AN: Here's the Oak interlude that the patrons voted on, enjoy*
*Terms and conditions apply
-/-
The mineral composition of the soil that the burrow is composed of can thus be determined to have a direct correlation with the hardness factor of a Sandshrew's scales. Professor Oak finished typing into his boxy computer.
It had been a fairly new development for him to use the keyboard instead of a typewriter, but, if he could say so himself, he was quickly getting the hang of it.
He leaned back in his chair and spun around in a lazy circle as he stretched his arms out. A jaw-breaking yawn escaped his throat. He looked at the clock on the wall only to wince at the time. It was already 11 in the morning. He'd gotten too excited about writing the first draft of the research paper again and had inadvertently pulled an all-nighter.
But, who could blame him? The most exciting part of research was the fieldwork, the experimentation and the mining of good and bad results.
Writing the story? By far the worst part of the whole experience. That's why he always tried to get it out of the way as fast as physically possible. He'd done a quick data analysis once out of pure interest and had discovered that writing the research down into a journal article format made up 86% of the cases in which he worked through the night.
Back when his children had been young they had consisted of 90% of all-nighters. But back then, every second night had been an all-nighter. Those days were far gone and even his grandson, whatever his name was, had reached an age where he didn't wake up his family at night anymore, either with crying or with demands to sleep in the bed of someone else because he'd had a nightmare.
The professor lazily stared at the ceiling from his position of leaning back into the office chair, letting the bright LED tube lighting up the sterile environment of his lab burn itself into his retina.
His eyes were most probably a lost cause anyway, considering how often he worked on computers these days. He'd need glasses and he knew exactly how out of his way he would go to avoid wearing them when he finally went to the optometrist to get the diagnosis.
He sighed, spun around one more time and stood up. He considered for a brief second if he should go back to his house and take a nap to ward off the tiredness slowly creeping in. However, the fact that it was almost noon meant that as always he went with a decision that was a bit different.
Shuffling out of his lab, filled with expensive measuring equipment as it was, he went to the more homely lounge and stepped in front of the coffee machine.
"One small press of a button for man, one largest espresso for mankind," he muttered to himself as he stood there waiting for the machine to finish sputtering out its hot brown gold.
He turned around, leaned his back against the small kitchen counter and looked longingly at the soft green sofa which he would collapse onto in just a few seconds.
He idly wondered for a second why none of his research assistants and students were here today, before remembering that it was a weekend and that he'd forgotten the meaning of work-life balance decades ago.
"And with a stunning Rock Smash to the head, the small but mighty Rattata defeats the Graveler and secures his trainer a continuation to the next round. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now entering the top eight!" A voice announced in a manner that let one easily perceive that it was supposed to be loud, but that it came out as quiet because the television had been put on a low volume.
Oak looked to the side where a small TV was installed in a corner so that one could watch the news during one's break. Rory must have left it on. He liked staying in an extra hour even after work just to delay having to go home to an empty house. He wasn't taking his daughter's journey very well.
"A Rattata?" Oak muttered as he took the coffee mug with him to the couch to sit down and give his old knees a rest.
It had been a while since he'd seen one of the small normal types in any sort of competition. His eyes scanned the colourful screen which was now showing the highlights of the previous match.
He grimaced as he realised that it was the youngster tournament he was watching, the name boldly written in a corner, to the backdrop of a Ratata skillfully evading the Razor Leaves of a Bellsprout before closing in and ending the fight with a single Hyper Fang. The camera switched to the grinning young boy who was presumably the trainer of the little monster, and whose happy expression mirrored that of his starter.
"Four matches in and Joey Joestar remains one of two youngsters who have needed only one Pokemon for all of their fixtures. The other is Sabrina, the psychic specialist who has swept away all competition today with her Kadabra. Assuming there won't be any upsets it will be these two that we'll be seeing in the finals today as they face each other from different sides of the bracket!"
The live feed switched to a picture of the tournament bracket which was already mostly greyed out, focused on the top eight. Three blinks of lights and another name was extinguished. Johny Rockstone from Pewter had finished his run.
