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The Johto League

Chapter 8

Fight or Flight

We reached our destination, Violet City, not long after setting off just after dawn. Gary must have been used to it, but I was relieved to see the signs of civilisation again, even if it had only been a day’s journey through the wilderness. The first thing we did was to get our pokémon refreshed at the Centre, followed by a trip to the Pokémart to restock on supplies. Many towns in Johto had special buildings linked to the history and culture of the town, and this one was no different, because standing tall over the houses and shops was the Sprout Tower. I wanted to explore it and find out why the Tower was built, but Gary refused, saying that there was no time for idle sight-seeing. Instead, we made our way to the Violet City Gym.

It was a large structure, taller than most of the other buildings, and although it wasn’t as high or as ornately decorated as the Sprout Tower, it had nevertheless been made to look impressive. Gyms were usually the most visited place in a town or city which hosted one, so people put a lot of work into designing their Gym to stand out from any other.

Gary strode to the Gym doors confidently and pulled them open while I followed. Inside there was nobody to greet us. The place seemed abandoned, with only the lines for a practice arena painted on the floor.

‘Don’t people usually meet you in order to challenge a Gym?’ I asked, growing nervous since I’d never entered a Gym before with the intention of making a challenge.

‘Yes, they do,’ Gary replied bluntly. He looked around the room, puzzled, and then noticed the entrance to a lift on one wall. He pushed the button next to it and the doors opened with a ping. ‘Might as well see if anybody’s upstairs.

We stepped into the lift and found, above all the buttons for individual floors, one labelled ‘challenge’. Gary shrugged and pushed it, and we found ourselves moving upwards so far that I was sure we must’ve been on the roof of the building.

When the doors opened again, I saw that this was true. On the top of the building, open to the sky overhead and overlooking the rest of the town, we found many people and pokémon talking and training happily. It was a relief to see what was expected of a Gym environment, finally.

A few of the Gym trainers looked up and spotted us.

‘Hey look, challengers!’

‘Challengers have arrived?’

‘Somebody find Falkner.’

Quickly, a few people dashed off and searched until the word of challengers reached the Gym Leader, who was easily recognisable when he came to meet us from the way the other trainers regarded him. The Leader was younger than I had expected – only 2 or 3 years older than ourselves. The young boy looked very confident and brushed a hand through the dark, unkempt hair that fell partly over his face.

‘Welcome to my Gym, challengers! I’m Falkner, the lover of flight and bird pokémon.’ I understood then why the lower floors of the Gym were empty. ‘Do both of you intend to challenge me?’ We nodded. ‘Then who first?’

‘I’ll go first,’ Gary replied promptly, ‘I’m Gary Oak from Pallet Town.’

‘Very well, then it’ll be a straightforward two-on-two match for each of you. I prefer using three, but since I’ll have to face you both, I don’t want to end up battled into a corner…’

Falkner walked off and we followed him out to the middle of the roof. The trainer underlings parted in front of him and vacated the area, assembling on the sidelines and leaving the lines of the arena visible on the floor. Falkner and Gary took their places at either ends of the field, a trainer stepped up to act as referee, and the battle began.

‘I choose Farfetch’d!’ Falkner threw the ball containing his first pokémon, as the general rule was for Gym Leaders to select first, and a stubby brown bird flapped onto the field, carrying a stick in its mouth.

Gary pulled out his own pokéball in response. ‘Let’s go, Magnemite!’

The small, floating, silver pokémon appeared, and made the first move with a swift attack. Farfetch’d hopped out of the way as a barrage of yellow stars assaulted it, but got hit by a few. It used a fury attack in retaliation and Magnemite was pummelled, although the damage appeared to be minimal.

‘Thunder wave, Magnemite!’

Electricity crackled around Magnemite and shot at the opponent, but this time Farfetch’d used agility to avoid it.

‘Use peck!’

‘Thunder wave again!’

Farfetch’d launched forward to peck Magnemite, but the electricity crackled again and before Farfetch’d could make a hit, it was paralysed by the electric shock.

‘Now’s your chance, Magnemite, thundershock!’

A powerful electricity surge hit Farfetch’d, and the bird collapsed.

‘Very impressive!’ Falkner called as he returned his fallen fighter, ‘you may be experienced, but this’ll really give you a run for your money!’

The pokémon he released was a much bigger bird, lacking actual wings. Instead, it had three heads.

Gary eyed the Dodrio for a second to plan his strategy.

‘Thundershock, Magnemite!’

His pokémon attempted to repeat the shock attack, but Falkner made no command and his Dodrio immediately launched itself high into the air. While unable to fly, its strong legs carried across the entire arena with ease and Magnemite’s attack missed.

Gary attempted a few more attacks, but Dodrio was able to avoid them all. In-between, the Dodrio’s heads each launched part of a triangular beam, a tri-attack, at Magnemite, weakening it considerably.

‘Now, Magnemite – lock on,’ Gary commanded. His pokémon only beeped in response. Then Gary ordered a thundershock, at which the Dodrio again jumped high out of the way, but when Magnemite’s attack was released it shot towards Dodrio and hit the bird dead-on. The surprise hit made Dodrio crash awkwardly to the ground. Gary smirked at this, but a sudden drill peck from the three bird-heads put his Magnemite out of the match.

