Sabrina Interlude:

-/-

Sabrina leaned back in the plastic seat of the spectator stand and sighed as the battle once again entered a stalemate. She knew that the third badge challenge was meant to represent meeting a powerful Pokemon in the wild. However, Surge's Raichu truly was such a brute that it was actually incredible how easily it had been outmanoeuvred.

It had been boring to watch the fight between Metapod and Raichu right up until the end when Jonathan had sacrificed his bug to inflict the poison status. Similarly, the battle going on right now, which consisted simply of Rattata jumping out of the ground to harass the ever-tiring Raichu with Swift, had been doomed to be a stalemate ever since Rattata first used the strategy.

Having watched three of Jonathan's gym battles at this point, Sabrina reluctantly admitted to herself that he was a brilliant tactician. She would never say it to his stupid face, but the way that he'd beaten Kong back then had been ingenious, and his battle in Celadon had not only impressed her but everyone else as well.

It was obvious that his status as an abomination gave him some sort of intelligence advantage over their peers, just like her psychic powers did for herself. It only rankled, that despite this he still managed to blend in and behave like a 12-year-old occasionally, something which she regularly failed to do. In her mind her sovereignty was obvious, but whenever she had to speak to someone else using her voice, it all broke apart somehow.

On the field Rattata once again sprung up from a hole and attacked the Raichu with a barrage of Swift. The Raichu tried to simply rush through the white stars with a Quick Attack to finally catch up to the purple rat, but it had already disappeared underground when it arrived.

For a brute like that, facing someone whose main strength was planning, was a very sordid death sentence indeed. If Joey had been an idiot, he would have never even won his first badge with the team that he had. It was him who she considered to be her biggest challenge for winning the youngster tournament later towards the end of the year.

Not that he'd have any chance against her of course. Once she evolved all three of her Abra into Kadabra, she would be unstoppable.

"I can't believe what I'm seeing," an oddly muscular old man sitting close to her said out loud before throwing an affirmative glance at Sabrina. "He actually has Surge on the ropes. Is he going to win?" he asked.

Sabrina's body tensed up, as her psychic powers automatically tried to fumble their way through the man's mind, directed as it was half of the battle and now half at her, after having posed the question. If she remembered the signature correctly, this was the hotel owner of the place they were going to stay at tonight.

It would probably be polite to answer right? Even if it was a rhetorical question?

While she considered this, she failed to keep track of time, which meant that by the time she actually opened her mouth, Rattata had already sent out three Swifts and Raichu was almost kneeling on the floor. The old man thought that he'd been ignored.

She blushed and her lips quivered but she kept her gaze strong. One of the things she could control was her facial expression. She started speaking in a controlled voice. "Surge's third badge challenge is considered incredibly difficult because it confronts trainers with an amount of brute force that they can't face with brute force themselves. This forces trainers to develop strategies and tactical thinking. However, this has always been Jonathan's strong suit anyway, so it can be said that he was born for this challenge in particular," she finished calmly, just in time for her voice to be completely swept away by the applause from the small amount of audience actually present. Raichu had finally collapsed.

This, in addition to the fact that the old man's ears probably weren't that good anymore, meant that her commentary that she had worked so hard on went completely unheard.

She closed her eyes in frustration and put a finger to her temple.

Even through her closed eyes she couldn't help but feel through her psychic senses how the emptiness that was Jonathan and the crackling electricity that was Surge met up in the middle of the field to shake hands and to hand over and receive the thunder badge.

The battle had ended in a draw. Raichu had finally caught up to Rattata, however, Joey had simply ordered his Pokemon to meet the attacker head-on with a Hyper Fang, leading to a simultaneous knockout. Joey won by default of having a third Pokemon left.

She opened her eyes again just in time to see Jonathan putting away his new badge in a pocket and promptly running off. She didn't know why he was in such a hurry, but he'd always been rushing here and there ever since he'd acquired that gambling addiction of his.

She closed her eyes again and centred herself. It was time for her battle now. She teleported away back into the locker room where she found Michael sitting down on one of the benches completely wet and with a drowned-looking Pidgey cradled in his arms.

