“It was a good effort. Sableye just came in with a better strategy this time.”
Porygon gave a plaintive bzzt in response.
“Look at it this way,” I continued to attempt to console him. “The loss is just more training for the next gym battle. Because, regardless of the outcome against Brock, there will be more gym battles. And some of them will be losses. That’s what separates the good trainers from the truly great trainers — not just how they win, but how they respond after a loss.”
I honestly wasn’t sure what I was saying at this point — I’d been unsuccessfully attempting to console Porygon ever since healing him in the pokecenter an hour earlier, and was just throwing out cliched quotes I remembered reading in my old world in the hopes something stuck. But after those last words, he started to float a little bit higher, so hopefully he was starting to get over his disappointment.
We were currently waiting in the gym’s lobby. Hobbes and Sableye were both in their balls — I wanted them as rested as possible, without any distractions leading to the upcoming battle. Not that they would be facing Brock right away; if every trainer fresh on their journey could directly challenge a gym leader, Brock would have to battle non-stop for hours every day to get through the volume. No, this first battle would just be against a gym trainer, someone who worked for the Pewter City gym, likely someone a few years older than me who performed respectably on their own journey.
Even for the chance to battle a gym trainer I’d had to reserve a spot three days in advance. Thankfully, I’d been told we wouldn’t have to wait as long after winning this battle — a day or two, at most.
I shook my head. I shouldn’t be getting ahead of myself. While the gym trainers wouldn’t be as difficult as Brock, they were still a step above the average trainer we’d spent the last week battling. We couldn’t allow ourselves to get complacent — that was how foolish mistakes happened.
“Marcus Ironstone?” the receptionist at the front desk called, and I hopped to my feet, disregarding the jealous stares of the other trainers waiting in the lobby. “Welcome, Mr. Ironstone, are you prepared for your battle?”
“Yep! And just Marcus, please,” I responded, concealing my wince upon hearing my last name.
My ancestors on my dad’s side had apparently been rock-type specialists of some small renown, and had chosen the name ‘Ironstone’ to represent the strength of their rocks. Of course, this had been before the steel type had been discovered so it made a bit more sense. Now…well, even if I had any rock pokemon it would be hard to view the name as anything other than cringey.
Though this was an anime world — I should be thankful. There were much worse names I could’ve ended up with.
“Well, Marcus, I’ll just go over the rules with you one more time. It is a two-versus-two battle until fainting or forfeiture. You are allowed one substitution — any substitutions beyond that and the subbed pokemon will be ruled unable to continue battling. These rules apply to both sides. You are allowed to use any pokemon registered to you, fusion or not, but Gym Leader Brock will only use pokemon that have at least one-third rock typing. Do you have any questions?”
I’d been nodding along with her words, nothing she’d said new or unusual, but at her last words I raised an eyebrow. “Gym Leader Brock? What about the gym trainers, will they also have the rock-type limitation?”
The receptionist frowned before turning back to her computer. “Hm…while it appears you were originally scheduled to battle a gym trainer, as of two days ago you were given a special exemption to skip that battle and face Gym Leader Brock directly. Will that be a problem?”
I frowned as I rubbed the back of my head. Special exemption? Was this because of the assignment I completed for Brock? I hadn’t expected it to have any effects beyond the immediate payment, but who else but Brock could’ve had the authority to skip me past the gym trainers?
Which led me to the next question: were we ready to face Brock already?
I hadn’t expected to challenge a gym leader today. I’d thought we would have at least one more night and morning to go over strategies and fine-tune our plans. But…would that really change anything? I didn’t plan for us to do any more serious training, and none of the strategies I expected to use on Brock were any different from what we’d planned for the gym trainer. One extra day wouldn’t make us any more or less prepared than we were at present.
So, after taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I shook my head. “No, that’s fine. Where do I go for the battle?”
The receptionist smiled at me. “Follow me and I’ll take you there.”
----------------------------------------
The Pewter City gym arena was pretty much exactly what I expected.
Made up almost completely of stone, the only ornamentations to the mostly bare space were three large pillars of rock extending three-quarters of the way to the ceiling, breaking up the otherwise monotonous space. The stands were stone as well, close to two dozen rows of stadium-style seating, though currently almost all of them were empty. All gym battles were free to spectators, and it was a common pastime for many to analyze matches and follow promising trainers on their journey. Thankfully, that wouldn’t be an issue for me today, as there were only a couple bored observers who most likely had nothing better to do with their afternoons, along with a small contingent of Brock fangirls. If we won a few badges, my team would have to get used to fighting in front of an audience, as spectators were much more common for third and higher gym battles later into the season, but for now I put thoughts of future fame out of my head.
It was almost time for battle, and my pokemon needed my full focus.
“Stay by my side, and don’t interfere in the battle,” I admonished Porygon as we rode up the slow elevator to the top of the platform where I would stand during the battle. The warning was unnecessary and mostly given out of nerves, but Porygon gave a quiet beep of acknowledgement and floated even closer to my shoulder in reply.
