Cape, Jungle and Mesa were in front of me, seated around the room. Valley and Cryogonal were there too, but to the side. The stars of our second gym match would be the first three.

Our first gym match had little significance to Cape and me. Two years of training, even if only on weekends, guaranteed that Cape could easily take on Bugsy. Now, our team’s strength and my skill as a trainer would be actually tested. After all, with discipline and focus, together with two years of preparation, one should expect success in most things, particularly in the first gym.

“All right, I will brief you on what we can expect from Whitney and her team.”

The three pokemon nodded.

“The first one out will be Jungle. Since you’re the most inexperienced with battles, you will fight against the easiest of them, don’t take your opponent lightly though.”

The Bulbasaur grunted and clapped his vines.

“Then Mesa will come next. Besides winning your fight, you will also have the job of setting up the terrain for Cape’s fight. We will make the terrain difficult for them, sand and rock. Cape will fly if needed, there’s no need to hold back.”

The Baltoy floated up and gave a spin.

“Cape… You just need to hit things.” The Heracross smirked. The bug pokemon was more than ready for his role, as were the other two.

That reminded me of a question that lingered in my mind: can Jungle and Mesa win without Cape? I’m sceptical by nature, so my first reaction would be to say no, but I couldn’t help but notice my own confidence about this match. I wouldn’t tell them that I believed we could win without Cape thought. It might put too much pressure on them.

“Whitney is a normal type trainer, so expect them to use attacks that are effective against your type, which means don’t get hit, and no physical blocking. She also has a style dependent on velocity and ending a battle in one hit, so be prepared to fight something fast and hard-hitting.”

They nodded.

“Her ‘weakness’ is that if her attack doesn’t hit, she leaves a window for retaliations, so hit back unless I stop you.”

Cape smirked. He liked to hit back.

“That’s it.” They were surprised by the abrupt end. “She uses many pokemon, but at this level, she mostly fights the same with them all, so you don’t need to worry about individual lines. She will probably spice something up to test a potential new mark, but otherwise, we are fine.”

We spent some more time talking, specially moves, and then we decided to go out to get lunch. After returning most of them, I walked out of the room and down the elevator to the lobby of the Center. As I was nearing the exit, I heard a voice call me from across the hall.

“Hey, Scott, Valley.”

At the tables around the lobby of the Pokemon Center sat Jess. She was sitting with two other teenagers, one guy and one girl. As I approached with Valley on my shoulder, I noticed they shared many physical characteristics: brown hair, green eyes, jawline and nose.

“Hey, everything all right?” I stopped near the couch. Valley squeaked a hello.

“Yes,” She said. “These are Rebecca and Anderson, they’re twins in case you didn’t get it already. They’re from Sinnoh too. We battled in the hall—I lost, doesn’t matter—they are asking if they could come with us to Violet?”

I hummed. “I don’t see why not.”

“Ah, thank you very much. We don’t like to travel alone,” The girl, Rebecca, said. “Usually we would pick up a more sizeable group to go from city to city, but since Jess says you are strong, and she isn’t weak herself, we decided to ask you guys.”

“Yeah, maybe we could train on the way there.” The guy said.

“We would be happy to,” I said and turned to Jess. “They know about the detour to the mountains?”

“Ah, true, true.” She turned her head to them. “We are going to the eastern mountains to catch a fire type, and after that, we will begin going north. Is that a problem for you two?”

“No problem at all. We aren’t in any rush,” Anderson said.

“Yeah,” The twin continued. “This year we are just testing the waters, you know. We weren’t even supposed to start this year, but our family sent us here because of the stupid egg.”

“As if we had a chance. Everyone is coming. People who have been learning pokemon training since they were in diapers, and they expected us to have even a slight chance.”

“That’s rough,” said Jess. “We’re going to order something. Want to eat with us?”

I looked around. “… Really?”

“Really. What’s with you and the food here?”

“I just don’t like it.” I shrugged. The food from the centers tasted too bland to me. I made to leave. “Wait. When do you guys want to leave the city?”

“Hum, Jess said that your match is going to be after tomorrow in the morning?” Rebecca asked. I nodded. “We can leave the same day in the afternoon then?”

“Sounds good.” I smiled.

-

Valley was hanging out on my shoulder, glaring fiercely at the panting.

The painting depicted a battle. The focus was a fight between two pokemon fighting, a colourful Clefable and a rusty Dragonite. At the borders of the unrealistic panting, a small feminine shape and a large male silhouette shouted at each other.

‘Dragon’s Fall’ was written on the museum label.

“See?” I smiled at the Minccino. “That’s what I’m hoping you and Cryogonal are going to do to dragons at the Blackthorn Gym and the Conference.”

