The area just north of Mauville could only be described as idyllic. Wind-blown grasslands and crystal-clear lakes littered the area, much like the region near Oldale where he captured Rogue. Unlike there, which had been nearly untouched by humans, this route was a popular destination for trainers, rookie and veteran alike. The rookies came here for the large variety of pokemon living on the route, whereas the veterans mostly passed through on their way to Lavaridge and Fallarbor. Brendan may only have been passing through, but he and his team took advantage of the great amount of trainers willing to battle.
After several days they had nearly reached the end of the route. Up ahead Brendan could see the start of the rocky valleys and badlands between the end of the route and the lonely peak of Mt. Chimney. That night, as they camped, Brendan studied his map on the pokenav. There were two main paths most trainers took on their way to Lavaridge.
The first led through the forbidding Hoenn Desert; it didn’t enter the depths of the desert where only pokemon and the native tribes tread, but merely skirted the edges, passing from oasis to oasis. It was still the desert, however, and Brendan was not prepared for that sort of journey just yet, though he felt a yearning to explore it. He merely shook his head, squashing that impulse deep down for now. He’d chosen to follow the second path.
The second path led through the nearby rocky badlands, following a valley pass that ended very close to Lavaridge. The valley was commonly known as the Valley of Steel, as it was inhabited nearly exclusively by steel pokemon; skarmory, the magnemite line, the aron line, and even a steelix or two had been reported to be found there. Supposedly the valley was filled with ore deposits that the steel types favored in order to strengthen their armor.
Naturally, it was considered quite dangerous to go down into the valley proper, some of the steel types were quite aggressive, but the path toward Lavaridge sat high up on the valley walls, and was much safer. Brendan was looking forward to seeing such a gathering of normally rare steel-type pokemon. He planned to try to capture one as well; he had a team to build after all.
He turned his attention to Fomantis and Rogue, who were sparring. Fomantis was working on learning leaf blade, a staple move for his species, while Rogue was learning razor shell. Both were making good progress, and Brendan thought they should be able to take on the next gym. One of his partners may be weak to fire, but the same could be said of electricity and they’d prevailed over Wattson. As he watched his team fight, he felt lucky to have found such good partners. Fomantis and Rogue took everything he could throw at them, training-wise, and exceeded the limit. They played off each other well.
A few days later, Brendan and his team found themselves on a narrow winding path, high up on the western wall of a vast valley, full of rocky crags and spires. Peering downward, one could barely make out roaming herds of aron and lairon. The piercing screech of circling skarmory rang out through the valley every so often, and a constant buzz from the swarms of magnemite and magneton filled the air.
The path itself was narrow, so narrow as to be a little frightening in some places. Small caves were found at irregular intervals on the path, however, offering some relief from the harsh sun, if they were not already filled with pokemon that is. Already, they had learned that lesson about the caves; they had battled quite a few ornery pokemon who’d also thought to take shelter in the caves.
They’d also had to battle off a few small swarms of magnemite that had been interested in his pokedex and pokenav. Thankfully they weren’t very aggressive and usually flew away when Rogue and Fomantis shot a few moves at them.
About a week into their trek, Brendan and his team had set up camp on one of the rare areas of the path that widened almost into a plateau. Fomantis and Rogue were already fast asleep, as they’d been pushed hard that day. Earlier, they’d run into a sleeping skarmory in one of the caves they took shelter in. Naturally, it took exception to being woken and engaged them in a fierce battle. The three of them could only escape further along the path, away from the raging steel-type.
Currently Brendan was looking through the pokedex, planning out his team's training, when his pokedex flickered on and off. He looked up sharply, recognizing the telltale signs of a magnemite swarm. When none presented themselves, Brendan relaxed a bit, before a low hum caught his attention. He turned around quickly, finding a lone magnemite hovering behind him.
The magnemite was drooping, flying quite low to the ground. It seemed to be nearly out of energy. Brendan took pity on the lone electric-type and found some extra batteries from his pack to give to it.
“Hey, here’s some batteries if you need some energy. I’d rather you siphon those rather than my pokedex if you don’t mind.” He told the pokemon. It hummed lowly before starting to consume the power in the batteries. It was odd for a magnemite to be on its own, especially here, usually they formed large swarms for protection. Now that he got a better look at it, however, Brendan noticed a few scars on the magnemites metal armor.
