PokeWild

“David Smith? David Smith to reception.”

David let out a slow exhalation and stood. It was time. Again.

The waiting room was a few short steps away from the front desk, and none of the other trainers even looked up as he passed. Many trainers had come and gone while David had waited too. The receptionist, a woman with bright reddish-green hair, smiled at him and gestured to a door behind her desk. “David Smith? Through here please.”

It was a simple request, but he stuttered to a stop anyway. Not once in a week of training had he left this entrance room without an escort. Every other trainer who’d been called up before him had been assigned a minder. The trainer who met his last challenge had been waiting for him at the entrance. His suspicion peaked to new heights.

What was it now? Why was he treated differently? What did it mean?

“Through there?” He repeated, trying to buy time.

The receptionist gave him a nod, still maintaining that friendly smile. He would receive no hints from her. That was a practiced smile, one for the gambling table or customer service.

“Right. Right.” His hand fell to his waist. The cold metal was soothing and the texture of the woven rope focused his mind. He pulled the door open and stepped through.

“Hello David,” Jenny said, waving from the other side of the room, out of view of the door. She wore the gym uniform, a loose dark gray-purple outfit with tight cuffs, but not her usual sporting kind. Her hair was pulled up and bundled up under a hat so that not even a single banana yellow strand showed.

“Jenny? What are you... I’m battling you!?” His voice may have grown a little shrill towards the end. Training matches were one thing. Battles another. He didn't think the gym would be so unsubtle.

She snorted. “It’s nice to see you too. And no, I won’t be facing your challenge today. It would be a little unfair – favoritism and all. Unless...” She squinted up at him, making her face seem younger especially with her hair hidden. “I could ask for an exception if you reaaally-”

“No, no,” David said hurriedly. Carine was much better to face as a trainer than an opponent. The less said about Jenny’s Ariados the better. “That sounds like a sensible rule.”

Jenny nodded sagely for a second before breaking into giggles.

“Hah ha. Laugh it up.” He scowled at her, but there was no heat in his expression. Oddly enough the little jump scare had put him at ease. Whatever he faced was not going to be as much of a monster as her Pokemon. There was a comfort in that. “Challenging on a bit of a timer here.”

The giggles didn’t stop, but Jenny did look more sympathetic. “You’ll do fine. Stick to your strengths. Enjoy not having to run with your Pokemon.”

That got a snort out of him. “There is that. I’ll have to stop myself from dodge rolling out of habit.”

“Dodge rolling?” Jenny asked with her eyebrow twisted together. “You have an odd way of phrasing things.”

He winced. Another slip.

“But yes, leaving your dais and forfeiting because of my training would not be appreciated. That training was for the wild, not the indoors. Too much furniture.”

“I’ll... do my best?”

Jenny inspected him for a second before smiling. “Good. Now, come on. There’s something I need to show you first.” She turned and moved to one of the sliding doors leading from the room.

“Really?” He asked. “You have to show me something now? Before my booked challenge? I thought the gym was busy.”

His foot squelched as he followed her. The floor was wet.

“And you mop the gym during the day too? When do your cleaners sleep?“

Jenny stiffened. “That... I’ll explain that too. Come on.”

She led him through empty room after empty room. Even after seven days straight in the complex he couldn’t get a handle on the twists and turns. What he did notice as they crossed each room was that the floor in each was very clean, growing damper, and had sequentially larger puddles. Jenny stopped in a room where the smell of cleaning products lingered, citrus and peach.

“It’s not something to show as much as explain.” She slid the door before them open halfway.

David couldn’t help but step forward to peek, his curiosity piqued. It was another empty room like the one they stood in. The same screen walls and gray-white wood plank flooring as much of the hidden gym. A man mopped the floor, moving to a beat that he hummed but didn’t reach all the way to Jenny and David. His neck was angled to the side like he was fighting a crick, and his light blue hair was spiked up.

Taketa. It was the trainer he fought for his first challenge. They'd followed a series of cleaned rooms, a lack of breadcrumbs that led to their destination.

“What... What am I looking at? Why am I here?” He asked quietly. A tired frustration was making itself known to him. This was meant to be the end. “Is it Taketa? Is he who I'll be facing? Some kind of post training accounting?”

David didn’t like it. He didn’t like how it felt like the plot of a movie, like it was a game, the manipulation. It was so blatant.

He didn’t like the worry. Taketa was strong, and fixed match or not, that was a powerful Golbat. A Golbat that he wasn’t sure a week of training was enough to place Cloudburst on balanced currents.

