Joey stood rooted to the spot as he observed the Elite Four member who had randomly decided to pop by his clearing. This was very different from his meetings with Koga and Lorelei. They weren't at the level yet. But Bruno, despite having recently lost to Lance, was most definitely one of the most powerful trainers in the region. And because Kanto and Johto shared their Elite Four, he was in fact one of the strongest trainers in two regions. Top five, probably.

The question just remained, however, why was he in Constance? This was an abandoned little village with no living human inhabitants.

From what Joey remembered from the games Bruno liked to spend his time in the Sevii islands. At that canyon, or whatever, buying rage candies or something.

Another question was, was this any of Joey's business? It wasn’t like Bruno was here to harm anyone. The man was a hero in many ways. The job of an Elite Four was often to beat back Pokemon incursions that were too powerful for the normal trainers and rangers to handle, and to be the last line of defence against powerful legendaries and criminal organisations.

Well, at the end of the day, it was probably more beneficial for an Elite Four member to know of Joey than for him to not know of Joey, so he might as well see what he was doing here. After all, his initial plan was to come here and chat with Golduck and play with Misdreavus anyway. Why exactly would Bruno being here change that?

Joey sighed and continued his walk. He decided to announce his presence so that no one accidentally punched him thinking he was an intruder. He knew that he was a bit hard to pick up on as a ghost type. He sometimes accidentally snuck up on people even when he wasn't intending to do so.

“Fancy meeting you here, I think it's my first time meeting a member of the Elite Four. Should I be nervous, or ask for an autograph?” Joey said out loud as his slightly unstable legs carried him towards the edge of the water where the two huge forms were sitting.

Golduck turned its head towards him first, narrowing its eyes, but seeming slightly grateful that he had arrived. The question was naturally if Golduck was happy to see the youngster, or simply happy to see an allied human to face another human intruding on the space.

“Autograph? I don't sign,” Bruno said in a deadpan voice and turned his head to glance at Joey. Thick black sideburns alongside a ponytail hanging down the man's back and muscles on muscles and muscles and muscles. Ridiculous.

The onyx behind the man rumbled and stirred. Its movements sounded like rocks being smashed together and an avalanche on top. A deeply unpleasant sound. One large eye swivelled to look at Joey as he approached. He tried not to take it too personally.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Bruno asked, getting directly to the point. The man was indeed as blunt as it was said about him. Joey didn't feel any maliciousness in his question.

“I'm Jonathan Joestar, future champion. Remember that,” he joked. “I have a friend here in this little abandoned village where I took a job a few months ago. I like to visit them every now and again. In fact, I would say that I'm really more of a regular here than you are so who exactly are you and what are you doing here?” Joey shot back.

Bruno furrowed his eyebrows. “I'm Bruno, as for what I'm doing here,” he scratched at his chin. “I decided I needed to talk to the gym leader in Saffron after my most recent battle. I set off from the Indigo Plateau but I got a bit turned around. Golduck here was giving me directions.”

Joey tilted his head. One would think then an Elite Four member would get a designated teleporter to ferry them around, but maybe that wasn't the case. Did the man not have a Pokenav with a map function? He had to, he had to be reachable. He was employed by the league.

“Well, you haven't missed it by much. It's about one hour walking in that direction.” Joey guesstimated and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder back to where he'd come from. “Why do you want to talk to Kong though? I mean, Saffron represent, but I don't think you really need his advice.” The man was only qualified to teach in clown school and even that on merit rather than education.

Bruno closed his eyes. “Once one reaches a wall and one's fist is not strong enough to punch through, one must first gather advice from others who are also attempting to break the rock,” he said cryptically.

What Joey understood from this was that Bruno for some thought that Kong would be able to give him advice on his loss and how maybe to beat Lance in the future. Joey didn't really know how that was going to work out considering Kong was an enormous fucking moron but he wasn't going to say that. It would be disrespectful.

“Well,” Joey hedged. “Getting advice is always beneficial. Even if it's wrong it can sometimes point you in the right direction. I'll leave you to that then, I'm here to visit the friend who's in the church so let me just…” he said.

He didn't want to have an overly extended conversation with Bruno because quite frankly he didn't know what to say. He didn't want anything from the man like some loser, and neither would he benefit from a battle.

While he liked challenging those better than him, getting his ass whooped by an Elite Four member into the next stratosphere wasn’t going to teach him anything.

