The Dark Trainer

[Pig on the Wing]

Well, seeing as it's a mainly Pokemon based forum, I thought I'd post my own on here, so, enjoy I guess...

Chapter 1: Battle in Ashdown

In my pocket, my hand clenched around the only poke ball I had. My eyes were shut, as I was trying to shut out my surroundings and think very hard.
“Come on. Winner takes all.” said a voice on the other side of the arena. I opened my eyes. I was in the park, standing on one side of a Pokemon battle arena. We were just a little to the west of the Pokemon Centre in Ashdown Village, a small island in the middle of the Fuchsian Sea, a sort of resting place for people going from Fuchsia City to Seafoam Island and vice versa. I had only one Pokemon, and the other kid had three, so even though I’d been doing this for two years now, I didn’t want to risk it. He had already beaten two people, though those times he played for money. As soon as he found out I’d been a trainer for a couple of years, he challenged me to a battle winner takes all; meaning all Pokemon and money the opponent had. Not wanting to back out and be labelled a coward though, I removed the poke ball from my pocket, looked at it briefly, whispered a quiet good luck and tossed it into the arena a small way away from me.
The Pokemon that came out was a grass and flying type. It was a large green bird with leaf patterns on the top and bottom of its wings, and one large leaf pattern in the centre of its back. She also had a necklace round her neck, and on the necklace was a triangular green object.
“Trel!” it cried.
“Not bad, a Treeling.” The boy said, and I cursed silently, he may be new but he sure knew his stuff, this was a newly discovered Pokemon. “I reckon I can take it though!” he threw a poke ball into the centre of the field a large snail appeared. It was at least three feet tall, and it looked as though its red body was made of molten lava and its shell looked like granite.
“Mag!” it moaned. I cursed again; a Magcargo had two type advantages against me, whilst I had none against it.
“Flamethrower, let’s toast that thing!” the boy shouted. I allowed myself a chuckle. He may know a lot about Pokemon, but clearly not much about battling.
I whistled shrilly and Treeling spread her wings and soared into the sky, while the flames that erupted from Magcargo’s mouth harmlessly passed underneath, slightly singing the ground.
“Rock Slide!” the boy shouted, and with amazing speed, rocks rose from around the lava snail’s body and hurtled frighteningly towards Treeling.
“Prayer, Razor Leaf!” I shouted.
“Prayer?” the boy asked.
“Nickname.” I explained.
“Ah.” Prayer spread her wings and fired numerous amounts of leaves, which all cleaved the rocks into two halves before slicing into Magcargo, cutting his shell but bursting into flame before they touched his molten body. The rocks sailed past Prayer harmlessly. The boy looked worried for a few seconds before smirking.
“Not bad, but you ain’t gonna touch him now! Magcargo, Harden and then Amnesia!” I swore loudly. He was right; I wouldn’t be able to hurt him with those defensive moves up. “Now Fire Blast!” he shouted triumphantly. Breaking the defences was the least of my worries now though; Prayer wouldn’t last if that hit her.
“Prayer, full power! Use Shield” I called out frantically. Prayer once again spread her wings, only this time a circle of white stars appeared in front of her body. Meanwhile, Magcargo fired a large flaming star. The Fire Blast collided with the stars, and I began to sweat. Come on Prayer, you can do it… I thought to myself as the Fire Blast began to slowly push the stars back. The Fire Blast was slowly pushing the stars back, and it was only a few moments before it passed through the severely weakened Shield move.
“Prayer, use Screech!” I shouted over the roar of the flames. Prayer, concentrating on keeping the Shield intact, raised her head and screeched loudly; we all the kid and I, as well as the few spectators covered their ears while Magcargo groaned and withdrew into his shell. Then the Fire Blast burst through the Shield, but disintegrated a few millimetres in front Prayer, badly blackening the front of her chest.
“Great, we’ve got the advantage now!” I called out, “Now, finish it with Solarbeam!” The flower pattern on Prayer’s back lit up, as it began absorbing sunlight. She opened her beak and small yellow orb appeared slightly in front of it, which grew slightly every few seconds.
“Come on…” I urged silently, pretty soon Magcargo was going to come out of his shell, and that wasn’t going to be good. Seconds passed and nothing much happened.
After exactly a minute however, Prayer fired the orb which stretched out and became a beam. The attack smashed into Magcargo’s shell, denting it severely and probably damaging him badly. When the light from the bright attack died down, Magcargo’s shell was on its side, looking to be in bad shape. The kid held out a poke ball and recalled his defeated Pokemon. Almost immediately he pulled out another and threw out into the field. A human shape Pokemon at about four or five feet tall stood there. She had long blonde hair, large red lips and a long red dress. She also had a black face and black gloves.
“Jynx…” she said in a very seductive voice. She had a four times type advantage with one of her two types, and the other of her types was going to be hard to get past, and even though she had very little in the way of defences, getting close enough to physically attack was going to be difficult with her psychic ability.
“Sky Attack!” I yelled, wanting to try and take her out before she got warmed up and powerful. Prayer, hovered in the air for while, her body faintly glowing orange.
“Wait for it…” the boy said quietly to his Jynx. After a few seconds, Prayer was sparkling and completely orange. She flapped her wings and dived rapidly towards Jynx. “Now! Use Doubleslap!” the boy shouted and Jynx spun to her left slapping Prayer, before spinning back to the right and slapping her again. She fell to the ground.
“Now, use Lovely Kiss!” Jynx walked up to Prayer and kissed her, causing her to instantly asleep. A couple of seconds after Prayer had fallen asleep the object on her necklace flashed white, and as suddenly as she’d fallen asleep, she woke up.
“What?” the boy exclaimed.
“Mint Berry.” I replied smugly. “Wing Attack!” I quickly commanded, catching the boy off guard. Prayer slammed her wing into Jynx, causing the ice Pokemon to fall back.
“Psywave!” the boy ordered and without getting up a blue aurora surrounded Jynx. The blue aurora then spread in psychic energy waves slicing into Prayer, causing her to cry out. I tried to shut out the sound and think of a way to defeat Jynx. Prayer wouldn’t have enough energy to beat his third Pokemon if she tried another Sky Attack or Solarbeam, so they were out of the question, Wing Attack was doing all right, but it wasn’t going to be enough on its own, and even though Razor Leaf was a long range attack, Jynx would easily be able to defend herself against it. Then an idea struck me. It was risky, but worth a shot…
“Get back into the air!” I yelled as loudly as I could. Prayer lifted her head from where she was lying on the ground, and the noise distracted Jynx, so the psychic waves disappeared into the air.
Prayer screech loudly, which gave me another idea that could be added to the plan I already had in mind. She spread her wings and soared into the air.
“Prayer, Screech and Wing Attack!” I commanded. Prayer wheeled round in midair and screeched again, loudly this time, and everyone – including Jynx – covered their ears. Continuing screeching, Prayer dived and unfurled her wings, heading towards Jynx. A look of horror crossed Jynx’s face, but she was powerless to do anything, as Prayer’s right wing slammed into her body. Jynx was sent tumbling backwards, and Prayer stopped screeching.
“Now, before she can get up, Whirlwind! Suspend her in the air!” I called out. Prayer flapped her wings rapidly and a strong wind picked up, lifting Jynx off the ground and into the air, where she floated being savagely battered by fierce winds.
“Finish it with Razor Leaf!” I said calmly, knowing that Jynx was now out. Prayer stopped flapped, and the winds instantly stopped, and Jynx fell from the sky shrieking all the way. She slammed into the ground, and began to force her way into a standing position. Prayer cawed loudly and fired four leaves at the heavily damaged Jynx. They cut into her body, and she collapsed to the floor, fainted. The boy silently recalled his second fainted Pokemon, and threw his third and final poke ball onto the field. I crossed my fingers, hoping for something not to difficult, as Prayer was now panting in exhaustion.
The poke ball exploded in a flash of light and a three foot high orange mushroom with six legs, two claws and head appeared.
“Para!” cried the Parasect, snapping its claws.
“Spore!” the boy shouted instantly. Parasect snapped its claws again and made a faint noise, before it began shaking violently and yellow sleep spores spread across the battlefield.
“Whirlwind!” I commanded again. Prayer, lifted her head, and with a flap of her wings took of into the air. She then began rapidly flapping her wings again, and once again winds picked, up, only this time it sent the sleep spores back towards Parasect.
“S**t.” the boy cursed as his Parasect breathed in the sleep spores and instantly began snoozing. He recalled his Pokemon, and a few seconds later, Prayer fell from the skies landing in a heap on the floor.
“Nice work,” I said recalling her to her poke ball. “Good battle. But I don’t want your Pokemon or your money thanks.” And with that I turned and walked off in the direction of the Pokemon Centre.

~

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

[Tutankhamun]

It was a good start. Though, a pokemon beating three other pokemon in one chapter, and winning isn't exactly my thing, but, this is only the first chapter, and I'm sure your character had loads of experience with Prayer (good name too :yes: )

I like the creativity with your new pokemon and your worlds. That is very good. Although, you really didn't explain much about your new pokemon and your worlds. You may want to write a chapter about those. Create a setting for the readers to visualize.

Also, please seperate your paragraphs. It is really hard to read with everything all jumbled-up. I get lost and I tend to loose my interest in reading.

Other then that, the story is very good and well written. I'm not much of a grammer and spelling expert, so I won't attack you on that =D

I'll keep and eye out for this fic, and wait patiently for your next chapter.

[Neo-Xantios]

Hello once again, Snorlax19. I am impressed with your first chapter with all the brilliant battle descriptions and the strong first-person perspective voice. It looks like you've created an innovative custom Pokémon, though I've realised you've only described it partially so I had to use my random imagination to visualize her actions and expression.

Like what Tutankhamun said, I praise your creativity for Treeling's nickname, Prayer. And like what he said, I would appreciate it greatly if your story was properly spaced (Indenting here is a great pain! :mad2:).

But overall, it was a promising start with a firm grasp at the reader's attention. I hope you'll continue this and bring it to a conclusion.

Best of luck! :wave:

[Pig on the Wing]

Well, I'll start by thanking you both for reading and replying, and urging anyone else whose read it, to please reply.

Tutankhamun: The next chapter has a bit about his background and how he got where he is now and the like. I'll try and remember to seperate paragraphs in the next chapter as well. The battle was really just a one off, and any chance of one beating three isn't coming up again, I can tell you.

Neo-Xantios: Hello. Well, I'll try and include more description in the future. And like I said to Tutankhamun I'll try and remember to space it properly.

~

Well, thanks for your comments both of you, and if anyone else who read this would reply I'd be grateful. :wave:

[Pig on the Wing]

Odd, but I'm writing quite quickly for once... enjoy the next chapter.

Chapter 2: Toxicon

The next day dawned bright and early. The morning sunshine rolled out over Ashdown Village, and birds twittered in the trees and sea creatures splashed around in the sea, the only other noise coming from trainers swimming in the sea, trying to get an early start for Seafoam Island, and possibly even Cinnabar Island.

I woke slowly with the day, and rubbed the little bits of sleep from my eyes. I glanced over to the small pile of logs next to the area I was lying on, and saw that the fire was out, although the embers glowed faintly. Prayer’s poke ball lay next to it, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
I was lying in a cave, which had become my home since I got here two years ago. My earliest memory was when I was twelve years old, a mere child, and I received my reply from the international Pokemon league, and just like when I’d applied at the age of eleven, it said I’d failed to qualify.
My father who was a great Pokemon trainer and wanted me to follow in his footsteps went ballistic at my second failed attempt. I’d tried to reason with him, but my words and pleas were lost on him.
Then my mother, who was not exactly a great trainer, but a trainer nonetheless, stepped in. Her Alakazam teleported myself to this island where I learned to fend for myself, and I never heard from my mother or father again.
I received Prayer two months after this ordeal; I found her lying on the beach, and I had originally taken her for dead, but something made me take her back to the cave with me, and as the world changed around us, I nursed her back to health and trained her up so she became a powerful battle partner, and a trustworthy friend.
A passing trainer had given me a spare poke ball in return for a battle I’d given him, even though he’d won.

I shook vividly to rid myself of the past, and picked up her poke ball. I ventured further into the cave, and swam in the cool spring near the back, allowing the cold water to revive and cleanse me, before I got out, dressed myself, and picked up Prayer’s poke ball as I made my way to the Pokemon centre were I could check for any post that may’ve been sent and get a decent meal inside me.
I walked down the familiar path, past familiar trees and along the same familiar beach, until I reached the Pokemon centre. It was a large building a short way inland, so it was out of the way from tide, yet visible by people from the sea. It had the standard peach coloured outer walls, which a pale blue roof which had a large poke ball symbol on it.
The automatic doors slid open as I approached and I went in, the smell of fresh baking wafting from the kitchens, mingling with the standard hospital smell emitting from the recovery centre.
“Ah, master Andrew,” greeted the nurse behind the desk. She had dyed her hair bottle green today, and had it in its usual bun, under her white nurses’ hat with a red cross on it. She also had the standard peach nurses’ uniform on.
“Morning, Jane.” I said, nodding.
“How’s Prayer this morning?”
“She’s fine.”
“That’s good to hear.” She reached under her counter, “This came for you.” She said, handing me a sealed envelope. It had the Pokemon League symbol on it.
“Thanks.” I said, walking into the café area to read the letter and have a steaming cup of tea. I sat down at a vacant table (there were plenty of them; there were only about two or three tables with people at them) and carefully opened the letter. The letter was clearly typed, but the signature at the bottom was handwritten. A waiter came over.
“What will it be, sir?” he asked.
“One cup of tea, milk but no sugar, thanks.” The waiter smiled.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” He walked off, and returned about a half a minute later with a mug of tea.
“Thanks.” I said gratefully.
“Is that all, sir?” he asked.
“Yes, for now.” The waiter nodded and walked off. I decided to read the letter while my tea cooled.

‘Dear Master Andrew,
After reading your stunning essay, and marking your application test, it is with great disappointment that I write to you to inform you that despite your excellent application, you will not qualify to participate in this year’s League. Better luck next time.

Professor Lum, Head of the Pokemon League’

I calmly folded the letter up, and slid it back into its envelope. It was effectively what I’d been expecting, but three years in a row of not qualifying for either of the two leagues… it really crushed ones’ spirit. I drank my now cooled tea, and suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore.
Acceptance into the League only meant you got a trainers’ ID, which allowed you to participate in the League finals, had you collected the six necessary badges. The League was held every two years… a plan began forming in my head; I had two years to execute it, how hard could that be? In the two years I’d been training Prayer I’d collected a small amount of money, and I’d probably be able to get a licence if I had all six badges maybe…
I remember reading somewhere that in the older days, eight badges were required to participate in the League, but that all changed after two gym leaders mysteriously disappeared. It was easier in those days though, and there had been three Leagues’. Now though, there were only six gyms to beat and two Leagues’ to conquer, and the gyms were much harder to defeat.
I rose from the table, placed some money on next to the empty mug and went back into the main reception. I made sure to tip the waiter £10; it must be hard to have to smile all day and not snap at people.
“How many Pokemon are trainers’ allowed to carry nowadays?” I asked Jane as I got to the reception.
“Oh, six still, I think… yes, that’s right. Six Pokemon can be carried by a trainer.” she after a moment of thought.
“Thanks,” I pulled the rest of my money out of my pocket. “I’ll have four different poke balls.” I said. She pulled a tray out from under the counter and unlocked it, before opening the glass lid and placing it on the counter. Inside were five different types of poke ball.
‘TYPE BALL: CATCHES POKEMON THAT ARE OF A DIFFERENT TYPE TO THE ONE THE TRAINER IS USING’ was written above a row that contained pure black poke balls.
‘POKE BALL: A STANDARD POKE BALL’ was on the label above the red and white spheres. Prayer was in one of them, so I decided to not get one of those.
‘STRIKE BALL: THIS BECOMES MORE EFFECTIVE AS MORE ATTACKS ARE DEALT IN BATTLE’ was the caption above a row green and blue poke balls.
‘STATUS BALL: WORKS WELL ON POKEMON INFLICTED WITH STATUS EFFECTS’ headed the yellow poke balls.
‘GENDER BALL: 100% CATCH RATE ON POKEMON THAT ARE THE OPPOSITE GENDER TO THE TRAINER’S POKEMON, 0% CATCH RATE ON POKEMON THAT ARE THE SAME GENDER AS THE TRAINER’S POKEMON’ was above the pink and orange balls.
“I’ll have a status ball, a type ball, a strike ball and a gender ball please,” I asked, removing the four poke balls from the case. “Just keep it all.” I said, as Jane began counting the money. She looked puzzled for a minute, but swept it into the cash register, before hurriedly locking the poke ball case and putting it under the counter.
“Seeing as you have five poke balls,” she said as I turned to leave, “we are required to give you a free trainer’s belt.” I turned round and she handed me a black belt, which five suction cups on it for poke balls. I put the belt on my black trousers, and clipped the five poke balls onto it, with Prayer’s at the front. I then smoothed my black shirt with collapsible sleeves over the belt. I took the sleeves off, and folded them up, putting them in my pockets.
“Good luck,” Jane said as I left the building, and I smiled to myself. I took a deep breath of the fresh sea air, and sent pressed the button on Prayer’s poke ball, releasing her from her spherical prison. She stood on the ground, and I swung gently onto her back.
“We’re headed for Fuchsia City.” I said to her, “We’ve got a gym to beat.” She cawed loudly, and spread her wings, taking off with ease and skimming slowly over the cool calm blue sea that sparkled under the bright morning sun.
I felt the exhilarating feel of flight, the rush of the wind around me, and the sheer thrill of speed. Fuchsia City came within view after half a minute.
“Set down by the Pokemon centre.” I said to her, wrapping my arms around her neck as she skidded to a stop. I rolled off her and landed on all fours on the ground next to her. I stood up, brushed myself off and went inside, recalling Prayer as I did so.
“Nurse, please heal my Pokemon.” I said, handing the nurse Prayer’s poke ball.
“This’ll take a few seconds,” she said putting the poke ball onto a machine and pressing a button. The poke ball began to glow and I looked around the building; from the outside it was the same as the Ashdown centre, and on the inside it was the same also. Not much thought was put into the design of these buildings.
“All done.” The nurses’ voice jolted me out of thought.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the poke ball, and stepping outside. I began walking down the path, and I reached a stile; and on the other side was a large building, with a purple roof and the word: ‘GYM’ written on a sign which was attached to the roof.
I climbed over the stile, and pushed the door open, entering the dimly lit room. There wasn’t much inside, a couple of bar lights on the ceiling which didn’t do much, and from where I was standing, darkness, a green trainer box and more darkness.
I stepped up to the trainer box, and climbed the ladder to the top. From here, I could see another trainer box, a blue one, on the other side of the room. In between the two was a large battlefield, being suspended in the air by chains from the walls. Underneath the arena, to my horror was a miniature sea of poison.
“Three on three, no time limit, no switching.” said a cold voice from the other trainer box. I looked over to see a man standing in it. He looked to be in his forties, and he had spiked black hair, a red shirt and black trousers. He had a belt with five poke balls on it around his waist. Strangely enough though, the man had purple eyes, and then I realised that there were in fact three bar lights; one over each of the two trainer boxes and another over the arena. Then another two came on, and slowly the room lit up completely.
“My name is Joseph. I’m the gym leader here.” he said.
“Andrew, hope you’re experienced in losing?”
“We’ll see.” He threw a poke ball into the arena and three foot tall bee appeared. It had a large tail stinger and four legs instead of three. It stood on its back legs, and on the end of its two front legs were two more stingers.
“Bee!” it cried out, in a humming tone of voice. A Beedrill wasn’t going to prove difficult. I tossed my only occupied poke ball into the arena, and Prayer appeared. Joseph seemed surprised at first, but he soon got over it, and the battle got underway.
“Beedrill, Toxic it!” Joseph ordered, pointing at Prayer. Beedrill, thrust its tail stinger forward, and two streams of poisonous sludge shot out of it, headed for Prayer.
“Prayer, try and dodge it!” I called out. Prayer darted to the left, but Beedrill had already anticipated and averted the course of his attack, so this poison drenched Prayer. My fist clenched, I couldn’t be beaten by a bug!
“Beedrill, Hyper Beam!” Joseph said, and my eyes widened in fear. The toxic was already taking its toll on my half grass Pokemon, and she wasn’t taking it very well. She was standing on the ground, with her wings, draped on the floor, and she was panting.
Like last time, Beedrill flung its tail stinger forward, only this time, a small orange orb appeared growing in size slowly. After a couple of seconds of the orb extended into a massive orange beam that sizzled and crackled with power. It slammed powerfully into Prayer, and she was sent screaming backwards, slamming painfully into the trainer box. Not wanting to explain I only had one Pokemon, I decided to vamoose before the dust cleared. I quickly recalled Prayer and jumped down from the trainer box, running out of the gym, leaping over the stile and running to the Pokemon centre.
I pushed the door open, and placed the poke ball on the counter.
“Nurse, heal again please.”
“So soon after the last time?” she asked and I nodded in reply. She sighed and placed the poke ball on the conveyor belt on the machine and pressed a button. Once again, the poke ball began glowing and after a few seconds, it stopped glowing and the machine emitted a faint, high-pitched ‘ping’ and the nurse handed me the poke ball back.
As soon as I got outside, a let Prayer out of her poke ball.
“We need another Pokemon,” I told her. She nodded and I jumped onto her back. She took off once again, only this time she skimmed across the surface of the water much slower than she had before. A trout sized purple fish came into view and caught my attention after a few minutes of aimless flight.
“Grab it,” I said, pointing at it. Prayer, stuck her claws out and grabbed it, gliding back towards Fuchsia. Halfway back, I noticed she’d begun to slow down and was panting heavily.
By the time she got us back to the shore, and had dropped the fish onto the sand, she was shaking and not looking at all well. She’d also begun to sweat and I looked at the fish strangely. It flopped around on the sand, but opened its mouth and began moaning quietly. A stream of vile smelling purple liquid shot from its mouth, soaking Prayer. She collapsed, unable to fight whatever was internally attacking her and I worriedly recalled her. I looked at my four empty poke balls, analyzing their specs, and trying to figure out which one would be best.
The fish, once again opened its mouth, and shot a stream of clear liquid at me, causing me to choke and splutter, but realise it was using the water gun technique and thus confirming my thoughts of it being a water type, or at least part water.
I dropped Prayer’s poke ball to the ground, and assuming that the fish was male due to its choice to attack instead of flee, I unclipped the pink and orange gender ball from my belt. Prayer came out, lying down, but still barely conscious. Bending down, I scooped up a handful of sand and dived to the ground, rolling in the direction of the fish and flinging the sand at it as I rolled past, imitating a sand attack. I then grabbed it and threw it up into the air, letting it slam viciously onto the ground, before I jumped into the sea and pushed a whole load of the liquid at it, imitating the vital throw and surf techniques.
Finally, I ran up behind Prayer, and hurled the gender ball at the fish. It was sucked in and almost immeadiately after, the red light in the centre ring around the poke ball went out and a faint ‘ping’ came from it. I picked it up, and at the same time, recalled Prayer, clipping both poke balls to the belt. I was amazed at the fact, that not only had I actually captured a second Pokemon, but that I was the one who’d battled it…
I walked into the Pokemon centre, and for the third time in one hour asked the nurse to heal my Pokemon, although this time there was two Pokemon to heal as opposed to one. She had given me an odd look, but healed them both nonetheless. After she’d returned my poke balls to me, I sent out my newly captured Pokemon.
“What’s this?” I asked the nurse.
“Oh,” she said, looking at it carefully, “It looks like a Toxicon, a water and poison type.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning and leaving the centre after recalling my new Toxicon. I sat down on the bench outside the Pokemon centre, thinking about what to do next, and what I was going to call Toxicon.

