Caught in the Whirlpool
Part X
Kushina was so worn out from the previous day that she had a very hard time getting up in the morning. By the time that she'd crawled out of the pull-out couch-bed, eaten breakfast, and stumbled into the shower, she was the only one left in the house. The warm water almost put her back to sleep and she drowsily took her time in brushing and braiding her damp hair. But when she shuffled out of the bathroom and took a good look at the kitchen clock, she finally woke up.
"Nine-fifty?" she choked. "Oh god, I'm going to be late!"
Why did Daddy have to schedule this fight so early? she mentally complained as she sprinted out of the house, almost forgetting her pokémon collection in her haste. Noon would be so much better than ten in the morning! Argh, I'm going to miss the start!
She ran down the zigzagging path down the sea cliff so fast that she was amazed that she didn't fall or twist her ankle. When she reached the flat part of the beach, which was starting to shrink as the tide started to come in, she almost ran into the surf before she could stop because of all the momentum she'd built up. She set Tsunami free and struggled to get her request out as she gasped for breath.
"I need…to get there…" she pointed to the tiny island that hosted the family gym. "As soon as…possible."
Her gyarados bellowed and lowered her head so that Kushina could climb aboard.
Urgh, what a morning, she wheezed as Tsunami made a speedy beeline for the gym. And I don't even know who Daddy's going to be fighting! I wish I had remembered to ask Kenshin last night…
Her water serpent made good time and she hit the small dock running. She scrambled up the stairs and dashed through the main doors. Once inside, she slowed to power-walking speed so that she would hopefully draw less attention going in late.
However, once she'd made it past the smaller secondary battle pools and all the way to the back where the giant main battle pool was located, she found that the fight hadn't yet started. A few cameramen seemed to be having trouble setting up the low-powered mini-force fields that would keep their equipment safe from stay pokémon attacks. Feeling immensely relieved, she slowed down to a calm walk and scanned the bleachers for a good place to sit.
Of course they had to set these things up so that Mito-sama's picture gets blocked, she pouted when she noticed their arrangement. I guess the founder's picture is the more important one…but I love Mito-sama's image best. You can actually see her face, while the founder has his back to everyone.
The stacked wooden benches were mostly filled with out-of-towners. There were camera and sound people and photographers sitting or standing at the lowest rows while reporters sat about mid-level with notepads or small recording devices at the ready. And at the very top sat her family, a few friends, and a small handful of other assorted local spectators.
With all the chatter in town about today, she'd expected at least a few more people to show up. But it looked like it was mostly people eager to see her father's shame at having to resort to this for money had come out. Kushina gave them a wide berth as she headed for a spot between her family and friends.
"Hey, you made it!" Arata grinned. "You took so long we thought that you weren't going to come."
"I just slept in," Kushina muttered and sat next to Daichi.
"Lucky for you that things are running behind schedule," Daichi remarked.
"I hope they start soon," Shun said from just behind Arata.
"Yeah, I wanna win my bet," Arata said, bouncing a little in his seat.
"You bet on this fight?" Kushina asked.
"Sure," her tattooed friend nodded. "We ran into the challenger yesterday. He's just a pretty face. Your pops will make him cry."
"He's supposed to be good," Daichi reminded him. "That's why all these foreigners want to televise it."
"Yeah, well there's a reason that old Kenjiro only hands out a couple of badges every year, and that's not because he's picky about accepting challenges," Arata retorted.
"Kushina, you're here!" Akane squealed and carefully shuffled over to sit on Kushina's open side. "I thought that you weren't going to come."
"Yeah, I made it," Kushina shrugged, wishing that her cousin had stayed sitting by her mother.
"The challenger is so handsome," Akane babbled, clasping her hands underneath her chin. "I hope that Uncle Kenjiro invites him over for lunch."
"You think he'll be your prince charming?" Kushina asked dryly, struggling not to roll her eyes.
"I hope so," her cousin giggled and blushed. Then Akane pointed towards the base of the founder's image. "Look, there he is!"
Kushina squinted at the man standing on the far side of the main battle pool where he studied the tile mosaic.
Huh, that sort of looks like…
The man turned to speak to Kenshin, giving her a view of his profile—
She blanched.
Oh. My. God.
Inaho was finally feeling less queasy as she impatiently waited for the technical problems to be ironed out so that the match could start. The ride over to this awful gym had been a new level of nightmare. She'd caught a ride in a small motorboat, barely bigger than a dingy, and she swore that the damn thing had almost capsized two dozen times. Even skipping breakfast she'd managed to puke something up, and her only consolation was that she had been riding with some no-name cameramen instead of some of the moderately well-known sports commentators that had come to witness this battle.