“Where’s your swarm, magnemite?” he asked curiously. “I can’t imagine it's all that safe out here on your own.”
The magnemite buzzed at that; an expression of pain if he remembered Wattson’s ramblings well enough. It trembled mid-air, clearly whatever happened was traumatic to the little pokemon. After a moment, it focused in on Brendan’s pokedex again, causing the screen to blank for a moment, before lighting up again, this time displaying the pokedex entry for steelix. Brendan looked at the pokedex interestedly, he hadn’t known magnemite could do that, before realizing what it had meant. He winced, before responding.
“Oh, a steelix got the rest? That’s awful. I’m sure they were glad at least you got away, though.” He attempted to comfort the pokemon. Steelix didn’t often surface, even in the valley of steel, but when they did, swarms of magnemite were a favorite snack for them. The magnemite made a low hum that Brendan could only describe as mournful. Noticing that the batteries were about sucked dry, he found another couple from his pack and offered them again. He was glad he’d thought to stock up on those.
He watched the steel-type consume the electricity and remembered the magnemite that Wattson used against them in his gym battle. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of one on his team. Later that evening, after the magnemite had nearly drained all his stock of batteries, Brendan made his offer.
“Hey magnemite, have any idea what you’re gonna do now? I mean I guess you can find a new swarm right? I’m not sure how that works.”
The magnemite spun around in place, giving off a noise similar to static. He guessed that was a no.
“Well, if you don’t want to do that, I have an idea. I’m a pokemon trainer, see. My team is right over there” He pointed to Fomantis and Rogue at this.
“We’re on a journey to challenge all the gym leaders, and the Ever Grande Conference, it's a tournament where only the strongest trainers gather.” Brendan explained.
“We can’t achieve our dreams alone though, and we need some more team members. What do you think about coming with us?” Brendan threw out his offer, watching the magnemite closely to gauge its interest.
The magnemite, who’d seemingly been listening intently to Brendan’s story thus far, buzzed in surprise at his proposal.
“Yeah, I’d been meaning to find another team member soon, and you remind me of another trainer I look up to who has a magnemite. You seem to be a pretty tough pokemon; those are the kind of partners I want to gather. What do you say?” Brendan continued his proposition.
The magnemite slowly revolved in place, giving off a soft undulating buzz. All of sudden it hovered it a bit higher and sent a short spark towards where his team was resting, all while staring at Brendan.
“I see, you wanna battle huh? Alright!” He chuckled before calling for his team, “Fomantis! Rogue! We’ve got a challenger.”
Both of his pokemon popped straight out of sleep into a ready battle position. He could see them identify the magnemite as the only outsider and ready themselves to charge. He quickly stopped them and elaborated.
“Whoa, calm down. I wanted magnemite here to join our team, and it wants to battle. Which one of you will battle it?”
Rogue stepped forward immediately, clacking his pincers and making his low trilling laughter. The magnemite eyed Rogue curiously, before buzzing and flying across from him and Brendan. Taking a position behind Rogue, Brendan called out an order.
“Alright Rogue, bubble screen, like we’ve worked on.”
Rogue trilled and blew out a bubblebeam, swaying from left to right as he did so, making a screen of bubbles in between him and the magnemite. With both combatants’ visibility obscured, Rogue prepared to execute his favorite tactic: charge. And charge he did, spraying water behind him with his usage of aqua jet.
His jet stream carried Rogue straight towards a blurry silver orb he could see past the bubble screen, and on impact he grasped out with his claws. As his claws made contact with the orb, however, it exploded into a corona of steel-type energy, throwing Rogue back and clearing out the bubbles.
From his position Brendan had a better look at what happened and found himself very interested in magnemite’s intuition. The electric-type had fallen backward as the bubble screen formed, leaving what had to have been a magnet bomb in his place. Brendan was impressed, magnemite had keen battle senses. He threw out another command to the now seething Rogue.
“Stay back for a bit, pepper it with water guns.”
