7 - In the Sunyshore Gym
{Gotta love how this hasn't exactly changed much over the years}
Rarity slowly walked forward, her head on the proverbial swivel. A man with glasses stood beside a pair of statues of some kind. He looked Aengus in the eye and said, “Hey there! How’s it going, Champ-to-be?”
The man continued talking to Aengus, but Rarity didn’t pay any further attention. The floor was garish, an eye-searing lemon-lime chevron pattern. Bolts of electricity jumped between electrodes nearby. A gap lay between the platforms with gears in the in-between, each with walkways on them at that. These horizontal gears were large enough to fit a small locomotive on them. Some person stood on the other side. Rarity peered carefully over the edge of the platform at the machinery work below, and the solenoid under the arcing electrodes. While she tried to discern the machinery, Aengus called out, “Rarity! Let’s do this!”
She followed Aengus out onto the walkway, and around the corner as the walkway turned ninety degrees to the right. At the next vertex was a green circle, large and unavoidable. As they stepped onto it, the gears suddenly moved a quarter turn. Rarity exclaimed some surprised non-word yelp. She slammed against the railing. As she rubbed her flank as if she expected a bruise, Aengus began, “Geez, that’s a hazard. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Rarity sighed, still tending to the site of impact.
Aengus stroked her neck with an encouraging pat. “Let’s step on these centre button-panel-switch-things together. I don’t want either of us losing our balance again.”
Rarity nodded. The now-turned path led back onto the first platform, but the first walkway had turned, and now faced the other direction. They followed it onto another gear with also had they green centre. Aengus squeezed over so that Rarity could step on it at the same time. Both braced against the railings, and stepped down. After the turn, the first walkway had rotated so that they could reach the other side, of the same painful pattern. Rarity sighed as she looked at the floor’s flagrant colouration.
There was a young girl here, who was challenging Aengus to a Pokémon battle. She sent out a chipper-looking white and blue squirrel, which was dispatched in one blow by Aengus’s Flygon, before the squirrel could even move. Rarity just blinked. The girl looked disappointed but not overwhelmed by the quick defeat, while Aengus gave her a slight nod and nothing more. They walked through the door.
Rarity sighed as more gears met her gaze, though this time there were a pair of vertical ones. She muttered, “There has to be a better way to train Pokémon than this.”
“Than this place? Yeah. And there’s tremendous power consumption here, too,” said Aengus, shaking his head. “Every gym I’ve come to has some puzzle that goes with it, but it’s never anything challenging. I don’t know if the gym leaders just don’t know how to build one with any difficulty, or if they intentionally dumb it down for younger trainers. Either way, it’s gears this time, clearly. At least it’s not catapults again.”
“These floors are hideous,” Rarity griped. “Who dared paint them with overly bright colours, and from the same colour family to boot? I think some of the adolescent fillies liked such colours when I was quite little, years before my sister was born. Sure am glad fashion made the obvious sensible move away from that.”
Aengus smirked at her commentary as he led Rarity across the gear on the right, which did not have a button at its centre, but a split path. Stepping back onto a solid platform, they were approached by a skinny man with long blonde hair and an electric guitar. Strumming his axe, he sang...something, but Rarity couldn’t figure out what. Some of the harder, grungier types of rock and roll were simply too...well, grungy, in every sense of the word, for Rarity’s taste. A dirty man in dirty clothes, singing dirty words in a dirty voice to dirty notes...to her, all of it was dégoûtant, gritty, grimy, unclean, unfit, and unappealing. Absolutely no elegance, no grace, no wit, and no charm whatsoever. Rarity stood in wonder why anypony, or anyone, could find that enjoyable as Aengus sent out Rhyperior, who was a big boy indeed. The guitar man countered first with some iron ball with attached magnets and a single eye, followed by two blue and black large cats of some kind, one after the other. Rarity had come to expect things like the ground shaking when a Ground-type is in a fight, and didn’t pay it much mind as her thoughts drifted around. At least Rhyperior was slower, and through the gauche device upon her head she learned a little about blocking and dodging attacks for once. She considered how much better she Sings than that man as the second such cat fell.
