The Dave
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Chapter 15, part 1
🕑 Added 2024-11-27 08:26:26 +0000 UTCAfter lunch, which is spent comparing purchases and taking in the sights from on top of the Department Store, they set off towards the famed Goldenrod City Tunnel, eager to see more of just what the city has to offer. As for what Grady and Josie ended up buying at the Department Store, Ran is a bit surprised by what ends up being a very mixed bag.
Josie’s choices aren’t too surprising, as she went for some chew toys, luxury feed and some special fire-type-proof shampoo, which she claims her team goes nuts for. Grady on the other hand, is either receiving a very significant stipend for his sponsorship, or he’s completely mishandling his finances, as he shows off multiple copies of the Rain Dance and Volt Switch Technical Machines. Ran’s own acquisitions, considering that both of the others already owned type-boosting items and aren’t particularly favorably inclined towards reading, to put it mildly, receive a lukewarm reception.
Still, he’s in an overall good mood as they make their way to the Tunnel. With his Gym challenge scheduled for the day after tomorrow, he’s looking forward to getting some good battles in whilst he still can, as he can’t risk any injuries after today. Josie is very clearly of a similar mind, whilst Grady, whose challenge isn’t until towards the latter half of next week, is his usual excitable self.
As for the Tunnel, it isn’t the dark, grimy, hidden thing that its name implies. Instead, small but colorful signposts start showing them the way to its nearest entrance while they’re still more than a few minutes of walking away. When they do eventually make their way down the steps and into the tunnel proper, the sight draws an impressed low whistle from Ran. Even Josie, usually the first to draw some kind of unfavorable comparison to something she’s seen ‘back home’, doesn’t have a smart comment for once.
The Tunnel is wide and brightly lit, with shops and small restaurants running along both sides, whilst smaller stalls of all kinds are scattered along the middle of the path, creating two walkways which are haphazardly connected by the varying openings between stalls. Some of the openings are only wide enough for a small child to slip through, whilst others are wide enough to fit another stall in entirely, creating a charmingly chaotic mishmash of paths, which almost gives the Tunnel a maze-like feel, despite it ultimately running in a straight line. At first, the only thing that’s clearly missing is the supposed space for battling.
As they walk slightly further into the Tunnel however, that question is easily answered. Because after a few hundred feet, the middle row of stalls comes to an abrupt end, as the floor shifts from the rectangular shining tiles that run throughout the rest of the tunnel, to a large rectangular patch of astroturf, which runs right down the middle of the tunnel. Wider than the rest of the column of stalls that runs down the middle, the walking paths on either side actually yield way to what is clearly a Pokémon battlefield. The nearest one isn’t in use, but the distant shouting and cheering of an enthusiastic crowd makes it very clear that this isn’t the only such field they’ll be running into in this Tunnel.
With that mystery answered, they spend five long minutes waiting at a stall that sells handbags, as Josie insists on giving them a long, long examination, before finally deciding that none of them are quite what she’s looking for.
Finally however, their small group makes it to the first battlefield. As they do so, Ran notices a detail he hadn’t spotted from a greater distance. The final stall in the middle row, before giving way to the battlefield, isn’t a small shop or restaurant. Instead, a bored job student wearing a referee outfit is leafing through a magazine that has a scantily-clad model on the cover whilst sitting in a small booth that faces the field. Along the top of the booth, large bold letters inform Ran of just what he’s looking at: TUNNEL BATTLES.
As the three of them come to a stop in front of the booth, somewhat surprised to find that there’s some kind of official organization behind what they’d been expecting to be far more informal trainer battles, the older teen on duty looks up aggrievedly.
“Are you guys going to tell me what you want to do, or are you just going to stand there gaping like a bunch of Magikarp?” He snarks whilst keeping one finger between the pages of his magazine, clearly assuming that he’ll get to go back to reading in just a second.
Ran for his part isn’t bothered by drawing the ire of some guy that clearly isn’t even a proper trainer, considering his age and his shitty job, which is why he simply turns his attention to the sign hanging against the stall’s left wall. It shows the rates for all kinds of different battles, depending on things like the number of participating trainers, pokémon and the total amount of badges the participants have. It’s quite an elaborate sign, though it pales in comparison to the one on the right wall, which lists out the many rules battlers have to obey.
Which is, frankly, a staggering amount. They all come down to basic common sense, because who’d be dumb enough to use Dig in these circumstances in the first place? As Ran continues to examine the rules and wonders just how they ended up becoming rules in the first place, Josie is the one that unsurprisingly decides to snap back at the employee.
