Chapter 18

In the morning, I wake up slowly and glance around the room. It takes me a moment to realize that it was still dark outside despite my ability to see the room perfectly. Seems like my eyes are getting stronger again, at least I won't have an issue in caves. I go about my morning routine before I recall Zephyr and head down to the lobby to have breakfast with the girls and so that we can go to Flannery's battle.

We arrive at the gym and find that it is nearly barren of people, unlike Bea's match yesterday. I think about it for a moment then I realize that most trainers are teenagers. Teens are notoriously bad at waking up early in the morning. The only reason I wake up as early as I do is due to my meditation and out of habit as back on earth I hated mornings with a passion. 

I give Flannery a quick hug as she runs off towards the waiting room in the back to wait for her match. Bea and I make our way to the stands and notice that they are mostly empty. There are a few trainers but they either have a match after this one or they are the rare morning person. It only takes another ten minutes before Brock walks out from his side of the arena and Flannery comes out from the opposite side with a confident grin on her face.

"Good morning Pewter City! Is everyone ready for another day of matches?" The Referee calls into the microphone, trying to hype the morning crowd. After a few lackluster or sleepy cheers, he starts to explain the rules of the gym. 

"Tough crowd this morning. For those of you that are new here, let me explain the rules! In each gym you are allowed to use one more pokemon than the number of badges you own plus your starter. That means for your first badge you are allowed to use two pokemon, for your second you can use three and so forth up to a maximum of six pokemon in your team. Leaders are limited to a single type of pokemon, so trainers, if you plan well you might just get an advantage. Leaders, as the challenged, are allowed to set the number of switches allowed in a single match. Once a pokemon is knocked out, no further moves are to be used on the downed pokemon or else it is an immediate disqualification for the battle. Any move that will intentionally cause permanent damage or death to a pokemon will cause you to be banned from the gym challenge until you are reviewed by the League."

"Now without any further delay because of me, let us welcome Leader Brock and his first Challenger of the day, Flannery!"

Brock and Flannery both wave and I cheer and give her a whistle. As the stands are nearly empty, I can be heard clearly which causes the few people there as well as Flannery to look at me. I flush a little under the gazes but I smile at Flannery who returns it with a smile of her own and puffs out her chest in confidence. My eyes linger on her body for a bit before pulling my eyes away and I happen to catch Brock doing the same thing. He notices my look and flashes me a small smile before continuing the match.

"This match will be a two on two with zero switches. Let's see your skill!" Brock calls out, indicating the match is starting.

"Geodude, go!"

"Mags, time to go!"

As both pokemon appear on the field, the fight starts right away. Mags glows bright red for a moment before sending a blinding orb of light towards the ceiling. As the move reaches its apex, I start to feel the temperature of the stadium increasing slightly. Geodude responds by rubbing its body with its hands until it gleams slightly in the light. Geodude then glows a brownish color and rushes towards Mags while rolling, making the ground shake slightly. 

"Mags, use Rock Throw, knock it off course!" Flannery calls out.

 Mags glows brown slightly and starts to pick up a rock in front of it, albeit slower than it should. The rock lifts its closest edge off the ground just as Geodude rolls on top of it, causing Geodude to soar into the air and slam full speed into the shield behind it. I can see Geodude is slightly dazed from the hit, as can Flannery as she calls for an Inferno. Mags spits out a bright blue globule of fire at Geodude. Geodude starts to move, trying to get out of the way at Brock's order but the daze causes it to delay its retreat. A moment later the attack hits as we can hear Geodude cry out in pain as it is engulfed in blue fire. 

Brock cooly orders another attack from Geodude as it picks up rocks from around it and starts throwing them at Mags. Unfortunately for Mags, the rocks fly much faster than it can move and the poor thing gets pelted multiple times, causing the magma it is made out of to start to scatter around. Flannery calls for a yawn, but just as mags attempts to follow the order, it gets hit square in the mouth, causing more magma to splatter around and doesn't continue with the attack.

"Slugma is unable to battle. Challenger please select your next pokemon." I see the Referee flinch slightly as he looks at Flannery who looks like she will set someone on fire before she recalls her pokemon. She grabs a different pokeball and whispers something to it before tossing it out onto the field.

"Comet, time to go! Avenge Mags!" What appears on the field is a horse type pokemon with a flaming mane and tail, both of which have a few blue sparks coming off it. The pokemon looks over at Geodude and squints its eyes at it before rushing towards it as Flannery calls out another command. "Horse Kick!" The pokemon appears in front of Geodude and spins around quickly, using its hind legs to send out a kick my eyes cannot track until I hear a bang as Geodude slams into the psychic wall again, much harder this time. There is a slight hush in the stadium as Geodude doesn't get back up.

"Geodude unable to battle. Leader Brock, send out your next pokemon."

"Not what I was expecting, but I hope you can control your temper a little." Brock calls out to Flannery as he reaches for another pokeball and tosses it out. "Onix, go."

What appears is a bunch of boulders that start to move and a head lifts from the pile to show a snake made of boulders that looms over Flannery's Ponyta. Comet glows green for a moment as Flannery calls for a Solar Beam, and at the same time Brock calls for a Double Team for Onix. Onix seems to shimmer for a moment before seemingly splitting in two. Comet lets loose a bright white beam of pure sunlight at the twin Onix but the attack only makes one of them disappear. 

