Chapter 4 - First Battle

I turn around and see one of the new trainers who received a regional starter. They were 5th and had chosen the remaining cyndaquil. Wearing a similar getup to mine, he was smiling and standing next to his cyndaquil who was placidly looking over Chrys and Chaos.

“I’m sorry, but we jus-” I started to say, but was interrupted by a, “Chikorita!” from Chrys as she moved to stand beside me, facing off against the cyndaquil.

“Well, your pokemon seems to want to battle? By the way, I’m Matt.” He says while holding out his hand.

“I’m Jason, and this is Chrys.” I say while shaking his hand. “I guess a friendly spar would be good for working on our teamwork.”

“Nice! Let’s go Bruno.” He says while making his way over to the designated battle areas.

I grab my backpack and motion for Chrys and Chaos to huddle up. “Alright team, this is going to be our first battle. Chrys, me and Chaos are going to be cheering you on. I want you to start out evasive, dodging his attacks, while using growl. After lowering his attack, you’ll change to hit and run tactics, glancing blows like we were doing with Chaos. Make sure to be careful of his back, he can produce flame there. Alright, let’s go!”

“Chiko!”, “Happi!”

We made our way to the field, standing opposite Matt.

“Ready, Chrys?”

“Chi.” She said confidently as she strode onto the field.

“You guys ready?” Matt called out to me.

“Yeah, we’ll start when this rock hits the ground.” I say, picking up a rock and throwing it up.

When it hit the ground, Matt yelled, “Tackle!” and Bruno charged straight at Chrys. Chrys stood her ground as she let out a growl.

Growl uses normal-type energy to disrupt the energy in the opposing pokemon, weakening it. Chrys continued to growl as Bruno gets close, dodging his tackle after he is committed. Bruno goes sailing past and Chrys retreats to the far side of the field.

The scene replays itself as Bruno rushes at Chrys trying to tackle her, while she emits a humming growl. Once she dodges out of harm, I yell out “Hit and run!”

Chrys stops emitting her growl and tackles Bruno on his side, knocking him off balance. Bruno quickly rights himself and turns to retaliate, but Chrys is already gone.

I can’t help but marvel at Chrys’ speed and agility. I thought she was quick before, but comparing her to another pokemon really puts it into perspective. The cyndaquil, Bruno, isn’t slow, but has a hard time changing directions. I doubt that they trained his agility at all yet.

After another hit and run by Chrys, Matt yells, “Just stay still, Bruno! Hit back when they come!”

Chrys doesn’t hesitate and goes barreling at Bruno, knocking him over and taking a minor hit from the cyndaquil’s paws. His strategy might have worked if they had trained more with it or if Bruno wasn’t weakened by growl and his injuries.

“That’s enough, Chrys.” I say, calling her back. She turned to me and at that moment, Bruno’s back erupted into flames. I could feel the heat from 20 metres away, and a small cloud of smoke hung over the arena.

NO! She has to be alright! I rushed over as the heat died to find Chrys, only to see her bounding out of the cloud covered in soot. I quickly took a towel from my bag and cleaned her while checking for injuries. Luckily she was fine, Bruno’s back was facing away from her during the eruption.

Soon the smoke cleared and Matt came over with a pokeball in his hand and said, “I-I’m sorry, man, uh. Jason. That’s never happened before.”

“Well that’s what happens when you just go into a battle without even training with your pokemon!” I yell, surprising myself. I guess I was rattled by the thought of losing Chrys. I knew that pokemon sometimes died when battling, but I just didn’t think it might happen to me. Logically, I knew that even if she was hit by that blast, Chrys would likely only be injured and I could get her to the pokecentre in time. Especially using the emergency stasis mode on the pokeball. But I couldn’t help feeling scared for her.

“Chiko! Chiko. Chi!” Chrys said while nuzzling my chest.

“Happiny!” Chaos shrilled as she rubbed her hands all over Chrys.

“Yeah, I guess you gals won’t let that happen.” I say patting both of them while smiling.

I look over to Matt, who was deciding whether to leave or not. “Go ahead and go to the pokecentre. Bruno seemed to have used up a lot in that fight.” I told him. “Sorry about yelling at you earlier, I was just scared for Chrys.”

“No hard feelings. I’m still sorry about what happened, I’ll make sure to train Bruno so it doesn’t happen again.”

I nod and he walks away to the pokecentre. Still thinking about the battle and potentially losing my friends in the future, I lay onto some grass and cuddle with my pokemon. That won’t happen to me. I won’t let it happen.