Hard Enough

Chapter 216: Elite's ready!

The Elite Challenge was where a trainer would get to challenge me for what amounted to a Badge for Prestige. This badge would be slightly different from those I typically offered, but there were a few catches.

First of all, there was a significant cost associated with simply making the challenge. This money would not be refunded to them upon their victory. At first, I had thought to make it refundable but then after a round or two of Bertha wrecking the battlefield in her fights, I had decided to just pocket the money and set it aside for the truly damaging matches.

This might not be the case any more with my great diversified revenue stream but the price point now merely added to the prestige. You didn’t get to simply challenge with some easy savings. You had to work for this in more ways than one and put your money where your mouth was.

Georgina had, earlier in the year, successfully argued for this cost to be increased due to my fight with Lance. People fighting against one of the pokemon that fought Lance would be yet another drawcard for the Gym.

Secondly, you only really had two options for the matches. When the match started I would have most of my Elite pokemon, of the rock typing, in front of me. Then a randomiser would be used to make it the luck of the draw. This stopped people from building precise teams for niche pokemon like Don, or Bertha.

All of my pokemon would already have it rough with trainers, if they were smart, preparing entire teams for certain pokemon to face them and certain moves to be used.

The only other option they had for this was to specifically ask to face my strongest. This had to be booked well in advance, and then? When every eye was on them? They had to have the spine to demand to face my best.

They had to announce it in front of everyone who came to the Gym that day. They’d do so, knowing full well that I would not hold back.

Titan had for a long time been slightly ahead of other pokemon like Bertha. With Empress, his mother, joining my roster of Elite pokemon that gap had been a little tighter with there being a lot of overlapping points.

I had no doubts that Titan was head and shoulders above the others as my strongest pokemon.

The third catch was that if you lost, you lost any chance at the prestige badge. It was as it was stated in the disclaimer.

You had one shot.

The final catch was that only two people could challenge me using the Elite challenge for each day that it was on offer. I offered the two most watched timeslots, again suggested by Georgina, as the lunchtime slot, and the late slot.

Both were popular times for people to potentially be watching Battlecast. The first offered people on their lunch breaks time to sit and watch, or for locals to actually come and spectate in person. The second time slot allowed for kids and parents who’d finished school, and work to sit and watch a relaxing pokemon fight before dinner.

They weren’t anything on the primetime slots of after dinner where people would usually fight with Exhibition or proper Ace matches that featured full six-on-six, but they were entertaining. It was almost like a pokemon gameshow for Battlecast.

To make sure that the pokemon that fought didn’t get too worn down I made sure to block out any pokemon that fought a match like this as unusable for the next day or two. So far we hadn’t suffered any serious injuries that would require more time.

Which really made the fight against Moltres stand out just that much more in my mind.

When I’d first created the Elite Challenge it was meant as a way to keep my skills sharp and keep my pokemon working at bettering themselves. It had done so well it blew my mind.

In a few short years, I had a roster of Rock type pokemon that I’d felt comfortable challenging Lance with.

Regardless of whether I’d needed to stack the deck in my favour, they’d all been in a position that with a bit of polish, they’d been ready.

Since the end of last circuit? My pokemon had only grown stronger again.

The trainer surge had been a slog of fighting some truly strong and skilful trainers with a number of big names standing out to me.

But I’d always held in the back of my head that there was a higher level they could challenge at.

Now those fetters were coming off, and the world would get to see who had the daring to want for more, to push themselves.

I couldn’t wait and I was more than anticipating a few big names.

Brawly, Flannery, Roxanne, Bugsy, Pete Pebbleman, Ash, Gary, Misty, and of course, Forrest to name a few.

For all that people’s attention had left Pewter with the trainer surge moving on, I fully expected it to return after this week. People would want to know who these challengers were. Win or lose, they would be making a statement to the world.

And for the first person to win? Well, they would be able to hold their heads high.

But I wasn’t going to let it be easy. My pokemon didn’t train as hard as they did to simply give away the Bejewelled badge.

I woke up on Sunday knowing that I had one final day to prepare for what was to come. In the coming weeks I had no less than six Elite challenges.

With Mewtwo’s showing early saturday, I knew my pokemon were still going to be rattled, worse, the bond that I had with certain pokemon had been sorely tested. I needed to fix that.

Don was one such pokemon, while Empress was another. I’d left things to settle after yesterday, but now I needed to get the lay of the land and not just let any tension bleed off.

