CH84 (698), First Minor Gym (1)

The days before my Gym battle passed rather quickly, and before I knew it I stood in front of the Gym ready to enter the building for my upcoming Gym Challenge. Despite everything I could not help the slight feeling of nervousness that cropped up, so I took a deep breath to calm my nerves before stepping inside. I once again headed straight for the reception, and as luck would have it, the same lady was behind the counter. She seemed to recognize me as well, at least that's what I got from her reaction to my arrival.

"Hi, I'm here for my Gym Battle," I said without much of a preamble. "Good afternoon, Mr.Geo. You're right on time," she returned, showing that she did recognize me. "Just give me a moment to call Vuran over so that he can bring you to the challenger's room," she requested with a smile. "Sure, no problem," I acquiesced following which she made a quick call.

"Vuran will be here in a minute," the receptionist said afterward. "You can take a seat until then if you want," she directly followed up. "No, thank you," I refused with a shake of my head. "I'll just wait here if that does not bother you," I told her and she politely smiled at that. "That's fine," she began, "if you could just move a bit to the left or right so that those that might arrive in the meantime can see that the reception is not busy," she finished, and I naturally did as asked. I moved to the side, which earned me a thank you, and proceeded to silently wait for Vuran's arrival.

It ended up taking more than a minute, but about two minutes later Vuran showed up. At least I was assuming that the guy who just came from within the building and went up to the reception was Vuran. "Mr.Geo, please follow Vuran here," the receptionist lady said, confirming my assumption. "He'll bring you to the challenger's room, where you will be staying until the start of the challenge," she added before following up with a "Good Luck".

"Thanks," I said to her before turning to Vuran, who cleared his throat upon seeing my focus shift to him. "Please follow me, Mr.Geo," he said before he began heading further into the Gym, and I naturally followed along. "I've got to say, I'm somewhat of a fan," Vuran suddenly spoke up with a look back, taking me by surprise. "Of you I mean," he clarified as his head once again turned to the front before he began to elaborate further on what he meant.

"I've seen the video of your battle against Gym Leader Stone, and I have to say that the fight was really impressive. You won the battle cleanly despite the few instances of bad luck that happened," he practically raved. "It was a fun battle, hick ups and all," I told him with a shrug wondering how long it would take us to arrive at the waiting, sorry challenger's room.

My musings were interrupted when Vuran suddenly stopped and turned around to face me. "I also looked you up because of the Ferreon thing Gym Leader Stephanie mentioned, and I want to ask if you know or heard anything about a ghost Eevee evolution," he inquired with a hopeful look. "Not that I know of, sorry" I returned honestly, and he looked disappointed at that.

"Pity, I would have loved one, and my dad's hoping to one day get one as well," he responded. "Oh, Gym Leader Home is my dad," he added, correctly assuming that I had no idea who his father was. "Our family has been specializing in ghost types for centuries and from what my grandpa told me wanting to see a spooky Eevee is kind of a family wish since the family founder made it a tradition to give each kid an Eevee along with their first ghost," Vuran shared a bit of family history with me, and all I could say was "is that so, seems interesting".

It was not even a complete lie since it was a bit interesting to hear such a tradition in a ghost-focused family. Anyway, Vuran continued to lead the way after that, and he kept talking about how great a ghost Eevee evolution would be right up until we finally made it to the room. I was pretty sure that it took us nearly 4 minutes from the entrance/reception to the challenger's room, and I somehow doubted that it usually took that long. I had a feeling Vuran lengthened our "journey" a little bit, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I let it go.

"You'll be called onto the battlefield over the speakers when it's time," he said after we stepped into the room. "When that happens, go through that door, and walk to the end. You'll make it to the field that way," he said pointing at one of the two other doors in the room. "Oh, and behind the other door is the restroom, if you need it," he added as an afterthought. "Alright, thanks," I replied before taking a seat on the couch. 

"Well, I've got to go now. It was nice meeting you, good luck with your challenge," Vuran said before leaving the room. Once he was gone I took a look at my watch and saw that there were only 7 minutes left until 3 p.m. No wonder they asked me to come 15 minutes early. Regardless, with nothing else to do but wait, I closed my eyes and silently waited for the announcement to arrive.

Roughly 5 minutes later I finally heard them ask me over the speakers to head to the battlefield, so I opened my eyes, stood up, and made my way through door 2. I walked for a bit before stepping onto the battlefield, and I heard myself being introduced as I took my position. There was some applause and cheers from the crowd when they saw me, but their reaction was quite a bit bigger when my opponent was introduced.

"Let's give it up for our Gym's Marcello," I heard, and I watched as Marcello moved into position under the cheers of the crowd. With him as my opponent, I would most likely be facing a (low) silver Haunter and a (mid) silver Gourgeist, so the safest options would be Ferrus/Ferreon, and Igneel/Charizard, who were both at the (high) silver stage. There was nothing I could do about the strength difference since nearly all my silver-stage Pokemon were at the (high) silver stage. 

