Aidinza hardly slept when he got back to the Pokémon Centre, instead, he found himself in front of one of the screens that the Nimbasa Nurse Joy introduced him to, researching his new capture.
His new pokémon was a clauncher, otherwise known as the water gun Pokémon due to the extremely high-pressure water gun they are capable of producing from their large right claw. Most commonly found in Kalos, and considered their national aquatic Pokémon. Usually, it was predominantly blue and black, however, it was not uncommon for the pokémon to have differing colours if it was born in different climates.
The crustacean was a fairly potent presence in the Kalosian competitive scene; as one of the few native Water-types it filled a rather necessary niche to compete with their powerful - and often esoteric - fire types, and the strong presence of rock and ground types in the league. While not as incredibly powerful as a well-trained and bonded Greninja, its evolved form, Clawitzer, was a potent manipulator of water, capable of cracking apart cliffs with a single high-pressure blast and the focal point of a great deal of national pride, due to their presence in Kalos’s Armed Forces in the Last War. Which made it strange to Aidinza that he found so many recipes involving their claws.
The pokémon did have several glaring weaknesses he would need to account for according to the articles that he was reading. Predominantly was its surprising issues as a water type in water. Its asymmetrical body prevented it from swimming properly, and its form was built for defence rather than agility. It did however have a way to mitigate its mobility weakness at the highest levels by apparently being able to propel itself with high-pressure force from its claw-cannons. As a clauncher by firing water from its front, and as a clawitzer by having special gas chambers and releases in the back of the cannon, capable of temporarily flinging the Pokémon at incredible speeds.
However, even that mitigation of their weakness had its own issues. For a clauncher, they would have to physically fling themselves backwards, and lacking any way to properly look behind them, would be basically blind during it. Not only that, the powerful pressurised water they would have to use, would also blind them from seeing properly to their right and front due to the water spray. For a clawitzer, its gas chambers only had a limited amount of gas, and without significant forethought and planning a clawitzer was not able to use its most potent offensive asset while it was moving.
But that was fine, Aidinza would have wanted the pokémon even if Clauncher was the weakest pokémon in the world. The help that Clauncher gave him in that cave mattered to him far more than having to consider any weakness ever would. He also learned over the course of his research that Clauncher was most likely male, females of the species being incredibly aggressive.
Slowly he breathes in, standing on the river bank. His right hand played a beat across the three Pokéballs on his belt, as he considered how he was going to handle this. Sandile was generally very calm, at least in the sense of aggression, more likely to play with a new pokémon than fight it without direction. However his territorial instincts changed that, and Aidinza was not sure if a new teammate that he had not beat would trigger those instincts or not.
Astazhei was a more predictable issue, there was no chance that the rufflet would not challenge the new Pokémon in some way. Aidinza was hoping that Astazhei would at least keep to the Hone Claws challenge.
He lets his thumb catch on one of the Pokéball releases, Sandile’s to be exact. There’s a flash of red, and the desert croc appears on the sandy bank of the river Seismahan. He immediately set about enjoying the sand, digging into the bank until he was mostly submerged, only his black-rimmed eyes visible.
“Hey, buddy.” He grins down at the Pokémon, kneeling down to help bury parts of Sandile that were exposed to the air. “You’re gonna be meeting a new Pokémon I caught.”
The sand shudders and Sandile pokes his head out blinking up at his trainer. “Bwaah?” His head tilts slightly, as he smacked his lips.
“I caught someone in the cave we were exploring after we met that girl.” A flash of confusion visibly furrows Sandile’s face, and his head tilts the other way. “The weird girl.” He explains, and Sandile’s mouth opens and it makes a rumble of realisation. “I’m going to need you to make sure things go okay. Okay?”
Sandile grinned gummily, and croaked as he nodded; As clear an acknowledgement as Aidinza could have asked for.
“Let's do this then.” Two twin flashes fought the sunlight for a moment, and after they disappeared, two figures were revealed: Clauncher and Astazhei. Astazhei as he usually did, quickly rose into the air, heavy wing beats masked underneath his prideful cry. Clauncher on the other hand, simply glanced around the sandy riverbank placidly, antenna twitching, creating an odd squeaking sound.
Astazhei was quick to notice the new arrival, stalling his flight to dive harshly, landing with a plume of sand and letting out a challenging caw, one he often made when using Hone Claws. Aidinza kept one eye on Sandile, seeing him visibly resist the urge to respond to the challenge with his own millennia-old growl. “Astazhei.” He warned, earning a sheepish look from the bird. “Both of you, meet Clauncher, our newest teammate.”
Sandile, having stamped down on his territorial instincts, moves forward as sand slides over his sleek scales easily. He chirps at the crustacean, giving another gummy smile. Clauncher’s antenna twitches again before he makes a sort of twittering sound that Aidinza vaguely remembers from their first meeting.