The alarm went off and as so often was the case these days I was greeted by Yolanda with Terra in her arms and Spot at her heels.

“Morning Brock!” she said. Her eyes flicked past me towards the egg holder that featured Togepi’s egg on my desk. I grunted my own greeting back and made my way out of the house, grabbing a handful of Oran berries and a water bottle on the way out.

Yolanda jogged next to me. “So what’s the plan today?” she asked.

“I need to work with Empress and Don. Empress won’t be appearing for the Elite challenge as she’d maul too many opponents and really isn’t suited to holding back or the longer more marathon fights that occur with the Elite challenge.”

Yolanda’s head bobbed up and down. “That makes sense,” she said. She continued to look at me, waiting for me to broach the other pokemon that I needed to spend some time on.

I sighed. “Don’s been getting a bit too comfortable, he’s starting to push boundaries and check to see if I’m serious about an order than just following it and that’s been causing issues. We can’t afford that going forward,” I said, my resolve firming up to be like a mountain with Don today. My stride began to increase and Yolanda went from jogging quickly to outright running.

“Woah! Wait up!” she said only to blink. “Hey! How are you doing that?” she said, eying my stride and noticing that each step I took carried me a lot further than it should.

I smirked. “It’s one of the perks of being me,” I said before winking at her. “Keep working at feeling out the energy of your pokemon and you’ll get there.”

“Huh,” she said, running along and watching me closely. She did so to the exclusion of a lot of other things around her which led to me reaching out and nudging her so she didn’t trip over Moxy, one of the Geodude that I had lined up to evolve soon.

“Sorry Moxy!” I called out to the little Geodude. “Careful,” I said, indicating the field of small boulders we were in.

“Geo!” cried Moxy in greeting only to spot Terra in Yolanda’s hands and to narrow her eyes. “Geo Geo!” she called as she started rolling after Yolanda. This secondary call caused many of the other small boulders to roll over and reveal they were also Geodude.

I nudged my little sister. “Looks like it's time for your warm-up to start,” I said as Moxy called for a small avalanche of other Geodude to follow. They all rumbled along causing the ground to shake and Yolanda’s eyes to bulge.

“Why do you have your pokemon trained to chase people like this?” she called as she took off.

“First it was for security,” I called after her. “Then it became a good workout for me, then it was Forrest! They’re used to being used as training partners!” I called out.

Honestly, Yolanda had it a lot rougher than Forrest ever did with Terra weighing at least three times as much, especially now that she was exiting her baby phase.

Yolanda took off with the small avalanche of Geodude in hot pursuit. I chuckled only for a loud. “Go-lem!” to signal that Sanchez had seen the ‘game’ and wanted in on it. I rolled my eyes before turning and sprinting, leaving him to eat my dust.

“Go lem!” he called and soon I had a sizable portion of the pokemon on the reserve chasing me. I made sure to swing past the Elite training grounds to pick up my early risers like Titan, Bertha, and Knight.

The rumble they caused woke up the rest of the pokemon such as Shin, Chou, and Don. I was soon having to push myself to stay ahead as I noticed that many of the pokemon in pursuit of me were starting to gleam with Rock Polish.

I made it two laps before they stopped playing with me and closed. Bertha leapt and I had to throw myself out of her landing zone and instead on top of Jorm who came to a stop with me on his head.

“Steeeeeeeeeel!” he called out, rising up to his full height. I wobbled for a moment worried I might topple before spotting Yolanda staring at me in awe. I planted my feet, crossed my arms and assumed my pose.

Mentally I cursed Celia for pointing out that this was exactly that, a pose I adopted frequently but for now I merely tried to give off cool older brother vibes.

It seemed to work as Yolanda stared up with a slightly slack-jawed expression. That or she was trying to suck in as much air as possible. I’d assume the latter for now for my ego’s sake.

“Who’s ready to train like we’re going to rock the world!” I called, making the most of my raised position.

My pokemon rose and threw back their heads to roar as one.

This time when I peeked towards Yolanda she was properly staring with awe.

Heh, nice.

“Titan! I need you to work on the dodge training with everyone! Get them feeling it out! I don’t care if it’s water, grass, fire, electric, rock or fighting-type moves! I want people to get limber! Start with a stretching session and then have a paired up rotation, switch pokemon like Hynotoad working through the ranks!”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I snapped my hand to Zephyr, “You need to run Zubat through her paces, I want to work against a tailwind through the rocky canyon course we have set up, make her work for each lap!” I said.

