Legends Lost: Part One “Gengar! Use confuse ray!” Someone-I hadn’t quite caught his name- yelled at his poke’mon. I smirked at the figure who breathed heavily and who stood across from me. Although my smirking wasn’t on purpose--I not being the kind who likes to make others feel bad, even if it is merited--it showed exactly what I was thinking. This trainer was a novice, albeit a novice with a high level poke’mon. Everyone who has even a miniscule amount of knowledge about the attack confuse ray knows that confuse ray gets weaker as the span between the target increases. His gengar was on the other side of the field, so it wasn’t going to do much good. The fact that his attack was a ghost type attack didn’t help either, since he was using it against my dark type. Hypnosis would’ve been his best bet if he had decided that an attack from afar was absolutely necessary, because hypnosis is psychic and psychic moves are usually transmitted psychically. The fact was, though, that it wasn’t necessary to attack from afar. Even though I had been using faint attack-a move that made Umbreon disappear then attack- the move itself was weak compared to other moves that poke’mon can learn. All he needed to do was wait until Umbreon hit and then use confuse ray. Hypnosis would probably be even better. But enough of my babbling. Back to the action. My umbreon dodged the attack without even having to be told. I’ve noticed that most trainers have to tell their poke’mon to move. Why, I have no idea. If I want Umbreon to stay still, then I’ll tell her. “Umbreon,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper in contrast to the other trainer’s sharp, loud tones, “just finish it off with one last faint attack.” Without even a nod Umbreon disappeared and a moment later, gengar was down. The battle was over. I knew within second of winning this trainer was going to take it hard that he lost. “Oh Gengar! I’ve failed you!” He cried dramatically. He dropped to his knees and threw his head in his hands. “How will you ever get better if I can’t win this fight! This was supposed to be easy! It was an Umbreon!” I’m not sure, but I think he started crying. “Oh, for heaven’s sake...” I muttered. I started toward him and when I got there, I sat down beside him. “Look, you didn’t do so bad, but you came up to me and demanded a battle when you knew nothing about me and what skill-level I’m at. What’s worse is that you just decided that my Umbreon was at low level because the kind of poke’mon she is.” After that I told him what he could’ve done to do better based on what I had observed during the battle. “B-but you said all Gengar had to do was to attack when you were close. Why did you keep using that invisible move when you knew there was a way for me to counter it?” “Faint attack.” I said, letting quite a bit of irritation leak through into my voice. “What?” The trainer looked at me as if I had grown two heads. “Faint attack, not the invisible move.” He looked at me again and I continued. “The reason I kept using that move is because there is always a loophole in every move that a poke’mon makes. The reason most poke’mon trainers don’t keep using the same move is because you are more likely to find the loophole if they keep using the same moves. In this case, I knew that Faint attack would get you scared. Can’t hit what you can’t see, right?” The trainer started to nod agreement, but stopped abruptly as I got up. “Where are you going?” I didn’t answer him. “Come on Umbreon. It’s time to go.” Umbreon, who had been lying down behind us, was at her feet and at my side immediately. As I left I could feel the trainers eyes following me like the sun beating down on my back. Oh, well, I thought. If he’s going to be mad at me, there’s nothing I can do. “Wait,” He called, “I’ll come up against you again someday! And then, I’ll beat you!” After we were out of the trainer’s view, I shook my head and looked down at Umbreon. “He probably thinks he can be the best of the best the way he’s going.” The boy probably was not training at all, besides battles. And the way he came up to me, he probably thought I was very, very weak. Which made me think he probably went up against weaker opponents to get stronger. A painstakingly long process, but effective nonetheless, if you were trying to get stronger. The problem with is that you never learn any strategies. This whole, “I’m BORN to be a poke’mon master!” thing had been getting more popular recently. I had met young trainers left and right who thought they could beat me just because they thought they were destined to. The reason was probably because of those new poke’mon shows that had been coming on TV. One was a poke’mon wrestling show. Intriguing, but all fake as everyone knew. The new trainers always won and it was always blamed on beginner’s luck. Another one was the ever popular children’s show “Poke’-friends” where they won battles because they were friends with their trainers. Another lie. You can be the best of friends with your poke’mon and still be the biggest couch potato in the world if you don’t practice in and out of battles. My personal favorite was just called “Poke’mon”. The trainer who was the star of the show never practiced out of battle, and very little in battle, was as blind as a bat when the main villains dressed up to try and steal his uber-pikachu, and somehow always won, or nearly won. I guess this was the worst show, because all the young trainers I met who thought it was their destiny to win, always acted like this show’s star. I sighed. “Looks like there aren’t going to be any new trainers around here that are going to be worth our while, Umbreon.” I told my poke’mon. She looked up at me and nodded in agreement. “This place is turning out to be a total disappointment. I thought when we got out of the Ilex Forest we might find some strong opponents, but we’ve been traveling for almost two days now, and we still can’t find anyone. All I can say is, I can’t wait for the next tournament.” I stopped walking abruptly. Umbreon, used to this kind of stop did not continue on without me. “Well, we might as well practice while we wait for someone else to come by. I noticed in your last battle that you’ve been getting a little slower to respond-“ “Hey, you! Girl!” I turned around slowly. I hate it when people call me “girl”. It’s like calling