Then Astazhei arrived with a brief flap that sent him on a surprisingly long hop; he landed not far from the duo, letting out his own chirp. But this one was far more on edge than Sandiles. Astazhei it seemed was still eager to prove his place in the pecking order.
“Not today Astazhei. We have to train for rechallenging Honoured Leader Clay.” The words stopped the situation in its tracks, Sandile turning serious, and Astazhei turning to Aidinza to buff up his chest.
Clauncher, perhaps unsurprisingly, was completely unmoved by the trainer's words.
Hopefully, though, that would not last long, Aidinza had put in a lot of effort in the training session he was going to run the three through. Mostly in learning just what he would need to focus on at all for Clauncher. He pulls out a notepad from his bag and flicks through a few pages.
“Now, Astazhei, you're going to be learning Gust, and Sa-,” Aidinza finds himself cut off as Astazhei beats a wing in his general direction, and the wind nearly sends him stumbling. He glances over to the bird and sees him proudly puffed up. “Yes, like that Astazhei.” The bird crows proudly, and before he could do it again, Aidinza interferes. “But it feels a bit weak to me.” Aidinza smiles at Astazhei, features sharp, while Astazhei looks mildly offended. “I’ll be around to help you set up some weights soon enough, they’ll help make you stronger.”
That seemed to placate the bird, who seemed pleased by the idea of weights as he hopped away to a nearby tree. Aidinza’s smile only widened, he knew that Astazhei was not going to be that pleased for long. Or maybe he would, Aidinza knew of some who enjoyed the burn of heavyweights. “Now Sandile, you’re going to keep working on Sand Tomb alright?” Thankfully Sandile did not also decide that was a prompt for him to use that on him, instead, he swam off in the sand, and already he could see a dust devil whirling into existence. “And Clauncher, you and I are going to figure out what you know.”
He grinned down at his red-white Pokémon, looking forward to figuring out just what Clauncher knew, compared to what he had learned they could know. Clauncher blinked placidly at him and glanced towards the river.
-
Clauncher quickly proved that he had quite the move pool, and just as quickly proved to be slightly recalcitrant in actually applying them. It took Aidinza a while to properly coax Clauncher into actually using his moves, and while he was pretty sure he managed to figure out everything Clauncher could do - including a half-hearted Smackdown - it felt like Clauncher was not putting in the full effort for any of them.
So after Clauncher demonstrated Aqua Jet with a jump with less air time than what Aidinza could manage, the trainer had the idea that he might get better results if he bribed Clauncher into performing with food.
He quickly double-checked the harness that he had rigged up for Astazhei, that strapped several stones to his wings that Aidinza was pretty sure were heavier than Astazhei at this point. But the eaglet kept demanding more weight, seemingly taking personal affront to the idea that anything could restrain his movements. With the bird checked, and Sandile still cheerfully moving a disconcerting amount of sand, Aidinza heads off to go find some treats.
When he returned from a nearby Poké food shop, with a sack of food that was supposed to be especially delicious for water Pokémon, he found that Astazhei - still weighed down by his rock-weights, and visibly drooping - had squared up with Clauncher. Picking up his pace, he was gratified to see that Sandile soon stepped up to support the new teammate, squarin- he stops himself, as he sees Sandile turn his growl between the two, as the two-way square off, turned into a three-way stare down, as Clauncher hefted his claw threateningly.
Aidinza sighed, and lowered his hand to his Pokéball, seeing he was going to have to step in. Then a moment later all three lunged forward, starting up a three-way fight with Sandile and the still weighed down Astazhei rolling around while Clau-
He blinked, as his eyes flicked back to Clauncher, who apparently had only started forward, and was now casually walking over to the shallows of the river. Aidinza watches the fight for a moment and realises that both Astazhei and Sandile seemingly had no idea that the instigating factor of the fight had bailed, and even now was walking into the shallows of the river.
Leaving the two hard-headed Pokémon to fight - Sandile at a clear advantage with how heavily Astazhei was weighed down - he headed over to where Clauncher was floating in the water, his usually half-lidded eyes fully closed.
He had managed to fall asleep in the time it had taken Aidinza to walk over and wade into the shallows. The young nomad snorts, “Naazin.” He mutters to himself, as he shakes his head, slipping back into the old tongue for a moment.
Clauncher’s blue eye cracks open for a moment, and he lets out a satisfied trill. Aidinza, impressed despite the fact his other two pokémon had been bamboozled into a fight, pulls out some of the treats he had gone off to buy. He offers the food to the crustacean, and the pokémon lets out a squeak with his antenna as he takes the food, letting out a pleased twitter as he finishes.
“That won’t get you out of training with me.” He informed the pokémon, who flipped over onto his back exposing his black underside. “Naazin.” He mutters again, shaking his head, and picks the pokémon up, as he wades out of the water. “You’ll get more treats if you stop being lazy.”
