Roxanne’s Pokemon

  - Rose (Probopass)

  - Bruce (Golem)

  - Ferrus (Aggron)

  - Lily (Cradily)

  - Chief (Armaldo)

  - Sunshine (Solrock)

  Interlude 5.4.5: Roxanne Tsutsuji

  Roxanne Tsutsuji

  Rustboro City

  We’d been holding our ground for nearly twenty minutes now. I feared putting too much pressure on them. Their captain claimed that he had no interest in children, but there was no telling what he’d do if he got desperate enough. At least with the fossil pokemon, he wouldn’t threaten them; he could hardly destroy his own “product.”

  Fortunately, I’d been correct: None of the sailors had full teams of six, probably because feeding that many pokemon on a ship was impractical. I counted somewhere between four and five dozen pokemon belonging to the rank and file.

  Individually, I would place them at the second or third badge level, strong enough to intimidate the average civilian but hardly a credible threat on their own. Even so, quantity was a quality all its own and they worked together to distract and wear down my team, not unlike a pack of carvanha.

  The real threats were the captain and his first mate. If I had to place them, the captain was about as strong as the average seventh badge trainer while his first mate wasn’t far behind. Their teams tried to abuse every opening created by their subordinates to close the difference in our abilities.

  I was lucky; this battle of attrition was exactly what my team and I excelled at. Rock types were hardy. We would endure, no matter how long it took.

  Being made of natural stone, the entire harbor was our territory. My pokemon raised up multiple layers of honeycombed walls to protect us. It took a great deal of practice to do right, but the structure and formation were ones I’d designed specifically to blunt my team’s most obvious weakness.

  Water was water. It was seldom a precise instrument. And though aura played a factor, there was no denying that kinetic force was a large contributor to its power.

  So, our tactic was to allow the first layer of our bulwark to crumble and mix with the water type attacks thrown against it. The soil would become a muddy slurry, which would dampen and blunt future attacks towards us. Meanwhile, the honeycombed layer would protect the other layers from the wetness while further distributing kinetic energy.

  I smiled humorlessly as the ship’s pokemon threw themselves against my team. They were beginning to make progress, which was exactly what I was waiting for.

  “Repair the wall, Bruce,” I told my golem.

  “Gol!” my golem shouted back, his voice like a landslide. He stomped his foot and another layer rose up behind the wall, pushing it outward. The first layer was worn away, but there was another to take its place, not unlike a sharpedo’s teeth.

  I allowed myself a small smile at their dismay. All their progress was washed away in a moment. At the same time, Lily picked off a few convenient targets using Bullet Seed.

  “Enough of this,” the captain snarled. “Machamp, break through with Dynamic Punch! Starmie, Tentacruel, covering fire! Crusher, flank them with Aqua Jet!”

  The hulking machamp began to sprint towards us. Its raw strength allowed it to hurl itself with impressive speed. It could easily tear through my walls if it reached them. The tentacruel and starmie worked in conjunction, their twin Hydro Pumps doing more than a dozen of their lesser brethren.

  At the same time, Crusher, he’d apparently only seen fit to name his crawdaunt, launched itself around us. It shot off in a torrent of water and tried to look for an opening elsewhere.

  “Thunder Wave, Rose. Prioritize the machamp,” I said softly. Not being overheard was important. “Sunshine, strengthen your screens, please. Chief, assist Bruce in repairing the walls.”

  My pokemon rushed to answer. My solrock glowed violet as the shimmering veil around us deepened in hue. My armaldo stomped forward to stand side by side with my golem. He stabbed his claws into the wall before him and began to work alongside his teammate.

  Then, twin flickers of darkness caught my eye. They materialized into a pair of large, black wolves. The first mate smirked victoriously as his mightyena ripped through Sunshine’s psychic screens, allowing his captain’s Hydro Pumps to connect with full, devastating force.

  I almost wanted to roll my eyes. No, I’d not forgotten. What else were mightyena going to be used for here? Allowing them momentary victory was necessary if I wanted to persist with this farce.