“Oh I’m sorry, are we cutting into your fantasizing-time?” She needles him, gesturing towards the magazine he’s still holding, even as he instinctively pulls it behind his body as if to shield it from her, “Or are you just a bitter washout or never-was who gets mad at every more successful trainer he sees? Because boy let me tell you, you should probably go looking for a different job if that’s the case.”
The guy’s face reddens immediately, some kind of insult or slur clearly on the tip of his tongue, but he seems to think better of it. Instead, he merely scoffs, “Whatever, tell me if you want to make use of the field.”
Then he sulkily sinks back down into his seat, ostentatiously pulling his magazine back in front of him. Josie’s smile is triumphant, only to falter when she also catches sight of the rules.
“What!? No Flame Wheel? That’s bullshit!” She objects furiously, though clearly fruitlessly, as the magazine-reader is entirely willing to ignore her.
Ran decides to offer an answer instead, as the rules all essentially come down to the same point, “Basically anything that’s going to damage the terrain is illegal at this one. I guess they don’t have maintenance Pokémon to spare for every field. Maybe one of the other fields will be different?”
“They better,” Josie complains, even as she starts moving away from the stall and towards the edge of the battlefield already, clearly intent on moving on deeper into the tunnel, “Because that’s just unfair!”
Grady, previously surprisingly quiet, finally speaks up, “I guess maybe that field is for low-level battles? I’m sure one of the other fields will be better!”
Intrigued, Ran turns his attention towards the younger boy, as their small group moves past the first field entirely and starts wandering further down the tunnel once more, “I’m surprised you don’t know for sure, Grady, haven’t you visited the Tunnel before?”
Grady’s answer is hard to make out in its entirety, as he mumbles most of it into his own collar, but key words like ‘mom’ and ‘poor impulse control’ can still be made out, which paint enough of a picture of just why an even younger Grady never visited the Tunnel before. It draws a muted laugh from Ran, even as Josie offers a consoling pat of Grady’s shoulder, the kid’s knees almost buckling under her surprising strength.
“That’s alright Grady,” She consoles him with an eager grin, even as she points towards the source of the earlier crowd noise, which is gradually becoming more visible in the distance, “Because that sure looks like a proper field to me!”
Josie’s claim is just a bit premature, to Ran’s mind, as with the small crowd up ahead obscuring the actual field, it’s hard to draw any firm conclusions about just what material the terrain is made of. Going simply by the enthusiasm of the spectators however, it seems unlikely that whoever is battling, is restricted as heavily as the first battlefield would have made them.
Approaching further, Josie does end up being proven right, as although there is another, larger, stall that proudly proclaims this is a TUNNEL BATTLES location, that is where the similarities with the previous field end. A proper grass field lies in the middle of the tunnel, running from wall to wall, a small walking bridge on either end making it very clear that here, foot traffic has to yield to the needs of the professional trainer community. Not that the aforementioned foot traffic seems to mind, as the edges of the walking bridges sport more than a few eager spectators, who enjoy an elevated perch from which to spectate the ongoing battle.
The field is clearly one of the, if not the absolute, premier attraction(s) of the Goldenrod Tunnel. Considering the relatively early hour of the day, with the majority of the working population still at their day jobs, there’s already a significant crowd spectating the ongoing battle. As Ran and his companions finally get a proper look at just what pokémon are battling, it quickly becomes clear just why the match has already drawn so much attention.
In what isn’t quite a mirror match, a Slowbro and a Slowking are facing off. Considering the evolutionary forms’ relative specialties, such a fight should always end up favoring Slowking. That Slowking is considered more ‘Johtonian’, for its greater focus on intelligence and mindfulness, whilst Slowbro is seen as the more ‘Kantonian’ form for its greater raw bulk, only further ensures that the crowd is firmly in the Slowking’s corner. After just a few seconds of spectating however, it becomes readily apparent to Ran that the Slowking on the field is badly on the back foot.
Glancing towards the battling trainers, little about them truly stands out, other than the clear anger they’re both showing. This obviously isn’t a particularly friendly match. Continuing to look around for a moment, whilst his companions are both already fully captivated by the ongoing battle, Ran opts to head towards the stall. Originally having come down into the Tunnel in the first place out of a sincere hope for a good battle or two, it’s only sensible for him to go and look at the rules and the prices on display.
Where the previous location only had a single bored job student, this place clearly gets a lot more attention, as not only are an older referee and a Mr. Mime currently officiating the ongoing battle whilst ensuring strong protective barriers are in place to safeguard the crowd, but there’s another properly professional referee with a large bristly mustache and sharp eyes sitting in the booth. When he spots Ran’s approach, he offers an encouraging smile, clearly far happier, or at the least far more professional, than the guy from earlier.
