Cashe cheered with the rest of the crowd as the battle got started. It was impossible not to get swept up in the excitement, the exuberance of the audience worming his system and bringing him to his feet. Not that he was complaining. The whole point of going to sporting events was to be entertained and to cheer for your team.
Lindon was on his feet shouting with him, trying his best to drown out the cheers of everyone who supported Gym Trainer Doug over Emilia. Behind them, the red-head boy and his friends were doing the same, leaving Lindon in a bizarre competition to see who could cheer the loudest when their favorite trainer did something well.
It was a competition that Cashe was pretty sure Lindon was winning, if only because Lindon had a lot more to cheer about. Emilia was kicking ass, to put it simply.
She chose to lead with Vullaby, a risky move if Trainer Doug chose Electrode as his lead, but one that paid off. Emilia had correctly guessed that Doug would lead with Mienfoo, forcing him into an awkward counter match up from the start.
Vullaby was still new to battling, and even with Emilia’s supreme abilities as a trainer, could not fully keep up with the small fighting type pokemon, but the type advantage she had in the match made up the difference. Mienfoo, normally a fast and nimble attacker, had to be extremely careful every time he approached Vullaby, as her retaliatory Pecks could take a serious toll on Mienfoo’s ability to fight. As a result, each exchange came out even, with both Mienfoo and Vullaby being battered and worn down after several minutes.
The crowd’s initial din had subdued as the battle moved into a stand still, with neither trainer taking aggressive action towards the other.
“Looks like even in a losing matchup Doug has the little Oak on the ropes,” the red-headed teenager said from behind them, “Only a matter of time now until Doug is up a pokemon.”
Like a pokemon, Lindon fell for the taunt, spinning around and gritting his teeth, “That’s not true! Mienfoo is just as hurt!”
“You’re upset because you know it's true,” said one of the teenager’s friends, “Plus everyone can see how much better trained Mienfoo is.”
“There’s more to battling than training pokemon!” Lindon shouted.
“As if you’d know,” the red head laughed, “You’re just a kid!”
“I’m not a kid!” Lindon balled his fists up and Cashe put a hand on his shoulder.
“Lindon, don’t listen,” Cashe warned in a low voice, “Turn around and watch the match. Look, Emilia is doing something.”
Lindon’s face screwed up in frustration and he yanked his shoulder out from under Cashe had, but he turned around.
“That’s right, listen to your daddy!”
Lindon shuddered and hunched his shoulders, but forced himself to pay attention to the battle.
Emilia was doing something, indeed. She was switching out her pokemon. The battle paused for a moment as Emilia returned Vullaby to her pokeball, swapping her out for Bagon.
“Ooh, here comes baby Bagon, better be scared!” A teen laughed
“Let’s go Bagon, you can do it!” Lindon screamed, “Take out that wimpy Mienfoo!”
Bagon came out of his ball trumpeting his most vicious cry. It was more cute than scary, given the pokemon’s size, but it cut through the cheers of the gym with surprising force. Mienfoo did not waste time, moving forward as Bagon emerged at attempting to catch him with an attack. Even injured, from the battle with Vullaby, Mienfoo was faster, and with the momentum advantage was able to get in on Bagon and land a strong hit. But it came at a cost.
Emilia shouted as Bagon came in and as he took a strike to his chest, he brought his head down in a brutal slam, catching Mienfoo as it tried to retreat. The blow sent both pokemon staggering, Mienfoo from the power of the attack and Bagon from the momentum, his large head too heavy to let him have full control over it.
Bagon waddled around the battlefield like he was drunk as he tried to regain his balance, staggering and just managing to keep his feet. Mienfoo could not, however, and collapsed from the attack after a few steps, the accumulated damage too much for him. The crowd cheered, and Lindon spun around to stick out his tongue at the teenagers.
“This puts Gym Trainer Doug in an interesting position,” Cashe said in an attempt to get Lindon to pay the teens less attention, “I think he has his back up against a wall.”
“You hear that?” Lindon shouted, spinning around again, “Doug is up against a wall! Emilia is about to show him how to battle!”
Cashe sighed and Lindon spun back around, crossing his arms and hunching over in his seat. After a few seconds he looked up at Cashe, and speaking in a low voice said, “How is he up against a wall?”
“What makes dragon types so tricky to deal with?” Cashe said, keenly aware the teenagers were listening closely over his shoulder.
“Being dragon type?” Lindon said.