“Mi…” Valley nodded. She extended herself to look closer at the panting details while I petted her fur. The curiosity on the Minccino’s face was adorable, she’d never seen things like that in the forest after all.

One thing that came out from the brotherly interaction that Cape and Valley developed was that Valley liked to see Cape’s pictures. So when Cape said he wanted to visit the National Gallery, only Valley wanted to look around. Well, she and Mesa, but he, along with Jungle, were too tired from their battles in the Hall, so they, together with the rest of the team, were in their pokeballs.

Jess’s match with Whitney was tomorrow, and the next day would be mine. Now, however, we were just enjoying the exhibition. There was a time to train and to rest, after all. Jeremy had said that I looked a little too tired.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Cape was far away, at the other side of the huge hallway where they displayed pictures. He liked photos of scenery and was spending quite some time examining one of a floral field.

Valley, of course, had been drawn to the paintings, paintings of battles particularly.

The gallery didn’t lack on that front. Most paintings were of pokemon matches, battles, or battlefields of wars that Indigo took part in, and some that it didn’t. Some were propaganda from the government, clans, or individual trainers, but most were just painters flexing techniques, or who liked pokemon battling and truly wanted to paint them.

Pokemon battling was after all the most popular ‘sport’ in the world, as the League said.

Valley tugged at my shirt, and I walked over to the next panting. This one is a famous one, the ‘Battle under Mt. Silver’, the battle that made Kanto. I remember learning about this in school. Valley seemed entranced by it. I was about to explain to her what I knew about it when someone spoke to me.

“A nice painting, right?”

I looked to my side. A boy was there. He was young, twelve at most, with blonde hair and blue clothes.

“Yes.”

“That’s it?”

“What?”

“… Why is that a nice painting?”

“It's well painted, and I like the history behind it.”

“…”

Valley, who accompanied the back and forth, decided to ignore us in favour of smiling at the painting.

“Screw that!” The boy said. And Valley and I flinched at the volume. “You are my rival!”

“What?”

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“… No.”

He grabbed his head with his hands. “Okay, listen here. From now on, I, George Reed, the next best ghost type trainer in Indigo, am your rival. You better remember that!”

He grumbled before walking away to the exit. The people around glared at him since he’d screamed in the middle of the quiet hall.

Cape was already by my side since he heard the shouting. The silly bug was thrilled. His hands were clenched and his face had a silly smile. He had watched a few documentaries about some trainer’s life which painted the idea that having a rival was expected, something that every respectable trainer should have.

The Heracross turned back and walked away, back to his pictures with a grin on his face.

I glanced at Valley. “Don’t become another Cape, please.”

“Min.” She nodded.

We turned back to the paintings.

-

Gym Leader Whitney had already battled many trainers in this hour slot, and now was Jess’ turn.

I had just arrived, since I didn’t want to see battles that didn’t interest me, and spent some time searching for a good seat that had some cover. They would close the retractable roof of the Gym when the snow began to fall in the next months, but for now it was open to a harsh midday sun.

I finally sat down, and the people clapped in excitement as Whitney walked out of her double doors. Her pink hair bounced up and down as she jumped and waved to the crowd with a full smile, something she always did as she returned to her spot after the five-minute break to fix the field.

The field of Goldenrod had big tiles painted in a mixture of Whitney’s favourite colour, pink, with the normal type colour, grey. When they were destroyed, ground type pokemon would descend to the field to fix the enormous blocks.

When she stopped on her raised platform, her eyes locked across the immense field of the Goldenrod Gym at her new opponent, Jess, who was a little slouched, not as confident as when she fought without a crowd glaring at her, of course.

“Welcome to the Goldenrod Gym Trainer Jess… Let’s have some fun!” She raised one arm to the sky and the crowd went wide. Only Whitney’s charisma could make a crowd excited over a two-badge match. She’d been more famous as a singer and actor than as a trainer, at least before she took over the Gym.

Jess faintly nodded. She wore her normal travelling attire, cleaner than it had been on the road, of course, but more battered than when we left Azalea, with rips and blemishes that would not fade anymore. Far from the girl who almost broke down in the Yanma swarm.

In her belt were her four pokeballs.

“Gym Leader. Trainer. Release your pokemon.” The arbiter said.

Jess and Whitney retrieved their pokeballs from their belts and opened them towards the field. Blade appeared on Jess’ side. The Zangoose had been training and his body reflected that; He was sturdier than when we found him at Ilex Forest.

So Jess had decided to give Blade some experience in matches.

On the other side of the field, a Doduo appeared, a fully grown one, on the cusp of evolving perhaps.

“Begin.”

“Peck it, a lot!”

The Doduo’s eyes locked into Blade and the bird pokemon darted straight into him. Its two beaks glowed with flying energy.