~

Once again: thoughts, comments, suggestion?

[Neo-Xantios]

Ah, that was an interesting chapter with the introduction of another new Pokemon, but then again, I failed to picture it vividly in my mind. You can give a little more of its description in the next chapter. I like the little reference to Andrew's past; his parents seem to be one of the most terrible I've ever encountered in fics. Your descriptions of the battle was superbly done, though I found it was a little abrupt.

Excellently done. Best of luck! :wave:

[Tutankhamun]

Nice chapter! Now that I know a little bit about your character's past. I still can't believe that his parents actually let him loose at a deserted area, and he never saw them again. Wow, I'm glad that I don't have that type of parents.

As for the waiter..ehm...I hope your character tiped him very well. I'm a waiter at bar/resturant, and it isn't easy smiling when you are having a bad day, and still trying to beat the $7.00 tipping.

Anyway, I agree what Neo said, though, I would like to add that you still need to paragraph. But, again, I'm still reading your fic, so I guess I can live w/o paragraphing for now. I also spotted a couple of grammatical errors and spelling error, but I figured that those are typos.

So, he caught another pokemon. A purple trout that is a water/poisen type. Interesting. I'm still having a hard time visualizing Prayer, but I get the picture that it is a huge hawk-like bird, though, that is what I'm picturing it as.

The gym battle was good too. I was expecting him to run away from the battle after when the gym leader said "Three on three." I was thinking "Wait, he only has one pokemon...what is Snorlax19 thinking!"

Now, I usually don't watch pokemon movies, shows, and all sorts of things, so I'm still new to all of this. But, I like your types of pokeballs, especially the Gender Pokeball. I don't know if that is used in the games, movies, or show, but if isn't I would like to say "Very creative!"

Well, other then that, the chapter was good so far! I can't wait to see what is up next! I wonder if I'm going to see Joseph again since your character ran out from the battle.

I'll keep an eye out for the next chapter.

[mistysakura]

Good job. The bit where Andrew tried to battle the gym leader with only Prayer showed his overconfidence; although Prayer is good, could he have expected less from a gym leader? The battle between him and the Toxicon was um... interesting, and certainly original. I see that you're intending to use made up Pokemon quite a bit in this fic, which will be interesting.

I can't believe his parents left him deserted like that...

[Pig on the Wing]

Neo-Xantios: Ah, in that case I'll put more description next time. At some stage during future chapters bits of his past will crop up, whether in dreams or triggered by something that happened, where they'll come up, you'll just have to wait and see. Well, seeing as he only had one Pokemon at the time, and it fainted, the battle had to be aprubt.

Tutankhamun: Well, his mother did it to protect him in a way, more on that in later chapters though...
About the waiter thing, I've edited it to include something about that, thanks for pointing it out.
Clearly paragraphing isn't something I'm good at... :( Anyways, I normally just spellcheck it, but I'll start proof-reading it as well, and try to correct all the errors I can.
You're pretty much along the right lines of what Prayer looks like, so well done there :D
Well, in one of the games there's something called a Love ball, which works on a similar prospect to the gender ball, so... ah well.

mistysakura: Ah, another reader. Well, seeing as he's had Prayer for a while, he's going to be over confident. She's all he's ever used... it's so sad... *cries* Er, yes...
I prefer made up Pokemon for the main character, as it allows me to sort of be more creative in my writing, so, yeah...
Heh, as I said to the other two, more ont he parents thing later...

~

Thanks to you three for reading and replying, and again, anyone else who has read this, please reply as your thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.
Next chapter hopefully be up... um, soon... :rolleyes:

[Iveechan]

I didn't like the one little comment on Toxicon's gender being known because it prefered to fight than flee. I found it to be sexist.

Other than that, I like this story. The made-up Pokemon seem like they're going to be nice and regular, not overly powerful, and I liked the way Prayer defeated the Jynx. Toxicon seems like he's going to be gross with the crap coming out of his mouth. But more description may be needed like how his fins look and stuff. Heh, I imagined Prayer as looking like Moltres or Fearow in the body for some reason. Right now I imagine Toxicon as looking similar to Whiscash in shape with those vacant eyes but with a Magicarp mouth.

[Pig on the Wing]

Iveechan: Ah, another reader. :)
I suppose it is a bit sexist isn't it? But, I'm basing this on animals, and usually female animals will only fight if they're hungry/protecting their babies or unhatched eggs.
If the Pokemon are really strong, it just gets boring as the trainer wins every battle, time and time again... so repetitive...
Meh, I definately need more description...

~

On a side note, as Iveechan said, Prayer is similar in size and shape to that of Moltres, which those of you who know much about the game or follow the cartoon (maybe) you'll know what it is.
Toxicon, is effectively the same as Magikarp, only slightly longer.

[Pig on the Wing]

Yay, another chapter. Enjoy:

Chapterr 3: The Tomb Badge

I pointed down, to the ground, to what was once Celadon City. Six years ago, this place would be filled with people of all sorts; trainers for the Gym, gamblers for the game corner and shoppers for the ridiculously low priced, over sized shopping centre…
Now however, it was merely a mass pile of blackened rubble; there were no houses, no shopping centre, no game corner, no Pokemon centre, no Gym and certainly no people.
Prayer, flapped her wings gently, and landed on the blackened and slightly paved path. I slid off her back onto the ground, waiting for a few seconds to get accustomed to walking on the ground as opposed to flying on her back, before holding out her poke ball and recalling her. I headed right, past all the rubble until I reached a small lake, it may have once been clear but now its dark and murky waters had ash and dirt floating in it, and it was most likely poisonous to a human foolish enough to drink it. The dim evening sunlight did little to light up anywhere below the surface of the water, and many buildings were cast in shadow, with figures seemingly rushing across behind them, under the cover of darkness.
There was clearly nothing here of interest, so I sent Prayer out again, jumping on her back whilst she took off with a massive, single and incredibly powerful flap of her wings.
The wind picked up and she rocketed out of the ruined city, headed west towards the slowly setting and already low hung sky.

Pretty soon a small village appeared. It was on the ground, and I was going to ignore it, but just as we were passing over it, a loud screech was heard and massive orange beam crackling with energy blasted into the air, with a Pokemon caught on the end of it.
Prayer had to stop so suddenly I was almost thrown off, and if she hadn’t veered sharply left, I’d probably have been destroyed; Pokemon attacks may not be too dangerous to Pokemon, but powerful attacks are life threatening to a human.
Without me even having to tell her, Prayer dropped to the ground, although not the way I would’ve chosen; she nose dived. She straightened herself out so she was vertical, and then she powered her way downwards. I felt as though I was being ripped apart, the wind picked up horrifically, scratching at my skin and even cutting me in certain places, I could feel my grip slipping and I was expecting to be thrown off at any second. The ground became terrifyingly close and Prayer didn’t look as though she was in any mood to slow down or even stop. Just before she hid the ground though, she somehow managed to practically stop, gliding carefully, mere inches off the ground. This time however, I was thrown from her back, and I rolled along the ground, coming to stop after a few seconds.
I got up and dusted myself off, looking around and taking in my surroundings.
I was standing in a small village. There were huts scattered everywhere that looked as though they were made of wattle. None of them had doors or windows, just holes cut into the building where the doors and windows would’ve been. A few of the people stopped what they were doing and stared at Prayer and I, turning their heads slowly from one of us to the other. Clearly they’d never heard of either technology or civilization, but what caught my attention was hut slightly larger than the rest.
In front of it, a small fire was going and there was a large hole in its thatched roof. However, what concerned me most was the sign just above the entrance. It was a word that had been chiselled loosely into the large, jagged rectangular stone. It said: ‘JIM’ .
Either a very important man called Jim lived in that hut, or because of their crude ways of living and thus their lack of education which would lead to poor spelling, meaning that they had meant to put ‘GYM’. I looked around and a few of the people were whispering to each other, talking quietly amongst themselves, throwing an excited glance at me and then Prayer every now and then.
I recalled Prayer, wondering and slightly worried what they were planning. Then without warning a figure emerged from the building. He was tall and like me had brown eyes and long black hair. Unlike me however, he had a large ugly scar down the side of his right cheek and he wore shorts and a shirt and no shoes. He nodded to me and as he walked past I couldn’t help but notice that around his waist was a belt, and on the belt were four poke balls.
“That a gym?” I asked, pretty sure that he’d know, seeing as he’d just come out of it.
“Yup,” he replied, “bloody hard too, I lost. There’s some person in this village that heals Pokemon. I’m going to see him now. Have fun losing if you fight that gym though.” And before I even had a chance to speak he was walking away.
“A gym, huh…” I said out loud. I turned and walked through the doorway into the gym. It was dark inside, with only a few candles attached to the walls, only barely lighting the long winding passageway I was walking down. From the outside, it didn’t look this bad, but once you were inside the building it really freaked you out.
Also from the outside, the building didn’t too big, but inside it stretched on forever. The walls now looked and felt as though they were embedded in sand, and even further along were crude drawings.
Just as I was about turn and run out of the building screaming like a madman, I reached my destination; the arena.
It was large and sandy cavern. There was no ‘arena’ as such and no trainer boxes. There were candles all along the four walls of the room, lighting it up quite a fair bit. In the centre of the room, was a large square shaped bond and there was a large circular hole in the roof, although for some reason sunlight wasn’t able to get through. From the shadows across the room, a strange man emerged.
He wore a cloth that went across one shoulder, covered his entire body and legs and ended just before his feet. He was bald, clean shaven and had blue eyes.
“Welcome challenger,” he said, “This will be a two on two battle,” at that I breathed a sigh of relief. “At stake is the Tomb Badge. No switching is allowed. Begin!” He unclipped his first poke ball and prepared to throw it, but before he swung his arm round he spoke again, “There is another thing.”
“Go on,” I said, gesturing with my hand.
“If you can defeat me without using more than ten attacks, I’ll give you an extra something.”
“Should be easy enough,” I said, unclipping Prayer’s poke ball, knowing that my other Pokemon wouldn’t do too well with only one place for him to be during the entire fight. We both threw our poke balls into the arena at the same time, which is supposed to be good luck to the challenger, if he or she is superstitious.
Prayer emerged from my poke ball, looking around the dark and dusty room, her eyes taking in every single major and minor detail.
From the Gym leader’s poke ball came a six foot high yellowy orange human shaped Pokemon. It the same arms, legs and overall body structure as a human. It had a hunched back, a white area of strange white fur around its neck and a pendulum in one hand. It had lots of strange patterns that I didn’t recognize on it’s belly, but other than those it looked exactly like a Hypno.
“Hypno, use Thunder Wave!” the gym leader instantly ordered, wasting no time in minimizing Prayer’s field of movement.
Hypno swung its pendulum around three times and tilted its head back, and three rings of electricity came out of its other hand which was held upright, fingers apart.
Prayer dodged to one side, but one of the rings caught her wing, and she flapped it awkwardly, trying to keep her balance and keep moving at the same time.
“Now use Seismic Toss!” the gym leader ordered, a faint trace of a smile flickering on his face. The Hypno silently moved forward, and grabbed my partially stationary bird, swinging it round and round and round before eventually letting go and letting her smash ruthlessly into the roof.
She landed painfully, and tried to struggle her way up.
“Finish it with Psychic!” the gym leader ordered and Hypno closed its eyes. It began humming a single note and a blue aura surrounded it. Another blue aura surrounded Prayer, and she was almost instantly flung backwards, slamming into the far wall with so much force that dust cascaded down from the ceiling.
Prayer was already severely damaged, and the final mental attack was almost too much
I glanced over to Hypno. He looked tired, and with the amount of power he’d put into the last two attacks, I couldn’t blame him. But even though Hypno was tired, there was no way Prayer was to outlast him as she was not only tired but heavily damaged, and just one more attack would finish her off. The gym leader seemed to know that, and looked over to me.
“A good trainer knows when to recall his Pokemon in battle, I would’ve thought it’d be clear to you that she’s can’t continue battling in her current state.” he said. I merely chuckled. The mint berry had been for a time like this and although it was risky without it, it may win me the battle.
“Prayer, use Rest!” I called out, and Prayer used her first attack since the battle began. She lay down and fell asleep, and her body turned pure white for a couple seconds as her health was completely restored and she was cured of her paralysis. The gym leader didn’t seem worried though.
“Hypno, Dream Eater!” he called, taking pleasure in the fact that he’d just completely crushed all my hopes of winning.
Hypno walked slowly over to the sleeping form of Prayer and closed its eyes. As the seconds passed Hypno recovered fully, and Prayer writhed and twisted in her sleep. After at least a minute, Hypno’s eyes snapped open and he took a few steps backwards as Prayer opened her eyes, and slowly staggered clumsily to her feet. She glared at Hypno, spreading her wings and squawking loudly. If the dream eater technique Hypno had used had had any effect, Prayer sure wasn’t showing it.
Hypno had taken a few more steps back, trying to put as much space between himself and Prayer as possible and he was clearly scared.
“Come on Hypno, you can beat that! Use Poison Gas!” the gym leader ordered. Hypno opened his mouth and burped loudly, and five clouds of purple and dark green gas came out of his mouth headed towards Prayer.
I was about to call for a Whirlwind, but then realised it’d probably take out half of the gym which wouldn’t be a good idea, so instead I used an attack that the gym leader and his Hypno wouldn’t be expecting.
“Prayer, Razor Leaf!” I called. Prayer raised her two wings and four leaves shot out of the patterns on each wing. The eight leaves raced towards Hypno, five of them cutting through the five clouds, and all eight of them sliced into the large yellowy orange Pokemon. The five poisoned leaves all infected Hypno and he began to sway slightly.
Prayer had also been hit by the poisonous clouds, and the dream eater was starting to have and effect, which definitely wasn’t helping. After a few seconds she fell unconsciously to the floor, and I recalled her but was comforted by the thought that although Hypno was still going, he was poisoned as well as being cut and injured by the leaves.
“Go Faith!” I said, throwing Toxicon’s gender ball into the small pond. Toxicon appeared in the murky waters and the ball came straight back to my hand.
“Heh, Prayer and Faith,” the gym leader said, chuckling. “Interesting,” he paused for a couple of seconds, “Hypno, take it out with an Element Blast.” My eyes widened at that; I’d never heard of the attack before meaning it was new, but it sounded incredibly powerful.
“Hyp…no…” the Pokemon said in a deep voice. It held its unused hand up again, and moved it so his four fingers and thumb were pointing at Faith the Toxicon and its palm was facing the ground. At the tip of each finger a small orb appeared and each orb was a different colour. They were red, blue, white, yellow and green. The grew in size, until each of them were about as large as golf balls, before they left his hand and collided with the surface of the water, as Faith had had the common sense to dive to the bottom.
The red orb exploded in a burst of flame which was instantly doused as it landed on the surface. The blue orb exploded in shower of water, also doing nothing to harm Faith.
Then the green orb exploded, and razor leaves launched themselves below the surface slicing through the water and probably Faith as well.
The yellow orb exploded, sending massive sparks of electricity through the small pond and finally the white orb exploded, completely freezing the surface of the water.
There was a loud thud, and Hypno fell to the ground, fainted due to the sheer strain it’d exerted on itself to use that last attack.
The gym leader recalled his Hypno and carefully selected another poke ball, tossing it up in the air catching over and over again.
“We wait to see if your fish survives,” he explained. “If he does, I use my next and final Pokemon, if he doesn’t then I win and you go away and not re-challenge this gym for two months.” No sooner had the words escaped his mouth, than a massive blast of water blasted the sheet of ice into lots of little fragments that showered over the arena.
“In that case…” said the gym leader and he threw his second poke ball, revealing his final Pokemon.
It was a large dark yellow lion, with a blue mane and a red tail. Its eyes darted around the room, and it began to growl softly, opening its jaw every now and then to reveal to rows of dazzlingly white but dangerously sharp teeth.
“Sphinx, use Spark Cyclone!” the gym leader said. Panic built up inside me as I realised that not only was I fighting a new Pokemon, but it also knew new moves.
Meanwhile, Sphinx has opened its mouth and a large black ball had shot out of its mouth and suspended itself in the air, directly above the pond.
The ball began to shudder violently, and then large cyclones of electricity were spiralling into the pond, most likely frying Faith to a crisp.
After the attack had finished, the air was still crackling and everything was charged with static electricity. And there was still no sign of Faith, which caused me to worry about what might’ve happened.
“Faith, use Toxic Stream!” I ordered in case he was still alive. To utmost shock and disbelief, Faith surfaced and carried out my order.
He opened his mouth to reveal four small sharp fangs, and he pressed his spiky fins in against his body, before a stream of purple liquid shot from its mouth drenching Sphinx.
This was the same attack that’d been used against Prayer when Faith was a wild Toxicon and I hoped that it’d have the same effect on Sphinx as it did on Prayer.
Fortunately, Sphinx didn’t seem to be able to withstand poison very easily, and it began to shudder violently.
“Water Gun!” I ordered, and Faith opened his mouth, and a small burst of water blasted into Sphinx, sending him flying backwards.
I grinned; if such a weak attack was having such a major effect on Sphinx then the poison was clearly doing its job well.
“Sphinx, toss and blast it!” the gym leader said, ignoring his Pokemon’s critical status. Sphinx seemed to take on the same attitude, and, gathering its strength, it ran towards Faith and grabbed him with its mouth before throwing it harshly up through the hole in the roof. It then stood on its hind legs and fired an immensely powerful Hyper Beam straight up through the hole. The gym leader and I waited tensely to see what would happen. Slowly the beam disappeared and a few seconds after that Faith came hurtling back through the hole. He slammed into the Sphinx’s back, knocking the lion unconscious, before falling into the pond where it swam around for a few seconds, before also fainting.
The gym leader and I both recalled our Pokemon and we met in the centre of the room.
“Congratulations,” the gym leader said, “you won. And it was a very good battle if I do say so myself. Which I do.” He laughed heartily before continuing, “Here’s proof of your victory here today,” he said, handing me a small circular black badge with a pyramid in the centre of it. “The Tomb Badge.” He stood there for a few seconds longer, his lips moving silently. “And seeing as you only used seven attacks, those being Rest, Razor Leaf, Protect which Faith used twice underwater, Toxic Stream, Water Gun and Slam; I present to you your other gift.” He held out a piece of string with a small square on it. Inside the square were the words: ‘Element Blast’.
“What is it?” I asked holding up the ‘necklace’.
“It’s a TM,” said the gym leader, “It can be used once to teach a Pokemon a new move. If you remember, my Hypno used an attack called Element Blast, and that is the move that that TM contains. It fires a ball of the fire, water, ice, grass and electric type at the opponent, in case you hadn’t figured it out.” I nodded and shoved the TM and the badge into my pockets.
I thanked the gym leader profusely and slowly made my way up through the tunnel and into the dark night.

[Tutankhamun]

Good so far! I laughed when I read about "JIM" and "GYM". That was funny! I also liked your new made-up pokemon Sphinx. My favorite name in ancient history *sighs* Ancient Egypt. I also like Toxicon's name, "Faith". Very nice. So you have Faith and Prayer. Very religiouse, and creative...me like!

Oh yeah, before I forget, I read your edited part about tipping the waiter..lol..much better lol! Being a waiter isn't what it is crack up to be. It is emotionally social draining.

Anyways, I'll keep an eye out for your next chapter!

[Heavenly Sage HLSOE]

Damn, I haven't been following PKMN at all for ages, so I really don't understand. :lol: But anyway, from an English point of view, the chapters were rather impressive, well defined I guess. I couldn't spot much grammar mistakes, so it be a decent piece of work I guess. :tongue:

[Neo-Xantios]

Greetings, Snorlax19. I'm glad you've finally updated this suspenseful story.

From your latest chapter, I find your power ascending with greater descriptions and your powerful writer-reader communication. I was rather surprised to read your description of Celadon; that was very unexpected. The little village was interesting, though, and it reminds me of this place feature in His Dark Materials (Fourth* reference to the trilogy in fanfics). Excellent creativity. Your new Pokemon was enticing, and I finally can picture it (Though I still cannot picture Faith as I do Sphinx). Very innovative attacks. And I'm glad to find the main character's feat in this chapter. I'm also intrigued by the way you use the intensity of attacks to diminish energy.

A smooth progression so far! Good luck.

[Pig on the Wing]

Ah, my loyal readers...

Tutankhamun: Heh, I didn't think it was that funny when I wrote it, but hey, if you laughed, good for you. We need more pleasantness in the world.
Nickname/creative side, I try my best. I'm not really the most religious person in the world though, so religion won't have a major thing in this fic.
I'm glad you read the edit, I did it especially for you :yes:

Heavenly Sage HLSOE: Yay, another reader. Maybe. Meh, it doesn't matter that you haven't followed Pokemon for a while, but it's good that it be a decent piece of work English wise, so, yeah...

Neo-Xantios: Well... that was very complimentary, so thanks I guess.
I'm glad about you being able to picture Sphinx, and hopefully you will be able to with the other Pokemon, and maybe Faith eventually.
Well, it'd be to one-sided if everyone used super-power attacks and never got tired or lost energy and the like, so... you know...
BTW, I have read His Dark Materials.

~

Next chapter should be up... soonish. :wave:

[2ra]

Hey, I saw you posting on Airen's fic so I decided to read yours as well ^^ Well, it seems you've been improving in your fic and it really shows. Pretty good so far, just try to describe your Pokemon a bit more because they're new so the reader has no idea what they look like unless you describe them. Strange how a tm is a necklace, but whatever ^^ Keep up the good work =D

[Pig on the Wing]

2ra: Not really the way I want people to notice my fic, but nevermind.
Heh, every single one of my readers has said I need to improve the description of the Pokemon... :rolleyes:
But yeah, I do try to improve the more I write, so that's good.
The reason behind the TM's being a necklace is explained later, so that'll be there later.

~

Next chapter up by tomorrow. I promise. *runs*

Er, is it illegal to break a promise?

[mistysakura]

That was an interesting chapter. One thing about the battle, I know a lot of the waiting and doing nothing was done on purpose so less attacks could be used, but perhaps you could give us an idea of his tactics. Sometimes it jsut feels like the Pokemon don't have a trainer or something. Other than that, it was good. More description of Pokemon needed :tongue: Anyway, glad the TM necklace is going to be explained. Sometimes writers add in little bits like that just for originality's sake; it's goo d or it to have a function as well.

Tomorrow, eh? I'll wait and see...

