CHAPTER 93

“Are you guys ready?!” I yelled out to my team.

Since Candice was apparently too busy just when we wanted to battle her, I had decided to get more practice in for the battle. I felt ready— more ready than I had ever felt against even Gardenia somehow, but tying up any loose ends would serve me well during the battle. My team and I were currently in one of Snowpoint’s few arenas, and it was completely empty. That meant I had the entire place for myself.

Electabuzz and Frillish were on one side of the arena. The electric type looked more excited than he had been in a long time and punched his palm as he grinned wildly. Frillish rolled his eyes, clearly reluctant to fight in this mock battle I had organized. He still held a soft spot for Togetic, and he’d probably pull his punches against her, but at least he could practice using Recover and Acid Armor without holding back. On the other side, Tangela and Togetic were their aloof selves, not at all concerned with the fact that they were about to battle. It was angel’s first time fighting a member of the family and not just other Pokemon, and princess was busy playing with some snow she had brought in from outside using Extrasensory and harassing him with it.

Larvitar, meanwhile, was grumbling next to me, angry that I wasn’t letting her battle.

The way I had set up the two teams had been rather simple. Sure, at first glance, it might have seemed like Electabuzz and Frillish had a clear advantage, but both teams had weaknesses that could be exploited, and it’d be foolish to underestimate Togetic and Tangela. I was planning on letting them do whatever they thought was best. My time through Mount Coronet had taught me that when I thought, I couldn’t focus on giving my Pokemon orders all the time, so against opponents who I didn’t know well, like Candice, it’d be better to just let them act somewhat independently while I thought up of a strategy on the fly. Of course, against opponents who I could study for days before the battle, I’d easily be ordering my Pokemon around during the entire fight.

Togetic finally finished playing with her snow. I waited for everyone to give me a signal and cut across the air with my arm as if I was a referee.

“Begin!”

Electabuzz roared, then ran forward, cutting the distance between him and angel in a blur as Frillish sent out a quick Shadow Ball at the grass type. As if he had just awakened, Tangela extended six vines forward, ready to catch Electabuzz and stop him in his tracks.

Togetic fluttered her wings, and the air in front of her quickened and sharpened like blades, hurtling toward Electabuzz, cutting his skin and slowing him down. Tangela took the Shadow Ball to the face and shook it off, opting to catch the electric type instead thanks to princess’ help. The vines wrapped around his two arms, and he started using Mega Drain. Electabuzz clamored at his teammate, asking for help.

“Let me introduce you to how the team works, sweetheart,” I told Larvitar as I crouched next to her. She had always been in her Pokeball when we battled wild Pokemon for her own protection after Mount Coronet, so this was her first time in a while actually seeing them battle. Plus, they were battling each other, not wild Pokemon. “Electabuzz doesn’t look like it, but he’s actually a little speed demon. Well, a big one now that he evolved. I guess he could be considered a glass cannon. Hits hard but doesn’t take hits well. Case in point.”

The electric type was struggling against Tangela’s vines, but he was quickly losing steam. Frillish answered his call for help, propelling himself with water sport and quickly pelting Tangela’s side with Poison Sting. The grass type shook, clearly in pain, leaving Electabuzz an opening. His muscles bulged, and he tore the vines apart before continuing on his path. A small spark lit his fist ablaze, and he hit Tangela right in the face, sending him flying, but Togetic quickly caught him with Extrasensory and gently placed him back on the ground.

“Frillish is like mobile artillery. Excellent at completely destroying his opponents from a safe distance, and he has great mobility too,” I explained. “But we’ve been working on his survivability in battle. He deals less damage than Electabuzz overall, but he can last longer.”

