-The Dragon King-
-New World Blues: Ch 4-
“How do Pokemon moves work?”
Dawn paused at the question, her brain turning in circles as she processed it.
“…What?”
Marcus sat down across from her at the Pokecenter table, and threw his arm back over the spine of the chair.
“You’re a lab trainer or whatever, right? So tell me how Pokemon moves work.”
Dawn rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and blinked at him a couple times, she had just woken up, and wasn’t alive enough to deal with this kind of braindead conversation.
“…What?”
“Are you going to be helpful, or are you going to just continue to silently judge me for being a shit student, because I can go ask someone else for a potentially wrong answer.” Mark scowled at Piplup, who was giving him a ‘are you serious’ look from his prized spot in Dawn’s lap. “And don’t look at me like that, you blueberry bowling pin.”
“No, I’m not- it’s- I just mean-“ She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Didn’t you pass trainer school?”
“I did.”
“Then you should know that Pokémon draw on a power known as TE. Type Energy. It’s the basics of battling and the study of it has directly led to a lot of our most advanced technology.”
“Yeah, mystical power, wishy washy, vague semi-magic system to wave away the annoying scientific objections that get in the way of cool fight scenes. I get that. I’m asking about it in more detail.”
Mark pointed out the window they were sitting next to, and Dawn followed his finger to see Bagon terrorizing a poor Bidoof on the lawn outside.
“How come the brown rat can learn Rock Smash from a TM but Bagon, who can easily break rocks with a good enough Headbut, for some reason just can’t?”
“Type Energy comes in, well, different types. Different Pokémon naturally produce certain kinds of it, hence the type system, and aren’t naturally well attuned to other kinds. Normal Type is called that because it’s the most basic and malleable of all the TE, and so Normal type Pokemon typically have the easiest time learning and using other kinds of TE.”
“Right…” Mark said in a tone that told Dawn he really didn’t get why it was so important.
Dawn’s eyebrow twitched as she watched Mark quickly lose interest and instead watch his Pokemon out the window. Outside Bagon was working to improve his Ember by terrorizing Bidoof1 with it.
Oh, I’m sorry, was her explanation of basic science not interesting enough? She’d like to see him try to make explaining the equivalent of basic math fun to an adult.
“Do you know why most top trainers tend to wind up specializing in one main type? It’s because of TE. Having a large pool of TE all in the same spot works as an amplifier of sorts, as Pokemon soak it up they can grow faster than normal, and even be pushed to evolve ahead of time since they don’t have to generate all of the fuel for it themselves.”
“Oh, now that’s useful to know.” Mark hummed and tapped his fingers on the table. “Is there anything I can do to make it easier for Bagon to learn moves that wouldn’t usually be a Dragon type’s forte?”
“Try to find a move of that type that he can learn, either naturally or by TM, then practice it consistently to build a familiarity with the Type Energy. Expanding from there will come naturally. Pokemon are really adaptable, and you would be amazed at what they can learn to do with enough determination. When Professor Rowan told me, I didn’t believe the move pools that his Pokemon had, until he showed some of them off outside.”
“Okay, so I could, hypothetically, teach Bagon a TM for Rock Smash by getting him familiar with other fighting moves?”
“Hypothetically yes. But pushing a Pokemon’s move pool to its true limits takes years of training and a deep understanding of how Type Energy works.” Dawn answered, happy to show off the knowledge she’d gotten from Professor Rowan. “Wait, hold on, I thought you were broke! How did you get a TM for Rock Smash?”
“I didn’t.” Mark admitted grumpilly. “There’s supposed to be a hiker guy in a tunnel West of town, who I could talk to about rocks until he gave me one, but I just couldn’t find him.”
Dawn stilled, her cup of water frozen an inch from her lips.
That… that had been exactly how she’d gotten her copy of Rock Smash. It had been by pure luck, and was the highlight of her week at the time. How in the world did Mark…?
“What makes you think someone would just give away a TM for free?” She asked wearily.
