"Thank you so much for your help, dear."
"It's nothing, Mary, it's the least I can do to help. Besides, we had a lot of fun. Is that right, guys?"
My pokemon chorused an agreement, and continued to help Mary in caring for her garden.
We had spent three weeks in the desert, and we were exhausted when we finally got out. We had met Mary shortly after our exit from the desert. She had offered a ride for us on the back of her truck after seeing our state of exhaustion. She drove us to her house in Fallarbor, where we rested and washed up. I don't think I managed to get all the sand out of my hair yet.
Mary is a very helpful person, and she let us stay at her house for as long as we needed to. I had stayed for a week and today is my last day here with her before I continue with my journey. We are currently helping her to tend to the garden at the back of her house.
My team and I actually managed to reach the famed desert ruins with Snap's help in guiding us there.
The desert ruins are majestic. That's the only word that I could think of to describe it. Even in destruction, the sight of it is breath-taking.
The only building that remained standing and untouched by the wrath of the desert is a five-story building at the center of the ruins. It is beautiful, and probably a building of great importance if it is built to remain standing after so long. There are beautiful carvings that reminded me a lot of egyptian hieroglyphs from my previous world that is decorated across the interior walls of the buildings. There are also many stone carvings depicting the conflict between humans and pokemon, and an equal amount of carvings portraying them living in peace with each other. It felt like they were telling a story. A story so far back that it was long forgotten by the residents of the world, buried in the sands of time.
I saw a lot more wild pokemon in the ruins then anywhere else in the desert. I guessed that the ruins provided a much better shelter for these pokemon in this unforgiving environment. I was about to leave the ruins when Snap brought me the biggest find I had in the desert.
A fossil. A fossil of a pokemon, to be exact. It looked a lot like a Root Fossil from what I could see, and is amazingly well-preserved.
I squeezed Snap in an excited hug. He had just brought me a prize that is even rarer and harder to win in the Lilycove Department Store lottery.
Pokemon fossils are priceless.
The technology to revive prehistoric pokemon from fossils is only recently invented about 10 years ago, and only available to the public 5 years ago, although you need to pay a very hefty fee to enjoy the benefits of such a technology. The technology was first invented by a scientist working in the Cinnabar Lab, and he successfully revived an omanyte back to life. It caught the pokemon scientific and trainer community by surprise, and Blaine, the gym leader of the Cinnabar gym, had to work overtime to protect the scientist and the secrets of the revival technology during the initial period of its news release. However, the revived omanyte died two weeks after its revival, showing that the revival technology is still incomplete.
The PWL was hesitant to approve the continued research to revive prehistoric pokemon. They were afraid that introducing prehistoric pokemon into the world can severely affect the current ecosystems, upsetting the balance that it had been trying to protect for half a millennium. After many debates and researches by the scientific community, it was proven that the revival of prehistoric pokemon would not affect the current ecosystems as it is. Hence, the revival technology was given approval by the PWL to allow its continued research. But it banned the use of such a technology to revive any pokemon that is not a prehistoric pokemon, and gave many other rules and restrictions such that the secrets of such a technology is one of the most guarded secrets in the world.
The original inventor of the revival technology invited accomplished pokemon scientists from all around the world to help in perfecting it. In Hoenn, Devon Corporation held the most number of pokemon scientists, and they sent their best brains to help perfect the research. The revival technology reached its perfection after a few years. The kabuto that they revived, not only survived, but actually managed to evolve into a kabutops. It is still alive and kicking today, and is now entrusted to the capable hands of Brock, the current gym leader of Pewter city, and is one of his best battlers.
Various prehistoric pokemon of different regions were soon revived, and there was a temporary craze in trying to find fossils to revive them. The PWL put a stop to the craze as quickly as it came. A pandemonium is the last thing they need. Still, it did not prevent trainers or archaeologists from finding these extremely rare fossils and revive them. Even Steven have two prehistoric pokemon with him, armaldo and cradily. Both pokemon are native to Hoenn, and is often used in his battles. The only place to revive prehistoric pokemon in Hoenn is at Devon Corporation, as only their scientists have the access to such a technology.
I will have to revive the Root Fossil when I pass by Rustboro after I got my Heat Badge, and then travel back to Petalburg from Rustboro for my fifth gym badge. I can also say a quick hello and visit Roxanne at her gym. I cannot wait to tell her my find. Considering that the lileep evolutionary line is part rock type, Roxanne can also help me in training the sea lily pokemon. I'm not sure if I have the funds necessary to revive it, but my parents will probably be more than willing to fork the money needed for its revival. They did not have a prehistoric pokemon on their farm before and they would be very interested in trying to breed it.
That's how I found another future member of my team. Woohoo!
During the second day of our stay in Mary's house, Snap had evolved into a vibrava. It was not surprising, as he was already showing signs of evolution when we first met, but I did not expect him to evolve this soon.
We spent most of our stay in Mary's house trying to get Snap to acclimatise to its new body. Learning how to fly properly was our top priority. Snap is now the only member on my team that can do true aerial combat, if we exclude Dolly's ability to levitate herself from the ground. Snap is now trying to learn the more delicate parts of flying by attempting to properly water Mary's plants by hanging a watering can from his feet while flying slowly past them in Mary's small garden.
Training does not have to be done through battles alone, there are many ways to incorporate training into our everyday lives if you are creative enough.
While I was replanting some of the potted plants, my attention turned to the newest addition to my pokemon team who joined after Snap. We met her while Mary and I were climbing the Meteor Falls.
My absol, Kelsa, is the fifth member to join my team four days ago. I usually address her as Kel, which is the short form of her name. In my previous world, Kelsa is a name that means "brave" in certain parts of the world, and I chose that name for her when she joined my team. She accepted the name after I explained the reason behind that name, without the part of me being a reincarnated soul.
When Mary and I first met Kel, she was anxiously trying to warn us of something. She did not let us advance further into the depths of Meteor Falls, and chased us off with blasts of Hyper Beam. It was only when she chased us near to the foot of Meteor Falls that a loud crashed reverberated throughout the mountain.
Kelsa had just saved us from a rock slide.
Kelsa is brave. Despite being misunderstood by humans for bringing about disasters, she still tried to warn us despite the danger of appearing before humans. It was only recently proven, with the help of Elite Four Sidney, a Dark Specialist, that the absol species are not the ones who are responsible for disasters that happened shortly after their sightings. Their appearance is merely a foretelling of an approaching calamity. However, not many people believed the claim, and followed the old superstition that many of the older generations have about the absol species. Absols tend to stay far away from humans as a result from the generations of misunderstanding they experienced from humans. It does not help matters that their horns are highly valued in the black market, which resulted in illegal poaching of their species.
That's why I felt that Kel is brave for trying to warn us, and that she deserved her name. She had everything to lose and nothing to gain in trying to warn us, but she still did what she thought was right.
Mary and I thanked her profusely in saving our lives. For some reason, Kel decided to follow us back to Mary's home. None of us minded, but her reason in choosing to follow us still eluded us.
She willingly let herself get sucked into one of my empty pokeballs, without any warning, that same night.
