Chapter 38:  Shady Surprises (Part B) by Michael Keens/ Exodus  

“You shouldn’t be here.” threatened Sansuke.  
“Get him honoured brother.” taunted Iya.  
“He is no thief, I have battled him before out of choice, I know him to be 
honourable.  He’ll cause no trouble, but I still ask you to leave.” explained 
Sansuke.  
“What are you talking about, this is a Gym, and unless you close it down, you 
have to battle every trainer that challenges you, I presume that girl is the 
Gym Leader?” I said.  
She looked nervous upon my saying so.  
“I am Janine, daughter of Master Koga, and its your fault your life was in 
danger.”  
“You came in the back way, didn’t you?” questioned Sansuke, “We didn’t get 
around to sealing off that area, its been hectic lately.”  
“Well I’m here now, and I think I deserve a Gym Battle.”  
“This Gym is under construction, and the Official Gym Leader is not here right 
now.” explained Iya.  
“Dad’s been promoted, and moved to a larger Gym in the next country, leaving us 
to clean up the mess from a recent attack by delinquent trainers, that’s why 
this place is so dangerous.”  
“I accept the fact that the deadly dangers weren’t intentional, but I refuse to 
leave without a battle.  This Koga might not be around, but surely his daughter 
has taken over, or does Sansuke now represent the Gym?”  
“Leave Janine out of this, she is next in line to be a Gym Leader, but I will 
not let you battle her...  I shall fight in her place.”  
“Thank you Sansuke.”  
“Let’s just take this outside, its not safe to be battling here...”  

Shortly after, we were standing out in the garden, surrounded by tall walls, 
and the mansion itself.  
“We’ll battle with three Pokémon, agreed?”  
“Yes, Go! Needle!”  
“Go Trance!”  
“NIDO!!!” roared Needle.  
“Hypno...” said Trance menacingly, it looked like Sansuke had trained this one 
a lot, this wasn’t a good start, if Needle couldn’t pummel it down quickly, its 
Psychic attacks would beat it silly.  
“Needle, use Horn Attack!”  
“NIDO!!!” he roared, charging forward.  
Anyone could be scared of this Pokémon, but I knew him better, he was just 
letting off steam, and maybe trying to intimidate the opponent.  
He clumsily ran forward, but the Hypno leapt over him and pounded him in the 
process.  
“Poison Sting!”  
He swung his tail and let out many sharp sticks of poison, some hit the Hypno, 
but it looked like it was concentrating so that poison didn’t affect it.  
“Trance, use your Disable attack, and then Meditate.”  
Smart move, freezing Needle to give it a breather, but it didn’t last too long 
before he was free and charging.  
“Fury Attack!”  
“NIDO!!!”  
The Hypno was knocked down, it picked itself up, but my Nidoking rammed its 
face into the floor, lifted it up, and punched it upwards, finishing up with 
two more punches while the opponent was in mid-air, it fell down hard, bringing 
up a lot of dust.  
“I think you might have done it Needle, well, overdone it actually.”  
“Head Butt!”  
The angry Hypno flung itself at Needle, hitting it in the face rather hard, 
causing both Pokémon to fall back in pain.  
Needle shook his head to the sides, feeling dizzy from the Head Butt, it did 
that sometimes, and the Hypno took full advantage by throwing Needle into one 
of the walls with the power of its mind:  Confusion attack.  
“Use your Leer!”  
Needle glared hard and angrily at the opponent, but it didn’t even see those 
eyes thanks to a Poison Gas attack, specifically to block the fear-inducing 
attack.  
“Use your Focus Energy, and then use your Thrash attack!”  
“NI-DO-KING!!!” he roared, charging all his energy into the next attack.  
“Keep using Confusion!”  
“Thrash it! It can’t stand up to your strength!”  
Needle ran forward, receiving the occasional shocking blast of psychic rays, 
but not stopping his movement.  
Four, five hits of Confusion were dealt before he reached the opponent, and 
started laying into him much more than before, punching, clawing, hitting, 
ramming, it was very hard to watch.  
A final blow was dealt, and Needle stared at the large dust cloud that swept up 
upon Trance’s landing, ready to go at it again should he have stood up to the 
attacks.  
He didn’t get the chance, as a blue ray shot out and surrounded Needle, lifting 
him up into the air, and producing a screaming, screeching thundering sound as 
a huge flash of light dealt a blow of psychic damage.  
The Nidoking fell to the floor, tried to get up, but a Hypnosis attack made him 
collapse, and the Dream Eater that followed sucked out the last available bit 
of health to regenerate the Hypno.  
I could see the amazed look on Abby’s face, seeing as she owned a Hypno 
herself, the Psychic attack was one of the most powerful ones I’d seen, and I 
couldn’t help thinking we could have dominated this match if we’d just attacked 
some more instead of holding back.  
“Return Needle...  I’m sorry...”  
“Return Trance.  As you can see, I have trained Trance since that day, now he 
is one of my strongest Pokémon.  And I see you’ve taken my advice, but not 
quite.”  
“Excuse me?”  
“I once told you that you and your Pokémon can’t hold back, that they must be 
prepared to battle to the bitter end, you’ve done that, but you worry about 
your opponents.  Pokémon are very able creatures, and its the trainer’s 
responsibility to judge if their Pokémon is unable to battle, not their 
opponents.  You’d do well to remember that, or you will most certainly lose.”  
I said nothing, but I appreciated the advice, I’d need it to beat Sansuke and 
win my final Gym Badge.  
“No holding back.  Go Spectre!”  
“Gen-Gar!!!”  
“Ah, a Ghost Pokémon, and a Poison one too, this is why I trained Trance, to 
stop those who thought their Poison Pokémon could beat ours.  Trance, use-”  
“Night Shade!”  
“Huh?!”  
Spectre was quick, and shot a dark sphere towards the opposition, causing an 
explosion of black, the Hypno came tumbling out damaged, and flung another 
psychic blast forward.  
Spectre spun back hurt, but recovered, and shot down at the opponent, its eyes 
changing to red.  
“Hyp-”  
“Nice Confuse Ray Spectre, now use Lick it!”  
The large tongue literally scraped across the Hypno’s face, and it turned 
slightly blue, the paralysis taking effect.  
“Finish it! Psychic attack!”  
“Gen-Gar!!!”  
“Hyp-Noooo!!!” screamed Trance, flying backwards and spinning at all angles 
until it hit the floor.  
Sansuke sighed, “Return Trance.  Now that’s more like it, I think the next two 
battles will be enjoyable.  Go Fume.”  
“Weez-Zing!!!”  

