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The New Normal - 5-16 - INTERLUDE - Whitney
🕑 Added 2023-10-09 06:00:03 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 5-16 – INTERLUDE – Whitney
Whitney slowly stirred awake after a good night’s rest, feeling refreshed and relieved from yesterday’s journey towards Saffron City from Celadon. Ever since Janine had joined their little group, they had been taking things much slower as she had said.
Firstly, they had spent a few days earning Sabrina and her Flying Licenses at Celadon. Whitney easily aced those tests, but Sabrina had a bit more trouble and had a couple of close calls. But they both passed.
Then, with their licenses secured, they each shilled out to rent a single large Fearow to carry them from city to city, as they didn’t have a Flying type which was large enough to actually carry the three of them. Whitney vowed to train up her newly evolved Noctowl to be able to do so; renting Pokémon was expensive!
And so, the three of them had slowed down and spent a few days helping Janine collect the first few Gym badges. They went in the recommended order, but wow was she surprised when she found out that Karen was Janine’s opponent in Pewter. Clearly, she had slacked on reading the news to miss out such a momentous appointment.
Janine still had no problem defeating Karen of course; the latter was restricted to making use of 1stbadge Pokémon. But still, she remembered the smug smirk on Karen’s face when she knocked out Janine’s Koffing with a Self-Destruct from her Geodude. That really took Janine by surprise.
And the surprises didn’t stop there. The Waterflower sisters were also a much greater challenge than before, fielding a greater variety of Pokémon that were definitely more well-trained than when Whitney faced them. However, she didn’t let herself become jealous of that, instead choosing to be thankful that her brother seemed to be making great strides in improving Cerulean City.
Even with those changes though, Janine proved herself to be a talented trainer and swiftly earning herself the Thunder and Rainbow badge. All the while, Sabrina and Whitney continued to train up their Pokémon, especially their newer captures, so that they could have a more well-balanced team.
And thus, this was where they found themselves now. With Janine understandably choosing to leave Fuschia City for second last before Giovanni, they had made their way to Saffron City to prepare to face off against the Saffron Gym, and Sabrina’s parents.
She was excited to meet Sabrina’s parents! Especially if they had any more embarrassing stories about Sabrina’s childhood. Those were always fun.
She felt even better when she realized that her alarm had yet to ring, meaning that she still had a few precious minutes to snuggle and just enjoy the comfiness of the blankets.
Of course, that hope was quickly dashed.
“You have awoken. Please get up.” A voice appeared next to her, and Whitney was startled awake, almost falling out of the bed in surprise.
That surprise quickly turned to annoyance as she realized who this intruder was.
“Janine…please don’t just break into my room.” She sighed out, taking a breath to calm herself down, “You know we’ve talked about this.”
Janine looked down at the floor sullenly, “Sorry…I am just used to being ready to go before sunrise. It is typical of ninja to always be prepared.”
Great, now Whitney felt bad. Putting up a reassuring smile on her face, she patted Janine gently on the shoulder. “I’m not mad, just surprised at your sudden entry. If you want to wake us up normally, please just knock on the door.”
Janine nodded, so Whitney continued in a brighter tone, “Anyways, feel free to stay if you like. I’m going to get ready for today.”
Whitney then went about her morning ablutions. While doing so, she idly thought to herself that, sometimes, interacting with her friends was more akin to herding Meowth more than anything else. She smiled wryly at the realisation that she was likely the only sane person of her group.
Despite this, she wouldn’t trade her friends for anything. In her eyes, their weird quirks were just part of what made them so unique.
As she was almost done with her morning routine, she spoke up once again, “Janine, why don’t you go wake Sabrina up? You know how she gets in the mornings.”
Janine frowned but nodded, “…Her psychic powers are annoying to deal with.”
Whitney let out a chuckle, “She’s doing better now. She was a lot more…loose with her power originally.”
“That might be the case, but being unable to make use of my nin- training is frustrating. I swear I will find a way to push back against her psychic hold.” She said as she left the room.
