Starlight: Redshift

by the-pieman

Chapter 22

After some searching around, we find our way to a small ramen place, with the Guild symbol up on it. We breath a collective sigh of relief, because this means we’ve still got a few thousand poké worth of saved up balance. Inside, there’s already several people seated around, though it’s got a much more ‘American diner’ feel to it than authentic, though that’s fine, as it has comfier seats and booths.

“Don’t know how you make your grains in Equestria, but I guarantee that wheat grain tastes nothing like hay.”

The ponies look sadder. Twilight perks up, though. “We can still get daisy sandwiches here, right?” She smiles hopefully, while Rarity doesn’t look enthused by the food suggestion.

“Haven’t you paid attention when I told you about human culture? You took notes on our diet, right? We can’t digest flowers, and plants like dandelions are poisonous to us. No, they don’t serve flowers as food here. Or anywhere, unless it’s a restaurant for pokémon.”

“Right, sorry... just really like ‘em and all...” she mumbles, and her stomach growls in sympathy. A moment later, the maitre d guides us to a seat, the service surprisingly fancy for what looks like a small diner. As we sit down, I turn my head and see, shockingly, Winston sitting at another table and talking with a younger man, the two of them fairly similar looking.

I wave at them. “Hey Winston, I’ll be back tomorrow, and that badge is mine. I got a secret weapon, now!” the gym leader turns for a moment, and blinks once. then, I see the light of recognition in his eyes.

“Oh yeah, you got pretty far back there. You got that Carvanha leveled up farther?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the only trick I’ve got up my sleeve. I’ll just say you might need to get a pokémon that can jump.” I grin, knowing full well Ground types aren’t known for their vertical speed.

Winston just laughs. “Oh, I should introduce you to my son here. This is Allan.” The younger man leans over, hand extended for a shake. I take his hand and greet him.

“So, you live around here as well?”

He shakes his head, his curly green hair flying everywhere. “Nah, I live by the Mirari Plateau. I’m a part of the Elite four.” His smile is genuine, and I actually feel a little taken aback at his casual mentioning of his position.

Winston laughs. “Yeah, my son’s one of the elite four, and I stick around and push newbies onto the path to getting squashed by him.” the father and son duo smile widely, though it’s a comforting thing, not threatening.

I grin back. “Yeah well, you might find me a bit more resourceful than the usual rabble. What do you specialize in?”

“Steel types. I actually own a steel-mill, and supplement it with my earnings as a League member. It’s pretty profitable on its own though; we supply most of the steel used in the larger constructions on the other side of the Region.”

“Just don’t think I’m gonna be a pushover. I’m not the type to give up when the odds are against me.”

“If you were the type to give up, I’ll never see you on the Plateau. I hope to see you there someday.” He leans back, looks down at his empty plate. “Bah, there’s never enough food to go around.”

Winston smiles and laughs again. He turns me. “He’s been eating more than twice his share since he was a little boy. I doubt there’s enough food in the world to fill ‘im; he’s won two separate eating contests against a Snorlax.”

“Must have been a pretty small one then, or you’d burst, pal.”

“Nah, he just out marathoned the poor thing. Hungry never stood a chance. Snorlax eat in bursts, you know, not for extended periods of time, usually. One of the other League members makes good use of Hungry on his team.” Winston says, then gets a weird look on his face. “Oops. Pretend I didn’t say that, kay?” He grins sheepishly at his son, who’s giving Winston a look of disapproval. It’s kinda silly, the reversal of the norm, if it didn’t seem actually serious.

“I don’t forget details easily, but I’ll just pretend I don’t know that one of the League members has a large, probably experienced Normal type with a tendency to have low Special Defense.” I say, winking. “Anyway, I’m hungry so I’m gonna get back to the girls now. Have a good time.” The two wave at me, and put down their payment, walking out of the restaurant just as the wait comes over to my table.

After some wrangling, I convince the two pony-turned-humans to try the ramen, and I start to enjoy some honest-to-goodness real ramen, with little bits of beef and steamed veggies. It’s so delicious.

The girls, on the other hand, are looking at their bowls with some measure of confusion.

Rarity taps me on the shoulder. “Uhm... what are these little cubes?”

I take a fork and spear one of said cubes from her bowl, and put it in my mouth. “It’s beef.” I answer, and go back to my own bowl.