Idling towards the church he was just about to reach the steps leading up to the large ornate doors when a voice rang out from behind him stopping him in his tracks with the content of the message.

"Wait! Before you leave, I want you to battle me. You smell like someone I know,” Bruno said with determination in his eyes and stood up to tower over Joey, despite them being several metres apart from each other.

“Fuck, how did he get this jacked,” Joey muttered to himself as he raised his hands in the air in surrender and to sniff his armpits. He smelled like someone Bruno knew? The deodorant he’d applied after his morning shower seemed to still be working so he didn’t quite know what the man was talking about.

He narrowed his eyes. The only other similarity with someone else that he could imagine was with Agatha, the most powerful member of the Elite Four under the champion. She probably also smelled a bit like a ghost, whatever that may smell like. He wouldn't know, considering he was one, it was a smell that he had gotten used to a very long time ago.

The question now was if he actually wanted to battle Bruno. That would depend on the man’s answer to a question perhaps.

“Look man, I'll be honest. I just won my third badge and any battle between us would be as useful to either of us as me killing a baby with a gun. Unless you have a Pokemon that's closer to the level of a mere mortal then I respectfully decline.”

Bruno hummed, his large hand going to his Pokeball belt. “I do have a new team member that I've been training, about fifth badge level,” he said.

Joey relaxed slightly. A fifth badge Pokemon? They’d just beaten one in Vermilion. The Raichu had most likely been at that level.

“You can use however many Pokemon you want,” Bruno added. Then he pulled a sparking Pokenav from his white pocket. It was covered in scratches and looked like it had been punched by a Machop at least two and a half times.

Joey sweat dropped but accepted the challenge request when it came through despite the fact that the man’s device looked like it would only serve as a hammer in the future.

So, Bruno had a Pokenav, but he just wasn't very careful with it. This would explain why he’d lost the navigation function.

Joey accepted the battle once it came to his device and the two of them took a few steps back and their hands went down to the belt at their waists.

“Let’s do this,” Joey muttered, a small rivulet of sweat already beginning to form on his forehead.

-/-

Just as Joey and Bruno were about to release their Pokemon, a loud quack suddenly interrupted them, breaking the building tension.

“Golduck!” a voice suddenly shouted and the two trainers looked to the side to see the large blue Pokemon wildly waving its arms around and pointing towards one of the streets leading out of the village.

“We don't want to destroy the village, right,” Bruno commented and promptly started walking off. Joey followed, and so did Onix after him. The large rock snake somehow managed to move over the grass without ruining it into a dirty muddy trench with its large body. That alone was an incredible feat.

Golduck watched them leave suspiciously. After a minute or so of walking later, the two trainers arrived at a clearing which looked to have been the farm of one of the houses in the village, but which was now firmly on the outside of the circle of houses.

“Let's do this then,” Joey said nervously.

“I'm curious to see if you match up to the person you remind me of,” Bruno said unceremoniously, grabbed a Pokeball from his belt and threw it into the air, releasing a red light projection into the air.

A Hitmontop materialised in mid-air and spun to a halt from its fall on the grass of the clearing on its head. “Hitmontop!” it called out enthusiastically. The brown and blue spiky Pokemon looked to be in good health and matched the battle enthusiasm of its trainer.

Joey meanwhile was having a bit more difficulty choosing which Pokemon he should send out first. Obviously, Metapod would be best considering she could stall and perhaps poison the Hitmontop.

However, if the Hitmontop was too powerful, it might be necessary to send out Diglett first to tire it out.

Rattata would need as much time as he could to rest up, he had after all just lost a battle not even two hours ago.

Joey's hand rested on a Pokeball as he considered his options.

Bruno seemed to be willing to wait patiently, however the Hitmontop started to fidget.

It really was full of energy. Perhaps it was time to take away some of it.

Joey enlarged the Pokeball he’d been gripping and pressed the release button without taking it off his belt.

A brown mole materialised on his side of the field. “This is a serious battle. Our opponent will only be using one Pokemon and we're allowed to use our whole team. Your job is to tire out and debuff,” Joey ordered.

Diglett, who had just found his orientation after being dropped so abruptly into a battle against a member of the Elite Four, shook himself awake and glinted his eyes threateningly against his opponent. At the Hitmontop’s unimpressed look, he immediately shrank back, however, which ruined the intimidation factor.