Mentally, Whitney wished Janine the best of luck on that front. She knew that Janine was undoubtedly her father’s daughter and was easily the most physically trained girl that she knew. But Sabrina’s psychic prowess was on another level entirely.
Still, she was on Janine’s side. Sabrina had been getting a little too smug with her developing psychic powers. Maybe some humility would be funny.
Anyways, she finished off her morning preparations and made her way down for breakfast. Knowing the other two’s antics, they would join her shortly.
Sure enough, just as she found a seat at the Pokécenter’s cafeteria, the other two made their way down, looking like a study in contrasts. Sabrina looked utterly pristine, without a hair out of place, while Janine looked like she had just come out of a Hurricane. It was clear who the victor was.
The three of them ate their breakfast silently for a moment before Janine broke the silence, “We are visiting your parents today, right?” She said to Sabrina.
“Yes.” She confirmed, with a hint of nervousness in her voice. “It…will be nice to see them after so long. I hope they will be happy with my progress.”
“Of course they will!” Whitney said immediately, patting Sabrina on the shoulder reassuringly, “You’ve gotten far stronger. And I’ve overheard some of your conversations on the phone. Relax, they’ll be happy to see you!”
Sabrina shot Whitney a small smile, and the trio returned to finishing up their breakfast. At first, Whitney suggested that they meet up with Sabrina’s parents as early as possible, but Sabrina surprisingly disagreed and said she wanted to at least spend the morning training up their Pokémon even more first.
Whitney suspected that Sabrina just wanted to show off as best as she could, so easily agreed. They could meet up later in the afternoon anyways.
Thus, after breakfast, the trio made their way to the training fields, where they all released their Pokémon.
She broke out into a smile as she gazed upon the newly evolved form of her Noctowl, which had evolved in one of her training sessions during the time Janine was going through the Gyms. Her Jigglypuff, however, had sadly yet to evolve. She had yet to locate a Moon Stone, and while her brother did offer to help her look for one, Whitney asked him to give her some time to try to find one herself.
And besides, she felt like she should train up her Jigglypuff more before initiating the evolution. Jigglypuff was still her weakest Pokémon, and she felt like a lot more work could be done securing the basics before she evolved.
Speaking of evolved, Sabrina had also recently evolved her Natu into a Xatu, as well as catching a new Staryu. Whitney knew that Sabrina was tempted to capture a Drowzee, but Whitney successfully persuaded her to catch a purely physical attacker next for a more balanced team. Sabrina agreed.
“So, are we sparring again?” Janine asked as she approached with her starter Golbat, Ariados, and Koffing following behind her.
“Standard pairings.” Whitney nodded, “Loudred still needs more practice handling your fast Golbat.”
“I want Xatu to face off against your Ariados this time.” Sabrina added, “I need to work on her attacks.”
“Then since Kadabra needs to continue meditating, Miltank against the rest? I kinda want to train his decision-making ability.” Whitney asked, getting nods from everyone.
Thus, they all split up to their assigned groups and begun sparring against each other. Whitney focused on her own Pokémon for a moment and was very pleased to see their different and diverse fighting styles.
Jigglypuff was a cute little ball that constantly tried to whittle you down with a myriad of status effects. If she wasn’t putting you to sleep, she was trying to paralyze you and generally being a huge nuisance. She didn’t have much power, but she was supremely annoying to deal with. Even more so when she got more training and more power.
In the meanwhile, Noctowl and Loudred fought rather similarly, though Noctowl was far more mobile and had more supportive moves like Jigglypuff did while Loudred just brute forced everything with hard hitting Special Attacks.
Then there was her Miltank, who was a perfect mix of brute strength and endurance. Even now, she was rather easily dealing with the small horde of weaker Pokémon trying to bring her down; using Rollout to dodge out of the way of a Hypnosis before narrowly missing a Body Slam against Staryu. Even with a huge numbers disadvantage, she was holding her own.
Of course, her friends’ Pokémon were just as well-trained as hers. And, as she continued training with her friends, she began to truly understand what John meant about the benefits of having rivals and friends that she could train with.
