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The New Normal - 4-4
🕑 Added 2023-06-19 14:27:14 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 4-4 – A New Member
If there was anything good that I could say came out of Lance’s challenge towards Pryce for the position of Champion, it is that us Elite Four members were basically on vacation until the whole thing blows over. Pryce didn’t even try to give orders towards the Elite Four, probably since he must have realized that he currently didn’t have the authority or the backing to order us to do anything, and we could easily just ignore his commands without consequence. This meant that we were effectively on holiday for the next week or so until Lance wins.
Sure, as soon as Lance takes up the mantle of Champion, or if Pryce somehow keeps his position, then the next few weeks after that are going to be extraordinarily busy once the status quo is overturned, but I was content to just enjoy the ‘vacation’ time that I had.
And it was great to see just how fruitful our training sessions were now that Karen and I didn’t need to worry about travelling to a different location or training specifically for a battle. The lack of a time limit meant that we could focus on more long-term training goals rather than less impactful short-term ones. We were able to get in some very productive training sessions for a few days, including some intense Gravity training sessions, and I finally managed to get a start on training Euphie with Fairy type moves, as I felt that it was better to start early, and she had acclimatised well to my team.
Thus, since Euphie seemed to really enjoy practicing with Tackle, I decided that the first Fairy type move that I would train towards was Play Rough, which was effectively just a slightly stronger Tackle than was infused with Fairy energy. To make things easier, I had Luna help out in providing the Fairy type energy for the time being, since Euphie was unable to make use of it at the moment.
One day, Karen had asked me about why Tyrant was constantly setting himself on fire, so I had to explain to her that I was trying to get Tyrant to be able to mimic the Guts ability. That led to us having a conversation about getting her Pokémon to train to mimic their own unique abilities, but I warned her about how difficult the process could be. Nonetheless, she once again thanked me for these suggestions.
“You know, a girl could get jealous of that brain of yours.” She jokingly told me one day.
“Well, what can you do? I guess I just have this unique insight into things.” I returned with a smirk.
“I’m just glad that Agatha requested for you to use that brain of yours to help me.” She said with a sincere smile.
“I would have helped you even if she didn’t ask, you know?”
“I know.”
She was currently at Mt. Silver trying to evolve her Sneasel, but I wasn’t able to accompany her as I had to watch over Whitney, since both my parents were heading out to handle a couple of business matters over at Hoenn and to scout out the possibility of my proposal to set up a new shop at Mauville City. I never really understood why Whitney needed a babysitter considering she was about to head out on her journey on her own, but I guess that was just the culture of this world and I gave up trying to wrap my head around it.
Karen didn’t mind though, and she promised that she would update me about Sneasel’s evolution progress as she was there. I guess I was going to find out more about it tonight or tomorrow, depending on if she decides to camp there for the night or not.
In the meantime, I spent today helping out with Whitney and training her Miltank in the Elemental Punches, which she was now somewhat proficient at. She was about to set out on her journey, so I felt that I should get as much training done with her in the time we had remaining. All the while I was carefully cradling the D-Zigzagoon egg in my arms, glancing at it every once in a while, in anticipation for its hatching.
Her Miltank was definitely at the level where I would say that she could solo most 4 badge Pokémon, and probably a few 6 badge ones too if she got lucky. Her current proficiency with the Elemental Punches were certainly sufficient for those kinds of fights, and coupled with all the other powerful Physical attacks that she knew, I was pretty confident in her chances at steamrolling through at least the earlier badges.
“It would be much easier for you to train your Rock type attacks like Rock Tomb and Rock Throw by yourself, Whitney, since those don’t really need much outside assistance.” I lectured. “However, the Elemental Punches are different and are often considered very hard to master. Thus, I think that the best of use of your time until you set out on your journey is to get as much progress as you can in these moves while I’m able to help you.”
Whitney accepted my explanation and was now sitting next to me with a juice box watching her Miltank train the punches with Smough and Vordt. Smough was also getting good at the elemental punches and was just slightly edging ahead of Miltank.
Miltank kept giving calculating glances towards Smough as they practiced together, and I think Miltank saw it as a competition against Smough. But I was pretty confident that Smough didn’t really care. He was probably, as usual, just thinking about whether he would be getting a second lunch. Spoiler, he wasn’t.
Overall, it was another well-deserved break from all the turmoil and annoyance of the past few weeks, and I can’t say that it wasn’t appreciated. The only thing that I really had to be concerned about was the show match against Giovanni in a few days, but since that was just supposed to be a nice chill and entertaining event with extremely low stakes, I didn’t feel the need to set a specific training session for it.