She lifted her favorite camera to her eye and used the zoom to get a good look at Minato Namikaze as he stood on the far side of the battlefield/pool. He was wearing his usual battle attire: a loose unbuttoned white shirt with a red flame pattern along the bottom over a tighter-fitting long-sleeved black shirt, and loose blue jeans. Only her professionalism kept her from squealing like a fan-girl now that she was finally going to watch one of his pokémon battles in person.
This is going to be so awesome!
Lowering her camera, she glanced behind her up at the higher rows of seats and frowned in disgust. There were almost no local townies present to witness the battle even though there was plenty of room for thirty or forty of them. And most of the ones that had showed up looked bored.
You'd think they'd be more excited to see a master in action. Really, how often does a celebrated national champion come all the way out here to a crap-hole like this? Or maybe they think it'll be boring because this gym leader is a washed-up old man…
Inaho shrugged and fidgeted with the still camera in her lap and continued waiting and praying that this would make her suffering all worth it.
Minato had been surprised at how intricately decorated the interior of the gym was. All gyms had some kind ornamentation that invoked the gym's 'theme' or the leader's personal tastes, but the art here was unique. Every wall painting, every small sculpture, every tile mosaic was different from all the others, like they represented actual trainers from history.
He hoped to get a better look at all of it after he'd battled, but the image that really caught his attention was the enormous tile mosaic that filled the wall on one side of the main battle area at the back of the gym. The tiny colored tiles formed an almost pixel-like image of a trainer dressed in an ancient costume with a billowing cloak that was facing almost completely away from the viewer. And arrayed around him were several monsters: a kingdra, a lapras, a kabutops, an omastar, and a gyarados…that happened to be a vibrant shade of red.
How interesting, he mused, brushing his fingertips against the pokéballs hooked to his belt.
The picture had seen better days, thought. Some tiles had been knocked loose, leaving pale patches of grout and bare wall. And there were even a few cracks on one corner. Years of misaimed pokémon attacks had obviously taken their toll—
"Does this mural interest you?" Kenshin Uzumaki asked as he walked over to stand by Minato's side.
"All of the artwork I've seen so far has interested me," Minato replied. "What can you tell me about this one while we still have time?"
"Well, this was commissioned to represent the founder of our clan," Kenshin explained. "Whatever records that mentioned his name have been long lost, but his reputation is the stuff of legends. He tamed all these creatures in the time before even the earliest apricorn-based pokéballs were developed and settled himself and his family in the Land of Whirlpools before it even existed as a nation. He first laid claim to this tiny island for use in formal challenges from trainers of other clans. And it is because of his unique gyarados that most men of my family seek out magikarp to train."
"Fascinating," Minato murmured with a nod as he gazed up at the mosaic again. "Are all the pokémon and trainers decorating this gym figures from local history?"
"Yes, I don't know all their stories, but the leader that rebuilt the gym after it burned down wanted to celebrate all his notable ancestors in a way that would last," Kenshin told him.
"Hmm…are the bleachers covering up anything?" Minato wondered.
"Yes, there's—" Kenshin paused and glanced over at the camera crews on the other side of the pool. "It looks like they're finally ready. I'll be refereeing this match, so come with me to meet my father."
Minato followed the Uzumaki man around one end of the pool to meet with the old gym leader on the side with the spectators and cameras.
His first impression of Kenjiro Uzumaki was of old battered but unmovable stone. His hair was almost entirely white and his face was lined and unreadable with gray eyes that revealed nothing. But he was still strong with broad shoulders and his grip was firm when he shook Minato's hand.
"Don't expect any special treatment from me," was all Kenjiro said.
"I wouldn't want any," Minato replied, slightly puzzled.
Kenjiro gave a single sharp nod and walked off to his end of the battlefield.
Okay, then, Minato thought with a mental shrug and headed for his place.
The battling area was essentially a giant pool at least as long as an Olympic-style pool and much wider. At the center was a solid, flat-topped, concrete island for pokémon unable to swim or fly to stand upon. And scattered around the water field were smaller floating platforms anchored to the pool bottom by chains. The set-up clearly favored water pokémon, which definitely upped the difficulty level for trainers making a challenge.
When Minato stepped inside his painted rectangle, and Kenjiro did the same on the far side of the pool, Kenshin stood at the midpoint on the side with the audience and called out the rules.