Every time they hosted this joint-training session together, Whitney was motivated to push her Pokémon to surpass her friends’. Not out of some desire to be better, but just because of the friendly competition that such an atmosphere naturally fostered. It was this desire to catch up, to not fall behind, and this shared brainstorming of ideas, that made their collective strength rise together.
Time passed as the training session continued. Despite the intensity of the training, Whitney felt like there was a distinct sense of meditative calm that settled on them all. She felt that this was a good sign that while their training was tough, it wasn’t pushing their Pokémon to the point of exhaustion.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Sabrina approached her, “Hopefully we can start on Gravity training soon. Your brother was most vocal about its effectiveness.” She said with a pointed look to her meditating Kadabra.
Whitney nodded; Sabrina’s Kadabra was currently the Pokémon best suited to learning Gravity due to its psychic prowess. Jigglypuff could eventually learn it too, but her psychic proficiency was far too lacking for the moment.
But just as Whitney began fantasizing about the new heights that she and her friends could push their Pokémon to with the use of Gravity training, a rude voice barked out from behind her.
“OI! What are you lot doing training here with such shitty Pokémon?!” She turned around and saw two teenagers walking towards them, both sneering at them.
Sabrina’s face immediately blanked at their words, and Janine looked like she was about to pounce on them. Despite the provocation, Whitney maintained a cheerful expression, “How can we help you? Is our training disturbing you in any way?”
“Yes, it is. Your Pokémon personally offends us.” The same person said with an arrogant smirk. “Not a single Fighting type between the three of you when you’re in the home of Kanto’s greatest Fighting Gym.”
“What Fighting Gym?” Sabrina spoke up, raising a curious eyebrow as she pretended to look around, “I only know of the Saffron Gym, and that’s a Psychic Gym. Or are you referring to the Dojo that styles itself as a Fighting Gym even though it isn’t one?”
The more vocal of the duo narrowed his eyes as Sabrina, a hint of recognition flashing in his eyes. “Ah, I know you. You’re the daughter of the usurpers. The so-called Psychic prodigy that everyone says will become the new Gym Leader.”
He spat on the ground, “Newsflash kid. You’re old news. Master Kiyo will beat you and your family into the ground and reassert himself as the true Gym Leader of Saffron, as it should be!”
“Oh, and how do you think your master can defeat the Gym Leader? Has he not lost repeatedly before?” Sabrina replied with false curiosity, needling the duo even further.
They sneered, “Aren’t you supposed to be able to read minds or some other nonsense? Come, read ours and find out just how badly your precious parents are going to lose.”
Sabrina shook her head, “Unfortunately, your thoughts are incomprehensible to me. I cannot lower myself to your level to understand them. You have my sincere apologies for your stupidity.” She mockingly bowed to them.
Whitney burst out laughing despite herself, which only caused the two to grow in ire. After a moment, the two looked at each other before nodding in agreement.
“We challenge you to a 2v2 match.” The more vocal one said with an arrogant grin, “We’ll prove to you the sheer superiority of the Fighting type.” He turned to Whitney, “And you, girl, you’re the one using those dumb Normal types like that Elite Four member does, right?”
He sneered, “Well, if you’re such a fan of that cheating fool-”
“Enough.” Whitney interrupted with a cold voice, her eyes no longer possessing any of the cheerful light that it used to. Her face was carefully blank, with only a small, unnerving smile that failed to reach her eyes. The duo shut their mouths at Whitney’s sudden interruption.
Her fists clenching reflexively as these bastards dared to insult her brother, and she allowed a little of that anger to leak out of her voice, “We accept your challenge, isn’t that right, Sabrina?”
Sabrina took one look at her and nodded immediately, so Whitney turned back to Janine, “Officiate this for us.” Janine stared at her uncertainly, but eventually nodded as well.
One of the duo scoffed, “And how do we know your friend won’t play favourites? This isn’t fair-”
“Be quiet.” Whitney cut him off once again, before signalling to her Miltank to step up in front of her; Sabrina copying her with her Kadabra. “Release your Pokémon. Don’t waste any more time.” She commanded.