Barely acknowledging his vanquished opponent, Aengus climbed the stairs there. A large vertical gear was in front of them, looking as though it had a walkway on it, but was turned perpendicular to the floor. Rarity looked at him and said, “Darling, I believe we took a wrong turn.”
“Not quite,” Aengus answered. “I saw this is a dead end at the moment, but it’s higher up. The height gives me a clearer perspective on how to navigate this room.”
“Ah.”
They looked out on the four horizontal gears, with banistered walkways on them. One had a green button like before. Two had blue ones. Aengus rubbed his chin for a moment, then said, “Just a little time consuming, but that’s all. I’m assuming the difference between the blue and the green are the direction they rotate. We start on the gear next to this one we just went over, and that’ll open the vertical gear’s path on the far side of the room. Follow those stairs down, deal with the kid standing over there, get to the green button, come back across this gear, and take the vertical one we’re next to, and head to the next room. You follow?”
Rarity pursed her lips for a moment, and said, “I...think so. Let’s just hope the gears turn in the right direction.”
The two set off as Aengus suggested, and upon reaching the blue button, they noticed the gears turned in the opposite direction from convenient. Rarity stepped on the blue button a second time before Aengus could do so in unison, and her back end swung around and slammed him against the railing. With an oof he sputtered and dropped to one knee. Rarity gasped, “Darling, I’m so sorry! Are you hurt? I meant no harm at all!”
“Gimme a moment,” puffed Aengus, feeling at his midsection with his hands. After a moment he wheezed, “Damn, you’re heavy....”
Rarity glared at him a moment. “I express my concern for your well-being, and you insinuate I’m fat!? How dare you!! You might not know ponies’ physiques as well as your kind’s, but I’ll have you know I’m slender and fit!”
“That’s not what I said,” Aengus grumbled as he pushed himself to his feet. “I said you’re heavy. Ponies are much bigger and heavier than humans; even if you’re the star of your county, you’re still gonna be heavier than me by a bunch. Stop jumping to conclusions.”
“Still,” growled Rarity.
They completed the turn and got off the gear. Aengus had surmised correctly, and they followed the vertical gear’s path across. A kid there started a battle with Aengus, sending out what looked like the same ball with magnets as before, except there were three of them stuck together. Aengus’s Krookodile KO’ed it in one shot as well. The boy blinked in a stupefied fashion as Aengus merely strode by. The next gear had but the blue button, and it did not turn against the quicker way, nor did the green button on the next gear. They passed the guitar man from before, still making his noise. They crossed the gear and came to a little girl dressed up like a Pikachu. Aengus made no attempt to go around. She sent out four Pikachus, and Aengus sent a different one of the four he switched in for the gym against each of them. Only Flygon moved before its opponent, but of the other three, only Excadrill dodged their opponents’ attack. All four Pikachus fell from a single hit, and Aengus carried on without a hint of reaction, and walked through the door to the third room.
The final room was much bigger, and had red centre-gear buttons along with blue and green. Aengus led Rarity onto the first gear and turned right at the centre, heading onto the second gear, triggered the first red button. Instead of stopping at a right angle, the gears rotated 180 degrees. They stepped off and were approached by another guitarist who looked much too similar to the other in the last room for Rarity’s tastes. Fortunately his style of play was more of standard rock and roll rather than that...stuff from earlier. Rarity paused as the guitarist sent out a Raichu. As Aengus deployed Flygon, Rarity began, “Um, Aengus??”
Aengus said over his shoulder, “Not the same one. There are many Raichus in the world.”
“Oh.”
Flygon barely moved before this other Raichu and delivered a knock-out strike. Aengus moved on. Following the rotated gear, Aengus and Rarity had to go left, to another red-centred gear. Back on solid but poorly-coloured ground, they encountered a teenaged girl who wanted a go. She battled with a strange bee-patterned bipedal thing that Rarity watched get thrashed by Excadrill, and then a Raichu that got a shot off but missed before similarly falling. As they went up the stairs, Aengus said to himself, “Looks like I’ve found the better pair of the four.”