  Besides, the screens were not Sunshine. So long as my solrock remained battle-ready, it would only take the briefest effort to reconstruct them. As for the wall, though it looked shattered and caved in, Chief and Bruce together could rebuild it fast enough.

  “Retaliate. Rose, Zap Cannon, burst fire,” I replied clinically.

  Two powerful torrents of electricity shot out of my probopass, blasting the pair of mightyena into unconsciousness. Lock-On wasn’t an easy move to master against such stealthy foes, but that was why I’d given Rose the time she needed to charge. A momentary setback to eliminate two stealthy foes was a trade I’d gladly take.

  That was enough time for two sharpedo to leap out of the water, fangs gleaming for my throat. Simultaneously, both the captain and first mate had their crawdaunt strike in a textbook pincer maneuver.

  Ferrus and Lily, my aggron and cradily, intercepted them. Ferrus locked his Iron Tail against the captain’s “Crusher,” a truly massive crawdaunt that was likely his ace. They strained against each other before Ferrus slammed the lighter creature into the ground and used his tail to launch him across the harbor like a sling from a stone. It’d be back; it looked rather resilient.

  Lily had the unenviable job of shooting down the other crawdaunt and two sharpedo, but her Energy Balls could only hit two in such a short time. The last sharpedo crashed down against our bulwark, body clad in Waterfall and more akin to a torpedo than a living thing.

  A titanic rumble shook the ground, sending shockwaves vibrating through my entire body. That sharpedo was swiftly tossed aside before it could bite at me, but Team Aqua’s pokemon redoubled their efforts.

  We held of course, our team would not buckle so easily, but even our stamina was not limitless.

  I let out a breath of relief when Aaron’s call came through. There was always a certain degree of uncertainty when relying on outside allies. The children were safe. And now that there was no chance of a desperate Team Aqua taking the kids hostage, I could finally cut loose.

  “You’ve endured for long enough,” I said softly. “Now, let’s teach them a lesson they won’t forget. Pick them apart, Rose.”

  “Probo,” my starter droned out.

  A moment later, a cataclysmic crack was heard as the earth answered her call. She wasn’t a ground type, but there was such a close tie between rock and ground type energies that the distinction seemed purely academic at times. Her Earth Power made the ground beneath the machamp erupt with geothermal energy.

  There was nothing the machamp could do in response. It was already paralyzed so though it tried to dash out of the way, it was far too slow. Before it could fully recover, it was launched into the air helplessly, its body singed by the powerful geothermal vent Rose generated.

  “The easiest way to deal with a brute like your machamp is to remove its leverage,” I said after ordering Sunshine to carry my voice. “Without leverage, that strength becomes worthless.”

  “Shut up! You think that’s all it takes? Focus Blast!” the captain roared.

  ‘Psybeam,’ I quietly ordered Sunshine. Machamp were such overwhelming physical threats that they seldom mastered ranged attacks. And a move like Focus Blast, it wouldn’t even be able to finish charging before Sunshine made its own aura implode in its face.

  Rose needed no command. As soon as Sunshine took aim at the machamp, she knew to switch targets. She flew in front of the bulwark and placed herself above the regular fodder. Then, her two “satellites” detached from the sides of her body.

  Each took on an opposite charge and began to rotate around her magnetic nose. The rotation built quickly as her “mustache” detached from her face, becoming a ferrous cloud that further amplified and focused the electrical surge.

  Then, with a droning, buzzing cry, she released an overpowered Discharge in their general direction. A golden, conic wave of electricity enveloped much of the battlefield, washing through the many water types and further carried by the seawater they’d lifted onto the pier.

  Just like that, virtually every pokemon Team Aqua could field was gone. There were stragglers, but many were so disheartened that they wouldn’t be contributing to the fight regardless. Fielding so many pokemon, dedicating a frontal assault reliant on their type advantage, using their machamp as the point of the spear against our defenses, the captain was a simple man, and simple men were so very predictable.