In lieu of having anything better to do and too tired to go home and interact with his grandchildren at the moment Oak leaned back into the soft embrace of the couch while sipping his coffee. He had enough hours to burn today anyway and considering how much he'd worked the day before and the morning after, he was too mentally exhausted to get anything of value done anyway.
The tournament seemed interesting enough, for all that it was dedicated to youngsters which was something that he had his own thoughts about. He could go out to the ranch and interact with the Pokemon there later. The wonderful creatures always gave him energy rather than taking it like humans often did.
It was as he started watching the tournament in earnest that the professor shifted from his sedentary position, slowly but surely into one of concentration. His intent gaze drank in the footage of the Rattata and Kadabra as they tore their way through the competition.
The coffee mug lay half forgotten and half empty positioned precariously on the armrest of the couch as the professor's fingers were too busy being steepled inside each other's embrace as their owner clinically analysed the battles.
The surface-level conclusion was easy enough to reach. That psychic girl and the boy with the Rattata were simply so beyond the competition that there was no contest whenever they appeared on the screen. Sure, Rattata and Kadabra got more and more tired as the fights progressed, but so did the Pokemon of their opponents. Despite the regular breaks for nutrient paste and the tending of the medical tent, the schedule was relatively gruelling. Being a small program with a minuscule budget and thus having to run a full tournament in just one day to save on costs would do that to you.
"No evolution?" the professor muttered to himself when he saw a quick flash of the young boy's badges across the screens signalling that if he had been so willing he could have very well evolved his starter. It reminded him a bit of his old days, using a not-so-popular unevolved Pokemon to defeat enemies several times its size. His Spearow had been a force to be reckoned with back then, and the manner in which his erstwhile Pokemon had defeated Elite Four members and champions alike had taught Oak to never underestimate an opponent.
He watched as the Rattata expertly weaved in between the fast and furious punches of a Hitmonchan before quickly and almost lazily slipping inside of its guard and delivering a punch to the gut and a bite to the neck. The fighting type promptly collapsed in on itself and passed out while Oak realised that the little rat was using Detect of all things. "Interesting."
The last four youngsters of the tournament soon crystallised.
The trend and the last decades had always been to make the starting age younger, justifying the policy with the fact that the routes had become safer, training techniques more widely and easily accessible and healthcare a thing of ease. Oak disagreed with the starting age of both 12 and 13 and the statistics disagreed alongside him. The optimal time, or the earliest at which it made sense to send out children into the world was 16. Anything else was simply society glorifying youth beyond all else. There were other reasons of course. The journey was tradition and had to be done, but considering that society still mostly relied on engineers and blue-collar workers to truly function, people wanted their kids to return in time to go to university or learn a trade rather than to leave just as they started developing enough critical thinking to contribute to society. It was a fundamentally flawed system that elevated those with enough talent to succeed despite the circumstances of their age when they started their journey, through the neglect of the statistically more significant failure of those failing to become trainers at 13 when they might have succeeded at 16.
But watching the boy with the Rattata and the girl with the Kadabra sweep through the competition as if they've been doing it their whole lives almost made the trade-off worth it.
Shouldn't genius be nurtured?
"Their talent wouldn't have withered away just because they started four years later," Oak said to himself. "Stupid system," he lamented.
Nevertheless, for the first time in a while, the professor found himself enjoying the battles until finally, the entire event culminated in the final between boy and girl three hours later. It would be a three-on-three, and the professor found himself waiting with bated breath, probably alongside the rest of the audience for the match in which the talented two would finally each reveal more than just one of their Pokemon.
"Breaking news!" the TV announcer suddenly shouted, the camera switching to the commentary booth. It was an amateur young man probably doing it for free considering this wasn't a particularly big event. Oak appreciated enthusiasm and something had to have the man looking quite spooked if his white eyes were to say anything. "We just found out that the information about one of the participants is outdated. I repeat Jonathan Joestar's badge information is outdated. An entry logged only this morning shows that he has four badges and thus also the capacity to participate in a four-on-four match if he has used the privilege these badges grant him to catch a fourth team member. Please stay on standby as we discuss this groundbreaking revelation with the participants!"
