Aaron’s Pokemon
- Artoria (Kirlia)- Jeanne (Flaaffy)- Durvasa (Primeape)- Magellan (Chikorita)- Kill-It-With-Fire (Larvesta)
Entree 5.15
Aaron FulanLavaridge Town
Flannery was good. Great, even. That timid wreck of a girl I’d turned into a self-combusting tomato of embarrassment was nowhere to be found.
Instead, I saw a glimpse of the woman she could be, that confident, strong trainer who’d lead Lavaridge through the awakening of Groudon and Kyogre. Marcus Moore left big shoes to fill, but I had no doubt that she’d fill them in time.
It was a pity I’d have to crush her.
“Durvasa, take the field,” I called as I tossed his ball. He emerged with a barking howl, as loud and rambunctious as Artoria was silent and disciplined. “Don’t get burned. You’ll be feeling a houndoom’s fire for days.”
“Prime. Primeape-prime,” he snorted as he looked over the injured houndoom. Dismissive, almost as if he was asking what the fuck happened to his opponent.
She was missing large patches of fur where Artoria’s Lunar Edge sheared them off. Weeping wounds covered her, especially concentrated on her snout, payment returned for every ambitious Crunch or Fire Fang. She still stood, but even an amateur could tell she was unsteady on her feet.
“We’re one in the lead. That houndoom took out Artoria,” I explained briefly.
He grunted in acknowledgement. His body glowed faintly, the telltale marker of Focus Energy, as he mad-dogged the literal dog. “Primeape. Prime.”
Marcus stood on the referee stand with a proud smile. He and his pokemon were practically beaming as they watched his granddaughter take her first step as a gym leader.
“Are both trainers ready?” he called. Seeing us nod, he brought his hand down, and with it, the referee’s flag. “Then begin!”
“Dribble, keep your distance!” Flannery shouted.
Dribble the houndoom didn’t need to be told twice. She leapt back, spewing dark smog from her mouth to obscure her position.
Durvasa moved with explosive force, not quite as fast as Artoria’s best Mana Burst, but more sustained, more controlled. He didn’t hesitate. He dove right into the smoke, ready to throw hands with the closest thing to a hellhound this side of the Distortion.
“Detect,” I shouted, guessing what she wanted. If she was ruling out direct, close-quarters combat, there was only so much she could do.
At the same time, Flannery called out, “Will-O-Wisp! Fuck!”
I caught the reproachful glare her grandfather shot her and burst out laughing. Luckily, Durvasa didn’t need to be given basic instructions. I watched via my empathic sight as he followed the wisp to the source. After all, if Detect could identify oncoming attacks, why wouldn’t it be able to track an opponent?
The houndoom tried, but she hadn’t expected to get made so quickly. Durvasa’s crimson wrath closed on her own emotional aura, yellow fear tinged with a puce-like panic. Soon, there was the sound of fists on fur, the dull, meaty impacts interspersed with defiant snarling and the screech-howl of a monkey with anger issues.
“Dribble, hang it there!” Flannery encouraged. “Make some distance with Fire Spin!”
I winced as a column of flames burst from the smoke. How many fire type moves was that? There was Flamethrower, Fire Fang, Will-O-Wisp, and now Fire Spin. That was a lot of variety from such a young houndoom, as expected of the fire specialists.
The smoke dispersed, revealing my primeape. He looked even more pissed than ever, but he hadn’t gotten away uninjured. Detect be damned, fighting blind wasn’t easy. His fur was more singe and soot than hair at this point, so much that I could see newly forming blisters on his skin.
That didn’t stop my rage-monkey. If anything, it only pissed him off more. He chased after the houndoom, flinging the occasional Swift to keep her from catching her breath.
Eventually, the already exhausted houndoom flagged. He caught up and finished the fight with a final Karate Chop to the noggin. I hoped her ram horns came with an extra-dense skull because a hit like that would have powdered a cement block.
“Great job, Durvasa. Just one more, and this will be Flannery’s ace,” I told him.
