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The New Normal - 2-10
🕑 Added 2023-03-20 15:50:41 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 2-10 – Preparations
The next morning, I spent some time checking over the egg with Klee in my room to try to see if there were any differences that could be found with the dark energy infusions. Sadly, there still hadn’t seemed to be any progress made yet, but at least Klee informed me that the egg was still growing up healthily and that the Zigzagoon inside remained safe.
I had hoped to spend today just relaxing and training with my Pokémon and Karen’s, but those hopes of another peaceful day were promptly shattered as I heard my phone ringing.
“Hello, John speaking.” I answered.
“John, lad, it’s me, Drake.” I heard his gruff voice through the phone, “Got a request for you on behalf of the Hoenn League.” Normally, such a sentence would have immediately made me nervous, but the fact that Drake said it so casually managed to alleviate most of my unease.
“Oh, sure, what is it?” I responded. “Is it something serious?”
“Nothing like that lad, the idiots up top have finally decided to do something about the fact that you’re here.” Drake griped, “They must have saw your match against Norman and wanted to get in on that. I guess they finally fuckin’ realized that you being here was an opportunity for them to get their shit together and plan something.”
“Uh, okay, I can understand.” I replied, “So what do they need me to do?”
“They want you and the rest of the Hoenn Elite 4 to do a few photoshoots in a week’s time so that they can publish it in their newspapers and milk it for their own popularity.” Drake grumbled before becoming a bit more excited, “But then, the League finally decided to say something intelligent for once and asked for a show match between you and another member of the Elite 4 after the photoshoot was done. They’re going to be announcing that later today to hopefully draw in a big crowd. They’re hoping that it will be a great spectator event.”
“That’s great!” I exclaimed excitedly, “I’d love to battle one of the Hoenn Elite 4!” Not to mention, if I won against someone of Drake’s calibre and reputation, it would really solidify my position as a member of the Elite 4. It would be a message to my critics that, despite my age, I deserved to be here. Of course, I had to win first.
“That’s what I thought kid, and I still remember saying that I’d like to battle them one day. So, I told the rest of the Elite 4 to fuck off and that I’d be the one to battle you.” He declared, “Phoebe and Sidney didn’t really mind, but Glacia was giving me the look. Fortunately, I was the one that met up with you back when you first arrived here, so the League officials sided with me.”
“Well, that’s great.” I remarked, “I’d be honoured to battle you. But what is the battle format going to be?”
“6v6, 3 switches, no stakes, with your annoying commercial break after someone gets 3 knockouts. Just your typical show match stuff.” Drake responded, but then his tone took on a bit of excitement, “But! Don’t you dare hold back, lad. I’ll be bringing in my best Pokémon to fight against you. You’re the first challenge that I’ve had in a while.” He chuckled.
He couldn’t see it, but I was also grinning in excitement, “You’re on, Drake. I’ll start getting ready now. No hard feelings if I study up on your previous battles, right?”
“HAH! Of course not, lad, I’ll be doing the same.” Drake laughed, “Well that’s all I have to say to you, lad, so go get yourself ready for our match. My dragons and I are gonna be waiting for you.”
I smirked, “You better get ready too, Drake, I didn’t come to Hoenn just to lose.” We shared a few more similar comments before eventually hanging up.
I gripped my phone tightly in excitement as I hung up from the call. I was nearly shaking with delight and anticipation at the challenge. I was starting to get slightly concerned about not knowing what to do in Hoenn aside from following Karen around to watch her Gym fights. But now, with this show match against Drake, I was given a purpose again and something to train towards.
I looked at the time, and seeing that it was approaching noon, I hurried to get a quick breakfast and returned to my room to eat it. I texted Karen telling her that I had a show match with Drake and that I was in my room preparing for it.
Then, I immediately started preparing for my match against Drake. I most certainly wasn’t going to go in blind like I did with Norman, I needed to know everything about Drake’s team and his battling style before the match.
A quick search on the Pokénet listed Drake’s past matches and the Pokémon he used. Unsurprisingly, his team was filled with mostly Dragon types, but he had a few non-Dragon Water types like Blastoise and Gyarados that he also favoured using. From his past battles, I saw that he favoured using an aggressive battling style that made use of his Pokémon’s strength and raw power to overwhelm his opponents, which was a very similar battling style to what I used.
I read through a few articles about Drake and found that the public, overall, felt that Drake was the strongest of the Hoenn Elite 4 at the moment. He had lost against Glacia previously, but most of the public attributed that to the poor Type matchup rather than any weakness on Drake’s part.
This was going to be a challenge, but it is a challenge that I would relish in. Truthfully, my previous battle against Norman and Shin were not that great of a challenge for my Pokémon, but Drake’s team was a very different beast entirely.
I knew that, going into the battle, our Pokémon are likely going to be evenly matched when it comes to raw strength and power. I couldn’t just brute force my way to victory like I did with Norman. Thus, in order to win, I needed to plan tactically and create opportunities for my Pokémon to capitalize on to secure victory.
I took out my notepad and started to brainstorm about what I could use to win. Without realizing it, a few hours had passed since I had begun, and it was already time for lunch. I was only shaken out of my thoughts by the sound of the door knocking.