From the platform looking down at the arena, there were a few additional things I noticed. The first was how much more of the battlefield I would be able to see compared to the average arena in the trainer battles I was used to. It wasn’t like I had no idea what was going on in regular battles, especially since most pokemon at my level were rarely taller than waist-height and the arenas about the size of a tennis court. But the platform made everything so much easier to see — necessary in the larger arena of the gym or with pokemon the size of elephants.
The second was that, in addition to the three stone pillars, there were several divots scattered in seemingly random locations throughout the arena, what looked almost like impact craters. It wasn’t obvious what might have created them, but I had what I thought was a decent guess, and it gave me confidence in my plan.
“Glad to see you didn’t wait too long to challenge me!” I heard, and I looked up to see Brock smiling at me from the platform on the opposite side of the arena. “I apologize for rushing you through, but I was getting impatient — you seemed plenty capable of getting past my gym trainers, though.”
I frowned. Was he just referring to my ability to beat the misdreavus? Or did he have contact with some of the trainers I’d faced over the last week? I decided it didn’t matter. “You’re that eager to lose? I can’t complain — it gets me to the second gym faster.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Part of me was horrified at my words, at the autopilot trash-talk that I was spouting against Brock. It was a bad habit of mine when nervous or facing those more powerful than myself. It hadn’t come up recently, as it felt kinda rude to trash talk someone I considered weaker, but this situation more than met both of the requirements for my mouth to start spouting off on its own.
Luckily, Brock didn’t appear offended. He let out a hearty laugh before giving me a wide smile, his eyes disappearing into slits. “I like the confidence. But don’t get too ahead of yourself — I might not be as easy as you expect.”
With those words, he turned to look to the right side of the arena, where a woman in a black and white uniform stood, and gave a nod.
“This match will be between Gym Leader Brock and challenger Marcus for the Boulder Badge,” the referee called, and I released a breath when it seemed the secretary had passed along the message to omit my last name. “It will be a first badge challenge, two versus two, with one substitution allowed. Gym Leader Brock, are you ready?”
Brock nodded confidently, tossing a pokeball up and down in his hands.
“Challenger Marcus, are you ready?”
“Born ready,” I replied, attempting to adopt a confident pose of my own.
“Then on my mark…release!”
Brock threw his ball onto his side of the arena, and I threw my own a split second later. My throw was closer to the middle of the arena than his, but still just barely on my side — hopefully, it would be close enough.
In the two hours since his victory over Porygon, Sableye and I hadn’t had much time to develop strategies around his newly revealed move. Thankfully, he didn’t need much for him to take advantage of its utility. When the opposing rock type appeared in a flash of red light, the light that contained Sableye was already darting across the arena.
“Geott—” the geodude-pidgeotto fusion began to cry, but was cut off by Sableye’s sudden appearance right in front of it. The flying-rock type flinched back, but if Sableye’s fake out did any damage, it didn’t show.
“Scratch, Sableye! Same as with Porygon — don’t let up!”
Scratch wouldn’t be very effective against the rock-type, but I didn’t want to risk switching to shadow sneak. Pidgey was part normal type, and depending on how much of that typing the fusion inherited it could be completely immune to the ghost type attack. While Sableye had the momentum and they were in close-range combat, it wasn’t worth risking the chip damage that scratch was guaranteed to provide.
Sableye continued to attack with his trademark ferocity, scratch after scratch coming out as the geotto’s wings flapped in an attempt to escape. Sableye was too close, though, and he didn’t give it the room it needed to take to the air.
But the geotto wasn’t Porygon. The scratches didn’t do as much damage against the rock type, and it had an experienced trainer backing it up.
“Defense curl!” Brock called, and the geotto instantly responded, crossing its two meaty fists in front of its body to take Sableye’s scratches. “Good! Now sand attack! Lose it and take to the sky!”
The geotto’s wings started to flap even harder. But rather than trying to escape, this time it whipped up a flurry of sand that had Sableye squinting his gemstone eyes. And in that split second of hesitation, with an attempted scratch that was just slightly misplaced — it broke free, its wings carrying it into the air.
“Gust! Pepper it from above!”
“Dodge them, Sableye!” Sableye dashed backwards with shadow sneak, the mini-tornados of gust just barely missing his shadowed form. “Now night shade!”
Night shade was a move I didn’t previously have much experience with. It wasn’t one of Hobbes’ moves, and despite growing up in Lavender Town, I didn’t have much experience facing other ghost types. It was only recently, during one of the training battles between Sableye and Porygon, that I’d discovered some of its quirks.
Night shade ignored type advantages.
Not completely. Night shade was still weaker against normal types than it was against other types, especially heavily-normal types like Porygon. But unlike with other ghost-type moves, normal type pokemon were not completely immune. Plus, it had the benefit of doing flat damage that bypassed the physical or special defenses of the opponent.
On the flip side, it was an extremely weak move in almost all other aspects. But against a part normal pokemon that invested heavily into their defenses? It was perfect.
