Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.
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Black Belt Koichi flexed at me, striking a series of poses to the benefit of his cheering students. While he was in great shape, it was the various scars and marks that littered his body that drew my attention, like medals earned from each fight.
The members of the Saffron Dojo were good at martial arts, but Koichi looked to be the only one who knew how to fight.
"You're so cool, Master!"
"Yeah, beat that kid!"
"Let's not insult young Peri, hahaha! While age can be an indicator, never underestimate your opponent for it!" He looked a little uncomfortable at the reminder that he was about to fight a child, but he seemed to mean it.
Another point in the 'knows his stuff' column.
"Enough talking, however!" The Black Belt called, holding up his PokéBall and opening it. "It's time to fight!"
"You read my mind," I agreed, taking in the bouncing Hitmonchan that materialized. It was lithe and wrapped in corded muscles, with a few scars to match its Trainer scattered across its humanoid shape. The boxing glove hands blurred with admirable speed as it warmed up, but I couldn't help comparing it to Bruno's own Hitmonchan – and even Grant's ancient warrior that I'd met all the way back in Pewter – and found it a little wanting.
"Larry, do us the favor?" The old man nodded and stepped up to the square.
"Are both parties ready?" All four of us nodded. "In that case, Peri and Master Koichi, Electabuzz and Hitmonchan… begin!"
"Come, Peri! Show me your strength!" Koichi bellowed like the cartoon character he was, stomping forwards and throwing the most obvious punch in the world, all but inviting me to try and match him with raw power.
Doing so, I grit my teeth to hide my involuntary flinch when our knuckles met, and a jolt of electricity rushed up my arm and left my limb numb.
It was somewhat hard to tell, but I was pretty sure that I was in the superhuman tier when it came to pure muscle strength. Koichi being stronger almost certainly meant he at least unconsciously strengthened himself with Aura.
Taking away my only possible advantage.
Not, I noted even as I had to block a punch – only to almost fall to an ankle sweep – that he was that much stronger. My guard held under another couple of blows, and when he went for a grapple, trying to throw me as I'd thrown his student earlier, I almost managed to catch him with a rising knee before he dropped me to the ground.
"A close one!"
Nor, I mused as I went on the attack, was he on the same level as someone like Bruno. The comparison kept cropping up, and for a moment, I'd feared I'd found someone on the same level as the Elite Four, or close, but that thankfully wasn't the case. Honestly, if I hadn't known better, I'd say he didn't have Aura at all, but the ache in my bones as he squeezed one of my wrists, keeping me back with his longer reach, and the fact that his ribs held up when I nearly tore my own shoulder out of the socket to finally land a spin kick to his side said otherwise.
Most likely, he simply didn't do it consciously, having picked it up through years of training and fighting with his team.
"A fine blow! My turn, Hi-Yah!"
My hair rustled as his fist just barely missed me, and I backpedaled under his advance. Each long step turned him a full 180 degrees as he struck with the same arm in a picture-perfect example of form, a loud 'Ha!' accompanying each blow. It should've been easy to lash out low while stepping back and catch his foot to unbalance him. Yet, when I did so, he staggered his next step so that his foot landed on my ankle and bent it to the side.
"Aw, fuck!"
"Watch your feet, hahahaha!"
Too slow to move, I had to dive to the side to avoid the following series of stomps towards my toes. Rolling, I popped back up just in time to bend back to let a spin kick pass over my head. I really thought my return kick to his groin would get him, but he apparently saw it coming from a mile away and sent me back to the mats with a stutter step and a low sweep.
"Hi-Yah!"
The issue was that Koichi was the real thing. For all that every movement looked like they'd been copied straight from a textbook and should be easily countered, he saw those openings better than I did and knew the dirty tricks they opened him up to. He'd taken the lessons and honed them in combat, buffed off the rough edges and removed the stuff that straight up didn't work.
Koichi wasn't the freak of nature that Bruno was, but he was the best fighter I'd met besides the Fighting-Type Master.
"Hi-Yah!"
I ducked under the elbow, stepped into his space the way Bruno had drilled into me, and got both hands on his collar. For one beautiful second, I had him, weight loaded, hip turned, the throw already half-done in my head. Then his weight just... wasn't where I expected it to be. He'd shifted, subtle as breathing, and my beautiful throw became a stumble that he rode into a controlling grip on my arm.
The world tilted.
The mats came up fast.