“Hey! John! Get out of there already! Stop being so lazy!” I could hear Karen’s voice complaining through the door. I checked the time and my eyes widened as I saw how late it was.
I hurriedly put away my phone and notepad and opened the door to reveal an impatient looking Karen.
“Come on, you’re late.” She told me, and I wondered if this was how she felt when I dragged her awake every morning. “I know you’re busy preparing for your match against Drake, but I still need to prepare for tomorrow’s match against Wattson. And I want my team to continue training with yours, so come on! Let’s go” She grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room.
Before leaving, we both quickly went to the vending machine to buy another takeaway lunch before we headed back out to the training area that we used yesterday.
Once we arrived in the training area, Karen asked if it was okay if our Pokémon would train with the same partners as they did last time. I thought about it for a moment, thinking through if my upcoming battle with Drake would require me to train up my Pokémon in any specific technique or attack.
After thinking through it, I couldn’t think of any reason to train specifically in one area or another, so I accepted Karen’s request, and our Pokémon were organized into the same training partners that they had yesterday. I considered conducting a specialized routine for my Pokémon to practice their Ice Beams, but then decided against it as it might cause them to be overly fixated on using Ice Beam instead of a potentially more appropriate move.
Before they were split up, though, I told all of my Pokémon about are upcoming battle with Drake, and they all responded with cheerful howls and roars. My Pokémon were always excited and ready for a fight, and I owe it to them to prepare myself the best I can to allow them the greatest chance of victory.
Knowing that she had a battle tomorrow, I told Karen that I wouldn’t recommend undergoing any Gravity training for her Pokémon today as they were still getting used to it and needed to greatly exert themselves while doing it. If they participated in it today, then I was worried that they might be too tired and may not be in perfect condition for her battle tomorrow against Wattson. Luckily, Karen ceded to my expertise and nodded without arguing.
With that out of the way, we both sat back and continued studying the previous battles of Wattson and Drake respectively as we continued to try to make and refine our plans against them. After some time had passed, I noticed that Karen had scooted over and was now leaning her head on my shoulder and had joined me in watching Drake’s previous battles on my phone.
“He’s really strong.” Karen commented, “I can see why he was made one of the Hoenn Elite 4. Do you think you can beat him?”
“I think I have a chance.” I said with a sense of confidence that I wasn’t sure that I should be feeling, “If you notice, he fights very similarly to how I fight. So, it’s just a matter of outsmarting him and creating advantages for my Pokémon to use.”
“That’s easier said than done.” She noted, and I nodded my head at that.
We both silently continued watching the recording as we saw Drake’s ace, Salamence, pounded his opponent’s Donphan into the ground with a vicious Wing Attack. His Salamence was a fearsome Pokémon, having a powerful combination of speed, strength, and endurance. Predictably, I thought that it was going to be my hardest Pokémon to beat.
“I don’t think my team is capable of beating Drake.” Karen muttered glumly as she watched the recording, “I don’t really have anything that can take on multiple Pokémon that are as strong as that Salamence. My team is good at trickery and sudden reversals, but not so good against Pokémon like your Slaking or Drake’s Salamence.”
“It’s alright.” I comforted, though inwardly I agreed with her self-assessment, her team lacked the tenacity to beat Drake’s team, “You still have time to train your Pokémon. It’s not like you’re going to make a run for the Elite 4 right now. You still have time.”
“And besides, Drake’s supposed to be the strongest of the Hoenn Elite 4.” I continued, trying to make her feel better, “So you shouldn’t feel too bad if you can’t match up favourably against him. Most people can’t. I think a better target for you to compare yourself to would be the Dark type Elite 4 member Sidney, since you both share a Type specialty.”
“That’s true” she replied, but I could tell that she was still feeling upset about it. She stared down sullenly for a moment before she patted herself on the cheek and shook away those sad thoughts. “Okay, never mind about that for now. I still have a battle to prepare for and I can’t let my sudden sad thoughts cloud my judgment or affect my planning.” She then turned away from me and went back to looking at her phone to study the plan that she had begin typing up on her phone.
I hoped that Karen would not feel too bad about her perceived weakness; I did think that her team wouldn’t realistically stand a chance against Drake’s, but I still stood by the fact that her team just needed more time to train.
If she can catch a few more Dark types to expand her options, or just get a few key evolutions to her team like evolving her Pupitar into a Tyranitar or her Sneasel into Weavile, that would greatly improve her team’s overall strength.
Speaking of Weavile, I knew that in order to evolve a Sneasel into one you needed to give it a Razor Claw and then level it up at night, or at least that was how it was in the games. The problem was that I wasn’t sure how you would get a Razor Claw in the Pokémon world, nor what a Razor Claw was.
Funnily enough, the Pokémon world was already aware of Sneasel’s evolution into Weavile, but they didn’t know what caused it at the moment. Many suspected that the evolution occurred after a Sneasel was able to defeat many other Sneasel’s until it eventually evolved into a Weavile.