It seemed like the little brown Pokemon recognized the difference in ability that was present in the matchup.

While Joey was talking to his Pokemon, Bruno pressed another button on his Pokenav.

A pre-recorded voice started sounding throughout the clearing. “Countdown sequence initiated. Three, two, one, battle start!” the mechanical voice said.

Joey quickly ordered his first move. “Hit and run, exhaust it,” he ordered,

while Bruno just said one word.

“Agility,” he said calmly, causing Hitmontop to start spinning on the spike on its head rapidly at ever-increasing speeds.

Joey cursed mentally. If he allowed Hitmontop to charge its speed with agility too much, then it would become unbeatable for his other two teammates. This was the issue of battling one Pokemon that was severely stronger than one’s team. You couldn't really stop them buffing up without sacrificing something.

Joey stomped one of his feet on the ground, which was a signal for Diglett to shoot up close by to where Hitmontop was spinning rapidly with a psychic glow around it. Diglett shot a large blast of sand from the ground with a wiggle of his body. He was getting quite good at that.

Unfortunately, Hitmontop had already become too fast, he simply spun out of the way of the sand wave and rushed the Diglett trying to catch it before it could go under.

“Attrition warfare,” Joey ordered, not having any other option. Now they could only repeat this tactic due to Diglett's relatively strategic invariability and hope that Hitmontop would get too tired to continue at some point.

Bruno scoffed loudly from the other side of the field. “Hitmontop, Triple Kick the ground,” he ordered.

At his command, Hitmontop launched itself in the air with one leg extended and smashed it down onto the ground one time, used the momentum of the hit to spin around and hit it a second time, and then a third time.

The strikes were absolutely brutal, each one more powerful than the last and together they actually unleashed what appeared to be a mini earthquake, perhaps a magnitude one into the ground.

Thankfully Diglett was so used to his main move that this didn't seem to bother him overly much and he didn't have to come up for any reason.

He did however emerge a few seconds after the ground stopped shaking to throw a Sand Attack at the Hitmontop, which the latter easily dodged.

Bruno then ordered something that Joey hadn't even known was possible. “Hitmontop, Pursuit,” he said, causing his Pokemon to spin rapidly on its head one more time before blurring forward in a shadowy dark shape jumping into the air and spinning like a drill. it disappeared underground right after Diglett.

Joey suddenly realised that unless Diglett was closing the ground where he entered it as firmly as he had found it initially, then he was essentially digging his opponent a way towards him.

“Solidify behind you,” Joey shouted, hoping that the words would travel through the earth as vibrations and inform his Pokemon of the urgency of the situation.

Seconds passed, and suddenly a brown shape floated out from underneath the earth as if it were water. The mole spun around so his face could face the air, which revealed swirls in his eyes.

Next to Joey’s passed-out Pokemon, Hitmontop drilled its way out of the ground and landed on its feet, breathing heavily.

It couldn't have been easy travelling underground without knowing the move, but the attempt had been inspired and had successfully beaten Joey’s first Pokemon.

The youngster frowned and recalled Diglett back to his Pokeball.

His next action wasn't really an option. Metapod was good for slowing Pokemon down and poisoning them, not necessarily for finishing them off. If he sent her out last then her contribution would become worthless.

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The green crescent bug materialised on his side of the field to face the Hitmontop.

Bruno didn't comment on his decision but simply raised an eyebrow.

The Pokenav blared out again, counting down to the start of the battle.

Once it did, both trainers shouted their orders at the same time.

“Wide String Shot!” Joey shouted.

“Drill through and Sucker Punch!” Bruno said, perhaps already suspecting what move Joey was going to use. It wasn't like Metapod were known for their variability.

Just as Metapod tilted her head slightly back and shot out a truly enormous blanket of String Shot at her opponent, Hitmontop spun in place, before jumping upwards and towards Metapod head first, features indistinguishable, like a real-life drill.

The String Shot blanket didn't stand a chance. Joey could see in real-time as the wind created by Hitmontop spinning created a wind drill. The string shot didn’t even touch its target for a single second. The same thing happened to the second blanket after Metapod noticed what had occurred. She couldn't do anything as Hitmontop fell right on top of her, drilling her right in the head and throwing her back.

