Kiya Bonham
Pewter Gym: Smoker vs. Brock
Time: Afternoon
Kiya's heart began to quicken as she struggled to come to a decision. Should she go for it? She knew full well that the smarter choice would be not to, but… Champion, her usually-faithful Hitmonchan, sat next to her, eyes focused on the scene below him paying no mind to her. It seemed even her partner had abandoned her in this struggle. No matter. This had always been her own fight. She felt her hands begin to tremble the longer it took for her to decide.
The martial artist had come to the Pewter City Gym, psyched for her first gym battle and completely ready, but it turned out that other battles had been taking place at the moment so she instead decided to climb to the bleachers overlooking the battlefield so she could watch them. Master Kiyo had taught her the importance of learning about an opponent, although that usually happened during the battle as opposed to before it in her experience. Everything was fine until she started getting a little bored, so she absentmindedly opened the canvas sack she had brought with her to hold all her stuff. She hadn't actually checked it since starting her journey, although she didn't feel the need to since she packed it herself, so one could imagine her surprise when she found something completely unexpected.
An entire bag of individually wrapped Custap Berry-flavored hard candies with wrapping that even had a Custap pattern on it sat in the middle of her bag as if it were staring at her. There was a note inside signed by her mother saying, "Don't eat them all at once! And don't tell your dad either. -Love, mom." This was where her trouble began. Kiya's dad made a big effort to teach her about the importance of eating right for a martial artist's body, and she understood it, trying her best to take care of her body. The problem was that for as long as she could remember she had a great affinity for sweets, which happen to be infamous for being bad for you. Her mom sees no harm in some candy or dessert every once in a while, but her dad claims that it's a slippery slope, and that once she starts it will be difficult for her to stop. If anyone has ever seen her with a large quantity of candy at her disposal, they would know that her dad is right in that regard.Thus, whenever she is around easily-accessible sweets, Kiya is forced to wage an internal battle with herself.
She couldn't believe what her mother had done to her. What had she been thinking!? Was this a way for her to train her discipline? Yes, that had to be it… Her mother wasn't so cruel as to needlessly torture her with such a thing. But that still didn't help her with her current predicament. She could feel her heartbeat growing louder, each individual beat like a drum as she stared at the candy in her bag. Just one couldn't hurt, right? She'd put so much work into her body that it should be impossible for one little piece to undo it all. A tiny, delicious, oh so sweet little piece...
Kiya slapped herself hard, the sound reverberating throughout the gym and causing others to look her way. She couldn't give in so easily! But it was clear that she was fighting a losing battle. She shuffled around inside her bag for something that could help her when her hand bumped against something hard. It was a pokeball, one of the many she had brought for catching pokemon along her journey. But she knew that pokemon weren't the only things they could capture. She grabbed the ball and brought it close to the bag of candy.
This all started when she caught a glimpse, so all she had to do was to not look at it! It wouldn't do for her to have to go through this every time she opened her bag, so simply closing it wasn't a good option. That's where the pokeball would come in. She would just capture the bag of candy, so that whenever she looked in her bag it would be no different than if it were any other pokeball. It was genius! She sat there holding the pokeball next to the bag, ready to put her plan into action, but for a moment she didn't move. Then, in a swift motion as if trying to keep others from seeing, she grabbed a single piece of candy before the rest of the bag was enveloped in the ball's red light. There was no shaking or pinging sound since what the ball contained was inanimate, and in an instant the situation had been resolved.
Kiya sighed, and rolled the piece she'd saved in between her fingers. She was ashamed of herself, but also knew that having the willpower to put away all those other candies had to mean something. She didn't want to try opening that ball again, nor did she want to waste another ball to contain the single piece, so she quickly unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth. In an instant, all feelings of shame and guilt disappeared, and she was in heaven...
***
Once that little episode with the candy was done with, Kiya turned her focus back onto the battle. The previous one had finished and a new challenger approached. She wondered if she had missed her chance, but simply became determined to seize the next one.
The new challenger was a messy-looking man with a black shirt and torn jeans with earphones hanging from the collar of his shirt. He and Brock talked for a moment, the same as with the previous challengers, when Brock suddenly received a phone call. After a brief conversation he returned to talking with messy man, then that guy picked up his phone for a call of his own. He didn't look very happy. He started screaming into his phone, something about a stalker and an adventure, but he eventually seemed to calm down a bit. Soon enough, he put the phone away and put a cigarette in his mouth before finally pulling out a pokeball.
The battle began with the smoking guy sending out a Beedrill and Brock sending out a strange pokemon Kiya hadn't seen before. Her mother had gotten her a pokedex and a pokegear thanks to some favors with co-workers at Silph Co. so Kiya pulled the dex from her bag and pointed it at Brock's pokemon. It was apparently called Kabutops, and was Rock and Water type.
The smoking guy began by calling out moves like Hyper Beam and Earthquake, which his Beedrill apparently didn't know. Then he started calling moves that Kiya wasn't sure even existed, like Super Drill Attack and Wreck-Its-Face Attack. Brock didn't seem very amused, looking more shocked than anything. After a bit, he managed to call an order the Beedrill could actually follow, namely, "Stab its eyes out." The Beedrill flew up close to the Kabutops and jabbed at its eyes, but Brock ordered it to close them and the Beedrill's huge stingers just bounced off the Kabutops' rock-hard skin.