“No.” Jenny’s voice was soft and sad. “You asked about the cleaners? Taketa has been cleaning the gym for the last week.”

“What? The trainers clean the-” It didn’t make sense, but it did, and David wanted a clear answer. “Why?”

“Punishment. As you’ve realized, there was some... meddling with your last challenge and its timing. Taketa is not an idiot, and he noticed. He learned who was paying attention, put it together with some local news and made some assumptions. Then he saw a test where there wasn’t and decided to excel for it.”

“Stop beating around the bush and just answer.”

Jenny’s brow crinkled again in confusion at his wording, but he wasn’t in the mind to worry about it or find amusement from her expression. “He fought at too high a level for your challenge. This was his punishment. Gym trainers aren’t assigned to just one badge slot. Taketa covers several, and you didn’t have a fair challenge last time.”

David remained silent. In the room Taketa was still bopping to some music as he worked.

“And? I did figure that out, eventually. You’re saying this was a mistake, not normal, but wasn’t it? He–” David gestured at the dancing trainer “–did it, but he did it because it is something that is done, and he thought it’s what he was being asked to do. You can’t tell me I’m the only one who has had a ‘difficult’ challenge in Fuchsia. The challenges are political, and it's not just this gym.”

Finn’s angry promise to return. The fear of the Saffron gym in the dojo. How trainers in Celadon, Joe, had to carefully decide who to fight when because of where he was from.

Taketa was being punished for messing up, but it was all so very hypocritical.

Jenny’s lips were pursed. Her eyes were tight. She was clearly torn, but she did not look sorry. “And I wanted you to know before your challenge. This one will be honest. Most challenges are honest.”

“But not all.”

Jenny was silent. She slid the door closed. “Everyone dances to a tune. Everyone, even Koga.”

He felt the brush of a cold stone cup against his lips and the tingle that followed.

“Someone makes the music.”

He turned away from the door to look at his instructor for a week. “My challenge?”

-.-

“Good luck David.”

The door slid closed behind him, and David was oddly certain that this would be the last time he ever saw Jenny.

“Hello!”

The gym trainer waiting on the sand of the arena was making an attempt to be friendly, but was unable to hide his curiosity and bemusement. Like Taketa it seemed this trainer hadn’t been told the full story either. The trainer had muddy brown hair and his brush-like eyebrows were raised as he tried to hide his glances at the closed door.

“Hi.” David put his thoughts of Jenny behind him. He needed to focus. This would be a challenge after all.

“Well then.” The trainer clasped his hands behind his back and straightened. His movements brought David’s attention to the trails furrowed in the sand. The trainer had been pacing before David’d arrived. “My name is Yuto. I will be facing your challenge today. Second badge challenge, two Pokemon yes?”

“Yes. Two Pokemon.”

“I will take the far dais–” Yuto turned to point it out across the arena. This room had a large circular pond in the center. Four short canals extended out from the pond at cardinal points. “– and you the near. The battle shall start on my count, releasing before then will earn you Move penalties which I will call as needed. Failure to follow the rules will result in disqualification. Standard League rules apply. Understood?”

David nodded.

“Any questions?” Yuto’s cheeks dimpled. He had a flurry of freckles on his left jaw.

“No.”

“In-gym healing is available in emergencies. Requesting it during the match will result in disqualification if the healer testifies that it was not needed. Better to be safer than sorry though.” Yuto took a breath, scanning David and the door behind him one last time. “Ready yourself. Patience and Principle.”

David had a short time to take a breather as Yuto crossed the arena. Both his Pokemon were ready, eager. He could feel it. They knew how important this battle was. They both wanted out. Still, his hand fell to rest on the shiny pokeball at his waist while stepping into the box carved into the wooden flooring of the arena. Venonat would start the match off. While technically the ‘weaker’ Pokemon on his team, he was also the more versatile and had a defensive advantage against other Poison types.

Yuto waved. “I will begin counting.”

“3.”

A week of training in preparation for this.

“2.”

Under the rules David had a single switch if Venonat was over his head.

“1.”

Venonat could do a lot of damage with Bug Bite, but his strength lay in blunting his opponent’s.

“Go.”

The bright flash made him see white even through his closed eyelids. It was gone in an instant, before he could open his eyes again, which never failed to surprise him. As fast as his reactions were, it was another of his senses that detected his opponent first today.

Across the arena wings thrummed.