“The knowledge I hold would make you question reality.” Mark said in a dramatically sarcastic voice, before standing up with a stretch. “Besides, you wouldn’t believe me anyway. Thanks for the info, but I gotta go stop Bagon using Bidoof1 as a target dummy for his Ember. We need everyone at 100% for the Gym match later.”
Dawn watched him go with narrowed eyes and an odd feeling in her gut.
-The Dragon King-
Noon came quickly, and with it came Marcus’ Gym battle.
Not a ton of people had come to watch the match- this was a no badge challenger after all, but considering it was almost thrice as many as usually came to see these “low power” matches, it was clear that gossip about Mark and Roark’s spat had made its rounds.
At the very top of the bleachers, as far away as you could get from the other spectators, a certain Hex Maniac sat alone, eager to see if the mark she had seen on Marcus would impact the battle at all.
Further towards the front Dawn sat, chewing some gum as she scrolled through her Pokédex. Piplup was sleeping in her lap, the prideful penguin completely uninterested in the world around him.
Next to her was Casey, fidgeting nervously at all the people around, and easily flustered by the occasional fans that came over to say hi to Dawn- who they had seen in the Contest circuit.
A League licensed referee, chosen from a different city so as to be unbiased towards the Gym leader, took her place on the referee stand that overlooked the battlefield, and called for the battlers to get in position.
“For our first, and only, scheduled match for the day, we have Oreburgh’s very own Gym Leader, Roark Hyouta taking the field, and challenging him will be the aspiring Pokemon Trainer, Marcus Cross.”
The two trainers took position on their stands at either end of the arena, and Mark took a moment to look it over again. It was somehow well maintained despite being a dirt field with tons of medium to large rocks on it, which could be used as cover by any creature looking to hide or avoid incoming attacks.
“Can both sides send out their starting Pokemon.” The ref called out, but the way she said it made it clear it was a demand, not a question.
“Go! Geodude!”
“Fuck ‘em up Bagon!”
The two Pokemon materialized in flashes of light, and immediately started glaring at each other.
“The rules are Gym standard, and are as follows: both battlers will be allowed up to three Pokemon, disqualification will occur at knockout, tap out, out of bounds, or rendered at the discretion of the referee.”
As she was taking, a Kadabra materialized from a Pokeball on her belt and began meticulously casting a Light Screen in front of the stands. It was a Sinnoh League standard safety procedure to protect the audience so that the fighters wouldn’t have to worry about going all out.
The ref lifted her arm into the air and swung her hand down.
“BEGIN!”
“Geodude, fall back and use Stealth Rock.”
“Don’t fucking let him!”
Just like in the battle Mark had watched the other day, Roark’s Geodude immediately tried to set up a Stealth Rock hazard to hinder enemy movement and turn Mark’s side of the arena into a minefield for the entire match.
But they had planned for this, and as soon as the ref’s hand came down, Bagon had already started rushing towards Geodude at top speed. The living rock was forced to abandon the move it was charging up, to avoid a gout of hastily aimed dragon fire, and side stepped right into the path of a ramming speed Headbut that sent both Pokemon reeling back.
“YEAH! Fucking blitz him! Point blank Dragon Breath, don’t let up for even a second!”
The audience “oohed” and several people whistled, as Bagon began laying into Geodude, surprised but happy about the opening tone of the match. The high energy fights were always the most fun to watch, after all.
“Geodude, knock him off you with Rock Smash!”
“Backstep out of range, then spring back forward with Headbut!”
But Bagon, rather than giving up his “momentum” to let Geodude even think of having a good attack, disregarded Mark’s order. Instead he lowered his head, and willingly took the hit on his armored helmet for the opportunity to get off yet another point blank Dragon Breath.
Roark clicked his tongue as he watched his Pokemon take another nasty hit, Marcus was running away with the match by exploiting Geodude's lack of speed and the fact his defense was mostly physical, rather than against Energy or Psychic attacks, and he made a snap decision.