“Uh, yeah, kind of,” Cashe said with a small nod, “They resist a bunch of common types and almost nothing resists them. Look at the pokemon that Doug has left. An electric/grass type, a ground/ghost type, and a fire type.
“But ground/ghost will hit Bagon effectively,” Lindon frowned, “How is his back against a wall?”
“The problem isn’t that Doug can bring in Palossand, it’s that it is his only good option,” Cashe said.
Lindon nodded, understanding, “It’s a lot easier to plan a strategy when you know what your opponent has to do.”
“Exactly,” Cashe said, “And we both know that Bagon knows Bite and has been working on Crunch. So he can hit Palossand for super effective damage but Palossand can’t do that back.”
“But Bagon is already hurt!” One of the teenagers interrupted, revealing their eavesdropping, “And Palossand is really tough. Bagon won’t be able to break through his defenses before he gets taken out!”
“It looks like we won’t have to find out,” Cashe said, pointing to the stage.
On stage, Gym Trainer Doug had already thrown his next pokemon into the arena. Instead of the Palossand that Cashe expected to see, it was his Hisuian Electrode that made an appearance. The Hisuian form of Electrode looked like a wooden pokeball, and was electric and grass type. Extremely fast, the pokemon could easily out speed anything that was on Emilia’s team and hit all of them but Bagon for decent damage.
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“Ha!” The red-head laughed, “Doug isn’t forced to do anything! Just when you expect one thing, he changes it up on you and hits you with his ace!”
“I was wrong,” Cashe said with a shrug, “It’s too bad. I was looking forward to a good match and it looks like we aren’t going to get that now.”
“What? That’s insane,” the teen said, “Doug isn’t going to lose with his best pokemon.”
“He needed his best pokemon to get through Emilia’s best pokemon,” Cashe said, “He brought Electrode out too soon. It’s a big mistake.”
***
The mistakes snowballed and before too long the battle was over, with Emilia not losing a single pokemon. Bringing out Electrode was the major one, as it lost its huge speed advantage right away with Bagon’s use of Scary Face. From there, it was all downhill for Gym Trainer Doug, whose pokemon all fell to Omanyte after Emilia switched Bagon out once he had sufficiently slowed Electrode down.
Cashe greeted Emilia in the lobby of the gym with Lindon, just as she greeted him. The difference was there were no reporters waiting for Emilia. They had all been let onto the stage after the battle to interview her, as if she had just beaten the gym leader instead of a Third Circuit trainer.
Instead, the atrium was crowded with fans of Emilia, or at least of one of her sisters, who had to be held back so Emilia could make her way through. She was escorted by Moni, just as Cashe was after his win, the liaison giving Cashe a wicked smile and little wave as Emilia stepped away from her to join Cashe and Lindon.
“Congratulations!” Cashe said over the crowd, who were all shouting for Emilia’s attention. Emilia looked tired, still feeling the effects from her late night, but was smiling after her win. Her eyes shone as she offered Lindon a high five, Lindon jumping to reach Emilia’s hand. Emilia turned to Cashe and raised an eyebrow, offering him a high five of his own. He laughed and slapped her hand with a loud smack, the clap cutting through the noise of the gathered fans.
“Ouch!” Emilia complained, shaking her hand, “That was a good one.”
“That was a good battle,” Cashe said as he and Lindon helped escort Emilia through the crowd, eventually emerging from the gym and into the afternoon sun.
“Meh,” Emilia shrugged, “His pokemon were really well trained but his strategy was poor.”
“Thank you for winning,” Lindon said seriously.
“You’re welcome?” Emilia said, with a confused look.
“Lindon got into a bit of an argument with some fans of Gym Trainer Doug,” Cashe explained.
“Those guys were jerks!” Lindon said, “Why even go watch a pokemon battle if you are going to be rude to everyone who doesn’t agree with you?”
“That’s how some people are about sports,” Emilia said, “You should know that, doesn’t your dad see people like that all the time at his gym?”
“We watch his matches at home,” Lindon said, “Mom doesn’t like all the noise and the crowds.”
“Speaking of home,” Cashe said, “We should drop off Emilia’s pokemon and figure out what we are going to do after your match tomorrow. We’ve got some things to decide.”
***
Cashe sat on the small couch beside Emilia as she and Lindon ate through a bag of potato chips.
“Are you sure you don’t want any?” Emilia said, “I’ve never heard of someone who doesn’t like chips.”