[Pig on the Wing]

Er, yes... sorry it's a bit late and all, but, um, other stuff got in the way... yeah... anyways, enjoy:

Chapter 4: Ready, Set, Fight

It was dark outside when I got out of the chamber, and the crescent moon hung low in sky, illuminating a small area of land.
Outside of each of the huts fires were blazing and what looked like smoke was curling from the chimneys. I cautiously made my way across the dimly lit ‘village’ stopping briefly outside each hut until I found one that had a large red cross on its side.
I stepped round the fire and stepped through the doorway, into the room.
The fireplace in the corner was burning merrily, the logs slowly being eaten up by the flame, there was a large pottery pot with water in it on the floor, next to a flat rock and on the rock were smaller pottery jugs, presumably this village’s attempt at glasses. In the middle of the room was a massive clay pot, and next to it were a variety of plants and oddly coloured liquids.
There was a chair made of reeds to the left of the pot, and a round man with a short beard was slumped sleeping in it.
I coughed loudly and he leapt up, his eyes snapping open and a poke ball in his hand.
“Stay back!” he said, and his bald head gleamed from the light of the fire.
“I only need my Pokemon healed,” I said. I was amazed at his antics and how paranoid he was, or at least seemed. The man seemed to relax a bit after that and put his poke ball carefully back into his pocket, his eyes not leaving me for a second.
“What do you need doing?” he asked. I handed him my two poke balls.
“One’s fainted and the other one is damaged quite a bit. I need both of them to full health.”
“I’ll only be a minute then.”
The man walked over to the empty pot in the middle of the room and though some herbs in it. He picked up a large thin piece of wood and began to stir the large pot, and I realised that it didn’t have only plants in it and wasn’t actually empty, but instead had water in it as well.
After a few minutes he sent Prayer out and scooped some of the liquid up in his hand and poured it down her throat. She blinked up a couple of times before opening her eyes and coughing. After that she just lay there panting.
The man sent out Faith who flopped around on the floor, before he added three more herbs and some crushed up leaves to the pot. He then gave each of the two Pokemon three handfuls of it and recalled them both handing me their poke balls.
“All done.” He said. “That’ll be £10.” He finished.
“What!”
“This isn’t a Pokemon centre, I charge you know.”
“I haven’t got any money on me though!”
“Then you’re screwed. You’ve got one day to get me the money. If I don’t have it by tomorrow night,” he moved his hand horizontally across the front of his neck. I nodded and clipped the balls back onto my belt before leaving the building.
It would be morning soon, and I knew that some Pokemon could only be caught at night; usually ghost or dark types, and either of those would be a great asset to my current team. I glanced in the opposite direction of the cliff face and it looked there wasn’t much, only shadows, but I went that way anyway in hope of finding another Pokemon to my team of three. I hadn’t gone far out of the village when I heard a splash and my left foot began to feel very cold and wet.
I pulled my foot out of the river, and saw a dark silver shape dart off down the bank on the other side. I instantly sent out Faith and told him to follow it, which he did, whilst I ran alongside the river trying to catch up to him and the running figure.
“Sludge Bomb!” I screamed hoping he’d know the move. Thankfully he did, and he opened his mouth. A large spherical ball of poison erupted from his mouth and exploded just behind the thing. “Keep it up!” I shouted.
By now though, I was pretty tired and so I sent out Prayer and leapt on her back as she emerged. She easily glided over the surface of the water, overtaking Toxicon within a matter of seconds and then racing ahead of the thing. Prayer wheeled round when she was a short distance away from the thing and flapped her wings once. The Gust attack, although weak, was enough to throw the thing back a short way, where it was hit by an incoming Sludge Bomb.
The attack merely bounced off it, and I panicked. I checked every type against the poison element and figured that it’d have to be a steel or part steel type I was fighting as they were completely immune to poison. Steel types were also resistant to grass and flying type attacks, but they still received some nasty damage from water attacks.
“Water Gun, let’s take that thing!” I called out. A stream of water cascaded into the dark silver thing a few seconds, later and it moaned loudly confirming my thoughts that it was part steel.
“Hydro Pump!” A voice from the shadows shouted loudly, and a massive stream of thick and immensely powerful water erupted from the shadows to my left, smashing into the dark silver thing. “That’s it! Now we’ve got it!” the voice shouted. I instantly grabbed an empty poke ball off my belt, it was the type ball, and I hurriedly threw it at the weakened thing. It was sucked into the poke ball and a few seconds later another poke ball landed on the floor next to mine. My poke ball wobbled twice before it went ‘ping’ and I knew I’d caught it. Because the type ball was black and I wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark, I pressed the retrieve button on the belt where the poke ball had been, and a blue light shot out, and brought the poke ball back, attaching it to my belt.
“That was mine!” the voice shouted, “Hydro Pump him!” I hurriedly recalled Faith and leapt on Prayer’s back. She hadn’t been doing anything, merely standing around so as I jumped on her back she ran forwards in surprise, but instantly fell over as a torrent off water slammed into her, soaking the two of us.
“Let’s get out of here!” I shouted as she got up again. She sawed in response and spread her wings, launching herself into the air and flying over the landscape.
From up here a lot more could be seen, and a large number of yellow lights twinkling in the distance indicated that we were near a town or city, or at the very least civilization. I pointed and she flew in that direction.
“Stop thieves!” the voice came again and I glanced back to see a shining blue Pokemon easily overtake Prayer and spin round. It had piercing red eyes and a bright white chest but other than that it was a light blue colour. It had crazy ruffled feathers and an immensely long tail that trailed out behind it. Its beak was short and either grey or black, it was hard to tell which.
“It’s my Pokemon, I saw it and chased it and caught it.” I told the boy on the back of the marvellous bird.
“Yeah, but my Pokemon’s the one that injured it enough to capture it.” He ruffled the feathers on his birds’ head even more before speaking again. “Blast him out of the sky,” he said, “Ice Beam!”
The Pokemon opened its mouth and without even charging up a freezing bluish white beam erupted from its beak and would’ve crashed into us, had Prayer not spiralled out of the way.
“Let’s go!” I screamed and Prayer shot off towards the city. I heard the bird screech and assumed it was following us. “Zigzag! It’ll help avoid attacks!” I told her and so she flew in a zigzag, with a stray Ice Beam flying past us every now and then.
“Sky dive,” I whispered into her ear, and she instantly dove vertically downwards. I was prepared for it this time though, and so hung on for dear life, my teeth clenched tightly. Another screech indicated that the other Pokemon had attempted the same stunt.
“Dive Bomb them!” I heard the boy shout over the roar of the wind.
“Go higher!” I shouted and Prayer slowed down a little, before veering slightly left and going back upwards whilst a blue and white streak rocketed past us, a ground collision imminent.
“Full speed, we’re almost there!” I called out to her, as the lights got bigger. Prayer sped up to her full speed which was way too fast my liking; I just hung on, not talking, not moving and just solely concentrating on keeping myself on her back.
The town came into view. It was a large collection of houses with purple roofs. There were about twenty houses in all, a Pokemon centre, a Pokemon mart and a large tower. Back east was the village and the remains of Celadon city, up north was a large cave and south was a large walkway across a massive stretch of water that ended in Fuchsia City.
Prayer managed land gracefully just outside the Pokemon centre and I rushed inside, only now realising I was cold, tired and it was very dark outside.
The Pokemon centre was the same as the other two I’d been to, only this one had an upstairs for overnight trainers and a trainer’s lounge where there was a free café and a place for trainers to just chill out and relax. After having the three of my Pokemon healed (for free this time!) I made my way to the trainer’s lounge, and for the time of night that it was there were certainly a lot of trainers around.
The trainers lounge was buzzing with conversation and six three-seat sofas and the four eight-seat tables were crammed full, and there were still people standing up.
“What’s going on?” I asked the Nurse as I went back into the main reception.
“Don’t you know?” I shook my head, “You must be new here then,” I nodded.
“I’ve only just arrived,” I told her.
“Ah. Well, there’s a tournament that begins tomorrow. The whole thing is being held in the central park arena. The entry round is tomorrow.”
“Entry round? Don’t you just register?”
“Not for this one. You have to beat another trainer to pass to the first round. By the end of the entry round there can only be 64 trainers left, so the trainers will keep on battling until there are only 64 left.”
“There’s gonna quite a lot of battling then,” I said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the trainers lounge.
“Well, the only thing is that you have to have at least one legal badge to qualify for the entry round, most of them in there don’t know that, so many of them won’t actually be battling.”
“You have to qualify for the entry round!” I exclaimed, “What’s the prize? It must be something good if it’s that hard just to enter the tournament.”
“This tournament has been going for three years now,” she explained, “The prize each year is a very rare Pokemon; either the three birds: Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres, the three dogs: Entei, Raikou and Suicune or the three tanks: Regirock, Regice and Registeel. One of each of those is chosen by the victorious trainer.”
I whistled in amazement. They were some of the rarest Pokemon known to man. I thanked the Nurse for her help, and decided to see if any trainers in trainer’s lounge wanted to battle in preparation for the tournament tomorrow. To my surprise only one did; the others were all content to watch.
The boy I was now about to fight was about three quarters my size and was wearing baggy black trousers and a red t-shirt. Quite an odd combination, but he had five poke balls on his belt so I didn’t want to take him lightly.
We went out the back way of the Pokemon centre where there was a small arena for trainers to battle; it was mostly grass, with flowers lining the edge. In the middle was a pool of water that stretched the whole length of the arena and at the edge of the water was a small area of sand on both sides.
I walked to the far side of the arena, and unclipped Faith’s poke ball from my belt. The boy pulled a poke ball from his belt and nodded at me.
“All out battle?” he asked.
“Three on three,” I replied, indicating to him that I only had three full poke balls.
“Begin!” the boy shouted and we both threw our poke balls. Faith’s exploded in the water like I hoped it would and the poke ball came straight back to my hand. His poke ball exploded in front of him and a yellow Labrador sized dog appeared on the field. It had large black eyes, pointed ears and white spikes of fur around its neck. Its main body colour was a dusty yellow and its tail was also spikes out.
“Jolteon, Thunder!” the boy ordered, and I cursed. I was using a water and poison type against an electric type. Oh what joy.
A few seconds after the attack had been ordered a massive single bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, electrifying the whole patch of water and frying Faith to a crisp. I recalled him and the boy was grinning like a maniac. I ruled our Prayer; although her grass element would help to weaken the electric attacks they’d still damage her flying element badly. I unclipped the black type ball and threw it onto the field in front of me. The strange Pokemon appeared and for the first time since I caught it, I had the chance to get a good look at it.
It was a spherical dark silver thing, with a trail of dull gold coloured gas streaming out behind it. It had strange crescent shaped white eyes and a mouth that looked as though it’d been cut into its face. It had two small fangs that just stuck out from its top lip. It was also floating in the air.
“You’re now called Spirit,” I whispered to it. It floated it up higher than it was already and then dropped down again. I took that as a yes. “I don’t know any of your attacks, or what Pokemon you are though, so do your best.” I ‘nodded’ again.
“Jolteon, Toxic!” the boy shouted and I grinned. The purple liquid harmlessly dripped down and off Spirit’s body to the ground where it burned away some of the grass. “What!” the boy shouted.
“Spirit, attack it!” I called out and Spirit floated forwards, and a long tongue shot out of its mouth, licking Jolteon roughly. Jolteon was now soaked in saliva, but was also for some reason unable to move very fast. The next thing I knew, the large ray of light flashed down on the Jolteon. I’d seen that attack before though; it was a Confuse Ray and by the looks of it, that Jolteon was also paralysed.
“You’re Jolteon’s been para-confused.,” I told the boy who didn’t seem to know what it was.
“Jolteon, Thunder again!” the boy called, and Jolteon’s fur began to crackle slowly. Spirit closed its eyes, and a black beam shot from it into the Jolteon, who almost instantly fell to his knees. Then another massive bolt of lighting shot down – and crashed into the severely weakened, confused and paralysed Jolteon. The poor Pokemon couldn’t take it and collapsed, and I did feel kind of bad until I remembered what it’d done to Faith.
The boy recalled his Jolteon and threw another poke ball. This time a large strange coloured horse appeared. It was about five feet tall with incredibly muscular legs and hooves with horse-shoes on. It was mainly black with yellow rings on it, and from the top of its head to the tip of its tail was a stream of fire. It whinnied loudly and stomped its hooves on the floor.
“That’s an Umbridash!” the boy called over to me, “It’s a cross between an Umbreon and a Rapidash!” Well the idiot had just effectively told me what type it was; Umbreon was dark and Rapidash was fire so this was a dark and fire type hybrid. Unfortunately, I knew Prayer wouldn’t last long against it if Spirit fainted.
“Headbutt it!” the boy ordered as his attack and his Umbridash lowered its head and charged towards Spirit, but it passed right through him. I now knew that Spirit was a ghost and steel types; fire was good against steel and dark was good against ghost, so I was in a real predicament here.
“A ghost type eh?” the boy shouted over to me, “Bite!”
“Confuse Ray! Don’t let him bite you!” I shouted quickly. I knew that bite was a dark type move and even if it wasn’t very powerful I didn’t want Spirit to get hit by it.
Umbridash ran with tremendous speed at Spirit and a bright ray of light blasted down upon it. It leapt up in the air and bit itself, roaring in pain as it did so. Its eyes glazed over; a sign that the confusion was in full effect and would probably not wear off for a while.
“Great!” I said, “Now attack it!” Spirit floated slowly forward and stuck its tongue out, licking Umbridash who swayed slightly and tensed up. Another Pokemon was para-confused now! The second time in row on Spirit’s debut battle! He was doing well for himself. Spirit floated backwards a bit, and a large black ball that crackled purple energy appeared in front of it. It was about the size of a football and it raced towards the Umbridash, smashing into it and damaging it badly.
“Spirit, use Iron Tail!” I ordered, knowing that if it knew Shadow Ball it had to know Iron Tail as they were powerful ghost and steel attacks so if a Pokemon knew one, it was bound to know the other. The gas streaming out behind Spirit solidified and turned a grey colour in a matter of seconds and extended in length. The ‘tail’ slammed into Umbridash, slamming him to ground where he lay unmoving.
“Damn!” the boy cursed, recalling his fainted Pokemon. His hand hovered over his three remaining Pokemon, before he unclipped his poke ball. “Go Treeling!” he shouted throwing the poke ball. The form of Treeling appeared in front of Spirit and I. The spectators cheered.
“Spirit, Shadow Ball!” I commanded, but Treeling had already fired four razor leafs which sliced into Spirit. The damage they inflicted coupled with his current exhaustion was too much and he began to sway.
“Treeling, end it! Sunny Day!” he ordered. His Treeling cawed out a melodic tune in its screechy voice and the night became day. “Now use Solarbeam!” he finished smugly. Treeling opened its beak and a Solarbeam instantly erupted smashing horrifically powerfully into Spirit who fainted. I recalled him and smirked slightly. Sunny Day would last for about five minutes and if his Treeling could benefit then Prayer who was also a Treeling could benefit too.
“Go Prayer!” I shouted throwing her poke ball and she appeared to face her foe. They were both Treelings, but the boys’ was slightly taller than Prayer.
“Razor Leaf!” he ordered.
“Whirlwind!” I countered. Treeling fired four more razor leafs and Prayer flapped viciously, causing the leaves to fly off in random directions. The other trainers that were spectating erupted into cheers and whistles.
“Wing Attack it!” the boy ordered.
“Dodge!” I said, and Prayer threw herself sideways, avoiding the Wing Attack that would have hit her otherwise. “Now use Razor Leaf!” I shouted and Prayer raised her wings, six leaves firing at the opposing Treeling whose back was exposed. The leaves cut into him and he turned round, his eyes glaring at Prayer.
“Fury Strike, get it back!” the boy shouted angrily and a red outline of Treeling darted out from the actual Pokemon and crashed into Prayer, cutting her.
“Sky Attack!” the boy ordered.
“Protect yourself! Use Shield!” I called out. A circle of white stars appeared in front of Prayer and the Treeling began absorbing orange energy. After a few painful seconds of no action Treeling was completely orange and launched itself violently at Prayer. It slammed into the stars, which held it back for a couple of seconds and absorbing some of the damage the Shield burst and the Treeling collided with Prayer sending her flying back, skidding along the ground, and coming to a stop just before the water. She raised her head slightly and I knew she was almost finished. The sun began flickering; indicating that the Sunny Day was wearing off and I knew it was now or never.
“Come on Prayer! You can do it! Use Solarbeam!” I called out to her. Prayer opened her beak and a massive Solarbeam launched itself at Treeling who could do nothing to get out of the way. It was sent flying back and it landed in an explosion of dust. It just lay there, like Prayer and now all that could be done was waiting to see who would faint first. Or so I thought.
“Treeling, use Synthesis!” the boy shouted and as the final word escaped his mouth my spirit fell; my hopes were crushed, I couldn’t beat him now.
Treeling was covered in a bright blue aura and he began shimmering, recovering health. Then the sun disappeared, night took over again and the blue glow faded. The Synthesis was even half completed, but it was enough. Treeling struggled to its feet, and Prayer fainted. We both recalled our Pokemon and the children were screaming with excitement and some were congratulating the boy.
“Great battle!” he exclaimed coming over to me. I nodded and we shook hands. “Are you going for the tournament tomorrow?” he asked and again I nodded. “Good luck!” he said as he turned to go back to his friends.
“Congrats,” I said to his retreating back, “And good luck to you too, you’re gonna need it.”

[Neo-Xantios]

Wow, an action-filled chapter with much excitement. That mulefa style village was pretty hostile and their methods of healing and attitudes were crude. Anyway, the new Pokemon you introduced was brilliant and the descriptions were great. The battle was suspenseful and the result unexpected. I hope to see more surprises from this well-developed story.

[mistysakura]

That was an interesting battle. I think your description of Pokemon's getting a bit better. Faith could still be described more though. Also, his "good luck, you'll need it" comment at the end of the chapter was a bit illogical, I think. I mean, if someone has just defeated you, then obviously they're better than you, so why act like they're suckers or something? Unless he lost that match on purpose, which I don't think he did. The other possibility is that he's not thinking about what he's saying, but still a bit illogical... oh well.

The village healing man's charging him was funny, heh. Hope you don't forget about it! Or else, when he's a Pokemon master, he'll still be in his debt... literally. :tongue:

[Pig on the Wing]

rawr, yay replies...

Neo-Xantios: Yay, compliments! Meh, there's gonna be quite a bit of unexpected stuff happening later, so yeah...
Heh, they were uncivilized, backward 'stone-age' people...

mistysakura: Ah, the comment comes into play later... I suppose it was a bit odd at the time, but it'll make sense later on.
Heh, well, as he said, it wasn't a pokemon centre... :sweat4:

~

Meh, next chapter up soon, cos wheneva i put a deadline for da next chapter i neva have it up on time... :rolleyes:

[Pig on the Wing]

Phew, that took so long to write. It's a long chapter, and heck, IMO it's the best so far. Very definately enjoy:

Chapter 5: Alliance

It was a grey dull and overcast with rain threatening to pour down at any given time. The park was like any park really; the entire place covered in grass with a bandstand near the centre, a wide path going all the way around it, a play area for the kids, various ball game pitches, a picnic area and a large fountain near the bandstand. There was also a humongous lake which undoubtedly contained Pokemon and fishers in the centre. Set aside was a massive area which contained eight arenas, a small desk and when I got there a large queue of trainers.
The arenas weren’t the same as in the Pokemon centre, and not all of them had patches of water in them so I was pretty annoyed about that because Faith wouldn’t be able to battle properly.
When at last I reached the desk, they the woman (she had glasses, blue eyes and curly blonde hair) took my age name and how many Pokemon I had. She then checked my badge with a scanning device before telling me my match would be at 12:30 against a nine year old girl called Rosie.
I had two hours to waste so I wandered around the park, letting Prayer and Spirit attack various Rattata and Sentret that emerged from bushes.
The strange thing was that the entire park seemed empty, which to me didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t dwell on it much.

After healing my Pokemon and finding out as much as I could about the tournament and its rules I began to make my way to the arenas.
I got there just after 12:30 and the other seven arenas already had battles going on. I wandered over to the arena devoid of Pokemon and faced my opponent; a little girl about half my size, with long blonde hair and green eyes. She had a pair of red jeans and a black t-shirt on.
“Let’s go.” I said to her and she nodded throwing a poke ball. A small Pokemon appeared. It was about three feet tall and yellow, with a zigzag tail, pointed ears and small circles of red on its cheeks. Its ears were black at the tips and its tail was light brown at the tip. It had two large eyes, a nose and a mouth, as well as two very short legs and two stubby arms.
“Pika!” it shouted and electricity crackled across the red on its cheeks.
“Heh,” I said quietly, “A Pikachu?” I unclipped Spirit’s poke ball and threw it; if he could beat a Jolteon then a Pikachu would prove no trouble at all. Spirit emerged and faced the small rodent.
“Agility!” the girl called and Pikachu darted off in a yellow streak. It raced around the arena rapidly and as I tried to follow its rapid path, I got a good look at the arena.
It was the same size as the one in the Pokemon centre and the other seven here, so about 10 feet lengthways and seven feet widthways. It made up of sand and dirt, so I had to try an keep Faith back from this battle as much as possible.
“Try and hit with Iron Tail!” I ordered and Spirit’s gas solidified and went a grey colour. It stretched out trying to hit the blur bit it missed every time.
“Run past it!” the girl called; she was really getting into this and for someone as young as her she seemed to be quite good. The blur ran past Spirit, and the ‘tail’ smashed into Spirit, sending him flying back a bit.
“Do something!” I shouted out to him, and the girl gave me an odd look. Spirit did nothing for a while as he powered up. Then the air around him became blue colour and began to crackle, before it spread out covering the whole area, it spread out as a shockwave in a circular shape, and it faded before it left the arena so as not to hurt any other Pokemon or trainers.
Meanwhile, Pikachu was hit by the blast and sent flying skidding to a stop just outside the arena.
The rules stated that a Pokemon could be recalled when, either:
a) it fainted
b) the trainer felt it could battle no more
c) the trainer wanted to switch
d) it went out of the arena.
The girl looked really upset as she recalled her yellow rodent and for a second I felt sorry for her, until she sent out her next and final Pokemon; a Tyranitar.
The eight foot high green dinosaur emerged, roaring loudly. It had blue scales and a long tail, with thick legs and arms, incredibly sharp teeth and eyes in the side of its head, similar to a bird or a rabbit. It had incredibly sharp teeth, incredibly large claws and its entire body looked as though it were made of steel.
“****,” I cursed quietly. Spirit wasn’t going to do much against it, without water Faith wouldn’t do very Prayer probably wouldn’t do much against it. The rules also said that the first three matches were only two on two battles, so by now many people had finished up their battles and had come to watch; apart from one battle on the far side of the arena, which was between a Jolteon and a small orange dog with a striped pattern down its back and a cream coloured tail and undersides. The trainer using the Jolteon was the kid I’d lost to in the Pokemon centre, but I’d never seen the trainer using the Growlithe before.
“Tyranitar,” the girl called to her massive Pokemon, “use Rock Slide!” The Tyranitar lifted its arms up slowly, as if trying to lift a heavy object, and when his short arms were completely upright and his face showing an expression of what looked like pain, at least ten large rocks shot out of ground coming to a stop just above Tyranitar’s head before he swung his arms forward and the rocks covered the distance between it and Spirit in a matter of seconds, smashing viciously into him but not doing too much damage as his steel element would resist damage from rock attacks.
“Do that shockwave thingy again!” I called out to Spirit, who once again powered up and the shockwave erupted from him, smashing into the Tyranitar’s stomach and winding badly, so it fell to its knees.
“Are you okay?” the girl shouted to her massive dinosaur who roared loudly and stumbled back to his feet in response. “That’s my girl!” she shouted, revealing her Pokemon’s gender, “Now use Crunch!” Tyranitar’s face took on a menacing expression, and the air around the arena suddenly had a heavy feeling to it. A pair of faint black jaws appeared just in front of Tyranitar and slowly moved forwards towards Spirit who was completely immobilized, probably out of fear, but possibly because the air was too thick and heavy for him to move out of the way.
The jaws moved slowly and evilly through the air, my Pokemon completely incapable of evading it. Although his ghost element was weak to it I hoped that his resistance due his steel element would be enough to reduce the damage dealt.
The jaws gradually reached Spirit and clamped viciously on him. Spirit moaned loudly, his face twisting to an expression of pain as they did, before they slowly released him and the air returned to its normal state. Then the ethereal jaws disappeared and Spirit fell to the floor, unconscious. I cursed as I recalled him to his poke ball and contemplated who I was going to use next. By now, the other battle had finished and the two combatants had wandered over, and had joined the crowd.
“Come on, I know you can do this,” I whispered to Prayer’s poke ball before I threw it. My massive bird Pokemon emerged almost equalling the Tyranitar in height.
“Hah! This’ll be a piece of cake!” Rosie exclaimed with glee. “Tyranitar, use Rock Slide again!” Tyranitar moaned quietly and repeated the move he’d used only a little while before. The rocks slammed into Prayer, and screeched in pain as she was hurled backwards. She stumbled but struggled back up, to face her over powering foe.
Now, even some of the tournament officials had strolled over and were watching mild interest.
“Tyranitar, finish it with Fire Blast!” the girl ordered with a malicious gleam in her eyes.
“Prayer, use Shield!” I countered. Tyranitar opened her mouth and blasted a star-shaped blast of fire at Prayer, who conjured up a circle of white stars that held the Fire Blast back.
I flashed back to the battle on Ashdown Island when Prayer had used Shield against a Fire Blast used by a Magcargo. I wandered if the same strategy would work now…
“Prayer, try and use -” I was cut off mid-sentence as Prayer screeched loudly and the Fire Blast tore apart the Shield and crashing into Prayer.
She instantly went up in flames, and when the fire died down after about ten seconds, Prayer was lying motionless in the dirt, her feathers severely blackened and even missing in some places.
“Prayer…” I muttered, astounded that she’d lasted such a short time, even if it was against a Tyranitar. But that was it, the qualifying round was over – and I was out…
I recalled Prayer, and miserably pushed my way through the cheering crowd, away from the arenas, my defeat and the massive crowd.