But, with my meta-knowledge, I believed that a wild Sneasel was able to evolve into a Weavile because with each victory it instinctively takes a portion of the defeated Sneasel’s claw as its trophy, until eventually he had enough trophies to form a Razor Claw that the Sneasel would use to evolve itself.
I wonder if Karen would eventually learn about this method because I knew that she had a Weavile in her Elite 4 team in the games. Still, I made a note of it on my notepad, and I would tell her about it in the future when she returns to Indigo.
Although I wanted to tell her my theory immediately, I opted to wait until she returned to Indigo as she wouldn’t be able to make use of this information in Hoenn anyways as there are no Sneasel to be found here.
Refocusing myself from my own internal tangent, I continued studying Drake’s team and a plan was beginning to take shape in my notes. It was nothing too complicated, and I half-expected to need to abandon it as soon as things went awry as they often do, but it did give me an idea on which Pokémon I would be sending out first and what matchups I wanted.
After an hour or so that Karen and I spent planning on our respective battles, we both decided to take a break and check up on our Pokémon to ensure that everything was going well. As we checked up on our Pokémon’s training, I noticed that despite only undergoing less than two days of tutelage under my Ursaluna, Karen’s Pupitar had noticeably improved its use of Earthquake, an important improvement for Karen’s next battle.
Similarly, it seemed like my Porygon was putting up more of an even fight against Karen’s Corphish, as it previously struggled against him and frequently lost its spars. I kneeled down to hug Pixel as it floated to me in happiness at its visible improvement. As I hugged Pixel, I noticed that Karen was staring at her Corphish with a weird expression.
“Is something wrong?” I asked her. Corphish joined me in giving Karen a look of concern.
“No, nothing’s wrong.” Karen muttered distractedly, still staring at Corphish. “I just realized that even after Corphish evolves, it’s still going to be quite small.”
“…Yes, but how is that a problem?” I questioned. Sure, I could understand that even a Crawdaunt was still only around a meter tall, but I didn’t see how that was a problem. Corphish whined sadly at Karen’s disappointment.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing wrong with you, Corphish.” Karen quickly comforted Corphish and rubbed his shell, “I’m not upset about you or anything. It’s just that, I realized that I still don’t have a Pokémon that I can surf with since even a Crawdaunt is still too small for me to ride on.”
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing as I heard that, it was just such a random statement that came out of nowhere that I couldn’t help but laugh at it. As my laugh eventually settled, I looked up and saw that Karen and Corphish were both frowning at me.
“Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t help myself.” I apologized as I took a deep breath with Karen still grumbling at me, “It’s just that it was such a random comment from you that I just found it funny. So, what are you going to do about it?”
Karen stopped grumbling and tapped her chin in thought, “Well, I know that I can catch another Water/Dark type here in Hoenn through a Carvanha. I’m pretty sure that a Sharpedo would be a suitable Pokémon for me to ride on for surfing purposes. Might catch one soon if I can find one that wants to join my team.”
I nodded at that and turned back to my notes once more. There was a lot to prepare for my match against Drake, and I needed to focus on preparing.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening undergoing light training with our Pokémon and making plans for our respective battles before we retired to my room at night to continue our experimentation on the egg.
“I don’t see any changes.” Karen commented disappointingly as she inspected the egg, “Were you hoping to see anything at this stage?” She asked me.
“Relax, Karen, it’s still early days yet.” I reassured, “Big changes like this takes time. After all, Norman did say that the egg was newly hatched, so I wouldn’t be surprised if any changes took longer to become noticeable.”
“Yeah, okay, sorry. It’s just that I really want this to work out.” Karen admitted, “A part of me wants to try infusing it with more Dark energy to see if that will cause any changes, but the more sensible part of me doesn’t want to do so to prevent the Zigzagoon from being hurt.”
“Blissey! Blissey! Sey!” Klee took on a stern expression as she lectured Karen about the dangers of rushing through with these things. Her Umbreon joined in and pawed at Karen’s legs. Karen hung her head apologetically.
“I know, I know, I’m trying to be more patient.” She apologized before she turned to me, “What do you think of the progress so far, John?”
“Well, it’s really hard to say at this stage since nothing’s visibly happening and Klee is unable to detect any changes.” I told her, “But as Klee mentioned, I’m not willing to risk damaging the Zigzagoon by increasing the Dark energy that we are infusing into it, so I’m going to maintain our current level for the time being. Maybe I’ll increase it later, but I’m not taking any risks right now.”
Karen nodded at that and fell silent as she continued looking at the egg. In the meanwhile, I went to write up my notes on our experiment and the procedure that we were using. I didn’t want anyone to denounce my experiment with not following proper scientific procedures.
After writing everything down, I spent a bit more time talking to Karen about her thoughts on the project and continued to reassure her that she just needed to be more patient. I seemed to have gotten through to her as she regained her typical confidence, and she promised me that she wouldn’t allow herself to become overly worried and ruin the experiment by doing something out of panic before retiring to her room for the night with her Umbreon.
Of course, I couldn’t be certain that what we were doing was right, but I felt it in my gut that this way the method of producing a Galarian Zigzagoon.
I could hope that my gut was right.
A.N Thank you to all my Patreons for your support.