“Hello young man, welcome, welcome. Are you interested in booking a match?” He asks enthusiastically, one hand gesturing towards the large sign showing the prices involved.
“I am,” Ran acknowledges easily, “Though this is my first time here, so I don’t quite know how this works just yet. Is it just like a normal trainer battle in the wild, with you guys just offering a field and some extra safety precautions, or how does this work, exactly?”
The question draws a chuckle from the referee, though his whole bearing makes it clear that it isn’t mean-spirited but rather good-natured, “Goodness, if it was that simple I’m sure that either myself or Joseph would be out of a job by the end of the week!”
His good cheer settling slightly, he draws a slightly deeper breath, before diving into a proper explanation he’s clearly given plenty of times before, “TUNNEL BATTLES has three locations, one of which you must have passed on the way here, as the other two are both closer to one of the Tunnel’s entrances than us. One caters to beginning trainers and family pets who occasionally need to get a bit of a work out in. That is our location for what boils down to the so-called ‘Tackle-battles’ with us offering a simple field and an amateur referee. The second is for mid-range trainers, those who either have only recently entered the circuit or who are plateaued at a sub-six-badge-level. There, we offer a field with only a very small number of banned moves and a professional referee.”
Assuming that the field Ran and his friends encountered previously was the beginner’s field, the second field sounds like it’s perfect for their current skill level, but rather than interject, Ran is content to keep listening to the ongoing explanation.
“Finally, our current location is our biggest, drawing far more spectators and of course, the most spectacular battles. The currently ongoing battle, for example, is between a hometown trainer who recently made it to the Silver Conference preliminaries and a trainer from Kanto’s Lavender Town, who missed out on the Indigo Plateau Conference by one badge. From what I gathered as they were booking, there were some words exchanged about the relative value of those performances.” The referee explains, temporarily sidetracking just slightly, before seeming to catch himself and forcibly course-correcting himself.
“Any trainer that wants to book at this location either needs a six-badge-minimum to join the regular queue, or needs to go on the long-term waiting list. To give you an idea, there’s three battles already in the regular queue following this one. Those on the long-term waiting list only get their chance if the regular queue ever reaches zero. Frankly, it hardly ever does.” He continues easily, seemingly not noticing Ran’s disappointment at his words, as what he’s saying essentially boils down to ‘you will not be battling here’.
“Then of course there’s our special evening events. Triples Tuesday, where all entrants get randomly matched into teams of three before competing in a single-elimination triple battle knockout format, and Tournament Thursday, which is a one-on-one, single pokémon knock-out format. Both events offer handsome prize pools, so if you’ve got some trust in your team, be sure to come by and participate!” The referee finally winds down, clearly having reached the end of his well-worn spiel.
“So, are you interested in booking a challenge with us?” The man finally asks, gesturing once more to the sign behind him. Glancing at it more for propriety’s sake than out of any genuine interest, considering that neither he nor his friend fit the criteria for the ‘regular queue’, Ran does at least find out that the prices are surprisingly low. Though perhaps, with just how many spectators are eating and drinking stuff they bought elsewhere in the Tunnel, perhaps the field itself doesn’t need to run at a big profit to be more than worthwhile.
“In time,” Ran responds confidently, “I’ll be winning a few more badges first.”
The referee nods approvingly at his words, “That’s the spirit! In the meantime, be sure to check our other locations. Just because you aren’t at this level yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t still get a good battle or two in, after all!”
Comments
TempestK
Very nice, the professional disparity was pretty clear between the referees. I could totally see Ran coming back here at some point. I'm guessing that he and the others are going to be headed towards the last field location in order to actually get in those aforementioned battles, and they'll likely find as professional a set of refs there as at the high-tier battling field due to the likely high number of people that are looking to make use of it right now. Looking forward to seeing Ran in more battles that don't have a personal stake so he can start spreading his wings. I do hope that the fact that he's a poison specialist doesn't lead to him getting some negative attention though...
The Dave
I did. Will fix, thanks!
cafenacet
> Still, he’s in an overall good mood as they make their way to the Tunnel. With your Gym challenge scheduled for the day after tomorrow, you’re looking forward to getting some good battles in whilst you still can, as you can’t risk any injuries after today. Josie is very clearly of a similar mind, whilst Grady, whose challenge isn’t until towards the latter half of next week, is his usual excitable self. Think you messed up the perspective here, you're using "you" and "your", instead of "Ran" and "Ran's".
The Dave
My Wednesday is once again being hijacked by other duties, so another early upload. On the shorter side, but this point made the most sense as a cut whilst making it pretty obvious what part 2 will hold. Thanks for the support folks!