After that, Brock went on the offensive. His Kabutops struck the Beedrill immediately in front of it with a powerful Stone Edge attack, hitting it with jagged rocks that shot up from the ground. Smoker ordered his pokemon, that had somehow managed to survive, to get out of there, then had it focus on dodging the next few hits. It seemed he had abandoned any hope of offense. The Beedrill was fast and Kabutops couldn't hit it as it fled. That is, until Brock ordered it to use Rain Dance. Its scythes began glowing and it started dancing, bouncing on one leg before alternating to the next. As it danced, dark clouds suddenly began forming above the battlefield and rain sprinkled down. The longer the pokemon danced, the larger the clouds grew and the more intense the rain became, until it reached a heavy downpour.
The Kabutops was upon Smoker's Beedrill in a flash, having suddenly become much faster, and hit it straight on with another Stone Edge attack. Amazingly, the Beedrill was still up and able to fight, but it didn't look like it could last much longer. Smoker's face was one of annoyance more than anything, something that surprised Kiya. Brock, however, wore a grimace. He recalled his Kabutops into its pokeball and said something to Smoker before sending out a much weaker-looking Geodude that seemed rather unhappy in the heavy rain. Kiya could only wonder why Brock would do such a thing.
Smoker didn't look too happy about what should have been to his advantage, but he still ordered his Beedrill to stab at the Geodude, the same as what he tried before against the Kabutops. Just like the last time, the blow did nothing to the Rock-type, and a quick Rock Throw attack from the Geodude finished off the gravely wounded bug. Smoker's second pokemon appeared to be a Weedle, something that Kiya wasn't sure helped him much when he already had a Beedrill. Maybe he just liked bugs? She realized that she probably wasn't one to talk, knowing full well that if a Tyrogue or even another Hitmonchan crossed her path she would do everything in her power to catch it despite having Champion.
The Weedle did absolutely nothing to its opponent before succumbing to the Geodude's rollout attack, ending the battle. Brock and Smoker said a few more things to each other before Smoker left, not looking very sad or angry about his loss but definitely not happy either. Kiya didn't learn anything about Brock as a trainer from that fight, but she did learn a good deal about the Kabutops and she supposed that counted for something if he sent it out. Once Smoker left, the rain clouds were soon to follow, leaving the battlefield free for a new opponent. Kiya didn't waste any time, leaping down from the bleachers down to the field with Champion close behind her.
Brock seemed to raise an eyebrow at Kiya when she stepped up to her designated place on the field. Most people did, though, apparently finding her outfit strange for whatever reason. She paid it no mind, though, and instead just got into a fighting stance. Now Brock's other eyebrow rose. "You know your pokemon is going to be the one fighting, right?" he asked, only semi-jokingly. She didn't need to respond as Champion soon took his place on the field, taking his own stance that was, rather uncharacteristically for a Hitmonchan, identical to her own. After all, he had been practicing Karate in the dojo alongside Kiya for as long as he could remember.
While she was an experienced fighter when it came to martial arts, she had also done pokemon battles several times in the past against others in the dojo who kept pokemon as well as some of the neighborhood children. In her early battles, she struggled with giving commands when they needed to be given. She usually knew what she wanted to do in a given situation, but she had always been used to simply reacting to things with her body as opposed to translating them into thoughts, then into words. Champion would also struggle between doing what he felt was best in the situation or obeying Kiya's delayed commands. With the help of Master Kiyo, Kiya discovered that she could react faster if she acted as if she herself were the one battling, and attempted to synchronize her moves with Champion's.
Brock could tell that the pair was serious. "Is this your first gym battle?" he asked. This surprised Kiya, as she was always used to just getting right into the fight after readying her stance. She just stood there for a moment, feeling awkward in this strange limbo between her "battle mode" and her "social mode", as it could be said.
"Y-yes, this is my first," answered Kiya, not used to conversation from her fighting stance. Champion turned around, sensing his trainer waver. She noticed and tried to steel herself, not wanting to show weakness to her partner and rival. Kiya took a deep breath to get back to her usual self and stood up straight. She then held out her right hand, holding up 3 of her fingers. "3 minutes. Win or lose, this match will take no more than 3 minutes. I have no badges, and no other pokemon, but I would advise that you don't hold back." Her expression had become fierce, and the moment of awkwardness felt like it was an eternity ago. Champion turned to face Brock again, glad that he worried about Kiya for nothing.
Brock gave a smirk after hearing Kiya's announcement. "That sounds like a challenge! Alright, it looks like it's about time to get this battle started." He walked to a rack by the wall that held several pokeballs and picked one out before coming back to his place on the field. "No holding back, then? Come on out Aerodactyl!" He tossed the pokeball he had retrieved into the air, and out came a grey-skinned flying pokemon with purple wings, a triangular spade-tipped tail, and very sharp-looking teeth. It roared loudly as it emerged. Kiya didn't bother looking it up on her pokedex, only focusing on the battle at hand as she pictured herself right there in the middle of the ring where Champion stood.