For Zubat this would be a nightmare of adjusting wind currents with rocks surrounding her. She’d need to work on her agility while fighting a powerful headwind that would threaten to even send her back to the start of the course or into rocks. It trained agility, awareness, toughness, and endurance all at once.

“When you’ve done that, I want you to join Titan with training up dodges, use your Hypnosis and confusion as much as you can.”

I directed the rest of my attention to my smaller pokemon. “Teddiursa, Gible, Cranidos, and Anorith? I want you observing for a little while before getting into some tag team battles.” I tapped Jorm on a head spike and he lowered me down.

I made sure to give each of the little pokemon a moment’s eye contact. “You won’t advance to fighting each other until I’m done with Don though, alright?”

When Cranidos stomped his foot I snapped my fingers in his direction and levelled a look that was a tenth of what I was about to give to Don. “No,” I said, my voice firm with authority.

Cranidos stiffened and blinked at me. I held his stare. “Today I’m going to continue working on a few pokemon’s ability to follow orders,” I said. I would have said obedience, but they wouldn’t understand that word.

Cranidos bobbed slightly.

“Gib?” said Gible, turning his head from side to side.

I glanced at the little dragon. He’d surprised me so far by being very laid back. Honestly, he was rather easy to train, but that might have something to do with his temperament than his species. I probably needed to impart that I was to be listened to more often.

Sadly, while today’s session with Don would be perfect to highlight my ability as a trainer, it wouldn’t be best for Don to have small pokemon watching him get possessed around.

For that matter, I glanced around and found Don flying around with his daughter. I gave the group of small pokemon a softer look and waved for them to join the crowd of pokemon that had claimed a seat to the side to watch Titan and the other Elite’s train.

Empress was standing to the side. I marched up to her and coughed. She glanced at me furtively before looking away. “Hey, how are you holding up after yesterday?”

Empress shifted and rumbled something but I caught a slight flinch that I took to mean she was rather sore in a few places. “Might be a good idea to get some of the Growlithe to heat up some sand for you,” I said.

When she glanced at me in confusion I chuckled. “It’s a therapy trick we use for rock and ground type pokemon. Hot water baths don’t work but heated sand really works wonders. Never had one?”

She shook her head, her eyes searching me for something.

I offered her a smile. “I stand by what I said yesterday. I think you did the right thing. I just hope that you can let me help you next time,” I said, moving up and putting my hand on her chest. “Trust that I want good things for you, yeah? I don’t want to see you hurt and I don’t want to see you continue hurting.” My hand shifted from her chest to closer to where her heart. I could just make out the drumbeats of her heart.

She nodded slowly and I smiled. Without having to really check, I knew that our bond had grown a little. I give her the heartfelt smile that I’ve wanted to for a while and she gives me back a much smaller smile.

I don’t need to look to know that Titan is paying more attention to me than his training. I chuckled as the sound of a number of boulders breaking against something hard echo over the training ground with Bertha giving an excited cheer.

Tian’s attention on our bond wanes but I keep the warm feelings in my heart as I watch Empress. “Can you watch the little pokemon for me? Maybe even show them how hard Zubat is working in a few minutes?”

She nodded and I glanced up. Alright, that was the, far lack of a better term, easier situation to deal with.

Now I had to crush a pokemon’s pride and get him in line.

“Don!” I shout, my voice booming as I call out to my Aerodactyl. “I need you down here!” I called.

Don paused to talk with his daughter and I spiked my irritation through the bond.

It’s not an easy transference. If Titan’s bond was like a multi-lane highway with data cables flowing in both directions and constant traffic.

Don’s bond was like … a cave atop a mountain where the wind blew only to get trapped in tunnels and try longer routes instead of going the straight route. Things might be convoluted but they should be faster. The challenges lay in that the tunnels of the mountain had collapsed or were never cleared out.

The fault didn’t just lay with Don’s attitude, but also with me.

For all that I could give Don impressions, it was night and day between the clarity of our connection. What would only take a flicker of emotion instead required a flood of emotion.

Irritation made Don stiffen and glance down. Again, not the response I wanted. “Now Don!” I barked.

