Chapter 54 (Part 1) (Patreon)

Author Note:

Hello! I have two announcements for you.

First off, today’s chapter is only the first part of Chapter 54. Due to writer’s block, I wasn’t able to get the second half into any decent state, but I’d rather post something rather than nothing at all. You’ll get the second half of Chapter 54 alongside Chapter 55 on Wednesday.

Second off, I spent this weekend going back and giving Chapter 48 another shot. That chapter is the one in which Sam battles Edgar. While the outcome is the same, the battle has been adjusted to give Sam a bit more success. I’ve also adjusted his reasoning with Hex, and Edgar’s personality has been tweaked, although he still has a certain, glaring flaw. It's mostly an attempt to increase its quality, so don't feel the need to reread it.

Thank you! The tournament will properly begin on Wednesday!

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A week was spent training. A week was spent practicing moves, testing new strategies, and pushing everyone beyond how much they were usually pushed. Primeape’s attacks could now break almost any surface. Quilava could move with an agility she hadn't been able to move with before. As for Haunter, his Night Shade was definitely battle ready, and as for the Poison Type move he learned—

Well, Sam planned to save that one for the tournament.

Sam initially discovered the Violet City Tournament in a rather abrupt manner, all things considering. Other trainers could have learned about it before, and that would have given them more time to prepare. No victory was guaranteed, but Sam had to say he liked his team's odds. The day before was dedicated to rest, and the night before, they had a picnic to celebrate.

It wasn’t as fancy as eating at an expensive restaurant, and the food wasn’t as good. They bought breads and ingredients from a local grocery store and set up a blanket at the edge of the hill. The area they’d just suffered in for the past week-and-a-half was before them. In the distance, the sun slowly set and cast the sky into shades of red, orange, and purple.

It might not have been that fancy, but it was a peaceful way to simply relax among friends. Quilava munched on a salad, Primeape devoured two hoagies—one held in each hand—and Haunter made himself a sandwich only to pick it apart as if dissecting it. Meanwhile, Ursaring was passed out in a food coma while Porygon sat inside of its calculator, eating programs Redi said had looked “especially tasty,” whatever that meant.

What Sam liked the most about this was that once they were done eating, they could leave this valley of suffering and never come back.

Good riddance.

“You know, I think I'm getting annoyed by the other trainers,” Sam said, sitting back and munching on a sandwich of his own at the edge of the hill.

Redi made a half-hearted attempt to swallow her bite, but there was still food left in her mouth when she spoke.

“Yeah?”

“Like, I don't know. I mean, I've watched you battle literally dozens of people over the past few days, and they're definitely trainers, but it's like they don't know what they're doing? Ugh, no, not like that! They obviously know how to train Pokémon. It's more like...”

Redi finally managed to swallow the rest of her too-large bite.

“They're missing something?” she offered.

“Yeah! It's like they're training Pokémon and that's it. They're not trying to work on a greater strategy. They’re not trying to build the best team. They're just... enjoying themselves. Traveling.”

“Going on a journey, you mean,” Redi said.

Sam nodded, holding his sandwich in his hands and staring at the marks left from his last bite.

Most trainers did try to be Pokémon trainers, but once their journey ended, they stopped. Their Pokémon still stayed with them, though sometimes team members were handed to the Pokémon League to allow them to continue battling if they wanted to. But generally speaking, people moved on to join the workforce or go back to school. They’d get hired. Do a job. Get paid. Battling became a hobby at most.

A few trainers never retired. They kept pushing, and then they’d either become Pokémon Rangers, like Sam's father, or they ended up working under a Gym Leader as a Gym Trainer. The exceptional ones among them received personal training from the League to become Ace Trainers and help keep the region safe. Often, Ace Trainers repeated Gym Circuit runs and competed in high-level tournaments, but the vast majority of people never reached those heights.

They’d just explore a region, make some friends, and then go home and effectively retire.

Sam wasn't sure how many trainers had dropped out at this point. It was about halfway through Johto's nine-month season. Most would have surely earned a few badges by now, but how many planned to keep going? Something about the relative skill level of Redi’s opponents made Sam feel like there'd be a big drop-off, and soon.

Redi took another big bite of her sandwich and managed to swallow all of it this time around.

“Do you have a plan for after your journey?” she asked.

Sam looked up.

“After my journey? I don’t know.”

He was going to be a Ghost Type specialist—no, a Ghost Type master—as he planned to build an unbeatable team. That was his goal. His reason for traveling. The idea of his journey eventually ending was... past him. Ghost Types were forever, and in his mind, he’d always pictured himself as being forever, too.

“Being a Pokémon Ranger doesn’t feel right,” he said slowly. “An Ace Trainer, then? Or maybe I can apply to work in Morty’s Gym. But those feel... limiting. I could try to join the Elite Four?”