Regardless, I decided to start with Ferrus and go from there, so once the referee had done his thing and signaled us to release our Pokemon, I called Ferrus onto the field. His appearance caused a small commotion in the crowd, but we ignored that. As soon as the two Pokemon appeared on the field they began to act. Haunter released a Confuse Ray while Ferrus used Work Up since the Star Shield's use was limited against ghosts. 

Ferrus then dodged to the side, narrowly dodging the Confuse Ray while successfully completing his Work Up. I directly had him Mimic the Confuse Ray, and while he did that Marcello actually ordered his Haunter to use Curse. I immediately used telepathy to call for a Quick Attack to close in before attacking Haunter with an Iron Tail while it was busy Cursing us. 

I doubted we could stop the Curse from taking hold, but we could certainly make them pay extra for it, and with Haunter's sacrifice to complete the Curse, the estimated length of our fight had gone down drastically.

Anyway, Ferrus appeared beside Haunter and delivered an Iron Tail on its head/face, sending it flying just as it began to laugh creepily. Considering how Ferrus briefly shone in an eerie dark purple, it was clear that it laughed because its Curse succeeded. Still, there was nothing we could do about it, so I ignored it and told Ferrus to follow after Haunter and attack again.

Haunter used Shadow Punch to attack Ferrus just as he once again appeared beside Haunter, but my guy tanked that hit like a pro and still nailed Haunter with a second Iron Tail, though he shuddered for a moment after the attack due to Curse triggering causing him some damage and pain.

I had Ferrus send a Shadow Ball after Haunter before he once more followed after Haunter using Quick Attack. We were pretty confident of finishing the battle with the next hit, so this time around Ferrus did not even bother stopping, and simply cut off Quick Attack shortly before slamming into Haunter since he would have just passed through Haunter if he kept the move up. 

No, Ferrus smoothly switched to Iron Head moments before the collision, so his steel energy-charged head slammed into Haunter, who had just dodged the Shadow Ball. Unfortunately, I noticed some purple energy latching onto Ferrus at the moment of the collision, and it directly became clear what that was when Ferrus visibly slumped at the same time as Haunter got knocked out by the Iron Head. 

Nonetheless, Haunter's Destiny Bond was not enough to take down Ferrus along with it, so while it was declared unable to battle by the referee, Ferrus remained on the field. I could not switch him out without forfeiting him, and I chose to let him continue until he lost, so we were just waiting for Marcello to call out his next Pokemon. While we were waiting for that, Curse got triggered a second time, causing Ferrus to shudder again. 

Honestly, the way it looked, I gave Ferrus at most 5 minutes before he was unable to battle even without Marcello's next Pokemon doing anything, but that was naturally impossible. Knowing that he was on a timer, Ferrus acted as soon as the referee gave the starting signal after Marcello's Gourgeist made its appearance. The Gourgeist was clearly a large-sized one, which meant that it was slow in exchange for being slightly more tenacious and stronger. Yet, its base speed was still slightly higher than that of a Ferron. 

Thankfully, Ferrus was at a higher stage and thus still likely faster than Gougeist. Nevertheless, knowing about Gourgeist's impressive defense/endurance I told Ferrus to use energy moves instead, so the attack he opened up with was Shadow Ball. Not that he had much of a choice since the only other energy moves he had were Swift and Hyper Voice, which were ineffective against Gourgeist along with Stored Power which was currently considerably weaker than Shadow Ball.

Anyway, Ferrus made use of his slightly higher speed along with Quick Attack to circle Gourgeist, while attacking it and dodging its counterattacks to the best of his abilities. Unfortunately, that did not stop Curse from taking effect, so he suffered damage regardless. Not to mention that Curse ended up getting triggered twice just as Ferrus was dodging an attack, resulting in his dodging attempt being interrupted and him being hit.

Still, despite all that Ferrus did manage to land four clean Shadow Balls on Gourgeist before falling unconscious, which was pretty good all things considered. I directly recalled Ferrus and after the referee gave the go-ahead I released Igneel onto the field. The audience's reaction to his appearance was quite a bit more vigorous than it had been for Ferreon, but that did not change our reaction. We ignored them and focused on the fight ahead of us.

The moment the referee gave the starting signal both Pokemon sprang into action. Igneel bathed Gourgeist in fire, while it actually used Pain Split to share some of the damage it took so far with Igneel while using energy from Igneel to recover. Unfortunately for Gougeist, the damage it recovered got pretty much neutralized by the damage caused by Igneel's Flamethrower. It even ended up getting burned.

Well, the fight after that did not take long and Gourgeist ended up falling unconscious within less than 3 minutes, which was not too surprising all things considered. Igneel was not only stronger but also possessed a type advantage after all. Not to mention that Gourgeist had already fought Ferrus before Igneel, so its swift defeat came as no surprise.

Regardless, with Gourgeist's defeat, I had beaten Marcello, which signaled the completion of the challenge phase. Next up was the Gym Battle against Gym Leader Daniel Home.

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