“Weezing, the Poison Gas Pokémon.  When two Koffings fuse together, they become 
a Weezing who live and grow by absorbing dust, germs and poison gases that are 
contained in toxic waste and garbage.”  

“Weezing...” I pondered, big floating Pokémon with the explosive values of an 
Electrode, but with a broad range of Poison attacks, we could do this...  
“Fume, use your Smog and Poison Gas attacks!”  
A disgusting smelly cloud filled the area first, and then the Weezing started 
spewing black putrid sludge around.  
“Spectre?” I shouted, I couldn’t see him anywhere.  
“Gar!!!” he yelled, reappearing and using Confuse Ray on the Weezing.  
Both heads looked shocked, and started to float around irrationally.  
“Gen Gar Gar Gar...” sneered Spectre, before the Weezing flung itself at him.  
“Tetsubo.” warned Abby, but I said nothing, as the Weezing passed right through 
and hit the ground, only damaging itself.  
“Abby, Normal-type attacks are useless against Ghost Pokémon, but 
unfortunately, vice versa.”  
“Grrrr, We can do this, just use Haze!”  
“Bingo baby.” I grinned, and Sansuke gave me a suspicious gaze.  
I pointed to Spectre, coughing a lot, he’d hid it for this long that he had 
become poisoned despite his Poison side, but that would be cured.  
There were a lot of rumours about how Haze worked, but the Pokémon that had 
used it recently could cure status changes of both Pokémon despite what the 
text books said.  
Both Pokémon were back to normal, and the Weezing used a Smoke Screen, clouding 
the arena again and forcing me to act on intuition.  
“Use your Night Shade!”  
“Weez!!!” yelled the Weezing, flying upwards, followed by Spectre, who 
practically teleported above it, and grinned, before a powerful Psychic attack 
was unleashed.  
“Weeeeeezzzz!!!...” yelled the Weezing as it plummeted.  
“Weezing! Use your Sludge attack!”  
A mouthful of black goo was spat upwards, and splashed on Spectre’s face, while 
the Weezing, still damaged by Psychic, was pushed all the way down, and hit the 
floor before it could start floating again.  
“Weez...”  
Sansuke recalled it, the smoke cleared, and Spectre lowered itself down, 
blinded by the black liquid in his eyes.  
I was about to recall it when I saw Sansuke drawing his final Pokémon 
confidently, and then I reconsidered, “Spectre, I need you to do some damage 
before you rest.”  
“Go, Venom!!!”  
“Ch’arbok-ar!” screamed the fierce snake, the one that I’d lost to in the 
past.  
Abby noticed my anxiety and tried to comfort me, “Its an Arbok, so what? You’ve 
beaten them before.”  
“There’s only one difference, this one beat me.”  
“Go Venom! Use your Poison Sting!”  
“Descend Spectre, and use Psychic attack!”  
“Quickly Dig!”  
The needles missed, the psychic blast missed, and the burrowing attack missed 
too, thanks to Spectre rising into the air, except the Arbok fell back into the 
ground like a sandworm, and immediately shot up, directly underneath Spectre 
this time.  
Before I could register this was happening and warn my Gengar, he was hit, by 
the Arbok and by many pieces of earth.  
Now I shot the recall laser and dragged him inside, a blinded Gengar couldn’t 
beat a speedy Arbok with Dig attack.  
I thought about my last Pokémon, surely Psychot could win this, but that was 
the obvious choice, and Sansuke was tricky, even with the type advantage, he’d 
find a way around it.  
I thought back to my last battle, how my Pidgeotto beat his Hypno, but lost to 
the Arbok, followed by Dusty, but then again, he had grown up now, and learned 
some Psychic attacks, Sansuke would probably underestimate it.  
“Its time to redeem yourself, I choose Dusty!”  
“Veno-Moth!...  Moth?!” squealed Dusty, noticing the opponent to be the same 
Arbok that had beaten him, and he’d developed a fear of Arboks since, I 
remembered how Jessie of Team Rocket nearly beat us because of that fear.  
