Chapter 52:  First Fights (Part B) by Michael Keens/ Exodus  

Shortly after my match was over, and I felt much better, I walked down the 
stairs of the Grass Field, but was way too late for Carrie’s match, 
unfortunately, since there were 256 trainers competing, many matches were set 
to run simultaneously in order to lower the number by half within four days.  
Since my match was over early during the first day, I now had time to see some 
of my friends’ matches.  
I sighed as I’d missed Carrie’s match, we’d met a couple of times but I’d hoped 
to become better friends with her, but I gasped slightly as I noticed Emily out 
on the field, against a bug catcher we’d met long ago.  
“And Emily’s Beedrill performs just as well as her swift Marowak, not letting 
up on Chris’s Venomoth!” yelled the excited voice of the commentator.  

Little Buzzer was jabbing away like there was no tomorrow, and its opponent, a 
Venomoth couldn’t keep up with it by dodging, and was grazed.  
“Come on Venomoth, win this for Parasect!” called Chris, “Sorry Babe but I’ll 
take this back, but if it makes you feel better you can go out with me to 
celebrate.”  
“Sorry Hon’, you have to be at least this tall to date me.” smiled Emily, 
raising her hand just above her, “Besides, I’ve already got a love interest.”  
With that her Beedrill darted forward and pinned the Venomoth’s wings to the 
ground with its front needles, it was soon recalled.  
“A stunning end to one frenzy of a battle, now Chris must draw his final 
Pokémon.”  
“Go Pinsir!” he shouted, and the Pinsir appeared, and leapt forward, trapping 
the Beedrill in its claws, it appeared that the Beedrill had been affected by 
poison from its last opponent, and its strength left it.  
“Go Tails!”  
“Nine!”  
The Ninetales immediately emitted a cry, but the Pinsir was less than 
intimidated, and buzzed past her, leaving a large gash from its horns.  
It came charging round again and then leapt up, its stance changing to cut down 
the Ninetales in one hit.  
She stood where she was and locked eyes with the Pinsir, who mistook the next 
attack for fear.  
Beams shot out of her eyes and hit the Pinsir’s, turning its world around in 
his head so that it tumbled down hard several times, cracks formed in its horns 
and they got stuck in the ground, leaving it upside down.  
“We’ve got a free attack Tails, use Flamethrower!”  
“Nine!” she squealed, fire quickly shooting out.  
“Swords Dance!” called Chris, and the Pinsir twisted its body back, and spun 
itself, the horns broke apart the soil that held it and it managed to free 
itself, it dodged the Flamethrower and in the process enhanced its attack 
power, although the Flamethrower did brush across its back.  
The Pinsir grounded its feet, held its arms out and closed its eyes.  
“Its using Focus Energy, Tails! Quick Attack!”  
The Ninetales shot forward and pushed her weight against the Pinsir, but this 
made its eyes shoot open and anger it.  
It reached out and grabbed a handful of tails, and then yanked her back, 
according to most Pokédex entries, doing this resulted in a curse.  
The Pinsir pulled Tails in front of it, and then its other arm rose and 
uppercutted her, both Pokémon landed on the floor hard due to the nature of 
Submission attack.  
The Pinsir recovered first and charged forward once more, grabbing Tails by the 
neck and lifting both of them up to finish the match with Seismic Toss.  
“If he gets another hit in, its all over.  Tails! Fire Spin!”  
The Ninetales positioned her head with difficulty, and blew a swirl of fire 
directly underneath them, it quickly rose up and magnified, and surrounded the 
two in searing heat.  
The Ninetales wasn’t fazed and spun around to bring down all nine tails on the 
Pinsir.  
The tornado dissipated, and the Pinsir landed face first on the floor, it 
struggled to get up, its arms quivered weakly, and the Pinsir fainted.  
“An impressive last battle but the Red Trainer Emily wins the match! I’m sure 
everyone looks forward to her next battle.”  
Emily had a relieved and cheerful look as she recalled her Pokémon and waved to 
the crowd.  

I left the arena in the hopes of running into her but must have missed her, 
seeing as it took ten minutes to leave what with the number of people in the 
audience.  
“Would Trainers Chad Masters and Team Couple please report to the Grass Field, 
your match begins in ten minutes.” called yet another female voice.  
“Chad’s up, I might as well get a seat for that.” I shrugged, and reentered the 
Grass Field arena...  