someone “kid” except worse somehow. I was going to love beating this one up. “Yes?” I said in my sweetest voice, then choked. This trainer was younger than I was. What right did he have to start calling me a kid? “You’re a trainer right? Let’s battle!” The trainer shifted on foot to foot, as if he were nervous despite of how sure of himself he sounded. But why? He was probably another one of those “destiny” trainers. If it was his destiny to win, why should he be nervous? “Yes, I’m a trainer, but why should I battle?” It’s always nice to mess with my opponent’s head before I start. “I mean, what if I don’t feel like it.” I knew what I sounded like. I sounded like someone who was not at all afraid to fight, but just had a simple question. “Because-Because trainers are supposed to fight. That’s what trainers do. If you don’t fight, how can you be a trainer?” He spluttered. Well this certainly helped me. Whatever Poke’mon he pulled out, it couldn’t be all that fast. Your poke’mon gets most of it’s quickness from training outside of battle. If this boy thought the only way to be a trainer was to battle, well, that told me his poke’mon was probably not all that fast Another thing you get is synchronization. Sure, it’s possible for your poke’mon to be naturally in sync with your voice, but not all that common. “Well, if you insist. How many poke’mon?” “Just one. And you have to take out your poke’mon first.” He added as an after thought. I sighed. Even if his poke’mon were slow and out of sync, he could still have put up a good fight. But now I knew he was just a very raw beginner because he didn’t know any of the rules. The challenger was the one who was supposed to put out their poke’mon first. But whatever. It didn’t matter to me who went first and who went last. I fished around on my belt for a poke’ball. Who would end the battle the fastest? This was going to be a one sided battle anyway. I might as well get it over with as fast as I could. Finally I chose Dugtrio. Dugtrio didn’t have too many weaknesses, though the ones he did have were fairly common types trainers used. But, if all else failed, I could always have him use dig to get away from an attack. I was expecting the trainer to run screaming or to at least look as if he thought he made a mistake challenging me, but he didn’t even flinch. I have to admit, this caught me off guard. I even started to think that I had made a mistake. I shook that off quickly. It was probably his way of a catching me off guard, and it had worked. The other trainer immediately pulled a white poke’ball from his belt. I recognized it as a fast ball. The strange thing about it though was that he pulled the poke’ball from his belt swiftly, as if he had been practicing for this for a long time. I snorted. He probably had. “Suicune! Go!” A wide smile grew across his face. A wide, unsure smile, that is. If I hadn’t been so busy trying to shut my wide open mouth right about then, I would’ve realized that he knew nothing about this poke’mon, or what it was. He probably thought that Suicune, the legendary dog, was just a cool-looking poke’mon. Then, without me realizing it, he started, “Suicune! Use, um... Mirror coat!” The other trainer said. I waited for the slight glimmer in the air in front of Suicune that meant that Mirror Coat had taken effect, but nothing happened. In the back of my mind I told myself how stupid it was to start out with Mirror coat, especially since it only worked with special type attacks. I could just avoid getting hit with twice the force that Suicune would be hit with by using an attack like dig. The only time you should use Mirror coat is when a special attack (I.E., a special attack is the opposite of a physical attack. Mega Punch would be a physical attack, while psychic would be a special attack) is about to hit your poke’mon. “Did you go yet Suicune?” The other trainer asked. I jumped. For a few moments I hadn’t even noticed that the other trainer was there. It was just me and the Suicune. I might’ve actually thrown a Poke’ball if the trainer had been quiet for a long enough time. “Ok. Well, that’s all right if you didn’t go. Suicune! Use um... Hydro pump!” Oh, great, I thought. This is all I need now. Hydro pump against my dugtrio. Hydro pump will kill my ground type! I guess this is what I get for letting my guard down. “Dig Dugtrio!” I told him. Digging is different than dodging. Somehow Dugtrio must have sensed how stressed I was because his reaction time was much quicker than usual, which is pretty amazing because Dutrio already has incredible speed. Seconds passed, but Suicune didn’t use Hydro pump, or any other move for that matter, that I could tell. The trainer slouched. “Bubblebeam? Will, you please use bubblebeam?” He asked his poke’mon. Suicune, who hadn’t moved the whole battle, yawned and sat down to go to sleep. “Oh, come on! I caught you! You have to do what I tell you to! I’m your trainer!” I saw what was going on then. The trainer was much too low a skill level for suicune to take him seriously. But how’d he catch Suicune if the poke’mon was at that high a level? The corners of my mouth raised a bit as I pulled my poke’ball off my belt. “Dugtrio, surface and return.” A thin stream of red light stretched across the distance between my poke’ball and Dugtrio to put him safely back. “Hey! That means I won the battle because you took back your poke’mon!” The trainer jumped up and down. “Sorry, no. Your poke’mon won’t fight, that means I won. Check the rulebook if you don’t believe me.” The trainer, instead of accepting the fact that he had lost, decided he was going to take it out on his suicune. Not an altogether smart move, but as I said, the trainers nowadays aren’t smart a lot of the time. “Suicune! You worthless piece of – of trash! Why didn’t you attack!” Suicune calmly turned his head toward the trainer and used bubblebeam, but the trainer ducked just in time. I must say, the trainer had excellent reflexes. If he was a poke’mon I might’ve actually wanted to catch him. After that I expected that the suicune would just back off, but he didn’t. The suicune got up, and decided that he was going to use his other attacks as well. Suicune used roar first. I didn’t see any harm in Suicune trying to scare his trainer, but when he decided that he was going to use hydro pump, I knew I would have to intervene.