Togetic giggled, lifting Tangela with Extrasensory once more, and sent him flying like a cannonball toward a bewildered Frillish. The water type quickly propelled himself upward with Water Sport, and it looked like Tangela would miss—

Angel whipped a vine around one of Frillish’s tentacle midair and brought the water type down with him. Electabuzz ran to his side, hoping to help, but Tangela tripped him up by wrapping a vine around his ankle and then pelted him with a Leech Seed. He proceeded to Vine Whip Frillish, who tried to escape, but Togetic’s eyes shone, and she restrained him with Extrasensory. Angel continued to hit Frillish until Electabuzz finally rescued him and hit the grass type away with an Ice Punch.

“Angel’s kind of my battering ram,” I continued. “He’s really good at just ruining his opponent's day. His vines are so oppressive and annoying to fight that I don’t know where I’d even begin to counter them if I was facing him, but he packs a pretty good punch to boot, although he’s fallen a bit behind Frillish and Electabuzz in regards to brute force. Something his evolution will no doubt fix.”

Tangela shook himself off, but he was clearly struggling. Back when Electabuzz had been an Elekid, he probably could have shrugged off a lot of these punching attacks, even though they were super effective. Now, though? After two, he was almost tapped out, but so were Frillish and Electabuzz. Too tired to run, Electabuzz brought his hands together, and thunder clapped. A huge Thunderbolt flew toward Tangela, who Togetic hastily protected with an Ancient Power. Frillish was now back in the air, and he was looking at the actual thorn in his team's side. Togetic.

“Princess might lack in power, but she makes up for it with her incredible utility. She’s kind of an army knife or a jack of all trades, but that’s not a weakness. That’s a strength. She can do anything, and she likes thinking outside of the box. I’d say she often flies under the radar, like she did during this fight. I mean, honey could have easily hit her with a Thunderbolt or two, and she probably would have gone down, but they were too focused on Tangela to notice that she was the one pulling the strings.”

Frillish offered princess an apologetic look, inhaled, and spat out a Bubblebeam straight at her. Her eyes shone, and she quickly altered their path before retaliating with another Air Cutter so quick Frillish couldn’t even dodge with Water Sport. On the other side of the arena, Electabuzz and Tangela were duking it out. Angel kept trying to tie down Electabuzz to finally bring him down, but he kept knocking the vines away with Fire Punch. Still, Leech Seed was slowly taking effect, and after around thirty seconds of this, he had finally slowed enough for Tangela to Bind and Mega Drain him until he fainted, and I recalled him.

Togetic let out a child-like laugh as electricity zapped around her and flew off toward Frillish, who had adeptly Recovered from multiple Air Cutters. Paralysis took hold, but he was strong enough to stay afloat, and he threw another Water Pulse forward. Togetic took the hit, opting to lift Tangela high up enough so his vines could catch Frillish once again and drag him to the ground. Once he was down, he wasn’t getting back up. Tangela wrapped multiple vines around his body, and Mega Drained his remaining energy.

I recalled Frillish and clapped. “That was a great battle. Great job on your strategizing, princess. That was the key to your victory. Tangela, you were great as always, and your vine control is on point,” I said. Togetic laughed, clapping to herself. She had only gotten hit once. “I’ll recall you now and bring you guys to a Center, although I guess Larvitar can stay since she was just watching. Honey’s going to be disappointed at himself.”

I took another look at Larvitar, whose eyes were still shining from that battle. She probably hadn’t even listened to a word I had said, but it looked like battling was everything she had hoped it would be and more.

“You liked that, huh?” I smiled at her. “I have a role in mind for you too, but you’ll have to grow up to fulfill it.”

You’ll be a tank, I thought. Something that never goes down no matter how many hits it takes, like Cece’s Deino.

All I needed after that was something I considered heavy artillery, which was something I hoped a fire type could fix, but maybe I was taking it too far with these analogies. Either way, I recalled my entire team and made my way back to the Pokemon Center, satisfied with how that match had gone. There wasn’t much else I could do now. All of my Pokemon knew their moves, Cece was busy juggling interviews, fixing her relationship with Scyther, and undergoing intense training for the gym, so we didn’t have that much time. Chase was also training, although he was busy bringing up his Snover up to speed with the rest of his team as fast as he could.