Rarity inserted, “Excadrill and Flygon, you mean?”
Aengus nodded. “Obviously. They are doing rather well at proving themselves.”
“Is there a reason you ignore them once you’ve won the battle?” Rarity asked.
“They’re warm-ups,” said Aengus. “Nothing more. They ultimately don’t matter.”
Rarity scoffed, “Hardly a fitting attitude for a champion.”
“You see that man in the back? The one in the middle?” Aengus said, pointing. After Rarity nodded, he continued, “That one matters. Everybody else standing here are simply training in his Gym, trying to become strong enough to challenge him, but know they are not there yet. They are trying his philosophy at battling, using similar Pokémon. Then somebody like me comes along, gives them all a good wallop, and hopefully they learn something. Usually they don’t. They’ll continue using those Pokémon and battling other challengers to the Gym, rather than switch up their group to handle Ground-types. So yes, what you said earlier still stands: this isn’t the best way to train Pokémon, and does a half-arsed job with trainers.”
Another guitarist met them, one who liked to play loud chords and melodies very, very quickly, although it was in a Major key and not the grunge from the first. Rarity flattened her ears at his performance. Flygon came back out and handily bested two more large cats like the ones earlier. As they moved on, Aengus commented, “I see you’re not into power metal.”
“No darling. Not one whit.”
They stepped out onto the gears once more. Following their rotations, Aengus led Rarity around the corners, under an arcing solenoid, and to a blue button that Aengus over-rotated. He quickly stepped on and off the button several times until he could follow the path to the platform beside the central-back one. Rarity stumbled forward, bracing herself against the handrails. Aengus looked back from the yellow and green flooring and asked, “Too quick?”
“Yes, you did that too quickly,” Rarity muttered, blinking hard. “Feels like this spinning room is sinking deep into that mess down there.”
Aengus grimaced. “Stay with me, lass. Lean against me if you must.”
And as such, Aengus helped Rarity onward, where a nearly-a-man boy faced off with Aengus and his team. Excadrill went to fight this time, and eluded the punch of one of those upright yellow-and-black things, and then totaled another of the three-in-one iron ball opponents. Aengus did not even look the youth in the eye as he moved on, still helping Rarity with the dizziness. He placed his hand between her eyes. She asked, “What are you doing?”
“Forcing your eyes to see separate things. It helps us; maybe it’ll help you,” he answered.
Rarity noticed he was correct. The uneasiness faded. As they started across the vertical gears’ “bridge,” Aengus looked around briefly. He pointed at the red button they stepped on first, and moved onward. He commented, “You know your face is different from every pony, horse, and zebra I’ve ever seen, or saw pictures of.”
“Oh?”
“You have binocular vision,” Aengus explained. “Both of your eyes face forward, and, frankly, are huge. The horses, etc., of this world have eyes on the sides of their head, and are comparatively small.”
“Why does that matter?” Rarity asked as they descended some stairs.
“It’s an odd trait for a grazer. Herbivores usually have eyes on the sides of their heads, almost as if they were scanning a wider area in case a hunter came along. But animals that eat meat have both eyes facing front, in spite of the hullabaloo you made about them serving it at that restaurant,” Aengus answered.
As they stepped on the red button again, Rarity replied, “Why would they have both eyes facing front? Wouldn’t they have a better chance of spotting prey if they were looking all around at once?”
“Maybe?” Aengus unconvincingly replied. “It probably has something to do with hunting. I’m guessing it helps them see how far away something is.”
“Sounds like you also had some higher education,” Rarity said.
Aengus shook his head as they started back across the gear bridge. “Nah, it’s just something I noticed after eleven years of being out training Pokémon and looking for more in the wild. See the same thing over and over, and even an unintelligent person figures things out after awhile. Sailors, back in the day of wind-powered ships, were the first to notice the world was round and not flat, and precious few of them knew how to read or do basic mathematics.”
Rarity gave him a disbelieving look. “And how did they come to that conclusion?”