Oak sighed in surprise before shaking his head. Geniuses indeed, to have fourth badges each after only a year in the youngster program. People didn't realise it, but giving kids a licence only to lock them out of actually travelling stunted their development immensely. To break out despite that and to profit from the early start. That was something that required being truly exceptional.
An ad break ran over the TV before it switched back to the TV announcer who looked, if anything, even more excited. "This just in, confirmed by one of our organisational staff. We have reached Jonathan who has been blazing his path through the tournament with his Rattata and have confirmed that he has a fourth Pokemon. Now we only need to see if both participants are willing to switch the format to a four-on-four, something never seen before on this level, and likely never to be seen again!"
A few more seconds of waiting.
The TV announcer jumped up, hand on the microphone taped to his ear. He gesticulated wildly with his arms, almost hitting the boom stick which popped for a second into view. "I'm confirming, we're going to have a four-on-four between youngster Jonathan and psychic Sabrina. Half an hour's break before the finals! Stay tuned in for what is probably going to be an exciting prequel to the Indigo conference and if the talent of the participants is anything to go by, an announcement for how the next is going to be something to watch as well!"
"Jonathan," Oak muttered. The name rang a bell. Hadn't he received a letter from the boy recently? Something about a sponsorship?
-/-
Joey had never compared himself to other youngsters. What would have been the point? They were only children in the end, not people that he could feel proud of beating.
The only one he'd kept an eye on was Sabrina, and that was also primarily because of her psychic talent and because he knew from his foreknowledge that she would at least be strong enough to be a gym leader in the future.
He was kept abreast of Mia's development because of her closeness to him and he also knew of Michael because the boy had at the end of the day gone to Celadon and Vermilion with the group.
Otherwise? The other youngsters of Saffron had served as decent enough sparring partners for Rattata back when he'd still been untrained and untested in battle. However, if training determined the growing strength of a Pokemon, then Joey's upward curve had quickly left behind the barely budging line of the other youngsters of Saffron. He'd gone on to do other things, challenge trainers, conference winners, future Elite Four members and current Elite Four members (as stupid as that sounded).
He had four badges when the average was 1.3. He didn't have any evolved Pokemon other than Metapod. Any other youngster who'd gotten to two badges would have evolved theirs in a heartbeat. If it was up to them of course, Pokemon in the end still had to mature before entering the next stage of their life.
He'd never considered the Saffron youngsters much after the first month of being one himself.
But standing here at the opening ceremony of their little tournament, in the medium-sized official battling arena sponsored by Silph Co., he couldn't but feel a bit destabilised from the fact that he essentially didn't recognize anyone.
How many youngsters had their class started with all those months ago? Surely it had been at least 20. There were no badge restrictions on the tournament and people would be matched against equals at first before those with more badges and thus higher seedings started joining the tournament.
Joey had never been very good with faces, but he still remembered the basics and in this group of 72 children, he barely recognized four of them. Sabrina, Mia, Michael, the bug catcher boy who had failed to get his badge in Celadon and who Joey remembered had gotten kicked out of the Game Corner. There were two or three more barely familiar faces but… Had Saffron truly only produced six youngsters who would actually stick with the program? Surely anyone who was still fighting would want to participate in the tournament, especially considering it was in their city. They wouldn't even have to travel.
Pewter of all places had a delegation twice as big. As did Celadon, Vermilion, and Cerulean.
"There's hardly anyone from Saffron here," he commented idly to Mia who was standing next to him as Ruth held her speech on a slightly elevated podium to medium attendance. There were just as many empty seats as there were full ones.
"I imagine it's harder being a youngster in this city than elsewhere," the girl said blithely as if she had already known about this months ago. She probably had, after all, she was more connected to the local scene than he was. His eyes were always looking forward, beyond the city.
"What do you mean?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
Mia paused, before lifting her right hand to shift her brown hair out of the way to give him a sideways glance. "I guess you wouldn't understand," she muttered quietly.
After the starting ceremony, Joey went into the stands to sit and watch as the unseeded trainers started the process of eliminating each other in a series of one-on-ones that occurred at the same time.
