“Use Recover, Solosis! Please hang in there!” Tommy called desperately. Solosis had just been struck by Bite for what felt like the hundredth time and was barely clinging to consciousness. Tommy tried his hardest to ignore the puncture wounds and claw marks that could be seen all over Solosis’ face and head but he had been stalling the battle out for a while now and was struggling to justify continuing the fight when it felt like an inevitable loss. His mounting frustration at his own ineptitude coupled with the pain of his partner Pokémon was getting to be too much for Tommy to bear.

He silently cursed himself for his massive oversight; he had been certain of his plan. A defensive fight coupled with Endeavor and Confusion would have worked in any other fight. Not realizing that his finishing move didn’t affect Dark Pokémon was a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.

The only way he could have won the battle would have been to bait Frank into surrendering but he had the suspicion Frank was also thinking that exact same thing and wasn’t planning to forfeit anytime soon. Tommy had slipped up earlier by cutting his commands off mid sentence when he realized Confusion wouldn’t work. Frank hadn’t missed that mistake either and had been on the offensive ever since.

Solosis hopped away from the frantic Meowth to stall for more time as he used Recover to plug the holes on his head and body where he had been bitten repeatedly. Meowth was exhausted but continued to charge forward recklessly, jaws opened wide without any sort of guard as he knew he couldn’t be knocked out by Solosis.

Solosis trilled and braced to take the hit but Tommy recalled him to his Pokéball as Meowth clamped his jaws through the empty space where Solosis had been an instant before.

“I concede the match,” Tommy said. He hung his head as he spoke through his microphone. He had dragged the fight on long enough and didn’t want Solosis to suffer any more than he already had. Solosis was just another attack or two away from unconsciousness or worse, and Tommy didn’t want that for his fiercely loyal new friend.

“Mr. Hartford has conceded the match to Mr. Jenkins,” Professor Larkspur called through his headset. “Recall your Meowth and meet in the center of the pitch to clasp arms.”

Tommy raised his head as he walked to the middle of the pitch. He would be a good sport and congratulate his opponent; he wouldn’t sulk. He clasped arms with Frank at centerfield and congratulated him on his win.

Frank shook his head, “I just got lucky that match. You would have won if you had any move other than Confusion. I still have a lot to learn.”

“I appreciate your words,” Tommy replied. “But your Meowth was too fast for us. It was a good win by you, congratulations again.”

He nodded his head and the two boys turned to leave the pitch through their respective doorways. As Tommy passed the threshold leading back into the arena tunnel he saw the attendant waiting for him, hand extended.

“I’ll be collecting your rental Pokémon, please,” the attendant said. “This Pokémon will be retained under your name until you decide you would like to try a different rental. You may make other selections on your PokéNav before your next battle by turning in this Pokémon. It will return to the rental pool and can then be rented by any other student. If you choose to retain it, the school will safeguard it until your next match.”

Tommy was shaking his head before the attendant was halfway done with his monologue. He knew there was no way he was letting any other student battle with what he was already starting to feel was his Solosis.

“I’ll be retaining Solosis,” Tommy said. “I’ll fight with him every time.”

“Are you certain?” The attendant asked while smirking at him. “I watched your match from the tunnel and saw how helpless the two of you were in front of that Meowth.”

Tommy didn’t say anything, biting his tongue to stop himself from lashing out at the man. There was an air of truth to what he said after all.

The attendant scoffed at Tommy and shrugged, his hand had been extended their entire conversation. “It’s your career on the line, kid. Give me the Pokémon so I can go about my day.”

“You’ll take good care of him right?” Tommy asked. He clutched the white and red Pokéball in his hand and smiled fondly even though he knew Solosis couldn’t see him right now.

“Yes, yes,” the attendant said, sounding exasperated. He snatched the Pokéball out of Tommy’s hand and clipped it back to his belt. “The school knows what it’s doing and Solosis will be in prime condition for your next fight. Now get out of my way so I can watch the next battle.”

The instant the Pokéball left Tommy’s grip there was an emptiness that overcame him, it hadn’t been there before the battle but Tommy knew he wouldn’t be the same after his first fight. He would be catching his first Pokémon soon, but there had to be a way to get Solosis from the school. Tommy wouldn’t let him just waste away in a Pokéball in the storage room.

——————————————————————

Tommy’s friends were waiting for him outside the arena as he walked through the glass doors into the courtyard. He had tried to be quick with his shower so that they didn’t have to wait long. They all were looking at him like they wanted to say something but were trying to spare his feelings.

“I battled that poorly, huh?” Tommy asked with a big grin on his face.

“You were so close!” Aubrey said.

“That other kid was so lucky!” Jon yelled.

“You’ll win your next battle for sure!” Darius told him.

Tommy smiled at all of them in turn. “Thanks, guys. I tried my best, it just wasn’t my day. Now all three of us have lost, eh? We have a lot that we can learn from the girls it seems. You’re still willing to help us learn to battle, right Nessa?”

“Of course,” Nessa told them all. “My offer still stands as long as you have a Pokémon you can regularly train with. You did battle very well though, Tommy.”