While mid-air Metapod similarly couldn't do anything. Hitmontop didn’t miss the opportunity to follow up with a Sucker Punch to keep Metapod in the air. Then it kicked at her once, twice, thrice, and Metapod fell to the ground unconscious.

Joey was starting to suspect that Bruno’s Pokemon was a bit stronger than the fifth badge level, but it wasn't really Bruno's fault if he was bad at estimating these things. To him, everything below eight badge level was probably too weak to even consider a real threat.

He grit his teeth as he recalled Metapod. Hitmontop didn't look particularly exhausted, maybe a bit winded was all. This meant that Rattata would essentially be facing someone so much above his weight category it was ridiculous, while not even having a real advantage to even the odds.

But, the only real loss was never trying in the first place. Joey unclicked his last Pokeball.

He shouted as his starter materialised on the battlefield, still bruised and breathing hard from its battle against the Mankey.

“You’re the last one Rattata, this battle is an amazing opportunity. We're facing a member of the Elite Four,” he announced.

While his other two Pokemon might know who the Elite Four were, it was only Rattata who he trusted with that information. Metapod might have freaked out and Diglett would have definitely freaked out.

Joey’s trusted rat companion squared up at the information, whereas right beforehand he had begun a series of chitters which likely translated into a direct complaint about having a battle again so soon after his last one.

A specific sort of energy started emitting from the normal type, signalling that he was taking this battle as seriously as he was physically capable of taking it.

Bruno also righted his posture a bit, becoming even taller. It seemed that he too could feel that Joey had just thrown out his most powerful Pokemon and most battle-hungry team member.

Hitmontop for his part simply grinned, which from its downturned position made it look like it was frowning. It continued spinning slowly to stay upright.

The metallic voice of Bruno's Pokenav once again started the countdown.

“Three, two, one, battle start!” it said.

“Sucker punch,” Bruno said in a deadpan voice. Hitmontop shot forward, but, above ground, Rattata was Joey's fastest Pokemon.

And also, the one that he'd trained the longest. He didn't have to give an order, Rattata knew exactly what to do if Joey didn't say anything to the contrary.

Joey could almost imagine his starter's eyes gleaming a burnt orange as the Hitmontop spun forward and lashed out with a spiked fist coated in dark energy. Rattata had been standing upright on his hind legs as his enemy approached. The punch sailed over him as he bent backwards to avoid the move.

A small purple paw clenched in a fist and shot up, fighting type energy filled it and it smashed against the fist flying over his body. The two clashed and it was obviously Rattata who got pushed into the ground.

Hitmontop for its part simply stumbled back, having had its spin interrupted by the collision of energies.

“Dig,” Joey said.

Rattata’s ears perked up at the order. It was a special one considering that they’d previously decided that for the foreseeable future, they would only be using his two fighting-type moves. However, it would be madness to not go all out against a member of the Elite Four.

Rattata sank back first into the ground.

This time Bruno didn't order a chase and seemed to consider for a second. Then he shrugged. “Agility,” he ordered, seemingly unbothered and perfectly willing to use the same strategy that he'd used previously.

Hitmontop started spinning in place faster, surrounded by a light pink energy which was accelerating the Pokemon into a small blue and brown tornado.

Joey tapped his feet on the ground in the agreed-upon signal. Rattata popped up far away from Hitmontop and twirled around once in the air to shoot off a barrage of white stars before disappearing back underground.

That was when something happened which caused Joey to clench his fists.

Bruno ordered, “Detect!” He knew that he didn't have a monopoly on the move, but seeing it used by an Elite Four member really nailed down the trepidatious feeling and suspicion that Hitmontop might end up being better at it than his starter.

The Hitmontop dodged to the left, to the right, and did a light hop, all of the white stars moved past the Pokemon as if it was just an afterimage.

Joey cursed. That obviously wouldn't work. In this case... He closed his eyes to think. There was only one more thing left to do. There was obviously no real point in actually trying to win this battle considering that he didn't stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

Even if Rattata had been in perfect condition going in, Hitmontop was way less exhausted than the Raichu in their battle against Surge. In addition to that, Bruno was presumably also a much better trainer, so he'd make fewer mistakes.

Joey tapped his feet. Rattata jumped up again, another Swift.

But, just as Hitmontop was about to launch itself into a Detect to continue gathering speed with Agility, Joey shouted out a command that probably surprised Bruno.