Amusingly, I knew for certain that I wasn’t going to be able to make use of Tyrant during that fight. I loved Tyrant, but he had no chill. He goes from 0 to 100 in intensity as soon as the match starts, and I wasn’t confident that he was capable of holding back enough. With all due respect to Giovanni, I did my research on his team a while ago before I had met him formally as a member of the Elite Four, and I had refreshed that research as soon as I realized that I would be fighting against him in this show match, and he just wasn’t at the same level as me. Tyrant would be completely overkill, and so would most all my stronger brawlers.
Sure, Giovanni probably had a few secret tricks under his sleeve that he would definitely deploy against me in a proper fight, but this was just a casual spar for the masses. I highly doubt that he would be employing any trump cards here. It would be the height of stupidity.
Likewise, I figured that I should probably try to make things fair and avoid using my strongest Pokémon. After thinking it through for a bit, I ultimately decided to use Klee, Luna, and Klaus, despite the fact that two of them were very poor matchups against what I suspected would be Giovanni’s duo of Nidoqueen and Nidoking. However, it would also be good training for Klee and Luna, who were both traditionally on the weaker side of my team, to go against Pokémon that they were disadvantaged against.
It might be a tactically bad decision to do this, but since this was just supposed to be a casual show match meant to raise money for charity, I felt that deliberately handicapping myself was fine. Plus, even with a weaker showing, I was pretty confident that my reputation for being a strong and capable trainer was fairly entrenched at this point, especially with my victory over Drake, and my participation in stopping the attack at Olivine only boosted that even further.
I even asked Giovanni if we were able to just fight with much lower-level Pokémon like with Pixel, but he shut that down and said that that might be going a bit too far. After all, the crowd did still want excitement, and it was an undeniable fact that it was far more entertaining to watch higher level Pokémon duke it out than a lower-level one.
“Hey, John…John…BRO!!” Whitney broke me out of my thoughts about the show match as she tugged increasingly frantically on my sleeve. I turned to her with a silently questioning expression, and she kept pointing at the egg in my arms.
“JOHN, THE EGG!” My head snapped downwards towards the egg, and I could see that egg was shaking and wobbling more than it usually did. A small crack could be seen at the tip of the shell. It was hatching.
As soon as I realized it was hatching, I yelled out to my Pokémon. “EVERYONE, STOP!” All of our Pokémon froze on the spot before they all turned to me to see what the commotion was.
“Blissey!! BLISSEY!” Klee made a beeline towards me with eyes sparkling with excitement the moment she realized that the egg was hatching. I carefully placed the egg on the ground so that my clothes wouldn’t be ruined by the inner liquids that were in the eggs when they hatched.
A small crowd slowly formed around it as our Pokémon slowly gathered around to witness the hatching.
The crack became larger. I heard a gasp from Whitney.
And larger. I was now holding my breath.
And suddenly the egg snapped open, breaking into two halves. Before I could even shuffle forwards to get a better look at the new hatchling, a black and white figure leapt out of the egg and immediately attacked Klee. Klee was momentarily surprised, but then tried to hug the new D-Zigzagoon.
“Zigzag! Ziggggg!” Seeing that it was doing no damage to Klee, it jumped out of her hands and decided to change targets. This time charging at Smough. That proved to be a foolish decision, because Smough was not only a much stronger target, but his belly was also naturally bouncy due to his physique.
Thus, when the D-Zigzagoon leapt towards Smough, it struck Smough’s belly and was promptly and unceremoniously bounced off and landed headfirst into the dirt. I burst out laughing at that ridiculous sight, and Whitney quickly joined in on my laughter.
The D-Zigzagoon gave out what it probably thought it was an intimidating snarl, but to my ears, and probably the other Pokémon’s ears too, only managed to sound cute. Regardless, it was undeterred by its previous failure and charged at Smough once again, only to be met with similar results as it bounced off Smough’s belly once again and was knocked back into the dirt.
Klee was clearly more caring than I was, as she immediately ran up to where the D-Zigzagoon had fallen to check up on it, but it was stubbornly shrugged off her offers of assistance and went back on the offense again. Though this time, Smough had likely run out of patience and decided to just pick up the ornery Pokémon by the scruff of its neck and carried it in the air, leaving it dangling fruitlessly and unable to move or break free despite its incessant struggling.
Smough patiently waited for it to calm down before he carried the new hatchling over to me, and carefully dropped the new Pokémon in my arms. As soon as it was free from Smough’s grasp, it tried to break free from my arms and almost scratched my face in the process, eliciting a gasp of concern from Whitney which I waved off. It really didn’t want to be restrained!