“Prime.” He managed a grunt and a satisfied smirk before his anger drowned it out.
“You were great, Dribble. Next time, we’ll fight him when you’re fresh,” Flannery said as she returned her battered houndoom. She didn’t deliberate on her final pokemon. “I’ll be using my starter. That’s okay, right, grandpa?”
“You’re only a year apart,” Marcus said with a genial laugh. “Besides, I think he deserves his moment in the sun.”
“Awesome! It wouldn’t feel right if I had my first challenger and Shelly didn’t get to battle. Come on, then! It’s up to you!”
With that, she hurled her pokeball to the center of the field.
I wanted to giggle. She had a torkoal named Shelly. I wondered what the Team Aqua admin would make of it.
Then, the light faded and her torkoal appeared. I knew very little about fire types, less about torkoal, but Shelly was clearly an exemplary member of his species. He stood only two feet tall but he was dense, with thick, stocky legs covered in an orange-red hide.
His shell, itself a mass of coal, seemed to breathe alongside the turtle. Wisps of smoke came from the top like a volcano. Vents along its surface shone red, then orange, then a blinding white, following the inhale and exhale of Flannery’s starter.
Marcus went through the motions and the battle began in earnest.
Shelly the torkoal was unlike his magmar or houndoom teammates. He did not spew fire or smoke. Instead, he launched an orb of condensed fire type aura straight into the air. It hovered like a second sun, beating down on us with unrelenting rays.
Sunny Day. It was both good and bad news. Good, because it meant Shelly hadn’t quite learned to do it instinctively. Some pokemon could do that, simply change the weather at will to suit them. In my past life, torkoal had been the cornerstone of “sun teams” for this reason. That he needed this artificial sun to enhance the real thing was a sign of his immaturity.
Then again, a weather effect was no less dangerous because it happened to be artificial. The precious seconds he took to use Sunny Day allowed Durvasa to close the distance, but there just wasn’t anything we could do about the move itself.
“Durvasa, end it quickly. Cross Chop!” I called.
He let out a howl of rage as his arms shimmered with power. He launched himself with explosive force, closing the remaining distance and leaving behind deep furrows in the dirt.
But before he could land the blow, Shelly tucked his head into his shell and began to spin. A metallic sheen took over his body at the same time. Durvasa’s attack glanced off. So much of his momentum was conserved and redirected that he nearly went tumbling just from his own attack.
“Iron Defense and Rapid Spin?” I muttered, mostly to myself.
“Yup! Shelly’s damn near untouchable,” Flannery said. “Good luck getting through our defense!”
It was a great combination. Iron Defense enhanced Shelly’s already impressive natural protection. With Rapid Spin’s rotation, the shape of his shell became the perfect way to redirect most attacks. Flannery’s torkoal could probably discourage most pokemon without ever attacking.
Yet, Durvasa was a primeape. Her comment only stoked his determination more. He rushed back in with every intention of smashing that shell open even if that was the last thing he’d do.
Shelly the torkoal was slow, not passive. Even as he deflected Durvasa’s fists, heat built up in the core of his shell. We both knew the exact moment the lava-tortoise blew his top.
Before I could warn him, my primeape was already moving. His wrath was briefly overtaken by the yellow of fear as instinct blared. He kicked the ground, launching himself back with a desperate screech. Shelly quite literally erupted in a burst of smoke, fire, and more molten rock than should have been logically possible.
Lava Plume, it could be no other move. The molten liquid rocketed into the air, raining down like a crimson geyser. It reminded me a little of a child’s baking soda volcano, except there was nothing funny or cute about this. And still, the turtle spun on his shell. That centrifugal force launched the lava further, forcing Durvasa into desperate dodges.
“Deflect what you can with Fire Punch!” I shouted.
He shrieked his defiance at the mini-eruption. Fists cast in flame, he backpedaled swiftly even as he punched molten blobs out of the air.