I was slowly wandering round the park, dwelling on my loss, and what I could and should have done during that battle.
“Hello. Andrew I presume?” said a voice behind me, and I spun round, my eyes searching for the speaker. There was nobody there, so I turned back round. “Well, am I right?” the voice spoke again, but again there was nobody there.
“Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself!” I shouted, and some birds erupted from a couple of nearby trees, disturbed by the noise I’d made.
“Such bravery from one who is completely defenceless,” the voice said. “Who am I? That’s not important, and nor is where I am. I need not show myself to you, as you can hear me and so know I’m here.”
“What do you want then? At least answer that.” There was a short silence before the voice spoke again.
“Not here and not now. Meet me at the lake tonight. I’ll be here all night so come anytime. However, until then my friend, farewell.” There was the sound of a poke ball exploding, a brief flash of blue light from behind a tree and silence.
I thought about what the person had said. Although it wasn’t safe meeting a complete stranger in total darkness in the middle of a park, I suppose I had my Pokemon once they were healed to help me if I needed help.
I wandered further down the path, allowing my mind to wander, once again my thoughts being dominated by the thought of my loss. It was now that I realised that what I’d originally thought about my team of three being invincible was completely wrong; after all, I had just lost two matches in a row and two losses couldn’t be put down to luck. I sighed as I realised I’d need another Pokemon.
Then I thought about the person and what he or she had said and what they wanted. I then thought about my team and decided to catch another Pokemon; this time I wanted a fighting type. As the Tyranitar had proven, I had no real protection against dark types.
I then remembered none of my Pokemon was in any fit state to battle, and so I turned in the direction of one of park gates.

When I reached the Pokemon centre I had the nurse heal my two Pokemon.
“What’s your name? You’ve been here a couple of times, but I still don’t know your name.” the nurse asked.
“Oh, my name’s Andrew Rutting.” I told her, clipping my three poke balls back onto my belt. It sure was good to have a free healing service.
“You’re the son of Peter Rutting?” she said, more of a statement than a question. I nodded. She reached under the counter, and pulled out a poke ball. She handed it to me.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“Give me one of your empty poke balls.” She said, holding her hand out. I hesitated before handing her my strike ball. “Thanks,” she said, placing it under the counter, probably with all the other poke balls.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“That poke ball isn’t empty you know,” she said and my eyes widened in surprise. “Someone gave it to me half an hour ago and told me to heal the Pokemon inside, and give it to you.”
“Well, um, thanks,” I said, taking the poke ball and walking outside into the garden which, like the park, was empty.
Half an hour ago, that was just before my battle started. Then I remembered I didn’t know what Pokemon was inside, and so I threw the poke ball which I hadn’t taken out of my hand since I got it.
When the white light died down, a six foot tall human-shape Pokemon was standing there. It was a chocolate-brown colour, had red boxing gloves, a lilac shirt and kilt with a black belt going around its waist. It had shoulders that stuck out to the sides slightly and the Pokemon wore lilac socks, but no shoes of any description.
“Hitmonchan!” it shouted loudly, swinging its fists. I whistled; a Hitmonchan, although not too strong, was a rare Pokemon, and, even better (for me at least) it was a fighting type.
At first I was overjoyed at the fact I’d just received another Pokemon without having to look for one and catch it, but then the questions came; who sent it? Why did they give it to me? Does this have anything to do with the man in the park?
I clenched my fist, and recalled the Hitmonchan. That made up my mind for sure; I was going to the lake in the park tonight because I wanted some answers.

The day past slowly, nothing interesting happening; Hitmonchan I had named Canyon and my three land-dwelling Pokemon playfully fought against each other on the arena, with Faith in the pool, joining in every now and then. A couple of people had a battle on the arena, and it went on and on for ages as both of them seemed very experienced and knew exactly what they were doing.
As night fell, I healed my four Pokemon as they were all tired from their day of ‘training’ and I left the building, making my way towards the park. The town’s few street lamps were on, illuminating part of the place, and I made my way to the park, and then to the lake in the centre. I arrived there at just about quarter past eleven, and a silhouette of a man was there.
“Greetings,” he said, “I’m glad you turned up. You won’t regret this. At least, I hope you won’t.”
“What do you want with me then?” I asked. The man chuckled.
“A battle.” he said bluntly.
“What?”
“I know what you want, Andrew. If you can beat me, I’ll help you with one of your, er – travelling purposes.”
“Which are?”
“You want a trainers’ licence - which I can help you with. The other reason I can’t help you with – you want to find your parents.”
“How do you know?” I demanded, clenching my fists so hard, my nails dug into my skin, leaving deep marks on the palms of my hands.
“Beat me and I’ll tell you.” he said.
“Fine, but what if I lose?”
“Every word we speak is being listened to, if you win I’ll help you; you’ll have a travelling partner who can not only help you achieve one of your goals but can help you become a better trainer and even help to combat this… this force, for want of a better word.
If you lose, you simply will forfeit this help and you will be alone on your journey, with no help from me and you cannot be guaranteed protection from this ‘force’ which you will find is easily lethal.
I will explain more about this later and if you win, but for now, I’ll tell you that this ‘force’ is very interested in you. So, do we have a deal?”
“Possibly,” I had a couple more questions to ask before the battle got underway, “First of all, are you the same person from earlier?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Next, after our brief meeting, I returned to the Pokemon centre, where I was given a poke ball that was left for me just before my battle. That poke ball contained a Pokemon, and -”
“And you were wondering if I gave it to you? The answer there is no.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, will you battle?”
“What choice do I have?” I grinned in the darkness, and took Faith’s poke ball.
“Alright! Let’s go Ferry!” A poke ball exploded and in the brief second of the flash of white light, I saw a large five foot high Pokemon land in the water with a massive splash that soaked me completely. It was a blue colour, with a cream underside and a spiked grey shell on its back. It had four flippers, a small horn protruding from its head and small curly ears. Its height was what it was because its neck was quite long; it would have been about three feet tall if its neck was the standard size.
“Lapras!” it called out in a melodic voice. I ran a check through my head, but none of the battles I’d seen had a Lapras participating in them, so I was unsure of its abilities and type or possibly types. I decided to go with my gut instinct and use Faith. The light illuminated the park again, before it was thrown back into almost complete darkness, the only light coming from the moon, which was currently obscured by clouds.
“Lapras, light it up! Moonshine!” the boy called out to his Pokemon. Now I was worried; I knew nothing about Lapras for a start, but apart from that it was using attacks I knew nothing about. I knew what Moonlight did, but Moonshine was something knew to me. I decided to play it safe and let Faith play it his own way without interference from me.
Lapras looked like it raised its head, and a few seconds later, an ear piercing screech was emitted from its mouth. The clouds instantly dissolved into nothingness, and the moon’s light seemed to increase.
Now everything could be seen; the trees around the lake, the small ‘island’ in the centre of the lake for sea Pokemon that nested on land and the two Pokemon on the water’s surface; the massive Lapras dwarfing my tiny-in-comparison Faith. My opposing trainer remained hidden though, standing in the shadow of a large tree, rowan by the looks of it.
“That’s better Lapras, now use Thunder!” my opponent screamed ecstatically from the darkness.
“****,” I said quietly. Lapras began to sing quietly in soothing voice, but soon lightning began to flash across the dark and cloudless sky. Then I remembered; he’d never said no switching!
I held out the gender ball and recalled Faith, sending out Canyon, who emerged on the ground a few centimetres away from the water, but he still got blasted strongly by the Thunder attack. He stumbled slightly, swaying on his feet for a few seconds, before he began bouncing on the balls of his feet, a sign he was able to continue fighting. Fortunately, Lapras had been damaged as the attack sparked into the water slightly.
“Thunderpunch in the water!” I called out to him. I knew that Thunderpunch and Comet Punch were basic attacks on a Hitmonchan. He knelt down slowly, his two fists crackling with electricity all of a sudden. He placed them both in the water, and the entire pond got a severe shocking, including Lapras and any other Pokemon in the lake at the time.
Lapras was electrified horrifically, and screamed out in pain, but she swiftly recovered, and stared angrily at Canyon who stared back defiantly.
“Confuse Ray!” the man shouted, and a ray of light blasted down on Canyon, who stumbled back in confusion. He swung blindly with his right arm and fell over damaging himself slightly. I held out his poke ball and recalled him. Being allowed to switch in a battle could really help, probably the reason why high-rank trainers and tournaments didn’t allow it.
“Come on Prayer, let’s win this!” I said, throwing Prayer’s poke ball. It exploded in the white flash I was becoming accustomed to and my massive bird emerged from its interior.
“Trel! Trel!” it cried.
“Razor Leaf!” I ordered, and the eight leaves shot from her wings, slicing into the enemy Lapras, who moaned deeply, before her eyes closed, and her massive neck slammed down into the surface of the water. “Hell yeah!” I shouted joyfully.
“Really?” said my opponent recalling his fainted Pokemon. “I know what three of your Pokemon are, you had to use three of your Pokemon to bring down one of mine and I’ve still got five Pokemon left and you don’t know what they are. Go!” he finished by throwing another poke ball.
“Five more?” I whispered to myself in shock, horror and disbelief.
The Pokemon that emerged from the poke ball was… well, it was different.
It was about seven foot tall and grey all over. Along its two arms, two legs, its chest and the top of its head was what looked like armour. The Pokemon had a reasonably lengthy tail and incredibly sharp claws, teeth and a horn sticking from its head. The massive Pokemon stared down at me, and looked at Prayer, almost mockingly.
“Prayer, use Razor Leaf!” I called, and once again eight leaves shot themselves from her wings aimed at the other Pokemon. However, to my disbelief, they merely bounced off its thick armour body.
“That the best you can do?” the other trainer called from the shadows mockingly. I felt my fists clench again.
“Prayer, full power, Whirlwind! Let’s get it into the water!” I said, a plan forming in my mind; if it was in the water it was going to be more vulnerable to electricity – that is along as it wasn’t a ground type which was possible, as it looked a lot like Rhydon.
Meanwhile, Prayer began throwing her wings forward and pulling them back before throwing forwards again, repeating the process over and over as a sprightly wind picked up. The other Pokemon was caught up in the whirlwind, and yet it barely moved.
“Keep trying!” the other trainer said.
“Come on Prayer, you can do it…” I muttered quietly. The other Pokemon was slowly moving backwards, not much and not quickly, but it was moving slowly and slightly. However, if this kept up, Prayer probably wouldn’t last as she’d be too tired to continue. Maybe I could overpower it with speed.
“Return,” I said, holding out her poke ball and recalling her. “Come on again Canyon!” I then sent out Canyon the Hitmonchan who glanced at his opponent and actually seemed happy against coming up against such a beast.
“Use Earthquake, don’t let him get near you!” my opponent called. His Pokemon raised its tail, swung it around three times and slammed it back onto the ground; as soon as its tail made contact with the ground, the ground shook violently, rubble flying everywhere, and the ground even cracking slightly in some places. The water began to ripple, and miniature waves formed on its surface. This attack was incredibly powerful – and it was directed at my Pokemon.
Canyon had fallen to the floor, and was being tossed and turned and slammed into the ground over and over again without mercy. He’d taken quite a beating when the ground stopped shaking a calm was restored.
Then, in a surprising burst of speed, Canyon disappeared in a blur, charging towards the other Pokemon.
“Aggron, don’t forget not to let it touch you!” the boy shouted, and I finally learnt the beasts’ name. The Aggron swung its tail in an attempt to keep Canyon away from him, but my agile Pokemon dodged the tail each time, and slammed his fists five times with lightning speed into the Aggron, who instantly fainted, and my eyes widened; how could something that big and powerful possibly be defeated by a Comet Punch?
“It’s a steel and rock type, so it has a quad weakness to fighting,” the other trainer explained. I nodded, although he probably didn’t see, so it was a bit of a waste.
The boy sent out his next Pokemon. The Pokemon that appeared was about four feet tall. It was a large dog that was black on its left side and purple on its right, this colour scheme going all down its body, from the of its snout to the tip of its long and elegant tail. It also had strange silver marking all over its body.
“Ubbs, use Strike!” the boy said, and his Pokemon shot a red beam from its mouth which wrapped around Canyon, pinning him to the spot. Then in an unexpected burst of speed, Ubbs charged forward and slammed into Canyon, the beam fading, but Canyon still flying across the ground, and landing with a splash in the lake.
“Canyon, try and get back onto the ground!” I shouted out to him.
“Finish it with a Psywave!” my enemy said calmly. Ubbs closed its eyes and began to concentrate. A tunnel of black formed between itself and Canyon, and blue waves began to travel down the tunnel, viciously slamming Canyon, who couldn’t stand up to the psychic types mental onslaught, and promptly fainted. I recalled him, my first fainted Pokemon, bringing the match to my three against four of his. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I guessed that Ubbs was a Psychic type, and so ruled out Faith as his poison element wouldn’t help much. However, I also knew for a fact that Strike could only be learned by dark types, and so I ruled out Spirit.
“Come on again Prayer, let’s win this!” I said, tossing Prayer’s poke ball. She emerged once again to face her foe, one that was quite a bit smaller than the last Pokemon she had had to battle against.
“Use Strike again!”
“Prayer, try and dodge!” The red beam was shot at Prayer, who dived out of the way, only to be forced to quickly roll again to avoid it again.
“Heh, it’s on the floor now, Psychic!” the person in the shadows shouted. Ubbs closed its eyes and focused, a look of pain forming on its face. Prayer, suddenly began to twitch violently and scream horribly as the mental attack flowed from Ubbs’ head into Prayer who didn’t like it at all.
“Hang in there friend,” I called out to her, but the chances of her hearing were almost minimal.
“That’s enough torture for now, let her get up,” my opponent said, and his Pokemon ceased its powerful mental attack.
“Prayer, use Lunarbeam!” I shouted to her, and Prayer, Ubbs and the probably the other trainer all looked at me strangely. “You know, use a Solarbeam, but use moonlight instead of sunlight.” I explained.
“Tree…” Prayer sighed, and as she concentrated, moonlight began to flow down to her, as she stood with her wings spread wide open. She opened her mouth and fired the Lunarbeam. Unlike a Solarbeam though, it was a pale bluish colour as opposed to a yellowy orange colour.
The attack smashed viciously into Ubbs who wasn’t at all expecting it. The poor psychic and dark hybrid was thrown violently backwards, on a collision course with a large tree.
“Ubbs use Teleport!” the other trainer said, and in a blue flash, she was no longer flying into the tree but skidding across the surface of the lake, where crashed into the ‘island’ and went flying into the shrubbery, which didn’t move at all, and showed no signs of life.
“Damn,” I heard the other trainer mutter under his breath, as he recalled his Pokemon. It was now two and half against three, so the odds were almost equal, so I had a slight chance. Not much, but a chance nonetheless.
“Looks like we’ll have to fight this fire with fire,” he said, and threw a poke ball. A small three foot high, round, circular Pokemon with short legs and green leaves sticking out of its head appeared. I chuckled.
“An Oddish isn’t going to stand a chance against me!” I called out to him.
“We’ll see,” he said, and he said it with such sincerity that I actually panicked for a second before I regained my senses.
“Whatever you say,” I said, laughing again. “Prayer, Wing Attack.” Prayer spread her wings and launched herself at Oddish.
“Flip out of the way!” the other trainer called, and his small but yet surprisingly agile Pokemon back-flipped to avoid the attack – but also landed on Prayer’s back as she’d sped directly underneath the Oddish.
“Try and ditch it!” I called out to my bird, who turned upside down, spun, climbed and nose-dived, but she couldn’t lose the Oddish.
“Now, use Mega Kick!” my opponent shouted, and Oddish, leapt off Prayer’s back, and forwards at the same time, before spinning round, and lashing out powerfully with its right foot. It kicked Prayer viciously in the beak, and although the Oddish received some slight damage, it looked as though Prayer’s jaw had been dislocated. Yet, Ii knew that she wouldn’t want to give up now, not yet anyways; she always wanted to fight until the bitter end.
Either way, she was flapping her wings awkwardly and I figured she wouldn’t be able to fly for much longer, until I realised that Oddish couldn’t fly at all, and she was in fact dropping rapidly towards the ground, screaming all the way. I felt bad about it, but there was nothing I could do now, and the poor Pokemon slammed into the ground, and lay there not moving.
“Now Oddish, use Moonlight!” the person said and I swore; his Oddish was about to almost fully recover its serious damage, and Prayer was almost out.
“While its recovering, Wing Attack and then Sky Attack!” I ordered as I knew the combination of the two flying type attacks would be too much for the small grass type.
Whitish blue light began to stream down onto Oddish, restoring its health slowly. Prayer, with her wings spread, shakily shot at Oddish, this time her attack connecting and sending the small Pokemon rolling across the ground. The healing moonlight washed over Prayer, who hovered, orange energy being slowly absorbed into her being. The Moonlight then moved across the ground, bathing Oddish in its healing light again, but the Sky Attack was now completely powered up, and my now pure orange bird launched herself at Oddish, slamming into it with a small explosion.
“Hang on in there girl!” the other trainer shouted, but I knew that Oddish was as good as gone. Then, from the midst of the explosion an incredibly bright white light turned the night into day. The light was to intense any human’s eyes, and it was closer to my opponent, who was now standing behind the tree so I couldn’t see him, but probably more to avoid the harsh light.
When the light eventually died down two changes had taken place; one to the Oddish and one to Prayer.
The Oddish had grown about a foot taller now standing at four feet instead of three. Instead of green sticking-up leaves, it now had orange-red leaves that drooped over its head and a large brown bulb sticking out of its head. It also had a much wider mouth and its eyes looked like they were closed.
Then there was Prayer. She was now about eight feet tall, and completely black and green. Her beak had somehow recovered and her wing span had increased by about two feet, now at five feet each way.
“Gloom,” the ex-Oddish moaned in a deep voice.
“I’m gonna need you for later, I’m sure,” I said, recalling the newly-evolved Prayer. I couldn’t help but wonder, what she’d evolved into, and what’d triggered it. I picked unclipped Spirit’s poke ball, but before I could throw it, Faith erupted from his poke ball, and landed in the lake, glaring at the Gloom.
“What!” I screamed at Faith, “Come back now!”
“Is that a Toxicon, might I ask?” the other trainer asked and I nodded. “You’d best let him battle then, because he was beating my Oddish when they were both wild, and I saved the poor plant and defeated that little fish, so I’m sure he wants to get back at me, and I’m sure Odd – I mean Gloom feels the same.”
“You’re on,” I said, grinning. My opponent was back from the other side of the tree, and my curiosity was getting the better of me; I was going to win this, no matter what.
“Faith, use Toxic Stream!” I ordered, and my fish shot, his stream of poisonous liquid at Gloom, who was drenched in it, but didn’t seem to care either way. “Fine, if that doesn’t work; try an ice attack if you know any.” Faith leapt out of the water surprisingly and moaned loudly. A slight breeze picked up and particles of snow formed as the air got colder, before the snowy wind blew viciously into Gloom, who was in obvious discomfort.
“Mega Drain it!” the other trainer called, and Gloom ran slowly forward, forcing its way through the snowy breeze. Eventually, the now heavily damaged Gloom reached Faith, who merely ceased his Icy Wind attack and dropped effortlessly back into the water. That wasn’t going to hold off Gloom though; she put the bulb on her head into the water, and green vein like things began to flow from Faith to Gloom as the plant Pokemon stole my fish’s energy.
Then a bright light illuminated the area again, and for a second I thought Faith was evolving, but the light was more of a sudden flash, and it left dots in my eyes long after my vision had returned. This happened twice more.
Gloom was wandering around in a daze though, and was looked as though she was drunk the way she was acting.
“Nice Flash techniques,” I commended my fish before the second attack was given, “Now use Power Snow, mass power!” The snowy wind picked up almost instantly, only it was far more chilly and powerful than before; it managed to cut into my skin, so God knows what was happening to Gloom, but the wind was to strong to keep your eyes open.
When the wind eventually died down, and the chill disappeared, a red beam was recalling a Pokemon that was lying on its side.
“Great job!” I congratulated Faith, but my smile faded when I saw his next Pokemon.
A large circular Pokemon appeared; but it looked my like an upside down poke ball than a Pokemon. The top half was white and the bottom half was red, but it had two eyes, two large pointed eyebrows and a mouth that was stuck in a continuous toothy grin.
“Faith, use Toxic Stream again,” I said, and Faith prepared his lethal poison attack.
“Electrode, use Thunder!” The poisonous stream infected the poke ball Pokemon almost instantly, but soon clouds began to gather and the single bolt of thick electricity was enough to KO my water and poison hybrid Pokemon.
“Return,” I said, recalling him. “Let’s go Spirit!” My ghost and steel Pokemon appeared, and glared at Electrode, almost invisible against the black backdrop of the night, even with the Moonshine illuminating the area.
“Electrode use Foresight!” my opponent shouted, as if he were in hurry. Electrode’s eyes glowed a deep red, and two red eyes appeared in the centre of Spirit’s body.
“Spirit be careful, go in close so it can’t hit you easily as most of its attacks are special based and so won’t work at close range,” I told my Pokemon, who obediently if a little hesitantly, flew round Electrode, about thirty centimetres away from it. Electrode meanwhile was suffering badly from the poison inflicted earlier by Faith, and didn’t look as though it’d last much longer.
“I’m really sorry about this old chap,” the other trainer said to his Pokemon, “I’d take cover if I were you,” he said to me before he spoke once again to his Pokemon. “Electrode, use Explosion!”
I dived behind a tree, laughing all the way, as I knew that Explosion would make Electrode faint, and wouldn’t at all injure Spirit at all.
There was a bright white light from the other side which was quickly followed by a massive explosion which left a ringing in your ears. You could feel the heat from the attack, as well as the power and I doubted that if Spirit wasn’t a part ghost he’d survive the attack.
When the heat died down, the orange and white light flickered and died and the ringing in my ears stopped, I stepped out from behind the cover of the tree I’d been standing nearest to and admired the damage; the grass for a long way was severely blackened, a couple of trees had fallen over, and both Pokemon were lying fainted in the grass, although Electrode had smoke drifting away from his body in wisps and sparks crackling along him whereas Spirit was just lying there.
“How could that affect my ghost?” I shouted in anger to him.
“Remember my Pokemon used Foresight? It makes the Pokemon that use it never miss but it also makes normal and fighting attacks work on ghost types. That’s how.” the other trainer explained and I cursed loudly. We both simultaneously recalled our Pokemon, and got our final poke balls ready. My hands were sweaty and I had butterflies in my stomach; never had I participated in a battle this tense.
“Good luck, because you’re really gonna need it,” I said to him, and I remembered I’d said that to the boy I’d lost to in the Pokemon centre, and realised that that’d brought me no luck whatsoever.
“Thanks, but you’re going to need it more than me,” he replied. “Go!” and he threw his last poke ball. I tossed Prayer’s poke ball to the ground and awaited my opponent’s Pokemon…
I gasped when I saw what’d emerged.
This Pokemon stood easily at about eight or nine feet, and at first as it was without colour I thought it was another Tyranitar, but I was wrong.
This thing was orange all over with a long thick tail. It had two small green wings protruding from quite high on its back and two long yellow antennae sticking out from its head. Its chest was yellow and scaled. It also had a small sharp horn sticking out of its head just between its two antennae.
“DRAGONITE!” it roared loudly.
“****,” I said quietly. “Prayer, Lunarbeam!” I ordered.
“Draco, counter it with Hyper Beam!” my opponent shouted. I cursed; it’d only just begun and already it was going to be one of the best battles either of us had ever seen.
Both Pokemon charged up their superpower attacks and launched them simultaneously. The bluish white Lunarbeam collided with the orange power laden Hyper Beam half way between the two Pokemon, each attack keeping the other at bay. Wind roared around the park, and stray bolts of energy scorched the earth away in places, knocked over more trees, caused miniature waves to appear in the lake and cause massive cracks in the ground.
The two Pokemon were showing visible signs of tiring, but neither looked as though they’d give up. Sweat broke out on my face and both of them kept going, although deep inside, I knew that Prayer didn’t have the energy to keep this up. I knew I had to act now, or lose the match.
“Prayer,” I began to order, until I remembered something vital; Prayer had evolved, thus improving her stats, changing her moves and also healing her completely. I breathed a sigh of relief, but that was only momentary.
“Hit the decks!” the other trainer said, and I saw him throw himself to the ground, and cover his head with his arms, whilst trying to curl himself into a ball as best he could. I imitated him, and not a moment too soon; almost immediately afterwards, there was massive explosion that was even louder and brighter than Electrode’s explosion attack. The wind that roared past me cut my skin in several places, and the screeches of both Pokemon forced their way into my mind.
Then everything went quiet, a little too quiet for my liking, and so I looked round over my shoulder, before standing up.
The other trainer was already standing up, and the battlefield was completely unnoticeable. There was effectively nothing but mud on the ground, but the ‘island’ and the lake weren’t any different which slightly surprised me.
I now had a good view of my opponent, but there were no clear features, as both he and I were completely covered in dust. And it was then I realised our Pokemon were still fighting; they fighting in the air above us.
They were flying round and past each other, blasting each other with their attacks and dodging the other’s attacks. Neither was gaining the upper hand, and they both looked about as strong as each other, so it was time I employed a bit of strategy.
“Prayer, use Whirlwind and send him flying!” I said, and Prayer carried out my orders; unlike the Aggron, the Dragonite was easily overcome, and was sent flying across the park. In the eerie moonlight, I saw Draco come to a slow and steady stop, before shooting back our way.
“THUNDER!” my opponent screamed as the Dragonite got closer, and without barely having to power up or even wait a short time a massive single thick bolt of lightning electricity blasted down and struck Prayer, leaving her many feathers short and smouldering badly, not to mention, flying awkwardly. I sighed dejectedly; I should’ve known that as strong as she was, she couldn’t defeat a Dragonite.
“That’s it!” the other trainer said, “Now use Slam!” Dragonite hovered just above Prayer for a few seconds, before executing the attack and slamming sideways on into her, damaging her badly. She wouldn’t be able to take much more damage, and I knew that; I would have to act now or never know what this person meant from what he said earlier.
“Prayer…” I began to say, but was cut short as she took matters into her own hands. Moonlight began streaming in an eerie bluish white colour, flowing onto her as she used the recovery move Moonlight. I silently cheered, but knew that there was still a long way to go before this match was over; Dragonite had taken a very slight beating and had executed numerous powerful attacks as well as putting all its effort into avoid getting hit, and he didn’t even look tired. However I now knew that Prayer had a backup, and a very effective backup at that too; Dragonite wasn’t going anywhere near her for some reason, although I wasn’t complaining.
Prayer finished recovering and the flow of moonlight stopped as she launched herself at Dragonite, using a powerful Wing Attack to knock it off balance before using another one to knock it over. Dragonite leapt up and glared at Prayer who flapped her wings and cawed loudly, clearly taunting the Dragonite who had obviously doubted what she was capable of.
“Dragonite, use Extremespeed!” Dragonite disappeared in blur of white light, smashing into Prayer milliseconds later. Prayer retaliated in a way I never imagined would be possible for her. She opened her mouth and a faint red beam launched itself at the Dragonite, holding him still and she launched herself rapidly at him, knocking him over again.
“Prayer, use Razor Leaf!” I shouted and she raised her wings, and fired six leaves at the enemy which surprised me as Razor Leaves were usually shot in batches of four or eight. The other thing that surprised me was that theses leaves kept changing colour from green to red to blue and back again as opposed to being permanently green like normal Razor Leaves. Dragonite flew into the air to avoid them, but unlike a Razor Leaf they shot upwards, following the Dragonite. They eventually caught up to him and sliced through his skin, causing him to howl in pain.
“Um, good, I think… Now use Whirlwind!” I ordered while the other trainer watched his power Pokemon get beaten by my grass hybrid.
Prayer landed and began absorbing orange energy and I waited for a few seconds to see if she would do what I asked her to. She didn’t, and when she was completely orange she rocketed towards Dragonite, knocking him out of the sky and probably almost finishing him off.
The Dragonite was far from out though, and another bolt of lightning smashed Prayer to the ground, where she immediately clambered to her feet and she and the Dragonite stared each other down.
“Let’s end this,” said my opponent who was laughing somewhat, “Draco, finish it with Horn Drill!”
“****! Get out of the way!” I shouted; I knew Horn Drill was one of four one-hit-KO attacks, but I also knew they were quite low in the accuracy department. Dragonite lowered its head, and a massive red illusionary horn shot out from its considerably smaller horn and raced at Prayer, who merely raised herself into the sky with a flap of her wings.
“Keep trying!” the trainer shouted, and Prayer only narrowly dodged the next one. This time I knew that she was probably going to be hit by the next one, so I had to act fast. I knew Protect would work in these situations, but would Shield? Only one way to find out…
“Prayer, use Shield!” I called to my flyer. The circle of stars appeared in front of her and the massive red horn slammed into it, sending both the shield and Prayer flying backwards, but still failing to cause any major damage. I knew however that if the shield didn’t hold out, Prayer would be history.
Meanwhile, the sun began to rise on the horizon, and I knew that soon the other trainer’s identity would be revealed to me, which was probably the reason he was trying to end the battle so quickly.
“Prayer, use Screech!” I ordered; it had worked against a Magcargo a while back, hopefully it would work now. However, like before, Prayer completely ignored me and my orders. She did keep the shield intact, but fired the oddly coloured leaves which sliced into the massive Dragonite, leaving deep gashes in its skin, and it was now fairly obvious that both Pokemon were absolutely exhausted; the Horn Drill faded and the Dragonite began panting, whilst Prayer landed on the ground, and also stood with her wings hunched up, panting.
“Finish it, one final Thunder!” the boy ordered.
“Prayer, try and pull of a recovery move!” I called out urgently. A blue aura surrounded Prayer and sunlight streamed over her as the Synthesis move took effect, but a single cloud appeared in the sky, and the final attack of the battle was executed. The lightning bolt streaked down and exploded the second it hit Prayer, completely obscuring her in a cloud of dust. Dragonite collapsed a few seconds after the attack had hit, and my opponent’s poke ball activated immediately, recalling his fainted Pokemon, and literally two seconds later, my poke ball activated, recalling my fainted Pokemon, Prayer. I breathed a sigh of relief; I had myself an ally, a friend.

[mistysakura]

That was one tight battle. I particularly like the Lunarbeam move, although plants generally only absorb sunlight; creative anyway. And boy, Rosie was good. Can she legally train Pokemon at the age of 9? She's fantastic for that amount of experience. Two battles lost also really made the message sink in that he had to train, and he wouldn't win all the time; good. By the way, you might want to reinforce some of the madeup Pokemon's descriptions; maybe just little bits when they're battling. You've got quit a few madeup Pokemon, and it can get a bit hard to keep track of.

Cliffhanger!

[Pig on the Wing]

Ouch, only 1 reply... :( what's going on? :cry:

mistysakura: Well, I didn't want the battle to be too onesided for one or the other trainer, as then the losing one would have to come back and beat most of the other Pokemon with one/two of his own, and I didn't want to do that.
The Lunarbeam is fully explained in the next chapter, but I'll tell you now for nothing its got something to do with its evolution. Can you guess?
Heck, Rosie is good, and much much later on in the story she makes another appearence (sp?) and a lot of stuff is explained. But for now, yes she can legally train Pokemon at that age. 10 becomes too cliched after a while...
I don't like trainer fics where the main character wins *all* the time; he/she has to lose sometimes otherwise it gets *waaaaaayyyyyy* too boring.
Thanks for that adivce about the Pokemon.

~

Next chapter hopefully up by the next Saturday... maybe before! But most certainly after. :rolleyes:
Meh, whatever. :wave:

[Pig on the Wing]

Well, to mistysakura and anyone else who's actually reading anymore, here's the next chapter, yay:

Chapter 6: Double Capture

The road was just a massive bridge in effect, with water surrounding it on all sides and fishermen dotted around the place.
My partner’s name was James, he had long dark blue hair which he always tied back in a ponytail, had green eyes and was currently wearing blue shorts and a blue t-shirt. Like me, he was 14 years old like.
“How long left until Fuchsia?” I asked, although deep inside I was quite worried about challenging the Gym leader; what if he recognized me from last time? Gym leaders could only battle a trainer once every month meaning I may not get to battle.
“We’re not going to Fuchsia you know,” James replied.
“Oh, so where are we going? We’re heading in the direction of Fuchsia.”
“Well, we’re headed for Ashdown village, there are some nice caves there which are supposed to have Geodude in them, and I want a Geodude as their evolved form Golem is quite powerful.”
“Ah,” a smile crept over my face; it’d been about two weeks now since I’d left Ashdown, and it’d be nice to visit it again.
We continued further along the walkway in silence, and as we passed a small cluster of trees a voice shouted, “Stop!” and a boy came running out of them. He looked about eleven and wore white shorts and a red t-shirt.
“Wanna battle? Say yes!” he screamed at us. I looked at James who chuckled.
“He’s gonna be too easy for me, you battle.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “Come on then!”
“Great! Right here, right now! My name’s Gregory but everyone calls me Greg. I wanna go two against two! Go Tentacool!” a poke ball flew into the water, where a small three foot high thing materialized. It was a clear blue colour with two red circles on the side of its head, a red circle in the centre of its face and two eyes just at the bottom of its body. Then, two brown tentacles stretched out underneath it, completing its form. A water and poison hybrid, which reminded me that Faith hadn’t had much practise lately.
“Alright Faith, you’re up!” I said, throwing his gender ball into the sea. Faith appeared and the two sea creatures stared at each other.
“Bad choice,” James informed me, “You can’t really hurt him with your attacks, and some Tentacool can have some fairly decent moves.”
“No switching!” Greg shouted, “Alright Tenta, use Constrict!” Tenta shot forth one of its tentacles and wrapped it around Faith, squeezing the life slowly out of him, but Faith managed to wriggle free and hurtled through the water at Tentacool, lowering its head and slamming into the strange jellyfish like Pokemon.
“Looks like I was wrong; a Headbutt technique could probably do some nice damage to that Tentacool.” James said, running a hand through his hair.
“Great, keep using it Faith!” I ordered. Faith used another Headbutt and that KO’ed the Tentacool, surprising me at how weak it was.
“Return,” said the boy recalling his Pokemon, “this isn’t over though! That was only my first Pokemon and I only caught it yesterday!”
“Calm down,” James said and Greg looked at him. “We know that battle’s not over, we couldn’t care less when you caught that Pokemon, now could you please stop shouting and send out your next Pokemon.” Greg looked as though he was about to cry, but he stiffened up at the last minute, and wiped a hand across his eyes.
“Go Sparks!” Greg said, a little less enthusiastically than before, throwing his second poke ball. Another Pikachu emerged. James beckoned to me and I leaned over.
“He’s an Ash Ketchum wanna-be, so be careful cos he’s gonna start getting really lucky about now,” he told me. My memory traced backwards a few years ago two when Ash Ketchum was at the peak of his training career and had been the greatest of all trainers ever to have existed. Then he was murdered and his Pokemon stolen, but before he and his Pokemon were destroyed, in his team, he had a Pikachu, a Tentacruel, a Fearow, a Tauros, a Tangela and a Marowak. All six of his Pokemon had been caught in poke balls except Pikachu who was his starter. It was then that I realised that James was probably right here.
“Faith, use Icy Wind!” I called out and the chilly wind began blowing, forming cold sweat particles to form on Pikachu’s head making it squeal a bit.
“Pikachu, use Thundershock!” the small electric rat’s red cheeks began to crackle with electricity and then they shocked the whole of the water area. Pikachu leaned over the side of the walkway to see what was going on, only to receive a blast of water in return. Faith leapt out of the water, and spun round, slapping its tail fin in Pikachu’s face, more out of anger than a registered attack.
“Pikachu, use Thunder!” Greg said calmly. I had already lost Faith to once to a Thunder attack and almost a second time, but this time – like the first time - there was no way of escaping it. The sky briefly clouded over, and the single bolt of lightning electrified the entire water area, at least a hundred times more powerful than the measly Thundershock performed a couple of minutes ago.
“Battle on!” James cried, and I saw Faith still hanging in the battle, but another attack would probably finish him off, so action would have to be taken now or never.
“Faith, use Explosion!” I shouted, and my Pokemon looked at up in confusion at me, but I winked and he seemed to understand. He began to make a gargling noise in the back of his throat, which erupted from his mouth in a noise that seemed to be a cross between a growl and a moan.
“Sparks, brace yourself for the attack!” the boy ordered and the yellow electrified rodent tensed up completely.
“Now Faith, win this with a Headbutt!” Faith leapt out of the water and threw himself head-first at Pikachu. The small Pokemon was so tensed up that as Faith head butted her, she went flying, yet the boy recalled her before she crashed into the sea on the other side of the walkway.
“No fair! One more Pokemon?” he pleaded and I sighed.
“No,” said James, “You said two each so that’s it. No more.”
“Go easy,” I said to James, “he’s just a kid.” I turned back to him. “Go on then, you can use one more Pokemon against me.” The boy brightened up at this, and threw his last poke ball. A small four foot high Pokemon appeared. It was a very light brown Pokemon, with a small sheep shaped skull over its head. In one of its two stubby hands it held a small stereotype shaped bone. It had a patch of white on its chest, two small stubby feet and very small spikes going down its back; a Cubone.
“Cubone,” it said in a high pitched voice, looking at Faith.
“Use Bone Club!” the boy shouted, and the Cubone ran with very surprising speed towards the edge of the walkway and it swung his bone high, bringing it down to crack painfully on Faith who couldn’t see him and so could do nothing to avoid it, knocking him out cold.
“Yeah!” the boy shouted, punching the air. I recalled Faith, and smirked evilly as a plan hatched in my mind.
“Let’s finish it!” I said, throwing another poke ball and Prayer emerged. Her new evolved shape was much more beautiful in the light than in the dark, and even more so than her old form. She took off lightly into the air, performing a couple of acrobatic stunts in the air, showing off what she could now do. I almost wished that the kid with the big blue ice bird was still chasing me; Prayer would show him a thing or two now.
The boy and his Cubone both stood in awe, looking at my massive yet graceful Pokemon as she easily drifted through the air.
“Use Rock Blast!” the boy said, and I swore under my breath. This Pokemon, although still un-evolved was a very high level, as no ordinary run of the mill Cubone would know that attack, as it could be lethal to a Pokemon that wasn’t of a certain level of expertise to use it.
Nonetheless, the Cubone pointed its club at Prayer, and five rocks shot out of the ground, each of them hitting Prayer with a fair bit of force, yet it didn’t do as much as I thought it would do; she merely shrugged it off, as it nothing had touched it.
The boy and his Cubone now looked confused at this, and the boy pulled a small rectangular shaped red coloured device from his pocket and pointed it at Prayer. A small bulb at the top left hand corner of the device lit up blue and a voice said in a robotic voice:

‘Treelette: the evolved form of the grass and flying type Pokemon Treeling, this Pokemon although capable of flight and flying type attacks looses its flying type element, becoming a grass and dark type hybrid with the same abilities yet not weaknesses as a flying type.’

A grass and dark hybrid with the power of a flying type would be an amazing asset to my team, I thought as I heard the robotic voice say. Then it came to me; that was why Prayer had been able to use Lunarbeam, and Moonlight and Strike. Strike was a move that only dark types could use, and Moonlight and Lunarbeam involved using the moon, which dark and ghost types were usually associated with. Yet she could still use attacks like Synthesis and Solarbeam because she was grass. I grinned; things were looking up for me.
“Right then,” said the boy pocketing the device when it went quiet again, “Cubone, use Scary Face!” This was a very high level Cubone. I watched the small Pokemon concentrate incredibly hard and a black face appeared in the sky in front of Prayer.
It was a pure black cloud like substance, with two large glowing red eyes and two rows of sharp yellow fangs. It stared at Prayer, before disappearing. Prayer did nothing; she fell to the ground and continued staring at the spot where the face had been.
“Prayer! Prayer, listen to me!” I shouted at the top of my voice, hoping to wake her from her trance, but failing.
“Great, now Cubone, use Mega Punch!” the boy said, as he saw Prayer was incapable of movement and his Pokemon’s Scary Face technique had worked.
The small Pokemon walked fearlessly up to my gigantic-in-comparison Pokemon, and pulled its free hand back. His hand went a blue colour, before Cubone threw his fist forward and Prayer went flying across the walkway, skidding to a stop a little back from where we’d come from, just before slipping into the water. I recalled her quickly, and looked at the small ground type
“Let’s go Canyon,” I threw his poke ball and my Hitmonchan emerged.
“Bone Club, we can still win this!” the boy shouted, forgetting James’ advice earlier. The bone smacked Canyon sharp across the leg and my fighter knelt down to receive another one to the head. I began panic; I had lost to the kid in the Pokemon centre, but he was good. I’d lost to Rosie but she had a Tyranitar. I was now losing to a rookie with no explanation or excuse as to why.
“Canyon, show him how to use a Mega Punch!” I ordered, and his fist instantly turned blue and smashed into the small Pokemon, causing a small crack to appear on its skull.
“No!” the boy said as he saw his Pokemon stagger around.
“Now finish it with a Thunderpunch!” I said. Canyon’s fist began to crackle with electricity, and then he socked the small Pokemon in the chest causing sparks to fly everywhere and ripple across the ground types’ body.
“Fool, it won’t work,” hissed James in my ear, and then I remembered that electric attacks didn’t work on ground type Pokemon.
“Try and finish it with a Rock…” his voice trailed off as Canyon stepped away and the small Pokemon began to glow white.
It grew about a foot in size, its arms and legs developed into arms and legs as opposed to just stumps. The spikes on its back disappeared and its tail doubled in length. Its head and covering skull also increased in size as did the bone it carried. The crack on its skull was smoothed over and the transformation was complete.
“Maro!” roared the newly evolved Marowak as the white light disappeared. The boy’s face lit up as his hopes of winning were revived. He whipped out the rectangular object again and stared at it for a few seconds before pocketing it again.
“Marowak, try and use Bonemarang!” the boy said. I inhaled so deeply I almost choked, but recovered just in time. I’d heard of this attack and although I’d never seen it used before I knew it was easily the decider in any and every battle involving a Marowak.
Marowak swung his arm up in the air and began to spin the bone above its head in a circle, before releasing it in the direction of Canyon, who could do nothing but watch in awe as the bone slammed into him, knocking him back and then to receive another deadly blow to the back of the head on its return journey. Marowak leapt into the air and caught it as Canyon fell to the ground, out cold. I recalled Canyon and walked on past the kid with James. The kid was dancing around happily and praising his Marowak like there was no tomorrow. When he was lost from view James spoke up.
“What the hell was that all about? You can beat me, yet you can’t beat a rookie trainer with barely any experience.”
“Beginner’s luck,” I said, shrugging off the look of disgust on James’ face.

We walked on for another ten minutes in silence, the views boring and uninteresting just the wooden planked walkway, the water and the odd tree and small patch of grass every now and then.
Then just I was about to go absolutely crazy, the familiar sights of Fuchsia City came into view. A smile crossed my face and filled with sudden energy, I ran towards Fuchsia City. James also sprinted and soon caught me, taking no effort keeping up with me.
The gatehouse between Fuchsia and ‘the walkway’ was a little bit ahead, but before we could get to it, someone jumped in the way.
It was a large man who looked as though he was in his late thirties or early forties and James and I skidded to a stop just before we crashed into him. The man was light blue jogging pants and a slightly creased white t-shirt.
“Which one of you two young gentlemen would like to battle me one on one?” he asked, and I smiled to myself. Another battle; a chance to try get back onto a winning streak, and if not Spirit would be like the other three of my team; fainted.
“Let’s go,” I said to James’ horror.
“Very well, and I wish you the best of luck,” the jogger said, and he took a poke ball out of pocket and tossed out, causing me to move backwards a bit to avoid getting trampled. I walked backwards a bit more, so we were about as far away as we would be if we were battling in a proper arena.
The white light faded and the most beautiful Pokemon I’d ever seen was standing before me. It was covered in smooth white fur and had the most gentle and caring face I’d ever seen in a Pokemon. Its snout stuck out and its eyes gleamed, with three or four tufts of fur sticking out of its head and streaming behind it, giving the impression of hair. Finally, I counted and confirmed in my mind that it did indeed have four legs, and nine tails; it was the great, legendary and powerful evolved fire-fox Pokemon. And my final Pokemon was part steel, which was weak to fire. I sighed as I sent out Spirit.
“My, my, that’s an interesting capture you have there,” the man said as my Pokemon emerged to face his fire type. “Ninetales, let’s start things off with a Safeguard manoeuvre.” A circle of white stars appeared in front of it, before instantly disappearing. I knew that that attack made his Ninetales completely immune to status effects.
“Lick,” I ordered, guessing the name of the attack. The tongue shot out and wetly licked the fire fox, its fur absorbing the water and taking a glossy yet slime-like appearance. “Now use Iron Tail!” I knew that the attack would be of minimal damage, but I hoped that Ninetales would go back a little bit, so it hit the floor as it fell backwards. Yet alas, it wasn’t to be.
The solidified gas or ‘tail’ shot out, and smacked Ninetales viciously on the side of its body, yet (as I thought) it did barely anything, and Ninetales stayed in one place.
“Spirit, try a -” I began but the man shouted over me.
“Use Flamthrower!” he said. Ninetales opened her mouth and flames streamed out of it, and as the distance the attack had to travel was practically non-existent, Spirit had no time to put any form of defence or try and dodge. Spirit screeched as the powerful flames washed over him, and I sighed; another battle for me to lose; so much for me getting back onto my winning streak.
Ninetales soon stopped the flames and Spirit was still floating there, although he was sweating which didn’t seem possible for a ghost type and looked incredibly weakened.
“Shockwave, we’ve got to win!” I said, relieved that Spirit was still in this. The energy began to crackle around Spirit and a look of confusion crossed both Ninetales and her owner’s face.
“Hold your ground,” the man said. A few more tense seconds passed before the electric energy wave was released, doing very bad damage to Ninetales who was left sweating and panting, struggling to keep herself up. I wondered how Flamethrower hadn’t had that effect on Spirit yet Shockwave had had that effect on Ninetales; not that I was complaining about it of course.
“Ninetales, how are you feeling?” her trainer asked worriedly. She barked in response, and glared up at my Pokemon and me.
“Clearly we underestimated your power,” said the man, however we’ll see how your luck holds out know we know what you’re capable of.” I looked across at James, who was staring wide-eyed at Spirit, and I couldn’t figure out what was so amazing about the Shockwave attack.
“Ninetales, it’s time to use,” the man started.
“Spirit, let’s finish this battle off with a,” I began.
“SHADOW BALL!” the man shouted
“Shadow ball!” I said.
Both Pokemon shot forth their blasts of dark energy, and the two black energy balls collided midway between the two Pokemon who were now (thanks to the Shockwave) a slight distance away from each other.
I was half expecting a long battle between the two supposedly evenly matched attacks like with Dragonite and Prayer, but instead, Spirit’s attack began pushing back Ninetales’ with ease.
“Hang on my girl,” he said as Ninetales received the full brunt of both the Shadow Balls, the explosion engulfing her in a cloud of dust.
When the covering ‘veil’ faded, Ninetales was lying in a panting heap on the floor. The man held out the poke ball to recall her, but Ninetales barked a couple of times, and then for some reason he lowered the poke ball.
The fox slowly struggled to its feet and glared at my ghost. Its eyes turned a deep red and a ray of light flashed down onto Spirit, the Confuse Ray surprising both myself and my Pokemon, as well as succeeding. The powerful Pokemon then shot another Shadow Ball at Spirit; this one hit him though, and he cried out as the attack sent him flying back.
“Try and shake off the confusion!” I told him, and as he fought against himself to ditch the confusion, Ninetales set up another Safeguard.
Both Pokemon were now damaged, and (in Ninetales’ case) protected from status effects, and (in Spirit’s case) cured off status effects.
“Use a Flamethrower attack,” the man said, and his began pouring flames out of her mouth at Spirit.
“Use another Lick,” I told Spirit, who darted niftily around the path of the flames and floated towards Ninetales, who turned her head so that the flames would hit Spirit, who once again avoided and continued towards the fox.
This continued until Spirit was behind Ninetales, and the tongue pressed itself wetly against the silk like fur, soaking it badly. I could see Ninetales wasn’t going to hold out much longer, and even though the power was cruel and unnecessary I ordered a final Shockwave attack. Ninetales was sent flying as the attack hit, and she squealed painfully as she hit the ground a good way away from where she had been standing. The man recalled her.
“That was a very good battle, why I’ve never felt so young before since I was, well, since I was young myself.”
The man then pocketed the poke ball and walked up to me, shook my hands a pressed a £10 note into my hand.
“Just an extra prize sort of thing,” he said before he jogged off down the road.

“You never told me that your Pokemon knew such advanced attacks!” James exclaimed as we sat down on the sandy beach of Fuchsia City; I had let Faith out for a swim as it was the place I’d captured him.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Shockwave is what I mean by that; you know how those attack works?”
“No, sorry, I don’t know.”
“Well, then I’ll have to explain; Shockwave is the only dual type attack, its attacks are electric and psychic. The other advantage is that it will work against ground and dark types as well as being un-effective against nothing. It also does three times more damage to fire, water and grass types. Nobody knows why this is, but it does.” He finished and took a deep breath whilst I whistled in awe; one of my Pokemon knew an attack that was that powerful? Amazing.
“Well, now that I’ve told you that, we best get going; I want to try and get there before dark and then find some Pokemon and get back to Lavender by about midnight.”
“Why so late?” I asked.
“Geodude only come out at night,” he said. “Fly or swim?” he asked.
“And I’m going to swim on what Pokemon?” I said grinning.
“We fly then,” said James throwing a poke ball. Dragonite appeared and I recalled Faith sending out Prayer. We mounted our two flyers and they both took off, glaring at each other as they both tried to out-fly each other. I saw James lean over and whisper something into his Pokemon’s ear, and all of a sudden they picked up speed, shooting in front of us and spinning around to face us. Prayer stopped with a flap of her wings.
“What say we race from here to Fuchsia and then round to Ashdown?” he asked and I smiled.
“Let’s go,” I said, and Prayer flew in line with Dragonite.
“Ready?” said James.
“Set?” I asked.
“GO!” the both of us shouted together and both of our Pokemon raced off towards Fuchsia, with Prayer taking an early lead. Fuchsia rapidly came into view and I buried myself in Prayer’s soft green and black feathers, tightening my grip on her as she turned a full 360° before continuing at the same break neck speed she’d been going at before.
“Now!” I heard James’ voice behind us shout and an orange blur raced past us, before disappearing from view.
“****,” I said. “Prayer, try and pick up the speed!” Prayed cawed and almost doubled her speed, knocking the wind out of me and making it hard for me to breath. Soon the orange blur came into view, as did the large island known as Ashdown.
A few seconds later, Dragonite touched down and a few seconds after that Prayer landed. I fell off her back gasping for breath and James just stood there, his legs wobbling slightly but still keeping up and he was laughing.
“Never gone that fast before?” he asked.
“…N…No…” I gasped.
“You should get used to it,” he said recalling his Dragonite.

A few minutes later, my legs were feeling like jelly, but I was up and I reckoned I could make it through this little ‘expedition’ we were going on.
We walked through the island, passing many trainers I’d never seen before, and although I hadn’t been here for a couple of months, it hadn’t changed as far as I could see.
We walked along the sandy beach for a while, passed a battle between an Oddish and a double-sized poke ball with eyes. An Oddish and a Voltorb.
We passed a by the forest, and tucked away behind a small cluster of trees was a massive cave entrance hewn into the large rock I’d thought was, well just a large rock.
The sky was beginning to blacken when we entered and although it slightly unnerved me, James seemed happy about it.
“Look, if being in a dark cave scares you, then let me help,” he said and he tossed one of poke balls to the ground. In the flash of light the poke ball let off, I saw it was Electrode.
“Electrode, use a sustained Flash!” he ordered, and Electrode used Flash, the white light illuminating the whole cave; but unlike the normal Flash technique it didn’t fade almost instantly, it stayed. “Now, as long as he stays out the Flash will remain intact.”
I looked around the cave; the entrance behind us, the tress in its way blocking out the light, and there were rocks a-plenty in this cave, but apart from that there was nothing interesting. There was a sort of natural path hewn into the cave which was wide – about four abreast could easily fit down it – so James and I went down it slowly, treading carefully so as not to make any noise and disturb anything. After a short while we heard soft singing, in a beautiful voice that captivated the mind and put the listener in a state of complete relaxation.
“So beautiful and calm and soothing…” James sighed. Then there was a rush of wind, a loud of explosion and the singing was replaced by laughter. James and I looked at each other before running in the direction of the noise. We came to a fork and ran unthinkingly down the left tunnel. The rock, mud and sand and all blurred into one making you dizzy if you looked in one place for too long. The two ran down the tunnel for about a minute when we emerged into a clearing. It was similar to the rest of the cave excluding that fact there was a large pool of water in the middle and stalactites and stalagmites all over the place.
There were about six two or three foot high grey boulders with arms, a mouth cut into one side of it and just above the mouth a pair of eyes. They all turned to look at us as we entered the cavern and it was as though you could feel the six pairs of eyes on you, and that was bad enough; being able to see six pairs of eyes looking at you was definitely worse.
“A colony of Geodude…” breathed James.
“Great,” I said a feeling of unease washing over me, “Now just catch one and let’s go.”
“What do you think I was gonna do?” James asked, throwing a poke ball. His Gloom emerged and the six Geodude looked at it disdainfully. Gloom just glared right back at them.
“Gloom, Sleep Powder!” James ordered, “Cover your mouth and nose!” he shouted to me and we both placed one of our hands over our mouth and nose. Gloom began to shake vigorously and as she did blue dust floated out of her plant and covered the whole cavern. Two of the Geodude breathed in the powder and (as they were hovering a few inches off the ground) they fell to the ground with their eyes closed, sleeping peacefully. The other Geodude realised what was happening, but two more fell asleep. The last two Geodude imitated James and I by covering their mouth. One of them then took its hand away and slammed both of its fists into the cave floor. He fell asleep, but the attack was pulled off, and the ground began to shake; rocks and stalactites fell to the floor from the ceiling, the water began rippling and splashing onto the floor and a miniature earthquake took place in the cavern. Luckily there were no boulders large enough to block the exit but it was still a terrifying experience. James threw himself to one of the cavern walls and clung on tightly, but I was thrown roughly to the floor. One of my empty poke balls fell off my belt and rolled down the slightly sloping cavern to the pool in the centre. I tried to get up to get it back, but I kept falling down. Then a fairly large boulder forced its way out of the cavern wall, falling into the pool and sinking rapidly to the bottom, probably crushing my poke ball.
The shaking then stopped and only one Geodude was awake to face Gloom.
“Now use Mega Drain!” James said, carefully letting go of the wall, and testing his balance. I remained on the floor for a few seconds longer, before slowly getting to my feet and leaning against the wall to stay upright.
Gloom ran over to the Geodude and placed its hands on it. Then the green energy began to flow from Geodude into Gloom as she absorbed the wild Pokemon’s health. Geodude began to sway slightly.
“Now use Stun Spore!” James said. Gloom began shaking the plant on its head again, only this time, yellow dust floated out of it. James and I covered our nose and mouth again, but the remaining Geodude didn’t have enough energy left in it to move its hand. It breathed in the spores, and its body tensed up. James pulled a poke ball out of his pocket and threw it. It opened, catching the Geodude, and pinged almost instantly. It was then that I noticed the poke ball I’d lost earlier was now floating on the surface of the pool. I walked shakily over to the side of the pool and knelt down, reaching out to grab my poke ball. I picked it up, and yet something felt different about it.
James picked up the poke ball containing his new Geodude and it was surrounded by a white light before disappearing into nowhere.
“As soon as we get back to the Pokemon centre I’m swapping Aggron for Geodude,” James said. I nodded and threw my poke ball at one of the sleeping Geodude. It hit it on the head, but didn’t open; instead the Geodude woke up and glared at James and I. The poke ball flew back to my hand, and I stared at it in surprise.
“Why’d you throw a poke ball with a Pokemon in it?” James screamed at me. It had a Pokemon? The boulder, the pool the empty run-away poke ball… I pieced the jigsaw together, assuming that the boulder passed the poke ball in the pool and knocked a Pokemon unconscious and then my poke ball captured the Pokemon. If it was in the pool it was probably a water type, so it would help us against the Geodude, who were now all waking up and staring at us with the looks of pure hatred plastered across their faces.
“Go Pokemon!” I said throwing the poke ball into the space between the Geodude and James and I. It opened in the customary white light I’d become accustomed to.
A six foot high dark blue Pokemon stood there. The back of its head was shaped so that it formed three spikes; it had a red dot in the middle of its forehead, and just below its beady eyes and small nose was a long cream coloured beak. It stood up on its two back legs which ended in webbed feet which ended in claws. It had a long tail and its arms also ended in webbed hands, which also ended in claws.
“Gol!” it cried as it faced the Geodude who backed away from it.
“When did you catch a Golduck?” James asked.
“Just now apparently,” I said, grinning. Another water type Pokemon may not have helped much, but I knew a Golduck was a helpful asset to any team. The Geodude were now backed up against the corner of the room, and James and I slowly backed out of the cavern. As soon as we left, I recalled Golduck and we both ran towards the exit of the cave, running out onto the beach and sending out our flyers. We mounted our Pokemon who lifted off the ground and flew towards Lavender through the black of the night.

[Pig on the Wing]

Okay, nobody read that chapter, and if they did, they certainly didn't reply. Damnit. So come on please people; if you're reading this please reply cos otherwise I'm just gonna stop updating. This one's nice and long too, so enjoy:

Chapter 7: 2nd Chance

The sun rose and I rolled off the bed in the upstairs room of the Pokemon centre in Lavender Town, and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I padded slowly over to the bathroom, and showered and dressed, before gathering my few belongings and leaving the room, making sure I had the key with me.
James was waiting in the reception area for me, and I handed in my key before going with James into the trainer’s lounge, where we both sat at a vacant table. The room was full of trainers like it had been last time I was here, only this time I knew I wasn’t going to a tournament afterwards.
James ordered a coffee and toast and I ordered an orange juice and pancakes with syrup.
“So, where are we going today?” James asked. “I chose yesterday, so now it’s your turn.”
“I need to go to Fuchsia to get another Gym badge,” I said and James’ eyebrows went up.
“You haven’t beaten him yet?”
“Um… no, there was a… an incident so I coul- er, didn’t battle.”
“Do tell,” James prompted.
“I only had one Pokemon, it was a three on three and he beat me with his first Pokemon, happy now?” I said. James laughed.
“You’ll be lucky if he lets you battle again,” I decided now or never, I had to ask him a question.
“James, do you have any badges?” I got the question out; in the Pokemon world it was very impolite to ask another trainer how many badges they had. James held put his hand into the pocket of the black trousers he was now wearing, and pulled out a rectangular case, opening it and showing me the contents. I almost choked on my pancakes; he had five out of six badges!
“How about you?” he asked, putting the case on the table. I put my hand into my pocket and pulled out my one badge.
“That’s all I’ve got,” I told him.
“Interesting, that’s the one badge I still need,” he said, “After you beat the Fuchsia gym you’re gonna show me where that gym is.”
“Alright, but only if you show me all the other gyms,” I said.
“Done and dusted,” he said, and we shook hands on the deal.

After we’d both finished, we left the Pokemon centre, healing our Pokemon on the way out, just to be sure. We then released our flyers, and flew to Fuchsia, this time not racing, although Prayer and Draco didn’t seem too happy in one another’s company.
We touched down gently just outside the Fuchsia gym and recalled our Pokemon, entering the dark building. It was the same as I’d remembered it to be, which wasn’t really a surprise, but brought back memories of the last time I was in here…
Joseph was standing inside the trainer box, (do they ever leave the gym, or even the trainer boxes? I thought to myself) and he looked up at me as I climbed up the ladder into the trainer box, whilst James stood next to it.
“You again?” he asked.
“Look, about last time; she was my only Pokemon; she fainted so I recalled her and ran. I’m sorry I accepted the three on three, but I guess I was foolishly over-confident, but now I’ve got more Pokemon and I’m here for a rematch.”
“How many Pokemon you got?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Five,” I replied almost instantly and Joseph nodded.
“Fair enough, I suppose you weren’t going to stay if your last Pokemon fainted, and you’ve admitted to being over-confident… I now accept your rematch, only this time, we do a full battle, my six against your five. No switching.”
“You’re on,” I said. I’d managed to beat James with four when used six, and although that was with switching allowed, I was sure with five Pokemon I could beat him. Best to go with something fast and powerful at the start, I thought to myself, unclipping Canyon’s poke ball.
“C’mon Beedrill, let’s go for it!” Joseph said, throwing his Beedrill’s poke ball into the arena. The large bee appeared, and prepared to face my Pokemon.
“Go Canyon!” I said, throwing his poke ball into the arena. My fighter emerged and him and Beedrill locked eyes, glaring at each other.
“Use Agility!” Joseph said, and his Beedrill raced off in a blur.
“Match it, use Agility too!” I ordered, and Canyon also disappeared in a blur easily matching Beedrill. “Beedrill, use Double Team!” Joseph called out, and suddenly there were twelve Beedrill racing around the arena.
“Stop!” I ordered, and Canyon skidded to a stop. He was standing a little close to the edge of the arena for my liking, but I didn’t take into account that much.
“Beedrill, stop also and use Twineedle!” Joseph called out to his large bee, stopped, its wings slowing down so that it was once again hovering just over the floor as it was when it was sent out and not racing everywhere.
The bee, pulled both of its ‘arms’ backwards and threw them forwards again, two large purple needles shooting out of the stingers and going towards Canyon.
“Drop to the floor!” I cried and Canyon fell to the floor and flattened himself against it. The two needles passed harmlessly overhead and burst against the wall. “Now, use Thunderpunch!” I ordered, and Canyon pushed himself off the ground, launching himself at Beedrill, and swinging his electrified right fist at the bee who was shocked badly. It hummed angrily and glared at Canyon.
“Finish him off with a Fury Attack!” Joseph said to his bug, who flew at Canyon, its ‘arms’ thrusting forward relentlessly. Canyon dodged the first couple but after that he was repeatedly poked by the two stingers, and pretty soon he was at the edge of the arena.
“****,” I said, and held out his poke ball to recall him.
“Chan!” he shouted, ducking low and spinning round before throwing himself upwards to deliver a swift uppercut to Beedrill who was sent flying backwards, and slammed into the roof of the building.
Beedrill lay flattened against the roof for some time, and I began to wonder whether or not it was alive. Canyon was punching the air, and shadow boxing and I looked over at Joseph.
“I think you’d better sent out your next loser,” I said.
“You’d be surprised how tough Beedrill really are,” he said, a sly smile appearing on his face, “Now!” he shouted. A powerful orange beam blasted down from the ceiling, and powered its way into Canyon who was caught completely unawares, and throw back off the arena, the Hyper Beam carrying him through the air and slamming him painfully into the wall of the building. The Hyper Beam faded into nothingness and Canyon fell into the toxic water below, where he fainted if he hadn’t already. I recalled him and Beedrill floated down, setting foot on the arena floor for the first time since it’d been sent out. The bee was panting and beads of sweat were glistening on its forehead and I knew it wasn’t going to last much longer.
“And that’s one round to me!” Joseph called over to me, “Now whose sending out their next ‘loser’?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sending out my next winner,” I called back. The water completely poisonous and this guy was probably full of poison types, so I may as well take advantage of the situation before he did something to change it.
“Go Faith!” I said, tossing his poke ball into the toxic water. My poison fish appeared, and swam around gleefully in the ‘water’.
“Beedrill, charge another Hyper Beam!” Joseph said, and Beedrill’s tail stinger began to charge up again.
“Icy Wind!” I called, and the wind picked up, the particles of snow seemingly badly hurting the bee. The wind died down again after a few seconds and Beedrill’s Hyper Beam was almost completely powered up now.
“Wait for a minute!” I called to Faith, a plan formulating. Beedrill aimed its tail stinger and the charged Hyper Beam at Faith. “Now, use Flash!” I ordered and the bright light flashed off, obscuring everything from view as the white light was so intense for a few seconds, and then it faded, to reveal a massive chunk of the arena missing where Beedrill had misfired its attack. Beedrill was lying in the middle of the arena, panting but hardly looking able to battle.
“Good job old friend,” Joseph said recalling his Pokemon. “Go Pinsir!” he said, throwing another poke ball into the arena. The Pokemon that appeared was a grey colour, with two powerful arms and legs. It was about five feet tall and protruding from the top of its head were two what looked like two-foot pincers, with small spikes running along the inside. Near the top of its body as there was no head as such were two eyes and a underneath and in between those was a vertical mouth, with two rows of sharpened teeth on the left and right sides of its oddly shaped mouth.
“That’s not a poison type,” I hissed under my breath; so much for the type advantage. “Try another Icy Wind!” I ordered.
“Swords Dance!” Joseph made his move. A large sword appeared in Pinsir’s hands, and he started waving it around in complex manoeuvres, seemingly oblivious to the freezing wind that was battering against him.
“Keep it up!” I called to Faith.
“You heard him!” Joseph shouted to his Pinsir. Pinsir kept swinging the sword whilst Faith kept the wind blowing.
“Stop and use Headbutt!” I said.
“Stop and let him come!” Joseph ordered, and I was slightly confused by this. The sword in Pinsir’s hand disappeared and Faith launched himself out of the water at the bug.
“Now use Vicegrip!” Joseph ordered, and Pinsir lowered the top half of its body, and the pincers on top of Pinsir clamped tightly shut, catching Faith inside. My toxic fish screamed in pain and I knew she’d faint in a matter of seconds and possibly die after that.
“Quickly, use Toxic Stream in the air!” I ordered and he fired his deadly stream of toxic water into the air before fainting. I quickly recalled him, and the liquid fell down and splashed all over Pinsir. I now knew who was going to wrap up this battle and take command for me…
“Go Prayer, let’s finish it off!” I said and my massive evolved bird appeared.
“I see you’ve been training,” Joseph said, his eyes opening a bit wider.
“I’m going out for a bit,” said James standing up and leaving the building, but I couldn’t help but notice that as he left his Pokemon Ubbs was trotting alongside him, and he recalled it and sent out another Pokemon as he left. I wondered briefly what he was up to, before remembering it was none of my business and I had a battle to hopefully win.
“Prayer, use Sky Attack!” I said, and Prayer began to absorb the orange light.
“Pinsir, wait for her to come and then use Endure!” Joseph said. Pinsir who looked incredibly weak at the moment nodded grimly and stood there awaiting the attack of my bird.
Prayer launched herself straight at Pinsir, and then a bubble appeared around Pinsir, and this bubble had yellow golf-balls of light floating around in them, and it was then that I remembered a battle a while ago on Ashdown that had involved a Pinsir and a Fearow…

“Fearow, use Sky Attack!” the girl screamed, and her large brown bird, snapped its large beak shut and began to absorb energy.
“Pinsir, Swords Dance up to the max and then use Endure when it comes!” the boy who was fighting the girl said, and his Pinsir executed its attack, moving quicker than anything I’d ever seen before.
The Fearow was now completely orange and just as the sword that Pinsir was using to power up disappeared the large and now-orange bird launched itself at Pinsir. Just before the powerful attack hit a bubble with yellow golf-ball sized bits of energy floating inside it appeared around Pinsir. The attack hit and clearly did some incredible damage, although Pinsir was still in the battle, just looking exhausted.
“Now Pinsir, finish it with Reversal!” the boy ordered. Pinsir grabbed the massive bird and leapt up in the air, kicking the Fearow as it did so. Fearow was knocked instantly unconscious by the attack and the girl tearfully recalled him.
“How did that attack defeat him in one shot?” she demanded.
“Quite a simple strategy really,” the boy said, “Swords Dance maxed out my Pinsir’s attack stat, and I knew you’d KO him with that Sky Attack of yours. Reversal does more damage the less life the user has, so I ordered Pinsir to use Endure before your attack hit. Endure makes that Pokemon survive with only one tiny fragment of power left in it if it would normally be KO’ed by the attack. So Pinsir was hit by your attack and reduced to one bit of life left and then I ordered him to use Reversal which does more damage the less life the user has. So my Pinsir uses Reversal with one bit of life left, and all that power is added into the fact that I’d powered up before with Swords Dance…”

This was happening now I realised to my shock. There was nothing I could do now though, and Pinsir was hit by the attack, but was only just alive.
“Try and get out of there!” I shouted to Prayer.
“Don’t let her! Grab her and use Reversal!” Joseph shouted with a malicious gleam in his eyes and his voice full of power. Pinsir grabbed Prayer who was trying to fly away, and he leapt up, slamming his two feet into her as he did. Prayer was sent flying from the impact and flew straight across the arena and into the wall of the building where she slid down into the toxic stream below. I recalled her and cursed. It was two against five now, not an easy task by any means.
“Go Spirit!” I shouted, throwing his poke ball into the arena.
“Pinsir, use -” Joseph stopped as the poison became too much for the bug and he fainted. “Rats,” Joseph recalled his Pokemon and quickly sent out his next. “Don’t forget; you’ve only got two Pokemon left, and I’ve still got four,”
I didn’t reply, merely looked at the Pokemon that emerged from the poke ball; it was floating and round, and only a little bit bigger than Spirit. It was purple all over and all around the outside of its body, was little sticking out vents, and from those yellow gassy substances erupted every now and then. Near the top of it was its two large eyes, and underneath those was a mouth, with two small but sharp fangs and just underneath the mouth, was the engravement of a white skull and crossbones symbol. Also, like Spirit it floated off the ground.
“Koffing!” it roared happily.
“Battle of the rounded ones, eh?” Joseph shouted over to me, and his face began to look… different somehow.
“Yeah, but I’m gonna win this!” I shouted back. I took pleasure in the fact that Spirit was part steel which was completely immune to poison attacks and poisoning.
“Koffing, Sludge!” Joseph said, smiling manically. His gaseous Pokemon shot two reddish-black streams of poison from its mouth and soaking Spirit with them, but my ghost merely shrugged it off and stared at the Koffing, seemingly taunting it.
“Koffing, try a flying-tackle!” Joseph said, and his Pokemon launched itself through the air quite quickly at my ghost, harmlessly passing straight through it.
“Anything else you’re gonna try, or are you done yet?” I taunted him.
“So, a ghost and steel hybrid!” Joseph laughed insanely. “Think your foolery can defeat us? Think again,” he held out his poke ball and recalled his Koffing.
“You said no switching, that means Koffing can’t battle again!” I cried happily. Now it was two on three, a bit easier for me.
“So?” he asked, his eyes rolling around in their sockets. He threw his next poke ball, and a gaseous Pokemon appeared. It floated, and was about three feet tall and completely purple all over. It had two hands sticking out of it at the bottom of its front, and the back of it stretched out in a coned-tail. It had two small but pointed ears and two eyes. Its mouth was toothless and looked like it’d been cut into the body of the Pokemon.
“Behold Haunter!” Joseph said, becoming serious again. I began wonder whether this guy had mental issues or something like that.
“Shadow Ball, take that ghost out!” I commanded, and Spirit fired his ball of dark energy which knocked the Haunter out instantly. I began to wonder what Joseph was playing at; he’d just recalled his Pokemon and thus knocked it out, for no justified reason, and his next Pokemon was a complete weakling. Joseph recalled his Haunter.
“Two on two now,” I called across to him.
“I know!” he shouted back, “Go Golbat!” he sent out his next Pokemon. This Pokemon was about four feet tall and a dark blue all over. It had two massive wings which stretched out behind it, and the underside of those were purple. It had a massive mouth with two sharp fangs on the top and two on the bottom which when opened stretched from its quarter-way position on the body all the way down to the bottom of almost cylindrical shaped Pokemon. At the bottom of it, it had two legs sticking out, and two even small feet at the bottom of the legs. The bat Pokemon also had two eyes just above the top of the mouth which were currently squinting in the light, and on top of its body were two small ears.
“Golbat, use Confuse Ray!” Joseph ordered.
“Spirit, counter back with your own Confuse Ray!” I shouted. Finally, I thought to myself, Joseph was quite possibly coming back to his senses.
Golbat flapped its massive wings and took off into the sky. Then two spotlights shot out of nowhere, one shining onto Spirit, the other shining onto the light-sensitive Golbat.
“Try a Wing Attack!” Joseph said, but his Golbat few into the wall in its confused state, and kept bashing its head against the wall.
“Try and shake off your confusion!” I said to Spirit, who had a dazed look on his face.
“Return,” Joseph held out his poke ball and recalled his Golbat, which was now falling into the toxic sludge with its wings folded in.
“Ha, you’re down to your last Pokemon now!” I called over. “I’m gonna win!”
“You’d be surprised at the power of a grass type,” he said and threw his final poke ball onto the field. “Come on Victreebel, this battle’s ours!” Joseph looked over at me. “I’ve raised this Pokemon since she hatched as a Bellsprout many years back. If you can defeat this Pokemon, you are truly worthy of my badge.”
The poke ball exploded in the arena and the thing that emerged was about six feet tall. Its body was cylindrical and it had no arms, legs or even a head as such. About three-quarters of the way down its body were two large leaves, one on the left and one on right. At the top its body was a circular hole that was the same circumference as its body, and on the bottom of the hole were two small, but sharp fangs, pointed inwards diagonally. Just underneath the hole, were two semi-circle eyes and above the hole there was another leaf, which looked large enough the cover the hole, but at the moment was leaning diagonally over it and sticking out of the leaf was a long brown bendy twig that was swaying from side to side and had a yellow and probably poisonous barb on the end of it. The Pokemon’s body was yellow with green blotches on it and the rim of the hole was pink. The Pokemon floated a couple of inches off the ground.
“No sweat, Spirit use -” I began but was cut off by Joseph.
“This Pokemon is the reason for the Koffing and Haunter,” he said, I listened to what he had to say. “I use those two weaklings to lull my foes into thinking they are winning, then Golbat comes out, and although it looks powerful, it sets up the Confuse Ray and then goes down, my foes then think they’ve got me beaten and out comes Victreebel. There’s only three people that’ve ever fought this beast, and only one of those has succeeded. You’re the fourth person to come against her, how will you fare?”
“That story isn’t going to scare me!” I shouted back defiantly.
“It’s no story my friend,” Joseph shot back, “Now, fear my wrath! Victreebel, use Finishing Touch!”
“What?” I questioned myself. “Spirit, stay there, but be on your guard!” I said, and Spirit hissed loudly in reply, floating were he was, but focusing fully on Victreebel.
Victreebel closed its eyes, and the leaf flopped over its hole while the twig behind flattened itself against its back. A blue aura surrounded by Victreebel, then a yellow aura, then red, then green then white. I had no idea what was happening, but from the name of the attack I knew it wasn’t going to be nice, but I decided to stick to my guns and see what would happen. A few seconds passed with nothing happening and then the Finishing Touch attack took place; first of all a cannon ball of water shot out of Victreebel, slamming into Spirit who looked as though he was in pretty bad pain. No sooner had the water hit, a bolt of lightning struck out of nowhere and fried Spirit, and straight after that what seemed to be an Icy Wind technique but one hundred times more powerful took place. Immediately after that, a star shaped flame shot out of Victreebel and charred Spirit, and then a beam of pure yellow sunlight shot itself at Spirit. By now, the entire arena was completely obscured to the massive blanket of dust that’d arisen.
“What the **** was that all about!” I shouted.
“That attack combines the most powerful elemental attacks: Fire Blast being the fire attack, Thunder being the electric, Blizzard being ice, Hydro Pump being water and Solarbeam being grass. Your Pokemon is as good as finished.” Joseph explained. I put my hand to me waist and unclipped Spirit’s poke ball, before clipping it back on as he’d been automatically recalled the second the Solarbeam attack hit. I gulped; even though that would easily tire out his Victreebel, I knew that it could probably easily launch one more, and even if it couldn’t Victreebel had the type advantage. I sighed and unclipped my final poke ball. I waited a few seconds for the cloud of dust to fade; there was a large crater in the arena floor below where Spirit had been, Victreebel was still floating in one place, and it hadn’t even broken a sweat, in fact it didn’t even look tired. The entire arena was also cracked in several different places and the floor was invisible in some places due to the dust covering it.
“Go Golduck, do your best!” I shouted sending out my last Pokemon. I’d checked Golduck out with Nurse Joy before we’d left Lavender; I knew that Golduck was a female and I also knew what attacks she knew.
“Victreebel, use Finishing Touch again!” he ordered and his grass poison hybrid began powering up again. Best take some precautions.
“Golduck, use Protect! Don’t forget, I’m relying on you to win this!” I said. Golduck became covered in a dark orange substance and no sooner had she set up the Protect, Victreebel launched its second Finishing Touch technique; the Hydro Pump hit and hardly seemed to affect Golduck, but then the dust picked up again, and the Pokemon and the arena disappeared from view. All I heard were the explosions of attacks as they hit home.
There was about a minute of silence and tense waiting for the dust to settle. Thoughts raced through my head; I’d recognized a couple of those attacks, Thunder, Solarbeam and Fire Blast, the most powerful electric, grass and fire type attacks known to man. I assumed that other two were Blizzard and Hydro Pump, the most powerful ice and water attacks known to man. Now I truly feared; not just of losing the battle, but losing Golduck’s life.
Eventually, the dust settled, and there in the centre of the arena was Victreebel floating as though nothing had happened. My eyes scanned the arena, but Golduck was nowhere to be seen.
“If you’re there…” I whispered, and something blue caught my eye. I looked up, and although he wasn’t showing it, I knew that after that, Victreebel was exhausted.
“Haha! Give up? Your Golduck’s puny Protect technique shielded it from the first attack, but the other attacks all affected it! You’re as good as finished!” Joseph shouted across to me, and I truly feared; I’d ‘forfeited’ the first battle, and had been graced with a second chance. But if I lost this battle, that was it; the rules stated a gym leader could decide whether or not to accept a rematch, but if the gym leader accepted and the trainer lost the second battle, that trainer would have to wait for two years before he or she could challenge that gym again, with no rematches permitted. Then the blue caught my eye again and a wave a relief washed over me.
“Now Golduck, use Psybeam!” I shouted as loud as I could. My blue duck leapt out of the water, and from the red dot on its forehead it fired a beam of green, blue and purple which crashed into Victreebel, sending it skimming across the water, and slamming it into the wall of the building.
“What, impossible!” Joseph shouted, “That attack should’ve finished you off! How are you still in this?”
“Well,” I said smugly, “It seems that after the Protect fell, Golduck took matters into his own hands, and dived into the water. The poison may have affected him, but it’s done nothing as damaging as that attack would’ve done.”
“Huh,” Joseph chuckled, “That was just a lucky break though, and Victreebel and I are far from out! Get back into the arena, Vine Whip! Use Golduck!”
Golduck who was climbing back into arena stood there, confused at hearing his name mentioned by the other trainer, and so she was caught off guard. The ‘twig’ turned out to be a long vine, and it shot forward, extending in length to reach, and wrapped around Golduck. Golduck was pulled roughly forward, as Victreebel used her as an anchor to pull herself in. Golduck was dragged unceremoniously across the dust caked arena floor as Victreebel pulled herself in, and then mercilessly tossed Golduck over her back and into the toxic water.
“Golduck!” I cried.
“Turn and use Razor Leaf, this battle’s ours!” Joseph said, and Victreebel spun round, and the two leaves on its body swung forward, and eight leaves shot out of them, shooting into the water where I was sure Golduck was, and I guessed that Joseph thought she was there two.
We were proven wrong however, as Golduck pulled her weakened body onto the dusty arena on the opposite side to where Victreebel was.
“Finish it and use Psybeam!” I ordered, and Golduck once again fired her multi-coloured psychic beam, and it crashed into Victreebel’s unprotected back.
“No!” cried Joseph as his most powerful Pokemon went sailing across the water, and crashed into the wall. However, my hopes of winning as Golduck’s exhausted and poison soaked body fell to the floor. Both of our poke balls activated simultaneously, recalling our fainted Pokemon at the same time. I gulped, a feeling of horror building up inside me. My stomach flipped twice over, and it felt as though there were a hundred butterflies flying around in there.
“So… wha… what now?” I choked out.
“We go to sudden-death,” said Joseph who looked incredibly nervous. “Now, I’ve never had to do this but basically, we each get given five minutes; we have to heal our whole team and choose one of them. You can give them a pep-talk, give them vitamins, teach them new attacks or go train them, but in five minutes we both have to be back here, and we use the one Pokemon we picked against each other. We both send that Pokemon out at the same time, and we’re not supposed to know what each of us is going to use. So good luck to you, and I’ll see you back here in five minutes,” Joseph said, and he turned dropped off the trainer box and walked into the shadows of the gym. I heard a door shut and I turned and ran to the Pokemon centre to heal my team.

“Okay, you sure you’re up for it?” I asked her.
“Gol!” she quacked back happily at me.
“Now, I won this at the Tomb gym before I got you, I’m gonna let you learn it now. It’s a TM called Elemental Blast and I want you to learn it; it’ll benefit you in this battle and in any future battles you participate in,” I told her.
“Gol! Gol! Gol, duck… Golduck!” she said happily, and although I had no idea what she said I patted her on the head. I took the TM necklace out of my pocket and put it over her head. It slid down around her neck, and stayed there like a necklace. For a couple of seconds nothing happened, and then the necklace glowed white and was completely absorbed into Golduck who didn’t look as though she’d felt anything.
“How d’ya feel?” I asked her.
“Gol!” she exclaimed.
“Good,” I said, assuming that she’d said she was alright.

The five minutes were now up and Joseph and I once more stood facing each other.
“Ready,” Joseph said.
“Steady,” I said.
“Go!” we both shouted, and we both threw our poke balls. Golduck erupted out of mine and Pinsir emerged from Joseph’s.
“Pinsir, end this quickly! Guillotine!” Joseph ordered, and I almost pissed myself. Like Horn Drill, I knew that Guillotine was a one hit KO attack, but like Horn Drill, it had horrible accuracy. A pair of illusionary red pincers appeared, trapping Golduck in between them.
“Jump!” I screamed frantically, and Golduck jumped just in time as the pincers clamped shut.
“Pinsir, use Double Team!” Joseph ordered.
“Quick, use Mind Reader!” I shouted quickly. The red spot on Golduck’s forehead flashed just as Pinsir created eleven copies of itself giving the impression that Golduck was up against twelve Pinsir’s instead of the one that he really was fighting. I breathed a sigh of relief as I knew that the Mind Reader technique would help me win this battle.
“One more rule,” Joseph said, “Neither of our Pokemon can leave the arena; that includes going in the water, sorry I should’ve you before.”
“Thanks,” I said my mind formulating a plan. Golduck landed gracefully back onto the arena, which was still in pretty bad shape. Most of the dust had been cleared although there were still some slight traces of it, and most of the arena was covered in small cracks, as well as the massive crater near my end. Golduck was too near the water for my liking; a sudden attack would send her into the water and dash my hopes of winning the Championships for the next two years.
“Now, use Psybeam!” I ordered, and Golduck fired her psychic attack, hitting the real Pinsir dead on due to the Mind Reader I’d used a minute ago. Pinsir sent bowling over, but didn’t fall off the edge, although the illusionary copies of him disappeared.
“Use, Double Team and the Guillotine!” Joseph said calmly. Which reminded me; Joseph was much calmer than he had been when the sudden death had been declared, maybe it was because he knew he was going to win… but then again, I suppose I was now calmer too, so I dismissed the thought for the time being.
It was then that the true effects of the combination of the two attacks hit me; the Double Team would the illusion that there were twelve Guillotine attacks in effect, so when Golduck dodges one, she may run into the real one! This was bad.
“Golduck… try and dodge the right one!” then I realised the stupidity of what I’d just said. “On second thoughts, Golduck jump really high, and right now!” I screamed hurriedly as the twelve pincers clamped shut; Golduck leapt up into the air, and the eleven fake pincers disappeared to reveal the real pincers on the far side of the arena before they promptly disappeared.
“Golduck, as you come down us water gun horizontally so you hit all of them!” I said, and as my blue duck fell she did what I said; she fired a continuous spray of water at the far wall and moved her head across so the Water Gun moved across in a line, causing the illusionary copies of the Pincer to disappear, and the real Pincer to be soaked and slightly damaged, but the attack was too weak to do anything serious.
“Now Pinsir, use Swords Dance!” Joseph said.
“Golduck, we have to end it now! Use Elemental Blast!” I ordered knowing what was coming if Pinsir powered up.
Pinsir began to move the swords, and now that I saw it for the second time, I saw that it did almost look like a dance of some sort.
Golduck meanwhile, landed on the arena floor, and held out both of her webbed hands, she only had three ‘fingers’ on each, and on each hand she’d curled the middle in and tucked it into her palm. In the four fingers she was holding the red, yellow, green and white orbs began to materialise and power up, whilst she opened her mouth and the blue orb appeared, also absorbing energy.
“Pinsir, use -” Joseph began.
“Forget powering up, launch it now!” I screamed over his voice, and Golduck didn’t hesitate in blasting the five elemental orbs at the Pinsir, who looking in bad shape once the attacks had hit and the slight upsurge of dust had settled.
The bug was on its left knee with its right hand offering it support as it clutched its stomach.
“Pinsir, are you still in this?” Joseph asked, his voice filled with concern.
“Pin,” he muttered gruffly, before struggling back to his feet.
“Great, now use Reversal!” Joseph ordered. His bug Pokemon stared at Golduck, his eyes flashed red and then he performed the Reversal attack where he was. He jumped into the air, and kicked out with both feet in the air; for a few seconds nothing happened, and then Golduck was sent flying out of the arena, upwards and outwards. Golduck sailed up towards the part of the building where the wall and the roof joined.
“Golduck, Psybeam that area!” I shouted, and she fired the blast at the area she was going to hit. The beam hit the area, and Golduck came sailing back, landing lightly on the arena floor – with her back to Pinsir.
“Quickly, use Vicegrip!” Joseph said, and his Pinsir who’d carefully positioned itself just behind where my Golduck had landed leapt forward and clamped its pincers on her. She squealed and Pinsir lifted its body up so Golduck was suspended in the air and still trapped.
“Pinsir, use Guillotine,” Joseph said grinning. I knew that the position she was being held in meant only one of her attacks would hit the Pinsir; it was weak but it’d have to do.
“Golduck use Water Gun in that things mouth!” I ordered. She twisted her head down wards and sprayed the water into Pinsir’s mouth, and no sooner had she done that than the illusionary pincers clamped down over Golduck, passed through her and knocked her out. However the water directly down his mouth also meant Pinsir who’d been choked horrifically and struggling for breath also fainted. We both recalled our Pokemon.
“What now?” I asked.
“I, I don’t know…” Joseph said, “I think, if the sudden death ends in a draw, then… then the Gym leader has to make a new battle challenge.”
“And yours is going to be?”
“Um, how about, if we er, yeah… we battle with each others Pokemon in a one on one, so you choose one of mine and I choose one of yours, but we can’t see what we’re getting!”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Right, I’ll choose… that one.” Joseph said pointing at Canyon’s poke ball.
“Here ya go,” I said, unclipping and throwing it across the arena, where Joseph caught it and put it on the floor in his box. I pointed at the second poke ball on his belt.
“That one,” I said and he threw it across to me.
“Go!” we both said, throwing the poke balls out. Canyon emerged from his, and Golbat emerged from mine.
“Golbat, listen to what he tells you to do,” Joseph said.
“Canyon, same for you; do what he tells you to do,” I said and Canyon nodded.
“Right, use Agility and Thunderpunch!” Joseph ordered.
“Umm, Golbat use Confuse Ray!” I said a little shakily as I only knew four attacks that Golbat could learn, and I knew that this one only knew one of those. The light flashed down, but Canyon had already raced off in a blur; he then leapt up and smashed his crackling fist into Golbat’s open mouth.
“Quickly, use Bite on it!” I said, not knowing if Golbat could even learn bite, but luck was on my side for now and this Golbat knew Bite, and so it clamped down hard onto Canyon’s arm, ignoring the sparks of electricity spreading over its body. Then, the Confuse bolted in and hit, confusing Canyon, who had managed to pull his arm free and was now falling to the ground.
“Now use Wing Attack!” I said; I knew that this was a simple attack and one that I was sure Golbat would know, and sure enough, it did. It spread its wings and flew down at Canyon, slamming its right wing into the poor fighter who was thrown back, and skidded to a stop just at the edge of the arena. He didn’t get back up again.
“Hey, not bad, but I know you can do better than that, use Sky Uppercut!” Joseph ordered, and Canyon struggled to its feet, and even in its confused stupor it managed to land a powerful uppercut on the Golbat that was hovering a little way above it, sending that bat screeching and crashing into the ceiling. Canyon however had had just about enough and fell backwards onto the floor, unconscious.
“Oh, screw that,” said Joseph rolling his eyes and recalling Canyon, throwing his poke ball over to me. I silently recalled his Golbat and tossed it back to him.
“Wait there a minute,” Joseph said, and he pressed his finger into the railing, activating a hidden switch; steel plates slid over the toxic water and Joseph jumped over the railing on the front of his trainer box and walked across the steel plating into the arena. I climbed a little shakily down the ladder and walked carefully across the steel plating and into arena where I met Joseph halfway. He shook my hand.
“That was a great battle,” he said, “Easily the best I’ve ever had as a Gym leader; but now, as the winner, I confer onto you the Toxic Badge and your choice of prize,” he handed me a circular badge that was white completely white, barring the fact that there was the image of a purple rain-drop in the centre of it. I took it of him, and stuffed into my pocket with the other badge, making sure I zipped the pocket up again so nothing went missing; I didn’t want them to fall at some time and ruin my chances of winning the League.
“Now, you get your choice of prizes, I’ll talk you through them,” said Joseph, holding out both hands; one had a poke ball in it and the other had a TM necklace. “The TM there is the Finishing Touch attack my Victreebel used; it uses the Thunder, Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Blizzard and Solarbeam techniques at the same time, whilst only using up a tiny amount of energy, however because it’s so powerful it can only be used by one Pokemon three times,” he paused to take a breath, “your other prize is a newly-hatched Zubat; I wouldn’t normally offer this, but you battled so well with Golbat just now, I think you should have the choice of it. Now pick your prize,” I didn’t even hesitate; I reached out and took Zubat’s poke ball, clipping it onto my belt.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No, thank you; you made me realize that I can’t repeatedly use Victreebel as a backup and that all of my team need to work together to win. But for now, goodbye and I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thanks again,” I said and walked towards the door, exiting the Gym and making my way happily to the Pokemon centre. James was sitting on the bench outside, and I ignored him, walking into the building to heal my new complete team of six before leaving the building and going over to talk to him.
“How’d you get on?” he asked as I sat down next to him.
“I won, but only just though; it went through to sudden death, and even then we drew on that.”
“****in’ hell, you gotta talk me through it!” James said, and I told him exactly what happened.
“So, where’d you go?” I asked him when I’d finished.
“I… I sent out Ubbs inside the Gym, and asked her to scan through your mind for the whereabouts of the Gym that you got the Tomb Badge from, and then… well obviously then I went there, and won. I’m now eligible for the Championships in two months!”
“Two months!” I exclaimed, “I’ve still gotta get my licence and four more badges!”
“I know,” said James grinning, “But I’m here to show you where the other Gyms are, and help you get your licence. And it’ll be easier than most trainers have it, because you’ve got a full team of six, and a flyer, so you can get to the Gyms quicker by flying, instead of walking like most of the others!”
“Yeah, now come on. I’ve got another Gym to beat,”
“Which one are you going to this time?” James asked.
“Whichever is closest?”
“Follow me then.” We both sent out our flyers and took off, James a little bit in front of me, leading the way.