“Thanks, Nessa,” Tommy said. “Now, I’m starving. Let’s go back to the cafeteria so I can get some food.”

As the end of the day neared, Tommy and his friends headed to the stadium to see their first rankings before leaving for the day. Everyone had been having fun playing on the beach after eating a late lunch. Shellder had been scuttling around in the water and Chikorita was soaking up some sunlight, keeping a wary eye open as Jon kept trying to pet her when she wasn’t looking. Chikorita had been mildly friendly with everyone except for Jon, no doubt at Aubrey’s urging, and it took everything Tommy had to not laugh at his hapless friend who Chikorita attempted to trip with her vines each time he had his back turned.

Now Tommy was nervous as he and his friends waited in the crowd of students to see their first rankings. Tommy heard the pinging of a couple hundred PokéNavs being updated but the 5 of them were close enough to the big screen hanging in the lobby that displayed rankings so Tommy didn’t bother looking at the gear on his wrist. The students ranked below 200 were displayed first and Tommy didn’t see his or any of his friends' names which pleased him greatly.

The screen flashed once and then the next hundred students that were ranked 199 through 100 were displayed. Tommy saw both Darius’ and Jonathan’s names fairly close to each other, Darius being ranked 139 and Jon being ranked 142. Tommy didn’t see his name anywhere so he wondered if there had been a mistake, especially since he saw Frank’s name listed at 103.

The next screen displayed students ranked 99 through 50 and Tommy’s jaw dropped, there he was, ranked 95th, ahead of the kid who had just beaten him barely two hours ago.

Tommy couldn’t keep the grin from his face as Jon shoved him playfully. “Ninety five! What the hell man, congratulations!”

Students 49 through 16 were displayed next and Tommy congratulated Aubrey on ranking 27th; she stood there looking quite pleased with herself until she saw the top 15 students displayed on the final screen. Nessa was ranked 5th, the strongest student who didn’t have three Pokémon. By her expressionless face it was impossible to tell if she was pleased or disappointed with the result.

They pushed their way through the throng of people still congregated in the lobby and made their way outside into the courtyard. Before Tommy could even speak his PokéNav chimed again so he quickly looked down at it. He had just received a notification that he had been issued a battle challenge by Frank Jenkins; there were two options: Accept or Deny.

He grimaced but had no choice to accept, he wasn’t too keen on getting another loss to the same trainer. A calendar that was displayed on the next screen asked him to lock in the date and time of the match. He could select any time next week but all dates past next Friday were grayed out; he selected the time slot of 1 pm on Thursday and the match was confirmed.

“What was that about?” Darius asked him. Tommy looked up to see all of his friends staring at him.

“Frank already issued me a rematch,” Tommy laughed. “We were only ranked 8 spots apart from each other and I would bet money that he’s pissed that I ranked higher than him even though he won the match. I know I would be upset if our roles had been reversed.”

“Did you accept?” Jon asked.

“Of course,” Tommy replied. “It’s an automatic loss if I refuse the match which means he gets my ranking. Let’s just hope that he switches his rental. There’s a chance he might because he told me after the match that I would have won if my Pokémon had known any other moves.”

“So from your response I take it you plan to fight with Solosis again?” Nessa asked him.

“Yeah,” Tommy confirmed her suspicions. “I decided after my fight that I won’t battle with anyone other than him. Even if I end up facing Galarian Meowth every battle.”

“That’s foolish,” Jon told him. “Solosis might be the worst pick now because he can’t affect one of the other Pokémon. At least all of the other 5 rentals can actually damage their type disadvantage.”

“That doesn’t change my mind,” Tommy shrugged at his friend.

“Why do you care so much? He’s just a rental,” Jon told him. “I already planned to switch out Tympole as soon as he lost that match against Petilil.”

“I don’t believe it was through any fault of Solosis that I lost the battle,” Tommy retorted. He could see Nessa smiling at him out of the corner of his eye and tried his hardest not to make eye contact with her.

“Well, it wasn’t your fault that you lost either,” Jon frowned. “Not even the champion could have won that exact match-up.”

“No, he couldn’t have,” Tommy agreed. “But all the same I won’t switch. Anyway it’s past 4 and I need to go. My parents mentioned that everyone could come over on the weekend to study if you guys are all interested.”

“Probably not this weekend,” Nessa said, sounding disappointed. “My mother and I are still trying to get settled after our move.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of last minute,” Darius agreed. “But I do want to go back out and see everything. It’s been so long since the last time I was out. Let’s plan for either next weekend or the one after that, that way we can also see how a few of Hemlock’s tests look first.”

“Sounds good then,” Tommy said as he waved goodbye. “See you all next week.”

——————————————————————

The days of August began to creep by. Tommy won his next battle against Frank who had switched his rental Pokémon to Riolu. Solosis was able to win the match pretty handily by using a combination of Acid Armor and Recover which negated most of the damage he received from the speedier Riolu. Confusion did massive damage to the poor Pokémon that Frank had switched to and Frank could only wring his hands in frustration at his error in judgment about his rival switching to a different rental. Winning that match raised Tommy’s rank up to 91 and his third match of the month had also been a win against rank 88 which is where Tommy’s rank settled going into the final week of August.