  “Fuck! Sharpedo, Aqua Jet! Take out the fucking probopass!” the first mate shouted. It was more of a shriek, voice desperate and cracking.

  “Bruce, Chief,” I said calmly.

  The multilayered wall that they’d been maintaining cracked, this time, from our end. That was another reason I favored the honeycombed pattern: The joints could be individually broken off to make uniform shrapnel. Both my golem and armaldo could use them as ammunition for Rock Blast. And because they broke in predictable patterns, their trajectories were more accurate as well.

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  The sudden wave of stone caught the sharpedo off guard, knocking it away from my vulnerable starter. It cried out, more in surprise than pain; the honeycomb pattern meant less mass and so less stopping power, but that was enough. Lily needed no instruction and followed through with a nearly point-blank Energy Ball, knocking out the last sharpedo.

  “That was a mistake. You exhausted your forces assailing a fortified structure, and for what? No, you should have had your starmie Teleport around the area for a better angle before sniping my cradily with Ice Beam,” I lectured with an indulgent smile. “Of course, you might be tempted to think a Teleport would be enough to strike me down directly, but I have countermeasures in place. That’s why it’s always best to go for the second most obvious target, in this case, a slow and stationary grass type.”

  “Do you ever shut up! Tentacruel, Sludge Wave! Starmie, Ice Beam!” the captain screamed. Good, I was getting to him.

  The jellyfish hovered into the air before releasing a small flood of violet water. No doubt it was filled with a dangerous cocktail that could potentially kill a man in minutes.

  This, too, I’d prepared for, long before I’d become a gym leader, even. Rock types were naturally resistant to many forms of toxins, but few were truly immune. Poison was one of the simplest ways a team could “out-stall” a defensive team like mine.

  It was why the moment a poison type appeared, Ferrus and Rose knew to take the fore. Their steel bodies were even more resilient to poisons than most rock types. Or perhaps, it’d be better to say that their bodies were chemically inert, completely nonreactive to the acids that made up common poison type attacks. That was the true source of their “immunity.”

  The starmie’s Ice Beam was in turn broken by Chief, who stepped forward to take the hit for Lily. They’d grown up together, revived from the same batch of fossils and nurtured as brother and sister. They knew one another’s strengths and worked seamlessly together.

  Chief’s right claw grew to a truly unreasonable size as it swelled with a brilliant, white light. Then, with a single shout, he pierced the oncoming Ice Beam, scattering it into multiple, harmless streams. It was beautiful to watch, a cascade of glimmering ice crystals that made his feathered mane flutter.

  Lily didn’t even bother looking, trusting her brother implicitly. She instead charged an Earth Power, right beneath the tentacruel who was still recovering from using the powerful Sludge Wave. That was one more of their main fighters down.

  I clapped with faux joy as his attacks failed miserably. “Oh, good, you’re learning. But you know, you shouldn’t just copy a strategy I just told you about. Obviously, if I’ve just mentioned it, I’d also be ready to see it used against me, right?”

  “Shut up, you damn bitch! You just couldn’t leave well enough alone!”

  “We found my students, by the way, in case you were wondering why I stopped holding back.”

  “We weren’t even interested in the fucking brats!”

  “And? Did you think pokemon theft is any less serious a crime?” I asked, eyebrow raised in question. My tone was the same as I used on unruly children, one I knew would infuriate a man like him. “Surrender and save me the trouble, won’t you? Your crew’s about had the fight beaten out of them anyway.”

  “Fuck you!” he snarled. He finally reached for his necklace, where a dive ball hung. He still had his starmie and his crawdaunt had recovered from the thrashing Ferrus had given it. “You think you’re tough shit?”

  I sniffed imperiously. I had to project the image of absolute confidence, nothing else would do as a gym leader, as the unbreakable fortress I needed to be. “Hmph. I hope whatever’s in that last ball is impressive. That’ll be your three to my six. My team isn’t nearly tired enough for you to feel confident here.”

  “Oh, you won’t be running your mouth, bitch.”