At around the same time, Abby stepped into the Ice Field arena and calmly 
stepped up to the trainer platform.  
“And here’s yet another new trainer who’s appearing in her first League Match 
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Red Trainer Abby, who’s sponsored by one of the 
oldest Pokémon professors, Professor Yew, he’s been known to select trainers 
with lots of potential so we should be in for a great opening match.”  
“Thank you Scott.” muttered Abby, “Without you I wouldn’t have the opportunity 
to battle, good luck to you...”  
“And her opponent the Green Trainer is an old competitor who’s battled here 
twice before, Mr Hatt.”  
Abby glared forward at the opponent, an old moustached man wearing a smart 
black coat and top hat, it was the man that had given her inaccurate directions 
towards the League.  
“Hey, you’re the guy that led me and my friends astray.” Abby called out.  
The audience couldn’t hear them as it was difficult to hear any trainers in the 
arenas here, that’s why there was a commentator who generally recognised 
attacks as they were performed in order to notify the crowds and the people 
watching the League at home on television.  
“Uh huh, its too bad you found your way here in time, I might have been able to 
skip this match and move on.”  
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”  
“Yes, I led three trainers into the old Victory Cave in the hopes they wouldn’t 
make it to the League in time, I generally select trainers that look like they 
could prove to be a problem for me, but I usually do this to many more than I 
was able to.”  
“You’ll be no challenge, you’re obviously scared of trainers beating you, so 
you have to lower down the competition, but guess what, its a lousy technique, 
unless you go for a world record in leading trainers astray, you’ve still got 
to survive eight rounds, if you feared me even before you saw me in action, 
then you’ll surely not beat me.”  
“We shall see...  Go Porygon!”  
“Go Pixie...”  