Kel is a little aloof. She can get along with the team perfectly fine, but prefers to spend her time by my side. She does not communicate much, she just follows me around and provides silent company during our time together. Kel is also a little shy when it comes to physical contact, but got used to it quickly enough. She also can be a little vain, and spent a significant amount of her free time grooming herself. Kel also preferred not to battle, despite being a capable and vicious battler. Given her preferences in regards to pokemon battles, I was surprised that she did not mind training with us. Furthermore, she does not shy away from any battles that I chose to let her take part in. She helped me with a few trainer battles during the week I was in Fallarbor, and won every single one of them effortlessly. She just preferred not to get involved in battles if she is not needed. I am fine with her preferences, and tried to respect her wish in not using her in battles that I do not need her help with.
On the last day of our stay in Fallarbor, Flamel, Bigblue and Dolly played a prank on Snap and Kel as an initiation program to welcome the both of them into our team. It is a simple and harmless prank. Dolly merely tripped Kel, who fell on Snap, who was resting on the ground. Bigblue sprayed them with mud to end off the prank. Snap simply retaliated with a half-hearted spray of Sand-Attack. Kel gave a furious scowl, she wasn't pleased with getting her well-groomed fur all dirtied.
I have to defuse the situation by getting Bigblue to wash off the mud on Kel and then asked for Flamel's help in drying Kel using the heat from his flames. I then personally groomed Kel's fur with a brush designed for grooming pokemon. Kel seemed to enjoy it, and I decided to give Kel more grooming sessions whenever I have the time. After many apologies from the three pranksters, Kel seemed to accept the idea of a tradition in pranking future new members of our team. I felt a little sorry for our future members, even if I have not met them yet. Dark type pokemons are known for their sadistic and vindictive streak. Their next victims are not going to have a fun time.
After spending a week in ash-filled Fallarbor, I exchanged my farewells with Mary, and we continued our journey to Lavaridge.
I spent a night at a daycare center which is located on Route 113 after leaving Fallarbor. Grandpa Bob and Grandma Lucy, the elders who ran the daycare center, were generous enough to offer me a place to stay for the night when they saw me wandering along Route 113 in the evening looking for a place to rest. We had a light supper, and talked about ourselves. I talked about my adventures thus far, sharing the exciting bits of it. They shared their experience on raising pokemon, and their journeys as a pokemon trainer before they decided to drop out of the gym circuit to open a pokemon daycare center together. The topic of discussion soon turned to some of the rare pokemons that the elders had raised while running the daycare center.
"The beldum that we helped raised 10 years back, while rare, is not the hardest pokemon we helped to raise on the farm. The most troublesome pokemon is definitely the magmar that we have on hand now."
"A magmar? Isn't that rare? They are hardly seen, even in their native regions. How did you get one in Hoenn?"
"We helped a trainer raised a magmar before, and it left an egg here. The trainer traded that egg in for a discount for our services, and that's how we got a magmar's egg. The egg hatched into a magby. It might be a little clumsy, but it did not give us any problems initially. The problem happened when it finally evolved about a month ago." Bob explained. "We were happy at the thought of having a wider variety of pokemon on our farm, and that it might allow us to branch out into the pokemon breeding business. But the magmar is more trouble than it's worth. The moment it evolved from a magby into a magmar, it turned very aggressive. It will constantly light things on fire and challenge every pokemon we have on our farm. The amount of property damage the magmar caused is unbelievable." Bob ended his speech with a shake of his head.
"We wanted to find a trainer to sell it to, but there are very little trainers that pass by here to Fallarbor to begin with. Fallarbor is not a part of the gym circuit, and trainers do not need to pass by this area unless they want to. Among the trainers that pass by here, none of them have the ability to handle magmar, most of them only have three to four badges on them." Lucy sighed. "We are even giving a huge discount to sell magmar, but the location of our daycare is too far for most accomplished trainers to even consider coming here to have a look despite knowing that there is a discount."
"Long story short, we have a troublesome magmar that is a walking hazard to our daycare center, but we are unable to sell it. We are stuck in a dilemma." Bob crossed his arms and huffed.
I was sitting on the tatami mats in Bob's and Lucy's living room. I absently stroked Kel's fur, who had took to sitting quietly beside me and laid her head on my lap. Dolly is in the building somewhere while the rest of my team are in their pokeballs. I tried to remember as much as possible about the magmar species. They are native to the Kanto, Johto, and Sinnoh regions, and even then they are rare. This is because they tend to live in the most dangerous of locations, such as a living volcano or insurmountable mountains. Despite their weird appearances, magmars are smart, and they can be as cunning as dark type pokemons. They are also relentless in battle, and will not rest even if you put them down. They will simply get back up and keep fighting until they defeat their opponents or they are truly and thoroughly defeated. Wild magmars are vicious, and tend to kill anything that comes near their territory. You will need to be at least an advanced trainer to even attempt at training a magmar.
So if the trainer is question is at least an advanced trainer in skill level or higher...
"Grandpa Bob, Grandma Lucy, is it possible for me to have a look at the magmar? I have a trainer in mind who is capable of taming it. I will buy it for you if I deem it suitable for the trainer."
Grandpa Bob waved his hand worriedly in front of his chest. "That magmar is dangerous, Velda. We don't even let it out other than for its meal times or to let it stretch its legs to keep it healthy. If it suddenly gets bloodthirsty..."
"I am a trainer who earned all three of my gym badges by defeating the gym leaders in battle. My pokemon are more than capable of defending me from an untrained magmar. It may be your only chance of getting rid of that magmar of yours." I paused, trying to think of a way to convince the elders to let me see the magmar. "The trainer I have in mind is an ACE operative, by the way, so you would not have to worry about his abilities in taming magmar."
The last sentence is all it took to convince them to let me take a look at their magmar.
I cannot help but laugh at magmar's antics when I first saw it.
The elders let it out a far distance away from us. It did not bother about us when it first appeared, and proceeded to wander around the enclosure it was released in. But within five minutes of its release, it managed to trip on its feet 7 times, accidentally set something on fire 5 times, fell into the same hole on the ground 3 times, and hit its head on the same boulder 4 times.
Nineteen different incidents in the span of five minutes since its release from its pokeball, this magmar is a genius.
The magmar is also a certified trouble magnet, much like a certain someone I know. They will be such a perfect fit together.
With Bob's and Lucy's permission, I released my entire team out of their pokeballs and we entered magmar's enclosure together. We walked towards the magmar, with my pokemon forming a protective circle around me. I wanted to test the magmar's capabilities in battle before deciding to buy it.
Magmar instantly attacked us the moment it spotted us walking towards its location.
The magmar is clearly not trained for battle. It only relied on its instinct to fight and tried to force its way with brute strength alone. Bigblue and Dolly had fun toying with him while the rest of us watched a safe distance away. I got bored after I finished assessing magmar's capabilities.
"Snap, end it with a Sand Tomb."
Snap buzzed and rose into the air before joining in the battle. With a mighty flap of its wings, a large cyclone of sand was conjured with magmar as its epicenter. Bigblue cooperated with Snap by loosening the soil around magmar with a combination of rock and ground type techniques. The entire area around magmar was turned into quicksand which magmar quickly sank into until only its head can be seen. Dolly cackled loudly at the sight.
The magmar stared at me with visible hatred in its eyes. It tried to blast me with a burst of flames from its mouth, only for a large slab of stone to rise from the ground and prevented the stream of flames from reaching me, courtesy of Bigblue.