“Geodude, return!”
Roark raised his Pokeball, and activated the return function, shooting out a beam of light at Geodude.
But Bagon, already right next to Geodude, slammed into the rock with a full bodied Tackle, and managed to shove him out of the way of the Pokeball’s beam.
Roark’s eyes went wide in shock and he looked over to the Referee, who just shrugged. It wasn’t exactly good sportsmanship, but there wasn’t a rule against it.
Geodude was also shocked, and was so caught off guard that he wasn’t able to stop Bagon clamping down onto his arm with a Bite, lifting him into the air, and slamming him down into the ground.
“Yeah baby! Perfect! Just like we practiced! No fucking mercy!”
Mark’s bloodthirsty cheers snapped the Gym leader out of his stupor, but by them it was already too late.
Bagon stomped down on Geodude’s head, pinning him in place as he took a deep breath and let out the largest stream of Dragon Breath he could manage, directly into the Rock type’s face.
“Geodude is unable to battle.” The ref called as Bagon stepped off the steaming rock that was glowing red from the heat.
“Let’s fucking GO!!” Mark shouted, causing Bagon to perk up in pride and try to hide how hard he was breathing. “That was fucking sick! You were like Godzilla shotting fucking lazer beams into the core of the earth!”
Numbly Roark returned Geodude with the Pokeball he already had in his hand. What was… everything had happened so quickly, how-? He shook his head and pulled himself together.
“So that’s your plan, huh? Play to the fact that Rock Pokemon are slow, and go full throttle from the get go to put me on the back foot?”
Across the field Marcus just shrugged with a smug grin on his face, that made Roark’s blood boil.
“Rock types are more than just physical defense, they’re more than just walls, so if that was your only plan, then you’re done for.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“I dunno Roarb, you’re talking pretty grand for someone who just got suh-macked.”
Roark scowled and ripped his next Pokeball off his belt, one that was even faster than Bagon despite being a Rock type.
“This ends here, go Cranidos!”
Mark raised an eyebrow as Roark’s dinosaur materialized on the field.
“Cranidos already?”
He’d been expecting Onix as the second Pokemon, then Cranidos as the third, like in the games. But he supposed it didn’t really matter, the plans he’d made to counter each of them didn’t need to be done in any particular order, something Bagon was already proving.
The small Dragon had turned around and started booking it towards the edge of the arena even before the Fossil could fully materialize.
“Bagon, tab out, I’m withdrawing you.” Mark said loudly just to announce it to the ref rather than as an order, Bagon was already mid jump onto his platform at that point.
“For my next trick, I summon Bidoof1!”
The nickname raised a few eyebrows from the audience and ref, and raised even more when Mark kept using it, clarifying that it wasn’t a slip of the tongue.
The short and slightly overweight rodent landed on in the arena with shaking legs, sweat dripping down its face, and an expression that told in a million unspoken words just how out of its depth it was feeling.
“Bidoof1 prepare your ultimate move! Your most destructive force!” Mark shouted as he pointed ahead dramatically. “Use… Leer!”
Bidoof puffed up, and glared at Cranidos, it wasn’t scary at all, and looked more like an angry plush toy, but being scary wasn’t what caused the move to do anything, that honor went to the wave of Normal TE that washed over Cranidos and soaked into him.
Naturally he wasn’t going to just sit there and take that, so the fossil Pokemon pawed at the ground, lowered his head, and charged.
“Full ramming speed, and knock Bidoof out with Take Down!”
“Jump to the side when he gets close, and uh, use Leer again.”
After his over the top intro, which was more for fun than anything, Mark seemed to lose interest in the match, not even reacting when Bidoof1 got clipped by the attack and was sent spinning through the air.
“Come on, use Leer again. Yep, there you go.”
“Zen Headbut!”
“Try to dodge it and use Leer again.”
The high tempo match set by Bagon’s opening quickly turned into something… else.
“Leer.”