He places the Clauncher down on the sandy bank, and glanced back over to where Sandile had triumphed over the weighed down Astazhei; With his right claw pressed into Astazhei’s chest, Sandile was looking confused, finally realising that there was supposed to be a third participant in this fight.
“Sandile! Astazhei! Stop slacking off!” Sandile jumped out of his skin, startled by the command in Aidinza’s voice. Astazhei was similarly spooked, and as he surged upright he sent Sandile stumbling head over tail into shifting sand, as a panicked Sandile immediately tried to start up his sand manipulation again. He chuckles and turns back to Clauncher who was examining the sack of food Aidinza had brought, who looked like he was weighing up the pros and cons of just tearing the sack apart.
“Now Clauncher, Smack Down.” This time there was nothing half-hearted about Clauncher’s Move, his claw sending dozens of rocks into the air, and sending them shotgunning across the beach, turning a nearby rock into cracked collateral. Aidinza wastes no time in rewarding the behaviour, feeding Clauncher from his hand to another pleased twitter.
-
The training from then on was far more productive, with Clauncher seemingly giving it his all, and it turned out that his all was pretty significant. The crustacean proved capable of throwing himself dozens of metres at high velocity with ease using Aqua Jet, and his Smack Down was enough to put even Astazhei on his feathered rear. Unfortunately, the pokémon was unable to use one of his most powerful moves, Aqua Pulse, properly; he was capable of generating an orb of massively compressed rotating water, but he had no idea how to turn that into the second stage of the move.
Still, that meant that the two of them had a concrete goal to work towards, which Aidinza found to be a rather necessary thing to motivate Clauncher. The pokémon was just generally uninterested in training without knowing the ‘end goal’ of the training, unlike Sandile or Astazhei who would just do whatever they were told when it came to training. It made it both more and less difficult to train him as it meant that Aidinza had to give a lot more thought to whatever he was training Clauncher in, but it also meant that since Clauncher had an understanding of what Aidinza wanted, the water-type could make his own adjustments to the training.
And if Clauncher did not have the motivation, he wasted no time in slacking off, usually slipping into the shallows of the river Seismahan, and taking a floating nap. It happened so often that well, Aidinza decided that Naazin - Ya’an-ah for Floating Sleeper - fit the pokémon more than anything else he could really come up with. Something which earned him a slightly less placid blink from the blue-eyed clauncher, and seeming agreement.
Naazin was not the only one that had a productive few days of training. After the first day, and seeing just how proud Astazhei was of overcoming heavier and heavier weights, Aidinza found himself purchasing actual weights for the eaglet. While weight training was not exactly common for flying types - and not that common for pokémon in general - Driftveil as a city had a proud history of craftsmen, both leatherworkers and metalworkers and Nurse Joy was happy enough to direct him to someone who could help, with a warning not to overdo it. So now Astazhei had a dozen bronze-plate weights, with a harness to hold them.
With a proper harness for himself, and not having to rely on Aidinza’s rather questionable crafting abilities, Astazhei proved that his feat of carrying his body weight in rocks was nothing compared to what he could manage. His proper limit, to the point where even his pride could not convince him to demand more, was thirty-two kilograms, using three of the heaviest plates. It saw Astazhei hobbling around, and barely able to fly faster than a light jog, but the rufflet seemed pleased by the weight slowly growing less troublesome for him.
Sandile for his part was the recipient of Aidinza’s first use of a TM, specifically the Dig TM that Mark gave him on his first day. Apparently, there was a difference between Sandile just digging, and Sandile using Dig. The first was just his natural capabilities, especially in sand, which while fast, was not the incredible speed a master of Dig could get to. The second involved properly manipulating the ground in the wake of the pokémon, softening it and allowing even rock to potentially be moved through as easily as sand.
It provided Sandile with some pretty significant options, not only did it mean that he was near immune to any sort of recompense - anyone wanting to hurt him would have to get through dozens of metres of earth first - but it also addressed some of his mobility issues. Sandile while in sand was a quick predator, easily able to outstrip anyone else on Aidinza’s team. Sandile on normal earth, or worse, the grass was slower than even Clauncher when he was moving about on his legs.
With his newfound skill with Dig, he could move much faster and that speed proved to be a very surprising factor in the fights that Aidinza participated in against any of the Driftveil trainers he found himself challenged by.
Even so, Sandile still did not have many options against a flying target. Aidinza would have liked to try and teach him Dark Pulse but had no idea how to do so. He did find an article about it, but it had been hidden behind a very hefty paywall, and most other articles said that it was better to both wait for evolution, and to use a TM; many advertising specific TM's to use, since apparently there were TM brands that offered different quality TM's.
Or maybe that was an advertising trick, and there was no difference, the computer did not seem to have a consensus on that fact.
But hopefully with his ability to hide from a flying opponent, the two of them would be able to set a trap of some kind. Either way, today was the day that Aidinza would be rechallenging Clay.