"Thank you, Bigblue, Snap, Dolly." I said sweetly to the three of them, who felt refreshed from a nice workout. I turned to Flamel. "Don't you think this magmar is the pokemon version of Vance? Both are clumsy and a trouble magnet, and they both have a love for battling. What do you say if we get magmar as an early birthday present for Vance? His birthday is about a month from now. I wonder if he will love it?" I could not keep the glee out from my voice, this gift is too suitable for Vance.
Flamel gave a snort and voiced his agreement by slamming his front left hoof into the ground.
I turned back to Bob and Lucy. "Grandpa Bob! Grandma Lucy! How much are you willing to sell magmar for?"
"Are you sure that this is a good idea, Velda?"
"I am sure, Grandpa Bob, Grandma Lucy, don't worry about it."
After a night of discussion, Bob and Lucy decided to sell magmar to me the next morning. I pressed a wad of cash worth 8,000 pokedollars into Bob's hands, and took magmar's pokeball from Bob. The price I paid was the final price after accounting for a more than 50% discount of the original selling price on the elders' part, and it was still so freaking expensive.
Magmars are just that rare.
"The pokeball transfer system is over there." Lucy pointed to a machine sitting by the far side of the room at the corner of a wall, opposite the counter where they do business with their clients. "You just need to key in the trainer ID of the trainer that you are going to send magmar to. Please inform the trainer that the magmar is a male, the males of their species are usually more aggressive than the females, and it needs to be handled with extreme caution."
"I will." I replied as I placed magmar's pokeball on the pokeball holder of the transfer system, and keyed in Vance's trainer ID. I watched the pokeball vanished in a burst of light before sending a quick message to Vance using my xtransceiver to inform him that the pokemon I just sent is an early birthday present for him. I cannot wait to see the look on Vance's face the next time we video call each other.
"A magmar. You sent me a magmar." Vance deadpanned.
Vance was currently in a training field from what I could see in the video call.
"Yes brother dear, don't you love it? I spent quite a lot of money on this magmar for you, do you know that? Isn't it just adorable? I knew I found the perfect gift for you when I saw him. He is the pokemon version of you, I cannot think of anything more suitable than him for your birthday present." I replied with the sweetest voice I can manage and pasted the most innocent smile on my face, making sure to stress the important words. I am enjoying this way too much.
"How is this a suitable birthday present?! You sent me a magmar, who thought that challenging my salamence the moment he is out of his pokeball, a trained dragon, was the smartest decision! You sent me a magmar, who keeps lighting random things on fire every few minutes, and walrein is absolutely pissed at trying to do damage control! You sent me a magmar, who keeps colliding into things the moment I turned my attention away from it! I even checked his eyesight, and it is working perfectly! This magmar is a trouble magnet!"
"You are a trouble magnet, and you don't see me and Macky complain as much. Accept it, you and magmar are a match made in heaven."
I heard laughters from the other side of the video call, and saw Vance turned away from his xtransceiver to tell his colleagues to shut up.
"Seriously though, your team lacks a strong fire type. Magmar is definitely strong enough to fill that role the moment he finishes the training you put him through and evolve into a magmortar. You are an ACE operative. Your pokemon are more than capable of keeping him in line if he gets rowdy. I would not have gotten magmar for you if I don't believe that he will be an asset to you in the future." I said seriously. "I would have try to get a magmarizer for you as well, but those are hard to find. You would probably have an easier time finding those using your status as an ACE operative."
Vance was about to reply when a loud crash was heard from Vance's side of the video call, followed by a shout of 'Flaming tauros shit, control your damn magmar Vance!' I could hear a salamence's angry roar and Macky's cackle, before hearing an even louder explosion. I could see Vance ducking suddenly behind a boulder to avoid a stream of fire, and immediately jumped out of the way when a huge jet of water burst from outside my vision from the opposite direction to fight the fire. This is the mayhem that I could see from the limited vision of the video call alone. I can only wonder what else is happening that isn't captured from the point of view of Vance's xtransceiver.
Vance groaned and placed his palm on his forehead. "I have my work cut out for me, don't I?"
"Yes you do, brother dear. Yes you do."
It took me another three days by travelling through Fiery Path and riding the cable car for me to reach Lavaridge Town.
Lavaridge is one of the smaller towns in Hoenn, due to the fact that it was built on the side of a volcano. Despite the small size, the people of Lavaridge managed to earn their fortune by taking the full advantage of living near a dormant volcano. The soil around Mt Chimney are the most fertile soil in all of Hoenn, their mineral content outstripping even those of Verdanturf and Fallarbor. Many farmers have made their home here, where they grow the best herbs and agriculture produce. The locals of Lavaridge even managed to tap onto the geothermal energy provided by Mt Chimney, and it is how 70% of the town's electricity is derived from. There are many hot springs surrounding Mt Chimney, which turns Lavaridge into a popular tourist attraction where many people flock to from all around the world.
I quickly booked a room at the pokemon center upon arrival and made my way to the hot springs at the back of the building. The hot springs is divided into two sections, one for males and the other for females. I stripped myself naked and dipped into the warm waters of the female section of the hot springs. While relaxing in the hot springs, I researched about the pokemons that Flannery, the Lavaridge gym leader, is known to use against challengers on the internet forums using my xtransceiver. From what I could find out, her most commonly used pokemon are torkoal, camerupt, numel, slugma, houndoom, ponyta, magcargo, and a growlithe.
Damn, that is a lot of pokemon to prepare for. Some of them are not even from Hoenn.
This gym battle would be on a level of an intermediate trainer. Flannery is known to challenge intermediate trainers to a 4 vs 4 pokemon battle. I would definitely use Bigblue and Snap in the gym battle, their skill sets are suited for this. Dolly would do well in this gym battle provided that she managed to increase her offensive powers. Flamel can probably hold his ground against the gym trainers, but I am unsure if I should use a fire type against a gym leader who is a Fire Specialist. This means that I would have to ask Kel to battle for me. However, my plan still have one missing key component for us to successfully complete this gym battle.
Power. My pokemon needs more power. More specifically, they need the power that comes from evolution.
Lavaridge's gym challenge is designed to be completed by intermediate trainers. Most of these trainers would have at least three fully evolved pokemon by the time they try to challenge the fourth gym in the gym circuit.
None of my pokemon have reached that state of their evolution. The only pokemon on my team that have evolved so far are Bigblue and Snap.
Snap had just evolved, and I'm not sure if he can evolve further anytime soon. I would need to do more research or ask around if anyone knew about the evolutionary process of vibravas. Bigblue, Dolly and Flamel should be ready to evolve soon, all they need is more training to properly induce the process of evolution. Kel cannot naturally evolve unless you count mega evolution into the equation.
Speaking of which, I wonder if mega evolution is possible in this world. No matter how much I research about this issue, I cannot seem to find any records or studies on mega evolution. It is like mega evolution is not present in this world. Is it because mega evolution has not been discovered yet? Or is it because it is a big secret in this world? Maybe I am in an alternate universe of pokemon where mega evolution simply didn't exist? Which pokemon universe was I reborn into anyway? Is it the game, anime, or another totally different universe?
That is another thought for another day.
If my luck with gym leader battles remained as shitty as what it used to be, I would most likely be facing the fully evolved pokemons on her team. That means that I have a high chance of facing her camerupt, houndoom and magcargo, together with another of her pokemon, which I think would most likely be her torkoal. Those would be the main opposition that I should be preparing my team against.