“Dusty, you can do this, you’re stronger now, we’ve been training a lot since 
that battle and you’ve got a Psychic attack now.  You’ll never become a great 
Pokémon if you let one little loss hold you back for the rest of your life.  I 
promise, I’ll look out for you and do the best job I can to secure a victory.”  
“Moth.” he nodded, and slowly floated to face the opponent.  
“Ch’ar!” it screamed, charging forward.  
“Ah good, a Pokémon that I’ve previously battled, this battle will prove if 
you’ve become a better trainer in my eyes.”  
“I promise you I will.”  
“Wrap that Venomoth, crush it like a Bug-type.”  
“Ch’ar!”  
Dusty froze up, and was easy pickings for the snake to tangle it.  
“Dusty! You can’t freeze up like that, you have to follow my advice!” I called 
out.  
“Ch’ar...” sneered the Arbok, opening its mouth and showing its fangs.  
“Its gonna bite you, use Stun Spore!!!” I shouted.  
“Veno... Moth!!!” squealed Dusty, unleashing the spores at close range so that 
the Arbok became paralysed.  
“Now use Psybeam!”  
“Moth!”  
“Ch’ar!!!”  
Sansuke growled a little, “So its learnt a Psychic attack, this battle is an 
even set-up, either of us can win.”  
I nodded, and turned to the Arbok, bravely fighting the dust’s effects, and 
overcoming it.  
“Venom, use your Leer.”  
“Ch’ar!!!”  
“Don’t look at it! Use Supersonic!”  
“Mooooth!!!” squealed Dusty, emitting a high pitched sound towards the Arbok.  
“Counter it with Screech and Bite!”  
The Arbok started to wail a high pitched sound that was more powerful than 
Dusty’s last move, he fell back from the fright, and was then bitten by the 
Arbok.  
Dusty fell back and looked petrified and hurt.  
“Dusty, hang in there, I know you can beat this if we try.”  
“Use your Acid attack!”  
“Confusion!”  
The dark green liquid was caught in the Psychic-type forcefield, and redirected 
at the Arbok.  
“Ch’arrrr!!! Ch’aaarrr!!!” it wailed in pain.  
“Don’t give in to pain, use Dig, we can use that to beat its Poison side!” 
shouted Sansuke.  
It quickly burrowed in and would surely hit Dusty if I didn’t do something.  
“Use your Gust attack and rise up!”  
With a quick flapping of its wings, Dusty rose up, just as the Arbok burst out 
and rose upwards with many pieces of the ground, but the winds caused by Dusty 
blew them down, onto the Arbok.  
“Nice one Dusty!” I cheered.  
“You can do it.” added Abby.  
“CH’AR!!!” shouted Venom, rising from the rubble and gaining a surprising 
amount of height for a snake.  
“Bite it!” shouted Sansuke.  
“Disable!” I yelled.  
“Ch’a-” said the Arbok, its body frozen, and now plummeting.  
“Glare!”  
My Venomoth froze up, but because of the specific use of the attack, not 
because of fear.  
“Poison Sting!”  
“Come on Dusty, you can overcome that paralysis!”  
“Veno...  Moth!” cheered Dusty, breaking free of the hold slipping to the side 
to avoid the needles.  
The Arbok crashed down and Dusty followed after it, now confident in its 
abilities.  
“Acid!”  
“Down!”  
Another miss for the Arbok.  
“Wrap it!”  
“Back away!”  
The Arbok lunged forward and smacked down on the floor.  
At last, it showed signs of weakness.  
“Use your Leech Life!”  
“Ch’ar!!!” wailed the Arbok, falling back and launching a sneaky Poison Sting, 
the needles hitting Dusty and nailing its wings to a tree.  
“So close, but it’ll take more than your Psybeam to beat Venom.”  
“Only one chance, please tell me you’ve got enough experience...  Dusty! Try 
your Psychic attack!” I ordered after putting faith in Dusty’s development.  
“Veno... MOTH!!!”  
“Ch’ar? CH’AR!!!” wailed the Arbok, caught in my Pokémon’s grasp, the blue 
light lifted it into the air, before several white lines of energy surrounded 
and converged, shooting into the Arbok all at once.  
When the bright light had stopped, Dusty was free and fluttering around 
happily, while the Arbok lay on the floor unconscious...  