I told Whitney to carry Euphie and to step backwards for a moment as I didn’t want either of them to accidentally be harmed by the D-Zigzagoon, and she silently obeyed.
Luckily, before it broke free and ran off again, a delicate Psychic from Luna managed to hold it down and prevent it from running off. While the D-Zigzagoon was supposed to be a Dark/Normal type, as a newly hatched Pokémon, it had yet to develop its Dark typing enough to become immune to Psychic attacks, and so it was gently, but forcefully, held down by Luna’s Psychic.
“Ok, that’s enough out of you, newbie.” I said sternly to the new D-Zigzagoon, who was still looking around and trying to break free from Luna’s Psychic hold. “Hey! Listen up!” I snapped my fingers at it and gestured towards Smough, who roared out to punctuate my point.
Smough’s roar finally managed to pacify the D-Zigzagoon, who had now curled up slightly within itself in fear. I could see that it was trying to shuffle as far away as possible from Smough, but it was still unable to move due to Luna’s Psychic. Smough stepped up towards the now fearful D-Zigzagoon and pointed my way, which it hurriedly obeyed as it turned to face me.
“Do I finally have your attention now?” I asked, and I saw the D-Zigzagoon take a quick glance at Smough, who glared back at it, before it nodded his head towards me. “Good. Now, do you know who I am? Or what I am to you?”
“Zig…Zigzag…” It said, and I turned to Smough who translated what it was saying.
“Snorlax. Snor…” Smough translated, and I was satisfied at this answer. At least this D-Zigzagoon recognised me as its ‘trainer’ of sorts and understood that I was the one who helped take care of it while it was still in its egg. Now that I was able to get a closer look though, I saw that it was a male.
“Well, I’m glad you understand the basics then.” I addressed the new hatchling. Recognizing that I couldn’t approach this D-Zigzagoon the same way I initially approached Whitney’s Whismur and Euphie, since those were both Pokémon that were slightly afraid and required a comfortingly soft approach. No, with this D-Zigzagoon, I needed to show off an image of strength and respect and intimidate him into respecting my authority.
Thus, I crossed my arms and walked closer towards him, looming over him threateningly next to Smough before speaking. “Listen up!” I made sure that our eyes locked on to each other. “I can respect your eagerness and desire for battle. And at times, I will even encourage such behaviour, especially during your training. But, for right now, you must learn to obey the rules of this team, and to respect your teammates. I will not have you attacking your teammates like a rabid beast, do I make myself clear?” To punctuate my point once more, I gestured towards Smough, Vordt, and Tyrant, who all let out deafeningly powerful roars that easily cowed the D-Zigzagoon.
It might have been eager to fight, but even the most reckless of fighters were still bound by their survival instinct. And seeing D-Zigzagoon meekly nod at my words, I was confident that it was finally listening to his survival instincts for once.
Seeing that it was now in a listening mood, I swapped from the stick to the carrot. I eased off my serious expression and now crouched down next to him. “Hey, I’m sorry for having to scare you like that, but you wouldn’t listen to what I was going to say otherwise.” I spoke carefully as I focused on observing his expressions. He just stared at me blankly, so I continued.
“Look, do you want to be as strong as Smough? Or Vordt? Or Tyrant?” I pointed at each of them in turn, with the D-Zigzagoon following my finger. He eventually gave off a small nod, and I smiled.
“If you choose to follow me, I promise you that I will one day make you as strong as they are. I promise you that I will give it my all training you to become as strong as you can be. I promise you that you’ll be in the best fights of your life.” I can see that his eyes gleaming with interest, now it was just time to reel him in. “But in order to do that, I need you to listen to me. I need you to understand that the Pokémon around you right now are going to be your lifelong teammates, and that you shouldn’t just fight with them for no reason. If you are willing to listen to me and give me the chance to train you, I guarantee you that you will not regret it.”
I took out one of my new Premier Balls and placed it in front of him and glanced at Luna to release the Psychic on him; I wanted him to capture himself on his own accord. The D-Zigzagoon hesitated momentarily, looking around at my team as my Pokémon started to encourage him with a mixture of growls, cheers, and grunts. Eventually, he reached forwards with a paw and tapped on the Premier Ball, before he was engulfed in a red light and sucked into the ball. The ball immediately snapped shut without wobbling.
As soon as my Pokémon and I saw that he had been successfully captured, we all let out roars and cheers of congratulations. Klee immediately glomped me with a hug, and Whitney also ran up to me and joined in on the hug excitedly.
I had just captured my latest Pokémon!
We celebrated for a short moment before I released my new D-Zigzagoon once again onto the field. He looked around for a moment and inspected himself before he turned to me and leapt up into my arms. I was alarmed for a moment, but instead of scratching my face like he tried to do at first, this time all he did was just lick my face.