  “Do you mind coming up with more varied insults? I’d appreciate it.”

  “How’s this? Gyarados! Wreck everything!”

  I paused. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or facepalm. There was a persistent aura of dread surrounding the “atrocious” pokemon. Its fearsome reputation wasn’t entirely undeserved, of course.

  A truly formidable gyarados was even more dangerous than an entire shiver of sharpedo, but one would never be enough to threaten a city like Rustboro, or me for that matter. The terrible destruction that could be wrought by a group of these pokemon was one of the things I was well-prepared for as the gym leader of a coastal city.

  No, releasing a gyarados wasn’t an “I win” button. He had to know that, or he’d have done it already. The situation would have been different had we been on the open ocean, but here? It would probably just get in the way of his own allies.

  Which meant this thing was barely trained.

  I scoffed. It wasn’t a surprise. Every year, I had to have strong words with at least one child who thought catching a magikarp early and “earning its loyalty” would let them beat my gym when the time came. Left alone, they tended to get tired of the magikarp and throw it into the sea again. Or worse, they might succeed but lack the strength of will required to command such a monster.

  The captain was a veteran trainer, but that’s what he was in the end, a child and a bully. He favored rough, direct strategies and squandered whatever talent he might have had as a trainer to become a glorified pirate. Likely as not, he kept the gyarados for its brutal strength, a hammer to be wielded clumsily against rivals and targets at sea.

  And if he didn’t think this would be enough to let him win, that meant he was trying to run while his gyarados caused chaos. After all, a new gyarados could be acquired easily enough, so long as he only intended to beat it into submission and not seriously train it.

  I eyed his proximity to his first mate. His starmie was still active. If his starmie could get them out of here, there were decent odds that they could make their escape, especially with their host of dark types to throw off psychic pursuit.

  Perhaps that was the real reason he had a psychic. He might have received orders to escape with his right hand man, if only to preserve the information he had about Team Aqua.

  “Rose, Sunshine, disable the starmie. Predict the Recover. Chief, pin the crawdaunt. Lily, Bruce, take the stragglers,” I said swiftly. “Ferrus, to me.”

  The gyarados arrived with a deafening roar. For a moment, it awoke something primal in me that made me want to turn tail and run. Then logic set in. Even if I wanted to, that thing was faster than me. There was no choice but to stand my ground.

  It had the opposite effect on the captain. He grinned like a sharpedo, confidence bolstered by the admittedly fearsome creature.

  “Hyper Beam! Destroy her!” he shouted.

  My team burst into motion. None lingered on the gyarados save Ferrus. My aggron knew what was required of him as the most defensively capable member of my team. His plates glowed with an inner light as steel type energy reinforced them. Claws digging deep into the concrete, he braced and loosed a defiant roar.

  The gyarados answered with a deafening roar of its own. Motes of violet-orange light gathered around the gyarados’ maw. The orb of condensed energy darkened as it gathered more and more power. Until finally, it roared, firing the Hyper Beam straight at my aggron.

  Hyper Beam was a stream of pure power. It was every violent instinct and intent, condensed into a single point and fired with the goal of annihilating everything in its way. For a long time, it was considered the single greatest attack, the greatest expression of a pokemon’s destructive power. As one of several pokemon who learned the move naturally, it was no wonder gyarados were so feared in ancient times.

  Even now, I could feel my very bones tremble with instinctive, existential dread. But I could not allow myself to waver. My dear Ferrus faced it with an iron resolve so my absolute, unconditional faith was the least I could give him.

  Then, just before the Hyper Beam struck, I raised my voice, “Ferrus, now! Metal Burst!”

  Ferrus howled. His roar grated like the demolition of a skyscraper. Every bit of power he’d stored up, every drop of defiant will, emerged to challenge the gyarados. Pure steel type energy burst forth from his armored plates, forming the image of a titanic aggron that towered over the battlefield.

