Thank you to my new Patrons: Blake, Bela, Gopard, Wyat Frost, Kunta
-/-
After the show that Bruno and Blaine had put on Joey went to join the Poketech people to watch the rest of the battles there and feel the real crowd experience.
Quite frankly, he needn't have bothered. The trainers duking it out down there in the preliminary matches weren't even worth looking at.
Most of the matches were simplistic, and they obviously did not hold a candle to the opening match.
It took Joey a few rounds, during which he almost fell asleep, to understand why that was the case exactly.
"Seeding, all those novices down there are either at the beginning of their careers or older trainers who still can't get anything other than badges of secondary importance," Giselle had haughtily explained, unasked.
Joey idly nodded as he watched the third Pidgeotto knock out the fifth Beedrill.
It was crazy to think about, despite the fact that he'd used the same loophole, that there were some gyms in Kanto which were legitimately just not as good as the main gyms. The common consensus was that battling for the eighth badge from one of the minor gyms was the equivalent of battling one of the main gyms for the sixth badge.
Why this distinction was allowed to exist was a mystery to Joey, although he did guess that it kept some later bloomers in the game for longer in case they'd had a rough start.
Being a trainer was hard, and the license could easily go bye-bye with the stipend if you didn't achieve any results in your first year. Youngsters, too, had to earn at least one badge by the end of their one-year track to advance to trainer.
Also, maybe more pragmatically, there were a lot of problems in any region that needed trainers to address them. Having more bodies to throw at it wasn't a bad idea. If those bodies were not as useful, barely hanging in by the virtue of having continued their licensure through abusing the minor gym system, well, that was life.
"Still, it's boring," Joey commented aloud to the Rattata on his shoulder, who was watching the spectacle with wide eyes. He looked down at Metapod cradled in his arms, who wasn't paying any attention, simply producing her poison, to the grimaces of his Poketech compatriots.
It wasn't like Joey would stand much of a chance if he was down there, considering that he was just about at the fourth badge level, maybe capable of eking out a win at the fifth badge level if he had the type advantage. But it wasn't like his abilities mattered. You didn't need to be a good chef to notice that something was funky.
It was only his commitment to enjoying the one time he would be in the spectator stands and the fact that there were still occasional flashes of brilliance from some of the trainers that kept him seated.
-/- Sabrina
Sabrina reappeared in her seat next to the Institute people she'd been in contact with. Teleportation wasn't as easy as she made it seem, so it took her a moment to notice the abomination she was suddenly sitting next to. She woodenly turned her head to stare at the brown-haired boy staring at her with a surprised face.
She repressed a blush as she remembered how she'd left the boy in Pallet Town back then as a prank, only to realise that she didn't have enough energy to go back and get him…
Afterwards she'd simply been too embarrassed to attempt it again or call him to explain the situation. She didn't even have his number for that matter…
"Sabrina?" Joey asked stupidly, as if there were many other green-haired psychic trainers teleporting around randomly.
She pouted.
"I see you two are acquainted enough!" the principal said with a laugh from his seat. "Makes sense, considering you're from the same batch of youngsters. Anyway, I wanted to leave it as a pleasant surprise and was planning to introduce you this morning for the Bruno and Blaine match, but you had your own connections, Joey! A private box, that must have been quite a view!"
Joey, now dressed in vastly different clothes, turned to the principal with a twitchy eyebrow.
Sabrina blushed when he wasn't looking at her anymore. The black clothes suited him… And the white cap was much better than his old and battered blue one…
"So am I to assume that the Poketech Institute has also decided to sponsor the other high-performing youngster?" Joey asked with a sigh.
The principal twirled his moustache. "Of course, we're solvent enough to support more than just one trainer." The man then looked suspiciously and leaned into Joey's ear to whisper something that she could hear only because the man wasn't very good at regulating his voice. "She's also not as good a negotiator as you," he said with a wink before leaning back to his seat.
The other youngster then turned to Sabrina before critically looking her up and down. She was wearing new clothes today; it was cold. She tried to refrain from wriggling under his scrutinising gaze. She hoped he liked her red sweater. It was comfortable.
"You know if you're going to steal all my ideas, you should really pay me for the career counselling," the boy eventually said jokingly before shaking his head. He crossed his arms. "As expected of my rival, however, you're chasing me every step of the way to the conference," he said and nodded approvingly. Then a certain ghostly fire emerged in his eyes, making him appear as even more of an abomination to Sabrina's senses. "But remember this, the final victory shall be mine!"
Under the intense stare Sabrina's pointer fingers suddenly found themselves poking each other as she blankly stared at the boy.
"Weren't you the one who lost the tournament?" A shriek, a brown-haired girl who nobody had asked suddenly spoke out, drowning out Sabrina's own words.
