Oof.
Anna and Jess sweat profusely as they run around the ship with weights strapped to their bodies. A sweating Foul easily keeping pace with them.
”Come on girls, another 10 more laps! Almost there.”
The girls just look at each other, each gasping for air. Even the film crew look like they pity the girls' situation.
======
Kabu -
> We are going to talk about some theories and Pokémon ailments today.
>
> First is that we assume Pokémon have some sort of stamina and health as their moves seem to run out after using many abilities. Sadly this is not something we can verify. Our Healing centres can however see a Pokémons levels and their ailments.
>
> Additionally we believe that some Pokémon are stronger than others at the same level but we have never been able to figure out exactly why. There is evidence to indicate that the harder their opponents that they battle the stronger they seem to become. Hence the saying “adversity builds resilience”.
>
> It is hard to know if a Pokémon has been poisoned, burned, confused or paralysed without paying attention to details. We also believe there are different levels of condition ailments ranging from minor to severe and even life threatening if left untreated.
> As such, it’s important to get to know your Pokémon and what they look like at full health.
>
> The most common life threatening one is severe poisoning. Often injected venom is the primary cause of severe poisoning.
>
> Some indications for poison are discolouration on their skin around their face. However sometimes there is little indication to tell, an example is if a Pokémon is bit by a Seviper. You can bet it will most likely be poisoned.
>
> They will be weaker and the more energy they expend the faster the poison will spread.
>
> For burns the easiest way to tell is simply looking for charred areas or very red areas on your Pokémon.
>
> For paralysis if you pay enough attention you can often see electric sparks being emitted from their bodies. This is however very hard to notice if your Pokémon is an electric type.
>
> Confusion is very hard to see but if your Pokémon starts to attack random directions or doesn't listen to your commands, it may be confused.
>
> Being enraged is an easy one to see as a Pokémon will ignore your commands and only use attacks instead of supportive moves. Abilities such as taunt are often associated with an enraged status. They are also easy to deal with and often resolve on their own.
>
> Blinded is also an easy fix as a Pokémon will automatically cry to remove dirt from their face or slowly recover from bright flashes of light. Having said that if a Pokémon has a wad of mud stuck to their face this will likely require more effort or intervention to recover from.
>
> Finally if your Pokémon doesn't respond to your commands and is clutching their head they may be deafened from a sound type attack.
>
> It can be very tricky to identify and distinguish between confusion and deaf as attacks like Supersonic are suspected to cause confusion from being deafened.
>
> Okay girls, theory time is over. Approach the table and select two pokeballs from the table.
The girls approach the table which has 6 plain Pokémon balls numbered 1-6.
They quickly selected two at random, as they were used to this routine by now.
“Trainers approach the girls, you have 5 minutes to discuss strategies.”
Other members have set up a betting pool and the odds are heavily stacked in Anna’s favour.
A stern Kabu stands to the side and acts as judge.
“Okay girls this will be a 2v2 doubles battle”
Jess is nervous and goes pale at this announcement. Before she has time to prepare, KABU shouts.
“BEGIN.”
Anna summons a Slowpoke and an Oddish whilst Jessica summons a Machop and a Houndor.
In terms of types this seems to be an even match.
Jessica instructs Houndor to Smokescreen whilst Machop uses focus energy.
Anna gets the Slowpoke to use confuse whilst the Oddish uses Sweet scent.
“Houndour use ember” “Slowpoke use water gun”
Houndor's ember sprays the field around the Oddish and Slowpoke but Slowpoke's water gun puts out most of the flames before they can reach them.
The TV crew is happy that this match seems far more exciting and even. “Will this be Jess’s comeback? The match seems pretty even so far and Jess isn’t rushing into fight straight away this time, but can she keep up the pace and stall Anna’s momentum that she often snowballs off of?”
Almost as if on cue Anna calls out a strange move.. Strange in that it’s just an instruction but not an actual move. Jess is frustrated as since when did Anna get the time to teach these Pokémon code words?!
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Set the field and then Divide and conquer fellas”
“Give chase! Target the Oddish first.”
Anna smiles, and Jess can only think she’s done something stupid again. That’s when Anna calls out the game changer.
“Slowpoke use taunt on Houndour!”
The Houndour turns and chases after the Slowpoke whilst the Machop continues to chase the little Oddish. The bulb is surprisingly agile for a piece of vegetation and is able to barely dodge most of the thrown punches and kicks of Machop. Machop seems to be struggling with the drop in ambient energy as he is using basic kicks and punches instead of empowered moves. Occasionally one or two have a light amount of energy mixed in however they are not very effective on the grass/poison type.
Houndour goes to bite the slowpoke who just stands there and smiles stupidly. That is until the Hondour gets close enough and is caught up in a pile of leech seeds that were placed on the ground earlier. They both trip him up and hurt him.
“Slowpoke use a water gun right into that mutt's face!”
The tangled Houndor gets hit point blank with a super effective move and before he can get up.
“AGAIN”
He is blasted again and recalled into his ball.
Now it’s only a matter of time as the two Pokémon gang up on the Machop. Two hits of confusion mixed in with some more leech seeds knock him out as he is recalled into his pokeball.