Both Hoenn and Kanto had Ghost Type specialists in their Elite Four, but Sam personally felt as if those two trainers didn’t quite line up with how he perceived the Ghost Type. They might have been the top of their class, but even though they were wonderful examples of strong Ghost Type trainers, he didn’t look to them for inspiration.

As he drifted off into thought, Redi grinned, and she brought up her chin to point at herself with her thumb.

“Well, what I’m going to do is enter a bunch of high-profile tournaments with my peak-level team. I’m gonna be one of those wandering, sponsored trainers, but my sponsorship is my family’s company! I’ll travel the world and advertise it, and then everyone is gonna want to hire us!”

“Are you going to work construction with them?” Sam asked.

“Oh, uh, probably. I’m eventually going to inherit the company,” she said. “It wouldn’t make sense to spend all my time away, you know?”

“You could always moonlight as an Ace Trainer,” Sam pointed out.

Redi snorted.

“Yeah, and then I’d have to answer to a greater authority. No thanks. Redi is her own boss.”

Sam chuckled.

“But what about you?” Redi asked. “You gonna take over your mom’s bookstore?”

“I don't— I don't know,” Sam said.

He might as well have been fifteen at this point, but he felt like he was too young to need to plan something so far in the future.

“Whatever,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I don’t really want to talk about this stuff. I’m just looking forward to the tournament tomorrow.”

“Yeah! Oh man, they really don’t know what they’re in for. I think I’m most excited for the higher rounds. You have a plan for larger teams, right?”

“Duh,” Sam easily replied. “Primeape can sweep. Or Quilava. Haunter’s got a few mean tricks, too.”

What was nice about this long training period was that Redi was great at figuring out how to bring out the best in a Pokémon, but her training was more about improving Pokémon at an individual level. Her strength was strength—even for her team right now, there wasn’t much interplay between them outside of being difficult opponents to face on their own.

However, Sam had the New Pokédex behind him, and he’d been honing his strategies by observing battles. It wasn’t just Redi—there were a bunch of people who faced each other behind the Pokémon Center. He was able to figure out a bunch of tricks and counters through taking notes.

Sam’s strength was all about strategy—having his team members play into one another while relying on status moves. While only Primeape could likely face Redi’s Ursaring on his own, Sam knew his team would be able to weaken that bear Pokémon so much that anyone on his team could face it one-on-one and win.

So, Redi was good at building up an individual’s strength, and Sam was good at planning for his team as a whole. On their own, their preparations wouldn’t have been enough. Together? The effect was practically exponential.

“But facing five Pokémon on one team...” Sam said quietly..

Sam only had three members of his team. A disadvantage in numbers became a bigger issue as Pokémon grew in level. It was why Redi chose to sit out this tournament, as two Pokémon did not have the stamina to wear down an entire team.

“You have a plan for a fourth yet?” Redi asked.

Sam sputtered. His encounter with the Misdreavus flashed through his mind.

“No!” he shouted. He quickly cleared his throat to try to recover. “No, I, uh, plan to catch whatever comes my way. No specific plans.”

Quilava looked up from her meal to look at him funny. Sam hadn't told her or anyone else about Misdreavus yet. Something about how that encounter felt private. Like it wasn't his place to tell anyone about whatever issues that Ghost Type might be having.

It’d been days since the wild Pokémon appeared in that private space. Now that he looked back on it, Misdreavus just seemed so... sad.

He’d been thinking about that Pokémon a lot. Times in which he was supposed to be working on his strategies, he found himself remembering what had happened.

“...Do you remember that Misdreavus from Ilex Forest?” Sam asked quietly.

“The one that attacked us? Yeah, I remember it.”

“It was strong. I’d catch it if I found it again.” Sam said.

“That’d be a lot of backtracking,” Redi replied.

“Maybe,” Sam said, staring up at the rapidly changing sky. “But something about how it looked at us makes me think it just wanted a friend.”

He didn’t understand its look of betrayal. He didn’t understand why it had cried after approaching him. It liked him, for some insane reason. If he had the chance, he’d probably try to apologize and ask it to stay around.

Sam didn’t notice that Redi had fallen silent as was staring at him curiously. He saw her looking at him and blushed—he wanted to get a handle on how much he was drifting off into thought.

“So... the Tournament,” Redi said.

“The Tournament,” Sam repeated.

Something warm brushed up against Sam’s side, and he ran his hand through Quilava’s fur.

His team was stronger than ever, and the Violet City Tournament would be their biggest challenge so far. It would be rounds of back-to-back battlings, but he knew that as long as they worked together, they’d win.

And he’d see the outcome of all of their training bright and early tomorrow. He returned to his sandwich, his team continued to relax, and Sam focused on all of the strategies flowing through his mind.

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Author Note:

No updated Team Summary for now. Expect to see it when Part 2 comes out.

Pokémon included in this chapter:
None (yet!)

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