“This will be an unofficial match. The rules will be held in accordance with Pokémon League regulations. It is a one-on-one match, with no substitutions or items. Do both of you understand?”
Alejandro, the Trainer who had helped broker the deal with the Vespiquen that Venus and I had rescued, looked between me and my opponent.
I nodded, and Rei nodded back. She was a cyclist who had stopped by and chatted with me a couple of times. Then she asked Venus and I to battle, and roped Alejandro into it. He had been in the area and had stopped by to visit, but was looking excited to be a judge for a battle.
What was making me nervous however, was the Tyrogue who was currently staring down Venus, shifting its weight back and forth in a loose fighting stance.
“Begin!”
“Quick Attack!”
“Push back and sweep!”
Venus' form blurred as she sped into a Quick Attack, something we had just gotten down a couple of days ago after a bunch of training. I was proud of her for finally getting the move, but I was afraid that it wasn't going to do much good in this fight.
She slammed into the Tyrogue, which grunted and was pushed back a step, but little else happened. The Tyrogue, for its part, leaned its own head down and slammed a shoulder into her chest.
My poor Eevee was shoved back by a couple of feet, but the Tyrogue was already moving. It bounded forth, closing the distance, and before Venus could react the Tyrogue dropped to its hands and swept with its feet, looking almost like a breakdancer for a second. Venus didn't have a chance, and the Tyrogue’s strong legs knocked hers out from under her, toppling her to the ground.
“Recover!” Rei called, and the Tyrogue hopped backwards, falling into its fighting stance again.
“Come on, get up!”
Venus struggled to her feet, although I could tell she was favoring her front left paw, the one that had taken the brunt of the last attack.
Still, there was a fire in her eye, and I knew she still had some fight left in her.
“Sand Attack!”
Venus slapped at the ground with her paw, throwing a cloud of sand at her opponent, who cried out and scrubbed at its eyes.
“Go on Venus, you got this! Quick Attack again!”
While the Tyrogue was busy, Venus blurred forwards and threw her entire body into the blow. The Tyrogue grunted in pain and was forced back, but finally got its vision back and glared at Venus with red-rimmed eyes.
“Razzle Dazzle!”
The Tyrogue stepped forwards, and began throwing punches. None of them were meant to actually hit, but Venus hesitated for a split second, and the Tyrogue's fist caught her square on the nose, right as she was about to attack.
She flinched, stumbling backwards in surprise from the blow, and it took me a second to realize that the Tyrogue had used Fake Out.
“Exploit!”
The Tyrogue stepped forwards with a satisfied grin, and slammed another shoulder in a Tackle to Venus’ chest.
I grimaced, but pulled out her Pokéball, and withdrew Venus.
“I forfeit.” I said, tasting the bitter pill of failure.
“Come on back Yoshio.”
The Tyrogue bowed towards me, then looked back to his trainer, who examined him for a few seconds, then recalled him to his own Pokéball.
“Good fight.” It was a little hard to say that, but it was the polite thing to do.
“Sorry about it being one-sided.” Rei said, obviously a little ashamed at the beat-down.
I waved her off. “It was a bad match up on my part. Normal-types have it hard against Fighting-types at the best of times, but your Tyrogue, wow. You’ve been training a lot haven't you?”
She smiled with a set of perfect teeth. “For the past year and change, yeah.”
I whistled. “Well, it shows.”
Their coordination was disgustingly good, and I envied her ability to tell her Pokémon what to do without actually stating the names of the attacks. Normally that was only done at the highest levels of battling since it required a lot of training and mutual understanding, so it was impressive that they were able to do it here. The fact was that Venus and I had only been together for less than two months, and I had never grown up with the experience needed to command real live Pokémon. I knew the mechanics of the games, but translating that to real life was more difficult than I had expected.
Rei had the good grace to look apologetic. “Yeah, sorry about that. I knew you were a new Trainer, but I didn't realize how new.”
It still stung, but it was getting better.
“Let me guess,” Alejandro said, joining us. “Training for the Quadrathlon?”
“Yeah, you got it.”
“Quadrathlon?” I asked, confused. “Is that like the Pokéathalon?”
Rei laughed, but Alejandro rolled his eyes.
“It's more like a triathlon, except so much better!” Rei gushed. “It's all done with your Pokémon by your side, so they have to swim, bike, and run with you! Then at the end, the top scoring challengers have to go through a Pokémon battle tournament to determine the winner!”