“Get in close with Quick Attack and close combat!”

He saw Bruno still from his peripheral vision, likely unused to opponents actively trying to get close to him and his Pokemon, but all of Joey’s focus was on Rattata who dug his claws into the ground and shot forward in a white blur. Hitmontop had just finished evading all of the stars again when the rat arrived at its doorstep with its fist raised in a half-formed rock smash.

“Face it head-on,” Bruno ordered as he cast one of his arms to the side with an open palm.

He likely saw this as a challenge.

Joey didn't. He just saw it as a training opportunity. A Rock Smash was blocked by a kick. A loud bang resounded from the collision and Rattata was forced back, barely avoiding a second kick and jumping over a third.

Just like with the Mankey earlier that day, a collision of fighting-type energies began. The only difference was that Rattata was more outmatched than ever before.

One, two, three exchanges was all it took for one of Hitmontop’s kicks to connect and throw Joey's starter straight into the air and back towards his trainer, at whose feet he tumbled to a stop covered in dirt, bruises and pain.

Joey grimaced and was just about to recall the rat when his starter started struggling to his feet.

“Rattata,” he chittered laboriously and squared up again, raising its paws in the air like a boxer.

“You've got fighting spirit all right, but also a fuck all chance of winning this. It's a good experience, but don't let yourself get broken. Are you sure you want to do this?” Joey asked.

Rattata didn't reply but simply nodded. He shot forward in a Quick Attack without having to be ordered. Hitmontop meanwhile had been waiting in place, if it wasn't using its head to support itself, it likely would have tilted it in confusion.

It must have been weird for an evolved fighting-type Pokemon to be rushed so recklessly by a small normal type.

While right now it was doubtlessly just a curiosity, Joey clenched his fists in a promise that in a few years, this would be a threat.

The two Pokemon collided and once again after a few short exchanges of fighting energy on fighting energy, Rattata was pushed back, landing on the floor, rolling to a stop and tremblingly getting to his feet again.

Joey was about to recall his Pokemon when Rattata held up a paw seemingly knowing what his trainer was thinking.

Joey's hand which had unconsciously drifted closer to Rattata’s Pokeball went back to his side.

“One last time, whatever you're trying to do, do it now. You have a whole career ahead of you, there's no point in getting injured now,” Joey muttered.

Rattata nodded, got on all fours, claws digging furrows into the dirt of the now-destroyed clearing. Numerous digs, spins, agilities and quick attacks made it look like teenagers had been driving wheelies into the grass.

Rattata shot forward, if possible, faster than before, but Hitmontop was ready. A punch was blocked by a fist while a kick impacted Rattata on the side.

Joey's starter held on somehow and pushed through, throwing another Rock Smash with his other fist. Hitmontop spun to the side of this one, choosing to dodge it and lashed out with another leg.

Rattata unlike all the other times didn't try to dodge. One of his fists went up in what seemed like a futile attempt to block the kick, but it glowed a burnt orange in the last second causing Joey to raise an eyebrow. That, for some reason, didn't look like a Rock Smash. The glow of the fighting-type energy was darker, less aggressive somehow.

Hitmontop's leg smashed into Rattata’s uplifted paw, and despite all evidence suggesting that something else should happen, the rat held steadfast and wasn't pushed back at all. Rattata’s other fist meanwhile glowed a similar dark burnt orange. Just that this time, it looked menacing. The fist shot forward, but it was too slow. Hitmontop simply spun back in place, and just as it readied another attack, Rattata fell face-first into the ground and passed out on the spot.

Hitmontop aborted its attack and jumped back from the downed opponent to spin to a halt and stumbled to its legs, for once not being upside down. It was breathing very heavily at this point and was looking at the downed Rattata with a certain amount of respect that had previously been absent.

The purple rat was suddenly engulfed in a beam of red light and dematerialized back into his Pokeball. Joey spoke to the instrument as he recalled his starter.

“You did great, rest up. I'm proud of you,” he muttered to his starter as he clipped him back onto his belt. He'd fallen from exhaustion and would need to go to the Pokecentre, but there was nothing drastic that needed immediate attention in his completely unqualified non-medical opinion.

Joey's mind wandered from the health situation of his team to the move that Rattata had exhibited before he'd fallen unconscious. It reminded him slightly of what had happened when they had fought Hitoshi’s Hitmonchan all those months ago. Just at this time, he had been able to see more clearly what had occurred.