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Maybe Denzel would entertain me. He was giving his team today off, especially since Eev— Sylveon had desperately tried to learn as many new moves as he could in such a short amount of time. Disarming Voice and Play Rough were what they were focusing on. I gave all of my Pokemon except Larvitar to Nurse Joy, who seemed happy to finally be doing her job instead of sitting at a counter all day. I knocked on Denzel’s door before realizing that the goofball hadn’t even closed it. I barged in with Larvitar in tow and noticed that he was talking and filming himself on his Poketch. Sylveon was quietly sleeping at Denzel’s feet along with his new Snorunt, one of his ribbons loosely wrapped around his leg. I hadn’t had many opportunities to acquaint myself with the ice type yet.

“G—Grace,” he stammered in embarrassment. “What— how did you even get in?”

I let out an evil smile. “Ooooh, were you making a video?” I laughed as I walked toward the phone.

“No, it’s a livestream,” he said. “Sorry guys, I’m gonna have to end it here. I’ll start again soon,” he said before pressing a button on his phone.

My stomach dropped at the mention of livestreaming. “How… how many viewers was that?”

“Ten thousand or so,” he sighed. “I was trying out this Poketuber thing. Emilia wants to do it, too, remember? Like Temperance does, although she has her own site so that she doesn’t have to split donations with the platform I’m uploading on. Emi gave me some pointers since I had the name recognition and the fame to kickstart my channel. I was just doing a general introduction and stuff. She says she’ll start hers when she actually starts getting wins in contests.”

“Right…” I muttered before suddenly looking at Larvitar, who was staring at us confusedly. “Was sweetheart… was she in the shot?”

Denzel winced and quickly played back his footage. Larvitar had been in the shot. That meant that thousands of people had seen that I owned a Larvitar. A pseudo-legendary Pokemon. This would no doubt fuck me over and make me even more famous.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Damn it.”

“Sorry,” my best friend apologized.

“No, no, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have barged in like that, even though the door was open. I guess I reap what I sow.”

“Well, it was going to come out eventually, so maybe it was better to do it now that you’re in Snowpoint,” Denzel said, trying to cheer me up. “No pesky trainers to harass you or ask you to trade it for their Bidoof, or whatever.”

That elicited a small chuckle out of me. “You’re right, it was better to do it now. I just wished that it had been in a more… controlled fashion and not an accident. Anyway, how many subscribers you got? Can you get monetized yet?”

“I have twelve thousand subscribers so far, but I haven’t linked the account to my trainer card, or built a donation page, or anything like that. I literally just made an account, posted a link on the forums, and went live. I’m still new to all of this.”

“Sounds like a good source of income if you build it up, though,” I smiled.

“Yeah, people mostly associate Poketubers with coordinators, since trainers travel a lot and don’t have time to actually make content, but I’m thinking of ways around that. Maybe hire an editor in the future so that they can keep putting out videos while I’m traveling?”

“Good editors aren’t cheap, you know,” I said. “But yeah, Temperance probably has one. Or like, an entire team of ‘em. There’s no way she edits her stuff.”

“Yeah. I was thinking of making training compilations, battle montages, and stuff like that, along with the occasional livestream. Either way, this is just stuff for the future. I’ll get deeper into it when we get to Hearthome.”

“Man, there is a lot of shit happening at Hearthome,” I laughed. “Almost makes me wonder if we’ll have enough time to do it all.”

“Eh, Solaceon’s a nice stop if we don’t,” he shrugged. “Anyway, what brings you here?”

“Nothing, I just finished making my Pokemon battle, and I was bored.”

“You made me stop my livestream because you were bored?” Denzel asked incredulously.

“Yeah… sorry? Wanna watch a shitty Center movie or something?”

“Okay,” he groaned, grabbing the T.V. remote.

“You’re the best.”

——

The day of all of our battles had finally come. We all stepped into the gym with a confident stride. All of our experiences from Mount Coronet to Snowpoint had prepared us for this moment. This battle.

