Bab 736: CH116 (730), Brightwick Gym (1)
The time passed by rather quickly and before I knew it we had Mewday. Kinji and I made our way towards the Brightwick Gym roughly an hour after breakfast, where we met up with Kinji's new acquaintance (with the potential for more). After greeting Violet, who funnily enough had violet hair, we made our way inside the Gym. There was still half an hour until my appointment at 11 a.m., 15 minutes if we took into account the fact that they asked me to come a bit earlier, but I still went ahead and told them of my arrival.
The receptionist asked me to wait for a moment while she called someone to bring me to the challenger's room, and I just talked with Kinji and Violet while she did that. This was the third time I saw Violet and we had not talked all that much during either of the previous two times, which wasn't surprising since both meetings probably didn't amount to more than 2 or 3 minutes, so I made sure to be attentive while talking to her, both to learn more about her and because Kinji really seemed to like her from what I had seen during the last few days.
I wouldn't go so far as to call him love-struck, but he was definitely smiling more often than he did before he met Violet. I definitely did not mind it since it allowed me to tease him for once, but seeing him like that made me take Violet a lot more seriously, which was why I was keeping my senses open during our conversation. We only got to talk for like 7 to 8 minutes before a staff member came to lead me to the challenger's room, but at least I was able to confirm that Violet was genuinely interested in Kinji, and from the bit she shared about her background they would make a pretty good pair if things developed in that direction.
Now that I said/thought that, I felt like a parent probing a potential prospect for my child, and I had a feeling that I was not the only one who felt that way. It would at least explain the occasional embarrassment I felt from Kinji and the intermittent amusement as well as giggles that came from Violet. That slightly embarrassing realization aside, Violet shared a bit about herself after I asked her where she was from.
She was unsurprisingly a local, as in a Hoennesian, but if we had to be more specific than that, Violet was from Petalburg City, and she actually came from a family that bred Illumise, Volbeat, Beautifly, Butterfree, and Roselia for Coordinators, Performers, as well as Bug Enthusiasts, which naturally meant that she had grown among bug-type Pokemon and actually liked them enough that she and Kinji would get along very well interest wise.
Having something in common/something that both liked would ensure that they would always have something to talk about which was important if one wanted to keep things from becoming boring or cooling down. Either way, she had my green light, not that she really needed it since the choice was ultimately up to Kinji. I still gave Kinji a subtle thumbs up, before following the staff member, though going by the giggle I was hearing I was not as subtle as I had thought. No, scratch that, that had obviously been part of my plan from the start; Yes, that had gone exactly like I wanted it to, with Kinji slightly embarrassed and Violet fairly amused.
Anyway, the staff member told me which door I had to enter to head for the battlefield and which one for the toilet, after which he gave me the standard you'll be called up over the speakers, before wishing me luck and leaving. I was not sure if he was making fun of my subtle thumbs-up when he gave me one as well before he left, but I decided to let it be. Instead, I simply reclined on the couch and closed my eyes while looking into Utopia to see if everyone who had a chance to battle today was ready.
Kun/Azuraid, Tyson/Machamp, Ali/Gallade, Luna/Clefable, Thor/Raichu, Saphira/Altaria, Hades/Gengar, Anubis/Lucario, Gwen/Gardevoir, Kimura/Hitmonform, Melinda/Mienshao, and Po/Pangoro where the ones that "qualified" for the Gym Challenge due to being at either the (mid) or (high) gold stage, but even among them I had my favorites who were more likely to get the chance to make an appearance.
It was an unfortunate fact that not all of them could fight simply because there were 12 of them and even if I limited each Pokemon to a single battle, the Gym Challenge and the actual Gym Battle combined would have me facing only 10 Pokemon, so no matter what I did 2 of would miss out. Not to mention that I was not planning to do that since I decided that if some were going to miss out, it would be better to focus on the few who would profit from the experience the most.
I was going to let them go for as long as they could, hoping that the battles would push their parameters into taking the next step or maybe if we were lucky enough even allow them to reach the breaking point. Tyson was more than halfway into his final round of limit-breaking, while Thor, Luna, Kun, and Anubis were at or close to the halfway point of the final round, so these 5 were definite contenders. Another strong hopeful was Kimura who stood a good chance of completing the second round of limit-breaking if pushed despite only having broken through to the gold stage roughly half a year ago.
Honestly, it was kind of scary how fast Kimura was progressing even though I had him split his attention to avoid neglecting his move mastery too much. As things stood, the guy was likely to break through to the dark gold stage in another 9 to 10 months, and I was honestly expecting him to reach the (high) dark gold stage before the year was up which was straight-up crazy. I had been joking when I first said that Kimura might catch up and surpass the leading group, but as unbelievable as it felt, what I had observed so far told me that he might actually do it.