"Oh, Sabrina," the boy perked up and gave her a beaming smile. "Mind going before me? I think Pidgey still needs to recover from the CPR the fisherman gave him."

Sabrina just stared at him, glanced to the left to see Jonathan burst into the locker room, throw one glance at each of them, shake his head and then run out. She felt his lack of presence continue onwards towards the direction of the Pokecentre.

A flush started creeping up her neck. She didn't know it was embarrassment or anger.

She turned back to Michael.

"What's up with him?" the boy asked.

"Idiot," Sabrina muttered and flashed away as Lt. Surge came to the locker room to get her for her battle.

She appeared on the metal tower from where she would face the gym leader and promptly floated her starter's Pokeball in front of her. The referee gave her an odd glance, but they still had to wait for the gym leader to catch back up before they could start. A few seconds later the man jogged into place and shot her a grin.

"Are you ready for your challenge?" his voice boomed. He didn't seem particularly perturbed by the fact that his Raichu had just lost to only two Pokemon. Maybe it was a part of its training? Being beat up by younger trainers to teach humility? If he didn't want it to lose occasionally, he would have just taught it Dig, or Earthquake with a technical machine. But that would have raised the bar higher than the third badge merited.

"I'm ready," Sabrina said, but it was too quiet for anyone to hear. She hung her head, which from the outside probably made her glowing blue eyes extra ominous. but which was just a signal of her embarrassment. She released her first Abra onto the field in lieu of speaking again.

The battle commenced.

-/-

Joey had won his battle with only two Pokemon. Metapod and Rattata. This thought kept blitzing through the boy's mind as he ran to the Pokecentre as if his Pokemon were on the verge of death. Which they weren't.

The only reason he wasn't still standing around in the battlefield of the battle dome in a daze, was because of another sense of urgency. If he hadn't had a clear idea of what actions needed to be completed after his victory, he likely would have just laid down somewhere to really think about what had happened.

But, Joey couldn't do that yet. He'd just won the gym battle, and from what he knew, the battle between Lance and Bruno would start getting live broadcast in about 6 minutes.

Before that, he needed to leave Metapod and Rattata with Nurse Joy. While they weren't in any condition resembling critical, they had still been badly shocked and hit by that brute of a Raichu.

It was in this situation, as he blitzed through Vermillion faster than most humans could think, that he thanked himself for having trained alongside his Pokemon. It was moments like these when he was under an actual time constraint that these seconds would likely matter.

He saw the roof of the Pokecentre appear in the distance, nestled in between a Pokemart and a pink apartment building. He increased his pace.

Rather than waiting in front of the sliding doors for them to open, he picked up a stick as he ran, threw it at the motion sensors of the door and slid through the barely opened glass panes only to almost crash into the back of the somewhat long queue waiting in front of the reception desk.

Joey joined the queue and calmed himself down with a deep sigh. Other people gave him weird looks but they didn't understand what had just happened. Joey wasn't someone who was going to prioritise getting just a bit more money by going to the betting house before going to the Pokecentre. The health of his Pokemon, no matter how non-critical, was the most important thing and the line was relatively long. Which meant that the live broadcast of the match would start while he was still standing in line.

He glanced to the left, to see in one of the upper corners of the reception room that the TV was already set to the correct channel. It wasn't every day that someone challenged one of the members of the Elite Four for their title, so it made sense that there would be a lot of focus put on it. The line moved along sluggishly. It seemed like Surge had been having a bit of a rampage today, which meant there were many trainers who had to treat their Pokemon.

With his brute force strategy, Surge probably worked his way through challengers faster than other gyms. If a Pokemon wasn't fast or strong enough to withstand a Thunderbolt it got knocked out and the next challenger could come forward. That and the occasional Self-destruct moved things along at a rapid pace.

Easy, efficient, military.

Ten minutes or so later and it was Joey's turn. The nurse Joy was giving him a worried look as he walked up to the counter. There were probably many youngsters who came to this Pokecentre in particular after having their Pokemon brutally electrocuted by Surge Pokemon. Or blown up, if you considered his other tactics, apparently.

