It was the day before Evandros's gym challenge and two trainers were on a practice field guiding their Pokemon. As Evandros and his new friend Elian finished their training for their respective gym challenges. Both made their Pokemon do simple cooldown exercises alongside themselves as they agreed they needed to train up their own bodies as well. For Erika's gym Evandros would use Pearl, Lupa, and Woody while Elian would use his Oddish and his dad's Krabby.
While Elian was asking about tips on how to handle the pressure of a gym challenge Evandros couldn't help his curiosity surrounding his friends change of plans.
"Hey, dude, sorry if it's rude but, like, how come you want to challenge Erika? I thought you wanted to fight Brock and Misty first."
Elian had a look of surprise before hiding his face behind his hands. Only after a few seconds had passed did the beginner tier trainer actually reply.
"Um, don't take this in wrong way but like... I kinda, sorta, swapped my plans out when I watched your gym battle." Elian shut his eyes in fear of before realizing there wasn't any laughter or stuff like that coming from his friend.
Looking at his friend, Elian was surprised by Evandros's neutral face.
It took a couple seconds more for Evandros to compute that sentence before he widened his eyes and looked Elian, a hand pointing to his face.
"Wait! Because of ME!?!" The lab trainer shouted out. Then apologized to the lady and tiny Growlithe standing next to him for his outburst.
Chuckling a little at the extreme response, Elian replied with "Yeah man, have you even checked out pokenet? Your battle was buzzing with tweets and stuff, and apparently it's gonna be featured in some analytics thing where some calcs are gonna see how you won as well." Taking a moment to press a button underneath the sidewalk light, Elian continued on. "And then I realized that if I wanted to get Dill to that level of famous, I needed to make her go through tough fights right from the get-go. So, I'm gonna challenge Brock and Misty for my fourth and fifth badge since at that stage they have actual strategies and Pokemon against grass types instead of just baiting and capitalizing on mistakes and stuff. The first thing is to challenge Erika then Janine while we're in Fuchsia, then maybe I'll challenge Surge and I'll think about my plans after that."
After a "sweet" from Evandros, both of them then went into a collective silence admiring the scenery; though Evandros had his mind occupied and like an itch it needed to be satisfied.
Keeping Leaf out, Evandros began viewing his battle. It looked okay, since there weren't any blatant mistakes, the only improvement would be to get some new moves into his Pokemon but that could be solved with the natural progression of time since they weren't move learning prodigies like his Leafeon who had already gotten Razor Leaf down fairly quickly and had begun learning Leaf Blade. Next came checking the views and comments on his video on pokenet and what he saw was surprising.
A whopping 11 thousand likes and over 100 comments. Most one badge trainers barely got over a thousand if they were lucky, while those who would wouldn't have more than 5 thousand such as the girl who used a Ponyta and Caterpie who was currently sitting at 4.6 thousand likes.
The comments meanwhile were surprising since a lot of people were talking about the moves Evandros had ordered and if it would be better or not to use different ones in certain scenarios. Other than that there were people talking about how cool, inspiring, rigged, unfair, awesome and a couple other descriptive words on how the battle was. There was speculations in the comments about why the new trainer hadn't used his Leafeon alongside some dms asking the same thing, and those got the same reply.
'Sorry, but I'll use her against Blaine, Janine and maybe Sabrina, so watch out for that' which then causes a flurry of questions that Evandros simply ignored.
After replying to the positive comments Evandros turned off his gear and began looking around with a noticeable uptick in his mood. His plan of putting all the attention on him in the early stage so his friends had less to worry about was working. His friends had sizable amounts of views but they were mainly from people who thought they were gonna do what he did.
Funnily enough, there were more than a couple trainers who tried challenging the gyms with type disadvantage and those who won ended up getting a couple predictions that they were gonna get higher than most trainers typically got to in their journey.
Finally, after their quick ten minute walk, both aspiring trainers found themselves in front of a battle club of a different brand than the one in Viridian. After all, Pokemon battling is not only a job but also a sport as encapsulated by Galar and their stadiums.
Entering inside, Evandros immediately payed the battlers fee, which was a simple twenty bucks per hour, and began walking around trying to challenge people at the one-to-two badge level as he wanted to put pressure on his Kakuna and Charmander to evolve them into their next stages.