“Counter attack.” Blade walked forward to meet the Doduo, hands glowing grey. He used them to deflect the many pecks that the bird launched as it danced around him in a circle. Cape will be proud. Blade had trained deflect with him and compared to my Heracross, the Doduo was slow.

“Rock Tomb.”

“Dodge.”

A little rock the size of a basketball moved like a wave over the ground to tumble the Doduo, It reached before the pokemon could dodge and the bird tripped. Blade didn’t waste time and hit one of its heads with a Metal Claw. But the bird rolled with the hit and jumped back on one leg with minimal damage.

I smiled at the application of Rock Tomb. It was not as massive or complex compared to what Quake or Mesa could do, but it got the job done and that’s what matters.

“Nice hit,” Whitney said, only her genuine face saved the comment from sounding sarcastic. “Show them you also can dish out, Doduo. Put him on the ground.”

The Doduo raced again. This time, one head was looking around while the other was completely focused on Blade. The pokemon got closer, and the Zangoose used Quick Attack to surprise its opponent.

He burst forward, but instead of slashing the bird, he caught air as the pokemon hugged the ground. Their legs glowed orange, Low Kick. A leg jutted forward and tripped Blade, and while in the air, the legs changed places and the other hit him from above. An attack worthy of a fighting type.

The pokemon had done as Whitney asked. It had put Blade on the ground. Hard.

Two bounces across the floor later and the Zangoose flipped around to stand on four limbs. Though he now had a limp, it was a bad fall. The bird let him breathe for a moment, then came back at him.

They exchanged some moves at first. But the Doduo was able to capitalise on the limp and piled hit after hit. Soon enough, Blade was on the ground, and the bird stood up. Battered and tired, but on its feet.

“Trainer, retrieve your pokemon and release the next.” The arbiter warned.

Jess recovered Blade and released Quake. The Hippopotas glanced around and then glared at his opponent.

“Begin” The arbiter announced.

The pokemon looked at Quake and then moved from one side to another. Their beaks opened and gathered together, a blue ball forming between them.

“Mud Shot,” Jess called later than she should have.

Three balls of hard mud rushed across the pink and grey field, one in the middle and two to get the pokemon if it tried to dodge to either side. The Doduo didn’t. The first ball hit the bird pokemon and smashed him back, though not before they released their move. A floating blue ball turned into a beam that shot into the sky of the stadium.

Clouds formed, and a drizzle began in the middle of the field.

The arbiter didn’t need to warn Whitney. A Bibarel was already standing in the field. It looked up at the rain with a smile on its face.

“Get close, Bib!” The pokemon’s eyes narrowed.

The water pokemon smashed his tail on the ground and it pushed the pokemon forward. Water energy firing behind him like a jet.

Rocks rose, forming barriers to stop the barring pokemon. Punches flew in response, smashing the rocks on the way as they rose. The Bibarel stopped close to Quake and opened its mouth. A blue pulse hit Quake.

Despite his weight, sixty kilograms last time I checked, the ground type flew high and away while the water pulse ravaged his body. Smoke rose from the crash of Quake’s body on the floor, concealing the ground type’s fate.

The fight halted. And the Bibarel was waiting.

Six disc-shaped rocks floated up where Quake had struck the ground. They slid towards the Bibarel. It didn’t use Rock Smash again. Instead, with more agility than a Sneasel, it chose to dash around them, rolling back and forth and jumping up between the rocks.

I grinned. That was Whitney’s ‘mistake’, and Jess didn’t let the opportunity go.

The Bibarel tried to dodge the last two rocks but couldn’t since it was busy shrieking in pain. Quake had surged from the ground to Crunch the pokemon’s lower half, locking it down for its rocks.

The first hit the pokemon’s torso, the second also stuck it on the other side, and the dazed Bibarel swayed. Finally, it experienced Quake’s newest move, Rock Smash. The big glowing head of the Hippopotas smashed into the head of the water type, and the fighting type energy was effective enough for the normal type to fall back.

The water type still tried to fight back and even hit Quake with a Water Gun and Headbutt. But Sand Tomb rendered the pokemon immobile. And Jess had learned from the fight for the Tentacool. She now was not afraid to leverage the physical might of the Hippopotas line.

Crunch by Crunch, Rock Smash by Rock Smash, the locked-down Bibarel finally fainted. Quake looked beaten, especially after enduring those water moves. But he was standing, and that was all that mattered.

“The winner of this battle is Hippopotas, and the match, is Trainer Jess.”

People clapped at the fight.

Jess and Whitney met in the middle of the field. They talked for a second and Jess walked out of the arena with cash, a TM and, more importantly, her second badge, the Plain Badge.

Tomorrow I will get mine.