"They're mostly fine, just exhausted and maybe a bit shocked," Joey reassured the nurse as he handed over two of his Pokeballs. "I assume Lance vs Bruno is being shown in the common area?" he asked.

The pink-haired nurse relaxed a bit at his affirmations that his Pokemon were not in critical condition and nodded at his question. She put the two Pokeballs in a terminal and quickly read off the data.

"They'll both need an hour or so," she told Joey after the analysis, causing the latter to nod. "And yes, the Elite Four challenge is currently being shown in the common room. I'll have to watch the replay myself after," she smirked.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Thanks, nurse Joy," Joey said and left the counter with one Pokeball on his belt. Diglett, who he'd caught today. He went to the common room.

Pokecentres were very multifunctional. They weren't just places of healing, sleeping, eating, and job taking, but also places where trainers could meet up and hang out. This was why they had a common room. In bigger cities like Saffron and Celadon, this common room consisted of several rooms in fact, all of them for different purposes.

There would usually be billiards and table tennis, but also a room where Battle TV would be streaming the most hyped battles of the season. There would usually be several couches and bean bags and several amateurs talking over each other in their attempts to analyse battles that were way beyond their purview and understanding.

It was there that Joey went, walking through the white and red corridors of the centre and just following the noise. He eventually arrived at the room and found it to be already chock-full. All the red and white bean bags were occupied, and there were more people on the couch than had probably been intended by the designer of the furniture.

It was loud, and there were several cans of beer being swapped around. It had the atmosphere of a lively college party. Although with the relatively young age of most trainers, it was more of a high school gathering. Joey had really wanted to sit down after the excitement of battling Surge, but he contented himself by simply leaning against the white wall next to the entrance.

Technically if he wanted to rest he could just not watch the battle and go to the motel. But that would be a bit stupid considering how much money he had riding on this.

Thankfully he hadn't actually missed any of the battle yet, as the live commentators were still discussing the chances of the two.

Bruno still seemed to be the favourite one to win. One of the younger commentators was optimistic about Lance at least learning enough from this battle to perhaps win in the future. None of them thought he could do it now.

Joey smirked. It seemed like people would be quite shocked. Also, from the chatter of the others present here, all dressed in bright colours as was befitting of trainers. They mostly seemed to think that while it would be an interesting battle, the conclusion was foregone.

Joey wondered what their faces would look like after the battle. After all, Lance had been champion when Ash had set out on this journey, which was only a few years in the future. If Lance lost here it would take him too long to rechallenge the Elite Four and to gain the champion title. Similarly, something had to happen for Blaine to be pushed out of the Elite Four and become a gym leader by the time Ash came to Cinnabar. Not just a gym leader, even, but a gym leader who'd gotten sick of the job and had hidden his gym. That would hardly happen in the span of less than a year, right?

All signs pointed to Lance winning, which didn't mean that he couldn't be nervous about him actually doing so.

The room quieted down somewhat in a very sudden manner, as the camera panned from the live commentator booth to the field where the two battlers walked out. Bruno was gigantic, muscular and imposing as he had always been, at least for the five years that he had been a member of the Elite Four and thus in the public eye.

Lance meanwhile was a handsome enough 17-year-old, although the fact that he was still a child showed in his slightly chubby cheeks and his lanky body that looked like it had been pulled towards the sky too suddenly.

The referee announced the rules of the match to the two contestants, which the live commentators parroted into their microphones. It would be a full six-on-six for the title of the first and thus weakest Elite Four member. Or at least that's what it would have been had Kanto had a full set of Elite Four. Currently, there were only three Elite Four, and one champion, which meant that if Lance won Bruno would keep his spot, but Lance would be second to last.

Sure the Kantonese liked to say that they didn't need four separate Elite Four and a champion and just said that the strongest of the Elite Four was on the same level as a champion, but the reason why they never had the full set was mostly because they just got quite unlucky with keeping a full roster. Professor Oak had become a champion and had immediately retired to follow an academic career. He'd been succeeded by Pryce and while Agatha and Blaine had stayed a regular fixture, everyone else was much more inconsistent. They retired on weird whims and lost battles that they shouldn't have lost.