"Ooof."
"Good entry! You nearly had me there!" He said, and he sounded like he meant it, which was almost more annoying than if he'd been smug about it. He stepped back to let me up, something I appreciated even as my tailbone sent a strongly worded complaint up my spine at the movement.
I took stock. My left arm was half-numb from that early wrist squeeze. My ankle ached where he'd bent it. I was breathing harder than he was by a frankly embarrassing margin.
And he was smiling. Not cruelly. Just... enjoying himself.
I went for broke. Feinted the straight, dropped low for the double leg sweep, felt his knee come up to meet me, and turned it into a tackle instead of a takedown, driving him back two steps before he planted himself, and we were suddenly hugging, both of us too close for clean strikes.
"Strength! Good! But-" He brought an elbow down on my upper back. Then the other one. I grit my teeth against the pain and tried to bridge backwards to drive him headfirst into the mats, but the strikes interrupted me.
Then I was airborne for the third time, the world flipping over and over as my body did the same. I hit the mats and lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening to his students cheer.
"...Yeah," I said, to nobody in particular. "Okay."
"Do you yield, young Peri?" I considered it. My body ran through an inventory without being asked.
Ankle, arm, tailbone, pride.
"Yeah," I said again, and sat up. "I yield."
The cheer from the students was immediate and loud. Koichi crossed to me in two steps and offered his hand. "You are something else," he said, and the warmth in it felt genuine. "I have students twice your age who couldn't have pushed me like that. The entry on that last exchange-" he made an appreciative sound.
"Not good enough, though," I returned, not feeling that bad about it, honestly.
Besides, it gave me time to take in Herc's own effort.
Hitmonchan was fast. I'd noted it warming up, and it hadn't been showing off – the combination came in a blur, and Herc caught the first two on his forearms before eating the third on the chin, which snapped his head back about an inch and seemed to annoy him more than anything. His electrified counterpunch took Hitmonchan in the shoulder and spun it half-around, though it thanked the Electabuzz by using the momentum for a spin kick to the head.
"Good!" Koichi called out, and the two Pokémon looked over to see that they were the main event. They reset.
Hitmonchan came in again with mixed levels, going for the upper body with its longer arms, leaving an indistinct haze of glowing afterimages as the Mach Punches fell like a meteor shower. Herc gave ground in a way that looked like retreating until it suddenly wasn't, weight dropping onto his back foot once his foe gave chase, and a short hook came over the top that clipped Hitmonchan across the ear. Koichi watched with his arms folded and said nothing, but his eyes were tracking everything. I bit my lip but decided to copy him and leave it for the Pokémon to sort out themselves.
The problem I started to see was reach and volume. Hitmonchan's gloved fists were a constant threat from a range Herc couldn't quite close without eating combinations, and it threw a lot of punches, blows hammering down like torrential rain. Where Koichi fought economically, every movement purposeful and practiced, Hitmonchan fought like it was being paid by the strike. Its form was still on point, and it didn't overextend or leave foolish openings in its eagerness, but where the Dojo Master was a martial artist who had taken it to the streets, his Hitmonchan felt more like a brawler that had been taught. Small gazes and aborted punches were allowed to connect in exchange for devastating haymakers.
And enough of the heavy blows were getting through.
Herc's eye was puffing up. His lip had been split, blood trickling down his chin. One of his sharp canines had lost the tip. But Hitmonchan was moving slower on its left side, where that first counterpunch had landed, rolling the shoulder between exchanges like it was working something out. It seemed we'd gotten lucky, and Hitmonchan's arm was partially paralyzed.
Herc saw it too. I watched him see it. The next time Hitmonchan came in, Herc took the right hook flush on the cheek – just accepted it, not flinching as the rest of his tooth went flying – to be in the right position to go after that left shoulder with both hands lit up by Hammer Arm in a vicious double hammer strike.
Hitmonchan's pained sound was small and quickly suppressed, but it was there. "Hm," said Koichi.
It still wasn't enough. Hitmonchan adjusted, leaned to its right, and Herc had burned something taking that shot to engineer the exchange. He was slower, the smooth Quick Attack starting to flicker.
They went for another two minutes that felt longer. Herc landed three more shots that would've put a human – and most four Badge Pokémon – down, but Hitmonchan just kept coming, and when Herc's guard finally cracked on a straight right that had more power behind it than anything before, the follow-up jab sat him down on his ass.
He got up.
