" barked Surge and his pokémon skidded to a stop. To Roy, the gym leader said, "You and your pokémon found a way to trip up my speedy pokémon, but we won't make the same mistake twice, and you already know that we have more weapons in our arsenal than just our speed." Surge lowered his outstretched arm in front of himself and, with a soft utterance of "Sonic boom," he snapped his fingers.

The large ears atop Nidoran's head twitched to catch the first crack of air before Voltorb's sonic boom attack came rushing through the air to strike the patch of ground where he had been standing only a fraction of a second before. The attack left a shallow gouge in the floor, but neither Roy nor his pokémon had the time to admire the voltorb's handiwork when Surge snapped his fingers again. The gym leader gradually built up to the same steady rhythm of signals that he had used during his battle with Jackie and Nidoran had to focus entirely on trying to avoid the blitz of invisible strikes. It was up to Roy to find a way out of the situation.

"Attacking him head-on is probably what he wants us to do so he can blow his voltorb up again," Roy muttered rapidly to himself. His brain was working harder than it had on any schoolwork as he tried to find a solution before his pokémon's incredible luck and nimbleness ran out. "Let's see. Jesse used his squirtle against this guy, but why? Jesse's not stupid, he must have figured something out."

Roy's thoughts were interrupted when one of Voltorb's sonic boom attacks landed and struck Nidoran in the side. The small pokémon let out a loud squeak of pain and fear as he went through the air. Roy's nidoran landed on his side, but he quickly rolled onto his feet and sprang out of the way of his opponent's follow up attack. Watching from his end of the battlefield, Roy curled his hands in fists and said, "Here goes nothing. Nidoran! Water gun! Soak that voltorb!"

Nidoran's eyes widened at the sudden command from his trainer, but he didn't hesitate to obey his trainer. Even as another onrushing wall of air came at him, heralded by Surge's snapping fingers, Nidoran gathered up a mouthful of water from an internal reservoir and let it loose. Nidoran's stream of water flew through the air in an arc to splash Surge's voltorb, but not before the purple pokémon took the sonic boom attack straight to the face. Instead of flying through the air, Nidoran sank to the ground and struggled to get up. Surge watched his opponent's pokémon wearily try to stand and said, "Finish this, Voltorb."

This time when Surge's fingers snapped, the attack from his voltorb didn't speed towards Nidoran but rather towards the ceiling where it knocked out one of the lights to send a shower of sparks down on the battlefield. Surge swore loudly and looked to his voltorb and found it rolling around on the floor without any control over its position or orientation.

"I'd be careful about firing off any more of those sonic booms," Roy said with a smile.

"The water from the water gun must have disrupted its electromagnetic field," Antonia said from the sidelines. Her eyes were wide and her voice was filled with awe and astonishment. "Being able to float is what made Voltorb so fast, too, but Roy undid all of its advantages in one attack."

Zach tried to scoff, "No way Roy thought of that," but there was a grudging respect in his voice as well.

Back on the battlefield, Roy's nidoran had gotten back on its feet while Surge's voltorb continued to roll around impotently. "I know that you want us to get in close so you can take Nidoran down with your voltorb's self-destruct," Roy said confidently, "but we'll just keep our distance! Poison sting, Nidoran!"

Roy's normally skittish pokémon was more than happy to be faced with a helpless foe and he unleashed a sharp needle tipped with venom from the horn on his head at Voltorb's rolling body. Nidoran was readying itself for another attack when Surge held up Voltorb's poké ball and recalled it in a burst of red light.

"The gym leader has recalled his voltorb!" Cruise announced from the sidelines. "The winner is Roy and his nidoran! The gym leader will send out his next pokémon!"

"Actually," interrupted Roy, "is it okay if I switch my pokémon, too?"

Instead of answering immediately, Surge asked, "Are you sure you don't want your nidoran to scout out my next pokémon?"

Roy shook his head. "No, he's done a good job, but my next pokémon will be able to take on whatever you have planned."

"You think so, do you?" laughed Surge. "Fine, it's your choice." Surge watched with an amused expression on his face as Roy called Nidoran back for a rest and got out another red and white poké ball. "One pokémon each. Whoever wins this next battle wins the match. Are you ready, Roy?"