Earlier on, Scott’s match had been happening out on the Rock Field, against a 
punk with a red Mohawk and black leather clothing.  
“You stand no chance against me Scotty!” he shouted, “I’ve done nothing but 
train since I last saw you, why’d you leave the gang?”  
“Didn’t Davis’s death mean anything to you?!” he shouted back, “It made me see 
things a little more clearly.”  
“So what? You’re not good enough for us any more?”  
“Everything just goes in one ear and out the another with you, I won’t return 
to that old life, I’ve got a real, noble purpose now, and you won’t stop me 
from fulfilling it.”  
“Noble, ooh.” teased the punk, “But noble doesn’t get you powerful Pokémon.”  
“On the contrary...”  
Scott’s Dragonite had already tackled a Golem, and won after it wisely took off 
while the Golem blew itself up, but after a beating from a fairly agile 
Weezing, Dragoon had been poisoned and blinded, and Scott decided to withdraw 
it for now, he couldn’t afford to lose.  
“So what’s it gonna be Scotty?”  
“Go Lancer!”  
“Sandslash!”  
Lancer noticed the environment first and the opponent second, and chose to dive 
underground.  
“Weez?” questioned the Weezing, before Lancer dived up from under it and tore 
across it with its long claws.  
“Sludge attack!”  
The Weezing basically vomited out a hunk of putrid black liquid but it splashed 
all over the floor and not on the vanishing Sandslash.  
“Smog!”  
The arena was soon concealed in black smoke shooting out the Weezing’s 
funnels.  
“Its up to you Lancer.” spoke Scott calmly.  
“You what?! Order it!” exclaimed the foe.  
“I don’t have to, I trust my Pokémon to use their own intuition for certain 
situations, good trainers learn to do that.”  
“But I don’t do that and-  Hey!”  
Both trainers turned back to the battle where the fog cleared, and the Weezing 
was practically batted upwards, and then dropped like a bomb, literally.  
“Explosion!” screamed the guy, and Scott’s eyes shot open.  
“Dig!”  
“Slash Sand!” it squealed, digging furiously, unfortunately, the clouds had 
compromised its vision, leaving it no time to locate a previous hole.  
The Weezing came down fast and hard, upon touching down, a huge explosion 
expanded outwards, followed by a spinning Sandslash which crashed through one 
of the large rock heaps.  
It came out stumbling but shook itself off.  
“Choose your last Pokémon well.” patronised Scott, “You can’t use any sacrifice 
techniques or else you’ll lose.”  
“Grrrr, Go Magneton!”  
“MAG-NA-TON!”  
“Heh, piece of cake.” smiled Scott, “Earthquake!”  
The Sandslash focussed and then leapt forward, slammed into the ground with its 
body and sent a tremor forward which exploded under the airborne opponent.  
It rose upward and didn’t experience the full force of the attack.  
“Magneton! Thundershock!”  
“It won’t work.” said Scott firmly.  
“Won’t it?”  
The electricity smashed against the highest rock structure, and caused it 
collapse totally, showering down many stones on Lancer and distracting it.  
“Tackle!”  
By the time Lancer started shielding itself, the Magneton spun behind it and 
rammed it hard, forcing it through the rocks it otherwise would have blocked.  
It splatted against a rock face and sunk down, its energy leaving it.  
“Fissure!” shouted Scott.  
Lancer struck its claws into the ground and a bright cutting rip tore across 
the arena and up a rock structure, but the Magneton had gone airborne to avoid 
it totally.  
“Go after it!”  
“Slash!” it shouted, and did as such, tearing across the Magneton’s metal body, 
but it braced the savage attack and shot many star-shaped projectiles back at 
it, followed by a Sonic Boom attack, and trapping the Sandslash within a 
violent but stationary cyclone.  
Scott could see how dizzy the Sandslash was getting, but it was his only 
advantage against the Electric-type.  
“Sorry Lancer.  Return.”  
“Hah hah!” laughed the opponent.  
“Dragoon, you’d better give it another go.”  
“Booooargh!!!” it wailed, practically flying out of its Pokéball and slamming 
all its weight into the Magneton, who countered by shocking it, continuously.  
Dragoon had blindly dived into attack, but was weakened from its previous 
battle, and so it couldn’t break the electrifying hold.  
“One more hit oughta do it.” noted Scott, “But Dragoon nor Lancer can do it, I 
didn’t want to resort to this, but I have no choice, Go Squirt!”  
Dragoon was withdrawn and Scott’s Poliwhirl dived out.  
“You’re kidding, that little squirt is dust!”  
The Magneton immediately fired its electricity at Squirt, but he was fresh to 
this battle and had the strength to run away.  
This continued for a while, the Magneton buzzing its rays around but coming up 
short.  
“How is this not working?!” yelled Scott’s easily angered enemy, he watched the 
Poliwhirl, now stopping its retreat, standing up to the Magneton, and its swirl 
spinning around.  
“Hypnosis? No way is that gonna work.  Magneton! Sonic Boom!”  
“Hydro Pump!” shouted Scott, which was what the Poliwhirl was attempting 
anyway.  
The combination of water and wind turned the attack into a huge whirlpool 
somehow existing on a rocky field, sand started to be drawn into the attack 
slowly.  
“Now you’re screwed, Thunderbolt!”  
“Run!”  
The electricity not only started to shock the whirlpool, but also pushed it 
forward, and directed it towards Squirt.  
Scott was about to say something, but realised he didn’t have to, Squirt was 
performing as Scott would, and slowly circling the arena but not making it 
obvious.  
It soon ran underneath the Magneton but it wasn’t stupid enough to drag the 
tornado into itself.  
Squirt leapt up from behind and body slammed the Magneton, sending it spinning 
into the storm and shocking it immensely, water draining into it and 
electricity following.  
The Magneton was being shocked into oblivion, its pieces breaking apart and 
littering the floor.  
“Explosion!” shouted its trainer loudly.  
“You fool!” shouted Scott, “Water Gun!”  
As what was left of the Magneton came hurtling down, Squirt blasted it with 
water and forced it high above the arena, without the worry of it being 
electrified.  
A huge explosion erupted over the arena, a little uncontrolled due to the 
damage and possibly dangerous to the audience if not for Scott’s reaction.  
“And with that reckless ending, the Green Trainer Scott wins this first bout, 
and seemingly saves a few people from getting hurt.”  
Scott sighed tiredly before speaking, “Baldwin, you’ve got a long way to go 
before you make it as a trainer...”  
Scott turned his back to the old acquaintance and started walking to the exit, 
as he did, he noticed Carrie sat in the audience, who had seemingly been 
watching the whole match as he did hers.  
He smiled at her, and with a brief nod, was out of view.  