Another jab sat him down again.
He stayed there for a moment, one hand on the mat, and I could see him doing the same inventory I'd done, running the same math.
He looked at me. I looked back and shook my head, to his obvious disappointment. I was sure he could keep going, but there wasn't any point to it. Hitmonchan's shoulder may have been bothering it, but it wouldn't have been enough, and even though I wasn't planning on using the Electabuzz in the Gym, that didn't mean he had free rein to overdo it.
"We surrender," I decided for us both, making Hercules fall onto his back with a sigh while Hitmonchan gave a little fist pump of celebration.
"And the winner, 2-0, is Master Koichi," Larry announced much too calmly for the racket that erupted at the announcement.
"Yeah, way to go, Master!"
"I knew you could do it!"
"Hahahaha!" Koichi boasted to his students. "Did you pay attention!? It was an excellent display of-!"
Despite losing, I couldn't feel too bad about it when Herc and I got swarmed by a bunch of people as enthusiastic about hitting stuff as I was, and who were only marginally less impressed by my efforts than they were their Master's.
Could be worse.
—-
I was going insane.
"Hi!"
"Hmm?" Dustin, a middle manager in the Marketing department at Silph Co., looked up from his sandwich and froze. "Not you again!"
"Oh, come on, buddy!" I grinned brightly, keeping pace with the power walking office worker as we passed through the park where Dustin ate his lunch every day. "I just want to talk!"
"As I've told you repeatedly, I have nothing to tell you!" He insisted.
"Now, I know that's not true, Dustin! Come on, where's the harm in telling a kid, huh? What am I going to do?"
"Please," he scoffed, trying to lose me in the crowd of the main street. Unfortunately for him, staying in Saffron for a bit had been good for the Psychic-Type around my neck. There tended to be a fair amount of information available to the public regarding the local Gym's – or Clan's – specialty, so Espeon was able to help me clear a path with Confusion, even if the pedestrians stumbled from their less-than-gentle treatment. "As if I don't know who you work for! Masaki is going to have to do better than that if he wants Silph Co. secrets!"
I held up my hands innocently. "Hey, it's not that deep! All I want to know is how you guys are doing with the Master Ball?"
"There's no such thing as the Master Ball!"
"So you all claim," I mumbled, forced to let my vict-conversational partner go as we reached Silph HQ and he rushed past the guards stationed outside.
It was the day before my Gym match, the fourteenth day since I'd gotten to Saffron – a full two weeks.
And I'd seen zero signs of anything that even smelled like Team Rocket.
I didn't get it. The Master Ball seemingly not being a thing; sure, I could see that. While I'd never gotten a real explanation out of Bill, what I did know – which was basically just a growing hunch that it utilized some sort of Aura nonsense – didn't really work with a PokéBall that had a 100% catch rate.
And if the Master Ball wasn't real, then Team Rocket had no reason to attack Silph Co.
Which meant that I probably owed a bunch of random, 9-to-5 wage-slaves an apology for harassing them. Surely I'd get around to that at some point.
Sighing, I turned away from the company building and shrugged dramatically.
"Oh well, suppose I was wrong and should go do something else! Guess I'll walk through this dark alley!"
Whistling loudly, I did as I said, moving a little further down the street and turning down a shady alley that felt out of place amongst the shiny and well-kept corporate buildings and luxury boutiques. It was a path I'd found earlier on during my stay, and one I'd clocked as leading towards the seedier parts of town – or as seedy as Saffron got, which wasn't very.
But even the cleanest places had an underbelly, somewhere out of sight, where the less lawful elements could peddle their trade.
My eyes were nearly unfocused as I strained my hearing. Honedge lurked in my shadow, even more on edge – heh – than usual. Espeon was pretending to nap around my neck, and Zorua had just sunk her teeth into my hand, where it rested in my pocket.
The faintest noise hit my eardrum, and I whirled around, Espeon standing up on my shoulder with both eyes and jewel glowing with Psychic energy, Honedge leaping to my palm with a smack!
"Ha!"
My eyes danced across the alley, checking every shadow and lingering on the trash containers.
Nothing.
14 days. Two weeks. And not a single sign of anyone coming for me.
I could've sworn that I felt someone or something watching me as I wandered around the city, yet I could never lay eyes on the culprit.
Seeing nothing, my eye began twitching.
