Big day tomorrow. Are you ready?

You better bet your ass you are.

Shortly before noon, you stand in front of the Pewter City Gym. This is the first step to your goal, and with your head held high you stride into the building, throwing open the double doors as a way to show your confidence.

Your arrogant entrance draws the attention of the one man you wanted, who seems to have just exited the men's restroom. And by draw attention, you mean you nail him in the face with the door. Hoo boy. Luckily, he seems to be made of the very same thing his Pokemon are because he doesn't even flinch. "Well aren't you an eager trainer, huh?"

You chuckle for a bit before responding. "Yeah, I'm Red and I'm here to challenge you for your badge."

He nods, before motioning for you to follow him. As he leads you farther in, he asks "You wouldn't happen to know someone named Blue, would you?" You nod. "Thought so. He did the exact same thing when he came here."

That... that show-stealing son-of-a-bitch.

Brock leads you to the arena, which is a clear rocky field that does contain, to your joy, a few mud pits within it. You take your designated area as does the gym leader, your hand already twitching near your two occupied Poke'balls. A referee appears from somewhere and after a few rule explanations (Terms of Defeat, You are the only one allowed to switch Pokemon, that sort of thing), begins the match.

Or rather, Brock speaks up before you start. "Oh, real quick. The rumors about me being a womanizer, they're false. So don't try flashing me or anything like that." He actually begins to blush at this point. "One woman actually tried that. And while I admit, I am a man, and was very distracted, Mike over there," Brock points over at the referee, who waves, "disqualified her. So yeah. I think that's it." With that additional rule explained, Mike began the match for real.

You quickly unleash Pidgey to battle Brock's first Pokemon, a Geodude. You command her to repeatedly hit Geodude with Mud-Slap, which she does while avoiding Geodude's Rock Throw. It turns into a cycle of ducking and weaving around rocks before Pidgey would splatter Geodude with mud before repeating over and over again. Kind of boring really.

Things take a turn as Pidgey goes for the kill. Geodude, whether waiting for Pidgey to become overconfident or just really, really lucky, rips off one last chunk of its body (which regrows to your confusion. Honestly, how the hell does it do that?) and throws it at what appears to another miss. However, you realize with a start that Pidgey has been telegraphing her move and just after she unleashes the gust of air to create a Mud-Slap, the thrown rock slams into the joint that connects the left wing to the body, sending her crashing to the ground. You gasp in horror, and even Brock flinches to the sound she makes hitting the dirt. Mike quickly calls this round in your favor, for as the dust settles, Pidgey has made it back to her feet. You quickly recall her, the wing is twisted unnaturally and the blood is flowing at a worrying rate. The Poke'ball will suspend her until you can get her to the Pokemon Center, but there's no way she'll be able to fight in this battle anymore.

You grimise at that though. Your 'Plan B' for the match was for Pidgey to deal with Geodude, then Charmy would stall Onix until Pidgey got her breath back and take Onix out. Now Charmy was all alone.

Brock speaks up at this point. "You know, if you had fought me yesterday, I would have had to use one of my less experienced Onixs. Your friend did a number on my best. But he seems really eager to make up for that loss." Crap.

You both release your final Pokemon, Charmy standing proud against the towering form of Brock's Onix. You're only hope now is that Charmy is able to evade it long enough to chip away at Onix's defenses with Ember. "Onix, Tackle!" And despite seeing it on video a few times, Onix's speed still surprises you as it crosses half the distance between it and Charmy in almost a blink. With the training from yesterday, however, Charmy is able to dodge in time and unleashes a trio of fireballs at it. Only the first lands, unfortunately, and you realize how back this is going to be.

Despite his best efforts, Charmy can't land a decent blow with Ember. You watch with growing horror as Onix toys with Charmy, forcing him to dodge how it wants until Charmy back himself against one of those mud pits you were once so happy to see. Brock seems confident. "Well, you gave it a good try. Onix, Iron Tail."

You pale at the command. Despite the type disadvantage, something of Onix's bulk slamming into something of Charmy's size and experience would be devastating. "Charmy, get out of there!" you cry helplessly.

Charmy looks left, then right before looking at you with a grin. In that moment, you know. Charmy feels that he's disappointed you, that that's the real reason why you wouldn't have sex with him last night. He wants to redeem himself in your eyes. You open your mouth to scream his name, when Onix's glowing tail slams down on him.

A huge dust cloud erupts from the impact. One so thick, it thankfully blocks out the horrible sight. Mike calls in favor of Brock, and you look at the gym leader with tears forming. Brock looks at the dust cloud with a stony expression, before his brow furls and a frown forms. You blink, before looking at the cloud yourself, the tiniest flicker hope in your heart.

The first thing you see as the dust begins to clear is Onix, but something about its expression is wrong. Then you see a light in the dust. Charmy's tail flame thankfully still burns, but it too is wrong. Instead of being tiny as you expected, it seems... bigger?

The dust cloud finally settles, and you see something you never thought you would see. The impact of Onix's Iron Tail hit with so much **** that it actually created a crater at the impact point, one that also formed long cracks that snaked out in all directions, which allowed the mud from the nearby mud pit to begin to trickle into the crater. And yet, Charmy is there, down on one knees with the mud slowly rising around him. However, there are two things you note. One is that his tail flame is in fact bigger. A sign that his ability 'Blaze' is active. The other is that he is pushing back at Onix's still glowing tail with both hands. