Blaine tapped his foot slowly, idly humming to himself. It had been a slow day for the Cinnabar Gym.

Well, most days were slow days, to be fair. That tended to happen when you built your gym on the side of a dormant volcano with a half-day long hike from the nearest town. But it suited him well. Almost all of his challengers were either sixth-badge or higher trainers from the mainland, or first-badgers from this very island, most of which he knew well. It made for consistently much more interesting fights, since no inexperienced trainer would go out of their way to get to Cinnabar Island. Matches in his gym didn’t even need to be booked in advance, since there were so few of them anyway. He could just rest in the gym’s lobby, watching the door in case anyone did walk in.

It also gave him plenty of room to focus on… other projects. Thankfully, Team Rocket had left for the time being, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they returned, and he didn’t want any innocent trainers caught in the crossfire.

So, all things considered, it was quite the surprise when a young girl he didn’t recognize threw open the doors to the gym and came strolling in with a determined expression on her face.

“Hey, old guy!” her voice echoed through the room, bouncing off the high basalt pillars and archways that held up the chamber’s high roof. “I want to challenge you to a gym battle, got it? And it took, like, two hours to climb up that volcano, so don’t you dare say no, okay?”

“I- well-” Blaine sputtered, somewhat taken aback by the sudden visitor, and her remarkable forwardness.

Then he took a deep breath, calming down from the shock- which really wasn’t good for him, at this age- and looked at her with a mirthful smile. “Have you booked a battle? I don’t remember seeing any scheduled until later this evening.”

The girl grunted, walking up to his desk with an annoyed frown on her face. “Yeah, that’s me,” she muttered, blowing a strand of frizzy, dirty blonde hair out of her face. “But I couldn’t wait! You know I called Oak this morning, right? And he said that the other three trainers from Pallet Town all already have two badges, and I don’t have anything yet ‘cause I had to go and get lost and end up all the way over here!”

Blaine’s brow rose at the mention of Samuel Oak’s name, and he began to hum in thought. “I see you’re acquaintanced with one of my old colleagues? Samuel did mention he had a group that left a couple of months ago… but I wouldn’t have expected any of them to challenge my gym first.”

He paused, looking down at his computer in search of something, then glanced back up at the trainer standing in front of him.

“You must be Kiro Nakashima, correct?”

“Mhm,” she huffed, tapping her foot impatiently. “Can we do the gym battle now? Or do I have to wait until the appointment? ‘Cause I’m not leaving until I’ve beaten you.”

Blaine chuckled. “Even if you lose?”

“I won’t lose,” she responded, head held high. “If I do, though, I’ll just fight you again. You can’t have anything better to do with your time, right?”

“Actually, I do,” he said, the amusement dropping from his voice. “And the facility closes at six p.m. We can push the fight forward, though, if you want. All I’m doing at the moment is paperwork. Make sure you’re prepared, however, because I don’t go easy on trainers, even those without any badges.”

“Good!” Kiro said, her chest puffed out confidently. “If you went easy on me, I’d give you your badge back, then challenge you again, and make sure you gave me a real fight the second time!”

“Which I absolutely wouldn’t accept,” Blaine said, moving out from behind the counter. “Once a trainer receives a badge, it’s non-returnable.”

He heard Kiro grumble something along the lines of ‘stuffy old man’ under her breath, and began to walk a bit faster- just enough that she struggled to keep up with her short legs. Perhaps it was somewhat petty, but his patience wore thin fast these days. After Team Rocket had exploited so much of his time and energy, for such a long time.

Blaine was dissatisfied with his life, and he didn’t need a ten-year-old reminding him of how little of it he had left.

Gary grinned, watching as his newly-caught Growlithe easily took out his opponent’s Gloom with a well-timed Flamethrower.

“It was a bad idea to use a grass-type like Gloom against my fire-type,” he said, giving the boy in front of him a condescending glance that shared just how little he cared for his poor strategizing. It was proving difficult to find an actual challenge among the trainers of Route 7, and he was beginning to grow annoyed. “If your second pokémon is as easy to beat as this one was, just forfeit the match already and don’t waste any more of my time.”

And then.

Then.

The kid in front of him had the gall to start laughing, as if he had just told a really funny joke and couldn’t contain his excitement.

When Gary had just been talking down to him.

“I know the type matchup was bad,” the boy said, smirking in a way that really ticked Gary off. “But I never intended to get you with Gloom anyway. I was just setting up for my coup de main! Now, come on out, Azumarill! Lead with a Bounce!”

“Oh, we are not doing this,” Gary muttered, his brow furrowing in annoyance. Even Red was better than this guy.

“Growlithe, dodge it!” he called, as a blue-white blur came hurtling down from above. The canine nodded, darting out of the way just before the water-type crashed into the ground, sending a plum of dust high into the sky. Growlithe winced, some of the shrapnel from the impact hitting it in the face.

But then it didn’t seem to shake it off, like it should have been able to, and Gary frowned. Every few seconds, it would seem to pause, almost as if…

“Oh, great,” he growled, realizing what had happened.

“How do you like that, hm?” his opponent called, grinning devilishly. “I had Gloom hit your pokémon with a Stun Spore while you were too focused on milking the type advantage for all it was worth and disregarding any offensive I sent your way! And now, you’ll be left helpless as Azumarill goes in for a super-effective Water Gun!”

‘Good try,’ Gary thought, scoffing. ‘If only I hadn’t come prepared.’

“You shouldn’t hinge your entire attack strategy on a status effect!” he called out, pulling a bright red berry out of his bag. “Gramps taught me the virtue in always gathering plenty of these kinds of berries, and it really pays off!”

The boy gave him a blank stare, glancing back and forth between the two pokémon and the cheri berry in Gary’s hand.

“What,” he deadpanned, appearing very confused.

Gary smirked, tossing the berry towards a very grateful Growlithe. “What, you didn’t know? Cheri berries contain fast-acting proteins that bolster nerve endings, curing the effects of paralysis! You need to know these kinds of things if you want to get anywhere in the Pokémon League!”

Though he hated to admit it, he did owe a lot of his knowledge to his old man, and he knew all of his natural talent would be useless without his help.

… he needed to call him more often.

Ash hummed to himself satisfactorily, Pikachu marching alongside him with a steady, cheerful rhythm, and Misty and Brock trailing behind and talking to each other in quiet voices. Now that the Squirtle situation had been dealt with- and Misty wasn’t at risk of being ‘executed’, because as much as he disliked her at times he didn’t want something like that to happen- he was feeling much more sure of himself. If he could reform a group of rowdy Squirtle, he could surely do anything, winning the Indigo League Tournament included.

Brock, however, somehow managing to read his thoughts, cut in with a “you didn’t single-handedly resolve the situation, Ash- that’s putting a bit of a slant on things. The Squirtle Squad were all talk and no Bite, anyway.”

“Huh?!” Ash sputtered, whipping his head around to look at the pair of gym leaders. “How did you-”

“You were talking out loud again,” Misty said, sighing. “You really need to work on that, you know. It’s bad enough hearing your voice when you actually mean for it to be heard.”

“Why, you-”

“Now, now, calm down, okay? Let’s keep things civil here,” Brock interrupted.

“But she-” Ash complained, before relenting under the older boy’s steady gaze. “Fine…”

Brock smiled at him, then looked towards his belt, where he had attached his pokéballs. “Hey, lighten up a bit! You just caught a Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle all in one week. All three of them are incredibly easy pokémon that grow quickly and into powerful forms- it’s what makes them such great choices for beginning trainers. But barely anyone gets the chance to use all three in battle.”

“I still think his luck is stupidly high,” Misty grunted, reaching behind her back to tighten her ponytail.

“Well, that may be so…” Brock muttered, as Ash began to think of the several dangerous situations the three of them had already gotten into so far.

Lost in a river and nearly drowned? Check. Several encounters with a trio of criminals out to get Pikachu? Also check. Held hostage by a group of wild pokémon? Double check! All things considered, he was incredibly thankful that nobody had gotten seriously hurt yet. Though he trusted Brock and Misty to keep him safe, if things got really bad. They were gym leaders, after all.

“I think it’s a good thing that I’m so lucky!” he decided, looking at his two companions with a wide grin. “It would have been pretty bad if I wasn’t, huh?”

Brock exhaled. “You have a point there,” he said, frowning.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Misty sighed.

Ash ignored her, looking down at Pikachu with a smile on his face. He had only been a trainer for two months so far, and had already seen and done so many cool things. And he was sure many more things were yet to come- as he headed to Vermilion City and beyond.

His journey had only just begun, after all.