“It's like a Contest for fitness buffs.” Alejandro explained, stage whispering to me. “Where they show off to each other about how strong and muscular they are.”
“That sounds… exhausting.” I said, shaking my head.
“It is! Yoshio and I didn't even manage to get into the tournament round last time, but we've been training all year for it!”
“Well, I hope it goes well this time. Congratulations on your win.”
It was a little hard not to be bitter, considering how outmatched we had been, but Rei was a nice person.
“I think Venus and I should get back to camp though.”
“Do you want some company?” Alejandro asked, with Rei nodding in the background.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I hesitated, but shook my head. “Thanks you two, but I think we're good for now. Meet up again soon?”
Rei was obviously disappointed, and while I felt bad, I was exhausted from a long day of spelunking, and then the match. Besides, Venus had to rest and heal up as well.
“Okay, well we'll catch up with you later then. Send me a message whenever you want to hang out again.” Alejandro said, and nearly dragged Rei away, leaving me alone again.
I trudged back to my camp and released Venus, who looked around before crawling into my lap to get her wounds tended to and her ears scratched.
There was still a small worry in my chest that she was badly hurt by the beating she had taken, but besides a few bruises, she seemed fine enough. I still fed her a couple of healing Berries to be sure, and after a couple hours of rest Venus was walking around as if nothing had happened.
Despite the fact that Venus had just been in a battle she came up to me and started batting at my leg, and Zetian’s ball wriggled in my pocket, demanding to be let out.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “We don’t have to train right now, you already did a lot today.”
There was a fire in Venus’ brown eyes, and I sighed at the determination I saw there.
“Alright then.”
With a flash of light, Zetian was released, and the two Pokémon squared up for their now habitual sparring session.
“Venus, work on dodging and trying to use the environment to your advantage. Zetian, I want you to work on Gust, it’s a good move, but I think it needs a little more control. Sounds good?”
The two Pokémon nodded, and I sighed again.
“Alright then, begin!”
/^\
After my two companions had thoroughly worn themselves out, I found myself sitting in front of a crackling fire pit at the new camp site, cleaning some of the dirt off of Zetian with a cloth that I had bought from the Oreburgh City Poké Mart, while Venus lay curled up near the flames, soaking in their warmth.
The past couple of weeks had passed in a blur. I hadn’t meant to spend so long just looking for the cave itself, but apparently it was a lot more hidden than I had thought. By the time I finally uncovered the entrance to the cave, I was beginning to think that we would never actually find it and I would have to give up on my goal.
The weeks themselves weren’t bad. In fact, for the most part I was having a good time. Sure, the constant fruitless searching was frustrating, but the rest of the time was actually enjoyable. I had set up a small semi-permanent camp by the river, living off of the Berries, fruit, and fish of the local area.
As it turns out, there was a lot more Berry variety here than back near Sandgem Town, and Venus was relishing in how many sour Berries there were. She would have loved some of the sour candies back home, considering how she practically inhaled some Grepa Berries that I had found in a tree nearby. Zetian, on the other hand, preferred the spicier berries, and it was lucky there were so many Razz Berries to be found.
When we weren’t futilely searching the area for a cave, or relaxing at the campsite and looking for food, we had been training.
The Vespiquen hive incident had been a bit of a wakeup call, and reminded me that I was a Pokémon Trainer, and despite how amazing it was, it could also be dangerous as well.
If I wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to me or my Pokémon, we had to be stronger, and that meant training and battling. The difference between my old world and this one that I was still coming to terms with was that Pokémon were much, much tougher than any animal back home. What would have been a lethal blow there was just a bruise here.
On top of all of that, they just simply liked the training and the battles. I would have been a poor Trainer if I disregarded what my companions wanted.
For Venus it began with sprints. Pokémon battles didn’t usually involve running long distances, so I figured that being faster across a small area was probably going to be best. Then with some creative thinking, I set up a small obstacle course to help her train her agility, getting her used to turning on a dime.
After she built up some speed and agility, we started working on her attacks. By the end of the first week Venus had finally managed to figure out Quick Attack, but it was clear that despite her speed, being fast wasn’t her forte.
Of course when she wasn’t training, she was as lazy as could be, often curling up to sleep whenever she could. Most of the time it was on my lap, which was fine with me.
Zetian, on the other hand, was starting to get a little scary.
