Cindy took a deep breath as she saw the handsome young man who was standing opposite her raise up his Pokémon's Pokéball and return it.
'That was a regular Fletchling…?' Cindy thought.
She had started her Z-A Royale run tonight and had faced several other Fletchlings on her way here but this one was truly exceptional. 'I wonder what Pokémon he's going to use next.'
If he could make a Fletchling match her Charmander that had been trained in the Charific Valley from the moment it was born, then what Pokémon would he go for next?
She went through it in her head. A Ralts? no, she had seen the Ralts on his head earlier and it would have been obvious if he was planning to use it.
It was going to be something he hadn't shown yet then… something big too.
Paxton smiled and brought out another Pokéball, pressing the button in the middle and expanding it. It made her take a deep breath.
What kind of amazing Pokémon was he going to bring out nex—
"Come out, fucker!" Paxton let out as he threw a Pokéball forward.
It spun in the air for Cindy as she ran through several different Pokémon that he could probably use to win this fight… because it was looking very possible.
The ball opened up in a flash and revealed…. And revealed…. AND REVEALED….
"A Magikarp?" Cindy blinked as she saw the giant yellow fish Pokémon flop on the ground. She gritted her teeth and looked at Paxton. "Are you fucking with me?!"
…
Ha! Underestimating Magikarp was her first mistake!
Magikarp was the next obvious option naturally.
Ralts was far much slower than her fast Charmander, Snorunt was a poor option against the Flamethrower and Riolu hadn't hatched yet. Even despite that, it would need more training.
So naturally, Magikarp was the very viable option but it was very funny to see that look on her face.
"What, no we aren't fucking yet." I said with a grin, and Cindy gritted her teeth.
"It seems you underestimate me. I'll make you regret everything." Cindy said, and stomped on the ground. "Thunder Punch!"
Charmander took off once again, heading toward Magikarp with its right fist covered in lightning, but I smiled.
"Start with Splash." I said, and Magikarp splashed on the ground, shooting into the air with a small shockwave blowing my hair back and almost pushing Ralts off my head.
"Huuh?"
"Char?"
Both trainer and Pokémon were surprised at how high the Pokémon went and that was understandable.
Imagine my surprise too when I saw that Magikarp could splash that high, The Pokémon really had some powerful tail control and I hadn't even trained with it yet.
"Quick, follow up with Flamethrower!" Cindy ordered, and Charmander cut out its Thunder Punch, opening its mouth and gathering flames and shooting it out.
Though I was sure Magikarp was already gathering for Hydro Pump. It was really nothing more than a Hydro Pump merchant at the end of the day.
"Hydro Pump!" I ordered, and instantly Magikarp, who was facing Charmander while mid-air, unleashed the burst of pressurized water.
Hydro Pump collided with Flamethrower for a moment before overwhelming it entirely and hitting Charmander completely.
BOOM!
Charmander was sent skidding back to its trainer's feet completely doused by water from the Hydro Pump with swirly eyes.
It was completely soaked and the flame on its tail was barely a flicker at this point, not fully out but close enough that Cindy was going to need to do some serious drying when she got it back to a Pokémon Center.
"The battle has been concluded! Trainer Paxton wins!" The Rotomphones announced, and they both flew back to their respective trainers.
I sighed as Magikarp landed on the ground.
"Karrrp~"
My Rotomphone pinged, which was probably the points tallying up, and I leaned over at Magikarp while patting its head and running my hand through its scales.
"Who's a good boy? Haha… that's you~" It sounded cringe but a bit of cringe was worth it.
Magikarp had won me a Charmander, and the 100 Poké that I had wasted on the Pokéball was officially paid back in full. With interest, honestly.
Magikarp's cheeks grew a bit crimson and I guess it liked it.
"Bzzt… To affirm, your Magikarp is a female." My Rotomphone said from my pocket, and I blinked.
"Who's a good girl then…" Thinking on it, most of my Pokémon were female.
Not that I hated it but come on, couldn't one of them be male? At this rate I would be running an all-girls gym and I hadn't even signed up for it.
Cindy returned her Charmander to its Pokéball and stood straight without moving before walking over to me.
"I…" She said, and I was ready. Maybe she was one of those people that was a sore loser, there were a lot of trainers like that, especially in the Z-A Royale. Half the guys I had beaten last night had acted like I personally insulted their mothers.
"I am honestly very surprised."
"Huh?"
