“Melina Jones, yes?”

“Yeap, you can call me Nina,” said the five year old to the lady handling registrations.

The lady smiled. “Alright, Nina. First off, put this life jacket on,” she instructed, while handing Nina a generic orange life vest. “Next, you get to choose one of three Pokemon to be your partner today. Choose wisely, cause there’s no take backs.”

The three Pokemon were, Marill, Goldeen, and Staryu. Nina was tempted to go for Marill right away since it’s technically a second stage evolution. But considering that the field was going to be on water, and Marill isn’t the best swimmer, she decided to look past it for now.

“May I know what moves the Pokemons have?”

“Why of course, we have a list right here. All the Pokemon you see today are going to be of equal strength, so no worries about any unfairness.”

“Equal strength, but probably unequal temperament. However, given that this is a tournament for kids, I’m sure they’ve taken that into account and removed any problematic characters,” thought Nina.

The list that the lady provided showed Rollout as one of Marills moves, really making Nina second guess her decision. But ultimately, she decided to go with Goldeen, for one simple reason — Supersonic.

Nina remembered the accuracy of this move being fairly horrible from her past life. But all she needed to do was land a single Confusion to absolutely ruin her opponent. Staryu with its Confuse Ray would have been more ideal, but the list shows that none of the one’s on offer knew it, indicating that it was probably a higher level move.

“I got daddy to buy me some Berries for today. Can I feed it to Goldeen at the pool? I want to make friends with her,” asked Nina, with her best Baby-Doll Eyes impression. She held up a pouch of berries for the staff to inspect.

The lady gave Nina an amused chuckle. “Course you can. Just make sure not to overfeed Goldeen, okay? We don’t want her getting sick in the middle of a battle.”

“I won’t,” she replied, before scampering off to the pool in order to familiarize herself with her partner for the day. Behind Nina, Patrick Jones gave the check in lady an apologetic look, which she just waved off in good humor.

“Nice to meet you, Goldeen. My name’s Nina. Let’s work hard to make a good impression today,” greeted Nina.

“Deeen~” returned the Water type.

Goldeen looked just like how Nina remembered in the games; a large white goldfish, patterned with orange specks, and sporting a dangerous looking horn on her forehead.

“Here, I’ve got some treats for you today. The lady told me not to overfeed you, but I’m sure it’s fine to reward you after every win.”

The Berries that Nina had prepared were just basic Oran Berries. It was the safest choice to give to a pokemon whose taste she was unfamiliar with. Oran Berries were the default, much like vanilla ice cream. It may not be everyone’s favorite, but no one can say that they hate vanilla ice cream.

It would also have been nice to cheat a little and have Goldeen “hold” an Oran Berry like in the games. But unfortunately, without a dedicated carrying pouch, that would not be possible.

Nina held out the Oran Berry in her palm for Goldeen to nibble on. Meanwhile, she gently caressed the goldfish pokemon, marveling at the slippery texture of her scales.

“Pika!”

“Oh, you want one too, Pikachu? Here you go,” said Nina, as she handed an Oran berry to her friend.

Goldeen seemed a little wary of Pikachu, shrinking back a bit at her presence. The Water type was probably intimidated by Pikachu’s Electricity. So Nina did her best to assuage her fears by telling her that Pikachu is friendly and would not even think to harm her.

Once everyone got acquainted, Nina spent the rest of her free time asking Goldeen to demonstrate some of her moves, just so that she could get a better idea on how to best direct her.

She noticed that most of the children who were present didn’t even bother checking on their selected Pokemon. Preferring instead to run around or hang with their parents. Either they didn’t know they could release their Pokemon, or they simply did not care. Either way, this should be beneficial to her, if there was indeed a scout monitoring the proceedings.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Not long after, an announcement blared, asking all participants to assemble.

***

The large pool which the Cerulean Sisters were performing on, not too long ago, were now split into four parts, delineated by strings of buoys to mark the border of each field.

There were floating platforms on either side where trainers could stand on, but nothing in the middle, meaning the pokemon were expected to battle in the water. This further vindicated Nina’s decision to go for a Goldeen instead of a Marill.

As far as she could tell, there were only forty contestants in total, which seemed oddly low to her. That was, until she found out that one needed a recommendation from their school in order to even register. Nina made a mental note to thank Ms Roxy again later.

Since there were only four fields available, only four matches could be held at any given time. Nina was assigned to the fourth round, which suited her just fine. Going first would have been the worst.

What was most surprising was how each of the four Cerulean Sisters, Daisy, Lily, Misty, and Violet, personally took up the roles of referees as opposed to simply delegating to the gym trainers underneath them. Their dedication to nurturing young trainers was truly commendable.

As Nina stepped on top of her assigned platform, she looked up towards the audience and waved at her father and Pikachu, who were both fervently cheering her on.

“Tch. This is gonna be easy. No way am I losing to a girl!”

Nina turned towards the cocky little brat who she was facing and shook her head in exasperation. “This kid does realize that the city’s gym leader is a girl right?”