Since Candice’s schedule was completely free, we hadn’t even signed up for a solid timeslot yet. The receptionist yawned as he watched us decide who was going to go first.

“I should be first. You guys are already leeching off my success enough,” Chase said loudly. “Let me have some fame too.”

“Why don’t you just make a channel like I did—”

“Come on, I don’t have time for that coordinator shit,” he said dismissively.

Denzel sighed. “Anyway, I don’t mind going after you guys. Need to see how Candice fights to get the engine running.”

“You call your brain an engine? Cringe, dude,” Chase retorted. “But fine.”

“I’m fine with going last,” I said with a raised hand. “I’d also like to see the way Candice fights at our level.”

“Sounds good, I’ll be third,” Denzel nodded.

I’d also see some of her lower leveled Pokemon, but odds were that they would be in no shape to fight after battling Cece and Chase, so that point was moot.

“Okay, Obel,” Chase said smugly. “How about we settle this with a nice arm wrestling match?”

“Are you daft? That would in no way be fair,” she answered, crossing her arms.

“How about you guys play rock paper scissors? One game. Winner goes first, and loser goes second,” Denzel suggested. As always, he was trying to lower tension, although thankfully, the mood was rather playful instead of tense.

“That’s a great suggestion,” Cece said.

“Fine. One game, though,” Chase nodded.

They readied themselves, shook their fists three times, and Chase threw rock while Cece threw paper.

“I win,” she said with a vain smile. “Looks like you’ll have to go after me.”

“Wait! How about a best of three?” Chase asked.

“You said one game,” I laughed. “Come on, let’s go spectate,” I stared at Cece for a few seconds and nodded at her. “You’ve got this, easy.”

“Of course.”

It was easy to see how massive the stands were when they were completely empty— wait, there was a man… I squinted. Craig was there, sitting in the front row and leaning against the railing. He motioned us to come over, and we obliged him.

“I thought you were gone already,” I happily said. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, you know, been busy here and there. I have a battle after you kids. No matter how much I pleaded, Candice was incessant. She wanted to battle you first.”

“Sorry about that,” Denzel said. “Looking at us fight is probably going to be like looking at kindergarteners, huh?”

“Speak for yourself, Williams,” Chase said.

“Well, it won’t teach me anything, but it’ll be fun. I usually don’t do stuff like this, so it’ll be nice to feel grounded for a while,” Craig said.

“Well, we’re definitely staying for your battle afterward,” I said. “As long as my Pokemon aren’t too hurt, I’ll stick around.”

“Sounds good. Ah, your friend’s there already.”

Cece walked onto the platform confidently and looked beautiful while doing so. Candice arrived soon after, grinning from ear to ear. I leaned further against the railing. If what I had seen during my sleuthing was correct, then this behavior would mean that Candice would send out aggressive, offensive-minded Pokemon. The ice type gym leader grabbed a Pokeball and waited for Cece to do the same.

“Erm… Leader Candice, you forgot the rules,” the referee on the side of the arena awkwardly said.

“Ah, shoot! It’s been so long that I forgot! Um, welcome, challenger! This will be a four-on-four battle with one switch in allowed. I reserve the right to… wait, did the killing part come first, or—”

“Please, just get it over with! I’m dying from secondhand embarrassment!” The referee screamed.

“Sorry, Lily,” Candice said, scratching her head.

“My name isn’t even Lily. I’ve been working here since you started as a gym leader…”

“Let’s not get sidetracked! Basically, no killing, I choose whatever Pokemon I want, and have fun! Now, send out your Pokemon!” Candice yelled.

Cecilia sent out her Slowpoke, who strangely already seemed awake and ready to battle. It was like he was a completely different Pokemon from usual. I didn’t know what training she had undergone with him, but he was definitely stronger and more focused than before.

“Aw, I love Slowpoke! They’re so dumb!” Candice grinned and sent out her Pokemon.