Kabu shouts from the side “WINNER ANNA”
Jess is upset and when they have a spare moment she quickly asks how Anna knew to tell them code words. She smiled and responded simply.
“I asked their trainers who were also friends if they had any code words they used in fighting. It was simple just to copy what they said.”
Jess is a little annoyed at how Anna keeps winning her battles using the 5 minutes to her maximum advantage trying different things each time.
Kabu walks over to Jess -
“Don’t get frustrated at losing. You are rapidly improving and you are using your own method to develop your own unique battling style. There is nothing wrong with this. I just think you will need some more time and your own Pokémon to truly see how much progress you can make.
On that note I will be recommending during our brief break on the journey to Jonathan that you should go out and catch your first Pokémon.”
==============
An hour later - Black Zone - Arctic
Jonathan states to the beaming girls.
“Okay young ladies, today since we are at the outer edges of the black zone and some trainers want some time to explore the area. We are going to allow Jess to try to catch her first Pokémon on the ice.
I’ll leave the sled here with you and Pikachu as some insurance but I want you to focus on helping Pikachu work out different ways to use his abilities until you find a Pokémon you want to catch.
We have scouted around the ship already and there are no threats in the area.
However if something does happen use one of our flares and we will quickly approach your position.”
The girls are happy that the film crews have decided to follow the veteran explorers instead of constantly filming their training. However Jess has the strong feeling that if it was Anna catching her first Pokémon they would find any excuse to tag along.
It is a relief to finally get some private time to themselves. Between all the physical training, theory lessons and daily Pokémon battles they have had very little time to just relax and do their own thing.
With excitement they climb down the ship onto the ice and approach the sled. A furry Mightyena dog Pokémon at the front to pull it for them.
“Okay Pikachu let's work on your movement across the ice. I want you to scout ahead of us with quick attacks and movement abilities. Try not to slip.”
“Pika!”
The Pikachu hops off and races around, glad to finally stretch his legs after being cooped up on the ship for a couple of weeks.
“Hey Anna, are you happy we came on the Journey? I think you are a great trainer and don’t want to have taken your opportunity to shine away from you on the gym circuit.”
Anna just looks at Jess and laughs. “No Jess, you were right. This journey is a fantastic idea. We are literally learning from the best of the best daily. I’m sure when we get back we will be able to smash through the normal gym challenges with no problem.
They might even upgrade us to the Veteran gym challenges if we are impressive enough with our Pokémon that we catch out here!”
The girls continue to talk and train with Pikachu.
*ZZZAAAAP BOOOOM*
A loud explosion and the sight of shattered ice rocketing up into the sky appears around 100 m away from them. They look to see a little cute Seel fly into the air gracefully from the hole created by the explosion followed by an ungraceful splat onto the ice.
The girls are surprised and head towards the area on their sled with the Pikachu sitting upon Jess’s shoulder. As they get closer, Jess can see the Seel is tiny and has purple colouration mixed in with the white of its fur.
“Oh my GOD. It’s like a little teddy bear! I want that Seel, it’s so cute and it has my favorite color!”
The Seel is distracted and not looking towards them. Even though they should be loud enough to be heard.
Jess wonders why it rushes away from the hole whilst still staring in its direction.
She noticed some large lumps of what looks like broken ice break above the surface. Then watches in disbelief as the lumps turn on their feet and move towards the Seel. A blizzard forms around them. More of them start to emerge from the hole.
Four large ice type Pokémon emerge from the water, they look super pissed to boot.
They watch as the poor defenceless Seel starts to glow and prepares to flee. Anna can tell from the way it’s shifting its body to the side. However she doesn’t bother to tell Jess as this is her capture and something about that little Seel just doesn’t feel quite right. If she could describe the sensation, it is one of familiarity.
Anna pulls the emergency flair and sends it off whilst Jess shouts at Pikachu to stop them hurting her potential starter Pokémon.
“Get them Pikachu, use your strongest electric attack!!!”
The clouds above quickly darken as bolts of thunder rain down from the sky and smash into the oncoming Avalugg. They are quickly downed. The Seel appears to have taken some residual lightning damage as well but luckily he was far enough not to be obliterated like the Avaluggs were.
Jess feels terrible as she realises those Avalugg are nothing but puddles and lifeless husks now.
The Seel slowly turns towards the girls and it stares with fear at the Pikachu on Jess’s shoulder.
Jess quickly enlarges her pokeball and hurls it with all her might at the injured Seel.
It sails through the air and smashes the poor thing in the head. However it fails to activate and the Seel just lies there concussed on the ice from a traumatic head injury and exhaustion.
Anna looks at Jess. “Errr Jess, I think you killed your starter. You're supposed to catch it.”
Jess looks embarrassed and rushes over to the still breathing Seel. She scoops it up into her arms and looks nervous and guilty.
“Anna… he’s mine. But lets maybe get him back to the ship and healed up. I’ll see what happened with the pokeball later. For now we have a cute teddy bear…. Seel that is injured by unknown causes.”
“Jess, you wacked it on the head!...”
Jess shouts loudly and glares at Anna. “UNKNOWN CAUSES!”
Anna just sighs and goes along with her best friend. “Fine.”
With that the girls head back to the ship, unconscious Seel in Jess’s clutches.