I frowned. This is not going to be an easy battle.
Getting out of the hot springs and wrapping my naked body with a towel, I made my way to the ladies' changing room to get dressed. Time's a ticking and I should spend every waking moment thinking of ways to complete this gym challenge.
I need Flamel, Bigblue, and Dolly to reach their final evolutionary forms. They should have evolved a long time ago if we weren't so slack in our training. I need their power that their evolutions will bring, and I know that they have been looking forward to evolve into their final forms.
They have done so much to help me on my journey, it is time I do something to help them.
I quickly drafted up training plans for each of my pokemon on our first night in Lavaridge. We will spend the mornings doing individual trainings, where each of my pokemon will focus on different things to train on. Our afternoons will be spent looking for trainers to do trainer battles with. I am broke, after purchasing magmar from Bob and Lucy for Vance, there is an imperative need for us to earn money quickly. We will spend some time at night training at Fiery Path, which is located near Lavaridge outside of the town, to get ourselves used to the heat. I had heard from the nurses at Lavaridge's pokemon center that the interior of Lavaridge gym is steaming hot, and it would be best for challengers to get themselves acclimatised to the heat together with their pokemon. Fiery Path provides a close imitation to the kind of heat that we would be experiencing for our gym challenge.
The most abnormal information that I have learnt from the nurses is that challengers have to use the geysers in the gym to navigate through the maze in the Lavaridge gym.
I will never understand the obsession that gym leaders have with mazes.
Training in Fiery Path was the hardest training we had done so far. Everything got affected when we tried our mock battles against each other, from the speed of their attacks, the power behind it, their reaction time, to our physical stamina. While I had expected to face some difficulties, I have no idea that battling in harsh environments can have such drastic impacts in our performance in battle. To make things worse, I have to take frequent breaks every now and then as my weak body cannot handle the stress of conducting strenuous trainings in harsh environments, and I settled for barking commands to my pokemon while I rested on a cool slab of rock that Bigblue had raised for me.
It is times like these that I wish that I could have a healthy body. It feels wrong to be resting while the rest of my team are hard at work.
We kept up with the training, and by the end of the second week of training, there are visible results. The performance of my pokemon in the mock battles that they participated against each other got a lot better. Outside of Fiery Path, they hit harder, got faster, and lasted longer in battles and trainings. They decimated most of the intermediate trainers that we can find in and around Lavaridge, and I had finished earning back the 8,000 pokedollars that I used to purchase magmar.
My pokemon are also starting to show obvious signs of impending evolution. It would not be long for them to reach the power necessary to induce a successful evolution.
We continued the training. This time, I changed the location of the training we did in the mornings to be conducted in Fiery Path. The harsh training that we put ourselves in had done me some good as well. My physical health and stamina had improved, and I could go on longer in helping to train my pokemon without needing to rest as often. It is a slight improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.
Bigblue was the first to evolve after a month of training in Fiery Path. It is a beautiful process, and I could never stop staring at the process of evolution that my pokemon went through no matter how many times I had seen it before. Bigblue had just defeated a pack of wild machops in Fiery Path before he suddenly gave a loud bellow, and began to glow a blinding white. He transformed before my very eyes. He grew larger, his head fin splitting into two and fitting perfectly on both sides of his head. His limbs grew thicker, and he continued to grow until he towers over me. When the light died down, Bigblue was staring at his new body, trying to inspect the changes to his anatomy. He tried to give a nearby boulder a punch, and it shattered without much effort. He gave a happy roar of delight as I ran up closer to him together with the rest of my pokemon to inspect him better. As I ran my hands over his new body, I could not help but remember the times when I carried him in my arms when he was still a mudkip a few months ago.
They grew up so fast.
Flamel and Dolly both evolved into their final forms a few days later. Flamel did not have problems adjusting quickly to his new body since it does not have any major change other than him growing larger and the addition of a horn on his head. Dolly spent two days trying to adjust to the idea that she now have limbs to use.
What surprised us is that Snap evolved again merely a day after Dolly evolved.
I think it was a surprise to Snap as well. I just finished his training with him in trying to perfect his ground type moves when he suddenly turned around and buzzed uncontrollably. The buzz was so loud that I thought that we were about to be attacked by a large group of wild pokemon, and I was about to send out a command to the team to hightail out of the area until Snap started to glow white. By the end of the process, a large flygon was staring at me while I stared back at him with awe-struck eyes.
Snap's evolution set our schedule back by another week as we gave him time to adjust to his new body and powers. Thankfully, I had earned a lot of money from the trainer battles in Lavaridge so I did not need to worry about paying the fees for using the rooms in the pokemon center.
My team now made a very impressive sight. Trainers who were passing through or training at Fiery Path will give me a wide berth when they saw me walking together with a rapidash, swampert, banette, flygon, and an absol. I will probably do the same thing if I was in their shoes, to be honest.
I gave ourselves three days of rest before we attempted the Lavaridge gym challenge. We explored the town, climbed Mt Chimney, and relaxed in the hot springs. Sadly, none of my pokemon could appreciate the sensation of relaxing in the hot springs. Flamel disliked water while Bigblue and Dolly didn't like the heat even if they are able to tolerate it. Snap would prefer drinking the water from the hot springs instead of bathing in it, and Kel absolutely hated getting wet unless I gave her a bath followed by a grooming session. Our three days of R&R was fun, and we grew closer to each other as a team. Dolly kept trying to tell me something when we were climbing Mt Chimney, but I really couldn't understand what she was trying to say. She kept doing some wild gestures with her limbs and pointed at a cliff on the side of the volcano that we were climbing. I could not find anything wrong with it.
Now that I think about it, could the cliff be the entrance to Team Magma's base? In the games from my previous world, Team Magma built a base on Mt Chimney if I recall correctly. But is it possible for them to even build a base in a volcano in real life? They will just get cooked alive.
Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I sunk myself lower into the hot springs as Kel lounged around at the edge of it. Fighting criminal organisations is way out of my league. No 11 years old can hope to take on the base of a criminal organisation and expect to come out alive. Besides, building a base in a volcano sounds like a stupid idea no matter how fanatical they are in trying to summon Groudon. My mind returned back to my pokemon. Dolly was resting in a cupboard in the room we rented in the pokemon center. The rest of my pokemon had gotten too big to fit indoors so I kept them in their pokeballs. Kel is helping me to look after my belongings with a watchful eye.
I exited the hot springs after another 10 minutes. I quickly dried myself and got dressed before heading back to my room. We are going to challenge the gym tomorrow, and I need to run through our plans a few more times before I turned in for the night.
It is time to get our Heat Badge.
I'm starting to really hate mazes.
I know from the nurses at Lavaridge's pokemon center that solving the maze requires the use of geysers, but I didn't expect to travel through the maze via geysers.
I cannot remember how was the Lavaridge gym like from pokemon emerald since I last played it so many years ago, and my memories from my previous life is starting to get fuzzy, but I certainly hoped that it wasn't like this.
Firstly, the interior of the gym is steaming hot. I could probably cook an egg simply by cracking it and let it cook itself if I let it rest on the floor of the gym. The worst part of the gym is that I have to navigate through the gym by climbing down the holes on the gym floor into the basement of the building, or I have to get up from the basement by letting the geysers at the basement shoot me up onto the first floor. The travelling via geysers part wasn't fun at all, and my body is starting to feel the stress from all the shootings that the geysers have subjected me to. I really want to find Flannery and wallop her on the head for thinking of this stupid idea. I can understand if she wants to subject the interior of the gym with extreme heat. But this travelling method is not suitable for anyone with a weak constitution and is really frickin' dangerous.