But first thing first, he found himself in front of Kaine’s house once more. The place, which he had paid little mind to before, was a fairly nice house. With a well-kept lawn, a white picket fence, and a rather modern looking house, thin and tall with the bronze lining that marked it as a Driftveil dwelling.
Aidinza stops for a moment, to admire the well-kept flowers, examining the pink petaled and orange tufted, the yellow petaled black tufted wildflower, and the white and purple flowers in turn. While they were very different from the desert flowers that he was used to, they were still rather pretty.
However, he does not spend too long admiring them, instead, he turned to the path once more, and walks up to the door of the house. He knocked on it briskly, having researched what he was supposed to do, and waited for Kaine to appear.
A few moments later he did, the door cracking open and revealing the unusually pale and tense face of Kaine. “Oh uh, hey Aidinza.” He tried for a grin, but it was clearly strained. “What do you wa-. Sorry, how can I help you?”
“Cool sands and wet winds, Kaine. I don’t need any help.” Aidinza watched the ginger carefully, unsure why the lanky man was acting so oddly. “I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Thank me? Uh, don’t need any thanking man, just glad to help however I did.” He gave a thumbs-up through the cracked door, and from the hallway, Aidinza heard another person's voice.
“Are you…” The nomad leans forward lowering his voice. “Are you okay? Is someone there?”
Kaine looks shocked for a moment, his blue eyes widening. “No! I mean, I am okay, there’s no one here.” He goes to shut the door, before seemingly thinking better of it and stopping. “Sorry I’m really busy at the moment, and I need to go.”
“I see. Sorry for taking your time then.” Aidinza, still eyeing Kaine suspiciously, gave him a nod and turned away to the door closing heavily behind him.
That was… concerning. But he does not keep his mind on it for long, turning his mind towards the gym challenge soon, and walking off the property. Hopefully, he would be able to give Kaine a proper thank you later.
Maybe even have a celebration to tell him about, he thinks to himself as his eyes lock in the direction of the gym.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
-
Silt - Ssssilt his mind reminded of the awkward conversation cruelly - was thankfully brief when Aidinza arrived, simply asking if he was here for a rematch and waving him on through.
Clay was not standing on his side of the battlefield when Aidinza walked into the field, instead, the leather-clad magnate was standing with his foot upon the bleachers he had watched Rosa’s fight on, and was loudly speaking into a phone. “-vestigate that there shipping container, I want to know what it was doing in my city and why it’s empty.” The large man notices Aidinza’s presence, something approving flashing over his face for a moment. “I have a challenger, but the moment somethin’ changes, you tell me you hear?”
The phone snaps shut, and the Gym Leader fully turns to the Ya’an-ah man.
“The Sun sings for your health, Honoured Leader Clay.” Aidinza bows, and gets a gruff nod back from the two-pants man, as he moves to take up position on his side of the battlefield.
“I didn’t expect to see you so soon, yer training better have paid off, or I’m going to be annoyed.” He drawls out, and the robotic referee boots up at the side of the field once more. “You still looking for a two versus two boy?”
“Three versus three. Honoured Leader.” Aidinza did not want a single one of his team to not have a chance to get involved in this fight.
“You better not be the type to think a new varmint is enough for an easy win, you hear me?” Clay rolled his shoulders, and pulled a single Pokéball from his side, expanding the device before he gestured at the screen.
“This will be a Three on Three battle! Gym Leader Clay will choose first!” The robotic voice once more made its appearance, and a moment later there was a flash of red. It was Onix, the powerful rock snake letting out a rock grinding roar, as its tail slammed into the ground.
Aidinza did not need to wait for the robotic voice to prompt him this time, Sandile appeared on the field with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face.
“Yer reptile is looking pretty intimidatin’ there, boy. Good look for that line to have.” Clay’s voice rang out over the sound of the referee’s countdown, and Aidinza resisted the urge to grin, Sandile had been as serious as the desert croc could be about the training that Aidinza put him through.
“Begin!”
“Sandile, Sand Tomb!” Aidinza snaps out before Clay could order his Onix around, and with the extra training Sandile had been put through, it only took a moment for the sand to surge from its resting place, quickly raising a dust devil that partially obscured Onix from view.
“No thing for it, Bulldoze!” The massive rock snake surged forward through the sand tomb swirling around him, the wild charge leaving a deep furrow in the earth.
“Dig!” The instruction was superfluous, he and Sandile had already discussed that the reptile should be quick to head underground when Onix went to attack him. The desert croc sent dirt and sand flying everywhere, as his powerful claws burrowed through the earth, and moments later he was entirely underground.
“Follow him.” Onix wasted no time in obeying his trainer's instruction, and Aidinza got to see the disconcerting sight of Onix delving into the earth, leaving a hole nearly five times the size of Sandile’s behind it.