[Pig on the Wing]

Next chapter up... yay? Seriously though, if anybody is actually reading this, please reply because I may just discontinue it if nobody's reading, and we sure wouldn't that, would we? :no: :rolleyes:
Meh, enjoy though:

Chapter 8: The First Three

James and I landed. On the way he’d told me how he’d defeated the Gym leader’s (what was his name again? I asked myself) Hypno and Graveller using only his Gloom. I told him he’d used a Sphinx instead of Graveller against me and James laughed; I couldn’t understand why, but I figured I’d ask him later.
The island we were on was small, and had a large cave in the centre of it. There was a small forest on the other side of the island, and all in all it took about five minutes to walk from one end of the island and the cave to the other end of the island and the forest. When we got to the forest James stopped and took a poke ball off his belt.
“How about a quick one on one battle?” he asked, “I need to train Geodude and you Zubat, how about a warm up,”
“You’re on,” I said, throwing Zubat’s poke ball. The small three foot tall bat appeared. Like its evolved form, it was a navy blue colour all over, barring the underside of its tiny wings which were purple. It had a small mouth with four fangs, two on the top and bottom jaw, two longish yet feetless legs and two slightly pointed ears. I searched for them, but couldn’t find them anywhere on the small bat; it had no eyes!
James’ poke ball opened and his circular boulder appeared. Its two arms were very muscle bound and its hands were clenched, its mouth open in a silent shout and its eyes were glaring at Zubat. It didn’t look too happy.
“Zubat, Leech Life!” I ordered, and my bat screeched and dived in towards Geodude, its mouth open, its fangs glistening in the sunshine. She locked her fangs onto Geodude’s rocky exterior and blue energy began to flow from the groaning Geodude into her.
Geodude groaned, and with one of its arms it grabbed my very young bat and hurled her through the air, and she skidded along the ground after she fell.
“Come on Zubat, don’t worry! Use Supersonic now!” I called trying to encourage my baby Pokemon. She flapped her tiny wings, and slowly raised herself off the ground, apparently doing nothing, but in reality she was letting off a high-pitched screech, intended to confuse the opponent. Geodude began clutching the side of its head with its hands, and moaning in a deep voice.
“Great, now use…” I began.
“Now Geodude, use Energy Burst!” he ordered and Geodude closed its eyes, being outlined in a purple light. The purple shape floated towards Zubat and exploded a short way in front of her, the attack completely catching her off guard, and sending her spinning to the ground as it exploded, showering her in the purple light. Geodude began to wheeze, but for me, Zubat was out. I recalled her feeling crestfallen.
“Alright Geodude, pin him down!” James ordered and his Pokemon leapt forward, catching me by surprise and knocking me weightily to the floor.
“What are you doing?” I spluttered as his heavy Pokemon crushed the air out of me.
“Do you remember I’d tell you about the ‘force’ or at least organization as members call it?” he said snickering. The wind began to pick up, the trees swaying dangerously and I could hear a faint roar.
“…Yes…” I choked; I was struggling to breathe now, I began to fear for the worst. I saw black dots forming in my eyes, yet through them I saw a large black object descend from the sky, landing on the floor a short thirty second walk away from where we were. The propeller on top of the helicopter was still whirring round and round, as was the one at the back. It was black, and it was a carrier helicopter, but there were no other definite features I could make out in my current state.
“I’m part of it, and you’re now caught,” he said chuckling devilishly. He recalled his heavy Pokemon and walked up to me as I took a deep breath and began to stand up.
“So I beat you for nothing?” I gasped my legs shaking slightly and my lungs still crying out for air. My chest hurt badly whenever I inhaled.
“No,” said James smiling. “I let you win. Then I told you nothing, merely gained your trust. Although all my badges are real, and I am taking part in the championships this year, they are not in two months, they’re in seven months. However, I knew if you thought they were so soon you’d want me to show you where the Gyms are, so I could take you here where you’ll go with me and meet my boss, and probably meet the same fate as that idiot Ash Ketchum and the even bigger idiot Peter Rutting who tried to actually fight.”
“He was no idiot!” I screamed, rage almost completely consuming me and I threw my fist into the side of his face. His head was thrown to the side and yet he seemed to feel no pain as he grabbed my arm threw me to the ground.
“You know him?” he spat.
“He was my god damn father you freak!” I screamed lashing out with my feet. He took a couple of steps back and I took the opportunity to clamber to my feet, once again falling prey to his plans. He lashed out with his right fist and hit me in the stomach and as I leaned over in pain his knee came up, slamming into my face and knocking me to the floor. He put his foot on my neck and his face wore a superior grin.
“You think you can escape?” he chuckled as I squirmed underneath him. “Now, you coming quietly or can I kill you now?”
“You’ll never win you know,” I said. In my heart I knew I was beaten, but I wanted to make it sound as though I had more fight in me yet.
“You dream too much,” he said and grabbed my shirt, dragging me through the sandy floor and tossing me roughly into helicopter. Two other men were in the vehicle; one was the pilot and wore a completely black outfit which was padded, a white helmet and a plastic tinted visor going across the helmet so none of his features could be seen properly.
The other man wore something similar, but his helmet had no visor and a dark skinned man with dark eyes was the only features I could pick out. That and the fact he was holding a gloved hand containing a small and easily concealable gun of some sort, aimed at me.
James clambered into the helicopter and slid into the seat next to the pilot. The door slid shut behind him and as James strapped himself in the helicopter began to rise off the ground.

What seemed like a century passed before the helicopter began to slow down, drop slowly and eventually stopped moving altogether. James and the pilot got out and the man made a grunt a signalled for me to get out too. I did and he followed after me, the gun aimed at my back the whole time as I followed James and the pilot.
We were inside what looked like a military fortress. There was a high rise wall around the outside, and the helicopter was sitting motionless alongside three others, and there were various camouflage colour jeeps and trucks dotted around the place as well. A few people walked around the area, large guns in their hands as they most likely patrolled the place.
We reached the large wooden doors and the pilot pulled them open as we entered a marble floored large room with a massive chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The room was massive, and directly in front of us a good minute’s walk away was a large wooden staircase. There were a couple of stairways branching to left and right at the top of this first short one which I was forced up. We then went up the one that veered left and came to another staircase. There were three doors at the top of each staircase yet I was forced up and up and up until we finally reached the top after I don’t know how many flights of stairs. The corridor although still marble had a red, gold rimmed carpet going down the centre of it, and leading up to one single door. I was marched up to it and James rapped sharply on the wood.
“What?” screamed a muffled voice from behind the door.
“It’s us with the boy!” James shouted back and was answered with silence. Then, the wooden door opened outwards, and James leapt backwards as it slammed against the door. The door was hiding large steel plating which slowly slid out of the way which was covering thick plastic sheeting which folded back and revealed a short distance of about three steps before a tinted glass panel which was probably bulletproof blocked the way.
“You three go,” said the voice and James, the pilot and the dark man left, the doors all sliding back into place behind them. A small doorway appeared in the glass, and I cautiously walked through, hearing the scraping sound as the glass slid back to its standard shape.
The entire room was carpeted and there was a large collection of bookshelves filled with books against the one of the walls. The room had two ‘windows’ in the far wall which was made out of stone; they were fairly large triangular shaped bits cut into the wall and they had thick iron-wrought bars going down them with only a gap the width of a poke ball in between the bars. In between the two walls was the head of a large moose, on a wooden plaque, and sitting underneath it was a large wooden desk. There was a lot of paperwork on the desk, and there was also a chair. It swivelled around slowly and purposefully and a middle aged man sat there.
He had short dark hair with grey streaks in it and dark eyes, yet he had fairly light skin as well as moustache.
In his black sleeved (he was wearing a suit) arms he was holding a small cream coloured cat, with a pointy black ears and a coin in between its two eyes.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said in a gravely voice.
“What do you want with me?” I asked, my hand going to Golduck’s poke ball. I wondered for a minute why I wasn’t going for Prayer like I normally would, but then I began to wonder why my poke balls hadn’t been taken off me.
“I hear you’re the son of the Rutting guy,” he said and I felt my fist clench so tightly I almost expected the poke ball in my hand to shatter into pieces.
“Yes, what’s it to you?”
“Well, you are like him and that young Ash Ketchum; you are a very talented trainer and we feel we could use your help. Your father tried to fight me and ended up dead, and Ash Ketchum completely ignored us and denied our requests. He and his Pokemon completely destroyed our last fortress and so he and his Pokemon met… well let’s just say they met a little accident one day. The choice is up to you of course.”
“You murderer!” I screamed and my hand opened, my large blue duck appeared on the floor next to me. The Meowth hissed and leapt from the man’s arms onto the desk. It hissed again and swiped its claw at Golduck, a bolt of lightning shooting out of the coin on its forehead and connecting with Golduck’s stomach bowling her over.
“So, what’s your decision?” he asked.
“I don’t really have a choice,” I replied.
“Well, I’ll give you a choice; if you win, you’re free and we’ll never bother you again. Ever, I swear an oath on it. If you lose however, you become part of our little organization. Either that, or you choose now.”
“The battle sounds good,” I said. “But two of my Pokemon are out,” I recalled Golduck and felt two hands lock onto my shoulders. I glanced down at them, trying to hide my wanting to see what the hands were like but failing as I ended up craning my neck to see. Each hand was the fairly similar to a humans hand; they both had four fingers and a thumb, the nails were slightly longer than humans nails though, and I noticed that flattened against my shoulder and held down by the palms of the hands were two metal spoons.
“Full recovery process,” the man said, and a blue aura surrounded me and there was a faint humming. I felt my bruises and cuts from where James had hit me heal up, and soon I was felt completely at full strength again.
“There, your Pokemon are fully healed as are you, so the battle may begin!” he clapped his hands, and once again a blue aura surrounded me, but it surrounded the man as well. He grabbed a poke ball off of his desk quickly and recalled the Meowth before we were both thrown into complete darkness for a moment and reappeared a few seconds afterwards in a large stadium.
“This,” the man shouted across to me as we stood in the trainer boxes which were quite far away from each other, “This is the Pokemon Stadium; were the Championship battles are held!”
“Wow…” I breathed almost silently as I took in my surroundings.
The arena was humongous. There were no boundaries; the whole floor appeared to be the arena which seemed to be roughly about the size of ten or more standard sized arenas stuck together. The difference between this and other arenas though, was not just the size; in the centre, instead of the normal poke ball shape there was an almost double that sized circular pool of water and floating in the water here and there were junks of ice. The rest of it was sand and mud, but there were floating rectangular platforms in random places above the arena. Around the actual arena was the stadium; what could be seen from here, was four large screens at each end of the stadium, and millions and millions of blue and cushioned seats which were now all empty but would be full of spectators normally. There was a glass wall erected in two feet in front of the bottom row to stop people running into the stadium.
“I’ll start with Alakazam!” he shouted, and I felt the hands leave my shoulders and a blue aura appeared in the arena on the man’s side and begin to form the shape of the Alakazam. I could barely remember what it looked like, and even though I knew it was a powerful Pokemon, I was still excited to see and battle one.
It was about six feet tall, and shaped oddly. Its body was a light brown colour. Its two arms ended in hands with four fingers and a thumb each and the fingers ended in slightly long nails and the hands tightly grasped two metal spoons. Its feet had only two forward pointing ‘toes’ and one backward facing ‘toe’ which all ended in longish nails also. From its knees to its ankles, its elbows to its wrists and around its upper chest it had a thick purple coating, probably psychic armour of some kind. Its ears were very long and pointed, its snout stuck out like a dogs and it ended in a thick bushy moustache that curled slightly. Its eyes were focused on… on something and it gave the overall impression of a very wise Pokemon. I knew I wasn’t going to have an easy ride even with two Pokemon having an edge against it. I weighed up the options of Spirit and Prayer, before deciding on Spirit; although psychic attacks would hurt him very slightly and not hurt Prayer at all, Spirit knew some ghost attacks which would be very effective, whereas although she may know some, I didn’t know if Prayer knew any dark type attacks. I threw the poke ball and my spherical ghost steel hybrid appeared to face off the slightly larger, more powerful Alakazam.
“Use Psychic!” the man called out, and before I could say anything Alakazam’s eyes had glowed a light blue and Spirit was sent flying back into my trainer box, shaking it and after it flew back into the battle I noticed it’d left a slight dent in the structure of it.
“Now pin it and use Fire Punch!” the man ordered his attack, a combo this time and Spirit looked helpless as Alakazam focused on him again.
“Use Shadow Ball quickly Spirit!” I screamed and without even powering up Spirit shot the ball of darkness which caught Alakazam in the stomach, causing it to fly back, but before it hit the trainer box or the ground it simply stopped moving, and levitated itself into the air.
“Now Alakazam, pin it and Fire Punch!” the man repeated his combo and this time his Pokemon wasn’t leaving a gap for me to attack. Spirit suddenly became immobilized in the air, floating there but not actually able to move at all. Alakazam then slowly wandered over, his fist glowing red as he walked and by the time he reached Spirit his hand was surrounded by a fire ball. He swung his fist into my stationary Pokemon who was sent into the ground, flames streaking over his body and he fainted. I recalled him in annoyance and sent out Prayer, the last Pokemon I had that stood a chance against the powerful Psychic type. My large flying Pokemon appeared, although it was in fact a grass and dark type Pokemon, it was just capable of flying attacks.
“Prayer, use a dark type attack that you know!” I said and Prayer ruffled her feathers and took to the air and a red beam shot from her, connecting her with Alakazam, and it was then I remembered one of the dark type attacks she knew as she’d used it against James’ Dragonite in our battle a while ago; the attack was the weak but highly accurate Strike technique.
The beam having connected the two, Prayer shot at the Alakazam, knocking it off balance where it fell to the arena floor.
“Keep on using Strike!” I called out. If she kept using the attack then Alakazam would eventually faint, but the man had other plans, and he executed it as the beam connected the Pokemon.
“When the bird comes in, use Fire Punch!” the man shouted and as Prayer flew at Alakazam his fist became a fireball again, and the psychic type socked my bird in the gut with his damaging fire attack. Prayer screeched and flew up again and began to circle in the air around Alakazam.
“Prayer, use a different dark attack,” I called to her and she began to hover in the air. She opened her beak and emitted a shrill screech, as a black ethereal beak appeared in the air which had thickened heavily, making it difficult to breath. The Alakazam could do nothing to avoid the oncoming Crunch attack, and the beak clamped down on him, knocking him out of the battle. The beak disappeared, the air returned to its normal state and the man recalled his fainted psychic.
“Let’s go Hariyama!” he said, throwing another poke ball. Another six foot high Pokemon appeared its legs thick and muscly, the same with its arms. Its hands were covered by purple boxing gloves and its feet were black. It was mainly round at its belly area, its eyes wide and its mouth pulled across in a sneer. I quickly recalled Prayer; she may have been able to take him out, but I wanted my own fighter to this job.
“Come on Canyon!” I said and my Hitmonchan emerged from my poke ball. There was instantly a feel of hostility in the air as the two fighting types stared each other down, their fists clenching tighter than normal. I’d done some training with Canyon, and I felt he was now at a stage where he was powerful enough to take out this overweight fighter he was now facing. I’d also checked out what moves he had with one of the poke centre nurses and I knew that this Pokemon was capable of far more than I’d originally given him credit for.
“Take him down with a Cross Chop!” the man said, and his Pokemon ran towards Canyon; it was quite funny watching the Pokemon run as its flab bounced as it moved and as it neared Canyon it raised its arms across its chest in an ‘X’ shape. I was still too busy laughing, and Canyon who hadn’t been ordered anything realised he’d have to take matters into his own hands, and he dived sideways as the other fighter threw its arms out.
“Use Vital Throw instead,” the man said, and as I watched now in horror, the powerful and slightly fat Pokemon grabbed Canyon and hurled him high into the air, allowing him to land painfully on the floor, but for it was more than just a mere battle for Canyon; it was a battle for honour, for the greater of the two fighting types to be declared. I knew this meant a lot to Canyon, and I wasn’t going to let him down.
“Canyon, use Sky Uppercut!” I ordered, and he clambered clumsily to his feet and running at the other fighter, ducking low as he approached before leaping up and delivering the powerful uppercut to the Hariyama, sending it high into the air, but my opponent was able to take advantage of this situation.
“Crush it with a Body Slam,” he said as his Pokemon began fall. Hariyama spread his arms and legs and hurtled towards the ground at Canyon who only just managed to dive out of the way.
“Fine then, use Rollout!” the man shouted, yet again taking advantage of the situation.
“Beat it with speed, use Agility!” I cried out as Hariyama began to roll towards Canyon who was just getting up after diving out of the way of the falling fighter. Canyon sped off, but tripped and fell flat on his feet as the other fighter rolled nearer and nearer. I knew Canyon couldn’t get up to avoid and wouldn’t get up to fight if it was hit by the attack, so I decided to use an attack he’d learned of James’ Geodude a few days ago.
“Canyon, quickly use a Defence Curl,” I shouted, praying that it’d work. Canyon began to draw himself up in a ball as the shadow of Hariyama loomed over him. Canyon began to concentrate in the ball he was in, and a metallic sheen came over his body as the fat fighter rolled over him.
“Punch through it!” I shouted, hoping Canyon could here and perform it without hurting himself too much. I waited patiently and then after a few seconds something completely unexpected happened; my poke ball activated and shot a red beam underneath the Hariyama and a poke ball unclipped itself automatically from my belt and exploded inside the arena.
“What the hell!” I shouted.
“The Silent Roar attack,” the man said, “It basically switches the opponents Pokemon, the effects of a Roar, but it makes no noise,”
“I can still take you though!” I said as my third Pokemon appeared. It was Zubat and I swore silently. “Stay out of its reach!” I called up to her.
“Use a Flamethrower!” the man called. Hariyama held its hands up, and formed a box shape with his thumbs and the fingers next to them. A moment later a spout of flames poured from somewhere inside the see-through box of air and towards Zubat.
“Get out of the way damnit!” I screamed as she fluttered around in the way of the oncoming flames. She spun out of the way and began to spiral merely an inch away from the flames heading towards Hariyama.
“Keep your distance!” I screamed as loudly as I could, but my bat continued on its suicidal path.
“Smack it one!” the man shouted as my bat got within arms length, and the flames disappeared as Hariyama swung its fist slamming my Zubat through the air. She came to a prolonged stop and few back at the fighter who once again sent my bat reeling painfully through the air. The third time, she smacked into one of the panels and her momentum flipped her onto the top of it where she lay, panting and bruised.
“Zubat, time to attack from long range; use Supersonic!” I called out to her and she let of the high pitched wail which went unheard by the man and I but clearly effected Hariyama who began to throw a fit where he was standing, and he began to punch himself and run around like an idiot. This continued for a little while until the large Pokemon fell to the floor and fainted. The man recalled him and swiftly sent out another Pokemon; not something that I was too happy about fighting though.
It stood proudly on its four orange furred and cream coloured fluff coated legs. Its massive body was fashioned in a similar way; its entire body was covered in orange fur which boasted thick black stripes in a pattern and on its legs, underbelly and the top of its head was more cream coloured fluff. Its tail was similar in appearance to the fluff only it was more like a tail than mounts of fluff.
“Arc!” barked the massive Arcanine now standing in the arena. Its mouth was locked in a sly grin, and the pointed features of its snout showed great wisdom and power combined. Zubat who wasn’t in the best state to fight lay on the low platform and stared tiredly at the fire dog.
“Get up to it,” the man said calmly and with extreme ease and a show of superb agility Arcanine disappeared, racing once around the whole arena to show off its speed and warm up, before leaping onto one of the platforms. I was about to recall Zubat as the Arcanine landed on the opposite end of the platform she was lying on, but she had that look in her eyes… and I thought maybe…
“Supersonic again!” I ordered and she let loose the confusing attack, which seemed to have no effect on the Pokemon.
“Knock it off the platform,” the man said and his Pokemon merely padded up to her and tapped her with its paw, knocking it from the platform where she spread her wings and came to a halt before she hit the ground. I still didn’t have any faith in her winning this, but I wanted to try anyway; maybe she could pull it off. She sure looked like she wanted to anyway.
“Stop toying around now, use Fire Blast!” the man called out and Arcanine shot a blazing star shape made of fire from its mouth, and Zubat only narrowly dodged it by curling up into a ball in the air and lining up with the gap between the points of the star.
“Fly around and dodge its attacks!” I screamed as Zubat began to realise the danger she was in and began to swoop in and out of the way of the various star shapes fired at her. The arena floor was now severely blackened due to the impacts of the fire attacks.
“Hit it with Extremespeed!” the man ordered and his dog disappeared, reappearing barely a second later, knocking Zubat out of the sky and onto a platform; the same one that Arcanine was falling heavily towards.
“Get out of the way!” I screamed as she lay there, staring almost hypnotically at the fire dog. She began to glow white and for a few seconds I thought she was evolving, but then the dog landed on her, completely obscuring her. For a few seconds the man and I watched and waited tensely, each wanting our Pokemon to survive; Arcanine was laying panting with its eyes closed and its fur ruffled badly and Zubat was underneath it. Then, out of the blue, Arcanine was knocked from the platform and a Pokemon I’d seen before but not the same as Zubat was on the platform instead. My new Golbat screeched and I was overcome with joy; it’d only been given to me a couple of days back and then it’d only been newly hatched… and then I remembered what one of the nurses on Ashdown had told me; Pokemon given or traded grow faster. I smiled almost menacingly… this battle was mine now. Or so I hoped…
“Wing Attack it now!” I called and my large bat slammed its right wing powerfully into the large dog.
“Counter with Flamethrower!” the man said and the dog breathed a stream of flames which hide Golbat from my view and my stomach flipped a quite a few times. By now Arcanine was sweating and as the flames faded Golbat was still fluttering in the air; she wasn’t looking too good and she looked too tired to continue, but I knew Arcanine wouldn’t last any longer.
“One final Flamethrower!” the man ordered.
“Do something!” I screamed as the flames shot at her again; she managed to just avoid the first breath, but the second one got her and knocked her out of the sky. She wasn’t quite fainted, but she was in no state to continue battling so I recalled her with a feeling of melancholy.
“Faith, let’s take him out!” I said and threw his poke ball into the pool of water. “Water Gun it quickly,” I said as he emerged and he shot the stream of water, soaking the tired fire dog, and knocking it out of the battle. The man recalled it, and he seemed stuck for choice with his next Pokemon. At first I was worried, but then I remembered Faith and Golduck were the only Pokemon left on my team that were capable of battling properly as Canyon and Golbat were exhausted and I was sure that Prayer was pretty tired too.
The man finally selected a poke ball and threw it into the arena as I waited nervously to see what would emerge…