  Metal Burst was a fascinating move. Practically, it functioned similarly to Counter and Mirror Coat. Many saw it as a “universal counter” that allowed the user to retaliate regardless of whether an attack was carried primarily via physical or aural vectors.

  According to Steven Stone’s writings on the subject, the reality was that there was a conceptual parallel between “metal” and “mirror.” The principle of the move was that by forming the user’s aura into a mirror-like sheen, it could be used to absorb, focus, then reflect the damage taken back to the assailer.

  He confided in me later that he didn’t particularly like that explanation. Neither did I, truth be told. We were both people who preferred the material to the immaterial and his writings were altogether too mystical for our tastes.

  And yet, I couldn’t deny the effects here. The Hyper Beam struck like a hammer from heaven. The shockwave alone should have been enough to send me flying over the bay, to skip my broken body like a stone across a still lake.

  Instead, the aggron mirage took the blow. There was a clear, pure note that reverberated across the dockyard. It sounded musical almost, as if someone rang a wine glass with their spoon. It was a vibration I could feel in my bones, but the gyarados’ attack had been blunted almost completely.

  The construct faded. The power it had blunted sank lower, absorbed into Ferrus’ armor. Then, as if the ringing note was but a prelude, Ferrus released that accumulated energy. His horns glowed as a stream of silvery light consumed the gyarados.

  The rest of my team was not idle.

  Rose and Sunshine worked together to completely shut down the starmie. They had the most important job: cutting off the captain’s primary means of escape.

  Sunshine enveloped the area in Trick Room, forcing the starmie to telekinetically contest my solrock. It must have felt like swimming through molasses. That in turn left Rose free to land an overpowered Zap Cannon without worrying about the starmie’s usual speed. A final Shadow Ball from Sunshine directly to the starmie’s core kept it from utilizing its famed regeneration.

  Chief had a harder time against Crusher than expected. Though it had already taken a beating from Ferrus, it proved to be incredibly resilient. Both pokemon could use Aqua Jet to move faster, but the crawdaunt was clearly faster and more comfortable in the water.

  That was not ideal, but Chief managed to keep it busy long enough for Bruce and Lily to clean up the stragglers. After that, the battle was all but over.

  My team gathered on my position, tired but victorious. Rose and Sunshine flanked my right and left, wary of any last ditch attempts at escape. Bruce and Chief eyed every conscious grunt mistrustfully, all but daring them to test their patience. Lily, I returned, if only so she wouldn’t have to manually pull herself out of Ingrain. Ferrus, as exhausted as he was after that Metal Burst, showed none of that weariness.

  I strolled forward with all the confidence I could muster. I hated this. I hated hurting people. I hated the posturing that was expected of me. Most of all, I hated the necessity of it.

  A gym leader’s mantle wasn’t just a ceremonial one, after all. Rustboro and its people counted on me. As its protector, I had to live up to that trust.

  “H-How?” the captain stammered. Compared to a half hour of him trying to bring down my team, it had taken mere seconds for me to decisively put down the gyarados.

  I looked up at him. He was nearly two heads taller than me, with biceps big enough to snap me like a twig. He shrank back like a shuckle before a tyranitar, my team more than enough to make up for my lack of stature.

  I blinked placidly and said, “I am a gym leader. And you, sir, are in my way.”

  Author’s Note

  This didn’t start as a Roxanne-focused interlude, but it just kinda ended up that way. I don’t know if the battle was interesting, but I kept thinking of more and more little details that I wanted to add until it became a full-length chapter.

  I see Roxanne as a very analytical trainer. Even when she’s on the offense, she’d much rather punish others for their mistakes and gradually gather advantages instead of trying for an overwhelming charge.

  Animal Fact: Chickens can dream. Studies found that they enter rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which suggests that they can dream in the same way humans do. Go forth knowing that there is a chicken somewhere who stares at the inside of an oven, watching a horror movie.

  Relatedly, chickens also experience a form of sleep humans do not, called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. Only one hemisphere in their brain goes to sleep at one time, meaning they can literally sleep with one eye open.

  Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: .