“Ah, and what is beef?” she asks, looking at me expectantly. Twilight’s just poking at the food and experimentally trying to get the noodles to not slap her in the face while slurping them up.

“Beef is cow meat. Not sure which part of the cow this stuff was cut from, but it all tastes pretty much the same to me anyways.”

Rarity turns green, and stops eating, sitting a little further back in her chair. Twilight freezes mid-slurp. Then, she shrugs, and goes back to eating. Rarity rounds on her, a look of horror on her face as I watch. “Twilight! That was meat! As in, from an animal!”

Twilight finishes her current forkful of noodles, chews, and swallows. “And? Earth ponies eat pork and beef regularly, and Pegasi eat fish. What’s the problem, Rarity?” I continue eating as Twilight looks actually puzzled. This is delicious, and I’m not talking about the ramen this time.

Rarity sputters. “B- but it was alive. And now- now you’re eating it!”

I roll my eyes. “What, you expect me to get protein from nuts and weird plants? I’m not gonna be some tree-hugging vegan like you crazy ponies.”

Twilight and Rarity both give me looks. Rarity speaks up first. “I’m not sure what a ‘vegan’ is, but I want you to know, I’m just trying to be empathetic here.”

“You can care all you want. I’m not. At this point, it’s just food in my belly. Problem with that?” Rarity opens her mouth to say something, but simply huffs and turns away, crossing her arms over her chest. Twilight shakes her head and goes back to eating.

“I seriously don’t see the harm in it. Cows aren’t going extinct or anything, I’m not eating an endangered species, so what’s the big deal? There’s more where this one came from.”

Rarity continues to pointedly ignore me. I sigh and roll my eyes.

“Rarity, they probably signed up for this when they died, just like most of the cows in Equestria do. I’ve never understood Canterlot’s insistence it’s not ethical; it’s freely given and it’s nutritious.” Twilight says, but she’s getting the cold shoulder as well.

“Wait, sign up? Cows’re just dumb animals. They aren’t sentient. They’re led to a slaughterhouse in groups and chopped up and... whatever else they do there.”

Rarity looks horrified as her head snaps back around to look at me.

Twilight looks at me. “Not sentie- oh, this is another thing with different worlds. In Equestria, cows are legal citizens and plenty intelligent. They can choose to offer their bodies upon death if they want to, and most do.” She waves her fork for emphasis.

I sigh. “Fine. So here they’re delicious livestock. Where you come from they’re delicious registered people. Big difference, I get it. Doesn’t change that they taste the same with a side of mashed potatoes.”

Twilight rolls her eyes, while Rarity goes back to steadfastly ignoring her meal. After I finish with mine, reach over and grab her bowl, and finish that off, too. No sense wasting food we’ve paid for, right?

When Twilight and I are finished eating, we head back to the Center to sleep. Tomorrow I get my first badge. Before I fall asleep though, I take out my éTech and type in a note about the Snorlax. Loose lips aren’t my problem to deal with. I grin as I close my eyes and drift off.

---

Waking up bright and early, I get ready for my second gym battle. After some careful prep-work -Mostly talking to my pokémon and getting us all pumped up- I head towards the gym. The main door says it’s open, and I hurry inside. There’s the same trainer as before, and he looks determined.

“Hey, it’s you! Here to try for Winston again? My Pokémon are a bit stronger than last time.”

“Heh, sure, you’ll make a good warmup. Tell ya what, I’ll let you pick your pokémon first.”

“Ha, as the gym trainer, I have to anyways. Alright, let’s see how you do!” the battle goes more or less the same as the first, but with less hits on me. Smiling, he lets me past, and I see that Winston has filled in a large section of the gym with fresh new dirt, and there’s a few grass-pokémon under the soil.

“Ah, Anthony. You’re here early. Let’s move to the other side of the gym, alright? My wife made a request I let her pokémon stay here during the day this week, so I’m letting them nap along that wall.”

“No problem, I’ll take you on anywhere you want, won’t change the end result.”

Winston leads me over to the other side of the gym, and nods to me. Then, he throws out his Hippopotas, the Sandstorm starting almost immediately.

I grin. Just as expected. I grab the ball off my belt, enlarge it, and toss it into the field. “GLaDoS, use Sunny Day!”

Winston seems surprised as the Grass-Electric type enters the field. Immediately, it begins concentrating, and the sand clears away, allowing the light coming in through the windows to become intense, to the point where it’s really painful to look at. No matter, I came to win, not to see the field.