"Not only were you able to use Fletchling greatly, but also a Magikarp too. I have to say, you're an exceptional trainer." Cindy said.
I've been hearing that a lot.
These were just basic strategies that one could use after learning the strengths of their Pokémon. Apparently that was exceptional in this world, which said a lot more about the other trainers than it did about me.
"Thank you for the compliment." I said, and returned Magikarp to its Pokéball. I wanted to head to the nearby Pokémon Center and heal Fletchling up before coming back here.
We needed to go to several more battles and then for our Promotion Match. "Do you want to head to the Pokémon Center?"
"Pokémon Center?" Cindy blinked. "Alright then, it's a date… no it's not a date, I'm not interested in relationships. We're just going to heal our Pokémon."
I raised an eyebrow. Why was she talking about dates and relationships when she was owing me a Charmander?
"Sure, let's check out the Charmander you offered as well." I said. I would ask the Nurse to make sure Charmander was completely healthy before anything.
The girl just lost 50k and an entire Pokémon, I wouldn't put it past her to try and hand over a sick one out of pettiness.
…
"Your Pokémon have been completely healed…" The Nurse said while handing us our Pokéballs in a tray that had slots in it. "The Charmander that you gave me is completely healthy and she likes her scratches as well, she thinks it makes her look cool."
"Thank you." I said, and took out the Pokéballs from the slots while Cindy took out hers as well. The Nurse returned to her table and I sighed.
"What a stressful night…"
We were sitting at one of the waiting tables as we waited for our Pokémon.
"You're not wrong." Cindy said. "Not only did I lose my winning streak in the Z-A Royale, but I lost one of the Charmanders I took from the Charific Valley. Sigh… I'm also low on funds right now and I don't know where to stay."
"You don't know where to stay?"
"Well like I said earlier, I burned through my allowance." Cindy said. "Plus a lot of good hotels here are currently filled. The Z-A Royale has gathered a lot of trainers from all different regions… Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Paldea and even Galar. There are just a lot of people participating so they've filled up most of the hotels."
"Why don't you stay where I'm staying?" I suggested. I couldn't leave her hanging especially since she helped me get a Charmander.
"You're not a native?"
"No, I'm not. I'm actually a tourist here." I said, and her eyes lit up.
Though I wouldn't be able to tell her where I was from. I didn't even remember most of my own memories, talk less of the original Paxton's memories… though it was in my ID and I was from—
"Oh? That's very surprising, where do you stay?" Cindy asked. "How expensive is it? I'm pretty steep considering I have to buy Charmander food so…"
"It's Hotel Z." I said, while pulling out my Rotomphone from my pocket. "Rotom, open the location of Hotel Z on the city map."
The location unfolded on the screen and she looked at where it was pin-pointed on the map.
"Hotel Z, huh? That sounds cool…" She tapped the screen of my Rotomphone and it maximized showing a picture of the place. "It doesn't look like much… why are there even vines all around?"
"I know right." I let out a sigh. "But this place is really great, I've been living here all through and I'm friends with everyone there. It doesn't have many people so it's a perfect place for you to chill out and it's cheap too."
I had no idea if it was cheap but I was at least sure it was.
AZ wasn't the kind of person to charge someone 100k Poké, right? Looks could be deceiving after all.
I tried to imagine him with a devilish grin on his face but I just couldn't. AZ looked too innocent for that.
"I see… then I'll be heading there immediately." Cindy said while taking off her helmet, and I finally saw her face and I blinked. "Huh? Why're you looking at me like that?"
"The red hair was fake?" I blinked. From the helmet she had crimson hair but it wasn't the same out here at all. The young woman had brown hair tied into buns instead.
"Oh that? Of course, it came with the suit." Cindy smiled. "Thank you for your help, what room do you stay in?"
"Oh… Room number? Why?"
"I want to stay in the room directly next to yours." Cindy said. "You are my rival after all, rivals are very important. I should aim to be better than you in everything."
"I don't think that's how rivals wor—"
"Room Number…" She said as she thinned her lips. Cindy most definitely wasn't going to let it slide.
"Room 202." I finally said, and she nodded, taking Charmander's Pokéball.
"That's good then, I'll be on my way to Hotel Z immediately and for tonight, I'll take a break from the Z-A Royale and continue tomorrow night." Cindy said, and left before I said anything else.
I took a deep breath.
"Cindy really is a handful, isn't she?" I sighed.
"Rara~" Ralts puffed out her chest as I placed her on the table, then pulled out Fletchling's Pokéball and opened it.