"This will be a full battle with no substitutions. If a pokémon is recalled, it is disqualified. Pokémon will battle until they are knocked out or are determined to be unable to continue. The trainer whose pokémon have all been eliminated loses."
Kenshin raised a flag up over his head, and then snapped it down.
"Begin!"
Kenjiro wasted no time in selecting his first creature and unleashing it into the battle pool. A massive male gyarados burst out of the water with an angry roar. It had a broken fang, several scars on its armored blue hide, tattered fins, and one of the tines of its three-pronged horn had snapped off—clear signs that it had had a long career and taken hard hits. The sea serpent was an impressive and intimidating sight.
In that moment, Minato felt cool and calm. All the anxiety that had buzzed in the back of his mind about Kushina and the nature of her relation to the gym leader that he was fighting vanished. He was in the zone and his thoughts were solely on the battle.
He fired his own first choice under the surface of the water in a burst of white light. Seconds later his own gyarados, Akai, exploded from the pool with a roar of his own. He was slightly smaller than Kenjiro's gyarados, much younger, and unscarred. But his armored scales glowed like bloody rubies in the mixture of natural light from the windows and artificial lights from the roof and cameras.
It's debut time…
Kushina sat speechless along with everyone, but for a different reason than the rest of the crowd. The reporters were all stunned because Minato had never used Akai in an official battle before, and the locals were shocked at seeing a red gyarados like the first Uzumaki's in the flesh. She, however, was struck with panic-laced horror at Minato's very presence in close proximity to her family, especially her father.
I suppose it's a good thing that I haven't told anyone here what my fiancé's name is, she thought weakly.
Then the silence was broken by reporters and commentators frantically speaking into microphones and recorders. The people surrounding Kushina remained completely silent as they stared in disbelief. And since her father wasn't ordering Kraken to attack right away, Kushina took that to mean that he was just as blown-away by the rare beast as the local spectators.
I never told him about the founder or any of my clan's history, Kushina thought as she watched Akai's intimidating aura clash with Kraken's. So there's no way that Minato knew that using Akai would be so stunning… Maybe it will impress Daddy.
With her father silent, Minato made the first move.
"Akai, ice fang!" he called out, his voice echoing through the vast chamber.
The red gyarados dove under the surface of the water, surged to the far side of the pool, and resurfaced next to Kraken and latched onto the older gyarados' neck with subzero fangs. Kraken snarled as he was startled out of his own shock at seeing such a radically different example of his own kind and struggled to shake Akai loose. When Akai stubbornly hung on, Kraken swam towards one side of the pool and bashed Akai against it until the red gyarados was knocked off.
"Kraken," her father bellowed, "use ice beam."
The scarred gyarados fired a crackling blue beam of frigid energy that struck Akai on the belly scales like a hammer.
"Akai, thunderbolt."
The red sea serpent shook off the freezing attack and his three-pronged forehead horn glowed and fired a tremendous bolt of electricity. Kraken roared in pain from the extremely effective attack, but he didn't fall. Once the brief electrocution was over, Kraken looked ready to eat Akai alive.
"Hyper beam," her father ordered.
Kraken opened his massive jaws wide and vomited a powerful beam of energy into Akai. The red gyarados was knocked almost completely across the battle pool by the punishing blast. And when Akai finally came to a stop, it was very clear that the younger gyarados could no longer continue the fight.
"The gyarados is unable to battle," Kenshin announced as Minato drew Akai back into the pokéball with the red return laser.
He did pretty good, considering that he had to fight Kraken, Kushina mused as she watched the scarred old gyarados try to catch his breath after expending so much energy on his hyper beam.
The next pokémon that Minato sent into battle was Kiroi. The female raichu appeared on one of the floating platforms and immediately hopped from platform to platform towards Kraken. It was a sensible choice, but Kushina cringed all the same.
Kiroi better strike hard and fast because Daddy knows just what to do with electric pokémon…
Minato had hoped that Akai would've been able to defeat at least one opponent, but his gyarados had done well for its first time in an official battle. Perhaps if the ice fang had made the other gyarados flinch, or if Akai had managed to squeeze off a second thunderbolt attack the result would have been different. But Akai was out and now it was time for his raichu to take charge of the situation.
"Kiroi, thunderbolt," he called.
The raichu reached the central concrete island and paused there to fire off a bolt of sizzling electricity at the wheezing scarred gyarados. The electric attack did even greater damage than Akai's had. But the gym leader's gyarados withstood it…barely.
"Kraken, use earthquake!" Kenjiro instructed.
The gyarados sluggishly dove to the bottom of the pool to drum on the concrete with its body to make the whole building shake.
