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.

22. Chapter 22

Antonia's magikarp finally evolved on the third day after she and Roy had left Vermillion City. By that time, the two traveling trainers had started to get on each other's nerves more than either would have liked to admit. Every once minor annoyance seemed to be exaggerated by the lack of the comforts Roy and Antonia had gotten used to spending so many nights at a pokémon center. At least they were close enough to their next destination that the bright lights of Saffron City were starting to go on to fight against the encroaching darkness.

It happened in the orange glow of the setting sun, where Roy and Antonia were gathered around a bend in a small river in which Magikarp could swim while the two trainers and the rest of their pokémon ate their food. After spending so much time out of its poké ball, Antonia's magikarp had gotten strong enough to actually keep itself afloat and in one place in the water, as long as the current was weak enough.

Roy was in the middle of making a half-hearted complaint about having to eat yet another sandwich for dinner instead of eating at the pokémon center when Antonia interrupted him, "Roy! Look!"

It had been a while since Antonia's weedle had evolved into a kakuna, and she had been asleep and unable to witness its final evolution into a beedrill, but she still recognized what was happening to her magikarp. Roy, for his part, had learned the same telltale signs from watching his charmander evolve the last time they were in Saffron City. Magikarp's open-mouthed body disappeared inside a burst of white light which lit up the surrounding area as bright as any spotlight as the weak pokémon underwent an incredible translation. The shape of the glowing pokémon expanded and shifted, first growing bigger and then extending as well into a long serpentine body which reared back to tower over Roy, Antonia, and their other pokémon. All of them looked up in awe as the light faded as quickly as it had begun to reveal a monstrous pokémon with fierce red eyes, a coating of thick blue scales on its long body, and a mouth opened wide to reveal an array of sharp teeth.

Whatever the two pokémon trainers were going to say was drowned out by the roar of Antonia's newly evolved gyarados. After evolving, it had grown large enough that the river it had been swimming in as a magikarp was a mere trickle in comparison to its new body. The gyarados flicked its tail experimentally and roared approvingly as its powerful blow smashed through young the trunk of a young tree with a resounding crash.

"Calm down, Gyarados, please," Antonia said, but her voice sounded so small in her ears that she wondered if her pokémon could even hear her. She was about to say something else when Gyarados undulated its body to emerge from the shallow valley and start towards Antonia and the others without seeming to see them.

Roy tackled Antonia to the ground with a cry of "Look out, Toni!" and they watched from the ground as Gyarados dragged its powerful body across the land, leaving deep furrows in its wake. "Well, congratulations, I guess," Roy said as he helped Antonia to her feet. "But, uh, what do we do now?"

Antonia worked her lower lip between her teeth while she watched her pokémon tear through the countryside with surprising speed, heading north toward Saffron City proper. Then she said, "I thought that I was going to get to talk to it, but I think the first thing I have to do is get it back in its poké ball before it gets into any trouble."

"I think that your pokémon is the trouble, Toni," Roy said with a hollow laugh, but he joined Antonia in chasing after her runaway gyarados. Beedrill flew ahead of them and Charmeleon and Nidoran ran behind them, leaving Bulbasaur hopping determinedly in the rear of their group. Following Gyarados was easy enough since the giant pokémon not only loomed over the flat countryside, but also left a path of torn up earth and smashed trees in its wake as it tested its newfound strength.

"It should be fairly easy to get Gyarados back in its poké ball," Antonia said in-between gasps of breath. As she ran, she pulled a poké ball from the pocket of her butternut-colored shorts and aimed it at her enormous pokémon. The thin red beam of light connected with Gyarados's blue body, but the pokémon didn't return to its poké ball and in fact didn't seem to be aware that it had been recalled at all. "That should've worked," Antonia said as petulantly as she could through her panting.

"But it didn't," Roy said, "and we better do something fast before your new pokémon gets someone hurt! Look!"

Roy was gesturing to a boy and two pokémon standing in a field of tall, swaying grass directly in the path of Antonia's gyarados.

"Oh no," Antonia gasped before she put on more speed to try and catch up to Gyarados. "Come on!"