“Ports they left sank below the horizon, rather than just get smaller and smaller,” Aengus said as they started across the gears again. He smiled as he looked up. “Yep, got it. Told you this wasn’t too hard. And this is the most difficult gym in Sinnoh. I found the ones back in Johto more confusing, but I was only eleven years old back then.”
“And what purpose would my ‘huge eyes’ serve?” Rarity asked, biting back on the venom.
Aengus shrugged. “I have no idea. They’re cute, though.”
Rarity smiled contentedly at that assessment. They quickly came to the last platform. A man with short blonde hair and blue eyes was there, wearing black trousers and a medium blue coat. Aengus took something out of his bag and applied it to four of the Pokéballs at his belt. As he stepped forward, the man spoke. “Ah, so you are my latest challenger. I am Volkner. Been awhile since the last one came, and that was over quickly. I hope you brought something thrilling, because I’m growing bored of this.”
“Fear not,” Aengus said with a cocky grin. “No boredom will come to you presently. This isn’t a group you can simply push over.”
“Words I’ve heard before, or others to a similar end. Truly, I hope this will be a fun battle. It’s been awhile...,” Volkner sighed. He reached behind his back, and tossed up a Pokéball, ordering, “Jolteon, go!”
A yellow cat-like creature with black eyes, spiky fur, and a white mane came out, though its mannerisms were much more dog-like. Aengus looked at Rarity. “You want this one?”
“Uh...sure?” Rarity half-heartedly answered.
“Then, go get ‘im, Rarity!” Aengus cheered. As she stepped forward, Aengus whispered, “Watch its tail. He’ll probably strike from there to begin.”
Volkner gave Rarity a puzzled look. She began to charge her horn, staring intently at the Jolteon. Aengus smirked, and shouted, “Rarity, use Sing!”
“You want me to sing? Now??” she asked perplexed, staring back at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, Rarity, now would be a good time.”
Volkner rolled his eyes at their exchange. “Jolteon...Iron Tail.”
Rarity yelped as the speed with which Jolteon closed and swung its tail. She gasped in pain as the move struck home. She took a few deep breaths, and muttered to herself, “Sing, huh? Fine, whatever.”
Rarity of thought something she sand with The Ponytones, but figured the tune probably wouldn’t work without the rest of the quartet. Then she remembered an opera her parents took her to as a birthday present, one that was an early spark in her love of fashion. The older Prench garb always stuck out in her mind, especially the haute couture styles. She remembered an aria and began to sing it, sounding rather similar to the Habanera piece from Carmen. Within two lines, Jolteon’s eyes were closed and it was softly snoring, still on its feet. Rarity noticed and muttered, “How rude....”
Volkner barked, “Jolteon! Snap out of it, and use Charge Beam!”
“He fell asleep during your song? How rude indeed,” Aengus said with faux-irritation. “Go show him how you feel about that! Use Play Rough!”
Jolteon continued to softly snore. Snorting, Rarity rocked her head from side to side, getting two pops leftward and three from the right. She then dashed in and kicked up a dust cloud. Numerous punches and kicks sounded from within. As the dust settled, Rarity had her teeth bared, and Jolteon toppled over. In a pinkish flash he returned to his Pokéball.
Volkner blinked in shock. As he reached behind him for the next, Aengus said, “Rarity, step back. I’m sending in Excadrill.”
“Go, Raichu!” Volkner shouted.
Rarity hobbled back to Aengus’s side as Excadrill materialized from her ball. A Raichu appeared across from her. Sparks flew off the yellow dots on its cheeks. Excadrill looked back at Rarity and shot her a grin. Rarity returned it with an encouraging nod. Volkner blinked quickly again, studying Excadrill’s features. He muttered, “Another Pokémon I’ve never seen before....”
“Excadrill, use Drill Run!” Aengus shouted with glee.
“Raichu, Focus Blast!” Volkner answered.