Flannery calls for the attack again, but as it is charging up for a second attack as the formerly bright pseudo-sun dims from its power being drained in the last attack, Onix starts hurling brown glowing boulders at Comet. This forces the pokemon to have to move around to dodge the boulders. As it weaves across the ground, glowing brighter green, one of Comets hind legs gets hit by a boulder which causes her to flinch and start limping slightly. The green light around Comet disappears, along with the sun overhead which causes the stadium to start cooling down again.

"Comet, Low Horsepower!" Flannery calls out desperately, as the attack from Onix seems to have done more damage than she wanted to admit. Comet dashes across the ground towards Onix as it dodges the attacks being flung at it as it grows closer. Brock calls for a Rock Tomb when Ponyta is only a few steps away and the ground starts to quickly grow around it.

"Use Flame charge to dodge Comet! Press the attack!" 

Comet lives up to its namesake and turns into a fiery comet as it races across the ground even faster before jumping just before reaching Onix and slamming its hooves hard into the pokemons head which causes it to crash to the ground hard, making everything shake. Ponyta lands a moment later, and stumbles on the shaking ground. Flannery calls once more for a Solar Beam, causing Ponyta to start glowing green again. 

Brock calls for Onix to use Rock Throw to interrupt the attack, but Onix is moving slowly from the last attack. Onix does get a few good hits in, which causes the green light to dim slightly on each hit but the next moment another blinding white beam shoots from Comets mouth and slams directly into Onix. Once the beam dies down, Onix is still standing and staring at Ponyta for a moment before it crashes to the ground.

"Onix is no longer able to battle! Challenger Flannery wins!"

As the referee calls out the winner, I can see Flannery jump in the air in joy that she won. She recalls her pokemon as she and Brock approach the center of the arena. Like he did with Bea, he hands her the Boulder Badge and talks to her quietly. I can see Flannery nod and then look down, seeming ashamed at whatever Brock was telling her. After I see Flannery head back down the Challenger hall, I grab Bea's hand and head out to go meet with Flannery.

As we step outside of the gym, I notice that it is still devoid of trainers or anyone else that wants to watch a match. I feel bad for Flannery as she had such an epic fight but hardly anyone saw the match. Flannery spots us a moment later and rushes over to us. In her joy, she gives me a tight hug and picks me up slightly spinning me around, much to my shock. I see Bea give us a wry smile before hugging us both. Flannery starts to giggle and I follow suit shortly after as does Bea.

Once she releases me from her hug I finally get to congratulate her as I try to stop myself from giggling at her antics. "G-great job Flannery! Your fight was awesome! I just wish that more people could have watched the fight as well. If only you had a crowd like Bea did yesterday, you might have had a ton of fans!" No sooner do I say that, I get an odd look from both of them. They look at each other and then back at me before Bea speaks up. 

"Frost, you know that the fights are recorded right? After your match, it is posted on the Gyms page on the forums. Each year they clean out the unsuccessful battle from the page, but every person who won a badge has their videos saved for others to study."

I blink slowly as my brain processes what she just said as my cheeks start to blush fiercely. "I-I didn't know…" I reply quietly as I look away from their eyes as even my ears start to turn red. "A-anyways! Let's go see what there is to have fun in this city! I don't have my fight until tomorrow evening so we have all day to have fun!"

I hear Flannery giggle at my attempt to change the topic but allows me to drag them off into the city. We first stop by the Pokecenter so that her pokemon can get healed up while we are out. We stroll along the streets looking at the different shops and boutiques around the city. We stop in a couple of clothing stores and have fun picking out different styles of clothes. I found a lot of cute outfits that I would love to wear, but the moment I tried any of them on I felt like I was boiling. This damn bloodline of mine needs to have an on/off switch. I want to wear cute clothes too!

To ease my poor heart, I enjoy the fashion show that Flannery and Bea put on. Seeing Bea in a lolita dress is an odd sight but her looks complement it well. Flannery on the other hand is trying out all sorts of boyish styles that compliment her curves in all the right ways. I end up buying a couple more outfits similar to what I already have so that I wasn't wearing the same old clothes I had brought with me. After our foray into clothes, I drag the two of them into a makeup store as I haven't gotten a chance to buy any makeup since I arrived in this world and I was missing having some. Not that I needed it, but that doesn't mean I can't elevate my look more! I want to look cute! Now, I am just going to push how much I just spent on makeup into the back of my mind. 

We spend the rest of the day enjoying what the city has to offer before we head back to the Pokecenter for the night. I miss going out with friends like this, so the fact that I now have two new friends to hang out with eased a part of my mind I didn't know was pressing on my psyche. After wishing the two of them a good night and sneaking in a hug, I went up to my room and went about my nightly routine before settling on the bed and beginning to meditate.

As I meditate, I notice that I can feel the elemental energy produced by Skadi and Zephyr much more clearly than before and my body has a feeling of fullness to it. As I practice my cultivation technique, I can see the interior of my body and it looks to be full of thick mist. I concentrate and try to push the mist along with my technique and I feel it start to move under protest. At first it feels like I am pushing a single droplet of the mist but gradually the rest of the mist starts to swirl and follow my guidance. I guide the mist through my body as the technique says to and gradually, the faint outline of a snowflake appears, covering the entirety of my torso. After the snowflake forms, all the mist disappears and is replaced by a pale blue liquid that continues to trace an outline of a snowflake inside of me.