“Leer.”
“Leer.”
Marcus gave the same blunt command over and over until the word started to lose meaning.
“Leer.”
“Leer.”
Meanwhile his Bidoof clumsily dodged some (and face tanked most) of Cranidos’ attacks until the poor thing collapsed to the ground, beaten to a pulp, and unable to stand.
“Can we get another Leer, buddy?”
His response was a pathetic groan as Bidoof’s eyes spun and foam dripped from her mouth.
“I’ll take that as a no. Bidoof1, return.” Mark recalled Bidoof1 before the judge could call her out, and strangely, rather than just sending Bagon back in, he recalled him into his ball as well.
“Bagon, go wreck his face!”
Mark reared back and tossed Bagon’s ball into the air, really high up into the air, to a height that wasn’t out of bounds only because Flying type Pokemon existed. When the orb popped open and Bagon materialized, he was suspended almost at the height of the ceiling, and only had a few moments to gather his bearings before gravity dragged him downwards in a freefall.
Roark watched Bagon fall from the ceiling in complete bewilderment, what in the world was this guy doing? The only possible advantage to putting a Pokemon up that high would be to- Roark’s eyes widened and he shouted out to Cranidos, but it was already too late.
“Bagon! Aerial bombardment! Use Dragon Breath!”
Bagon, now with a clear and completely unobstructed view of the entire field, took a deep breath and sprayed an indiscriminate stream of Dragon Fire.
There was nothing Cranidos could do, he wasn’t a ranged fighter, and couldn’t take cover behind any rocks because of the angle of the attack.
The entire arena was covered in a stream of Dragon Breath, leaving the floor smoldering with blue flames, and Cranidos was blasted again and again and again and again.
Bagon managed to fire off six attacks before he hit the ground. The first turned the rocky area into a temporary environmental hazard, the second was a near miss, but the next four were direct hits on the fossil Pokemon.
Bagon’s attack even provided enough counter force to slow him down and give a controlled-ish landing, which was an unexpected boon.
Mark issued orders, telling Bagon to stand back and catch his breath while providing cover fire to keep Cranidos off balance, but Bagon wasn’t having any of that. Drunk on the thrill of battle, the novel experience of skydiving, and the taste of imminent victory, the Dragon rushed forward with a battle cry.
“Cranidos, quick! Use his momentum against him! Take Down!” Roark saw the opportunity and ordered a counter attack, desperate for anything to pull the rapidly devolving situation back into control. The living fossil roared and charred forward, uncaring how every step on the blue embers smoldering on the ground hissed angrily and burnt into his feet.
“Shit, counter that fucker with a Headbut of your own!”
The two hard headed Pokemon slammed into each other, making a shockwave that kicked up rocks all around them, and staggered backwards.
Immediately Roark knew something was wrong, Cranidos had taken much harder hits than that before and been perfectly fine.
“The Leers!” He cursed under his breath. The air drop stunt had distracted him! “Cranidos get away and use Harden! Quickly!”
“Bagon, he’s open! Use your special move! Dragon Fang!”
Wait. Dragon Fang??
“WHAT!?”
Gasps rippled through the crowd, Dawn was suddenly at full attention, and Roark’s eyes ballooned. A new move? You almost never saw new moves deployed for the first time outside of Championship and Ace battles. It was the type of thing that the best trainers in the world spent years working on to keep as a hidden ace move for their shot at true greatness!
To make a new move before even earning his first badge, this trainer was a mad man, a lunatic, a genius, a prophet even!
How could this possibly-
Bagon eagerly surged forward, sinking his teeth into Cranidos’ neck with a nasty Bite, and then hit him with a point blank Dragon Breath.
-The Dragon King-
“There’s going to be an empty Elite Four seat soon.”
Roark looked up in shock at his father sitting across the table.
“Is everything okay? No one’s hurt, right?”
“It’s nothing like that. Delva has admitted the stress of the job is impacting her health, and told everyone that she plans to retire to spend more time with her family.”