It left the two men in a slightly awkward position, both pokémon were more than likely too far underground to properly hear any order, and any order would more likely just give away what they are thinking to their opponent. Clay seemed unphased by this, however, simply flicking out his phone and appearing to type something into it.
Honestly, if anyone was to be looking into the gym right at this moment, they could be forgiven for thinking that nothing was happening. Of course, standing in the gym would dispel that notion immediately, as the earth trembled and shook with Onix’s every movement.
Despite the near earthquake Sandile’s opponent caused with its mere existence, Aidinza remained calm. He had been expecting this to happen, and part of the discussion with Sandile was about what he wanted to happen while he was hidden from view.
It was not that complex, all he wanted Sandile to do was gather as much energy with Hone Claws as he could before he went after Onix.
A moment later, he saw that plan put into practice, as Onix exploded up from the ground! But this was not by his own power, as the sheer force that he had been hit with sent him high in the air. No, the reason for his flight was quickly revealed, as Sandile followed not long after him, all the muscles on his body bulging and quivering as the power of several consecutive Hone Claws flowed through him, empowering him with the strange energy of distortion.
“Yer still keepin’ with that trick? Smack down, into Dragons Breath! Let's make us a campfire.” Onix, in a feat that boggled Aidinza’s mind, regained control of his flight as he reached the apex, twisting the boulders that made up his body in several different directions.
Then he began a furious descent, slamming into the ground with a mighty bang, the earth audibly cracking under his weight as dust was sent everywhere.
“Sandile Sand Tomb!” Aidinza demands, wanting to take advantage of all the loose detritus that Onix had kindly sent into the air. With the power from Hone Claws at his claw tips, it proved to be an easy task for the desert dweller, as all dust kicked up by Onix froze, before twisting into a potent tornado that encompassed a quarter of the room. However despite earning a roar of pain from the Onix, it did not stop him from his next attack, and a moment later it was revealed that while Sandile took control of all the dust, Onix had taken control of the larger debris. Two dozen sharp rocks sliced through the air towards Sandile in a shotgun spray, slamming into the reptile and sending him flying backwards.
“Cushion your fall!” The order was sparse on details, but Aidinza hoped that Sandile would understand his intent, and considering the way that sand surged up to catch the reptile, as he turned the manipulation behind Sand Tomb to his own safety, it seemed that the intent came across.
Then the whipping dervish of sand surrounding Onix lights up with a stream of powerful blue light and explodes outwards sending clumps of detritus everywhere and revealing Onix. It was clear the pokémon was in dire straits, its body was worn away, and its breathing laboured as it kept low to the ground.
“Flash Cannon.”/”Sand Tomb!” The two trainers ordered near-simultaneously, and as the dust coating the ground surged into existence once more, Onix unhinged his jaw and spat out a beam of vividly silver energy, that roiled and spun in a kaleidoscope of different greys as it reflected the light of the sun brightly.
The beam of energy slammed into Sandile with incredible force, sending the desert croc flying. But Sandile had already whipped up another Sand Tomb, and Clay clearly thought that it was a foregone conclusion, returning his rock snake with a flash of red light.
“Gym Leader Clay’s Onix is unable to battle! Clay must now release his second pokémon.” Aidinza let a grin cross his face, as he focused on where Sandile had dragged himself up, the Flash Cannon had clearly done a number on the reptile, who looked scuffed up and dirty. But as he let out a deep, primal growl, a sign of Moxie setting in, and his dark eyes flashed dangerously, Aidinza knew that he was far from being out of this fight.
“You faltered here last time boy, put up a better fight! Go Baltoy!” The small floating pokémon, the one that had been the cause of Aidinza’s soul-crushing loss last time he was here, appeared.
“Dig.” Aidinza snapped out, it might not put Sandile in a position to reach Baltoy, but it would certainly prevent the clay doll pokémon from raining down moves on the ground-bound pokémon.
“Baltoy, let's try some of those new-age fancy pants meditations! Calm Mind.” Clay drawled out, and Aidinza felt his lips twist into a slight scowl. He had done research on Baltoy since his loss, and while it was not something the pokémon learned naturally, it was a common move to teach the psychic-type, any psychic-type really. It allowed them to focus their mind and strengthen their strange powers.
It put a time limit on the two of them, to prevent Baltoy from just powering up to the point where it could sweep through Aidinza’s team.
But thankfully, Aidinza already had an idea. Though telling Sandile to cushion his fall had been a spur of the moment idea, the fact that Sandile managed it told Aidinza that Sandile was capable of supporting his own weight with sand, and that was before he started pulling from the well of power from Moxie.
Aidinza placed two fingers into his mouth, and let out a piercing whistle, the loudest he could manage, and the signal for Sandile to surface, even if he had not figured out an attack angle.