Rattata somehow invalidated hitmontop’s attack, and had started returning it, but had been unable to complete the gesture.

“That was Counter,” Bruno suddenly spoke up from the other side of the field with his fingers scratching at his chin as he looked thoughtfully up at the sky. “From what I know Rattata can't learn that move unless its parentage somehow influenced its energy composition and its genetic heritage.”

Joey slowly nodded, as his mind whirled. He knew of egg moves, moves given to the children by their parents. If he trusted anyone to identify a fighting-type move then it would be Bruno, so it likely had been counter. But, what kind of parentage would Rattata have to have to have the egg move counter? And more importantly, would it ever have appeared had they not decided to train Detect and Rock Smash?

“But from what I know, counter lets you suffer the damage of the attack before you return it twice as hard. Rattata wasn't even pushed back there,” Joey spoke up

Bruno nodded. “It's a more advanced form of the move where you transfer the kinetic energy into storage rather than into damage to yourself. Whatever parent your Pokemon got the move from, must have been incredibly adept at it. Likely a Nidoking, or a Nidoqueen. I think these are the only two possibilities.

Joey didn't know much about breeding, so he could only shrug and accept the verdict. Even back in his old life he'd only ever played the Pokemon games normally, not being one of those people who tries to breed the perfect Pokemon so that they could use it in some sort of competition against other people in real life. Egg groups and whatnot were a mystery to him.

But this was good. Rattata had more weapons in his arsenal than Joey had originally thought. Counter would surely be a useful addition once it was trained properly. It seemed that Rattata had managed to make a breakthrough with Rock Smash as well, going by the quickness of its execution.

“Well, it seems like I lost the battle,” Joey said and was just about to switch the topic when a loud cry prevented him from continuing.

“Misdreavus!” a high-pitched feminine voice shouted causing Bruno, Joey and Hitmontop to all look back towards the village from where the very same Pokemon was flying over. Dark bluish green with a pearl necklace on her neck and vividly red eyes. A determined look on her face and ghostly energy bubbling within her tentacle-like hair.

She drifted through the air to a halt at a stop in front of Joey, facing Bruno.

“It's fine, Misdreavus,” Joey spoke up, fearing that she had misunderstood what was happening. After all, battles could look like bullying from the outside. “I just lost the battle, it happens.” He pulled out his Pokenav as it pinged to see that the match had gone down in his trainer history. He also got a message that informed him that zero Pokedollars had been withdrawn from his account as winnings towards Bruno.

“Misdreavus, mis, mis,” the ghost said loudly.

Joey had been a trainer long enough to recognize fighting spirit when he heard it.

Bruno, if anything, was even more attuned to that sort of willpower and quickly ordered his Hitmontop to take a battle position again.

Hitmontop spun back onto its head and started slowly turning round and round in preparation for a fight.

Its trainer laughed boisterously. “Seems like you had a Pokemon you didn't even know about, which means that this match isn't quite finished yet.”

Meanwhile, Joey was a bit more hesitant. “Are you sure Misdreavus? We haven't even trained together. I don't know your moves.”

The Pokemon nodded resolutely. It warmed Joey's heart in a way, even if it likely wouldn't win him the battle. Was this what it felt like to open one’s shoe locker and find a confession letter from a cute girl?

To be honest, he liked Misdreavus, this was why he had been coming here to play with her, she was a ghost and he felt a sort of kinship with her story. He hadn’t done it out of any need to have her join his team. Anyway, he’d only gain a spot after his fourth badge.

“All right then,” he muttered. “Let's do this.” It wasn't like he was going to win this battle, but Misdreavus probably knew that and just wanted to tell him that she wanted to be a part of his team with a strong gesture.

Bruno pressed the Pokenav announcement voice again. The battle commenced.

There was only one move which Joey knew for certain that Misdreavus knew. “Hypnosis,” Joey ordered. Perhaps Bruno would expect a ghost type and a psychic move would surprise him.

As Misdreavus’ eyes started glowing, creating a sort of pink haze which floated in the direction of Hitmontop, Bruno smirked. “Pursuit straightforward,” he ordered, causing Hitmontop to spin in place and shoot forward like a drill of darkness. It sheared through the psychic waves coming off of Misdreavus and would have hit her if not for Joey's next command.