Let's also not forget about the various gym trainers that I have to face when attempting this gym challenge.
I wanted to ask them for clues on how to get to the gym leader as fast as possible, but they all kept mum about it. I'm willing to bet that they are having their fun by watching challengers getting shot into the air and secretly laughing their ass off while doing it.
I had my revenge by stomping them into the ground with Flamel in our battles. I'm petty like that.
I was forced to take a break at the 15 min mark after getting shot into the air at least about 7 times. My heartbeats are getting erratic and my breaths are getting shorter. I leaned against a wall as I put my right hand over my left chest where my heart is, trying to ensure that I wouldn't black out. At this rate I would collapse even before I reached Flannery. Stupid fucking geysers, this wouldn't be a problem if only I could travel through walls.
Travel through walls.
Travel through walls.
I let Dolly out of her pokeball. She chattered excitedly while looking around, expecting a fight. She would fight later, right now I need to see if she could pull off what I just thought of.
"Dolly, do you think we can travel through the walls using the shadows?"
Dolly nodded her head in excitement, and I grinned while patting her on the head. The moment Dolly evolved into a banette, her powers with ghost type techniques and utilising shadows increased exponentially. The first thing she did after she evolved and mastered her newfound powers during our training in Fiery Path was to envelope me using my own shadows. The next thing I knew, I was outside at the entrance of Fiery Path with her. I later found out that what Dolly did is a variation of Shadow Sneak, something that only fully evolved ghost types are known to do. It is basically a short range teleportation through the shadows. She had gained enough power as a banette to bring along a passenger with Shadow Sneak, in this case, me.
Fuck the geysers, screw the walls, this whole stupid geyser-maze thing can go to hell for all I care. I have Dolly with me who can teleport me around the gym using the shadows.
"Let's go, Dolly. We need to find and challenge the gym leader."
With a hollow laugh, Dolly got close to me and commanded the shadows to embrace us.
After Shadow Sneak-ing into a few rooms and fighting off another three gym trainers later, we arrived at the final room that was supposed to be the end of the maze, and where I will challenge Flannery in a gym battle.
The room was empty, but there is a big red button at the challenger's box at the arena with an even bigger and obnoxious sign that read 'Press me if you need me! -Flannery' pasted above the red button.
I punched the button with a vengeance.
Flannery appeared about two minutes later, looking a little disheveled. She bounced into the arena and greeted me energetically. "Morning challenger! It's a good day for a battle isn't it? Did you enjoy your time in the gym? Travelling using geysers is pretty fun, don't you think?"
I scowled. I was ready to let bygones be bygones but she just have to bring it up doesn't she?
"That geyser stunt of yours was fucking dangerous, in my opinion." I rarely swore in front of others, but this idea of hers deserved my rage. "People could have died if the geyser shot us into the ceiling instead of the hole in it, or if their body isn't fit enough to handle the stress that the geysers put onto their body. Like me, for example." I hissed at her. " I nearly collapsed in this stupid gym of yours because my body was born with some sort of deficiency and cannot handle the stress from travelling by using the geysers. I know that each gym challenge is subjected to some sort of security check by the league to ensure that the gym challenge is safe enough for challengers to handle. I don't know how you got past it, and I can't be the only one to find this dangerous. But if I died here, you will have the full wrath of the Vera family on your head. I hope you are prepared for it." I have never used my family's name to threaten anyone before, but Flannery's stupid idea deserved this treatment.
"Chill...chill..." Flannery held her hands up in a placating manner. "I only just managed to finish revamping the interior of the gym a week ago since I was always so busy with gym leader duties despite taking on the position a year before. I am still in the process of testing it. I wasn't expecting the feedback to be this...negative..." Her voice got softer and softer towards the end, and she hung her head dejectedly. "I'm sorry. You are right. I should have considered that geysers is not a suitable mode of transportation for everyone." She looked at me with a wince on her face. "Please don't send a letter of complaint to the league? I will get this sorted out as fast as possible."
I closed my eyes and sighed as I pinched the bridge of my nose. I don't think Flannery is a bad person. She just have stupid ideas. I just hope that she do not come up with such ideas as often as Vance does.
I waved off her apology. "I'm still alive, so it's fine. Let's just get on with the gym battle." I placed my Pokedex on the digital panel for registration and began to run through my plans for this gym battle in my mind one last time. Flannery still looked a little skittish throughout the entire process, I might have gone a little overboard with my rant.
"I'm sorry for shouting at you. It's just that I really had a close encounter with fainting in the gym after getting shot so many times by the geysers, and my body cannot handle the stress as it is a lot weaker than those of an average person. That was why I was so upset. Is everything...uh...fine? Between us I mean."
"No, no! I mean YES! Everything is fine between us! I just wanted everyone to experience the fun to travel via geysers so I designed the gym as such, but I guess I forgot that not everyone is suited for it." She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, just as a loud beeping sound rang from the computer system. "The registration process is complete, this battle shall be a 4 vs 4 single battle with both sides being able to use a maximum of 4 pokemon. Shall we start our battle?"
My response was to visibly palmed a pokeball in my hand, ready to launch it at a moment's notice. Flannery followed suit.
Let the battle begin.
My luck with gym leader battles remained as shitty as ever.
When I was making plans for this battle a few weeks back, I was thinking of who to use as my lead pokemon in this battle. Dolly would be a good choice. Her sneakiness and the wide range of moves that she have at her disposal makes her an ideal candidate.
The problem is Flannery is known to use a houndoom for the gym challenge at an intermediate level. If she so happens to choose houndoom as her lead pokemon, Dolly would get her head chewed off. Kel does not know any moves that can effectively counter houndoom. It would not be wise to use Flamel against a Fire Specialist. That leaves me with using either Bigblue or Snap to use as a lead pokemon. I decided to use Snap as my lead pokemon for this battle. The other gym leaders would have known about Bigblue by now and would probably be expecting him. They would not be expecting Snap since he only joined us after our previous gym challenge. Similar to Kel, he is an unknown to them.
When Flannery summoned her houndoom to battle, I was very glad that I did not decide to use Dolly as my lead pokemon for this gym battle.
"Snap, Rock Slide!"
With a draconic roar, Snap took off into the air and summoned an avalanche of rocks onto houndoom's location. Houndoom dodged the rocks and weaved itself across the arena sending blasts of fire at Snap. Snap evaded houndoom's attacks and fired Dragon Breaths at it. Houndoom slowly gained speed and got closer to where Snap was during the exchange.
I gripped tightly onto the handrails as I gave out my next command.
"Use Earthquake! Break its momentum!"
Snap dropped from the air and slammed itself onto the ground, causing the whole arena to shake violently. Houndoom gave a yelp as he fell onto the ground from Earthquake, trying to get onto its feet but only to find itself slamming into the unstable ground again. I saw Flannery fall onto her back from the unexpected Earthquake.
I hope that this building is earthquake-proofed as per the league's regulations when it comes to building infrastructures meant for pokemon battles. I have no desire to be buried in rubble. With houndoom now a sitting duck from the Earthquake, it is good time to follow up my attack and press on my advantage.