“Vine Whip!” Before the slow-moving Hippopotas can react, a vine extrudes from the ground, GLaDoS rooted in place as it begins to lash the sedentary foe repeatedly. The braided whip doesn’t seem to do much, but it’s keeping the Hippopotas off-kilter.

Winston tries telling it to bite, and I can only smile. Voltato vines are really toxic. “Oh, try a little faster, I think you almost got it that time!” I yell at the Hippopotas, laughing and waiting for the Ground type to get its surprise.

The hippo, as instructed, takes a huge chomp out of GLaDoS’ vines, and rips them off, chewing them sullenly until...

“Hlurk!” The pokémon suddenly begins turning purple all over, and begins to gag, trying to get vines out of it mouth, but it’s too late. Winston hurriedly recalls the pokémon and puts it on a machine, probably a healer.

“Damnit, I should’ve remembered. Those things are everywhere out in the fields.” Winston shakes his head, evidently upset with himself. GLaDoS, meanwhile has retracted its roots and limps back to me, looking as mournful as it can and making pitiful noises, though it doesn’t look that hurt.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s just a flesh wound. Go ahead and rest for now.” I say, as Winston throws out his next pokémon, his shiny Nincada. I respond by sending out Geodude, who looks at the bug and gives it a glare. Nincada doesn’t respond. “Geodude, Rollout.”

“Nincada, Dig!” Winston shouts, and the pokémon speedily tunnels under the ground, only a small poof of dirt showing where it went. Geodude rolls right past it.

“Magnitude!” Geodude stops himself suddenly, flinging himself into the air as a result. As he comes down, he brings his fist down faster, and smashes the ground with something along the lines of a 7 to a 9.

The nincada pops out of the ground just behind Geodude, looking a little dizzy. However, it recovers quickly as Winston yells for it to Sand-Attack, and the little bug catches Geodude right as he’s turning to look at it. My pokémon yells in anger, clutching his eyes.

“Calm down and use Defense Curl!” Even higher defense means Nincada’s moves will be practically null. Geodude tucks his arms around his face, and Nincada takes the chance to begin scooting around him again.

“Now Magnitude again!”

With an explosive burst of speed, Geodude slams the ground again, sending out short ripples in every direction. It’s not as powerful, but it does trip up the Nincada, and gives me enough time for a move to finish with.

“Alright, Tackle it at 3:00!” I don’t want to risk the Sand being a problem, so I decide a bit of a directional cue was in order.

Geodude lifts himself on one hand, and brings himself down like a hammer on the Nincada, bringing a shriek from the pokémon. Geodude hefts himself off, and Nincada looks worse for the wear, but not seriously injured. Winston recalls her before she can get injured further.

“Alright, let’s go another stage: Go, Barboach! Start it with a Mud Bomb!” Winston yells, his Barboach materializing and immediately firing a large, hard ball of dried mud. The direct hit sends Geodude flying, and lands under dozens of pounds of dirt piled over him, his hands sticking out.

I grab one arm and yank him out of the dirt with a lot of difficulty, but once unburied, I return him and send out GLaDoS once more. The sun has faded by now, but he should still be fast enough even without Chlorophyll boosting him.

With a quick rooting, my Voltato anchors itself and begins extruding braided vines with which to smack and entangle the slippery Barboach, who is heading for the pool as quickly as it can. It is, however, slowing, and finally just stops, too exhausted to keep battling. This fight is going way easier. I eagerly wait the last pokémon Winston has in store, and he nods to me.

He grabs his last pokéball, and throws out his Gible, the dragon-ground pokémon highly resistant to all my pokémon. Still, I can beat him! I know it, there’s no doubt in my mind.

Well, maybe a little, but not that much. I throw out Carvanha’s ball, and it releases the fish in midair over the pool where my pokémon drops into the water. “No Mud Sport, no Sandstorm. What’s your plan now?” I ask Winston, a bit of a taunting tone in my voice.

“To fight well, I’m not supposed to win every battle. After all, I’m the first gym leader.” Winston says, and points at my Carvanha.

I chuckle. “Carvanha, leap out and use Ice Fang!”

“Dig under!” Winston yells, and the Gibble practically vanishes down a hole, leaving Carvanha to miss entirely, though it thankfully lands near enough the water to flop back in. Before it can, however, Winston shouts another order. “Take Down from beneath!” is his command, and I watch as the ground boils under Carvanha, and my psycho-fish is launched into the air. On its way down, I’m struck with inspiration. “Ice Fang on the way down! Use the physics in your favor!”