"Oh, no, oops!" I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out my PokéDex, throwing it on the ground carelessly. "I'm so clumsy! I dropped my PokéDex!"
I bent down to pick it up slowly.
There it was again!
"Ha!"
"Meeoow!"
Crash!
One of the containers toppled over, spilling trash everywhere as a Meowth screamed and jumped backwards, a thin furrow across its nose that leaked a drop of blood. The Normal-Type feline hissed at me venomously until a glare from Espeon had it scampering off, though it still found the time to snatch a wrapper from the ground before skedaddling.
I sighed, feeling bad about almost murdering the Pokémon until Espeon started purring and rubbing her cheek against mine.
Koga gave trash advice. Unless he knew it was bad and deliberately told me to keep me out of trouble.
Damn Koga and his paradoxes.
Suddenly, I felt the PokéDex in my hand vibrate, and I looked down at the screen, feeling my heart – which had barely slowed after the Meowth – start to speed up again.
'Gary Oak'
I pushed out air, letting it vibrate my lips as I stared at the screen. Before I really thought about it, my thumb had swiped across the green icon and accepted the call.
It probably wouldn't be worth it.
The messy brown air was the same as I remembered, as were the chocolate eyes and the high cheekbones. However, I couldn't help but notice that Gary's skin was a shade or two paler than I'd remembered, like he wasn't getting enough sun.
"...hey." His voice was lower than usual as well.
"Hey." I returned neutrally, nodding down at his lap. "Nice Eevee."
"Oh." He followed my gaze down to the Normal-Type in his arms, like he'd forgotten that it was there. Even when it wasn't my focus, I couldn't help but notice the thick and glossy coat, as well as the sheer size of the Eevee. Not only was it bigger than Espeon had been – though that didn't say much – but it also seemed bigger than average as well. A beautiful Pokémon, all in all. "Thanks. Uh, Gramps got it for me for my birthday."
"Happy birthday." It had been a little over two weeks earlier, right before I got to Saffron, in fact. I'd noticed the date but hadn't done anything about it.
Misty, Ash, and Brock deserved an apology and some groveling. I'd been a bad friend to them. Green was a little more up in the air, and I wasn't sure which way I was leaning, but if she called, I'd probably crack and apologize first. Mistakes had been made on both sides, but at least hers had been for a good reason – we were dragging her into a terrorist base without backup – while mine was mostly because I was in a bad mood. Sure, she lied and called her brother behind our backs, but I understood.
Gary was different.
"Thank you," he mumbled again. A tense silence settled over the call, reminding me of back in Cerulean when we'd been in much the same situation: Gary calling to apologize and me making it hard for him.
The thought made me sigh. I didn't have it in me to be the bigger person, but I didn't need to be an asshole about it.
"What's that around your neck?" He asked, and I tilted the screen to allow Espeon to be seen clearly, the Psychic-Type sniffing at the image of Gary dismissively and beginning to groom the hair at the back of my neck. "Oh, Eevee evolved a bit ago."
"Gratz, dude. Espeon, huh? That's-uh, a good Pokémon."
"Yeah, it is." It was clearly not what he wanted to say, which I imagined was one of his habitual insults, but he held back out of awkwardness.
"...you heard anything about-" he looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice, "you know, them?" It was very clear who he was talking about, and I squashed the annoyance that welled up at his lack of apology.
"No, no, I haven't." It was even the truth, mostly.
"Really?" I narrowed my eyes at the skepticism in his voice.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," he shrugged and looked away from the camera. I didn't buy it for a second. "It just wouldn't surprise me, that's all."
"If you have a problem, then just fucking say it instead of beating around the bush!" I snapped, having no patience for his pussyfooting. There was a difference between not being an asshole about it and letting him get away with it, at least in my opinion.
"Okay, fine." He clenched his jaw. "I wasn't gonna bring it up, try and be nice. You think I didn't hear!?"
"I told you, stop screwing around. Heard what?" The conversation was slipping out of control, but I didn't try to correct it. Why did it sound like he was the one expecting an apology?
"About your little deal with Masaki!?"
That caught me off guard, though in hindsight, it shouldn't have. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh!" There was a glimmer in Gary's eyes as he finally regained some control over the conversation. "You signed with that rich dickhead, despite knowing how Gramps feels about him! Do you have any idea how he reacted when he found out-"
"So?" I cut in, Gary's mouth flapping in an unflattering imitation of Siren.