Rogue threw him a dirty look for daring to come up with a plan that didn’t involve his claws ripping and tearing, but reluctantly complied. He circled the hovering magnemite, throwing out water guns at any opening he found. Unfortunately there weren’t many, magnemite seemed very practiced with light screen, conjuring and moving the psychic barriers with an ease born from long usage.
As this went on, Rogue became more and more frustrated, and Brendan knew that would be bad if it got much worse, so he called out again.
“Focus, it’ll lower the barrier to shoot a move at you soon, when it does charge with protect, like at the gym.”
Rogue crooned at the thought, before continuing his barrage. Just as Brendan predicted, the magnemites barriers thinned and eventually fell away and the pokemon flashed with electricity and launched several thundershocks in an arc in front of itself. Anticipating this, Rogue charged as soon as the barrier fell, intercepting the electricity with protect in a near perfect mimicry of his earlier gym battle.
Rogue impacted the magnemite heavily, swiping and crushing the stunned magnemite with his claws. The magnemite recovered quickly, however, and spun in place, causing a shockwave to emanate from it, throwing Rogue backwards once more.
The magnemite flew back up unsteadily, clearly hurt, but still battle ready. Before Rogue could return to melee, the electric-type made several sounds that seemed to overlap on Rogue’s position, causing him to sway drunkenly. Brendan recognized it as an elementary form of supersonic, causing proprioception issues. He preempted any issues by issuing his next order
“Protect the next move again, dome configuration! Wait out the effect”
The magnemite was slowly charging up electricity to strike, clearly it was running on fumes. As it let out another thundershock salvo, it sagged mid-air. The bolts impacted on a light-green shield manifested by Rogue, causing small cracks to appear, and the last bolt shattered the shield entirely, hitting the water-type dead on as he charged.
Rogue trilled loudly in pain, but charged onward, catching the sagging magnemite with a razor shell, as his claws glowed bright blue with water. The magnemite didn’t faint immediately though, forming a small magnet bomb that exploded on both pokemon and creating a blinding flash of light.
Brendan looked on curiously as the light faded and saw both pokemon unconscious on the ground. He looked to Fomantis and said, “Seems like the kind of teammate we want, huh?”
Fomantis looked reluctantly impressed, and nodded, going to get his customary berry to share between new team members, while Brendan healed up the two pokemon.
While applying the potions and revives, Brendan reviewed the battle. Truly magnemite had undeniable battle sense, and a versatile moveset to boot. Had Rogue not had the benefit of Brendan’s guidance and grueling training the magnemite would have won handily. Of course at this point in his development, Rogue was a fairly one-note battler, his only real versatility lying in bubble-screen and protect. Regardless, a draw was a phenomenal result for the wild pokemon, and Brendan doubled down on his intention to recruit the electric-type.
After being revived, Rogue sulked at the draw beating himself up for getting hit by the final magnet bomb. He was not a sore loser, however, and nodded with a complimenting trill to the magnemite. The magnemite hovered low to the ground, allowing Brendan to apply his medicines. Once it was patched up, Brendan stood up and addressed it again.
“So, that was a great battle, and it just made me want you in the team even more. I’m sure the other two agree.” Rogue nodded at this, the latter’s eyes gleaming in anticipation at further battles between the two. Fomantis merely stared at the magnemite for a moment, then chirped to Brendan. The magnemite buzzed loudly and then beeped as it bobbed up and down in acceptance.
Brendan whooped in excitement, and said, “Welcome to the team, magnemite!” His other pokemon called out their greetings as well, with Fomantis slicing a berry into quarters and offering a piece to magnemite. Brendan chuckled as the magnemite didn’t know what to do with the berry.
“You can eat its piece, bud. Magnemite don’t eat anything but electricity.” He explained.
Fomantis seemed confused at this and kept trying to give the piece to the electric-type. Brendan eventually had pity on his confused starter and gave him a battery to give to magnemite instead. The grass-type seemed much happier after his offering was accepted this time, dancing and chirping amongst the group.
After their small celebration, in which magnemite seemed a little confused, Brendan took out his pokedex again and addressed magnemite.
“I’m gonna scan you with this, ok? It’ll let me know what you can do.”
Magnemite bobbed again in understanding and let the red light analyze it. The pokedex beeped after the scan was complete and displayed a paragraph.