“Sand Tomb! Make steps to reach it!” Sandile got the idea instantly once more, and sand surged towards him, quickly forming unsteady, dripping platforms that he raced up, each platform collapsing the moment after he stepped on it.
“Well, I’ll be.” Aidinza’s attention flicked to Clay as he spoke, and caught him shaking his head in disbelief. “Baltoy cool things down with Ice Beam!”
Baltoy’s eyes glowed blue behind their eyelids for a moment, and his horn lit up similarly moments later. Then, just before Sandile would be in range to slam into Baltoy, a frigid blue beam burst out of its horn, crackling across the distance to slam into Sandile. A thick layer of hoarfrost formed over the reptile, and Aidinza had to hold back a wince, he knew how painful cold could be for Sandile. But despite that, Sandile still lunged across the final gap, his potent jaws snapping down onto the Baltoys lower spike, the added weight sending both hurtling towards the ground.
The two of them landed with a heavy bang, not quite the brutal crash of Onix’s landing, but for the manifold smaller pokémon it was still brutal, sending a cloud of dust into the air. When it dissipated it revealed Sandile knocked unconscious, with Baltoy still trapped in his jaws, and a visible indent in the ground where Sandile had slammed his opponent into the ground.
Unfortunately, the ground-psychic type was still conscious even after that, but as it rose into the air, its levitation was unsteady and tilted.
“Heh, I knew that Sandile was a beaut the moment I saw it, but if you keep putting in the effort for him he’ll take you miles.” Aidinza grinned, despite the loss, the open and very genuine praise from someone as august as Clay sending a jolt of warmth through him.
“The Challenger’s sandile is unable to battle! The challenger must now send out his second pokémon!” Aidinza hardly even waits for the robot to finish speaking, before Astazhei entered the area with a mighty cry, a single beat of his wings sending dust flying, his body unleashed from the weights that had been holding him down recently.
“Wing Attack.” Astazhei let out another potent cry, before flinging himself towards the weakened Baltoy, quickly reaching his top speed as his right-wing glowed with white light.
“Baltoy Ice Beam!” Clay called, but it was a hopeless order, Astazhei had dropped into a dive towards the weakly hovering ground-type, and before the blue glow could even spread from its eyes to its horn, he was sent smashing into the ground, creating a second indentation not far from the one Sandile made with his form.
“Gym Leader Clay’s Baltoy is unable to battle! Clay must now release his third pokémon!” For a moment Clay paused, letting a hand hover over one of his pokéballs before seemingly deciding against it, and releasing a pokémon from another pokéball.
As the flash disappeared, Aidinza saw that it was a bipedal pokémon, with a short body, and a long pink-tipped snout. Its body itself had an odd almost jagged black and blue pattern to it and had two arms that looked almost seamless when they were by its side. But as it raised them, it revealed that it had two stubby, but powerful arms capped in three long, sharp claws.
It was a Drilbur, a not unfamiliar sight to Aidinza, more than a few made the Ya’an-ah desert their home. Not exactly an ideal opponent for Astazhei, though that was because Drilbur was at a distinct disadvantage.
“Dig!” Clay snapped out instantly, seemingly agreeing with Aidinza’s assessment of Drilbur’s capabilities against Astazhei. Drilbur buried his claws in the ground and started spinning, sending dirt everywhere and quickly disappearing. “Bird-types and the like are a good counter to most ground-types, but that does not mean that they are an instant victory you hear? SANDSTORM!”
Aidinza winced at the bellow Clay let out, the noise louder than even the sound of Onix crashing back into the earth. Then he winced for a different reason, as he easily recognised the signs of a stirring sandstorm. It was not immediate, clearly, the drilbur was not powerful enough to whip out a sandstorm casually, but soon enough it would turn into something vicious, that would sand away at Astazhei’s unprotected body until the flying type fell unconscious.
Clay was going to simply wait Astazhei out. Unfortunately, Aidinza was not sure that Astazhei had anything to counteract that. As strong as the bird was, he was far from being able to smash through metres of ground with just his body. Nor did he have anything he could send after Drilbur to flush the mole pokémon out. Thankfully, Aidinza had a backup for this, Naazin had more than enough power to flush out the drilbur with a few well placed water-type moves, and his plated body was far more suited to resisting the effects of the oncoming sand storm.
Unfortunately, Astazhei was certainly not going to like what Aidinza was about to do. “You can’t hit him while he’s underground!” He calls out, hoping that the explanation would soften Astazhei’s negative reaction, as he raises up the flying type's pokéball.
Of course, it seemed that Astazhei took that more as direction than an explanation of why he was about to be recalled, and with a mighty caw he dove, wings tight against his side.
Towards the hole that Drilbur had left in the ground.
“Did yer bird-type just fly straight underground?” Clay boggled at the sight of Astazhei’s disappearance, his craggy face turning incredulous. Aidinza could only shrug, it seemed that Astazhei had decided that several metres of ground between him and his target would not stop him.