But that wasn’t a true answer. Protect? No, that meant standing still. It’d be a fatal mistake here. Detect was well and good, but knowing an attack was coming and being able to evade it were different matters entirely. Durvasa tried his best, but I saw several globules of lava reach him after splattering against the ground.
“Hah! You didn't think we'd just sit there, did you?” Flannery called with a triumphant smirk.
“Of course not, but you can't keep it up forever,” I said calmly. “Durvasa, harry with Swift. Don't bother closing.”
“Prime,” he grunted in agreement. He’d been driven to the last quarter of the battlefield, far from Flannery’s ace.
He punched the air, letting loose a salvo of golden stars. At the same time, he winced in pain; some of the lava must have gotten to him. With Dribble's earlier Fire Spin and the artificial sun in the air, I couldn’t blame him. The pain must have been debilitating.
Still, the burns did not weaken his resolve. If anything, pain was just another motivator for someone like Durvasa. His empathic aura spiked with rage and determination, only to condense into an almost solid shell around him. Teaching him to meditate when he was a mankey was paying dividends now.
The golden stars arced beautifully towards the torkoal. Shelly did not seem worried. He slowed for a moment and the lava spout cut out. Then, he picked up speed once again, raising Iron Defense to parry the stars.
I made a note of it. As devastating as Lava Plume was, he obviously couldn’t use it in conjunction with Iron Defense. Or maybe, he needed to recharge the fire type aura he’d expended. It made sense; using two type energies simultaneously was no easy thing; I knew that from training Artoria.
The rotation caused yet another problem, however. Shelly bit into the ground, not unlike a rounded drill bit. After all this spinning, he sat in a concave crater. It wasn’t deep, but the incline was enough that lava, being fluid, began to flow towards him. He’d quite literally surrounded himself with a small pond of molten stone.
“Heh, like it?” Flannery bragged. “You’re playing our game now, Aaron. Shelly, stop spinning and return fire with Flamethrower!”
I bit the inside of my cheek. She was right; this match hadn’t gone my way at all. From a magmar that liked generating gas explosions to a houndoom’s natural advantages over a kirlia, I’d been disadvantaged this entire match. Now, here was a torkoal with a battle strategy that seemed tailor-made to foil close-quarters specialists like Durvasa.
I watched as my primeape was backed into a corner. Swift was repelled effortlessly. Durvasa was more than acrobatic enough to avoid a Flamethrower at this range, but he simply had no way to hurt the torkoal.
The torkoal spun and I had an idea. It’d be suicidal for a human, but… Durvasa wasn’t human.
“Hey, Durvasa, how badly do you want to pummel that turtle?” I asked.
“Primeape!” he howled.
“Heh, yeah, I figured. You’re going to have to get burned, no other way around it.”
“Prime.” Acknowledgement. About as close to, “No shit, really?” as pokespeak could get.
“You know what? You’re right. Let’s go punch it. Full throttle! Don’t stop for anything! Deck that smug turtle if it’s the last thing you do!”
Durvasa let out an eager howl, as much to psyche himself up as to intimidate. He rushed forward with explosive force. He skipped over a puddle of lava, ducked past a Flamethrower, and circled around to avoid a surprise Rock Tomb that burst beneath his feet.
I could see it now. That torkoal would become a menace, more of one than it already was. If I remembered right, they could learn Earth Power on top of their fire type arsenal. I had a feeling Flannery planned on making use of both rock and ground type moves to abuse the lava pools Shelly could make.
My primeape took several hits where Detect failed, but he eventually reached his target. He was flagging, practically on his last leg, but I would never have known that about him had I not the ability to see emotions. He followed a simple formula: Burns became pain. Pain became anger. Anger became fuel for the fight. Everything else was secondary to pummeling the torkoal.
Shelly let out a yelp of surprise before he ducked his head into his lava-soaked fortress. He began to rotate in place as steel type aura gathered around his shell once more.
“That’s it, Shelly! Spin to win! Don’t let them intimidate you!” Flannery shouted.
“Low Kick! Knock him out of his pool!” I called back.