Magnemite, the Magnet Pokemon. It’s able to float through air through the use of electromagnetic waves to block gravity. It channels electricity through the magnet shaped units on its sides.
This magnemite knows the moves: Thundershock, Magnet Bomb, Light Screen, Supersonic, Sonicboom, Thunder Wave, Electro Ball, Mirror Shot, and Flash. Its ability is Sturdy, increasing the toughness of its armor by several fold in comparison to other members of the species.
Brendan looked over the information and nodded. Magnemite would be a strong, versatile battler, with plenty of tricks along with raw power.
“Looking good, magnemite! This will help me make a plan for your training.”
Magnemite buzzed neutrally, while his other two pokemon shuddered at the thought of Brendan’s grueling exercises. Brendan merely shook his head, his training wasn’t that bad. He looked up at magnemite and asked, “So, how about a nickname? Rogue there has one, but not Fomantis.” The magnemite spun in place for a moment, then bobbed up and down in acceptance. Brendan launched into a few considered options.
“Volt? No? How about Magnet? Too cliche.. Electro? Sounds too villainous. Thunder-” They continued to debate options, with magnemite able to cause his pokedex to display some of its choices, which tended to be strange. In the end, they decided on, “Sentry? Why that one?” Brendan asked curiously.
The magnemite merely looked towards Rogue, who’d already gone back to sleep, and mimed keeping a watch, then made his dex display a magnemite page again.
“Oh, so you were a sentry in your swarm? Works for me, welcome to the team Sentry.” Brendan thought he’d understood what the pokemon was trying to convey. After Brendan officially captured Sentry, which had been difficult as the pokemon had drained the first couple pokeballs of electricity accidentally, he sat down, quite exhausted by the events of the day.
He watched Fomantis dance through the camp merrily and smiled, glad that his starter was having fun. It wasn’t worth it otherwise he thought as he drifted into slumber
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Brendan looked up at the looming peak of Mt. Chimney, ever-smoking as it spewed volcanic ash towards the northwest. The monolithic volcano extended for miles in every direction, and Lavaridge Town, his destination, laid nestled in the forests of the lower reaches to the south. After making it through the Valley of Steel, Brendan and his team had been hiking through the mountainous area towards Lavaridge, slowly making their way through the foothills surrounding Mt. Chimney.
Their time on the valley path had worn on Brendan’s nerves, and he’d been glad to be done with it. The slowly rising wooded foothills they traversed now were a treat compared to the narrow path through the valley.
Sentry had settled into their team quite well. It was a constant humming companion, never straying far from Brendan’s side unless he’d ordered it. It’d been a great help to Brendan by keeping an eye on Rogue and Fomantis, making sure they didn’t get into too much trouble. Interestingly, it loved to read along with Brendan as he read through his pokedex in the evenings, showing a keen interest in whatever he’d been reading.
They’d finally started to see trainers again as they neared Lavaridge, mostly rookie trainers from the town searching the foothills for new teammates. His team got a good workout from challenging them, and he’d gotten a feel for how to command Sentry in battle.
The electric pokemon worked best with more complex plans than he used with Fomantis and Rogue. While Fomantis had a few tricks up his sleeve he mostly utilized his quick reflexes and keen sense for combat to dominate his opponents. Rogue on the other hand subsisted on sheer fury and determination in battle, outlasting and outmuscling his foes. Sentry, however, had a wide variety of moves for any situation, and preferred to lead its opponents into a trap, or lock down their options before finishing them off.
They’d battled several trainers in the last few hours, the most recent of whom had told Brendan they were not far from town. As they crested the next incline, Brendan could see the gateway to the town just up ahead. He sped up, craving the comforts of civilization. He’d already come to love being out in the wilds with his pokemon in his short stint as a trainer, but he also loved sleeping in a real bed and eating real food.
As he walked through the gate, Brendan got a good look at the town for the first time. It struck him as a quiet place; the buildings weren’t built as tall as many places he’d been to. It reminded him of Ecruteak in Johto more than anything, with its traditional architecture. Unlike Ecruteak, however, Lavaridge seemed to have married modernity to their traditional styles, he noted. He passed the entrance to the renowned hot springs and promised himself he’d visit those with his team after they won their badge.
