Chapter 20

The Pewter City Gym was only a mere five minute or so walk from the Pokemon Centre, and only that long because I had to make a few turns since it was in a bit of a sandwiched area right in the centre of the town.

Seeing it up close and personal though, I had to admit. It was bland, just really a big rock fashioned into a building. But somehow, it made it really charming since it was gym dedicated to the rock type.

The large red arch hanging over the boulder like building to help draw attention to it and heavy doors of the same colour stand out quite nicely as well I have to admit. Adds a little dash of colour to an otherwise fully drab sight.

Honestly, it all just kinds works together. Like, it's a big rock, it isn't supposed to be grand or majestic. Simple works well.

Standing in front of it, in between the path leading up to it bordered by large boulders, I have to admit, I'm getting quite psyched.

Making my way forward, I pushed on the heavy doors. I strained for a moment, arms bulging. Even with my increased physical abilities from arriving here and all the working out I've been doing, they're still heavy as shit.

But slowly they began to open up, and after nearly five seconds, they creaked to a stop fully open and I stepped in. I jumped a bit as they slammed shut behind me as soon as I entered, but i'd already had one jump scare today, I was already on edge for another.

'Shit it's dark in here.' I thought to myself. I could barely see a foot in front of my face that was how dim the lighting was in the building.

"Who goes there?" a deep, soft voice asked gruffly a bit ahead of me. Suddenly, light flickered on a good fifty feet from me, and there he was, just as dark skinned as Flint with spiky brown hair and narrowed slit like eyes. Brock, sitting calm as can be on a small stage like pedestal.

"So you're Brock huh?" I eyed him with interest, doing my best to curb any excitement that tried to flood my veins and the butterflies that threatened to blossom in my stomach and try to make me gush over him. Even now, it's still a bit surreal to see some of my favourite childhood characters in the flesh, "The name's Jord Odhar, I'm here for a gym battle."

Brock looked me over for a moment, "..Is this your first gym battle?" he asked. "I'm warning you now, a gym battle is far different from a normal battle. Gym Battles are for Pokemon League authorisation and for raising the newest generation of trainers that will go on to form the backbone of our society."

"Yeah, it's my first." I shrugged. Though, internally I'm wondering how the hell he could tell it was my first time in a gym battle. Heck, from what I remember, he noticed the same with Ash in canon.

Brock nodded, "How long have you been a trainer?" he asked, pushing himself up from his cross legged sitting position.

"Nearly a week." I answered.

"A week?" Brock scoffed, "You're making far too light of the gym challenge. You can't win."

And if I was a normal starting out trainer, I'd agree that he was right. The difference is. I'm a cheating asshole stealing from the experience of Ash motherfucking Ketchum with enough meta knowledge of this world to make him topple over in a dead faint at the sheer absurdity of all I know.

"Try making that claim after you've seen my pokemon in action." I scoffed right back, crossing my arms over my chest and tilting my chin up at him defiantly.

..Honestly, I have to wonder has my mentality been affected at all alongside my body change? Because it's been so easy to fall back into old petty and defiant habits I used to have as a teenager. Sure, even as an adult, I wasn't fully rid of them, but I feel like they're much more instinctive reactions now.

"Suit yourself," Brock shook his head, "As a gym leader, I have to accept any and all challenges. Just don't regret it when you see how daunting things really are against a gym leader."

Then, before I could say anything else, the dark skinned teenager raised his hand up and clicked his fingers. The lights came on instantly and the gym was illuminated brightly. And the walls on each side of me pulled up to reveal rocks, lots and lots of rocks that began to slide out. The ground rumbled beneath me and I almost stumbled.

I of course didn't. Since I didn't want to make myself look like an idiot. I have my pride after all. But it was probably only thanks to balancing that heavy ass backpack of mine for so long lately that I managed it.

Bit by bit the rocks slid out from each side, atop a pair of sliding granite floors that connected in the middle of the room to form the rocky battlefield I remembered from canon.

As soon as it fully settled together, Brock jumped nimbly off of his pedestal and landed right at the edge of the battlefield brandishing a gleaming pokeball in his hand that he pointed towards me, "We will be battling in a one on one battle until one sides pokemon can no longer continue," he told me, "Let the battle begin!" he declared, winding up his arm.

From everything I'd gathered so far. the more of a disadvantage you were at when you defeated a gym leader, the more money you could earn. A way to promote powerful trainers that could overcome the odds stacked against them was what Nurse Joy told me about it when I asked her about it.