"Snap! Laser Breath!"
Laser Breath is a combo that we came up with. It combines both Laser Focus and Dragon Breath. Snap is capable of using more combos with Laser Focus as a prior setup, but he is most proficient with combining Dragon Breath with Laser Focus, and Laser Breath is the Laser Focus combo that requires the least time for him to execute.
Snap shot a powerful breath of draconic fire onto houndoom, who screamed in pain. It is still not down for the count as it shrugged off the powerful attack.
"Reversal!"
With a howl, houndoom gained a sudden burst of speed and dashed towards Snap. It slammed into Snap with a war cry and sent Snap crashing onto the psychic barriers on the edge of the arena, inflicting a lot of damage on Snap.
"Now, while it's down! Inferno!"
Houndoom unleashed a wall of raging flames that spanned across the width of the arena and sent it in Snap's direction. There is no escaping this attack.
"Snap! Hurry and use Protect!"
Snap quickly got onto his feet and brought out a greenish energy shield just in time for the flames of houndoom's Inferno to come crashing into it. I suddenly regret not buying more TMs after I bought the Protect TM. We would have more options and Snap would not have been forced into a corner. I will need to rectify that after this gym battle.
"Sandstorm! Follow it up with a Sand Tomb!"
With a single flap of its wings, Snap summoned a wave of raging sand that engulfed the whole arena, suffocating the flames. He slammed his right foot on the ground and a tornado made of sand barreled into houndoom, trapping it inside the Sand Tomb.
"Earth Power! Loosen the ground!"
Inspired by how Snap and Bigblue used to work together to previously trap magmar into a man-made quicksand, I managed to train Snap to achieve the same effect by using Earth Power to loosen the sand. Sand Tomb can be used before or after Earth Power to turn the area around it into quicksand. It is a trapping tactic that is currently only available to Snap.
Snap's eyes glowed an eerie red as the earth around houndoom suddenly loosened and it sank into the ground. It snarled and howled as it tried to claw its way out of the death trap. Snap flew high as we prepared for the coup de grace.
"Laser Beam!"
Snap's eyes briefly glowed again, and he proceeded to form an orange ball of condensed energy in its mouth. The ball of condensed energy was then blasted towards houndoom and resulted in a violent explosion.
Laser Focus and Hyper Beam made a wonderful combination, too bad we can't use it often due to how much energy it took to even pull this off.
As the sandstorm died down, houndoom laid unconscious in a crater. Flannery swiftly recalled houndoom back to its pokeball before sending out her next pokemon.
"Camerupt, Eruption!"
Camerupt bellowed, and he sent large chunks of flaming rocks from the mini volcanoes on his back in Snap's directions. There is too many to be safely avoided and I quickly barked at Snap to use Protect to shield himself from the worst of it before recalling him back to his pokeball.
I took a split-second to contemplate on who to use next against Flannery's camerupt. On first sight, Bigblue seemed like the best choice. His water techniques will be two times more effective on camerupt given its dual fire and ground type typing. However, camerupt is known to be able to learn how to use Solar Beam, and it will be disastrous for Bigblue to take that move head on. This is a battle on the level of an intermediate trainer. There is no way that Flannery will have no counters to water type pokemons in her gym, that camerupt of hers have to know the move Solar Beam, and probably Sunny Day as well to pull a combo with it.
With that consideration in mind, I decided to send out Dolly against camerupt.
"Dolly! Anti-tank maneuvers!"
Dolly cackled as she dashed into the shadows and reappeared from camerupt's own shadow. She injected a nasty dose of Toxic into camerupt's bloodstream and followed up with a Hex to its face. Camerupt roared in pain and retaliated with a Flame Burst, trying to light Dolly on fire. Dolly dove back into the shadows to escape the flames. Anti-tank maneuvers are basically a list of moves and combo that I told Dolly to use in order to take out troublesome foes that will be hard to put down otherwise. The list of moves in the Anti-tank maneuvers are mostly moves with DOT (damage over time) effects. Such moves include Toxic and Will-O-Wisp, although I banned the use of Curse unless I gave explicit permission due to the danger of using that move. All she has to do is to inflict a DOT move on her opponent while trying to damage them as much as possible without overextending herself in battles. The best case scenario will be for Dolly's opponent to fall from prolonged exposure to the DOT move while we waited for it to happen.
"Camerupt, use Earthquake!"
Camerupt stood on its hind legs, before slamming its front legs onto the ground when it fell to the ground once more. The whole building shook once again and this time it was me who fell onto my back. Dolly screamed out in pain as it was forced out of the shadows from Earthquake. Shit, I did not know that the shadows did not prevent Dolly from taking damage from moves like Earthquake. Dolly had took a lot of damage from that move.
Camerupt is not faring much better, it is still trying to fight through the pain from Toxic.
"Camerupt, use Rest followed by Sleep Talk!"
Lucky me! This is our chance to turn things around to our advantage. "Dolly, Snatch!"
A dark miasma that originated from Dolly quickly latched itself onto the sleeping camerupt. Camerupt was abruptly woken from its self-induced sleep, looking very confused. Dolly's wounds healed before my very eyes as she used the effect of the stolen recovery move on herself. She quickly sent a barrage of Shadow Balls at camerupt as payback for the Earthquake that was used on her.
Flannery audibly 'tch-ed' and she shouted out her next command. "Camerupt! Use plan C!"
Camerupt roared as the arena brightened from the effects of Sunny Day. It took a deep breath, and white-hot flames of Overheat spewed from its mouth and directed the flames onto Dolly. Dolly screamed as she was bathed in the white flames of Overheat. I quickly recalled her, there was no way she was going to remain standing after that Overheat.
Camerupt was on its last legs though, the next pokemon I sent out will have the win in the bag.
"Kel, Dark Pulse!"
Kel shot a beam of dark energy at camerupt the moment she was released from her pokeball. It hit camerupt on its side as he tried to breathe fire on Kel. Kel evaded it with ease and I noticed that the intensity of the flames had dropped, which is probably due to the drawback of using Overheat.
"Swords Dance, then Night Slash!"
Kel moved her body gracefully in a dance-like pattern and collected dark type energy on her horn. She swung the horn on her head in camerupt's direction and a crescent of dark type energy flew from the edge of her horn and impacted against camerupt, rendering it unconscious.
"Good job, Kel!" I whooped out a shout of delight. That Night Slash was beautiful.
We didn't celebrate for long, as Flannery sent out a smoking torkoal at the same moment.
"Torkoal, use Shell Smash! Then activate full defense!"
Smoke erupted from torkoal as visible cracks appeared on its shell, before its shell glowed a metallic sheen and torkoal was covered in a psychic glow. Damn it, torkoal managed to chain Shell Smash, Iron Defense, and Amnesia all together. Shell Smash may have increased torkoal's offensive capabilities and speed at the expense of lowering torkoal's defensive capabilities, but the usage of Iron Defense and Amnesia actually raised its defensive powers more than what Shell Smash had lowered. That combo that torkoal pulled off actually raised its offensive and defensive powers all at once.
It may not be a bad thing actually, Kel has a move just for things like this.
"Kel, use Punishment!"
Punishment is a dark type move that gains more power the more the opponents of its user tries to boost its powers. In essence, it punishes foes for trying to gain power, hence the name, Punishment. Torkoal had just use three different power boosting moves, he will feel the full effects of Punishment when the move connected.