"So? SO!?" He snarled at me through the screen. "After everything he's done for you-!"
"And I appreciate that," I interrupted him again. I had very little interest in merely sitting there and taking it. I'd had my reservations in the beginning, but I was over it – mostly. I sure as fuck wasn't about to let the Oaks make me feel bad about my choice. "I really do, but what other options did I have? He threatened to take away my sponsorship-"
"HIS sponsorship and it'd be nothing less than you deserve-!"
"-and I won't let my team suffer, no matter how deserved or not it is." I finished, pretending not to hear his words. Fucking hypocrite. Gary was the one who had insisted we didn't tell anyone, had insisted we kept it a secret from Professor Oak, and then, when our house of cards came tumbling down, he pushed all the blame onto me.
And then, two months later, he was mad at me?
Fuck that.
"So that's it, huh? Just like that?" He didn't look impressed with me when I nodded back, keeping my shit under wraps.
"Yeah. Just like that."
He nodded back and forth, and I could see him swallow down whatever he was about to say several times before the screen abruptly went black as he hung up before saying anything further.
I put the PokéDex away with a sigh, rubbing my forehead tiredly and petting Espeon when she tried to cheer me up.
Yeah, probably not worth it.
—-
It was time.
The sleek, modern doors slid open with the soft sound of rubber on rubber, letting me through and into the foyer. It was the same as I remembered it, mostly chrome and steel, with some blues and pinks. It was as crowded as I remembered, though I noticed fewer younger Trainers and more of the older bunch.
Made sense. Saffron was widely considered one of the hardest Gyms to beat, no matter how many Badges. As I'd been getting more and more acquainted with, while the League determined roughly how strong one needed to be for a certain number of Badges, it was more of a range than anything else, and a Gym Leader could be at either end of it. Erika and – as much as I'd come to appreciate them – the Senseatinal Waterflower Sisters were at the lower end, letting Trainers who probably weren't ready get their Badges.
On the other hand, Sabrina was almost as bad as Surge, if for different reasons. The younger Trainers probably figured out pretty quickly that a Type advantage wouldn't be enough and left for greener pastures.
"Hi," I greeted the receptionist, noticing that it wasn't the same person I had signed up with. "I'm here for my battle? Periwinkle, 3:15 PM."
"3:15, you say," the receptionist, an older man with thinning hair that was still charcoal black and thick glasses, "dudududuuu. Peeeeriwinnnnkleeeee, P, P, P, there you are! Fifth Badge, first year, right?"
"Mhmm." I hummed in agreement.
"Everything looks to be in order, then. We're actually a little ahead today, so chances are good you might get in 5 minutes earlier, if that's okay?" He looked at me quizzically and I nodded. No reason not to.
"Sounds good to me either way."
"Excellent, then if you'll take a seat, we'll call for you when it's time!" He smiled at me, and I returned it while tapping his desk lightly.
"Sounds good. Thanks."
Making my way over to the largest gathering of seats, I took one of the single chairs, nodding back to a pair of old men who grunted at me in greeting and smiled at an old woman, doing my best to politely refuse the hard candy she tried to force on me.
"I don' understan' fashion thes' days," one of the old guys complained, taking my proximity as permission to start a conversation. "It's all colors an' shap's an' design's. What happn'd to good, sturdy cloths, eh?"
I grimaced, pulling uncomfortably at the jacket Bill had sent me, filled from top to bottom with logos. "Believe me, this wasn't my choice, either."
Thankfully, I was called in before they could get too comfortable. Another man – dressed in something halfway between a suit and a wizard's robe for some reason – came and led me down a long corridor that ended in a large room where he left me.
I looked around, taking a seat and pouring a glass of Colbur Berry juice. It had been a minute since I'd participated in a proper Gym match. Well, that wasn't true, but only Pewter had taken the spectacle seriously enough to have an actual waiting room.
I chuckled, thinking back to how nervous I'd been before my first Gym battle. I'd damn near thrown up.
On the verge of my fifth, I was a lot calmer, though there was still a hint of nerves. They were a lot harder to notice, buried under a surge of Aura-induced bloodhaze, but they were there.
I had just about gotten myself under control when a chime sounded throughout the room. There was no voice telling me it was time to go, but the door did swing open on its own, so I'd take it.
The Gym arena was very much in the same style as the Gym entrance. Large, smooth, dark tiles covered the walls and floor, with large lamps hanging from the ceiling to illuminate everything. The battle arena itself was sunken into the floor, a massive pit large enough for a pair of Onix to fight.