The first four matches occurred between eight trainers, none of them who had any badges.
The ghost-typed boy tilted his head confusedly to the side as he watched Pokemon who seemed barely stronger than Rattata had been back when Joey had gotten him duke it out in barely effective Tackles and non-accurate Sand Attacks.
A break. The one-badge trainers joined in on the fun. 32 new faces, the most represented group. Now there were only two battles at a time, still one on one. The gap between the youngsters with zero badges and those with at least one was enormous. It was very obvious that having zero badges after nine months of training simply meant that one hadn't tried. The consensus was that anyone could manage at least one badge a season, no matter their talent, or what their starter was. Joey thought that number was closer to three, but he'd been wrong before.
So big was the difference between the zero and the one badge youngsters that none of the former managed to defeat any of the latter, even though the medical assistance provided meant they were essentially back to the top of their game.
Despite the results, Joey could barely see the difference in skill between the two classes.
Surprisingly enough, it was Michael whom he thought looked the best of the bunch, perhaps due to the simple fact that he still refused to ground his Pidgey and defeated his opponent handily without taking a single hit.
The two badge trainers joined the fray. There were decisively fewer of them than there had been first badge ones.
Mia with Lil Mouse and a boy with a Weepinbell were the only two who managed to defeat their opponents in what was now a two-two, without revealing their second Pokemon.
Another intermission, and this time it was Joey who stood up alongside the other youngsters who had three badges to start being included in the fights. There were only six of them. Five, if one considered that Joey didn't belong. If he'd wanted to be included as a four-badge trainer, he would have had to gain his fourth badge earlier than yesterday or make a fuss. He hadn't cared enough, he still didn't.
Finding himself facing a wary one-badge trainer with a Growlithe and a Pidgey, Joey defeated the boy with Rattata using no more than two moves per opponent. Quick Attack and Hyper Fang.
His starter was fast and his opponents weren't. What were you supposed to do when your enemy simply outclassed you in speed and damage? Lay down and die was the only answer Joey could give to that.
His next opponent had two badges. It was obvious that the three badge seeds had all been distributed so that they wouldn't meet too early. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sabrina join the fray in a flash of blue teleportation. The crowd cheered loud enough for him to hear it for the first time.
Everyone was participating now. The youngster the psychic girl ended up facing probably wished that she hadn't joined yet. It was still a two-on-two.
As the young boy in front of Joey sank to his knees a few minutes later, his Weepinbell, prequeled by a Beedrill, lay limply at his feet. The matches switched to three on threes.
It was against his first three-badge youngster, from Pewter, that Joey first heard arrogance. Bragging. A rock, or ground specialist. He thought that since both he and Joey had joined in the same round, he stood a chance.
He didn't.
Joey had started preparing to challenge Flint for his fifth badge. The other boy had probably managed to scrape a win for his third badge two weeks ago.
"Rock Smash."
Rattata hadn't received a hit yet. His Detect was too advanced, and he only ever dropped out of it when he attacked and decisively finished a battle.
Joey blinked, the previously boisterous boy from Pewter was replaced by a consternation purple-haired girl from Lavender also recalling her last Pokemon with a bitter face.
Joey didn't know what he'd expected, and he waited disinterestedly as the stand-by Chansey fussed over his untouched Rattata.
Had he thought that he'd find a challenge? Maybe in the latter rounds.
Why hadn't he?
Rattata was perhaps a fifth badge Pokemon, but so was Surge's Raichu, and he served as a bulwark to topple if one wanted to get the third badge from the man. He'd battled two trainers today who'd already supposedly surpassed that hurdle. Why had they been so weak?
Beating the first boy without a scratch he could understand. Slow and laborious ground and rock types with no real way to nail his starter down. One Sand Storm had been defeated by Rattata simply slipping underground. He'd sparred with Diglett often enough. The others had gone down to simple consecutive Rock Smashes.
The second girl, however? She'd been good. A Spearow that knew when to descend and attack and when to keep its distance, a Meowth that could swipe away Swift with a flick of its Fury Swipes, a Munchlax, of all things, that could withstand more damage than any other Pokemon Joey had seen today. All of them annihilated. Was it because Joey continued getting out of battles unscathed and his opponents didn't, that he gained a stamina advantage?