"Torkoal, Protect!"
Torkoal bellowed and raised its energy shields to block Kel's Punishment, and it is a weird feeling seeing your favourite move being used against you. Kel tried to use another Punishment, but torkoal shot Flamethrowers at Kel, who is suddenly forced to be on the defensive lest she wanted to be burnt. Well then, if Punishment does not work, I just have to force Flannery to switch torkoal out.
"Kel, Perish Song!"
Kel sung out an eerie but melodious tune, and the battlefield fell into silence as trainers and pokemons on both side stared at each other.
"How about this, Flannery? You can keep going as it is and both our pokemon go down together, or you can switch torkoal out. What will you choose?" I taunted from the other side of the arena. What I said was not the total truth, Kel knew Baton Pass, which I guessed she learnt from other absols in her pack back when she was in the wild, similar to other moves she knew like Dark Pulse and Punishment. I could switch out Kel at any time with Baton Pass and pass on the effects of Swords Dance that Kel had used earlier on in battle to someone else on my team, as long as it is done before the effects of Perish Song takes place. Torkoal on the other hand, is not capable of learning Baton Pass if my memory serves me right. Flannery will have to choose between letting torkoal battle Kel and possibly take her out before succumbing to Perish Song, or to switch torkoal out and lose all the boosting effects from her Shell Smash, Iron Defense and Amnesia combo earlier.
"That was a good move, Vera." Flannery grumbled. "Return, Torkoal! Go Magcargo!"
The lava snail pokemon appeared on the battlefield, and Kel wasted no time in attacking it. Magcargo returned the volley of attacks with streams of flames and chunks of burning rocks. I soon realised that Kel is at a disadvantage in facing magcargo due to a lack of ranged moves in her arsenal. She does not have enough of those to allow her to get close to magcargo and deal significant damage. Time to bring out the big guns.
"Kel, Baton Pass to Bigblue!"
Kel's body briefly glowed a dull white before getting recalled back into her pokeball. Bigblue was sent out into battle, who announced his arrival with a roar.
"Bigblue, Muddy Water!"
Bigblue unleashed waves of dirty brown water filled with mud at magcargo, who diverted the waters away from its location. It raised its elevation from the ground by using Stone Edge, and a plateau of rocks lifted magcargo away from the brunt of the attack. Any bursts of water that got too close was turned into steam from the flames magcargo spit out of its mouth. Magcargo remained relatively unharmed on the platform of rocks where it is sitting on.
I gaped in shock at that brilliant move magcargo executed. So this is the power that intermediate trainers are supposed to wield. If this is what intermediate trainers can do, just how strong are the Elite trainers? Just how freakishly strong are trainers who are in ACE and the true power of gym leaders? What about the Elite Four and the Champion?
Throwing that thought at the back of my mind, I commanded Bigblue to use his next attack. Magcargo's weakness is that it is highly immobile. I need to use that to my advantage.
"Bigblue, bring it down from its place with an Earthquake, then get closer!"
Bigblue raised to his full height on his hind legs before slamming its entire body down on the ground. This is the third Earthquake used in this battle, I really hope that the Lavaridge gym would not cave in on us before this battle is over. Bigblue's Earthquake is a lot stronger due to Kel's use of Baton Pass, who passed on the effects of her Swords Dance to him.
The arena shook and the platform of rocks that magcargo was resting on broke into pieces as magcargo fell. Bigblue charged towards magcargo with a Take Down and sent it flying to the far end of the arena towards Flannery's side.
"Magcargo, Sunny Day and multiple Solar Beams, go!"
Shit. I was afraid of this.
Bright light shone onto the battlefield once again and magcargo began to launch Solar Beams at Bigblue. Bigblue conjured walls of stone with Rock Tomb and Rock Slide to block what he could and used Protect when necessary. I don't think he can hold off magcargo's assault for long.
"Bigblue, use Whirlpool on magcargo, sweep it off the ground!"
Raising an extra thick slab of stone for additional protection, Bigblue punched once into the ground using its right arm. A huge torrent of water suddenly appeared where magcargo was, breaking its assault and dealing huge amount of damage to it. Finally.
Magcargo somehow managed to break through the Whirlpool, barely conscious, and quickly bathed itself in white light it emitted from its body. Its wounds started to heal rapidly.
Recover, the magcargo knows Recover! This is bad.
"Hurry Bigblue, use Mud Shot! Don't let it heal itself!"
"Solar Beam!"
An intensified beam of sunlight struck Bigblue before he can use Mud Shot. It sent him skidding across the arena in my direction, but he is not out of the count yet. We still have a chance.
Bigblue's body started to emit a bluish glow. His ability, Torrent, had finally started to take effect.
Torrent is Bigblue's ability. When his health falls below a certain threshold, his ability will kick in, and will power up his water type moves in a make-it-or-break-it attempt to help him bring down his foes. It is a power boost that we really need now.
"Muddy Water!"
With a determined roar, Bigblue unleashed the biggest Muddy Water I had ever seen him produced, washing through the entire arena. Nowhere is safe for magcargo.
Magcargo was swept under Bigblue's Muddy Water and I thought we had won this round, until a Solar Beam suddenly shot out from within the water and nailed Bigblue in the torso, taking him out.
When the water receded a few seconds later, I saw magcargo hiding behind a Light Screen, which mitigated a significant amount of damage from Bigblue's Muddy Water. I am down to two pokemon, Snap and Kel, and only Kel is unscathed from the previous battles. However, she does not have the offensive powers to bring Flannery's torkoal down. Only Snap has the capability, and he sustained some serious damage from its earlier battle with houndoom.
This is starting to look really bad.
I recalled Bigblue and sent out Snap, the first thing on my list of priorities now is to block out the sunlight. It gives Flannery's pokemon the ability to spam Solar Beam and increased the potency of her fire type attacks. I should have thought of doing this even before I sent in Bigblue.
"Sandstorm!"
A raging wave of sand made its presence known on the arena, blocking out the sunlight from Sunny Day. An Earth Power from Snap knocked magcargo out swiftly after. Now Flannery have only one pokemon left.
Her torkoal was summoned to battle once again, and immediately began to use the power boosting combos it used earlier with Kel. I recalled Snap, I will need his powers later. Right now I need Kel to setup the battle in Snap's favour. Kel will not last long against a clash of powers against torkoal, I will have to do what I can with Kel before I send Snap out again. I sent Kel out into battle and quickly whispered a series of instructions to her before shouting out my next orders.
"Perish Song! Then Taunt!"
The song of doom reverberated through the arena once more. I had to use Taunt to prevent torkoal from using its power boosting moves repeatedly. There is no way that we can take it down if it used the same combo again.
"Perish Song won't help you if I take your pokemon out before torkoal fainted from its effect! Torkoal, Heat Wave!"
Torkoal exhaled a heated breath at Kel, who managed to dodge just in time gracefully. She sent out bursts of Dark Pulse, Night Slash and Punishment at torkoal, who managed to successfully defend itself from Kel's attacks with bursts of flames. Kel also have to dodge torkoal's flames and use Detect to get out of situations that would be inescapable otherwise. During the entire exchange, Kel was subtly using Swords Dance repeatedly when Flannery's and torkoal's vision was temporary obscured by the dust and smoke that resulted from their attacks, which were the instructions that I whispered to Kel. We currently have only two ways that I can think of to beat torkoal. The first is to last through the three minutes until Perish Song takes effect, giving us the win by default. However, both Kel and I knew that it was unlikely that we could last three minutes on our own against an empowered torkoal. The other option, which is our current plan, is to use Swords Dance repeatedly and pass on the effects to Snap with Baton Pass, giving Snap the required power to annihilate torkoal.