Sableye’s eyes shined even brighter than normal as purple waves traveled through the air to encompass the flying geotto. It let out a cry of pain, but it continued to use gusts as the two pokemon traded hits.
Brock stared at me as I looked across to the opposing platform and smirked. Normally, his rock type pokemon excelled in fights that traded blows. Their resistances and high natural defense meant that, as long as they weren’t at a type disadvantage, they would almost always end up on top. But the early chip damage from his fake out and scratches, coupled with night shade’s special properties, was giving Sableye the advantage.
“Geotto…all out,” Brock eventually called, and I frowned.
In higher level battles it wasn’t uncommon for trainers to develop codes with their pokemon, ways to instruct certain moves or combinations of moves without giving any warning to the opposing trainer. But this was the first time I had faced it directly, and I studied the battlefield for any signs of what Brock was planning.
The geotto was already on its last legs as it flapped its wings, rising up until it was soaring right next to the ceiling. Sableye could probably finish it off with just a few more night shades. Was it worth it to tank whatever attack Brock was preparing in exchange for those final few hits?
From its position near the ceiling of the arena, the geotto tucked its wings and began to dive. I sucked in a breath in surprise.
From my years of training with Hobbes to use mimic, I was familiar with all sorts of flying-type moves, more than any non-flying-type trainer had any right to be. Gust, wing attack, aerial ace, air slash, I knew them all, and this move was none of them — it was a move much rarer, one I’d only seen in recordings from conference battles.
Brave bird.
“Sableye, detect!” I yelled.
For an instant, I could see him hesitate, my instructions warring with his instincts to dodge with shadow sneak. It wouldn’t work, I knew — as fast as shadow sneak was, it wasn’t fast enough to dodge brave bird, not when the geotto was already mid-dive. But at the last moment, a split second before it would have been too late…he listened.
Sableye’s gemstone eyes shut as he slipped into the hyper-focused state of detect. He shifted back, his hunched body moving so much smoother than usual as his legs slid along the ground. The geotto followed, adjusting its trajectory to aim at the shifting ghost type, but Sableye continued to move with preternatural grace. I held my breath — Sableye was still a novice when it came to using detect, and dodging brave bird was a big ask. I didn’t know if he would be able to avoid the pwoerful move.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Whooomph.
The arena seemed to jump beneath me as the geotto slammed into the ground with insane force, kicking up a massive cloud of dust. I squinted, attempting to see through the cloud…
Sableye stood tall, unharmed.
Surprisingly, the geotto was also still conscious. I’d expected it to knock itself unconscious from the recoil of brave bird, but despite still appearing on its last legs, it was able to pull itself back to its feet at the bottom of the small crater it had created.
Rock head, I realized, one of geodude’s abilities which allowed it to ignore recoil damage. In this case, it wouldn’t matter — it looked like a single scratch would be enough to finish off the injured fusion. But before Sableye could dash forward to end it, I held up a pokeball.
“Sableye, return!” I called, and despite looking back at me in annoyance, my pokemon didn’t fight as the red light enveloped him and pulled him back to my side.
“Challenger Marcus has withdrawn his pokemon! He has no substitutions remaining,” the referee called, and I nodded as I tossed out a new ball.
“He’s weak, Hobbes!” I yelled as my partner appeared in a flash of red. And then, a second later. “Transform!”
Appearing on my half of the arena and with the geotto still trying to recover from the failed brave bird, Hobbes was able to finish his transformation before his opponent could get an attack off. His transformation was his usual horror-movie patchwork-style mimicry of his opponent’s form, but it looked as complete as it was going to get, and I nodded in approval. He needed to be in as good of shape as possible if he was about to face what I expected.
“Take him down with rock throw! Don’t take a hit!”
The next few minutes were a bit tense as Hobbes and the geotto danced around the arena. The opposing flying-rock type was obviously much more skilled in his form, but he was tired and injured from his fight against Sableye. When gust didn’t work, Brock tried to have him close the distance and use peck, but Hobbes continued to dodge and throw rocks at his opponent. And eventually, it paid off.
“Gym Leader Brock’s pokemon is unable to battle!” The referee yelled as Brock returned his unconscious pokemon. He gave me a suspicious look.
“You’ve done your research,” he called across the arena as he fingered the second ball on his belt.
I smiled at him, happy to give Hobbes a bit of time to catch his breath. While geotto could fly despite being essentially rocks given form using flying type energy, it wasn’t as agile as something lighter like an unfused pidgey, and I was happy to give Hobbes a break after all his dodging.
“It kinda is your signature pokemon,” I responded, and Brock smiled.
“I suppose he is, at that.” His hands firmed around his second pokeball before he threw it into the center of the arena. “Go, dugix!”
“DuuuuggiiIIIXXXXXX!!” The massive hydra-like heads of the dugtrio-onix fusion appeared in a roar that shook the platform beneath me, and I clenched my hands at my sides.
Sableye and Hobbes were able to take down half of Brock’s team while remaining relatively unscathed. But the battle for the Boulder Badge was still just beginning.