There would be three substitutions and a commercial break after three Pokemon of either contestant had been knocked out.

The room suddenly grew very quiet, the trainers within it gaining very concentrated looks on their faces as the two contestants threw out their first Pokemon. Even though these were all children, in this world they were all highly competitive professional battlers and backpackers as well. It made them grow up faster.

A Charizard and a Hitmonlee appeared on the field.

Joey tilted his head trying to understand the decision. The reason why Lance had sent out the Charizard was quite clear. False information claimed that he was a dragon-type trainer, despite most of his team being composed of flying types. However, either way, this meant that most of his Pokemon were incredibly vulnerable to ice. Charizard and Gyarados were the only exceptions; one of them was a fire type which cancelled out the flying type weakness and one of them was a water type which did so similarly.

If Lance assumed that Bruno was a straightforward type of person, then it could be assumed that he would just lead with the Pokemon that he thought would have the most chances against a dragon. This meant a Pokemon that knew Ice Punch, which would be wasted on Charizard.

However, Lance seemed to have been mistaken. From what Joey knew, Hitmonlee couldn't learn any ice-type moves. It could however use the technical machine for Stone Edge. This was a move that was super effective against a Charizard.

But, Hitmonlee was a pure fighting type. Could its usage of rock-type energy truly match up in such a high-level battle?

It was time to find out.

Lance ordered a very typical opening for someone with a Charizard. The orange-winged Pokemon flew into the air just above the Hitmonlee and pointed its snout downwards. A firestorm that almost covered the entirety of the battlefield emerged.

The cameras caught the Hitmonlee raising one of its spindly springy arms and summoning a gigantic stone to hover above it, which protected it from the deluge of flames. If it had used Protect it would have opened itself up too much during the refractory period. This was quite a smart usage of either Stone Edge or Rock Tomb, Joey couldn't really tell.

After the firestorm abated, Hitmonlee threw the rock up at the Charizard, which the flying lizard idly dodged. However, Hitmonlee had jumped up directly underneath the thrown rock and had disappeared from its opponent's vision. In that half a second which Lance and Charizard needed to realise this, the Hitmonlee used to launch itself at its hovering opponent by kicking off the boulder. There it quickly engaged it in a close combat throwdown.

Charizard managed to disengage after being smacked around a few times and thus started a wild chase around the field and the sky.

Hitmonlee would jump around using thrown rocks, not as attacks but as platforms, and the Charizard would try to dodge and retaliate with a fire or flying-type move.

It seemed however that Hitmonlee possessed some sort of future sight which enabled it to dodge everything that the Charizard was throwing at it. Meanwhile it was still hitting the Charizard hard whenever it got close.

It seemed to all that Bruno had the advantage.

But Joey saw something different. While Hitmonlee was getting its hits off, exhausting itself and becoming arrogant in its handling of its opponent, Charizard was minimising the damage it was receiving as much as possible while getting closer and closer to the breaking point in which Blaze would activate.

It was after the 'xth such exchange, that Charizard once again managed to disentangle itself from the Hitmonlee causing the Pokemon to fall to the earth.

This was the point where Lance had the time to do something. Hitmonlee wasn't good enough to control rocks while in mid-air, so during this fall Lance had a one-second window to take the momentum.

Charizard used the time to use exactly three moves. First, it threw a bright yellow ball of something in the sky which caused the sun's rays to intensify. Then it smacked itself in the face with what looked to be a Rock Smash and started burning up due to reaching the health limits of Blaze. Then it opened his mouth and the world turned white.

It was a relatively simple tactic, Joey realised as the screen exploded and the watchers were forced to look away from the screen due to fear of losing their eyesight. He wondered how bright it was in the arena. The tickets for the match had probably been quite expensive and this is what the viewers would get.