There's no other better option that I can think of now. It is a gamble that we will have to take.
A Shell Smash-empowered Flamethrower nearly knocked Kel unconscious when it finally made contact with her. Her Detect had failed after repeated use. We have to use Baton Pass now, before torkoal beats Kel before she can execute the next phase of our plan.
"Baton Pass to Snap!"
Snap roared and flew into the air with a burst of speed the moment he appeared from his pokeball. I covered my ears with my hands.
"Screech-sonic!"
Snap screamed out an ear-splitting screech that interrupted whatever torkoal was intending to do, who was trying to block out the sound from Screech. It also has an added effect of lowering the target's defense, and I watched in satisfaction as the metallic sheen from torkoal's Iron Defense faded from torkoal's shell. Supersonic was also added to the mix to attempt to inflict the confused status on torkoal.
"Earthquake, full power!"
Snap dived down and gave the fourth and largest Earthquake the gym building had experienced this morning. I was half-expecting for the building to come crumbling down when Snap used this move. The ground split and shook as torkoal was flung about in random directions from the violent tremors of Earthquake. Snap followed up with the attack by trapping torkoal in a Rock Tomb, holding it in a single spot. Torkoal was still reeling in from the effects of Supersonic, bashing its head in confusion against the rocks that held it in place.
Time to finish this.
"DRAGON RUSH! END IT!"
Snap flew high and began to shroud itself in draconic energy. With a final roar, he sped down and crashed into the undefended torkoal like a guided missile. He rose from the cloud of smoke after the attack, preparing to fire off attacks if torkoal somehow managed to endure that Dragon Rush.
There wasn't a need to. When the smoke cleared, torkoal lay defeated and unconscious at the base of a large rock that it had slammed into before passing out.
We won the Lavaridge gym challenge, and successfully won our battle with a gym leader for the fourth consecutive time.
I rushed down into the arena excitedly and gave Snap a big hug, making sure not to aggravate his injuries. Snap roared and breathed out a Dragon Breath into the air to celebrate his victory in his first ever gym battle. I let Kel out as well as we celebrated our victory in the arena on behalf of Bigblue and Dolly, who were defeated in battle. It was a tough battle, and my pokemon managed to snag the win for me. I am just so happy!
I'm so happy that I think I might just forget all my grievances about the geysers in the gym.
I still think the geysers is a bad idea though.
Flannery invited me to use the hot springs at her private quarters at the back of the gym after we sent our pokemons to the pokemon center for recovery. We dipped into her own private hot springs in our birthday suit as we talked about our gym battle. I got a little jealous when I saw her bountiful assets in the buff as compared to my chest, which is almost as flat as a washing board despite showing signs of puberty. I have to remind myself that I am still 11 and I will grow my own curves eventually...probably.
Our conversation in her hot springs was pleasant, and any animosity I had due to the geysers disappeared the moment we began our conversation. I realised that speaking to Flannery was like speaking to a female version of Vance. Flannery is not stupid. She just have her own random stupid moments and needed someone to point them out. I also found out that Flannery is only about a year or two younger than Roxanne. The way she acted around me was also like those of a cool, brash older sister. It was nice to talk to a female figure who is closer to my age other than Roxanne for once, since most of the females that I was close with are older in age, like Mum, Mary, and Grandma Lucy.
I idly wondered what would happen if Vance and Flannery ever had kids together. Would their kids be a walking disaster instead of a walking trouble magnet? Arceus save us all.
Flannery pointed out some stuffs that I could possibly do better, like eliminating Flannery's advantage with magcargo's Sunny Day earlier with Snap so that Bigblue would not have been knocked out with two Solar Beams. The conversation was relaxing, and soon the topic of conversation turned into the different species of fire type pokemon.
"So what do you think of the charmander species?" Flannery asked while she washed herself at one end of the hot springs, opposite to where I was sitting.
I crossed my arms and tried to recall what I know about the fire lizard pokemon. "They have remnants of dragon type DNA in their blood, despite not being dragon type themselves. Scientists have speculated that it is a dormant gene that is unlikely to show itself in the charmander species, and that they might have evolved from a dragon type ancestor from long ago, most probably a tyrantrum. Scientists have also speculated that it is the most likely reason why charmander and its evolutionary line displayed several characteristics and behaviour that are more commonly found in dragon types. The evidences found in support to this are the slower growth rate and longer time to evolve for their species, which is a trait seen in most dragon type pokemon, and their natural ease in learning a range of advanced dragon type moves if given proper tutelage. It is known to be stubborn and proud, and it is hard for anyone to gain its respect, especially after it evolved. Hence, most people prefer training a young charmander than catching a wild charmeleon or charizard and attempt to train it later, simply because it is easier. However, if a trainer managed to earn its respect, it will show undying loyalty to the trainer."
Flannery clapped her hands, which stopped me from continuing further. "Bingo! Got it all in one!" She beckoned to a humongous torkoal, a different one from what I faced earlier, and the torkoal rolled a pokeball over to Flannery who is resting in the waters by the edge of the hot springs. Flannery picked up the pokeball with one hand and petted torkoal's head with another. "This is Charlie, my starter." Torkoal gave a little puff of smoke, and Flannery brought my attention to the pokeball in her hand by waving it excitedly. "I have been wanting to find a suitable trainer for this little guy, but I haven't seen any trainers that looked capable of handling him. The little guy is a charmander, if you are wondering." She pointed to the pokeball in her hand. "My charizard, Sarah, just appeared with an egg after her morning flight around Lavaridge out of the blue and the egg hatched only about a week ago. Cute little critter, this one. But staying here will only be wasting his potential, I don't have the time to take care of him properly." She swam to where I was and slung her free arm across my shoulder, pressing our bodies together. "You are a capable trainer, and it can't hurt to have another powerful fire type on your team, so what do you say in helping me take care of this cute little guy?" She forcefully shoved charmander's pokeball into my hands. I guess 'No' is not an acceptable answer at this point. "Help me take good care of it, 'kay? You can always call me if you need pointers on how to raise it. I know how hard it can be to raise their species, I have one myself."
I rummaged through my clothes lying at the edge of the pool with my free hand to find my Pokedex. I flipped open the Pokedex and scanned charmander's pokeball with it. My eyes widened at the data that the Pokedex have procured from the scan.
"Flannery, you just gave me a regional starter with three advanced egg moves. Three advanced dragon type egg moves."
"Yup." Flannery replied, popping the 'p' sound and talked excitedly. "I know right? I was so surprised since even Sarah didn't know some of these moves. I guessed that she probably found a salamence as a mate somewhere during her flight. That's the most likely explanation. Not sure if you know, but when a compatible male and female pokemon loves each other very much..."
"I get it, I get it." I quickly cut her off, I have no need for another sex-ed talk. "But seriously? How am I supposed to get its respect? I don't know much about taming its species."
Flannery's grin grew wider with her arm still slung across my shoulder. "Well, listen carefully, o little one. This is how you do it..."