“That’s… wow.” Roark sat back in his seat and ran a hand through his hair.
Being an Elite Four member wasn’t just the dream of countless trainers, it was THE dream. A high ranking, highly respected, and well paying job at the very top of the Sinnoh League, with access to the very best training facilities for your Pokemon, that also happened to be the perfect position to try to become Champion from.
And that was if you even wanted to make a play for Champion at that point. An EF position was just inherently more stable than that of a Champion, came with a fraction of the stress, and still had comparable power and influence.
Considering the job was defacto for life, you could count on one hand that amount of times you would see a region’s Elite Four change during your lifetime.
“Who’s Cynthia nominating? It’s Volkner, isn’t it?”
It would make sense, the Sunyshore Gym Leader had been the strongest of all the Gyms for a long time now, and Volkner was a menace on the battlefield. But Byron shook his head no.
“Volkner has too much… Let's just call it baggage. Same with Mayleen. Gardenia’s too soft, Candice is too inexperienced, and Wake just isn’t interested. Meanwhile Fatina has spent decades entrenching herself in Hearthome City, so she’s not willing to relocate.”
“That just leaves you and Flint.”
“You’re right.”
“Wow, uh, congratulations then.”
Byron laughed, seeming to find something Roark said funny.
“Maybe save your congratulations to the guy who actually got the job.”
“Wait, you don’t mean-”
“That’s right, Flint is the new Fire Type Specialist of the Elite Four. Well, he will be in a month or so when Delva announces her retirement and the League votes him in, anyway.”
Raork was struggling to understand the decision.
Having Flint as the Fire Type Gym Leader made sense. It made sense because in Gym battles he’d only be using 4 or so Pokémon, and he was expected to train up entire new teams to use against trainers with fewer badges.
Having Flint as the “Fire Type Specialist” of the Elite four, where they were fully expected to put their all into every fight and use their real teams, didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense because most of Flint's original team wasn’t fire Pokémon!
“Why was he picked over you?”
“Because I turned it down.”
“What?? WHY!?”
Byron hesitated and scratched his beard.
“Cynthia… pulled me aside and asked a favor of me that would cost me a lot of my political good will. We talked about it, and I eventually decided it was a good idea to go through with it. With Flint becoming an Elite Four member, that means there’s going to be an open Gym position in Oreburgh soon. I’m going to be putting all my weight behind getting a candidate of my choosing approved, and it’s probably going to cost me a lot of the favor’s I’ve saved up over the years.”
“Your own candidate?” Roark furrowed his eyebrows and tried to think of who his Father might try pushing through.
He’d been busy on an expedition to map out the great Sinnoh cave network over the past year, and hadn’t paid any attention to what trainers his Dad was keeping employed in his Gym.
“Who are you thinking? Roxy? Are you still working with Melvin?”
Byron stared at his son for several long seconds, conflict warring behind his steely expression.
“I chose you, Roark.”
“Oh. Me. Of course.” Roark nodded. And then the words actually registered. “Wait, ME!? WHY!?!”
“Because I can trust you.”
“I just- I don’t get it.” Roark shook his head in exasperation as he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not a great trainer, I don’t have the talent for it. I only started the Gym circuit because that’s what you expected me to do, but even then, no matter how hard I tried, you never had any sort of real belief in me. ”
“Roark-”
“Wait a minute. Mayleen and Volkner, Sunnyshore and Veilstone, baggage. This is about Cynthia’s stupid conspiracy, isn’t it!? This is all just to keep the Galactic Corp from getting any League positions! You’re worried they’ll manage to weasel whoever replaces Flint, and get a third Gym leader under their influence- so you want someone under YOUR influence instead!”
“Roark, listen.” Byron scolded in an iron tone that left no room for disagreement. “I have done my best to keep you isolated from the politics and power struggles that come from being in the League. Things are much more complicated than you know, but I need someone I can trust to have my back.”