Durvasa dipped into a picture-perfect soccer slide. He let out a howl of pain as he dunked his foot into the lava moat. Even so, he persisted. The attack made contact and the torkoal found himself launched from his moat in a random direction.
He didn’t need to be told to follow his opponent. He did an admirable job of ignoring his scorched foot and launched himself into the air.
“Meet him head on, Shelly! Flame Wheel!” Flannery said. She was grinning, confident in her starter’s natural toughness.
I laughed. That was exactly what we wanted. “Good! Now punch with the spin!”
I saw the exact moment Durvasa understood my plan. That spark of vindictive sadism was like a lighthouse that cut through the fog of his rage.
Fire coated his hands again. It made his punches hurt the torkoal less because it replaced his fighting type aura with an element the torkoal was resistant to, but that was okay. The fire protected him somewhat for what he had to do next. The goal wasn’t to hurt Shelly; it was to keep him spinning.
He hit Shelly along the side, seemingly glancing off. The blow transferred his considerable strength to the torkoal’s centrifugal force, making him spin faster. Again and again, he did this, until Shelly lost control of his own momentum and slammed into the ground.
Here, Durvasa got his first real strike on the little guy. It was a downward hammerblow, filled with all the frustration and pain. He spiked the little turtle into the dirt with enough force to crater it. No matter how sturdy Shelly’s shell was, there was no way he didn’t feel that.
“Lava Plume again, Shelly!” Flannery shouted.
“Flip him!” I shouted back. This was it, my hail mary. I had to pray that my primeape still had the mental faculty to connect the dots.
The way I saw it, there were three possibilities:
First, Shelly could get dizzy. There was a difference between quick bursts of rotation and being chucked like a hockey puck by an enraged primeape. I figured that the turtle would leave himself open eventually.
Second, Shelly could suffocate. Flame Wheel wasn’t something I’d predicted. Usually, it was a move used by speedier pokemon like arcanine. Yet, it paired perfectly with Rapid Spin, a way to turn his defense into something more aggressive.
But fire ate oxygen. That basic law of chemistry didn’t change. Surrounding himself in a wheel of fire, then spinning nonstop, even a well-trained fire type like Shelly had to have a limit. This too would give Durvasa his chance to get even.
Or third, Shelly would blow up. Overheat. Lava Plume. Even Eruption, if Flannery taught him that. One way or another, he’d try to make distance for himself, if not outright take out my primeape.
Durvasa grabbed the turtle by his hind leg. He dangled the living volcano and slammed him down onto the ground. It didn’t do a damn thing to the durable pokemon, but that wasn’t the point. He didn’t need to hurt the turtle, just make him hurt himself.
The lava built up quickly. Now that I knew to expect it, I was impressed at how fast Shelly could pressurize his body. It couldn’t have been easy, especially not with Durvasa swinging him about like a flail.
Then, the vents on his shell began to steam and Durvasa knew that time was up. He smashed the turtle, shell-first, into the ground one last time, burying the shell into the dirt as firmly as he could. He then hopped onto Shelly’s stomach.
I cackled at the ridiculous sight. That was a very smart monkey. It stood to reason that the least flammable object on the battlefield was the one doing the erupting.
“This is such bullshit,” I heard Flannery mutter.
We watched Shelly’s stumpy, little legs wiggle helplessly in the air. He tried. He thrashed as best he could in an attempt to dislodge the ape on his stomach.
The turtle was a valiant fighter, determined and well-trained. Alas, he had nothing on Durvasa’s sheer, rage-fueled strength. He just could not free himself in time.
I couldn’t help it. I shot the budding gym leader my best, shit-eating grin. “No, Flannery, this is monkey business.”
Shelly the torkoal finally lost control of the cocktail building in his shell. Amidst Flannery’s audible groans, he erupted. There was a deafening boom as the wave of lava met the unforgiving ground. Smoke, dust, and molten earth shot out in every direction.
For that matter, so did the two pokemon. They launched into the air, just like a rocket’s liftoff. Superheated air blew up a column of smoke that obscured them.