He narrowed his eyes and ducked into a dive, leaving his daughter in the air as he set his sights on me. He came in hard on an angle at me and I channelled rock energy into me.

Damn him, I’d wanted to spare his pride by not having this take place where the other pokemon could witness it. Seems like a harsher lesson was needed.

Still, if he wanted to play this game?

Well, I was down.

He came in hard, his eyes locked on mine as he sped in hard.

My heart should be thundering in my chest, but with the rock energy coursing through me it was a steady thump-thump that acted as another focus.

“Brock, look out!” Yolanda called, having spotted Don seeping in on me. She pointed and for a moment I worried she might try to interfere but Don was coming in too fast for that.

Right at the last moment, Don opened his wings and beat them hard. A dust storm swept over us but I didn’t look away as he came to a stop slightly above me with his eyes locked in a challenge.

Just as he was about to sweep his wings again to demonstrate his irritation with me at getting in the way of his daddy-daughter time, my hand shot out and grabbed him by the jaw.

I pulled him down so that he was at an equal height with me.

Then, and only then did I speak. My words came out cold as they resounded around the training area. “This display disappoints me,” I said, channelling my best cartoon villain impersonation.

Don shifted, surprised at how this was going. His wings beat slightly as he tried to rise but my grip on his jaw was immovable.

He couldn’t bite me, but he could try and pull away, but in doing so he would be backing down.

I decided to make use of the closeness to tell him my unvarnished thoughts. “The Don of half a year ago wouldn’t need to make so much noise. The Don of three months ago was certain of his power and position.”

“The Don I see before me?” I shook my head while my eyes stayed with him. “You are not that pokemon. You have gotten weak by indulgence of your pride. You stopped letting your pride push you to be stronger and instead became like a fat snorlax that was content to gorge himself on cheap food.”

I looked through him and pushed on our bond. “We’ve gotten stronger, yes, you hit harder and have more endurance. You have sharper teeth and more victories to your name. But you’ve become sloppy thinking that that’s all you need. I find myself questioning if you are still an Elite with how you fail to follow commands and push for more.”

“Reee!” he screeched. And I felt a flash of anger through the bond directed at me.

“You think I am wrong about what I’ve noticed?” Don didn’t respond to that, instead gritting his teeth and flapping his wings. I tried another angle. “Or that you don’t need me giving you such orders?”

He nodded stiffly. I tugged his jaw slightly to jostle him. “You couldn’t have known the danger that those cloneballs possessed, but I did. I gave you orders to spare you the danger and instead dithered like a pokemon that had only just started with me instead of an Elite. That wasn’t been the only time either,” I said and Don’s gaze shifted.

“Your pride is a great source of motivation but also a great weakness. Don’t direct it at me though, because I’m trying to help you reach stronger and stronger heights,” I said.

“We have a lot of strong challenges coming up soon. Agatha of The Elite Four wants an exhibition match next weekend, then we have the midyear tournament coming up. As it stands right now? I can’t take you to those as I can’t trust you to be at your best.” This seemed to rattle Don slightly.

Don croaked weakly and his wingbeats grew slower.

I let go of his jaw and instead shifted it to his chest. “You are a great pokemon and you have the capacity for more, I know it. Remember when I said your species possess the ability to use Megastones? I went back to Grampa Canyon yesterday.”

Don blinked. “Reee?”

I held firm in the face of his question. “I didn’t take you because I felt I couldn’t reward you after what happened earlier. I have been working to make you stronger and you have been slipping with your responsiveness, if not outright rejecting me. ”

I took a pointed step back with my hand extended towards him. “Should I stop trying to help?”

Don shook his head immediately and I smiled as he moved into my touch. “I’m glad. I didn’t want to relegate you and I hoped. I will work on what we have a bit more Don, but don’t just take, you need to give me some work as well, alright?”

Don nodded seriously. I nodded back. “Alright, today’s training isn’t going to be fun. We’re going to do control training with abbreviations. I need you to react as fast as possible. At some point in the training, I am going to have other pokemon shoot rocks at you. You will not have any warning so I need you to trust me,” I said.

Don bobbed his head up and down.

I grinned while stepping back and whistling for him to rise sharply before I gave a short whistle to have him plummet. I then put him through his paces, working him in dodges, dips, dives, ducks, diversions, and dust plumes to get his heart racing and his attention on me.