It took a while but he did manage to have a friendly battle against an elder gentleman and his Jynx using Leaf. The battle was very fast paced and the Jynx could not use any of its regular stall tactics of using Toxic, Icy Wind, and Charm as Leaf had a continuous Trailblaze activated alongside using a Sunny Day in the beginning of the match. Her Leaf Guard ability prevented the Toxic from poisoning her and the decrease in power of its ice moves due to the consistent heat inevitably lead to the dual type pokemons' defeat.
The lab trainer chuckled when seeing the grass type try to use Sunny Day and Trailblaze together and fail at the attempt, since it seemed like only Yesterday that he had told her the plan for learning future moves.
Seeing the battle spurred more than a couple trainers into battling the young lab trainer and soon Evandros had a few different battling requests.
His second battle consisted of a Seadra which could use Dragon Breath and unfortunately paralyzed Chardon. This battle was an inevitable slugfest which ended only after a surprise Dragon Rage from the fire type, shutting down the water type and knocking it out. A good sign that his fire lizard was close to evolution as the species only learnt the move alongside Fire Fang days before evolving.
His third was nothing really amazing. Just his Rockruff quickly finishing an Oddish with a Snarl into Fire Fang. Oddly enough, the sound waves from the dark type move had pushed back the spores in the air away from Lupa.
The fourth battle however was one of the more rousing fights.
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As Evandros had moved back out of the battlefields to heal his Charmander and Leafeon, giving praises to all three of his pokemon on their victories, he was cut off from regaling the rest of his current pokemon the second battle by a snobbish voice.
"My, a Kakuna and Clamperl, are you challenging Erika using such weak pokemon? Because if so then it might be time to head back home or at least to a lesser gym."
Quickly calming down his pokemon, the miffed lab trainer looked at the girl behind him.
Standing there was a brunette with shoulder length hair with quite the smug look. Though her face wasn't where his attention was at, it was her belt. Holstered on its magnetic locks were two pokeballs just waiting to be used.
"You've caught two pokemon, huh. That's cool." He genuinely replied with a smile.
That very clearly was not the reaction the girl was expecting as she lost her smirk, adopting a quizzical look.
"How many gym leaders have you beaten?" Evandros asks.
"Only Erika?" The question was quite a weird tangent, and the brunette was unsure of what the point of it was.
"Good for you," he wholeheartedly spoke "but you have to understand that trainers work in different ways, I like catching different pokemon and making them strong. Cuz if you have a ton of pokemon, then if you're a good trainer, you'll have a ton of friends; at least, that's my methodology."
'Since she's only just started this year, she must've never traveled and met up with different types of trainers on the road or in other streets. It's not her fault she's talking dumb.' Evandros thought.
The young girl took it in quite a different way 'Is he mocking me? Does he think he's better because he caught more pokemon?' and similar questions to this line of thought led the girl to believe he was looking down on her, creating quite the unfortunate misunderstanding.
Spurred on, she growled out "I challenge you to a battle, don't disappoint." With a hand on her mouth as she spoke that last sentence, hiding a barely visible smirk.
Perfectly fine with battling, and not realizing the misunderstanding, Evandros nodded and headed to an open battle field in the building that was almost fixed up by a Geodude with a cap on its head. He ended up snapping a pic of the rock type to his bff.
As they waited for the field to be fixed up the lab trainer tried to talk to his opponent, only for said opponent to look at him with barely hidden disdain. The young boy was only slightly miffed by the cold front, mainly just confused from the behavior.
Once finished being fixed, a referee came onto the podium on the side of the field and began counting down.
In unison both threw out their choices.
On the girls side was a speedy brown bird with no wings and two heads. It appeared with croon and it was easy to tell what Pokemon it was due to the fact that it is one of the only wingless bird that Kanto students study up on.
While on the scarred boys' side appeared his Kakuna.
"Go fo-"
"Electroweb and String Shot." Though Evandros's voice wasn't very loud, it was firm and had cut over his opponents'.
Trying to give her pokemon the call to get in close and using Peck again, the trainer and her Doduo were startled by an electric webbing locking down the flying type while simultaneously damaging it with super effective type energy. To add insult to injury, a green string wrapped around the flying type's neck and further slowed the movements of the two heads as they couldn't really move as they normally would.
Now thoroughly slowed, Kakuna took a moment to harden and become tougher for the next part of the plan.
"Get out of there Fluff!" She yelled visibly flustered.