Charizard got damaged enough to activate Blaze. That increased the power of fire-type moves by 50%. Then Sunny Day. Charizard's hidden ability, Solar Power, increased the power of fire-type moves by another 50%. Then Overheat. The most powerful fire-type move known to man. Joey didn't know how Lance had gotten his hands on it, but it had probably been through his connection to the Blackthorn clan.

If the Flamethrower in the beginning had lasted long, then this Overheat was probably enough to vaporise a lake. 40 solid seconds of white light through which one couldn't see anything faded away with a flicker that changed from yellow to orange to red, revealing a fairly cooked Hitmonlee on the ground. Joey from his position as a viewer of the TV didn't even know if it had tried to use Protect or if it had simply failed, or been broken through.

Charizard, similarly to its opponent, fell to the ground, but it wasn't unconscious. Simply, very, very tired.

The first match ended. Charizard won and Hitmonlee lost.

The match had been devoid of any particularly amazing tactics, but the skills and the sharp thinking that had permeated throughout the battle impressed Joey more than any amount of triple Substitution Toxic Protect stalls. Surge had shown him today what it meant to be brutal. It seemed that Lance was set on continuing that lesson.

Some grumblings permeated through the room.

The reason why people wanted Bruno to win was because Lance was a young up-start.

His winning made people his age look bad.

It was also because Bruno was from Kanto, while Lance was from Johto. The Indigo Plateau united the two regions, but that didn't mean that they didn't have their own pride. The current champion was from Johto as well, and people were clamouring for one from Kanto to finally emerge.

Bruno seemed to consider his next choice for a second. A close-up of his face showed a severe frown. Then he threw out a Pokeball, letting a gigantic Onix materialise on the field. When the match started, the rock type promptly kicked up a Sandstorm blocking out the view once again.

However, no one in the audience seemed to care and stared at the screen as if it would soon reveal the holy gospel. The whooshing sounds of the sandstorm, and the brown grainy visuals they got lasted for approximately two minutes. Then the Sandstorm lifted to reveal a knocked-out Charizard. Next to it lay a similarly knocked-out Onix.

The live commentators provided the context.

"Lance seemingly taught his Charizard not only Overheat which fits with its typing, but also Earthquake. By keeping that in reserve, just like Overheat previously, he managed to knock out another one of Bruno's Pokemon. For the viewers out there, when Bruno sent out Onix for a Dig to dodge a particularly vicious Flamethrower, Lance made Charizard quickly land and commit to an Earthquake. Everyone knows that an Earthquake is several times more effective when the opponent is underground which made this move particularly devastating. Bruno then tried to make Onix resurface to hit the grounded Charizard and prevent further usage of the move. However, Charizard met it head-on with a Rock Smash. Both Pokemon were knocked out from the collision. I wonder what's going to happen next in this exciting match? What Pokemon will Lance field, will it finally be a dragon type? How exactly will Bruno battle from behind?!" the man shouted excitedly into his microphone, apparently having forgotten that not ten minutes ago he'd prophesied that Bruno would easily wipe the floor with Lance and that the match would be a snoozefest.

Another close up of Bruno's face, which, surprise, surprise, he still wasn't happy. Maybe it was just his normal facial expression? Joey wondered.

Lance meanwhile seemed to have most of his face taken up by an arrogant smirk.

The two competitors were called to release their next Pokemon. Two incredibly long serpentine shapes undulated on the field as they materialised from beams of red light at the same time. It was a Gyarados from Lance, and a second Onix from Bruno, which was a very interesting decision. Not many people trained two of the same Pokemon.

However, the matchup was simply too disadvantageous. Bruno ended up using the first of his three substitutions. The Gyarados could simply flood the field, which would ruin the Onix with its rock and ground typing.

The question was then what Lance would do with his substitution. He'd gained an advantage by holding out longer and now he could somewhat control the matchups and the pace of the battle. If he switched out Gyarados now he could maybe still send it out against the Onix later on.

Lance didn't seem to care that much at the moment though. He left the Gyarados on the field and it performed a Dragon Dance while an absolute unit of a Machamp appeared in front of Bruno punching its four fists together.