I originally planned to use Pidgey for this battle before he evolved. He was the strongest of my team even then. Instead, my hand went to Spearow's pokeball on my belt and I grabbed it, enlarging it to fit in my palm and I copied Brock, winding up my arm.

"Onix, come out!" Brock shouted, pitching his hand forward and releasing his pokemon.

At the same time, I did the same, "Kick his ass Spearow!" I shouted myself.

While the familiar form of my small red winged bird appeared before me, flapping his wings to keep himself aloft in the air. A titanic serpentine beast made up of segmented boulders, each taller than my current body appeared before Brock, the building shaking under its immense weight as soon as it landed on the battlefield and an splitting roar left its mouth. so loud I could barely even hear myself think for a few moments.

Spearow, even with the couple of inches he'd gained in body size thanks to our intense training looked miniscule in comparison to Onix. And I had to admit, like Gyarados, Onix was something else. It drew awe from me that I didn't particularly want to feel right now, but I couldn't help it. Sometimes pure size is mind blowingly amazing in its own way.

The literal weight of its sheer existence spat in the face of the laws of my reality of my own world.

To Spearow's credit, he didn't even bat an eye at the intimidating sight and sound of Onix. Instead, my little bird flared his wings out and cawed right back as loud as he could.

Mad props little bird. If it was me before I arrived here that roar was aimed at, I'd have probably topped over in a dead faint and shit myself silly. Bowl voiding terror at its finest.

"Your Spearow is a feisty little thing and in great condition," Brock noted, "But it can't win. Flying type pokemon like Spearow are weak against Rock types like my Onix."

Onix at his words reared up to its full height and roared again. I ignored it this time and just smirked at him, "We'll see," I replied idly and nodded at Spearow, "Rain Dance."

Spearow smirked at me and spread his wings wide a split moment later in front of himself, conjuring a sphere of glowing blue energy nearly as large as he was between them and chucking it into the air.

"Why would you use Rain Dance?" Brock asked in puzzlement, just as the orb of hydro energy reached into the air and burst apart in a film of energy that swelled and formed into dark clouds that immediately began to spit down a rapid downpour of rain.

Onix groaned as the many, many droplets of water washed over its form, slumping ever so slightly. Brock staggered back, "..I see!" he gasped in shock.

Smirk widening, I pointed at the towering rock snake, "Steel Wing, now!" I ordered.

"Row!" Cawing proudly, Spearow threw himself into a dive through the air towards Onix, wings tucking back against his body to make himself more aerodynamic. Those same wings burst into bright silver power as he went.

"Rock Throw!" Brock countered, recovering quickly, "Not so fast kid!"

The rain seemed to bother Onix, but not enough to keep it idle. Opening its mouth, bright white light shone within the giant pokemon maw and a split moment later, a barrage of rocks the size of my torso shot out, aimed at Spearow.

Spinning mid-air, my littlest bird dodged around three of them, then lashed out with his wing to throw himself back and dodge another. His momentum slowed only slightly as his wings flared out to help navigate, Spearow began weaving through the barrage of rocks in a small brown and red blur.

The rocks were big and fast. But Spearow had spent most of his time training sparring with my other pokemon, his main rival being Pidgeotto. Who was so much faster than these rocks it wasn't even funny.

Moments later, unable to hit the tiny bird, Onix reared back and roared once again, this time in pain as Spearow sped passed its head and sliced it hard across the face with one of his glowing wings and then ground his wing in and scraped it along the length of the giant rock and ground types body.

I flinched as it thrashed and smashed apart a chunk of the battlefield, sending debris flying. Its sheer size could cause so much fucking damage just from idly moving about.

"Bind!" Brock shouted again over the noise of Onix roar.

Just as Spearow reached the end of Onix tail, the massive pokemon lashed out, the edge of its tail curling around Spearow in an attempt to constrict around his small feathered body.

Using his other glowing wing, Spearow beat the the air hard and threw himself into a rapid spin that turned him completely around. Then he opened his beak wide and cawed extremely loudly. A massive wave of red energy sound waves being released from his beak and washing over the massive form of Onix.

The Astonish did what it needed to and Onix flinched back, stopping its attempt to grab Spearow and my pokemon took the opportunity to beat his wings hard again and zip up high into the air.

"I've underestimated you kid," Brock admitted shaking his head to clear the ringing sound of Spearow's Astonish from his ears. He was right by the pair of pokemon when the attack was used. "Rain Dance, Steel Wing and now Astonish. I wasn't expecting a newbie who's only been a trainer less than a week to have trained a Spearow like this."