“I’m good, really,” Cashe said, eying the chips warily. They were mint and honey flavored. Emilia and Lindon were chomping through the bowl like there was nothing wrong, but Cashe just couldn’t parse a mint and honey flavored potato chip. “I’m more surprised that your victory snack is potato chips. I thought it would be something more…”
“More what, sophisticated?” Emilia said giving him a look, “Are you saying my snack choice makes me gauche?”
“Down to earth, certainly,” Cashe said, “Relatable, comfortable. All words I would use.”
“Uh-huh, so what were you going to say?”
“Luxurious, maybe?” Cashe said, “I expected expensive chocolate or ice cream or something. Not chips.”
“I like chips,” Emilia shrugged.
“Me too!” Lindon said through a mouthful of chips. He was the most enthusiastic about the victory snack, barely pausing to swallow before reaching for more.
“We should discuss what we are going to do after this,” Cashe said, “I think we all agree we are heading back to Hau’oli, but what do we do after?”
“I thought we were going to Akala Island?” Lindon said, “That’s where all the cool pokemon will be because of the tree, right? And we would arrive in Heahea City so we could challenge the gym right away and make up for the time we lost on Route 2.”
“That was the plan,” Cashe said.
“But someone went and promised one of the rarest pokemon in the world to his little girlfriend in exchange for a new team member,” Emilia reminded him, “And the last place Alolan Vulpix was seen was in a tiny village on Ula Ula Island.”
“But weren’t there a bunch of pokemon you wanted to look for on Akala?” Lindon said, “You said you came to Alola to catch a Torkoal, right?”
“Torkoal aren’t rare or hard to catch,” Cashe said, “Neither are many of the other pokemon I want.”
“You’re the only one with three pokemon right now,” Emilia said, “And getting a Teddiursa would be really good for your Trick Room team.”
“Especially now that Slowpoke has figured the move out,” Cashe said.
Lindon chewed slowly on the chips in his mouth looking between Emilia and Cashe with his bright blue eyes, “You’re really okay with going to Ula Ula first?”
“Of course,” Emilia said, sharing a quick glance with Cashe, “It doesn’t derail our plans too much. Malie City still has a pokemon gym, so we won’t fall behind too much on the circuit.”
“This isn’t my pokemon journey or Emilia’s, it’s everyone’s,” Cashe said, “That means your goals are just as important as either of ours. If you don’t want to go straight to Ula Ula, that’s fine, but don’t say no because you think you would be disrupting our plans.”
Lindon thought for a moment, chewing on a couple more of the mint and honey flavored chips as he did. He nodded to himself, “I want to fill out my team as soon as I can. I want to go to Ula Ula Island.”
***
“We don’t normally hand out eggs to pokemon professors from other regions,” the breeder said. He was a tall man going by the name of Groff. In one arm was a pokemon egg, white, with green spots in a pattern over its surface. In the other was a bundle of papers, all filled out to the necessary specifications.
“It’s not against any League rules for a professor to study pokemon from other regions,” Blue said, keeping his face perfectly neutral. He crossed his arms in feigned impatience, “I don’t see why I am getting this treatment.”
The Poke Ranger who accompanied him to the breeder snorted and Groff eyed him suspiciously, “Don’t think your League thug is going to intimidate me either,” the breeder snarled, “I might not be a trainer, but you are on my farm. We’ve got more pokemon here than you can count.”
“Ralph is not here to intimidate you,” Blue frowned, “I can count pretty high.”
Groff gave Blue a skeptical look and he realized the comment was an insult. Ralph snorted again and Groff said, “Why’s he here then?”
“He’s acting as an involuntary escort,” Blue muttered.
“Watching the professor to make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble,” Ralph answered.
Groff turned his suspicious gaze to Blue, “What did you do?”
“Volatile research,” Blue said, crossing his arms, “Research unrelated to why I am here, mind you. This egg is in no more danger than any other pokemon under your care.”
“No pokemon under my care is in any sort of danger,” Groff said, mirroring Blue and crossing his arms. It was awkward as he had to do it with the egg and paperwork still in his hands.
“Then you should be relieved,” Blue said with an exasperated breath, “Can you please just give me the egg now? I’ve already done the paperwork. You’ve made sure I’m a professor, twice. There should be nothing holding you back. Do you want to call the League and check with them as well.”
“Maybe I do.” Groff said.
Blue sighed, “You don’t have to respect my time, but you should at least respect yours. This is a waste of it.”
“What about me?” Ralph said.
“You’re already wasting your time supervising me,” Blue said, “You can’t double waste it.”
*****