A ball of some kind of power formed between Raichu’s hands, and shot forward at Excadrill. She leaned to her right and let it sail by. Excadrill launched herself at Raichu, spinning. Raichu hunched down, looking to leap away once Excadrill was too close to turn, but mistimed the dodge. Raichu grunted, sounding of having the wind knocked out of him, as he tumbled backwards into an uncontrolled reverse somersault and stopped face-down on the heinous floor. It, too, faded away into its Pokéball.
A bead of sweat formed on Volkner’s forehead. Sounding of forced courage, he yelled, “Luxray, your turn!”
Rarity breathed hard, nursing her side where Jolteon’s tail struck. Her fur was slightly reddened. As she looked up at Aengus, a dark grin was taking over his face. She said, “I think you’re enjoying this a little too much.”
“Maybe I am. If so, I don’t care,” he answered.
A blue and black large cat coalesced on the battleground, larger and with a fuller mane than such cats Rarity saw from earlier opponents. Volkner hollered, “Use Fire Fang, Luxray!”
Aengus grinned. “Excadrill, same song, second verse.”
Excadrill moved first, the same as last time, and to the same result. Luxray had fainted from the blow, and returned to its Pokéball. Volkner blanched. He stood wide-eyed, twitching in his hands slightly. Aengus lazily blinked as he just stood there, very relaxed. Volkner squeaked, “This is it...my trump card!”
“You don’t sound especially confident, sir,” Aengus answered cockily.
“Electivire!!” Volkner shrieked.
A large bipedal yellow and black...thing came out, sporting what looked like a pair of long, thin black tentacles coming out of its back with red tips. It flexed its arms threateningly and jumped around in a simian sort of way.
Aengus shook his head. “Excadrill, one more time.”
“Use Fire Punch now, Electivire!!” Volkner screamed.
The huge thing closed ground on Excadrill and threw a flaming punch which connected. Excadrill staggered back a few steps, blinked hard a few times, and shook her head. Then she dove forward in the same spin as before. And again, the attempt to dodge did not execute at the correct time, leaving an enormous creature toppling and disappearing in a smattering of rosy sparks. Volkner stood dumbfounded.
{Not gonna bother with the Got A Badge! fanfare}
Excadrill walked back to Aengus, who smiled broadly at her. He scratched her back, to which she arched and closed her eyes with a contented sound. With a hug he said, “You did great, lass. Welcome to my A-Team. You’ve earned it.”
Volkner slowly walked over to them as Excadrill returned to her ball. He murmured in disbelief, “You’ve got me beat...the way your Pokémon fought was...unbelievable. I’ve never seen such strength, and you had four more you didn’t even show.”
“Thank you very much,” said Aengus earnestly. “You did not look like you were enjoying yourself.”
Volkner chuckled nervously. “Honestly...no. Your team is terrifying. You’ve given me something to work towards, a level I must reach. I’ll train harder than ever!”
“A noble goal,” Aengus answered. “And the correct way to achieve it. I wish you luck, and the perseverance to get there.”
“You’ve earned this! Your eighth badge!” Volkner said. Aengus snickered for a moment. Volkner asked, “Why’s that funny?”
“Eighth? No. Fortieth,” Aengus answered.
“Forty!?”
Aengus pulled a hard-backed wallet out. As he opened it, a flap rolled out with its own hard backing behind five panels. Four had eight ornate pins attached, and the bottom had seven. Aengus pointed at them in descending as he said, “Johto...Kanto...Kalos...Unova...and now Sinnoh.”
“Wow....”
“Glad I could impress,” Aengus grinned as he attached the Beacon Badge to the lower-right spot on the fifth flap.
As Aengus put all that stuff away, Volkner asked, “So...which Pokémon League will you challenge?”
“While I’m considered a contender for the Indigo League’s championship, I legally cannot challenge any other League,” Aengus answered. “And so I will be headed home shortly.”
“Not going to Hoenn or Alola?” asked Volkner with a raised eyebrow.
“No time,” Aengus answered. “Besides, if what I’ve heard is correct, Alola hasn’t set their League up yet.”
Volkner pressed, “But you’re just a contender for the championship at the Indigo League, but not its Champion, nor one of its Elite Four?”
“That is correct. I intend to make my challenge shortly.”