The good news was that Gyarados stopped when it reached the small group. The bad news was that it did so because it was fighting with their pokémon. An older boy with sharp eyes peering out behind heavy black bangs was commanding a navy-colored pokémon with a long sinewy body of its own, albeit not nearly as large as Gyarados's, and a charmeleon which was larger and had scales that were a duller shade of red than Roy's.

"Stay back!" the teenager said in a voice which rang with authority. "This pokémon is dangerous!" Then, to his charmeleon, he said, "Hold it off with an ember attack!"

"Don't hurt it!" Antonia said, suddenly finding her second wind. "That's my gyarados!"

The older boy's eyebrows shot up skeptically, but he kept his tone respectful as well as firm as he said, "Well, then you better call it back before it gets hurt."

Roy was about to tell the boy, "She's already tried that," but Antonia was already lifting Gyarados's poké ball and tried to recall her pokémon, only to fail again.

"Hmm, looks like it's too angry to listen to its trainer," the older boy said as his charmeleon fired a pattern of weak fireballs at the larger pokémon which burst against Gyarados's underbelly.

"Duh!" Roy shouted to be heard over the roar of anger with which Gyarados answered the attack. "And you're just making it madder, you jerk!"

The boy glanced at Roy without bothering to turn his head and asked him sharply, "Well, what's your idea?"

Roy frowned and looked to Antonia for an idea, only to find the girl studying the older boy's features. Neither of the younger trainers provided an answer before Gyarados spun around and swung its tail through the air and forced all of them to their stomachs to avoid the attack. Although Antonia's beedrill flew over the attack, the stranger's charmeleon took the blow in its midsection but managed to cling onto the much larger pokémon by digging its claws into Gyarados's scaley skin. Then, as he picked himself up, Roy said, "We have to calm it down, not keep making it angrier. I don't think we can beat a pokémon like that without someone getting really hurt."

"Maybe you can't," the other boy said with a knowing smile. He turned his attention to his other pokémon and told the blue and white serpent, "Thunder wave attack, Dratini," and then he grabbed another poké ball off of his belt.

The dratini reared up on its middle before landing on the ground with a heavy thump. The gem in the center of the pokémon's forehead seemed to pulse as Dratini sent out a wave of energy which struck Antonia's gyarados. The attack made Gyarados's body seize up so suddenly that the charmeleon clinging to it was thrown clear of its tail. After sailing through the air, the red pokémon hit the ground in a roll and came up on its feet looking no worse for wear.

Beside him, Roy's charmeleon watched his counterpart keenly. Roy bristled at the boy's suggestion, but he didn't feel confident enough to challenge the criticism of his pokémon. He bent down to scoop up his shivering nidoran and watched the battle between Gyarados and the stranger's pokémon. As Antonia stood next to Roy, he glanced at her, waiting for her to order her pokémon into the fray, but she seemed hypnotized, less by the sight of her new pokémon thrashing about and roaring like something out of a nightmare than by the strange trainer who was handling Gyarados's rampage with such confidence.

"I can't believe that's Magikarp," Roy whispered to Antonia, and since she still didn't say anything, he just put his hand on her shoulder.

Their interplay didn't concern the older boy. He held up the poké ball in his hand without ceremony and pressed the button on its center with a simple command of, "Go, Machamp."

The pokémon which emerged from the resulting burst of red light was powerful, but its power was not the raw, untamed might of Antonia's gyarados. Instead, the machamp possessed an aura of confidence and strength which went beyond the merely physical. It was not only a pokémon which stood taller than any man Roy or Antonia had ever seen and possessed four arms and a body rippling with muscles. Machamp looked to the younger trainers like a pokémon which could snap a tree as easily as Gyarados could, but could also be tender enough to comfort a crying child. In short, if Gyarados was a monster, then Machamp was the hero destined to beat it.

Destined seemed to be the right word because Machamp took stock of Gyarados and its thrashing tantrum with a small confident smile which echoed the one on its trainer's face. Machamp strode up to Antonia's pokémon without any trace of fear, not even when Gyarados swung its tail at it. Instead of flinching, Machamp held out the two arms on the side of the incoming attack and caught the blow without giving up an inch of ground.

Antonia eyes darted back and forth between the machamp battling her gyarados and the new pokémon's trainer before they widened behind her thick glasses. She turned to the stranger and blurted out, "You're AJ Kaczynski!"