Gary returned it and picked his final battler with no hesitation. It was a Graveler.

The large-boulder like pokémon took on Dodrio with ease, ignoring all attacks on its hard exterior and striking the bird with its body in tackle and rollout attacks. Quite quickly, Dodrio was beaten.

The Gym trainers applauded and cheered the clear victory as Gary was awarded his new badge. Falkner also commended his strategic ability. I was suddenly far more nervous than I had been just thinking about the battle – now, everybody would be comparing my beginning skills to Gary’s more advanced level of expertise. But there was nothing for it.

Meowth gave me a questioning poke from his usual place on my shoulder.

‘Don’t worry, you can sit this one out,’ I told him before walking forward to the challenger’s box, looking a lot more confident than I actually felt. Gary passed me on his way back and raised his eyebrows. His expression seemed to say ‘You’re nowhere near as good as me, but good luck anyway’.

‘Okay, second challenger ready?’ Falkner resumed his position on the field.

I nodded. ‘I’m Holly Evergreen from New Bark Town.’ It was a tradition to introduce yourself by full name and hometown in a Gym, as Gary had done earlier.

‘Oh, a new trainer, eh?’

‘Yes sir,’ I gulped. Falkner chuckled back.

‘Don’t be nervous about it, just keep a clear head and do your best!’ he finished by throwing his first pokéball into the ring. I felt a bit relieved that I recognised the pokémon that materialised – it was a Hoothoot. I also realised then that since Gary had gone first, Falkner must have had to use up his strongest pokémon already.

‘Okay… let’s give this our best shot!’ I tried to encourage myself as I threw out Vesper’s pokéball. My Ledyba looked around and guessed the match’s importance from the amount of spectators, and started getting agitated.

‘Calm down, Vesper! It’ll be all right, I just want you to fight your hardest!’ Somehow, having to support my own pokémon made me more secure as well.

‘Begin the match!’

‘Use peck, Hoothoot!’

I fought off the urge to pani c. The Ledyba was at a disadvantage so I needed to focus on evading more than attacking.

‘Dodge it!’

Hoothoot flew forward, gaining speed and heading right for its target, but Vesper was quicker and looped out of the way through the air. Hoothoot chased after, leading to an aerial escape attempt. I couldn’t let this go on, or Vesper would tire and be helpless.

‘Vesper, use supersonic!’

He dodged behind Hoothoot and let loose waves of sound that were impossible for us to hear. Hoothoot became disorientated and flew around in circles before flying in the wrong direction and hitting itself on the floor hard enough to cause damage. Then Vesper fluttered his wings as hard as possible to gain speed and tackled Hoothoot with as much force as he could muster. The brown bird hooted and flopped to the floor. I grinned widely as Falkner returned his first pokémon.

‘Not bad; you show some skill…’ Falkner flicked the hair out of his eyes, ‘but you’re luck’s run out now!’

Then he revealed his final pokémon – a fine Pidgeotto swooped into the air as it was released from its ball. I eyed the new opponent anxiously. A Pidgeotto was a far more advanced opponent than the basic Pidgey I’d had experience with on the road here.

‘Vesper, catch it quickly with supersonic!’

The Ledyba tried his best, but the large bird pokémon he was facing flapped his strong wings and blew up a whirlwind that scattered the sound wave attack.

‘Quick attack, Pidgeotto!’

In a flash the flying foe was streaking towards Vesper, and there was no time to retaliate, they collided… and Vesper was clearly at too much of a disadvantage in type and level to continue. I called him back into his ball. Making a mental note to tell him later how proud I was, I reattached his ball to my belt and took off the only available replacement.

‘Scout, let’s go!’

My Sentret appeared eagerly from the ball, hopping onto the field with somewhat innocent enthusiasm.

‘Pidgeotto, quick attack!’

Just as before, the bird burst forward with gathering speed, ready to attack.

‘Scout, use quick attack back!’

Scout charged out of the way at the last second, light streaming behind her, then used the energy while turning to fling herself off the ground into her opponent. The Pidgeotto was thrown off balance. A whirlwind attack blew Scout over, but she got up and narrowly dodged a swooping tackle. Then she tackled it back, leaping off the ground to do so. However, Pidgeotto managed to seize the advantage by batting Scout away, and she fell back and bounced onto the floor. Pidgeotto launched itself forward for a final tackle while Scout was down.

‘Quickly, Scout, use defence curl!’

Scout held on and pulled her body into a protective position. Pidgeotto’s tackle grazed her, but then she immediately unfurled and sprang up, using a quick attack to dive at Pidgeotto. The winged pokémon was driven to the ground where it crash-landed.

‘I can’t believe it…’ I said as Falkner recalled his last pokémon. ‘Scout, we did it!’

Scout chirped happily, although she was certainly exhausted.

I saw Gary give me a small thumbs-up as I approached Falkner to accept the badge.

‘Congratulations! An impressive win for a beginning trainer,’ he smiled, handing me the Zephyr Badge.

I thanked him profusely before virtually skipping back to Gary, not fighting the urge to celebrate.

‘Victory feast at the pokémon centre!’