I’d waited around until Chad’s match was due, and then searched throughout one 
area of the arena for any of my friends while he was battling.  
I didn’t find anyone and after several minutes of looking, I gave up, and went 
towards the front rows to take my seat.  
Chad was against a couple of trainers he’d met some time back, I’d missed most 
of the first bout and so took a seat to watch what I could, as I did, I heard 
his Farfetch’d scream out...  

After a failed Sand Attack that was countered by a Victreebel’s Razor Leaf 
attack, it had then dived forward, its leak turning into a flurry of sword 
swipes, the Victreebel was taken back by the assault but managed to catch it 
with its primary vine, a small dose of its energy was sucked out, and then the 
Victreebel threw a hunk of hot acid that splatted over the Farfetch’d and 
defeated it.  
“GO ENTWINE!” Chad shouted, loud enough for me to catch, usually all of a 
trainer’s shouting wouldn’t be picked up by the audience, except in Chad’s 
case.  
“Ge-Laaaa!!!” it squealed, appearing and shooting a wind of purple gas at the 
enemy.  
The Victreebel swept its front leafs round and sent many Razor Leaves forward, 
they contacted the gas and sucked it all in before falling directly down.  
The Tangela shot many vines forward, but so did the Victreebel, ending up in a 
tangled mess where both Pokémon couldn’t move because of the web of green.  
“A standoff.” I noted, before hearing “HYPER BEAM!!!”  
It was surprising, but a good move, as the Victreebel was an easy target, it 
was caught by the extremely powerful shot and the explosion blasted it back, 
forcing it to retract all its vines.  

A roar of cheers went up and the commentators went wild, “A stunning comeback 
from Chad, his opponents must now bring in a new Pokémon.”  
“Go Chad!” I heard, and I immediately turned and scanned the area it had come 
from until I saw both Emily and Abby sitting together a few rows up.  
As I heard a Fearow being called out, I rose up and headed towards the girls, I 
ended up offering my seat closer to the arena to a person sitting on their own 
one seat from my friends, he agreed to it and I soon sat next to Abby.  
“Hi Tetsubo, did you win?” asked Abby before adding, “Of course you did.  I 
wish I could have been there.”  
“Me too, but things turned out alright.  And you?”  
“Yeah, I beat the guy that led us astray, that’ll teach him to cheat.”  
“What about the others?”  
“Well, I know Scott won his battle, and so did Emily there.”  
“That’s great, so all that’s left is Chad.  Abby, could I switch seats with 
you?”  
“Go ahead.”  
Emily was sat next in the row but hadn’t noticed me, since she was cheering 
Chad on.  
“Hey there.” I called.  
“Tetsubo!” she cheered, “I wanted to thank you.  You helped me so much.”  
“I what?”  
“In Viridian City, you really raised my confidence by what you said, I’m going 
to battle just as hard as you.”  
“Emily...  Please don’t say that, I’m really nervous.”  
“But... you won, didn’t you? Please tell me you won...”  
“Yeah I won, but...  Bryan’s here... as a competitor...”  
Emily almost gasped, “Well, have you reported this?”  
“I can’t...  He’s doing this to me again, if I get him kicked out of the 
tournament, then the Rockets will call in some favours and frame me up for 
something rotten.”  

“Oh Tetsubo...  At least you told me this time, but isn’t Bryan cheating?”  
“Pretty much, I can battle him, but he’ll only beat me...”  
The next thing I knew, Emily had pressed a finger against my nose, and flicked 
against it hard, I backed away in surprise, but I suppose it was better than a 
slap on the cheek.  
“Stop it...” she said firmly, looking down at the floor, “I can’t bear to see 
you this way.”  
“What way?”  
“This isn’t you, you can’t back away from the Pokémon League because of one 
person...  You have to stand up to Bryan, beat him at his own game, or at least 
in battle.”  
“But his Pokémon are strong...”  
“Well so are yours! I’ve seen you battle Bryan, even with his enhancements, 
you’ve come close to beating him, you’re a true Pokémon Trainer, if you just 
believe and try hard enough, you can beat him through skill, he relies on his 
enhancements to win his battles while you fight with your head, and your 
heart.  
Please Tetsubo, promise me you’ll believe in yourself and fight your very best, 
even against Bryan...”  
“Emily...” I said, looking deep into her eyes, I might have even kissed her 
there and then if I wasn’t so obsessed about Bryan and the problems he gave me, 
“I promise.  Thank you...”  
She sniffed and wiped her eyes, “Tetsubo, Bryan is all that holds you back from 
being the best you can be, you have to overcome this, or else you’ll always be 
affected by him.”  
The smile on my face satisfied Emily, and we both turned to the remainder of 
the battle.  