"Now, reel yourself in and Poison Sting. Stinger only."
While Doduo was using a normal type move to cut the webs, which only hurt a tiny bit with each swipe of their beaks, the normal type was unaware of the fast moving object aiming at its chest with Poison energy.
Kakuna crashed into the Doduo, stinger first, and inflicted not only poison damage but also the amount of pain of a fast moving object repeatedly hardened in a proto-tackle.
It was also to be noted that the stinger on Kakuna's body held its most powerful poison so a direct hit guaranteed the Poison Sting as a critical hit.
Just like that Doduo fell, a bit quick but expected considering its trainer must have used its type advantage to tip the scales to her favour.
Kakuna's eyes widened noticeably at the defeat of a flying type and jumped with joy soon afterwards, which surprised Evandros since the bug type didn't like to show outwardly show his emotions. As if that wasn't enough, he did one final celebratory act.
He evolved.
With the outer carapace cracking; the shell holding Kakuna gave way to two massive stingers, then two massive wings, and finally a body similar in design to the carapace of its prior form with clear differences.
Examining itself, Beedrill's red eyes looked at its yellow and black abdomen before panning its head to its wings and then his trainer.
Evandros meanwhile was grinning like a madman, actively restraining himself from jumping over to his pokemon on the field he gave one command.
"Use your wings Ka-Beedrill!" He yelled with excitement.
Given the 'go ahead', Beedrill looked back at its wings and saw them flutter at a speed he was not aware of. Slowly, his body moved up into the air and when he stopped wobbling erratically, he aimed his stinger arms at the opposing trainer in a classic 'come at me' style.
Snapping out of her reverie of witnessing an evolution; the young trainer sent back her Doduo, with a few words of consolation, before sending out her second and last pokemon.
On the field appeared a floating psychic type held in some type of green fluid, its actual body being green as well and having no hands as its stubby head was the only thing incased in the fluid.
The referee called the match again.
Now incensed to try and finish this fight with Beedrill, Evandros told his bug type to move around the psychic type to prevent being grabbed or hit by any moves.
"Psybeam Darling"
"Get in close, Poison Sting"
As the first stage form of his opponents' was using a powerful psychic move which left it vulnerable to attacks, Beedrill flew forward and did a little spin so that the beam of psychic energy only barely missed him before deciding to ignore the order for Poison Sting. Instead he hit the opposing pokemon with Twineedle, a bug type move which hit twice and was super effective to his opponent.
The psychic type fainted.
By being hit twice by a bug type move.
And with that the battle ended.
Shifting from foot to foot in excitement; Evandros ran as soon as the battle ended into the middle of the field to his still flying Beedrill and gave a full body hug, with Beedrill taking care not to stab his excited trainer with any of his three stingers.
Giving excited praise to his newly evolved pokemon, Evandros only faced his opponent when she had almost reached him in the grounds.
Giving a handshake to his opponent he decided to add a few words of advice as well. Mainly on how she should train her Pokemon to move around when using Psybeam or Confusion and how she should've continued with her first order in the beginning of the battle or just told Doduo to dodge, the battle wouldn't have snowballed in his favour if she had, before taking the 100 bucks and moving back to the rest of his team with Beedrill.
Upon meeting back with his friend and his own pokemon; Beedrill was immediately pulled into a hug by Leaf and Woody while the other gave praise to him, except Lupa who was staring at the battlefield, and Pearl who was in her pokeball and didn't get released out until the end of the battle. He had kept her as safety insurance just in case Beedrill didn't beat the girl.
Evandros wanted a battle specifically for Woody and Pearl so he went and challenged a girl with a Machop and a guy who had caught two Weepinbell which was perfect practice since Bellsprout and other grass types were known to have evolved at the two badge level. After that he headed back to the rest of his Pokemon and praised them for their amazing efforts today, like always.
Picking up his egg from Chardon who held onto it the most after his trainer, Evandros decided that enough was enough and that his three chosen pokemon should rest now.
They had done all the preparations they could do. Lupa and his improved Fire Fang, Woody and his Rollout, and Pearl with her Rest into Sleep Talk to ensure that she didn't get affected by any sort of conditions in the match. Since the water type was so new she would either be the last resort or an option to get some quick and easy knockouts under their belt.
His battle against the gym was starting tomorrow and his chosen mix needs to be in tip-top shape, alongside his own mind.