He didn't know the reason, and his trying to figure it out was disrupted by the organisers suddenly bursting into his space with wide smiles and oily hands. "You have four badges, that's amazing!" "Couldn't we do a four versus four for the finals then!" "Think of how excited the audience would be." "Think of how proud your parents would be to see you fight in such a serious match!" (Everything up to a three-on-three was generally considered amateur level, the battling equivalent of kids throwing wet noodles at each other. 4-6 was when the real fun started).
Joey considered. He had planned on facing Sabrina in a three-on-three, and with the limited capacity of Metapod to face a team of psychics, perhaps that would have benefited him more. However, they'd all gotten this far together. If he had a way of including all his Pokemon, he would do it. All for one, one for all.
The organisational staff, having gotten what they wanted, left with satisfied smiles.
Joey prepared in silence, rethinking his strategies. Then he heard his name over the speakers.
The last significant battle of the season. He stood up.
-/-
Joey hadn't been overly consternated over his loss in Cerulean, not like how another child might have been. They would have probably railed at the unfairness. The stupidity of the situation that had made them lose the gym challenge. The unfairness of the Everstone in Metapod's stomach which had arguably caused their loss in the gym battle.
Joey had lived long enough to know that life was unfair sometimes. He let the negative emotions flower in his head before he nipped them and threw them out with yesterday's trash. When had anyone ever achieved anything while dwelling on failures and negativity?
One harsh truth that was a bit harder to accept for the youngster had been that he would be unable to catch Misdreavus for a while longer. Another was that for someone whose philosophy was based on momentum, his had gotten interrupted quite harshly. Those who kept winning the important battles, integrating the experience and getting stronger would continue doing so, whereas people who lost were more often than not stuck in a loser's cycle. It was easiest to see with money, where those who had too much hardly struggled to gain much more, whereas those with nothing died with less. However, in his opinion, this applied to most areas of life. Those who were loved knew how to attract more love, whereas those who'd never experienced it hardly had the skills to make someone like them if they weren't already inherently likeable.
Momentum. Misdreavus. Momentum. Misdreavus. It had all come down to those two words. Joey needed a change for himself.
He'd never wanted to face Giovanni for his eighth badge as was common. His encounter with the Rockets only confirmed that. He'd rather stay as far away from the man as he could.
The loss in Cerulean had rattled him out of the foolish thought patterns that he'd inadvertently fallen into due to not being challenged enough in his youngster prep year. Why wait for the bus to Cerulean instead of picking a more suitable challenge? Comfort, convenience, money? When was it ever those who simply went with the flow who changed the statistics? Became anomalies? To be exceptional you had to go out of your comfort zone, do something that wasn't convenient, and sometimes even spend a bit.
Joey had been exceptional for the last fifty years of his last life, and the first twelve years of his second one. He refused to stop now. His brain had activated fully for what felt like the first time in years. The challenges one faced as a child hardly needed an adult's full attention after all. He'd gone to the library, he'd done his research more thoroughly than he'd had in years. He'd schemed and turned his thoughts over in his mind as he synthesised different strategies. He'd talked to others, integrated their perspectives. He'd trained his Pokemon with more involvement than he'd thought possible. Somehow he'd been with every one of them for every session at the same time. He didn't know how he'd done it, he just knew that that was how it had felt.
He'd gone to Silver City. The only minor gym he would ever challenge. It hadn't been an easy battle. But when one removed the inherent disadvantage he'd faced in Cerulean he found his Pokemon more than ready for the task.
A memory flashed in his head. That of an exhausted Diglett struggling to stay upright as the gym leader's Lickitung collapsed, signalling his victory and his fourth badge.
The normal type of gym leader had been the perfect challenge for Joey. On the normal terrain, Metapod had been able to shoot and poison, Diglett could dig, and Rattata's Rock Smash proved its use once again.
The battle had shown Joey that he was on the right track. Getting four badges in one's youngster year meant one only needed four the next year. This was what he'd been wanting this whole time. This way he could travel and train for two months before every gym badge, then train for two months for the conference afterwards.