"That's right," the teenager said without looking at Antonia. Unlike her, his eyes never strayed from the struggle taking place before them. AJ watched with satisfaction as Machamp folded all four of its powerful arms around Gyarados's body and started to lift the struggling pokémon into the air, heedless of Gyarados's snapping jaws and roars of protest.

"Who's AJ Kacz-whatever?" Roy asked Antonia. Now that AJ's machamp had Antonia's gyarados fairly subdued, Roy's focus readily shifted to the other boy. "Have you met this guy before, Toni?"

Antonia's answers to Roy's questions didn't come until after she saw that her pokémon's struggles had weakened enough for her to try recalling it to its poké ball. She held up the red and white capsule in her hand and closed one eye to help her aim the beam of light at her gyarados. To her relief, and that of the other trainers, Gyarados's blue body glowed red and then vanished inside of its poké ball without a fight. As AJ recalled his Machamp and his Dratini with quiet words of praise, Antonia told Roy, "AJ Kaczynski won the Indigo Pokémon League tournament three times, starting with the one held after his first summer as a pokémon trainer!"

"Big deal," Roy said sourly, "there's a whole tournament for trainers who've just started out, right? So, one of them has to win it."

Antonia had already started shaking her head before Roy had finished talking. "No, you don't understand, Roy," she insisted, "they separated the new trainers' tournament from the other age divisions only after AJ had won that year's tournament. He was going up against way more experienced pokémon trainers and he still beat them all!"

"Well, I'm flattered that you know my name and my reputation," AJ said as he sidled up to Roy and Antonia's animated conversation. "But I'd still prefer a formal introduction, if you don't mind." He held out his hand to the two younger trainers and said, "I'm AJ, it's nice to meet you both."

"I'm Roy," the other boy said with a voice as stiff as his handshake.

"And I'm Antonia."

AJ nodded at both Roy's gruff response and Antonia's awestruck tone before he gestured to the poké ball in Antonia's hand and said, "Well, I take it that was your gyarados running about then, Antonia." She nodded and AJ continued, "A pokémon like that is pretty tough to train. If I were you, I'd think hard about whether you're up for the challenge of taming a gyarados."

Roy butted in by saying, "What do you know? Toni's a great trainer! She won three badges without getting any advice from you."

"Badges aren't everything," AJ said, but then he put up his hands and shrugged. "No, you're right, Roy, it was rude of me to judge your friend's abilities as a trainer."

"That's okay," said Antonia before Roy could say anything else. After giving Roy a sharp rebuke with her eyes, she looked back to AJ and asked him, "That machamp that you sent out, it evolved from the machoke you used in last year's tournament, right? The way that you battled in those matches was just incredible! I watched them all on television!"

It was Roy's turn to interrupt when he interjected, "What are you doing out here? Training your pokémon for another tournament?"

AJ laughed heartily and answered, "Actually, yes! I want to see if I can pull off a fourth win before I graduate to the adult divisions. Since I won the championship last summer, I've already automatically qualified to take part in this year's tournament without having to travel around and collect eight badges from gym leaders again, but that doesn't mean that I can take it easy if I want to defend my title."

For some reason, the way that the older boy said everything so casually, without any trace of bragging in his words, set Roy's teeth on edge and made him tighten his arms around Nidoran. "Maybe some training would do you some good," he said hotly. "Your machamp's plenty strong, sure, but I don't know about your other pokémon. That charmeleon of yours doesn't look any tougher than mine." Beside Roy, Charmeleon nodded his agreement.

"Roy!" hissed Antonia, but AJ merely smiled at Roy's comment.

"Maybe you'd like to take us on yourself," the teenager suggested. "A friendly match between our two charmeleon sounds like it could be fun."

Antonia stopped scowling at Roy long enough to tell AJ, "I don't know if that's a good idea. We've been traveling these last few days to get to Saffron City and it wouldn't be good if our pokémon got too hurt since we've used up a lot of our medical supplies and would need to get to a pokémon center if there were any serious injuries."

Roy looked on as Antonia babbled with his mouth hung open. "Toni!" he shouted. "It sounds like you think I'm going to lose to this guy!"

"That just means I've thought about it more than you have!"

"Whose side are you on anyways?"

Antonia shot back, "It's not about sides, or feeling like a tough guy! I'm just trying to get you to look after your pokémon, since you don't seem to want to!"