This time Clay did not check his phone as the two trainers waited for their underground pokémon, still looking like he was trying to decide between laughing at what just happened, and just giving up.
Nearly half a minute passed with nothing happening, Aidinza waiting on the edge of his seat the entire time, until the earth cracked open again, revealing a terrified Drilbur, its eyes wide and its chest rising and falling in quick panicked breaths. The mole pokémon was incredibly beaten up, one of its long claws was cracked, it looked like its snout had been shoved up to the halfway point into dirt, and it was limping away from its entrance as quickly as it could.
Then Astazhei exploded out of the hole with a mighty - and rather malicious sounding - cry, powerful wings sweeping forward, sending a gale of wind towards the drilbur, lifting the ground-type up and slamming its back down, leaving it entirely vulnerable to Astazhei as the flying-type dove for it.
A moment later, a red flash of light returned the drilbur, and Aidinza looked over to see Clay with a strange look on his face.
“Gym Leader Clay’s Drilbur is unable to battle! Challenger Aidinza is victorious!” Astazhei screamed victoriously at the announcement, turning his dive into a steep turn and slamming into Aidinza, sending the two of them stumbling over in a tangle of limbs, as the Flying-type chirped excitedly.
Aidinza realised belatedly that he had also screamed in victory alongside Astazhei, and even now was wrestling with his pokémon, half in an attempt to pin him down for a hug, and half in the sheer adrenalin.
This was not like beating Elesa, with Elesa there was the crowd sure, but there had not been the stakes or the feeling of overcoming something that beating Clay brought him. With Elesa he had just won against the Honoured Leader, against Clay it felt like he had triumphed. Conquered something that had delivered him his first important loss.
At some point during his and Astazhei’s celebrations, Clay had moved to stand over the two of them, and Aidinza looked up at him wild-eyed, with his fingers buried in Astazhei’s dirty but still soft feathers.
“You did alright boy. You put in the work, and used that thick noggin of yers.” He glances at Astazhei, who was staring up at him challengingly. “Or yer pokémon is just too stubborn to know what’s logical.” He pulls out a shining badge from his pocket, looking like a cracked pillar of stone, whose top half had started to slide off diagonally, a number of different materials that Aidinza was half sure were meant to represent different soil types. “You earned it boy, you earned the Quake badge.”
The man doffed his hat once, before stepping forward and placing a single large hand on his shoulder. “Now you run along, don’t get too drunk now you hear me?”
“Thank you, Honoured Leader Clay.” He managed distantly, too enamoured with the shining badge to really pay attention to the Gym Leader, as the man turned away and pulled out his phone. “Come on Astazhei, time to go.”
Astazhei trilled, examining the gym badge in Aidinza’s hand with prideful white eyes. Aidinza hefted the bird up with him as he stood, grunting slightly at the exertion.
“YOU FOUND WHAT AT THE DOCKS?!” The sheer noise of Clay’s voice shook Aidinza out of his victory fugue, as the large man stormed over to a nearby table containing five Pokéballs, and then all but sprinted out of the room, the man moving with surprising speed considering his bulk.
Aidinza found himself dithering for a moment, tempted to follow Clay. Whatever invoked such an intense reaction from an Honoured Leader surely could not be a good thing, and perhaps if Clay had been slightly slower he would have, but as Aidinza approached the door Clay had just rushed through, he found no real indicators of where the large man had gone.
So instead, Aidinza decided to head back to Kaine’s house, half out of concern for the strange behaviour of the ginger man, and half out of a desire to share his victory with the only person he really knew in this city.
Strangely enough, Silt was not out front as he left the gym, the slightly older boy having left in his own hurry if the knocked over the chair was any indication. He would have to check the news when he got to Kaine’s place it seemed.
The streets grew tense as he walked them, the citizens of Driftveil becoming shady eyed and high strung. More than once the young nomad found himself eyed with suspicion, with hands hovering over pokéballs.
Something big had happened. Something that made the Driftveil citizens suspicious of obvious outsiders like Aidinza. He pulled his robes tighter over himself, as the attention grew uncomfortable, and walked faster through the suddenly cold streets of Driftveil. While it had never been openly welcoming before, he could sometimes at least expect a gruff nod if he met someone’s eyes as he moved through the streets.
Now, he was half sure that if he met someone’s eyes, he would be forced into a fight with no way out. He was so on edge that against his better judgement he kept Astazhei out, the flying-type a ward against the suspicion.
He felt an intense bolt of relief as he rounded the corner onto Kaine’s street. As odd as he had been earlier today, it was surely better than the looks he was currently getting.
He quickly walked up the pathway to the house and knocked on Kaine’s white door, not even stopping to admire the flowers out front. There was no response, but Aidinza was sure he heard muffled voices.