“Venom...” said Sansuke in disbelief, “You have surprised me Tetsubo, I didn’t 
think anyone could beat my Arbok, especially not one that I have beaten 
before.”  
“I said I’d prove myself, and now you can give me a reward.” I replied 
cheerfully.  
“I suppose so, but what could we offer you?...”  
“Um, I thought a Gym Badge would be enough.”  
“Oh, is that what you’ve been battling for?...” questioned Janine nervously.  
“Uh, huh.” I said slowly, “This Is a Gym, right, I beat your representative 
and earned a Gym Badge.”  
“I wish it were so, you deserve a badge, you truly do.  But we cannot give you 
one.” said Sansuke nervously.  
“But-”  
“When I opted to fight for Janine, it wasn’t to battle in her place, it was to 
protect her.”  
“With my father being promoted and the Gym being ransacked, we’ve been behind 
schedule.  I’m still training to be qualified as a Gym Leader.” said Janine 
sadly.  
“Janine is not allowed to battle trainers for badges without the proper 
qualifications, if she did battle you, it would jeopardise all her studies and 
training.  I’m sorry...”  
“And without a Gym Leader, a representative cannot give out a Gym Badge either, 
I understand...” I spoke sadly.  
“Perhaps you should head towards the Cinnabar Gym, you might have more of a 
chance of battling for a badge there.” explained Sansuke, trying to be helpful 
despite this situation.  
“Thanks anyway Sansuke.”  
“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, don’t disappoint me Tetsubo.” said Sansuke as 
we were leaving.  
“You don’t have to worry about that...” I replied.  

It didn’t take long to find our way back home, I’d sometimes approached the Gym 
when I was young, so I knew how to get back to my home from there.  
There wasn’t anyone in the city, except for Blossom at her lab, which I’d 
promised to visit.  
“I’m disappointed Tetsubo, you battled so hard, and for nothing.” offered 
Abby.  
“Not quite nothing, Dusty really needed that victory, and now it can get on 
with its life without feeling bad about its loss months ago.” I explained.  
“You’re always right.” sighed Abby happily.  
“Nah, if I was, we wouldn’t have endangered ourselves at that Gym.” I grinned.  
We laughed among ourselves as I opened the door to see Blossom standing 
directly in front of me.  
“Tetsubo, you’re late.” she said.  
“I’m sorry Blossom, I was sidetracked, what’s the problem though? Does it 
really make a difference.” I asked suspicious.  
“Its just that you were being expected.” added Blossom.  
“Expected? By who?”  
And with that, Blossom moved aside, and my eyes widened.  
Sitting at the table and sipping coffee, a figure turned to me and gave me a 
strange gaze.  
“Emily...”  

End of Chapter 38B  

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