Aside from Charmeleon, who rolled his eyes along with Roy, the two squabbling trainers' pokémon watched them uneasily, and finally AJ stepped in and said, "Whoa, hey, calm down, both of you. There's a pokémon center by my house not that far from here. No matter who wins, we can take our pokémon there and get everyone rested up." When he saw that Roy and Antonia had reined in their tempers at least somewhat, AJ joked, "I can tell you two have been on the road for a long time together. Let's have our battle, and then go get some dinner."

"We already had dinner," grumbled Roy as one last parting shot at AJ's friendliness.

"Sandwiches," rejoined Antonia.

AJ laughed again and said, "Well, let's get this battle out of the way then. Antonia, would you like to be our referee?"

Antonia nodded and looked around the grassy field for a spot where she could stand. The place where she picked was unremarkable, and it was hard to set up proper boundaries for the match with the tall grass swaying in the summer breeze and tickling Antonia's bare legs, but she stood as resolute a referee as any proper pokémon match could have hoped for. "A battle between AJ and Roy!" she announced into the wind. "Both sides will be allowed one pokémon!"

"Charmeleon against charmeleon still okay with you, Roy?" asked AJ. Roy nodded fiercely and his first pokémon stepped up from his side to take up a fighting stance in the grassy field. "Works for me," said AJ and he nodded to his own charmeleon so that the two red-scaled pokémon were facing off, not quite mirror images of each other since AJ's charmeleon was slightly larger.

"Go!" Roy shouted, and Charmeleon launched himself at the other pokémon with his fangs and claws bared. AJ's charmeleon narrowed its eyes and then ducked low so that only the top of the bony protrusion on the back of its head was visible over the surface of the sea of green grass. "Be careful!" Roy called out, but it was hard for him to see what was happening. AJ didn't look concerned, however, nor did the older boy look surprised when, after the sounds of scuffling, Roy's charmeleon, identifiable by his brighter colored scales, went tumbling through the air.

"A head-on attack shows that your pokémon is very brave," AJ remarked, "but you two still have to work on your control. Look."

By following AJ's finger, Roy and Antonia saw that a small series of brushfires had been started in the field between the two battling trainers, set by the haphazard flame on Charmeleon's tail. The wind was keeping them flickering, but also bending the burning grass so that the fire could leap from stalk to stalk.

"Oh no," Antonia said, "do we have to stop the battle?"

AJ shook his head and explained, "We can keep the fire isolated by cutting down the grass on the outer perimeter, and we can have our pokémon ready to control the blaze if it looks like it will spread anyways. Do either of you have any aquatic pokémon? Besides your gyarados, Antonia," he added with a friendly smile.

"My nidoran can use the water gun technique," Roy offered, and the pokémon in his arms chirped his agreement.

"Great! It can help my dratini put out the fire when we need to." AJ released the pokémon he mentioned from its poké ball. All eyes were on him now, including those of the two charmeleon which had forgotten about their battle for the time being. "Antonia, can you use your beedrill and your bulbasaur to cut down or flatten the grass around we're battling?"

Antonia looked taken aback at being given something to do by the former Indigo League champion, but she recovered quickly enough and told her pokémon, "Bulbasaur! Beedrill! Please do what AJ said, and clear away the grass to stop the fire from spreading!"

Her pokémon looked at AJ and then back to Antonia for confirmation before they went to work. Beedrill flew quickly through the tall grass and swung its sharp stingers back and forth to leave a curving trail of clipped vegetation behind it. Bulbasaur worked more slowly but also more consistently by using his vines to tamp down the grass on the opposite side of where Beedrill was working. In no time, the two pokémon had isolated the burning field where the two charmeleon were battling from the rest of the field. Nidoran and Dratini stood by on opposite corners, alert for any sign that the fire might spread beyond the erected cordon.

The effort that it had taken to make the field safe had given the fire all the more time to spread within that confined space. Roy and AJ found themselves facing off across a blazing pyre which was giving off thick white smoke as it consumed the grass around their two pokémon. Neither Roy's nor AJ's charmeleon minded the heat and the smoke, but both boys' and Antonia' eyes were watering from the smoke. They were also sweating from the heat given off by the fire, but none of them shied away from the challenge. Even Antonia, though she was only the match's referee, made herself stand firm on the edge of the blaze and call out, "Resume the battle!"