His friends had seen mixed results, Jon and Darius had been switching their rentals around every match and had each battled 4 and 5 times respectively. Their win-loss records were right around 50% so their rankings had only been raised a small amount to 140 for Jon and 135 for Darius.

Aubrey dropped a couple spots to 29, much to her annoyance, after an unsuccessful challenge to someone ranked higher than her, while Nessa had held steady at rank 5. So far she had repelled and been successful against all 3 people who challenged her but she herself had yet to issue a challenge to any of the 4 students ranked higher than her. Tommy guessed she must not have wanted to fight in a 1v3 match-up with her Shellder against 3 other Pokémon.

Tommy thought there was a good chance Nessa could win against the fourth ranked student and maybe even the third ranked student even though she only had her Shellder, but the first and second ranked students were both incredibly strong and had been overwhelming in the showcase matches that they had fought in. So far the girl in second place, Ashley, had beaten every other student she went up against using a combination of Litwick and Totodile; Tommy hadn’t even seen her third Pokémon yet but didn’t doubt it was just as strong as her first two. The first ranked student, a boy named Max, had won every single match he had been in using only a single Pokémon, his Nidorino. Tommy didn’t even know what his other two Pokémon were.

The showcase matches were every Tuesday and all students were required to watch them, as so far they had all involved students ranked in the top 15 spots. The other afternoons throughout the week were free time to practice, study, or goof off as long as you didn’t have a match to fight in.

His friends had been able to visit his family’s ranch once last weekend, except for Nessa who had not been able to come; she promised that she would visit the next time everyone came over.

Professor Hemlock’s tests were so difficult they were forced to spend hours of their free time studying Pokémon moves and battle tactics to ensure that they didn’t get last place on the weekly exams. Nessa had started coaching Aubrey in battle once a week in the mornings but neither Tommy, Jon, or Darius had their own Pokémon yet so Nessa still refused to train them.

Tommy was torn, he wanted to catch a Pokémon of his own but doing so would then require him to forfeit Solosis. He was looking forward to the class’ first excursion this upcoming weekend because he was going to get to finally spend some time with Solosis. Tommy hadn’t gotten to see the Pokémon at all other than during the battles he had participated in.

Tuesday afternoon came and once the stadium had been filled with all of the students Professor Larkspur walked out into the middle of the pitch with his headset. He commentated the showcase matches as he usually did and finished them earlier than normal. Once all of the students who fought had returned to their seats he turned towards his offices where Tommy saw Professor Hemlock and a handful of other adults in white lab coats making their entrance out onto the pitch

“Good afternoon students,” Professor Larkspur began. “Now that our showcase matches have concluded, I would like to discuss our first excursion that is coming up this weekend. As you can see, here behind me is Professor Hemlock and 8 of our esteemed alumni. The class will be divided into 10 approximately equal groups of various rankings, each of which will be assigned a chaperone from amongst the ten of us. You will report to school on Friday morning by 8:00 am and link up with your chaperone, and once all students in a group have been accounted for or 8 am comes, your chaperone will be taking you to some predetermined part of the Johto region that will be decided on today. Once there you will have different tasks to complete or events to compete in, the first and foremost being simply surviving the excursion. You may choose to withdraw from the exercise at any time or your chaperone may save you if you are in imminent danger; in either of these situations you will be taken to a Pokémon Center and then expelled from this course upon returning to Goldenrod.”

“Be sure that you bring your travel gear that was distributed to you in the first week,” he continued. “You will also want to bring your PokéNav and any extra supplies that pertain to the specific region you are visiting. I will now be pinging everyone’s PokéNav with a group number. Upon receiving your number head outside to the park to meet up with everyone in your group and your chaperone who will have more information regarding the specific area each of you are visiting.”

Tommy felt the gear on his wrist vibrate so he looked down at it to check his notifications. He was notified to report to group four and to his relief, saw that Nessa had the same group assignment that he did.

He and Nessa made their way to the park behind the stadium and upon entering, wandered around trying to find their chaperone for the trip. On the far side of the plaza, by the path leading to the lake, Tommy pointed out a dark skinned man holding a sign with a number four on it. He and Nessa made their way over to the man who was grinning from ear to ear and eagerly beckoning them over. There were already close to 20 other students surrounding the man.

“Oy there!” The man shouted even though Tommy and Nessa were only a few meters from him. All of the other students winced at his thunderous voice.

“What are your names?” The man yelled. His lab coat was unbuttoned in the front and Tommy saw that the man was wearing a bright pink tank top and floral print swim trunks. His legs and arms were heavily muscled and he had brown eyes with a buzz cut.

“I’m Thomas Hartford,” Tommy told the man. “And this is Vanessa Anderson.”

“Excellent!” The man shouted. He touched the screen of the PokéNav on his wrist a few times. “We’re just waiting on two more, who I think I see walking up now.”

He finished up with his PokéNav and then grinned up at all the students around him.

“Let’s get started then!”