He could see the gym in the distance, built a small ways outside of town, further up the mountain. It could be seen from basically anywhere in town. He turned away and sought out the Pokemon Center, renting a room for several days. He would challenge the gym tomorrow. He and his team deserved a good rest, and he wanted to be at his best.
After checking in and devouring a meal from the cafeteria, he went to call Wattson. He’d checked in with the gym leader before getting into the Valley of Steel, but the roaming magnemite swarms blocked any signal from being broadcast once he’d travelled far enough in. He connected his pokenav and waited for a moment before the call went through and Wattson’s cheerful face showed on the video-screen.
“Oho, young Brendan! I assume you’ve made it to Lavaridge then? Marvelous! Now, tell me about your journey through the valley. It's been too long since I made that trek, but the sights are breathtaking.” Wattson rambled cheerfully upon seeing him. Brendan smiled warmly, he did enjoy speaking to the electric gym leader.
“Yeah, the view was spectacular in places, I can’t say I’m not glad to be off that narrow path though. It was harrowing sometimes, not to mention the caves and their inhabitants. We definitely fought our way through.”
“Wahaha that’s how it always is, you’ve got to make sure the wild pokemon don’t think you’re an easy snack. Only way they’ll respect you is if they think you’ve got some oomph!”
“Yeah, well we’re working on the oomph…” Brendan sighed, before remembering Sentry.
“Right! I captured a magnemite, Wattson. Apparently its swarm had been eaten by a steelix and it was the only one who’d gotten away. When we battled it tied with Rogue.”
“A magnemite you say? Wonderful! You’ll have an electrifying battler of your own now, wahaha.” Wattson looked surprised for a moment before becoming enthused.
“Well? Let’s see it then! I might be able to give you some tips m’boy.”
Brendan fumbled around for Sentry’s ball before releasing the electric-type. It hummed contentedly upon seeing Brendan, and swooped down to occupy the charging station for electric-pokemon included in most Pokemon Center rooms. Brendan held the pokenav so that Wattson could see the magnemite while it charged itself.
“Hmm, seems fairly mature. Got a good amount of electrical storage, magnets are well taken care of. Those scars will heal eventually as it evolves, unlike most fleshly pokemon. What moves does it know?” Wattson mused aloud as he studied Sentry.
Brendan rattled off its known moves.
“A good start, fine start. It probably has the juice to learn thunderbolt, but I’d use it sparingly till it evolves. Shock wave should be easy to learn. Have it work on mastering electro ball; that move hones control like no other, and electric types need that control more than most at the higher levels. The magnemite line naturally has fairly precise control, they need to with the way they fly, but more can only be a benefit.
“Send me some reports on its progress and I’ll let you know when I think it's safe for Sentry to evolve. At that point I’ll send over the junk electronics and metal needed for it to evolve without bonding with more magnemite. The best battling magneton are evolved like that, no conflicting neuron impulses.”
Brendan wrote all of Wattson’s tips down in his document planning Sentry’s training.
“Thanks, Wattson. That will help a lot.”
“Of course, m’boy! That said, follow your gut in training it. You can’t train a magnemite exactly like I would. You have to train one like ‘Brendan’ would. It might be a little early in your career for that advice, but I’m of the opinion that the sooner you find your style of battle the better.”
Brendan was a little confused by the advice, but nodded and made a note to contemplate that later on.
“Alright, we’re going to relax here until tomorrow then challenge the gym in the morning. Thanks for the advice, Wattson. I’ll let you know when we leave here.”
“Think nothing of it, young Brendan. Give young Flannery my regards when you battle her, but do win. I’ve got some money riding on this.” Wattson smiled mischievously before ending the call. Brendan shook his head, wondering who Wattson would even gamble with about him. He put it out of his mind as he settled in to rest.
In the morning, Brendan and his team made the short trek out to the Lavaridge Gym. Before he even entered the doors he could feel the rising temperature, it seemed this would be an uncomfortable match. He opened the large gym doors and walked inside. Unlike Wattson’s gym there appeared to be no lobby or receptionist here, just a large chamber with an arena in the middle surrounded by hot sand bubbling with water. In the middle of the arena a young woman wearing long flared pants and a fiery red vest, maybe a year older than Brendan, stood chatting with an older man who seemed to be her referee.