He tries again, louder this time, as the voices turn heated. This time the response was a loud, thunderous crash inside the building.
Aidinza, already on edge, had no chance to resist the compulsion to act upon hearing that, and, after testing the doorknob to find it unlocked, he pushed his way inside.
“-igned up for, this is fucking insane.” Aidinza heard Kaine’s voice first, frustration clear in every note, and an undercurrent of fear that sent a shock of concern through him.
“You signed up to help the cause, now shut up and help the cause.” Another, harsher voice shoots back, and Aidinza heard the characteristic sound of a pokéball being released. “Or we will make you help the cause.”
“W-what are you doing?” There was no brash frustration in Kaine’s voice anymore, and the undercurrent of fear had become a swirling eddy as a feline growl filled the house.
Aidinza moved, crossing the distance between him and where the voices were in moments, Astazhei squawking at the sudden motion. He came to a heavy-duty door near the back of the hallway, and as the harsher voice began threatening Kaine again, he shoved his way through it, to reveal a stairwell leading down into a grungy, windowless room. Illuminated by two lights were four figures, three humans and one pokémon. Kaine stood pressed up against one of the carved dirt walls, menaced by the powerful form of a lithe Liepard, and two men in similar garb to Jamie, whose attention had shifted to Aidinza at the doorway.
“Who are you?” The one closest to the door demanded, he was the harsh voice that Aidinza had heard when he first entered. He was a stout man, heavyset and well-muscled, and though most of his hair was hidden behind his coif-like hoody, Aidinza could see that he was a dirty blonde. His brown eyes were flinty, and his lips had twisted into a sneer.
“What are you doing here?” Aidinza answered with a question, supported by Astazhei on his shoulder, screeching loudly.
“You don’t ask the questions here, boy.” The last man speaks with a similar twang to Clay, but that was where the similarities to the Gym Leader stopped, this man was a scrawny figure, all thin limbs and hunched posture, and electric blue - presumably dyed - hair.
“Get out of here Aidinza.” Kaine bites out, his face twisting into a paradoxical slant of half relief and half panicked.
“You’re not heading anywhere. He’s seen too much.” The harsh voice man glared at Aidinza for a moment, before gesturing towards the man at his side. “Deal with him, Blake.” The scrawny man snarls at the squat man, his already rather ugly face turning even uglier, and he looks moments away from punching his ‘partner’
“Fuck you, Michael.” That earns him a sneer to his back, as Blake approached the stairwell, pulling a pokéball from inside his tunic, drawing Aidinza’s attention briefly to the Pz symbol on his chest. “Now kid you can either come down here and save me the trouble, or you can make this entertaining.”
He enlarges the pokéball, and as Aidinza stares at him stone-faced, sends out a… literal trash bag. A foul stench filled the room, quickly seeping up the stairway to cause Aidinza to wrinkle his nose.
“Gust.” Astazhei pushed himself into the air, nearly sending Aidinza stumbling over as he did so, and with a powerful flap of his wings, the room below was buffeted by a gale wind. The living trash bag was sent flying back into the dirt wall behind him with a heavy crash. It also had the pleasing side effect of getting the foul stench away from Aidinza. “Step away from Kaine.” The Ya’an-ah warned, as harsh and severe as the desert that raised him, green eyes gleaming dangerously.
Both men turned to face Aidinza now, the feline threatening Kaine moving away from the pinned man at a gesture from the stout man.
“Hodéezyéél bii haz aanii.” Aidinza offered, before remembering exactly where he was, no one here would understand anything said in the tongue of the Ya’an-ah. “Peace, whatever is happening here let Honoured Leader Clay deal with it.”
The two men shared a glance and seemed to come to a quick, silent consensus. One that spelled trouble for Astazhei, as they stepped menacingly forward.
“Sucker Punch.” Aidinza scowled, as the leipard coiled up, and opened his mouth to order Astazhei, as another red flash from Blake filled the room. He stops a moment later, as the leipard flickered forward, and a paw glowing with darkness buried itself in his stomach.
Aidinza stumbles backwards in pain, mind whiting out as he feels his stomach roil and surge, gut emptying all over himself and the floor through his mouth. He gasps for breath, distantly hearing Astazhei’s enraged screech, as he collapses into a puddle of his own sick.
With shaking hands he manages to unleash Naazin, as he feels something dark encroach at the edge of his vision. Humans were not meant to handle being the subject of a pokémons attack, especially not ones tainted with the strange energy of distortion.
As Aidinza recovered from the literal Sucker Punch to the stomach, he heard the sound of battle raging, Astazhei’s fury sounded out every few seconds and the sound of water cracking apart walls and dirt was obvious.
It was as he was almost recovered that he noticed someone approaching him, a vaguely familiar bouncy figure. Blearily he sees cheerful blue eyes for a moment, and dimpled cheeks, before something grabbed his head and smashed it into the wall behind him.
Things went dark.