"Fletch!" Fletchling landed on the table with both wings spread out as she tried to farm some more aura, but the wind didn't come into the waiting room unfortunately.
She looked around and blinked. "Fletch… fletch?"
Since we were in the Pokémon Center, she wanted to know if we won or lost and I smiled while patting her head.
"Of course we won, you were really cool out there." I told her, and Fletchling spread out her small chest pridefully as I patted her head. "We're not done tonight, we still have several other trainers to beat up."
"Fletch~"
"Rara~"
After looking back at my Rotomphone, Fletchling was currently at the brink of Level 15 which meant that it was possible she would evolve tonight, making her the first one of my Pokémon to do so. That was a milestone that honestly felt overdue.
"But for now, why don't we meet the newest member of our team?" I asked, while bringing out Charmander's Pokéball, and Fletchling as well as Ralts perked up as I tapped the center and another Pokémon appeared in a flash of light.
The Pokémon that appeared was small and bipedal with warm orange scales, a cream-colored belly, and the flame on its tail burning steadily.
She had those same healed scratches across her body that I saw earlier from Cindy's side, the ones she had apparently gotten used to because she thought they made her look cool.
"Char!" Charmander let out as she planted her feet and looked up at me.
I pulled up my Rotomphone and pointed it at her for a proper scan.
[No. 004 — CHARMANDER, The Lizard Pokémon]
[Type: Fire]
[Gender: ♀ Female]
[Level: 14]
[Moves: Scratch · Growl · Ember · Flamethrower · Thunder Punch]
[The flame on its tail indicates Charmander's life force. If it is healthy, the flame burns brightly. It prefers hot things.]
Two TMs already loaded in… Flamethrower and Thunder Punch.
Cindy wasn't really going to beat the TM allegations, even for the Charmander she hadn't been using.
Whoever raised these Charmanders in the Charific Valley took the training seriously. She was Level 14, one level below Fletchling, which meant she was basically ready to be thrown into Battle Zones immediately.
I didn't have to grind her up through a Pokémon Center routine or anything, she was plug-and-play ready.
"Welcome to the team, Charmander." I said, and Charmander looked at me before suddenly kneeling on one knee.
"Char char!" Charmander said as she bowed her head too, and we all blinked.
"Huh? You don't need to bow." I said, and Fletchling was throwing her wings up at the side as well, even Ralts was waving her hands.
"Char?" Charmander was quite confused as she tilted her head to the side.
"We're not like some power hierarchy here. Think of us as one big family over here." I said and as much as I wanted to bring out the others, there was barely any space on the table. "I'm guessing your goal is to become a big strong Charizard right?"
Charmander's eyes lit up as she looked at mine. A lot of Charmanders wanted to become Charizard and for good reason too. Who didn't love a Charizard? If I was a Charmander, I would want to be a Charizard too.
"Char!"
"Good…" I said. "I'll help you, you just need to trust and join us. You'll become the strongest Charizard in the world."
I palmed my fist and extended it for a fist bump.
Charmander looked at my fist tensing up because maybe she thought I wanted to throw a punch, but slowly she brought her fist up and gave me a fist bump as well making me smile.
"Good…" I pumped my fist up. "Now let's head back into that Battle Zone and take out every single opponent we see!"
"Char!"
"Fletch!"
"Ra!"
"Keep it down dude…" Another guy on the next table said while looking all depressed.
"Hey… didn't I beat you already?" I asked, and he covered his head with his hand.
"Don't rub it in. Haah, I give up…" He groaned aloud and then stormed off. Well did that even matter? It was one less player to worry about in the future.
"Now for real this time, let's go win some prize money." I said.
…
Several hours later, I was at the Bleu Plaza, and seriously, after Cindy there weren't really any more good trainers in Rank Y anymore.
She was the one that was actively merging moves together like me to create combinations that helped her win like me.
"Sigh…"
The taste I had for battle hadn't been savored at all, and it really made me sound like some sort of crazy guy but anyone would be too.
Spamming super effective moves on a Pokémon that could keep dodging the attack wasn't exactly the smartest thing in the books to do.
A few of them had tried to compensate by just spamming harder and none of them had figured out that dodging existed but I was grateful at least. We beat up about twenty trainers including Cindy, and the rewards from Rank Y were looking good enough to buy some more clothes at least.
I just had to round up this new battle and I'd be done with it, then head home to eat the feast Lida said she prepared and right now I was finally seeing my opponent.