But Roark was hardly listening anymore.
His father had sold out his shot at becoming an Elite Four member to give him a spot they both knew he didn’t deserve.
-The Dragon King-
Roark watched in numb dread as his partner Pokemon, weakened by dozens of status moves by that damned Bidoof, wobbled and fell backwards.
“Cranidos is unable to battle!” The referee shouted and blew her whistle,
“Oh.” Dawn plopped back down in her seat. She hadn’t realized she’d stood up in the first place. “That’s not a new move. Dragon Fang doesn’t exist, he’s just a dumbass.”
“That’s Mark for you.” Casey sweatdropped and scratched the back of his head. “But it worked, and that’s the only thing he cares about.”
Cranidos disappeared as he was recalled to a shaking Pokeball that Roark was holding in an iron grip.
“Come on, buddy, just toss out Onix so we can wrap this up and get everyone on with their day.” Mark called out, trying to goad him even further into irrationality.
Roark ground his teeth so hard he could practically feel them chipping.
“Or, I mean, you could just toss in the towel now and save us all the time.”
Mark, of course, was oblivious to both Roark’s internal conflict and his flashback. He was in a pretty good mood, not even paying attention to the field as he yawned and rolled one of his arms to pop his shoulder. Cranidos had been his biggest worry, and using Bidoof1 as sacrificial fodder to stack debuffs had worked like a charm.
It wasn’t nearly as effective as having an actual fighter would have been (like, for instance, a Gibble), but for the low low price of selling out Bagon’s dignity to being poked and prodded in uncomfortable places, so he could get a Pokeball, it had been well worth the investment.
Investment, hmm? Mark scratched his chin and looked up at the ceiling in thought.
“-nd don't think-! HEY! Pay attention! Don’t ignore me! The match isn’t decided yet!”
Mark blinked and looked over at Roark. “I'm sorry, what were you saying?” He asked genuinely not having heard him. “I wasn’t paying attention, I was thinking about what to do after this. Pokeballs are expensive and I'm still not sure how much of my prize money I want to allocate to that.”
“You- You-!”
He wasn’t paying attention because he was thinking how he was going to spend his prize money!?
Roark’s hand drifted off the third Pokeball he had on his belt, and drifted to a well worn down Heavy Ball at the very end.
There were unspoken rules to being a Gym leader, expectations and culture and traditions that had built upon each other and had been baked into the core of the league by almost two centuries of history.
Gym leaders were supposed to be the protectors of the city, leaders of the local community, and act as both role models and guides to other trainers. It was customary to have a second team to use against new trainers with less than tree badges, and if you weren’t interested in humoring newbies because you wanted to focus on pushing your challengers to the absolute limit, then you made it obvious in advance by putting badge number requirements on your Gym, like Volkner and Candice did.
You accepted defeat with honor. You understood that your main task was to be a challenge for people to overcome, and to push your challengers to grow as trainers.
Roark knew all of that.
But when Mark was beaming at him with that smug shit eating grin, he just couldn’t bring himself to care.
“You come to Oreburgh and you insult my city, you insult my Gym, you insult me, you insult my abilities as a trainer, you make me look like a fool in my own arena while doing nothing but shit talking, and you somehow think you can get away with that?”
Roark scowled as he pulled the gray and blue Pokeball off his belt that he knew he shouldn’t use against a badgeless trainer, especially not in such a bait and switch way after using a beginner friendly team up to this point. Using this Pokemon would earn him scorn and disapproval from both the public and other Gym leaders.
Especially since it wasn’t even his to begin with.
“Steelix! I need you!”
Roark hurled the Heavy Ball his father had entrusted him with for protection in times of emergency, and summoned a veteran of the gym circuit.
The massive Pokémon that materialized was grizzled from hundreds of battles, and was covered from head to tail in battle scars,
“...Well shit.” Mark muttered in awe as he stared up at the towering behemoth, and he could only come to a single conclusion.
“We are so fucked.”
-Chapter End-