Neither had noticed him yet, so he called out.
“I, uh, I’m here for a battle?”
They both turned towards him and the young woman blushed brightly and walked up to him.
“Well why didn’t you say so! I’m Flannery, the gym leader here and-- Heyyy, you look familiar, have we met? This your second challenge or something? Sorry if I don’t recognize you but we get a lot of challengers y’know-”
Brendan was taken aback at the torrent of words that came out of her mouth, but before he could rally and respond, the older man intervened.
“Now now, Flannery. Let the poor boy speak before you go deciding his background on your own. He doesn’t look like any of your recent challengers anyway.” He gently chided.
She blushed even harder this time
“I’m sorry, I just got excited. It's been a few days since I’ve had any challengers. Sooo… What’s your name and how many badges do you have?” She asked, now much calmer.
“I’m Brendan, and I’ve only got one badge.”
“Wait, you only have one badge? Did someone else fly you here, or teleport you?” Flannery seemed flabbergasted, while the old man silently raised an eyebrow.
“Uh, no? I came from Mauville, by way of the Valley of Steel.” Brendan elaborated.
“Wow, ok. Don’t get many non-local rookies around here. If you made it through the valley you should be pretty good though. You want to battle now?”
Brendan nodded and Flannery recovered some excitement as they took their positions opposite each other on the stage.
“Alright! This’ll be a 2-on-2, no substitutions. Get ready for our flames of passion!” She yelled, releasing her first pokemon, a slugma that increased the heat already omnipresent in the room to near unbearable levels. Brendan cocked his head and ran through his options, before releasing Sentry.
“Sentry, this is our first gym battle together, let’s do it.” The electric-type buzzed loudly and set off a few sparks before turning to the slugma. Seeing both trainers and pokemon ready, the old man announced.
“Begin!”
Brendan launched into his first orders right as the battle began.
“Light screen! Follow it up with thunder shock salvo.”
Sentry was ready, and quickly conjured its psychic screen. Before it could produce the thundershocks, Flannery was quick with her counter-command
“Smokescreen!”
As soon as she ordered, the slugma filled the arena with oily black smoke, obscuring all visibility. Sentry’s thundershocks fizzled out as it failed to find its target amidst the smoke. Bursts of fire shot through the smoke, most missing, but a few impacting harmlessly on Sentry’s light screen. Brendan could see that the screen would not take many more hits like that though, as proficient as Sentry was with the move, it was not a psychic type.
“Sonicboom, clear the air!” He called out.
Sentry spun in place, building up electrical charge, then let it free, causing a shock wave of compressed air to explode from the electric-type. The choking smoke dissipated, showing the slugma in the process of spewing an incinerate straight towards Sentry. The light screen cracked in half after the move hit it, leaving Sentry unprotected. As the slugma reared back to shoot more flame, Brendan took a cue from his battle with Wattson.
“Flash!”
A blinding strobe of lights flashed from Sentry, causing the slugma to abort its attempt to throw flame and shriek as its eyes were overstimulated. Brendan and Flannery both called out commands then.
“Oh no, harden slugma!”
“Thunder shock salvo! Follow with electro ball if it's still conscious.”
As the slugma writhed in pain from the flash, it did attempt to harden its skin, but a trio of arcing thundershocks impacted it, causing a low groan. A few seconds later, a large orb of electricity exploded on the already wounded pokemon, putting it down for the count.
As Flannery recalled the fire-type, Brendan celebrated with Sentry.
“Nice one Sentry! Can you keep battling?”
Sentry merely bobbed up and down, humming lowly, but Brendan could tell its energy stores were low, hopefully it could do some damage to the last pokemon, though. Flannery looked up at him and smirked.
“I was pretty sure you’d be too tough for our normal two badge team since you even had the fire to make the trek here through the valley, but I had to be sure. Watch out though, this last pokemon is part of my three badge team!” She yelled excitedly, then released her last pokemon, a well-groomed quilava that immediately flared its fur and yowled as it was released.