Her name was Yvon and she was like me, with barely any followers.
Bleu Plaza itself was pretty in its own way.
There were these tall yellow standing stones arranged in a rough circle around the central open space which were Kalos-style monuments, smooth at the bottom and carved into curved points at the top, lit up from below by small spotlights set into the paving.
They glowed this warm amber against the dark sky and looked kind of like oversized candles that had been frozen mid-flicker.
The paving stones underfoot were pale and the whole plaza had this soft glow to it at night, like someone had set up a wedding venue.
I had to admit, under the lights of the plaza, the woman looked beautiful and she was dark-skinned like Emma too.
"You certainly took your time." Yvon said.
She was wearing a blue suit with a white undershirt. Why was she wearing formal clothes on a cool night like this?
"Let's get on with our Promotion match already, I'm a busy adult with a lot going on, so I hope we can wrap this up fast."
"I see…" I could understand.
The life of an adult wasn't really easy as it was filled with different kinds of stress. Even now there was simply too much for me to do tonight. "Don't you have a goal or something? Also why are you wearing a suit at night?"
"A goal? I have a simple goal. When I reach Rank A, I'm going to have Lumiose City hold a marathon, which is why I intend to race through this promotion match in record time. As for why I'm wearing a suit, I need to get up to work early so I'll be sleeping in like this."
Also, another thing I've realized is that people are incredibly short-sighted.
What do you mean you wanted to WIN ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR COMPETITIONS CURRENTLY BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO ORGANIZE A MARATHON?!
It was the same with Zach, he wanted to turn everything into taxis. Why was everyone so short-sighted?!
"I'm sorry I asked." I said, while closing the distance between us as she did the same. A few people were looking at us in the background.
Our Rotomphones flew up and met mid-air letting out the usual crackle.
"Trainer Paxton… Trainer Yvon… Your Promotion Match will begin now." Another projected battlefield was formed on the ground and we backed off from each other, standing on different ends and looking at each other. "Send out your Pokémon!"
I took out a Pokéball and threw it forward into the field, and Yvon did the same. Both of our Pokémon appeared in the field with a flash of light as our Pokéballs came back.
Charmander appeared and roared.
"Char!!!"
And on her side a weird Pokémon appeared. It was small and round and pink, with a body shaped kind of like a little perfume bottle.
It had these big feathery eyes that looked decorative, a tiny beak, and wisps of feathery bits on top of its head. It also had a sweet flowery scent to it and honestly that would make for some good cologne in my opinion.
I'm sure that this Pokémon was Spritzee since there was a trainer using it back there in the Battle Zone.
"Start up with Fake Tears!" She ordered, and I sighed.
"Metal Claw." I said, and while Spritzee was shedding Fake Tears, Charmander closed the distance with her right claw glinting metallically, then she slashed the Pokémon flying backward to the ground with swirly eyes already.
"Huh…?" Yvon blinked, and Charmander walked back to me, extending her fist outward. After doing it the first time, she really liked fist bumps, and so that was what I did.
Charmander jumped up and we gave each other a fist bump making me smile. As long as I had my Pokémon and a lot of cash, we would brave any and all challenges in our way.
My Rotomphone flew down suddenly and I looked at it. Someone was calling me and naturally I answered.
"Hey Pax, it's Lili…" She said, already using the cute nickname I gave her. "So I'm almost done cooking and I made a lot, plus ordered some drinks too. When are you going to get back home? We also have a new girl who came over and is now staying in Room 203. We're all waiting for you, even Taunie."
"Oh?" I blinked. "Give me about ten minutes, I'll be there in ten."
With that my Rotomphone floated back up, and Yvon seemed to be gritting her teeth.
I said it would be ten since finding a cab wasn't that easy, the real battle wouldn't take five. I was confident about that at least.
"Come on… send out your next Pokémon. I'm a busy adult with a lot going on, so I hope we can wrap this up fast."
[Author's Note]
Took you guys by surprise eh? I decided to work on this extra chapter after watching MunchingOrange's stream since I was feeling a bit motivated.
So yeah, one of my friends that does fanfics told me about opening a Patreon and honestly I don't mind, it'll be a place where you guys can get access to advance chapters while I still update over here, though to get a stockpile in the first place to post over there... I'm very lazy but I'll try.
Maybe I can get you guys to check out the drafts of my Legends Arceus fanfic perhaps and flesh out the rest of the characters with backstories like Fel, Naveen and the rest of them including Cindy.
Regardless, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the chapter.