“Fly up, air superiority,” Joey shouted. Misdreavus levitated herself into the air with her natural ability Levitate, Hitmontop shot through the air underneath her.

In official battles, pokemon were only allowed to fly up to a certain height. Joey hadn't yet had the time to teach Misdreavus about this, but from the looks of it, her Levitate ability wasn't strongly developed enough to fly too high anyway. She only went up somehow 15 metres before stopping.

Joey shouted knowing of another move that the Misdreavus line should know. “Psywave downwards!”

A multitude of undulating pink rings exited Misdreavus’ eyes as she glared down on Hitmontop who was spinning in the place she’d previously occupied. The Psywave offered a wide coverage, and it seemed like the undulating rings would smash into the fighting type, but just then, Bruno ordered his next move.

“Pursuit straight up,” he said, causing Hitmontop to spin more rapidly for a brief second, and then jump up.

Perhaps the result would have been different if Hitmontop hadn't had the chance to use agility several times throughout his fights with the rest of Joey's team, but as it was it quickly sheared its way through the Psywave and shot itself at Misdreavus who barely managed to dodge by floating out of the way.

“Electro ball,” Bruno suddenly ordered, and a yellow ball of energy appeared in between the Hitmontop’s outstretched fists. The ball shot at Misdreavus who was unable to dodge. She was forced back in the air from the power of the move which scaled with how much faster the user was in comparison to their opponent. Considering all the agilities, that was a considerable amount.

The move was too much for Misdreavus and without any follow-up being necessary on the Hitmontop’s part, she dissipated into the air and retreated into the pearl necklace around her neck. The necklace fell to the floor with a rattle, leaving Joey alone on the field again, with another lost battle.

He ruefully shook his head. Misdreavus would get stronger, and losing to a member of the Elite Four wasn't anything to be ashamed of.

Hitmontop fell to the ground after it landed, going down on both knees from what seemed like exhaustion, before falling flat on its face. It seemed like the Electro Ball had taken a lot out of it. It had been using a lot of psychic moves and dark-type moves as well, which was probably more exhausting than just fighting-type ones.

Hitmontop disappeared in a red beam of light and returned to the Pokeball in Bruno’s right hand.

“That was an interesting battle, I'm curious to see what you'll do with Misdreavus after you've had the same amount of time to train her as you obviously had with your Rattata,” Bruno complimented, causing Joey to nod gratefully.

The youngster walked towards the pearl necklace and picked it up.

Hesitating for a few seconds on what to do with it, he eventually clasped the pink-purple thing around his neck, it clashed horribly with his yellow t-shirt and blue shorts, but that was life sometimes.

“We have a long road ahead of us, but it will be a fun walk,” he said philosophically.

Bruno laughed and looked back towards the Onix which had laid down to spectate the entire battle. It had managed to do so stealthily enough that Joey had not paid any attention to it at all.

Although to be fair, Hitmontop hadn't really been an opponent that Joey had been allowed to not pay full attention to.

“A Rattata with Counter, now that's something I haven't seen before,” Bruno said. “One suggestion though for training, I don't know if you’re already doing it. I get the feeling that the fighting type move your Pokemon used was Rock Smash. It's one of the rare fighting type moves that can get trained pretty well by not only battling but by also doing what the move describes, smashing rocks,” he said with a laugh before tensing up his muscles and jumping backwards in a backflip to land on the head of his Onix.

“Anyway, I must go. It was nice meeting you future champion Jonathan. Let's meet again in a few years,” the man said as Onix started speeding off faster than Joey would have ever suspected the rock snake capable of moving.

Just a few seconds later Joey was alone in the clearing, with three knocked-out Pokemon on his belt and a large Golduck rushing towards him and shouting angrily.

He seriously considered for a second if he should run away with his new acquisition, away from its father figure. He eventually decided to stand his ground and take his punishment for corrupting the relatively young Misdreavus of only 50 years of age into wanting to become a battler and travel the world with him, like a man.

Just a few days after having beaten Surge, it seemed like the world had taken a bit of time to put him back in his place.

As Golduck continued his approach, Joey remained undecided if he was grateful to the universe for that or not.

Well, at least one thing that he was grateful for was that he had gained a fourth team member very quickly after his last.

Shame he wouldn’t be able to officially catch her for another nine months at the least though.