“Awesome. We can do it.” Brendan breathed lowly.
Clearly the quilava was quite aggressive, because it sped into action without any prompting from Flannery. It circled Sentry, spinning up a flame wheel before it leapt at the electric-type, much quicker than before.
Caught off guard, Brendan was too late to warn Sentry, and it took a full force impact from the fire-types flame wheel. The electric type was flung up against the psychic barriers, but managed to hover back forward slowly, sagging mid-air.
“Sentry! Sorry, bud, that was my fault. I didn’t expect it to be that fast. Alright, let’s try the same move you did to Rogue in your first fight, yeah? Follow it with a thunder wave though.” Brendan quickly ordered, watching the quilava spin up another flame wheel. Sentry hummed to acknowledge the order, and floated out further in the arena.
The quilava repeated the pattern, before leaping at Sentry once more. This time, however, the magnemite had been ready. It floated backwards, leaving a magnet bomb in its wake that exploded, throwing off the quilava and sparing Sentry from the flame wheel. Sentry quickly took advantage of the reeling fire-type and shot a thunder-wave at it, paralyzing it. That would do a lot to curb the quilava’s insane speed.
Sentry floated back over to the side of the arena, watching as the quilava collected itself, spasming from the electricity affecting it every so often.
“I can’t believe we fell for that! Nice trick though, but you don’t think a little bit of electricity will stop us, though, do you?” Flannery teased, though Brendan could tell she was a bit surprised.
“Alright quilava, end this, quick charge.”
Brendan opened his mouth to order Sentry to sonicboom, but before he could even get the words out the quilava had manifested an aura of fire and sped across the field, slowing only once as its muscles spasmed. It hit Sentry with the force of a speeding pidgeot and the flames surrounding it impacted the electric-type. Sentry was unconscious before it hit the floor.
Brendan merely blinked, wondering what move or combo of moves that was, and returned Sentry.
“Good job,” he whispered to the pokeball, imagining that Sentry could hear.
“Heh, told ya quilava was strong. He’s descended from grandpa’s champion level typhlosion.”
Brendan blinked again in surprise. That’s right, he’d forgotten that the prior gym leader here was Flannery’s grandfather, a former elite-four. No wonder that quilava was so fast. He made his next selection quickly, Rogue would never forgive him if he missed this fight.
The corphish materialized on the hot sand of the arena with a high keening trill, pincers clacking already. He quickly honed in on the opponent quilava and leered at it, producing that low hacking laughter that he only did when he wanted to scare his oponent. Brendan rolled his eyes; Rogue was such a drama queen.
“Rogue, focus up. This is the last pokemon in the gym battle. Its strong and really fast, but Sentry nailed it with a thunder wave, we might be able to take advantage.”
Hearing this, Rogue stopped his attempt at intimidation, and became almost unnaturally still, studying the quilava.
“Well, we’ll start off this time. Quilava, quick swipes.” Flannery called.
“Get ready, it's coming in, harden and take the hit, try to get it with vice grip.”
The quilava yowled, blurring into motion with glowing claws. It appeared next to Rogue, who’d hardened his shell, and swiped out, claws scratching ineffectually at Rogue’s hardy exoskeleton. In response Rogue lunged forward, pincers first, in an attempt to grab and crush the quilava, but it retreated too quickly. This pattern repeated a few times before either trainer called out more orders to break the stalemate.
“On the retreat this time, respond with aqua jet” he called out softly to Rogue, hoping that Flannery hadn’t heard. This time when the quilava retreated from its failed attack, Rogue sped after it, riding a jet stream. The extra speed allowed the corphish to catch his opponent, delivering a punishing blow with the water. Brendan caught Flannery smirking as the move landed, though, and had a bad feeling that was proven correct a moment later when she yelled, “Counter!”
The quilava, who’d just been dealt a devastating blow, glowed a bright white and rocketed back into Rogue, delivering a heavy counter-blow. Rogue reeled backward, cracks appearing all over his shell. The quilava didn’t look too much better off, counter or not, it had taken a super-effective aqua jet from Rogue. Flannery looked up at him and gave a fiery smile.