"We trained hard," I shrugged simply, "But it doesn't all come down to me. Even before I caught Spearow, he was the leader of his flock that was over a thousand strong." I bragged. It was something I felt quite prideful about after all. My littlest bird is way stronger now than when I first caught him, and even back then, he was heads and shoulders above the average Spearow.

Spearow turned to look at me over his shoulder and I met his small eyes even from the distance between us, "There's no pokemon in this world that Spearow won't be able to take on one day, not even the legendaries." I continued. It's just a good thing that Arceus, Dialga, Palkia and Giratina reside in other planes of existence now isn't it?

And I did pretty much mean it. This Spearow without any training would go on to become a Fearow that absolutely demolished Ash's Pidgeotto before it evolved into Pidgeot. And that same Pidgeotto, months before that battle one shot Giovanni's Rhydon with Double Edge.

When Ash's Pidgeotto evolved, there was a very good chance it even eclipsed Charizard, who was a match for Drake's Dragonite in the Orange Islands.

If Spearow could get that strong alone without any training, what kind of strength would he have being trained by me using training methods from Ash's playbook and with the almost cheat like abusing of Chansey's Heal Pulse and Gravity for insane physical conditioning?

Brock chuckled, "Quite the boa-" he went to say, but was cut off.

Spearow cawed loudly. Very loudly. He kept his small eyes locked with mine as his voice rose higher and higher. And then, while still looking at me, he erupted into dazzling light and his body began to grow and morph before my very eyes.

...Two evolutions in one day. These birds really are fucking try hards man. But, I had been expecting both of them to evolve sometime soon. Alongside Rattata. What information I could find on the pokedex assured me that they were species that evolved rather quickly, one of the faster species to evolve. Though Pidgeotto would take a decent bit longer to reach the Pidgeot level.

Spearow's form blotted out by the white light began to rapidly and explosively grow in size. Before, he was a little bit below two feet, and maybe about the same in wing span. But by the time the glow receded and that massively beaked brown feathered form of my newly evolved Fearow was revealed, he had to top six feet easily in height with a wing span a decent bit bigger on each side.

He was massive! Way bigger than the average height of Fearow shown in the pokedex. I may have been fucking terrified of heights, but I can't stop the big ass shit eating grin from spreading across my face.

"Damn, it evolved!" Brock gaped up at the massive form of my pokemon. He clenched his fist and punched up at Fearow, "Quickly, Dragon Breath!" he ordered.

Onix roared rearing up, green and yellow flames licking around its mouth. But before it could fire its attack, Fearow dive bombed without any orders from me, not that I minded and one of his wings glowed with a deep purple light.

I barely even followed him with my eyes as he dived, but I caught a decent glimpse and I recognised the attack! From the movie remake of Ash's Kanto journey.

"Throat Chop!" I shouted on instinct

Fearow slammed his wing into Onix's chin and the massive rock and ground type gurgled loudly, the flames in its mouth dissipating. Fearow flew passed it after his strike and circled around to watch Onix intently as Brock's starter wobbled in place for a few moments before tipping backwards and smashing into the ground hard head first.

"Onix!" Brock called out in worry, running over to his pokemon and checked it over. For a moment, I felt my chest tighten with worry myself before Brock sighed in relief and returned Onix to its pokeball, "Good work Onix, take a nice long rest."

The 'older' teen looked at me and shook his head, smiling wryly, "Well now, you're something else aren't you Jord?" he said before looking to Fearow as the massive bird flew over and landed beside me, allowing me to pat him on his new, long slender neck, "Now I'm inclined to think you weren't just boasting, that's some pokemon you've got there. No challenger has ever handled Onix like your Fearow just did."

Fearow puffed his now much larger chest out in pride, but thankfully didn't flare out his wings and make a big show of his win. Otherwise he probably would have smacked me a good one with how big they are now.

I wasn't the type to boast about something I couldn't do if I was expected to do it. when I needed to follow through, I only boasted about what I was actually capable of. Cuz honestly, fuck that kind of brass neck.

"I told you so." I grinned at him.

Laughing, Brock hopped onto the wrecked battlefield and made his way over to me and Fearow, reaching in to the pocket of his green vest, pulling a small brown disc the size of his palm out alongside a small shiny grey, and rather familiar badge.

"Well, here you go then Jord, for defeating me the gym leader of the Pewter City Gym, I present to you the Boulder Badge and the Technical Machine for Rock Throw," he said handing them out to me as soon as he reached me. I took them gratefully, "Now I just need your trainer number and we can see about getting your winnings calculated."

I honestly wouldn't have been surprised right then and there if my eyes turned into dollar signs. It woulda been hella trippy, but I'm apparently in the world of pokemon. So yeah..it could be a thing, never know man.