"Ready!"

"Then let's go! Raichu!"

"Charmeleon!"

Instead of launching into their attacks right away, the two trainers' pokémon stood glaring at each other and bristling with energy, which gave Roy the chance to size up his charmeleon's opponent. Surge's raichu was shorter than Charmeleon, but heftier, with a rounded body with light forepaws and powerful-looking legs. It bore some features of rodents, but unlike a rattata, the raichu was not as immediately aggressive. It was clear that it was the evolved form of the popular pikachu, especially taking into account its yellow cheeks and the glassy black eyes which looked like they could have been found on a child's stuffed animal. Atop its neckless head, Raichu had large curved ears and behind it a long whip-like tail topped by a yellow lightning bolt swished back and forth in anticipation.

"This is going to be awesome," Roy said to himself and then he shouted, "Charmeleon! Use your fire! Let's go!"

Surge's grin mirrored Roy's and he bellowed, "Thunderbolt, Raichu! Don't hold back!"

Raichu's eyes flashed with excitement and its yellow cheeks sparked with electricity as it built up the energy for its attack. The scorching hot embers Charmeleon fired off at Surge's raichu singed its yellow fur, but did not deter it from unleashing its attack. With a clap of its front paws, Raichu let off an outpouring of electricity which washed over Roy's pokémon until his Charmeleon's red scales were completely obscured by the blinding light given off by the electrical attack.

When he could see again, Roy saw that his Charmeleon was still standing. The reptilian pokémon's jaw was clenched and his body was singed worse than Raichu's fur, but he was still standing and he looked hurt, but also furious. "All right, Charmeleon! Time to do things your way!"

"To have your pokémon still be standing after one of our thunderbolts is pretty impressive, Roy, but your charmeleon won't beat my raichu!" Surge shouted to his pokémon, "Show them your speed, Raichu!"

At its trainer's command, Raichu crouched down on all fours and, with an explosive kickoff from its muscular back legs, the electric pokémon hurtled towards Charmeleon. Despite the other pokémon's speed, Charmeleon was ready for it, relishing the chance, in fact, to fight Raichu face to face.

Charmeleon rolled with Raichu's headbutt and came up slashing fiercely but expertly with his long claws. Scratches marred Raichu's body, and Surge's pokémon growled its displeasure, but it didn't make any move to disengage from its brawl with Charmeleon. Instead, Raichu took up a boxer's stance and hopped back and forth on its large feet to try to weave through its opponent's attacks while launching a few jabs of its own at Charmeleon's head and midsection.

Charmeleon took Raichu's blows in stride and responded with plenty of strikes of its own. Roy's pokémon was caught off guard only when Raichu suddenly jumped up and kicked out with its heavy foot, knocking its larger foe to the ground. Charmeleon rolled onto his stomach to avoid another kick from Raichu and then swung his flame-tipped tail to knock Surge's pokémon off of the lone foot it was standing on. Raichu landed hard on the ground and Charmeleon leapt atop of it, claws raised for a final series of blows.

"This has been a great battle, but it's time to end this," said Surge approvingly. "One more thunderbolt ought to do it!"

"Charmeleon, hang in there!" shouted Roy.

Aside from trying to hold its opponent close to its body to limit his reach, Raichu had resigned itself to enduring Charmeleon's claws. But with Surge's command, a triumphant gleam appeared in Raichu's eyes as it began charging its body with enough energy to make its fur stand on end and crackle with stored power. As Raichu unleashed the full force of its thunderbolt attack on Roy's pokémon, Charmeleon brought his head down in crushing headbutt which stunned the raichu and knocked it out cold. The built-up electrical energy lashed out unpredictably, but without Raichu's guidance the damage to its foe was limited. Finally, with an aching and smoking body, Charmeleon lifted itself off of Surge's defeated pokémon and roared its victory to the rafters.

The call by the match's referee seemed merely perfunctory by that point, but he still announced, "Raichu is unable to battle! The winner of the battle is Charmeleon and the winner of the match is Roy!"

"I don't believe it," Antonia murmured, but her words were drowned out by Roy's ecstatic cheers of "We did it! We did it! We won our first badge!"