And across from the little outcropping of stone for me to stand on, by a matching podium, space itself twisted inwards, as if a black hole had suddenly materialized.
Green hair, so dark it almost looked black, reached all the way down to the tall woman's knees. Her skin was porcelain under her straight bangs, face flawless and cold like a doll as her eyes gazed at me blankly from a face I'd judge to be 17-18. A red crop top stretched over a modest bust revealed the black shirts she had on underneath, and a red skirt matched the top, with a belt with 8 PokéBalls around her waist.
"Hello." She said steadily, nodding to me. "You are Periwinkle, my next challenger." It didn't sound like a question.
"Yeah, I am." I agreed. I could've said more, but I was a little distracted by the left side of the large room. I'd known there would be spectators, since I'd seen the screen when I'd signed up, so the 60-ish people looking at me from the stone benches were expected.
But why did so many have cameras!?
That question was instantly answered when I saw Bill in the first row, nose-deep in his PokéNav, talking into a wireless headset. As if feeling my eyes on him, he looked up and gave me a thumbs up before going back to ignoring me.
Was the money really worth it? Could he take back the extra roster slots he'd given me?
Probably, which meant I was stuck with him.
"I do not usually condone things of this nature," Sabrina said, eyes flickering to the reporters and Bill. Her voice was bland and toneless, yet carried effortlessly across the pit, "However, I owe you something of a thank you."
"Oh?" I questioned with a raised eyebrow. I didn't recall doing anything for the psychic; hell, if anything, I'd made less of a mess than I usually did while hanging around a city.
Unless that was the reason for the thank you, and it was meant sarcastically, but I wasn't getting big jokester vibes from Sabrina.
"Indeed," she continued impassively, "thanks to your reckless and thoughtless actions, the criminal elements of my city have been unusually active as of late. Keeping a close eye on you has allowed us to dismantle three gangs and arrest close to two dozen."
A pressure began building behind my eyes, and one of them began twitching again. "You've been following me for the last two weeks?" That's what I'd been sensing!?
"Yes." Sabrina nodded with zero remorse.
"..." I had nothing. "I would like to fight you now."
Sabrina tilted her head slightly, the closest approximation of emotion I'd seen from her. "People say that to me a lot, or simply attack me without warning. Their thoughts usually give them away, though, and it is mostly a combination of anger and fear. Is it the same for you?" I felt pressure on my mind, like a headache was just starting to form before it went away. "I find it difficult to enter your mind, soaked in Distortion as you are."
"And I'd appreciate it if we kept it like that." I kept my tone conversational, though my eyes glared at her. She returned the look with another head tilt, and I darted my eyes to the reporters. She fully turned her head to follow my gaze before looking back at me with realization.
"Ah. I understand." She nodded gravely, and I felt the urge to roll my eyes. At least she didn't say that I wanted to keep it a secret from the reporters out loud. "Very well. My curiosity has gotten in the way of duty for long enough. We are here to battle, and so battle we shall. However, before we begin." There was the tiniest distortion of space over on the opposite side of the reporters, and an Alakazam appeared. Judging by the longer mustache, it was a male one. "Would you be opposed to Alakazam being our referee? I promise he will be impartial."
'You have my word, Worldwalker.' A sophisticated, masculine voice rang in my head as Alakazam's eyes lit up. It was a little thin and tinny, but I suspected that had more to do with me than the Psychic. 'Should my Mistress falter, it will be no one's fault other than her own, and I will say as much. Hiding from reality is beneath a Psychic.'
I hesitated before nodding. "I guess it's not that different from other Gym battles. You guys always provide the ref."
"Exactly." The tiniest smile appeared on Sabrina's face as she nodded to me, and I heard the cameras go crazy. "Few understand. As a thank you, I will release first." A faint glow emitted from her eyes, and a blue energy field surrounded one of the PokéBalls on her waist, clipping it off her belt and raising it into the air to hover in front of her.
Actual human psychic powers. I didn't know why it was so impressive after seeing Bruno outpunch God, but it was.
'Then, the battle is set!' Alakazam's voice echoed in my head. 'It shall be a 4-on-4 battle, single substitution, for a Fifth Badge! Gym Leader Sabrina to release first! Are both Trainers ready?'
We nodded.
'Then begin!'
—-
Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY liked it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.