“The Indigo League is that tough??” Volkner asked in astonishment.
“Yeah,” said Aengus, slowly nodding. “It is the oldest of the Leagues, after all, and the most prestigious.”
“So I’ve heard. Since you’ve been through so many Gyms, it’s fair to guess you already having the TM for Charge Beam?” Volkner asked.
“Sure do.”
Volkner shook his head with an overwhelmed grin. “Wow. Then let me say, good luck at the Plateau, and safe journey home.”
Aengus bowed graciously, and led Rarity back out the front door of the Gym.
{Business concluded; time to leave}
After a quick stop at the Pokémon Centre for healing, and switching back to his travel team, Aengus led Rarity back down Route 222 as the late afternoon sun sank in the western sky. The going was quicker without stopping to battle every trainer they happened across, as most of them were the same folks from that morning, but the hotel was still a long ways away. Rarity asked, “That Jolteon-character, why did it hurt so much when it hit me? That weasel from last night wasn’t so bad.”
Aengus looked at her for a moment, then continued gazing forward. “A Jolteon is much stronger than a Buizel, even with physical attacks. More to the point, you’re considered a Fairy-type in this world. The move Iron Tail is a Steel-type move, and one of the Fairy-type’s weaknesses, remember?”
“And the other is Poison-type attacks; I did not forget,” Rarity answered. After a pause, she continued, “So what is the plan for now, darling?”
“We hit the hay early, and set out early,” Aengus said. “The ship leaves in the morning two days from tomorrow, and we’ll need to be in Snowpoint City by then. We’ve a lot of ground to cover. Paddy’s in Solaceon Town, which leaves us two ways to get there: we take the south route through Pastoria and Hearthome Cities, or we head north and go through Veilstone City instead. From the hotel it’ll be quicker to get there by way of Veilstone, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Then we meet up with Paddy, and the lot of us head north. Depending on the time we make, we may spend the night at Celestic Town, or have a night of camping in the caves of Mt. Coronet. Then we press through the cold of those northern routes on the way to Snowpoint City. We spend our last night in Sinnoh there, and get on the ship the morning after and head for home.”
“What is he doing there, anyway?” Rarity asked. “You’ve been quick to avoid talking about that.”
“And I still am,” Aengus replied. “If you want, you can ask him about it tomorrow. I don’t much feel like being chewed out right now, and would much rather you do your yelling at him instead of me.”
Rarity nickered. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”
“You should.”
The two pressed onward, and were back at the hotel shortly before sundown. A reasonable night’s sleep later, Aengus and Rarity set off northward, toward Veilstone City just after daybreak.
Little trouble from Volkner's Gym, as expected. It's kinda sad how quickly one can tear through Electric-type Gyms with a decent Ground-type or two. And so they leave to reunite with the younger brother. But what was he doing? While many of you have likely surmised correctly, what's that gonna mean for Rarity? And, how are things going back in Ponyville? Stay tuned to find out!
Looks like Wednesdays are my best time to publish ensuing chapters. So...Wednesdays it is. Thanks for reading, and see you next week. 
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Wow just one PLAY ROUGH and Rarity took down a Jolteon... I'm impressed
Also her reaction to it falling asleep after she used SING was priceless
7709569
Play Rough is a pretty strong move physical move. Add that to Jolteon's low base physical defense and HP, Rarity getting a STAB, that Jolteon was asleep, and then a critical hit...suddenly dropping it that quick isn't so shocking.
7709907 I thought Rarity wasn't a strong physical attacker and low leveled?
7710154
She's probably not the best, but she's not too bad. In most of the scraps in the show, Rarity's been kicking instead of blasting away with her horn a la Twilight. As for level, she's not up there with Aengus's main team, but she's no slouch. Also, Jolteon's physical attack is nothing to write home about, but even with that and without a STAB nor crit he almost dropped Rarity with one blow.
7710292 good to know.
calling it, Trixie is going to lay an egg
7710515 and she will know either Trick or Trick Room
Still enjoying the heck out of this story.
Also: I get the feeling some less than friendly times are right around the corner.