One of them looked a bit more uncertain at the sudden shift in demeanour, but the loudmouth simply formed a smug smirk as he released his Pokémon. The other soon following.
A Primeape and a Machamp emerged, flexing their muscles threateningly at her Miltank and Kadabra. But their attempts at intimidation failed to unsettle her Pokémon.
Inwardly, behind all the anger, Whitney was actually excited to face off against two fully evolved Fighting types. She had watched John’s battle against Bruno and had taken copious amounts of notes about how to deal with Fighting types. And now, she hoped to put some of those strategies to good use.
“Trainers, are you ready?” Janine’s voice sounded out through the training field. The four of them nodded, “BEGIN!”
“Split them up but focus down Primeape. Get ready for Ally Switch.” Sabrina’s voice filtered into her mind. And Whitney grinned as she figured out Sabrina’s plan.
“Miltank, Rollout! Start building up speed!”
“Machamp, Rock Throw the Kadabra!”
“Primeape, close in on Kadabra!”
Miltank immediately began rolling around the battlefield as he rapidly picked up speed. The two Fighting types seemed content to ignore her as they both prioritised bringing down Kadabra, which they understandably saw as the greater threat.
But Kadabra wouldn’t make things easy for them as it casually Teleported out of the way of the incoming Rock Throw before blasting the Primeape back with a Psychic. Primeape winced in pain but powered through the supereffective attack while constantly closing the distance. It seemed like, unlike Bruno’s Pokémon, this Primeape wasn’t able to disperse Psychic attacks like Bruno’s did.
“Get ready.” Sabrina said to her in her mind, and Whitney gave a mental nod in confirmation.
“Miltank, rush them from behind! Slam into them!”
“Machamp, block the Miltank! Close Combat it!”
“Primeape, grab hold of the Kadabra and Cross Chop! Don’t let it escape!”
Miltank began to roll in from behind like a speeding boulder. Machamp immediately stepped between Miltank and Primeape and readied itself to smash the incoming Miltank with its hardest hitting move. Even with all of Miltank’s training, tanking through a supereffective Close Combat would severely injure her.
That was why they had no intention of allowing such a thing to happen.
“Now.”
Suddenly, a flash of light pink light engulfed both her Pokémon as the use of Ally Switch swapped their positions. Suddenly, Primeape was faced down with an unstoppable rolling Miltank while Machamp was caught offguard with a powerful Psychic blast to the face.
Machamp stumbled backwards from the sudden attack, giving Kadabra the opportunity to aggressively Teleport right behind the Primeape. At the same time, Primeape was smashed backwards as Miltank crashed into it with the full momentum of her Rollout.
Primeape fell backwards from the brutal impact from the Rollout, right into the waiting arms of Kadabra, who immediately capitalized on this opportunity by blasting it with yet another supereffective Psychic. This time, the blast of Psychic managed to knock Primeape into the sky, where it flew helplessly through the air.
“NO!” Primeape’s trainer yelled out, but the onslaught of attacks wasn’t over yet. Showcasing the move she demonstrated against Koga, Miltank performed a small hop and slammed into the ground powerfully, launching herself up into the air.
“Body Slam! Finish it!”
Grappling the vulnerable Primeape in the air, Miltank shrugged off its ineffective punches before savagely slamming the two of them back into the ground, with Primeape pinned powerlessly beneath her. The impact formed a small crater in the ground that kicked up a small mound of dust, which eventually cleared to reveal a victorious Miltank standing over a fallen and unconscious Primeape.
In the meanwhile, Machamp had been trying and failing to catch the Kadabra with its attacks, the latter always Teleporting out of the way just before they could land. In a fit of anger and frustration, its’ trainer demanded that it switch targets to Miltank.
Machamp immediately began rushing the Miltank, but Sabrina apparently had no intentions of even letting it land a hit on her.
“Prepare for another Ally Switch.” And Whitney gave a small nod to confirm.