Disgusting, but it was still better than the alternative.
Whitney giggled at my predicament, and I tried to pull him off of me before eventually managing to set him back down on the ground. Before I could be fully content with my latest capture, I needed to make sure that he was capable of getting along with my team.
“Ok, newbie, thanks for joining the team. I am very happy that you joined, and I hope you are too.” The hatchling yipped cautiously happily at me, and I smiled at him before continuing. “Ok, since it’s getting late and you have just hatched, I’m not going to do anything too intense with you at the moment. However, if you would like, you could play around with Eevee, Porygon, and Whismur. They should be at around your level.” I gestured to all three of them who all waved back at him with various levels of enthusiasm.
The hatchling turned warily to Smough, as if seeking his approval. Only after receiving a small nod from Smough did he immediately leap out from my arms towards the trio. I watched with some trepidation at the beginning but relaxed as soon as I saw that they were getting along well, and that the newbie wasn’t getting too aggressive with them. Just to play it safe though, I asked Klee to keep an eye out on them for now just to make sure they didn’t accidentally hurt each other, but she was already making her way there.
“It’s a very lively one, isn’t it bro?” Whitney spoke up next to me as we watched our Pokémon play around with each other.
“Yeah, he is. But that’s not a bad thing in the long-run, I just need to make sure that he learns enough discipline to temper himself in battle.” I replied.
“Have you ever had to deal with something like this before, bro?” Whitney asked, and I nodded.
“Yes, though I probably haven’t told you about it.” I remarked wistfully, remembering my experiences during the earlier parts of my adventure. “Fortunately, I didn’t need to deal with problematic Pokémon that often, but Smough was an unruly Pokémon when I had newly captured him as a Munchlax.”
Whitney looked at me curiously, so I continued. “He was basically the opposite of the D-Zigzagoon, instead of hyperactive and eager to fight, Smough as a Munchlax was lazy and unwilling to do anything besides eating. He was completely unmotivated to fight or train and was initially just a huge drain on my resources as he would vacuum up piles of food at a time. It took some time, but eventually Tyrant, Vordt, and I were able to beat some sense of discipline and fire into him and he actually began to train and slowly transformed into the Elite level Pokémon that he is now.” I explained.
“Wow…I never knew that about Smough…” Whitney replied fascinatedly. “Do you think I would have to deal with this kind of thing when I go on my journey too?”
“Probably. It’s quite common for newer Pokémon especially to be unruly and disobey you.” I told her. “It’s a mark of a great trainer that they are able to calm and discipline these unruly Pokémon and persuade them to join your team.”
“Do you think you can teach me how to do it?” She asked excitedly, and I thought about it for a moment before shaking my head.
“Hmm…I don’t think so.” She frowned, and I quickly clarified myself. “It’s not that I don’t want to teach you, sis, but every trainer should have their own methods of getting their Pokémon to obey. I think it’s something that you need to develop yourself, and I think you’ll hurt yourself in the long run if you try to just copy my methods.” I explained.
Whitney seemed unhappy at my words but nodded acceptingly anyways. Personally, I was confident that she had nothing to worry about and that she had the strength of character and will to get any Pokémon to obey her, but I kept that to myself as I didn’t want to accidentally hype her up and make her overconfident.
The two of us then continued watching over the quartet as they were playing around, and I made sure to text Karen to inform her that the egg had hatched. She didn’t respond, but that was expected for someone currently hiking around in Mt. Silver.
I also needed to think of a nickname for the D-Zigzagoon, as I didn’t want to be calling him ‘newbie’ forever. I was having trouble coming up with a suitable name as I watched the quartet rush towards Smough together to use him as a training dummy. The D-Zigzagoon in particular seemed to be fixated on Smough and seemed especially determined to surpass him.
And it was then when a nickname hit me. It wasn’t a perfect fit, as he was definitely no Dragonslayer, at least not yet, but with the almost immediate fixation and potential rivalry with Smough, I felt that no other nickname would do him justice.
And thus, Ornstein joined the team.
A.N. ANNNNND THE EGG FINALLY HATCHED! I had no idea how long an egg was supposed to take to hatch, but I judged that this was long enough.
And yes, I’m calling the D-Zigzagoon ‘Ornstein’. Besides potentially Zangoose, I didn’t really see another other Pokemon that would fit the nickname, and I hadn’t really planned to add Zangoose to my team at this point.
And yes, now that he’s called Ornstein, they will be spending a lot of time with Smough and properly developing a rivalry/friendship together. I hope he will live up to his name.
This chapter has been BETAed by Allute. Thanks man!
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