“Time for you to learn my signature move, Flare Blitz!” As she called out her order, Brendan’s eyes widened. He’d heard of that move, a reckless body slam with a conflagration of fire at its center. Rogue wouldn’t be able to handle that, resistant or not. The quilava immediately burned white hot, summoning the fire for the move, and blurred into motion, becoming a comet flying towards the corphish. Brendan could only call out desperately, “Protect!”
The exhausted Rogue summoned the dome-like shield as fast as he could, but wouldn’t make it in time. Miraculously, however, the quilava stumbled a moment in its charge, body wracked with electricity as its paralyzation flared up. It only slowed for just a moment, but that was enough for Rogue to finish summoning his shield.
The quilava collided with the protect like a meteor, causing a massive firestorm to erupt on impact. The psychic barriers lining the edges of the arena flared up as the fire consumed the stage. Brendan strained his eyes, trying to make out what happened as the fire raged. After a few moments the fire died down, exposing the field.
Brendan could see the slumped form of quilava in the corner, clearly knocked unconscious from his impact on the dome-shield. Rogue, however, was still standing, albeit barely, trembling with exhaustion, but eyes burning with victory. Brendan recalled him quickly, murmuring congratulations to the pokeball.
“Wow! I’d thought we had that one in the bag. I’m not really supposed to use that move at this level, oops. But, I was gonna give you the badge even if you lost there, since it was such a good battle. You won though, I’m impressed, not many can handle me and quilava with only one badge. You’re pretty good! Where did you say you were from again?” Flannery was immediately in his face chattering after he recalled Rogue.
“That was a great battle, I’m glad you didn’t hold back too much. I’m from Littleroot Town, by the way.” he responded blandly, still not emotionally recovered from the roller-coaster of a battle.
“Littleroot? Why the hell are you way out here then already? Doesn’t matter I guess, although you still look familiar. Anyways here’s your Heat Badge. You should come back later this year after you’ve gotten more badges, I’d love to have another battle with my real team.”
That snapped Brendan out of his muted affect, and he responded with enthusiasm.
“You bet! I’d love that, we’ll have another great battle then.”
At this, the old man who had been refereeing joined the conversation.
“Indeed, young Brendan, you should return. Perhaps next time the two of you battle I will bet on you instead of my granddaughter. You put me out several hundred dollars.” he gently teased.
Brendan’s brain had to reboot at that, while Flannery protested hotly.
“Wait, you’re who Wattson was betting with?” He questioned in disbelief.
The old man merely grinned, “Us old folk like to gossip you know, and you’re a hot topic to Wattson recently. ‘Full of shocking potential, ohoho’ he said. I’m inclined to agree after that battle.” he said seriously to Brendan. “Oh, how rude of me, I am Frederick Moore. Retired gym leader and former elite-four. Grandfather to young Flannery, here.”
Still recovering from the shock, Brendan could only nod and say, “Nice to meet you.”
“You bet on our battle with Wattson, Grandpa? And why is Wattson talking to you about Brendan?” Flannery questioned.
“Oh it’s nothing to worry about, he just wanted my opinion on young Brendan’s potential as a trainer. Now that I’ve introduced myself I’ll leave you two to it. Nice to meet you, young Brendan, you’ve a fiery passion for training. I hope that you achieve whatever goals you’ve set for yourself.” Mr. Moore gave Brendan a curious look, then walked through a door to the back of the gym.
“Crazy old coot, betting on my battle and not telling me. Don’t worry about whatever he’s doing, Brendan, it’s always something strange. But, he was right, you’ve got some great pokemon. Don’t get lazy, cause I wanna see how well you can do in the conference this year! Oooh is that a pokenav? Here put in my number, feel free to call and chat. Other than some of the other gym leaders I don’t have many good trainers to talk to. Anyway, I should probably go, see ya later, don’t slack on the training!”
And with that, Flannery sped off like her signature move, full of fiery passion that left one scrambling to keep up and out of breath to boot.
Brendan found himself alone in the sweltering gym. He took a deep breath, quashing all other emotions and focusing on his team’s victory. He smiled, they’d done a fabulous job. He stepped out of the gym into the blessedly cooler air and looked down at Lavaridge.
Perhaps it was time to indulge in the hot springs?