After the youngster year was done he was planning on starting his run in Pewter for his fifth badge, then he'd take two months to get to Cinnabar by ferry south of Pallet town. He'd use the opportunity to explore the islands and the volcanoes. The sixth badge would likely be won from Blaine. Joey couldn't imagine the man could beat Bruno, or that he'd want to stay in the Elite Four. His taking the gym leader position there only made sense.
Fuchsia would come after for the seventh badge, and maybe he'd catch a new team member in the Safari Zone. He still wanted a Chansey, and that was one of the few places where they appeared in the wild. From Fuschia, he'd take the eastern route through Lavender, check into Saffron to say hi to the orphanage, go back to Lavender, and then take the path through the mountain to get to Cerulean. In Cerulean he would train by the coast, and then challenge King for his eighth badge and show the man exactly how strong Joey could be when he wasn't fighting five separate uphill battles.
A voice suddenly ripped him away from his musings. "Will Jonathan and Sabrina please make their way to the arena! Will Jonathan and Sabrina please make their way to the arena!".
Joey smirked as he started walking through the tunnels towards where he was to emerge as one of the finalists of this tournament. It seemed that enough time had been taken for the ad breaks and to hype up the audience who were waiting for what would probably be the most exciting battle that they'd see today.
As he progressed through the grey and drab tunnel and into the light his mind suddenly swirled to hyperfixate on the upcoming battle.
Sabrina was a problematic enemy in more ways than just one. Sure she was a psychic, which meant that she could control her Pokemon without actually talking. This was the first issue. Joey couldn't rely on occasionally overhearing a command.
The second issue that Joey had noticed already back when he'd first met the girl months ago was the fact that she had essentially cheated. He was sure it was allowed considering her circumstances, but her starter, the Abra that she'd been clutching in her arms back then had been much too old and well-trained to have been a recent acquisition. Likely to regulate her psychic powers, Sabrina had had a psychic Pokemon since her early childhood. They had trained together for years before they'd even passed the youngster licence.
Joey considered himself decent at training Pokemon, four badges could attest to that. However, being good at what you did and doing it for a year, only for someone else to have a five-year head start on you were two very different things. In addition to this, Sabrina had evolved all of her three Abra into Kadabra. Considering that that particular evolution was considerably less of a joke than the evolution of Caterpie into Metapod when one considered the potential threat rating, this meant that he was walking into a battle with a severe disadvantage.
In addition to all of that, Sabrina had not yet revealed what her fourth Pokemon was. Considering her psychic proclivities it could be a Hypno or an Exeggcute. There was also the possibility of getting a Girafarig from Johto, or maybe even a Wobbuffet, a Natu, or a Slowpoke. One also shouldn't forget about Mr Mime and Jynx. In the two regions alone there were enough psychic types to fill out a full team of six. It wasn't something that Joey could predict in the end, so he just had to wing it.
The good part about him not knowing what her fourth team member was, was the fact that she also didn't know about his. He'd specifically avoided using his newest acquisition in any battles to not show his cards too early. He could only hope that would suffice.
He emerged into the sunlight and started walking to his side of the Pokeball markings on the ground. Sabrina had more evolutions, had her starter for longer and she didn't have to talk to communicate with her Pokemon. In terms of disadvantages, it almost made him feel like he was back in Cerulean.
Just that this time, he was not going to lose.
"Are both trainers ready?" the referee asked, dramatically, seemingly having more flair than most people in his position.
Both the youngsters gave a resolute nod at the question.
"Then, release your Pokemon on the count of three and let the battle commence!" the man announced excitedly. "Three, two, one!"
Two Pokemon materialised on the field from beams of red light.
A Metapod in front of Joey, after all, he usually brought her in first to poison the enemy. However, what Sabrina had summoned made him freeze and the smile previously on his face was gone.
On Sabrina's side of the battlefield, gently fluttering in mid-air and looking down at its pre-evolved counterpart was a purple butterfly with white wings etched in black.
Sabrina's fourth Pokemon was a Butterfree.
-/-
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