About five minutes into this I made a gesture to Jorm and he and Shin who’d been sitting off to the side began unleashing rocks. Suddenly it went from me giving a lead to me reacting.

“Dip into a tuck roll!” I called. “Ascend! Ascend!” I called as a wave of rocks came on faster than I’d anticipated. When another followed after them I growled out my next command. “Steel Wing!” I said to make him bash his way through the threat.

I shot Bertha an annoyed look. This had meant to be a two-on-one situation. Bertha bowed her head but the effect was rather lost when she shot me two fingers raised in a v for victory.

She wasn’t wrong, Don was responding better.

I huffed and signalled for her to stand down and return to her own part of the field before I got down to business with Don. After ten minutes he was heaving in lungfuls of air and I had him land to take a break. I got out a few treats of cured spiced meat and dropped them next to him. “Excellent work, keep to that standard and anyone that gets you in the coming days for the Elite challenges is going to have it rough,” I said.

Don took the food and bowed his head. I felt a glimmer of what felt like respect from him. I knelt and locked my gaze with his as he ate. “Thanks for listening,” I said, making sure this wasn’t just about me lording it over him. I felt like I’d made some progress there but I made a mental note to reinforce the training throughout the week. I might not be able to push as hard on the days leading up to Elite matches, but I could still make some progress.

I walked through the rest of my pokemon training. A few of them gave me respectful nods and firm smiles. It seemed they respected me more for stepping in and handling Don like I had.

When I finished with my Elites I collected up my small pokemon and got them lined up to fight with each other while I supervised.

Yolanda walked up and stood next to me while I did so. For a good ten minutes she didn’t say anything and I didn’t push for her to talk. I just let her linger, working through her thoughts.

“That was… pretty intense,” she said finally.

I nodded. “Don has a dragon’s pride and I hadn’t reined him in like I should. It was more intense than I’d hoped to make it as I wanted to spare him, which now that I have the benefit of hindsight was probably the wrong call. By having our little demonstration and talk in front of the others, I curbed Don’s pride toward me a little and garnered more respect from the others. They might not be like him but they all possess a bit of pride.”

Yolanda didn’t say anything, her eyes merely questing out over the Eite pokemon as they shifted and moved around attacks, or in key moments endured and closed to tap their opponent lightly.

“Still kinda crazy seeing it play out like that,” she said.

I nodded before reaching down and scooping up Gible as he got knocked back by Teddiursa. “Giiii,” said the little ground shark.

“Gible is another pokemon I will need to work with and keep an eye on. He makes things easier by being what I would call a jolly little fellow,” I said as he squirmed to get back down and continue the fight. I tickled him under the armpits and he giggled causing me to smile. When I stopped he rolled in my grasp slowly gnawing on my hands, his gaze looking up at me.

“Gi Gi!” he said, his bite steadily growing in intensity.

“Steady there, there’s enough force to break the skin,” I said. “If you want to play bite with me, use this level or lower,” I said firmly. Gible stared at me, his jaw slightly opened as he considered this new order. He then leaned forward and took a small playful bite. I smiled and play wrestled with him.

Hi cheered happily and I shot Yolanda a smile. “Spending time with them is key, which can be tough but we make time in our own way,” I said.

I set Gible down and put the hand clean of Gible slobber in my mouth to whistle. “Alright! Break it down with stretches! When you’re done it’s time for breakfast team!” I called.

Yolanda blinked and glanced up, surprised to see that the sun had well and truly risen. She must have been really distracted with this morning’s training if she’d missed that.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Give me a hand feeding up and then we can head back for our own meal?”

Yolanda nodded and joined me to finish up my chores.

I still needed to come back out to do some more work before lunch and then this afternoon but otherwise today was going to be much lighter.

During the afternoon session, I once more got out the paintballs and brushes. I made sure to demand that teams be formed with Titan and I acting as captains of our teams. When I selected Empress and Don as my first picks, Titan shot me a smirk.

I might not have the advantage with them but it served my purpose of deepening our bond.

I ended the day messy with paint and a huge smile that was reflected on the faces of a lot of my team.

I checked the challenger for tomorrow later that night only to chuckle. “Trainer Gio eh? Back again after getting eight badges.” I smiled. It was oddly appropriate that the challenger that started the circuit this year was the first to come back for the Elite Challenge.

I went to sleep with the anticipation of a good fight bubbling away at me.

I felt like I was more than ready for the next round of challenges coming my way.