“Miltank! Brace yourself!” She ordered, and Miltank instantly adopted a defensive posture as she braced herself for Machamp’s incoming assault. Of course, this was all a bait.
Seeing Miltank taking a defensive stance, Machamp’s trainer doubled down, “GO ALL OUT! CLOSE COMBAT!”
Machamp threw itself recklessly into its next attack, lowering its guard completely as it dedicated everything into offense.
“Now.”
And then another pink light flashed across the arena as Miltank and Kadabra swapped positions once again. With what looked like a taunting grin, Kadabra fired off yet another Psychic that detonated harshly on Machamp, launching it backwards into Miltank’s waiting arms.
“Seismic Toss, Miltank! Suplex it!”
With a guttural moo, Miltank grabbed hold of the stumbling Machamp by the waist and threw it over her head with a suplex, slamming it powerfully into the ground. Without needing further commands, Miltank immediately crashed their heads together with a supereffective Zen Headbutt, and brutally repeated the attack until Machamp fell into unconsciousness.
The battle was over. It was a perfect victory.
“And Whitney and Sabrina are the winners!” Janine declared with a smile. “Congratulations!”
The two Fighting type teens looked shocked at their defeat, but the vocal one recovered quickly as his mouth returned to its usual sneer. “Fucking cheaters. I guess you can’t expect anything more from a bunch of Psychic and Normal type trainers.”
The two of them returned their Pokémon to their Pokéballs before turning around, “Screw you all, we’re leaving. I’m going to see if anyone recorded this match and post it online to expose you all for cheating, just you wait.”
His friend(?) whispered, but loud enough that Whitney could still hear it. “Wait, didn’t you delete your FightClub account after Bruno lost?”
“…Shut up.” He bit out, “Let’s just go.” The two of them walked away from them, their voices slowly fading away.
Whitney stared at their departing figures for a moment before suddenly glomping Sabrina into a tight hug. “That was AMAZING! We completely stomped them! Your plan was so good!”
Sabrina struggled to break free from her hug, but eventually just allowed it to happen. “Your Miltank did much of the heavy lifting. Kadabra just had to use Psychic.”
“It was a coordinated team effort. You both did very well.” Janine added with a smile, “I hope I can fight at that level one day.”
“Of course you can!” Whitney responded encouragingly, “In fact, let’s get on that right away!”
But Sabrina cut them off with a cough, “Um…I think we have to go meet my parents now.”
Oh, whoops! Whitney had completely lost track of the time! A quick glance at her phone showed that it was already afternoon, and they were supposed to meet Sabrina’s parents for lunch! Oops!
They quickly returned all of their Pokémon to their Pokéballs before getting them all healed up at the Pokécenter. Once that was done, they made their way to Sabrina’s house, which was appropriately next to the Gym.
Sabrina visibly grew nervous as they drew nearer, so Whitney was quick to pat her reassuringly on the shoulders, reminding her that there was nothing to worry about.
A short walk later, they arrived at the steps in front of the house. However, before they could even knock on the door, the door swung open, revealing both of Sabrina’s parents, smiling widely.
“HONEY! You’ve grown up so much!” Sabrina’s mom immediately pulled her daughter into a tight hug. “And these must be your friends! It’s so good to finally meet you!”
Her husband was less animated, but no less happy about their appearance as he extended a hand towards them. “Forgive my wife. She gets excited sometimes. I’m Samson, and my lovely wife is Katrina. It’s a great pleasure to meet the both of you.”
Whitney and Janine shook his hand and introduced themselves, only to elicit a laugh from Samson, “No need to introduce yourself. I already know who you are. Both the esteemed daughter of Koga and the brilliant sister of John. I’m very glad that Sabrina has made such good friends.”
They both blushed at the praise, which caused another bark of laughter from Samson as he gestured for them to head inside. “Please, make yourself comfortable. As soon as my wife finishes messing with my daughter, she’ll prepare lunch for all of us.”