While Kimura was likely not going to be the first to reach the platinum stage among the main members, he could probably aim for third or fourth, maybe even second. Ultimately, I had no doubt whatsoever that Kimura was going to be the first one to reach the palladium/7th stage. In fact, he was likely going to do it even before the others managed to reach the conventional limit. The guy was going to be the one that was going to push me/us to the Legendary Trainer Class, and I was honestly not sure how Mothra was going to react once she realized that since it was somewhat of a goal for her and I knew that she hadn't done so yet.
Anyway, shoving the potential future drama aside for my future self to deal with, I decided to simply lead with Kimura and see if he could deal with the first Gym Trainer on his own since he was the least likely to be able to solo a Gym Trainer due to his fast progress speed causing his moves to inevitably lag behind a bit. After that I would send out Azuraid if there was a need to follow up, and Tyson if Kimura managed to solo after all.
Thor, Luna, and Anubis may have to wait for the Gym Leader, which would likely mean that one of them would have to miss out, but if that happened it happened, simple as that really. Anyway, I informed Kimura to prepare mentally since he would go first before talking with them about random stuff. I saw no reason to go over the strategies again right now since we had done so extensively yesterday evening and this morning not to mention the days before, so simply talking to them to reduce the nervousness that inevitably came with Gym Challenges was the best option, at least in this case.
I eventually heard myself being called out over the speakers, so I finally opened my eyes and stood up from the couch before heading toward the battlefield. I heard the emcee introduce me as I stepped onto the field and some cheers were coming from the audience. I actually spotted Kinji and Violet waving from the first row, and I gave them a small wave in return which had Violet wave even more enthusiastically while Kinji gave me a thumbs up before yelling that I had this.
I had to laugh when I saw the looks and reactions the people around Kinji gave him; I could not help but imagine how they would react if they knew that Kinji was a bonafide Champion class trainer, which was what made me laugh. Anyway, my attention was drawn back to the situation at hand when the emcee moved on to introduce my first opponent, who ended up being Gym Trainer Anastasia.
From the research I made in preparation for the Gym Challenge, I knew that Anastasia generally switched between 5 Pokemon for 4 to 6 Badge challenges, namely a Flareon, Ninetales, Chandelure, Talonflame, and Torkoal, so I would most likely face 3 of them. Among those 5, Talonflame and Chandelure probably posed the biggest threat to Kimura, both because they could fly and because of their typings.
When the referee stepped up and began to do his usual spiel I stopped guessing which Pokemon Anastasia was going to choose and had my second thought stream recall Kimura instead so that I could call him out using the correct/official method, which was from inside the PokeBall. I moved the ball to my hand when the referee began his countdown, and as soon as he gave the signal, I released Kimura onto the field.
Since Hitmonform were rather uncommon, especially the aura variants, his appearance did cause some excitement, though I was not sure if that was because they noticed that he was special even amongst Hitmonform or not, but most of the hype/cheering was actually happening due to the (high) gold stage Ninetales that Anastasia called out. Honestly, the biggest danger that Ninetales posed was its proficiency in psychic energy/moves, but whenever Ninetales tried to use Psychic to interfere/immobilize Kimura, I had him channel dark energy by initiating Throat Chop without having to actually execute it to break Ninetales psionic attempt.
Outside of that, Kimura used a combination of Agility, and Double Team to dodge Ninetales fiery attacks and to keep a speed advantage which allowed him to close in or step out whenever he wanted. He then began to use Aura Sphere to bombard Ninetales from afar, while occasionally using Earthquake to destabilize Ninetales creating an opportunity to close in and use either Power-Up Punch or Drain Punch without having to worry about a retaliation. The reason Earthquake was used like that was because his mastery of the move was not all that high and he had more useful alternatives so it was better to use it as a distraction as he was doing.
Even when Ninetales managed to hit Kimura on occasion due to moves like Heat Wave or Fire Spin having a pretty wide range which made dodging them pretty hard sometimes, Drain Punch allowed Kimura to stay in good health/form. Hence, Kimura managed to take down Ninetales after fighting for around 7 to 8 minutes, and by that point, his speed along with his strength boost had reached the maximum Kimura could support. On top of that, Kimura was also in full health, so the only parts of him that had suffered as a result of the fight were his stamina and energy levels.
I knew we would need that when the next Pokemon that Anastasia called out was her (high) gold stage Chandelure. Due to Chandelure being a ghost type Kimura's fighting and normal-type moves became useless, leaving him only with his elemental moves. Thankfully, Kimura knew a wide range of those even if their mastery was in the lower range. At least he still had a fighting chance, and Kimura showed not a shred of hesitation once the referee gave the signal to restart the battle.
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