The fish twists to fall face down, and the Gible looks up in time for the two pokémon to basically lock jaws, the two falling over from the impact. Both seem unconscious, so Winston calls it.

“Heh, good job.” He recalls his pokémon and I do the same for mine. “Alright, c’mere. I have for you, in my power as a Gym Leader sanctioned by the Pokémon League, a badge to show your mastery over this first of many gyms. I present to you: the Soil Badge. May it bring the fertile growth your pokémon need to continue your journey.”

“Thanks, I’ll be sure not to underestimate the other leaders. They might actually be difficult.” I look at the shiny badge in my hand, like an outline of a pile of dirt, a single verdant leaf sprouting from it. The beginning of something. I smirk.

“You beat me fine this time, but keep in mind, you outleveled my carefully-tended, specifically depowered pokémon by an average of, what? Four levels?” I look at him in surprise. “Oh, by the way, each gym comes with an interface that checks each pokéball you carry to make sure they’re legal and to check for performance enhancers. It also lets the Leader know what level each of your pokémon is, though it won’t tell us what those pokémon are. Keeps folks honest. I once had a trainer come in who thought he was truly hot shit. Had bought some illegal stat-boosters, and tried to fight me with a Blastoise more than ten levels too low to have evolved naturally. So I used my actual team.”

“What, a Golem at about 120?”

“No, I had my Swampert, Garchomp, and Golurk inform him that what he did was illegal. Then, they confiscated his pokémon - by putting it into a headlock, mind you - and escorted him to the jail. Under one arm, because he wasn’t being particularly cooperative.” Effective, I must admit.

“Impressive. So how often do you get challengers who try to come in with illegal pokémon? Like, the league as a whole?”

“Well, I get about two or three a year, along with about a half-dozen folks who think I don’t know what items are legal for use or not in battle, and try to bamboozle me with flashy tech. Because, of course, I’m sixty-three and therefore cannot use the League’s instant messaging.” He flashes me a grin. Jeez, he barely looks thirty. “As for the League as a whole, I’m not sure. Probably a bit higher than I get personally, but I don’t have a hard number. Oh, and if you see one of those, ah, pudgier nerds trying to sell something that looks like a screen on a handle with two deely-bopper antenna? Inform the police. It’s illegal because it usually just zaps your pokémon, and is generally just a cruel device.”

“Is that really what it’s supposed to do? Why would someone make that and assume someone’s stupid enough to buy it, not knowing what it is or where they got it?”

“Because it does work, unfortunately, or it’d be easier to just let them be. It makes your pokémon become enraged. A lot stronger, resistant to pain, etc. But, it can do long-term lasting harm, is addictive to electric types instead of working how it’s advertised, and it sometimes blows up in the users hands. Also, it tends to make your pokémon not like you in the slightest.”

“Alright, if I see one I’ll let the cops know. Anyway, I’m off. Twilight’s probably still waiting for her turn, so I’ll let her have a go. Seeya Winston.”

“Oh, here. Have my number; I can’t remember the name of the place, but the League members and their friends hang out at a club a ways from here. I’ll send you a text when the next get-together is. You seem like a nice guy.”

We exchange numbers, I thank him again, and make my way out o the gym, with the badge pinned to the front of my jacket. I get outside and show it to Twilight. “Whaddya think?”

“Very nice. Anyways, I’m going to head in. Wish me luck?”

“Sure. Also, here’s a tip: Save Spheal for Gible if you can. He’ll be useful.”

“Will-do. Rarity is over at the Battle Park, if you want to wait for me there.”

“Sure. Seeya in a bit.”

Comments

[catfire13]

*applause*

[the-pieman]

5074311 Glad I'm doing the source material of two huge fandoms justice at the same time.

[DestinyQuill]

I want to see a poison-fairy type eventually. Just sayin'.

[the-pieman]

5074640 Would a Fairy type that naturally uses Poison type moves be sufficient?

[DestinyQuill]

5076667 Sure! Anything that breaks into the unused combinations would be cool. Check around, mix and match, be new and inventive! I want to see what you can do with this.

[the-pieman]

5078330 Oh trust me I will. My editor came up with the idea to introduce a whole new type as well.