"Ri-Rival? We'll see about that," the psychic had said quietly.
"Semantics," Joey replied to the annoying girl, now receiving an angry stare from Sabrina. He obviously hadn't heard her…
Sabrina turned away to watch the ongoing battles. She'd left after the Bruno and Blaine match because the energies being thrown around had taken her on a loop, but now she'd recovered.
"Ratt, Rattata," a squeaky voice suddenly said next to her ear and she turned her eyes slightly to see the purple rat resting on Joey's shoulder and watching the battles. Only that now, the Pokemon was watching her. The little rat extended a fist in her direction with a mysterious fire burning in its eyes.
"Rattata, Ra, Ra, Ratttt", it said simply, nodding his head to the battlefield below, but Sabrina understood perfectly well.
"My dear rival, I will see you on the eve of next year in the battlefield below. We shall clash, only one of us emerging victorious, finally proving who is the strongest between the two of us. You might have beaten us the last time, but the defeat only provided the pressure for us to evolve ever further on this lonely path, surrounded by the corpses of our defeated foes. Yours too, shall one day join the mountain of enemies we will have to step over to reach apotheosis. Be honoured by the privilege of being destined to be one of the last stepping stones rather than one of the first. As a sign of respect, I will not hold back."
"Tha-Thanks," Sabrina stuttered with a resolute voice. A fist hidden at her side clenched itself.
The Rattata nodded at her, and she nodded back.
One year. In one year, she would face her biggest challenge once again. Joey would doubtlessly improve, evolve his Pokemon, and teach them more moves. But she would improve as well.
The one emerging victorious would be her and not her rival.
Her rival…
-/-
It was after a few more matches that the day of battles finally concluded, the wheat having been separated from the chaff.
However, the whispers going around in the stands had little do with the results of the matches, but rather with the results of the opening match.
Joey walked out of the stadium as he mulled over the newest information. As expected, to be honest, but still, it was nice to have confirmation. Bruno had beaten Blaine, and Blaine would retire after tomorrow's match against Michelle. Lance would remain the second Elite Four member while Bruno would remain the last. The Kanto Elite Four had been a true Elite Four for barely half a year before they returned to being the Elite Three again. Something that happened here more regularly than any other region, weirdly enough.
As he exited the stadium and thought of Michelle, Joey suddenly remembered something.
His future knowledge, if you could call it that. He'd never been a crazily avid fan in his last life, so things like egg groups, egg moves and berry preferences impacting stats were lost on him.
But, hadn't there been something about Girafarig gaining an evolution it hadn't had before?
He'd never played the games or watched the anime past Sinnoh, but he'd heard about mega evolution, and he was fairly certain it wasn't that. The evolution was triggered by a move. Something to do with both the normal head and the tail head shooting a beam?
He knew about the fairy type, which would emerge in a few years and a few miscellaneous bits and bobs like this. He shook his head. It wasn't like this knowledge would help Michelle overly much now, especially considering he didn't even know what the move was called. Double Beam, or something? But didn't Girafarig already learn Double Hit? Were they the same thing?
He shrugged. There wasn't really much he could do about much of anything anymore, regardless of what he wanted. As for Michelle's Elite Four challenge against Blaine? He could only wish her good luck.
Returning to his campsite, he made dinner for himself and his Pokemon and started mentally reviewing the strategies he'd seen today, writing down those he found interesting and those he'd have to be careful of in the future.
It was work like this, consistent, mental and physical that would help him overcome the challenges ahead, not some random lucky evolution.
And he'd need to work if he wanted to beat Sabrina… He'd have to work hard to beat his rival.
-/-
The opening match of the next day was Michelle against Blaine. Joey was curious to see if the old man's Pokemon were truly up for the challenge so soon after their brutal beatdown yesterday.
The answer was yes, the League's top tier healing facilities were truly as good as Michelle had said.
Magmar, who had gotten its head crushed through a stone platform yesterday, looked, if anything, better than it had before yesterday's battle.
"Usually, one of the previous conference winners taking on the Elite Four challenge is the opening match, but because of Bruno, we got two high-level matches this year," Giselle said from where she was sitting to his right.
Seemingly, the girl had calmed down somewhat in comparison to the previous interaction she'd had with Joey.
"Still, even with Blaine only having five Pokemon available, this will be a tough one," Joey commented idly.
Giselle turned towards him and sneered. "I wasn't talking to you," she snapped, flipped her brown hair over her shoulder and demonstratively turned to talk to one of her upperclassmen.
Joey, at this point, could only roll his eyes. He threw a look at Sabrina, who was sitting on his left and saw that the girl was exasperated as well. Going by her closed eyes that was. A clear sign of frustration.
