Shard of the Monolith [Gym]

we burn in fire.
we burn in blood.
we burn in dreams.

It was with great consideration of her boredom that forced the amber haired ranger out of hiding and back into the world of training. Now Adrian previously was not a full-fledged trainer as she did not have any pokemon when she first started but she was a trainer until she was hired as a ranger nonetheless. Thus she decided that she might as well participate in some of the things that trainers did right? And that included challenging gyms which was exactly why the idea of participating in the gym challenges seemed like a good idea.

Now the concept of getting badges as proof of power did not appeal to the woman much. Maybe that was because she didn’t have any. That said she was competitive so it was a good chance to test her strength and train up her team a bit. So now was as good a time as any to start collecting. Of course she couldn’t do so while she was working but on her off time such as now… so let the games begin.

The closest gym to her was the Oreburgh gym which was advised to be the first gym that newbies should challenge. While Adrian didn’t like the prospect of being looked down upon by challenging a weaker gym for newbies the woman found herself at the entrance in little time at all. She was wearing her normal casual gear today which was simply a tshirt and some jeans, nothing too fancy. Didn’t need to be. Once she entered the light from outside faded and the dimly lit gym took the place of her surroundings.

The motif was rocks. It was hard to miss – there was a mine nearby, the town was known for mining, and even the gym looked like a giant carved out rock. The gym leader was there to greet her after a few additional steps, tipping his hard hat to her as he had. What he said only confirmed the fact he was the rock type gym leader. No matter. “Fine. Let’s do it then,” she replied after his introduction. Taking a breath, she reached to her belt to grab a pokeball to throw out into the arena at the same time Roark did.

While the floating rock known as Geodude pounded at the ground to get ready for battle on the other side was the cute kitten pokemon Skitty. Now the ranger expected the gym leader to question her choice, scold that he said toughness not cuteness, but he didn’t. He took the challenge seriously and that gave Adrian a good impression. “I’ll go first. Use Sing.” Without wasting the second it took to issue the command, the pink pokemon began singing to lull the opponent to sleep. The Geodude began to look drowsy afterwards but Roark was efficient in raising his voice to overpower the singing and telling the pokemon to drown out the singing by putting up stealth rocks. Pounding the ground again, shards of rock levitated off the ground this time around and floated around Adrian’s side of the field. Knowing what this meant, Adrian decided to do the same. “Use Copycat then follow up with Assist.” Rather than pounding his paws the skitty smacked the ground with its tail, prompting the same stones to lift up on the entire field. Then the tail gave a faint glow as Assist activated and replaced the white glow with a purple one. Poison Jab. A terrible choice but not one that either one of them could control. The poison jab hit the Geodude but was not very effective in the end. Point blank the rock type retaliated by using rock throw and Skitty felt the pain right in his side. “If that’s how you want to do it. Skitty, play rough and end this.” Meowing at the command the pink cat was soon to kick up massive amounts of dust as it attacked the Geodude in the cover of it. Adrian couldn’t tell what was going on but once the dust settled Skitty was sitting daintily on the unconscious Geodude.

Roark recalled his geodude and promptly sent out the next pokemon. The large rock snake was an intimidating beast when comparing purely based on size. However that only meant that it would be easier to hit, especially as the stones on the field dug into it but only scratched the surface of the pokemon. This time Roark took action first and issued a rock throw again except now Skitty saw it coming. It didn’t take much to dodge the attack this time as it must have been harder to aim at the smaller target. While Onix was so large it was also easier to hit because of that. “Skitty, try using Assist again then play rough with it.” As the tail lit up again this time a purple energy blade emitted from the white light. Adrian recognized it as Absol’s Psycho Cut that hit the Onix right in the face as the skitty used the fairy type attack on the rest of his body. Onix flailed and struggled with the small pokemon on him but by the time it was over, the rock snake had fallen. The pink cat emerged from the dust once more but this time it looked visibly tired.

This wasn’t an even battle, no. That’s probably because this was the first gym and Adrian was already a developed ranger. Roark at this point acknowledged that but had to finish the gym battle officially anyway. As the gym leader recalled his onix, Adrian did the same to skitty. “One more right?” she asked halfheartedly, already knowing the answer. Roark nodded nonetheless and they cast their pokeballs out at the same time once more. The dinosaur looking pokemon appeared on Roark’s side with a menacing look. On the other was the brooding tentacool that floated in the air eyeing his opponent. Stones dug into each pokemon but they had clearly done more damage to one than they had the other. Tentacool flinched slightly and Roark ordered his Cranidos to attack at that moment. It landed a strong headbutt onto the water type but the tentacle pokemon recovered quickly enough. “Grab onto it with wring out then bubblebeam it.” With how close the Tentacool was it wasn’t difficult to extend its tentacles around the blue rock type to constrict the pokemon tighter the more it struggled. It did struggle of course and each time the grip got tighter. Then the stream up bubbles streamed onto the Cranidos which caused the rock type to faint quickly afterwards due to the attack being point blank and supper effective.

Running a single hand through her hair, Adrian released a sigh. “Tough enough right?” she asked sarcastically as she returned her tentacool. This meant that it was time to get her badge and move on.