She then looked towards Daisy, the one who was overseeing the match, and the blonde haired beauty simply shrugged and gave her a knowing look.

Not wanting to stoop so low as to get into a childish argument, Nina simply sent out her Goldeen instead of responding.

Her indifference must have really triggered the kid, because in return, he yelled out: “Darn it! I’ll show you, no one ignores Jimmy and gets away with it!”

To her surprise, he sent out a Marill. She would have thought that a cliche like Jimmy would have gone for the cooler looking Staryu. She held back a grin at the thought of how easy this match was going to be.

“Trainers! Are you ready?” Called Daisy.

“Ready!” responded the two children.

“Three… Two… One, begin!”

“Goldeen, submerge. Don’t let it reach you,” commanded Nina, calmly.

“Go Marill, use Rollout! Don’t let it get away.”

Goldeen did as she was told, diving deep into the water. While Marill simply looked at its interim trainer in confusion, before trying and failing to use Rollout on the water.

Jimmy clearly hadn’t been paying attention during the preceding matches that had occurred before his. This was not the first time that one of the contenders had made the same mistake.

Marill was simply unable to get started on the roll necessary to initiate Rollout in the water due to its buoyant tail getting in the way. Everytime that it tried, the spherical tail would be slapped lamely onto the water's surface, much like a tiny beach ball.

The basic principle of Rollout was to build up momentum through constant motion facilitated by the act of rolling. If Marill couldn't even get a single roll going then there would be no Rollout, simple as that.

If Jimmy was more polite to her, then Nina might have been kind enough to point out his mistake. But as he was, she could not be bothered.

“Supersonic, and don’t let up. I want to see that Marill spinning around in circles,” said Nina. This was mostly for Daisy’s benefit, since Nina had already gone over possible strategies against each of the three pokemon types with Goldeen.

High frequency supersonic waves, barely audible to the human ear, were emitted by Goldeen from within the water, directly impacting Marill. The first couple of moves failed to confuse the Marill, but it did not matter, Goldeen would get it right eventually.

“Darn it, get down there Marill, go after that fish!”

The next moment demonstrated why Nina opted not to pick a Marill, as the pokemon struggled against its tail to dive too deep into the water. It wasn’t like Marills couldn’t dive or anything. Nina was sure that with enough training, it would be doable. But even in spite of that, Marill’s speed when underwater would still be lacking when compared to purely aquatic pokemon like Goldeen.

It did not take long for Marill to float back to the surface again, having been inflicted with Confusion and rendered completely helpless.

“It’s time to strike, Goldeen. Use Peck.”

In response to her trainer, Goldeen rushed towards the surface at full speed, breaking out of the pool and soaring up towards the air. At the apex of her jump, Goldeen’s horn began glowing, as she dove back down, aiming straight at her opponent.

The impact dragged Marill into the water with her momentarily, before the blue water mouse floated back up again, still yet to recover from its confusion. At this point, Jimmy scrambled to pull out a sheet of paper, which Nina recognised as the one containing their pokemon’s moveset.

“U-use Water Gun!” He yelled. But Marill simply let out a weak stream of water in the direction he was facing at the time, failing to hit anything of note.

“Should’ve used Defense Curl instead,” thought Nina.

“Keep up the momentum, Goldeen. Use Tackle.”

This time around, Goldeen, made a turn underwater and rushed straight beneath the Marill, tossing the confused pokemon into the air.

“Hang on, she’s cheating!” Accused Jimmy. He raised up his sheet of paper and started gesturing towards it. “Says here that Goldeen isn’t supposed to know Tackle!”

Daisy glanced at Nina and raised an eyebrow.

“You’re right, she didn’t originally know Tackle,” acknowledged Nina, eliciting a smug grin from her opponent.

“I taught her during the free time we had before the assembly,” she continued. “I mean, she already knows Peck, so it was just a matter of taking a half step back and redistributing her energy around her body instead of concentrating it all into her horn. Rather, it’s kind of ridiculous for a Pokemon to know Peck, but not Tackle, don’t you think?”

Indeed, this was real life, and not a game. The moves that a pokemon was able to learn aren't hardcoded. So it should be feasible to teach any moves to a pokemon, so long as it makes sense to their physiology.

Daisy blinked in disbelief at the little girl in front of her before laughing out loud.

“Oh gosh… I’ve not laughed that hard in ages,” said Daisy, as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Nina’s right, it is kind of ridiculous if you think about it… Anyways, no rules were broken. It’d be a different matter if she used a TM, but that’s clearly not the case. Not that I think a TM for Tackle even exists… Or does it?”

Leaving her ponderings aside, Daisy called for the match to resume, shutting down any protests that Jimmy might have.

By this point, Marill had long broken out of its confusion. But no matter, Goldeen once again confused Marill with another round of Supersonic, and finished it off with a Peck.

“Winner of this match is Nina!” Declared Daisy.

Jimmy huffed, angrily stomping off, only to slip and fall into the water.