"Ratt," Joey's starter said in a worried tone of voice from his shoulder.
"She'll do the best she can," the trainer reassured his Pokemon as Michelle's Rapidash clashed against Blaine's Magmar.
Out of all his Pokemon, Rattata liked Michelle the most. After all, she'd been the one to set him on the path of Detect in what would soon be a year ago. A path that had paid dividends. Four badges, runner-up in the youngster tournament. Most of these achievements were thanks to Rattata.
The trainer held up a hand to scratch his starter under the chin as Michelle's Rapidash was knocked out by a brutal Mega Punch to the cheek.
Michelle's next Pokemon was her powerful Persian, which Faked Out Magmar before hitting it with a series of Power Gems, a super-effective rock-type move. In exchange, Persian received a nasty burn which flared up quite regularly to interrupt an attack sequence and deal some minor damage.
Charizard was sent out next, causing Michelle to opt for one of her switches, summoning a relatively large Pidgeot against the flying orange dragon.
What followed was brutal, Pidgeot barely scraping by in several close-quarter exchanges, its Aerial Ace not doing as much damage to Charizard as Charizard returned with a nasty Dragon Claw.
There was one good moment where Pidgeot faked out a Flamethrower with Double Team and managed to land a Brave Bird, but the following Overheat quickly ended the battle.
Blaine was seemingly only willing to deal with the special attack-lowering side effect of Overheat if the opponent proved itself a nuisance, which Pidgeot had.
Down two Pokemon, another burned, while Blaine was still on his second didn't bode too well for Michelle, but she kept going.
A Ninetales was sent out next, a quick combination of Teleport and Confuse Ray, followed by Psychic, winning the battle. Continuing with the theme, however, Ninetales didn't get out unscathed, suffering a lot of damage from Charizard's confused and badly aimed Blast Burn.
"It's all a question of whether Blaine is going to use Arcanine, his strongest," Joey told Rattata. "Since he's only using five Pokemon, he can technically leave it out if he wants to give Michelle more of a chance, or use it if he wants to end his Elite Four membership on a win."
Blaine's next Pokemon was his own Rapidash, which made quick work of the injured and tired Ninetales. Teleporting had seemingly drained it quite a bit.
The match went into its half-time break as Michelle had lost three Pokemon.
Joey knew that the two Pokemon Michelle was keeping hidden were her secret weapons, Girafarig, her starter, and Dewgong, her type advantage.
"It's hard being a Generalist," Sabrina commented idly from next to him as the 15-minute break ticked down on the screen floating above the arena.
"Higher ceiling," Joey argued automatically.
"Is that why there's not a single generalist in the Elite Four in any of the regions?" Giselle retorted sarcastically.
"I wasn't talking to you," Joey replied with a sneer. He saw Sabrina crack a grin from the corner of his eye.
The match restarted, and Michelle sent out her Persian again, barely eking out a double-knockout against Blaine's Rapidash. It was two against two now. Michelle had Dewgong and her starter, while Blaine had whatever he'd decided on.
Although… Considering that Blaine hadn't used a single substitution, it seemed that he was taking it easy on Michelle in that way, and might still send out Arcanine.
In a way, when you challenged the Elite Four for the cred, rather than for their title, they behaved in a similar way to gym leaders. They wanted to challenge you, make you grow and test your mettle.
The only issue was, while gym leaders were encouraged to show a certain amount of lee-way considering the League needed trainers to fill up their conference, the Elite Four were more encouraged to represent a rock wall so not too many trainers would attain the elite trainer status and thus bloat the spending of the league necessary to keep them on retainer.
That was why, when Blaine sent out a Growlithe after his Rapidash was knocked out, Joey sighed and shook his head. An unevolved Pokemon at this level just went to show that Blaine wasn't going to exclude his ace.
Michelle grimly sent out her Girafarig against the Growlithe, which still wasn't to be underestimated. After all, while evolution in Pokemon that evolved through levels indicated experience and strength, evolution in Pokemon that required stones could mean just about anything. If Blaine trained a Growlithe for five years and an Arcanine for one, the Growlithe would likely still be stronger.
The Growthlithe on the battlefield showed exactly this theory in action, troubling Michelle just as much as any of his evolved predecessors. In the end, a series of tied-together Future Sights knocked out the canine Pokemon, but Girafarig was looking to be at the end of its hooves.
Perhaps that was why, when Blaine inevitably sent out his Arcanine next, Michelle switched out and summoned Dewgong.
What happened next took Joey by surprise, however. While Arcanine charged forward in a show of strength with Extreme Speed… Michelle shouted "Perish Song!" causing Dewgong to open its mouth and sing.