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, the three children made their way over to the dining table and settled down into the chairs. Idly, Whitney noticed that even though Sabrina’s family lived in a much nicer looking house than her own, it didn’t spark a single sense of jealousy within her.
That made her proud. She was thankful that her parents had raised her not to be too materialistic and vain.
Eventually, Sabrina’s parents brought out the food and jointed them at the dining table, where they broke out into casual conversation.
“So, how did you all start travelling together? Sabrina only really told us the basics. She’s cagey like that.” Her mother teased.
Sabrina frowned and remained silent, so it was up to Whitney to pick up the slack, “Well, I was at Pewter City idling in line when…” She fell into a summarized explanation of their meeting and their journey thus far. It probably wasn’t the most interesting of topics, but Sabrina’s parents listened to it intently as if it was some kind of formal declaration.
After Whitney finished her story, Sabrina’s mother clasped Whitney’s hands with hers, “You cannot believe how glad we were when Sabrina told us that she had made a friend. We were so worried that she would go through her journey by her lonesome, with everyone too scared of her Psychic powers to approach her. We are so very grateful that you could see past that and befriend our daughter.” She shot Whitney a grateful smile that had her blushing profusely.
“Please stop embarrassing her.” Sabrina said with a sigh.
“Nonsense. She should know her worth.” Katrina replied, before turning to Janine. “And Janine, thank you as well for accepting Sabrina for who she is. I’m sure Sabrina probably frustrates you at times, so thank you for your patience when dealing with her.”
Sabrina grew visibly more annoyed at her mother’s words and was about to unleash her Psychic powers to get back at her, but her father flicked her in the forehead before she could do so.
“No psychic powers at the dining table. You don’t want to accidentally launch a plate at the TV like you did last time, now do you?” Her father scolded.
Properly reprimanded, Sabrina slumped into her seat and silently continued to eat her lunch. Whitney chuckled at the interaction, glad to see that Sabrina’s family was a lively one, despite the difficulties of raising such a prodigious daughter.
“Oh, and speaking of which...” Katrina spoke up as she turned to look at Sabrina, “What are your plans for the next few Gyms? Are you going to be challenging us next? We can schedule you in for tomorrow if you are.” Samson nodded in agreement.
However, Sabrina shook her head, “No, we’re planning to head to Johto after a quick stop here.”
“Johto? Why there?” Samson asked, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just curious.”
“We want to catch a few Pokémon there and get stronger before we continue our Gym challenges.” Whitney explained, “We’ve been rushing through the Gyms quite a bit, and some of our newer Pokémon need more time to train up. Plus, maybe we can get lucky and catch a full roster before we return.”
“Ah, so you do have a plan for it.” Samson exclaimed thoughtfully. “Well, if that’s what you want to do, I won’t gainsay you.” Then he broke out into an excited grin, “But when you do come up, don’t expect me to go on easy on you. I’ll make you earn that Marsh Badge.”
Sabrina let out a scoff, “You wish dad. We’ll beat you.” Before shooting her parents a proud smirk.
The conversation quickly devolved into casual, but enjoyable chatter, and they all began to relax. Before long, Sabrina’s parents had to cut the meeting short and return to their usual duties at the Gym, but they were told to come over any time if they wanted to visit.
Overall, it was a very nice meeting, and Whitney was really glad to finally be able to meet Sabrina’s parents. She knew that Sabrina was too, even if she disguises it with the occasional reprimand.
She knew that, with their lunch meeting over, they would now be making their way to Johto. They had already registered and collected their permits to be allowed to catch Pokémon, so they were all set.
Johto, here they come!
A.N. ANNND the trio start making their way to Johto to catch Pokemon and continue their training! I already had some additions planned, so I hope you do enjoy them when the time comes.
Also, I hope the battle was satisfactory. With all their training together, Sabrina and Whitney make a powerful duo, and I wanted to showcase their teamwork and their strengths. Hope you liked it!
This chapter has been BETAed by Allute! Big thanks!
Comments
Thomas Hendrix
Needed that fight club beat down.
Sick Meme
Ty for the chapter!