"Kiroi," Minato hurriedly ordered, "discharge!"
His electric rodent splashed into the pool and electrified all the water in an explosion of yellow light. When the blinding glare faded, Kiroi climbed back onto the concrete island and waited. Moments later the old scarred gyarados floated to the surface, unconscious.
"Kraken is unable to battle," Kenshin announced as the sea serpent was removed from the field.
The gym leader's face was unreadable on his loss and he simple unleashed his next beast. A massive walrus-like walrein rematerialized on one of the floating platforms closest to the gym leader. It was huge and heavy with the longest tusks that Minato had ever seen on a walrein.
"Iceberg," Kenjiro rumbled, "swagger."
The walrein puffed up into a proud, showy pose and bellowed. Kiroi found the walrein's behavior insulting and swiftly became enraged. The raichu's attack was boosted by its anger, but the emotional surge also briefly confused the rodent. She charged the walrus monster but forgot that the battlefield was a huge pool and she slipped off the edge concrete island and flailed in the water instead of properly swimming.
"Now, earthquake," the gym leader commanded.
The walrein dove off the floating platform and sank to the bottom of the pool like the gyarados had before it.
"Kiroi, discharge!" Minato yelled, but his raichu failed to hear him in her confusion and only was able to climb back on the solid central island before the walrein struck.
The whole building started to shake a little, but the most intense motion was focused on the battlefield. Damaging ground vibrations made the floating platforms sway and slosh in the water and the rock-solid concrete island bucked and bashed Kiroi around. When the tremors had subsided the raichu had snapped out of confusion, but had been hurt badly.
"Kiroi, use thunderbolt," Minato ordered.
As soon as the walrein surfaced to receive a new command, his raichu struck it with a powerful blast of lightning.
"Iceberg, ice ball."
The walrus monster shrugged off the lightning strike and sank below the surface of the water. Moments later it reappeared in a burst of spray, curled up and encased in a thick shell of ice. The solid ice boulder crashed into Kiroi and then rolled off the concrete island and splashed back into the pool.
"Hit it with iron tail when it comes back," Minato instructed.
Again the ice-encased walrein exploded from the pool, the ice shell now thicker and more damaging as it rolled over the island in the opposite direction of its original strike. Kiroi's lightning-whip tail stiffened and took on a metallic sheen, but when she swung it her timing was off. She missed hitting the ice-boulder by little more than an inch as the walrein bounced and struck her before sinking into the water once more.
She can't take another hit from that, Minato knew. "Give it a thunder wave."
The next time the walrein burst from the water, covered in even more ice, Kiroi dove to the side and blasted it with a burst of paralyzing static. Now with its mobility seriously impaired, the walrein bounced out of control and shattered its icy shell. It sluggishly, stiffly turned to face its raichu foe, still ready to fight.
"Aurora beam," the gym leader commanded.
"Thunderbolt!" Minato countered at the same moment.
The weary raichu launched another electrical strike, but the walrein withstood it and managed to respond with the shimmering cold colors of an aurora beam blast. The ice attack was beautiful, but powerful, and it was just too much. Kiroi collapsed and didn't rise again.
"The raichu is unable to continue battling," Kenshin declared.
Minato swallowed a sigh as he brought Kiroi back to her ball to rest.
This guy is definitely not the average gym leader. Why hasn't he been appointed to be the national champion? So far it seems like he'd be good for it.
To combat the watery ice monster, Minato elected to send out his poliwrath, Gama. The muscular amphibian locked eyes with the half-paralyzed walrus for a tense second. Then Gama dropped into a ready stance.
"Gama, focus blast."
The poliwrath held his white hands apart in front of his swirl-covered chest and began concentrating blue energy into a sphere. Once it was about the size of a small beach ball, Gama leapt towards the shivering walrein and then hurled it. The attack was less accurate than aura sphere, but it was much stronger and the paralyzed walrus couldn't move enough to dodge it.
"Iceberg is unable to battle," Kenshin declared after the walrein toppled over.
Again the gym leader's expression remained stony and unreadable, giving no hint of anger or frustration, as he set loose another beast. His third monster was a tentacruel that floated in the pool, nearly completely submerged. The poisonous jellyfish almost seemed to be asleep as it drifted on the surface of the water, but it was surely an act meant to lull its opponent into a false sense of security.
"Man-O-War, supersonic."
The jellyfish lurched out of the water just enough to fire a blast of high-pitched confusion-inducing sound, but Gama hopped off the floating platform that he'd been standing on and hid underwater.