It was Bruno's ace, his starter, his strongest Pokemon. Bruno had put himself at another disadvantage. Lance's ace, his Dragonair, as people knew, was still not out. While Machamp might reverse the situation in Bruno's favour, if it lost without having too much of an impact it would spell disaster.

The match was called to start, and Machamp surged forward, the ground underneath it breaking apart in circular cracks as it closed the distance between itself and Gyarados in less than a second. Gyarados for its part released a whole lake of water from its maw, once again commencing the battle of element versus fist.

This time, however, it was fist that won out. After barely a minute, without managing to inflict a single scratch on the Machamp, Gyarados was lying on its back with swirls in its eyes. Knocked the fuck out. Equaliser. A quadruple Thunder Punch to the head would do that to you.

It was Lance's turn to frown. It was his mistake to not have used a substitution as well. Gyarados was the only one of his Pokemon that couldn't fly. Flying was the core advantage that his Pokemon had over Bruno's. The matchup had been doomed from the beginning and Lance had committed his first tactical error.

That was when he released his next Pokemon and Dragonite roared to announce its presence.

The last time Lance's team had been seen in public, four years ago when he'd won the conference, he'd had three Dragonair. Now he had a Dragonite. The room collectively gasped and the commentator was lost for words.

Dragonite was known as a pseudo-legendary for a reason. It wasn't something that a 17-year-old should have been able to field.

Joey was perhaps the only one who suspected that this Dragonite was not the only one that Lance would show off today. Was it even his ace? The commentator assumed so, thinking that the dragon boy wanted to have a battle of starter versus a starter, but it could just be a fake out.

However, the presumption that Lance wanted to go head to head was confirmed the next second when the battle commenced. Rather than shooting into the air, Dragonite shot towards the Machamp with Extreme Speed. It didn't travel, really, as it simply disappeared and reappeared in front of Machamp. The bulky grey Pokemon exploded backwards as a visible boom of sound and force emerged from the collision. The sound barrier had been broken.

What followed wasn't visible to the human eye. Trainers needed years to acclimate to the sort of speed that was being put on display. Shock waves, sonic booms, bolts of lightning, tornadoes, and earth-shattering strikes shook the battlefield.

The wind seemed to have even gotten through the psychic barriers, as the cameras filming the battle shook. All they got in the common room was shaky footage of a calamity.

Blurs, impacts, sounds. Three minutes of it. Then the battlefield stilled to reveal two knocked-out Pokemon.

A double knockout. The field was barely recognizable as a place on earth. It looked more like a landscape taken from the moon. Dust and craters.

The commercial break started. A cheery tune announced that there was a sale going on for Uncle Tony's Pidgey-repelling scarecrows. The tool that any hobby or professional gardener needed if they wanted to prevent those pesky birds from eating their seeds as they planted them.

The common room remained absolutely silent. Everyone was shaken by what they had just witnessed. Most of them probably felt inadequate in comparison to Lance. Barely anyone even won a conference at 17, let alone put up such a showing against a member of the Elite Four. Some trainers stumbled past Joey, presumably on the way to the bathroom, however going by the age of them, all of them older, Joey assumed that some of them were on their way to retirement instead.

It was a tough pill to swallow, that someone was so much better than you. Lance was miles ahead of Joey, but Joey's strength was knowing that progress was incremental. He hadn't expected to be able to, but he won his gym battle by only using two Pokemon today. That was already progress. Just like how nobody had thought that Lance would be able to beat Bruno, nobody had thought that Joey would have been able to beat Surge. Not even himself, at some points.

He closed his eyes and replayed the match up till now in his mind as he waited for it to restart. The screen had not been showing much in several instances but what he had seen had still been inspiring in a way.

Charizard's Overheat. At some point, power was powerful enough to defeat any tactic. What would he do if faced with something like that? He could order Rattata to Dig, but then the Charizard would fly down and cause an Earthquake. Metapod couldn't even Dig in the first place. Probably just die?

So many more steps to walk.

Considering how delicious they were, Joey couldn't help but smile. Wasn't it always the case, no matter what? The more the better?

People shuffled back inside as the commercial break ended and Lance and Bruno once again faced each other.