It had gone by quickly, but I’d soon hear about it from Chad himself shortly 
after.  
Basically, Chad’s Tangela had put up a good fight against a Flying-type but had 
ultimately lost to the Fearow, but at least it had succeeded in hindering it 
with paralysis, but was then victim to a Drill Peck.  
Now we watched as Chad’s Graveler was digging up chunks of the ground, and 
hurling the hard soil upwards.  
Because of the paralysis from his Tangela’s earlier Stun Spore attack, Chad’s 
opponent wasn’t as swift as it usually could be, and was soon grounded.  
“ROCK SLIDE!!!”  
With that, the Graveler rolled across the floor, but dug into it to raise a 
small hill just ahead of it.  
The Fearow was buried, and then landed on, and its male trainer swiftly 
recalled it, and the female threw out the final Pokéball.  
A Persian now fought against the Graveler, but unexpectedly had been taught to 
use Bubblebeam.  
The blast caught the Graveler off guard, and weakened it heavily, the cat had 
then used Slash attack and dealt a fine hit due to the Graveler’s broken 
armour.  
“MEGA PUNCH!” Chad ordered.  
The Graveler threw a punch in response but the savage cat leapt back.  
I couldn’t hear the orders but they soon became clear, and the Persian 
scattered several coins around the field (from where they came from, I’ll never 
know).  
Chad’s Graveler was temporarily blinded by the assault, and was then victim to 
the Persian’s Bite attack, which left it clinging to its arm and not letting 
go.  
It slammed it down on the floor a couple of times but didn’t manage to release 
it, it only angered it, which led the Persian to scratch the spot where bubbles 
had weakened it, leading it to become an effective Fury Swipes attack.  
“Do something Boulder!” shouted Chad, but not in his so-called heroic voice, 
and the Pokémon complied.  
As the Persian prepared to charge up another Bubblebeam attack despite it being 
attached to the Graveler’s arm, Boulder leapt up, lowered its arm to position 
the Persian underneath it, and dropped.  
The results were successful, but I felt sorry for the Persian having been 
crushed under so much weight.  
As it stumbled away, Chad’s Graveler glowed white, and evolved into a Golem, 
exciting the crowd and pretty much fixing the Water damage from earlier, at 
least enough to raise its strength.  
The Golem rolled forward, and scrunched into a ball in the process, bounced 
over a tiny hill, and slammed the ground, causing a huge Earthquake attack to 
shake the field.  
Finally it lifted up the Persian by grabbing its neck and jumping, and then 
hurled it down hard, ending the match.  

“A terrific comeback from the up and coming Green Trainer Chad, not only does 
he go through to the next round but one of his Pokémon evolves, he should be 
really happy with himself!”  
Pretty much the whole audience cheered out for Chad, he’d constantly acted as 
if people did this all the time for him, but when it actually occurred now, I 
could see he was a little surprised by the attention, but he soon started to 
react to it, doing ridiculous poses and looking very snide about the whole 
thing.  

The first round of the tournament was over for the day, even though there were 
still three more days to hold all of it, but it felt like the end of the first 
round to me since all of my closest friends had succeeded and would go on into 
the next round, to be held in a few days.  
Emily’s words had given me the confidence to fight on despite Bryan probably 
being my opponent sooner or later, but now I would fight with everything I had, 
as long as my friends believed in me.  
I sighed happily, as things felt clear again, “I think everything’s going to be 
alright...”  

End of Chapter 52B  

Back to Chapter 52A
Next Chapter
Back to Story List #41 - #60
Back to the Pokézone