As I’d found out from browsing the forums on the free computers in the Pokémon Center and the local library, Combee weren’t all that great as battling Pokémon. They just didn’t learn all that many moves, and were mostly a threat as wild Pokémon because of how many there were in a swarm. But Zetian? Zetian was fast.
It tickled something in the back of my mind about the statistics of the Pokémon games, and I once again regretted the fact that I couldn’t just look these things up on Bulbapedia like I used to be able to. Zetian wasn’t the fastest Pokémon out there, but for an unevolved form she was scary at how fast she could dish out attacks.
If, or more realistically when, she evolved into a Vespiquen I was sure she would lose most of that speed, but she would make up for it with a better movepool.
I had plans for that, but right now I couldn’t out-run her if I tried, and she consistently struck first when she and Venus sparred.
Of course I wasn’t exempt from working out. Thanks to Jirachi I was in a brand new body without any dysphoria, but that didn’t excuse me from taking care of myself. Thankfully, almost all of the food here was incredibly healthy, and I took it a step further by only eating berries, fish, and some vegetables that I scrounged from the woods. Sure that was mostly because I had no income so I couldn’t buy a lot of food without running out of money, but I made sure everything was safe to eat by asking some of the local hikers. With some running and calisthenics every day, I was in the best shape of my life.
I really could have gone for a burger though.
/^\
The most frustrating part during the search wasn’t that the Wayward Cave itself was hard to find. In fact, I managed to reach the main cave on the second day after leaving Oreburgh.
While it wasn’t a tourist trap or anything, the cave was popular with the local campers and hikers, as well as anybody who was interested in Rock-type Pokémon. I even spent an entire day just walking around and gawking at the sights inside the cave. I even almost got decked in the face by accidentally stepping on a Geodude that had blended in with the stones on the ground. It was only thanks to Venus intercepting it that I ended up with a bruise instead of a broken nose.
I made friends with some of the local hikers and cyclists like Rei, and while they were curious about why I was camping for so long in one spot, I never told them about the secret cave system underneath the Wayward Cave. Mostly they just wanted to battle, and every few days Venus, Zetian, and I would try out a fight or two.
However, while the main cavern was a local fixture, the hidden part of the cave where Gible lived was, well, hidden.
My meta-knowledge of the games wasn’t very helpful in this instance, and I was beginning to think that I should seriously consider just ignoring most of what I had learned back on Earth. What was hidden on a Nintendo DS screen was thanks to the engine limitations and a fixed viewpoint, and the developers had literally just blocked the entrance from view. Here, in the real world though? There were no sprites to cover up the entrance or a convenient guidebook to show me the way.
I had finally found the hidden entrance about two days ago, but it was little more than a narrow crack in a rock wall, nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding stone thanks to the shadows of the cycling road overhead. It was barely big enough for me to squeeze through, and I thanked god or Arceus or whomever that I wasn’t claustrophobic.
In the games, the Wayward cave used the bog-standard cave textures, which was fine. Engine limitations of the DS and all. As such, I didn’t have any real expectations of the cave when I first went in, but what I saw blew me away.
After maybe ten or fifteen feet of a cramped rock surface the hidden section of the Wayward Cave opened up into an almost smooth and perfectly round tunnel. The one notable feature was at the top of the tunnel, where a channel was cut out of the rock. I had scratched my head, trying to figure out what it was and trying to ignore the fact that I couldn’t touch both sides of the wall if I spread my arms out to my side.
Heading deeper into the cave had been a lot stranger than I had expected, and the path wound around itself in ways that didn’t seem like they made any kind of sense. Sometimes there would be other paths that intersected with the one I had found myself in, and they all shared that same round shape with the strange cut-out on top.
Eventually, I had reached what seemed to be a conjunction of sorts, a massive chamber with dozens of similar tunnels that had been bored into the rocks. You could have put an entire castle into the center of the chamber and still have had plenty of room to move around. Large boulders, almost the size of small hills, were scattered across the floor and off in the distance I could have sworn that I heard deep grinding noises like the world’s largest mortar and pestle. Slightly glowing rocks set into the ceiling and walls dimly illuminated the cavern, giving the entire place a strange, ethereal quality.
This had most certainly not been in the games, and I had stared around in wonder and a little bit of trepidation.
Then I realized that we had even more searching to do, and it took everything I had to not put my head in my hands and scream in frustration.