"Use mud bomb, Gama," Minato commanded, raising his voice a little to be sure that the poliwrath could hear him.
Gama popped up moments later much closer to the giant jellyfish and fired a hard-packed ball of mud from his mouth into the tentacruel's head.
"Man-O-War, use poison jab."
The tentacruel surged at Gama and struck at the fighting amphibian with dozens of poison-oozing tentacles, tagging its foe several times.
"Gama, body slam."
The poliwrath dove down near the bottom of the pool and then rocketed back up into the air before crashing down on the tentacruel.
"Sludge wave," the gym leader ordered.
Dark-colored poison exploded from the tentacruel in all directions and swamped the poliwrath. The amphibian back-stroked away from the contaminated water, but from the tinge he could see in Gama's skin Minato knew that his monster had been poisoned. He needed to end things quickly before the poison made his frog faint.
"Gama, use hypnosis."
The poliwrath sank under the water to be at eye-level with the half-submerged jellyfish and the spiral on his belly started to twirl. The tentacruel tried to move away and not look, but Gama made sure to stay directly in front of it. In moments the poisonous jellyfish was unconscious and slowly sinking towards the bottom of the pool.
"And finish it with dynamic punch!" Minato shouted.
Normally dynamic punch was one of the most inaccurate moves a pokémon could learn. The user was committed the moment it powered up its fist and charged and there was no changing direction, so the target usually had little trouble dodging it. But with the tentacruel asleep, there was no way that Gama could miss, and the damage and resulting confusion would be just what he needed.
Gama's punch was so explosive that the tentacruel was knocked out of the pool, over the gym leader's head, and almost through a window. The terrific blow woke the jellyfish up, but it was confused and kept bouncing into the wall instead of slithering back into the pool. And in very short order the tentacruel knocked itself out.
"Man-O-War has been eliminated," Kenshin called out.
Three down, Minato thought as he watched poor Gama try to catch his breath as the poison slowly sapped his strength, three to go…
The fourth pokémon that the gym leader set against him was a hulking blastoise. The bipedal turtle was probably the man's oldest pokémon and various scrapes and scuffs on its shell proved that it had been in many battles. It locked eyes with the huffing and puffing poliwrath and smirked a little.
"Tank, hydro pump," Kenjiro commanded.
Minato almost smiled. He was sure that the old gym leader had intended to finish Gama off in one blow. But Gama's ability was water absorb and the torrent of water that was fired from the blastoise's cannons boosted the poliwrath's health instead of reducing it.
That's bought us a little extra time; now to put it to good use. "Gama, give it a body slam."
His poliwrath slammed down on the blastoise's shell, but the turtle absorbed the shock with little damage and no paralysis, which Minato had hoped a bit for.
"Tank, rapid spin."
The blastoise lurched forward, tucked its limbs and cannons into its shell, and it spun through the air, battering Gama onto the solid concrete center island.
"Gama, hypnosis," Minato called.
"Tank, skull bash," Kenjiro countered.
The poliwrath's spiral was just starting to twirl hypnotically when the blastoise lowered his head to charge his attack.
"Use, focus blast Gama—"
The tank-like turtle raced towards the muscular frog and buried its head into the poliwrath's gut and sent the fighting frog skipping across the pool. The poliwrath disappeared under the surface of the water and stayed there for so long that Kenshin was about to declare Gama unable to continue. But with an explosive splash Gama burst from the water behind the blastoise and hurled a focus blast orb right between the water cannons. The force of the blow knocked the blastoise flat to the concrete and it almost skidded into the pool.
"Tank, tackle," Kenjiro ordered.
The giant turtle quickly got back to its feet and dashed into the poliwrath, knocking Gama off his feet. The fighting frog tried to stand up again, but collapsed on the edge of the center island. All the damage that he'd taken combined with the poison in his system had taken him down.
"The poliwrath is unable to battle," Kenshin announced.
All his monsters are old and tough, and they've been well-trained to cover their weaknesses, Minato reflected as he briefly debated on who to use next. They sort of remind me of some of Oonoki's beasts. Kenjiro must have to hold back a lot to give out any badges to young trainers that challenge him.
After a moment's hesitation, he chose Hana to take on the gym leader's blastoise. The water pokémon surely knew some attacks that could overwhelm his venusaur, but it seemed an appropriate match-up and he had faith in Hana's power. So he set loose his grass monster and watched as the large monster bounded from drifting platform to platform until she reached the concrete island where the blastoise waited.
"Alright, Hana, petal dance!"
Let's cut this turtle down to size…