Discordant notes rang out as the seal-like Pokemon was slammed back by Extreme Speed.
"Egg move?" Joey wondered aloud as Arcanine flinched and Blaine frowned. According to his knowledge, Dewgong couldn't learn Perish Song, although the rules of what moves a Pokemon could learn were more blurred in reality.
"Aqua Ring!" Michelle frantically ordered next, causing rings of water to emerge around Dewgong and start healing it. Arcanine, for its part, narrowed its eyes and jumped forward with Extreme Speed again.
The Perish Song wouldn't have worked if Arcanine wasn't the last of Blaine's Pokemon, considering that the effect could be removed with switching out. Now with Aqua Ring… If Dewgong knew Baton Pass and could switch to Girafarig, giving away its Aqua Ring, maybe it would be winnable.
Unfortunately, Dewgong didn't know Baton Pass and simply blocked the Extreme Speed with Protect. The shield shattered, and the attack was nullified. The follow-up Thunder Fang, unfortunately, was not.
Dewgong tried to stay alive, it really did, but it was simply outleveled and outmatched. It had a type advantage, but in game terms, it was a solid level 43 while Arcanine was likely level 54.
A countdown move necessitated Michelle to send out her next Pokemon immediately, which she did. Girafarig tiredly took the field, saw the frantic Arcanine rushing towards it with Extreme Speed and used Protect.
Arcanine shot past the Girafarig, dropped to a level of speed perceivable to the naked eye and twisted in mid air. Its fanged maw opened, fire emerging from within.
Girafarig teleported away, into the air at the top of what was still considered the battlefield.
It didn't matter. The Blast Burn erupted like a supernova, filling the entire airspace of the arena with blue flames.
Joey thought he could see Girafarig attempting a Light Screen against the incoming fire, but in the end, even Michelle's starter disappeared in the flames.
Several long seconds later, the fire dissipated, leaving behind an unconscious and scorched Girafarig on the burned field.
Arcanine was still standing tall and proud, not having suffered a single injury.
Michelle recalled her starter as Blaine was announced the winner. Arcanine was recalled before Perish Song reached its conclusion.
The two trainers met in the middle to shake hands. Blaine said something to Michelle, but it was impossible to hear what. The purple-haired woman simply smiled bitterly before turning around and leaving.
Joey took out his Pokenav and doubtlessly joined a vast army of other people to write something to the girl.
Joey: Good battle
"Ratt," his starter chittered from his shoulder.
"She was incredible," Joey nodded. "Blaine literally had to beat the buzzer."
"Ra?"
Joey shook his head. "Better leave her be for now, she'll reply when she's ready, if she's ready."
Rattata, his trainer, Metapod, the bead necklace on Joey's neck, and Diglett between Joey's feet sat in silence as the field was cleared and the underwhelming matches of yesterday resumed.
Joey idly noted that David, the trainer sponsored by Oak, was knocked out. Lorelei, meanwhile, who had also entered the fray, was doing very well for herself.
She'd end up being the first member of the Kanto Elite Four in a while, Joey wondered how exactly that would happen. Would she win this year's conference? Or next year? Would she have to fight anyone for the spot, considering it was empty.
After a few more battles, he unceremoniously stood up and left. He'd continue watching tomorrow, but for today, he had to train.
Bruno against Blaine had shown him the heights he was aspiring to. Michelle against Blaine had shown him the heights he could reasonably reach within the next few years.
To think that Bruno and Blaine were the weakest members of the Elite Four…
If he wanted to catch up, he had to start now.
-/-
On the last day of the conference, Lorelei lifted the trophy, crowning her the winner. The League announced that whoever could defeat Bruno's team of five, going all out, could take on the empty Elite Four title.
There weren't many people even qualified to challenge Bruno right now. Joey assumed the title would go to Lorelei in a year or two.
Agatha and Lance would duke it out mid-season next year, leaving open the possibility that Lance could challenge Pryce for the title of champion and battle the old man as the opening match of next year's conference.
Michelle did eventually reply to Joey's text.
Michelle: I'm proud of how far I've gone, but there's still further to go! I'll be returning home for a while first, but the League offered me a position controlling the wild Pokemon in Sevault Canyon, after which I can rechallenge the Elite Four if I want. It's a five-year contract, and I'd be in my mid-twenties when it runs out. I'll see if I have one last try in me when it comes to that…
-/-
AN: End of an arc… Hope you enjoyed it! With the conference concluded Joey's first year as a trainer is frfr over. We won't immediately start the next journey as there is a winter break in between, although if you're on Patreon you'll have already finished that particular interlude arc.
Anyway. Thank you guys for your support, it's been incredibly fun writing this fic and I think I did a reasonably good job, hope I can do the next part just as well!