Chapter 24

"Charmeleon, Dig!" you ordered, sending out your pokemon. If he'd already prepared in advance for being attacking.

Charmeleon briefly appeared from his pokemon, before like Nidoqeeun before him, diving down and burrowing underground.

"Good, good." Surge nodded approvingly, "Once a battle starts, a real one, there's none of this namby pamby round starting with referee's, take any chance you can get to steal an advantage from your enemy, give them no quarter. If you tiptoe the rules, who gives a fuck? As long you don't get disqualified and take the lead."

Sound advice, that you could actually see yourself following a lot.

"Still, don't think just because I said Magnezone isn't too good at dealing with underground opponents, that he can't." Surge rebuked you with a shake of his head. So casual.

That would cost him.

"Fire the Hyper Bea-"

"Flamethrower!" you shouted rapidly, cutting him off.

Magnezone conjured a small sphere of orange energy, just as Charmeleon burst out of the ground behind Magnezone, maw filled with flames and unleashing them in a massive torrent that slammed into the huge electric and steel type before it could react.

Magnezone groaned under the onslaught of flame, being pushed back quite far through the air.

"Thunder!" Surge barked out, not losing his cool at all.

Magnezone lit up with a massive aura of electricity that dispersed the flames from around it, and then thrust its magnet-like arms at Charmeleon and unleashed a gargantuan wave of electricity that covered near every inch of the room as it swept towards Charmeleon.

Charmeleon's eyes widened, but you didn't bother coming up with a plan. You already had one prepared well in advance for this battle after your match with Danny. That was why you bought the Iron Tail TM, and were so psyched for when Charmeleon managed to get Metal Claw down as well.

"Meleon!" Charmeleon snarled, tail and claws glowing with bright silver power and he buried all of them into the ground, just as the wave of electricity slammed into him.

You saw him grind a massive trench along the floor as the pure force push him back for a good ten feet, but all of the electricity slamming into him was safely - for the most part - grounded through the two steel type attacks.

"Grounding huh?" Surge whistled, "Not bad at all kid. That's the kind of thing only really advanced trainers pick up, and it takes a while to get down. Some real talent you got there if you can teach a pokemon how to do it within six days of your journey."

He wasn't calling you baby now. You were apparently upgraded to kid. you could live with that.

"Well, electric type attacks are out unless you're off the ground I guess," Surge shrugged, "Magnezone, teleport, then Sonic Boom."

And like that Magnezone, just the same way as your Electabuzz blipped out of existence, appearing at Charmeleon's left instantly, magnet arms rotating rapidly, like drills.

"Char!" your fire type roared in pain as a pair of shock waves instantly shot from the magnets and slammed into his side, the only reason he didn't go flying was because of his limbs piercing the ground with the steel type attacks.

An instant later, another two, and then another two. Boom, boom, every second Magnezone unleashed a pair of shock waves that smashed Charmeleon hard.

With a roar though, Charmeleon pulled out of ground after seven pair of shock waves smashed into him, scales beaten and bruised, he lunged at the massive electric and steel type with a burst of Quick Attack, tearing through the next pair of Sonic boom's. The fire type smashed into the much larger electric pokemon, pushing it back a bit, and his steel infused claws grinding sharply against Magnezone's thick metal body.

"Heh a feisty little lizard huh?" Surge laughed, "Take it for a ride Magnezone, shake it off!"

Spinning rapidly, Magnezone did just that, shooting up into the air, spinning like a beyblade. Charmeleon hung on for dear life, snarling as he dug his claws into it.

"Mega Punch!" you ordered.

Snarling, Charmeleon pulled one arm back, barely holding on with his other hand as it ignited with a raging orange aura and the fire type drove a devastating punch right into the steel types cranium.

Magnezone groaned and began to veer downwards, spinning slowing down a bit. And you grinned, it was the perfect set up.

"Seismic Toss!"

Charmeleon grinned savagely, sliding around to grab one of Magnezone's magnet arms and begin spinning himself, using the dual type pokemon's own spinning momentum to power his onw, so that he could near instantly toss Surge's pokemon towards the ground

Boom! The ground shook from the impact. But Charmeleon apparently wasn't done. You couldn't even see Magnezone through the debris kicked up, but the fire type above apparently could as he unleashed a massive flamethrower straight down with no mercy.

You heard Magnezone groan under the onslaught for a few moments before going silent. The debris cleared a moment later, just as Charmeleon landed, to show Magnezone beaten, dented and burnt, single eye rolled up into the back of its head.

"Not bad," Surge commented, returning his pokemon, "Honestly, I was just gonna have Magnezone explode when you caught him with that Mega Punch and stunned him, but all that woulda done is drag you down as well. I figure you deserve the pity win over the forced draw since you've been doing so well and impressed me a bit."

...This guy, even when he was praising you, he was insulting you.

Surge walked his way casually over the ruined battlefield, and pulled tow things from his pocket, like Brock, one was a TM disc, the other a badge. The Thunder Badge to be exact.

"Here ya go kid," Surge held them out to you, "Be proud. Dats the first badge I've gave out in two months, the closest before you was that annoying chit with the Bellsprout the other day."

You shivered at the mention of that pokemon, as you took the badge in hand.

_________

The reward Professor Oak told you about that Surge was giving out to those who beat him, a prize sanctioned by the league association itself, was a ticket for the debut cruise of the biggest ship currently in the world, the S.S Anne, fresh off of production.

Which, was kind of insane really. Tickets for the cruise, the lower class ones at that, were going for an easy three hundred thousand. You didn't want to imagine how much the high class one cost. The one you won.

You honestly didn't know whether you'd rather sell it or take the cruise itself. It was a gathering for those who lived the high society life, something you'd yearned for since you were a child after all. But on the other hand, all that money...

Either way, you'd pushed that to the back of your mind, and asked Surge for help out charging up the Thunderstone you had for evolving your Electabuzz. He'd surprisingly helpful, but in the end had waved you off saying it would do for his pokemon's daily voltage increase training, plus he didn't have any challengers booked in advance - only truly stupid or arrogant trainers took on a gym leader of his calibur without scoping things out in advance apparently.

You were pretty sure he was insulting you.

Either way, after that, you went back to the Pokemon Centre and congratulated your two fighting pokemon for a job well done, before calling Professor Oak and switching out most of your team.

Growlithe and Dratini had been all to happy to see you again, and quickly got invested in training. Umbreon, through himself into his training as he had before. Rhydon had just flashed you a thumbs up and got to it after patting you on the back - you got the feeling that he felt he was the owner in the relationship and you were one of his underlings - and Kingler was as obedient as ever, doing whatever you told him and quickly getting to work after a cheerful greeting.

Abra....Abra was weird. You'd heard Abra didn'y fully develop their personalities until they evolved, but yours took the cake. While he was thankfully awake, you taught him Thunder Wave and Thunderpunch from the Tm's you had, and then tasked him with showing off his teleporting abilities and sparring a bit with your other pokemon.

The little psychic type was like a robot. A really lazy and sluggish robot at that. While he hadn't shown much improve over the hours of training, he had least had a solid grasp on using the two new attacks you taught him.

Granted, his physical strength was incredibly lacking. You'd have to bust out the Macho Brace on him, no doubt.

After hours of training, and after lunch, you headed out leaving Vermillion City behind, and making your way to Saffron City.