When the smoke cleared, I found Durvasa on his back, completely dead to the world. He’d knocked himself out cold, his opponent’s foot still grasped in his unrelenting grip. Even unconscious, my primeape didn’t know how to quit.
I couldn’t be more proud.
“Well, I guess that’s my second pokemon gone,” I said, still chuckling. I held out my pokeball to recall him. “Please tell me you sell burn salves here.”
“For a show like that? It’s on the house,” Marcus said with a grandfatherly smile. “That was the most interesting way anyone’s ever countered Shelly’s Lava Plume.”
“Yeah, for sure. It won’t work again, though,” Flannery swore. “Grandpa, I’m recalling Shelly. There’s no way he can fight whatever Aaron’s third pokemon is.”
I sighed in disappointment at that. “Are you sure? Jeanne’s a flaaffy. She’s much nicer than Durvasa.”
“Quite sure. Shelly’s going to need some extensive mineral treatments as it is. Your primeape is a savage.”
“He’s also scarily smart.”
“That too. But a trick we’ve seen once won’t work again.”
“Of course not. I’d be disappointed in you if it did,” I said, nodding. “And don’t think Durvasa won’t have a better ranged option next time. I’m thinking Focus Blast. Vacuum Wave, maybe. Oh, and Earthquake, of course.”
“Yeah? I’ll look forward to it,” she said with a challenging glint in her eyes. I knew then that there absolutely would be a next time. Even if I had go out of my way to return, I’d come back just to bury her turtle into the dirt again.
“As delightful as it is to watch young rivalries form, the badge, my dear,” Marcus coughed pointedly.
“O-Oh, right! Ahem! Aaron Fulan, you were victorious in your gym challenge. As gym leader of Lavaridge City, I present to you the Heat Badge,” the redhead said, voice lowered to sound extra-official.
I took the badge with a grateful nod. “I’m honored. It was a worthy battle. Although, maybe practice that in the mirror, hmm? You sound constipated.”
“I do not!”
I smiled as I plucked Larvesta from Magellan’s head. She was practically vibrating with energy, both from the artificial sun and the excitement of the battle. That was good; it would have been a damn shame to find out that my larvesta had no interest in combat.
Durvasa got the fight of his life. I got my badge, and a rival who was fun to tease. Soon, I’d get to pick Marcus Moore’s brain about raising fire types. Truly, today was off to a great start.
Author’s Note
Closing out the battle. Jeanne didn’t get to do anything this time, but that’s okay.
I hope Flannery’s fighting style made her out to be a truly talented trainer. Given her grandfather, I had a lot of freedom to give her better strategies and customized moves to suit each pokemon. In my mind, that kind of training and individualized instruction is what makes a gym so valuable, and why type specialists tend to have an easier go of things.
Durvasa is basically a barbarian. He’ll rage and ignore shit that hurts him so long as it lets him hurt his opponent. Now that he’s evolved, he has the durability to do this, at least for a while.
Animal Fact: Australia truly is a fever dream. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of another place where dogs can become stoners.
For context, cane toads are an invasive species introduced to Australia and native to South America. They were introduced in 1935 to control pests in sugarcane fields. Per usual, they got out, fucked, and bred like only creatures with functionally zero predators can. It’s not unheard of for a jogger and their dog to encounter one.
Dogs, being curious, will lick or nip at basically anything. Cane toads, like many toads, secrete poison. For whatever reason, this milky-white poison is sweet, or smells sweet to dogs. So now, Australia has dogs that lick cane toads for sweetness, then get absolutely smashed off the poison.
Symptoms can include drooling, slimy gums, pawing at the mouth, vomiting, increased heart rate, muscle tremors, loss of coordination, dilated pupils, or even seizures. It is fatal in sufficient doses. Vets have reported that some dogs have become addicted.
And, dogs are pretty smart, right? Some of these dogs are learning to control their dosage through experience. They’re licking enough to get high, but not enough to make themselves really sick.
So, there you go. Australia has stoner dogs.