What visibility had been gained by the tall grass burning was more than lost by the heavy cloud of smoke that hung over the battlefield. Roy's charmeleon tried launching himself at his opponent again, but came up with empty claws when the other pokémon sidestepped his clumsy attack. Sensing AJ's charmeleon behind him, Roy's pokémon swung his tail in an attempt to surprise his foe, but the other charmeleon caught the attack in its claws just as AJ's machamp had done to Antonia's gyarados earlier.

Roy's charmeleon snarled and tried to bat away the other pokémon's claws with his own, but his attempts at fighting were forgotten as AJ's charmeleon grunted and then started to drag him across the ground by his tail. While his front and back talons scraped uselessly at the ground, Roy's charmeleon was slowly lifted off the ground as AJ's pokémon picked up speed spinning around in circles. As his charmeleon passed him, Roy saw the look of frustration on the pokémon's muzzle. "Come on, Charmeleon!" he called. "Fight back!"

"What will you do, Roy?" AJ asked his opponent, sounding uncannily like one of the gym leaders against which Roy and Antonia had battled. That connection helped Roy come up with an idea.

"Use your fire, Charmeleon!" he ordered. "His pokémon can't protect itself!"

Before AJ or his pokémon could prepare any countermeasures, Roy's charmeleon angled his body and shot a string of sizzling fireballs from his mouth which stung the other pokémon's face. AJ's charmeleon had no choice but to endure the attack. It growled its displeasure, but its grip on its foe's tail didn't slacken until it judged that it had picked up enough speed and then it let go so that Roy's charmeleon sailed through the air. As its grounded foe tried to get up, AJ's charmeleon hastened to him and climbed on the other charmeleon's back and wrenched the prone pokémon's arm behind his back.

At first, Roy's charmeleon merely snapped his jaws and tried to wiggle himself free from the pin, but when his opponent tightened its grip around his arm and pulled it back tighter, Roy's pokémon's growls turned to whimpers. For good measure, AJ's charmeleon used its other clawed hand to grind the younger pokémon's face into the ground.

"Don't give up, Charmeleon!" Roy shouted. "You've still got your tail!"

Roy's pokémon was clenching his jaw and shutting his eyes tight to avoid getting dirt and ashes in them, but he signaled that he had heard his trainer's idea by violently whipping his tail back and forth. As before, AJ and his charmeleon had heard Roy's command but were faced with the choice of holding to their own strategy or trying to react to their opponents'. They opted for the former, and so AJ's pokémon held on tightly to its downed counterpart's limbs even as it was buffeted again and again by Roy's charmeleon's tail.

The first blows that Charmeleon landed were heavy, driven as they were by anger and frustration, but they soon weakened and before long, AJ's charmeleon was hardly registering the blows. Instead, it maintained its powerful grip on Roy's pokémon and waited for Roy's charmeleon's struggling to cease.

Antonia looked unsure of what to do. Roy's pokémon was laid out on the ground and had evidently given up on fighting, though he was still growling quietly and emitting clouds of black smoke from his nostrils that contrasted with the white cloud being put off by the now nearly burnt-out grass around him and his tormentor. AJ didn't make any moves to have her end the battle, either. Instead, both trainers looked to Roy to see what he would say or do next.

"You can call it, Toni," Roy said evenly. "I think that it's pretty clear that Charmeleon and I lost."

Antonia still hesitated for a moment longer and only then raised her arm towards where AJ was standing. "Roy's charmeleon is unable to battle." That got a louder snort of annoyance from the pokémon in question. "AJ and his charmeleon are the winners!"

Roy took Charmeleon's poké ball out of his back pocket and started to lift it before he thought better of it. Instead, he walked over to where the two pokémon were disentangling themselves and met AJ there. This time, he was the one to offer the handshake, and he shook AJ's hand much more animatedly than he had before. "Thank you for the battle, AJ," he said with an attempt at a smile. Next to them, AJ's charmeleon stood back to watch Roy's pokémon stand up and then offered its own claw in imitation of the two pokémon trainers. Roy's charmeleon took it grudgingly, but his growl sounded more respectful than disdainful and he maintained a steady eye contact with the other reptilian pokémon.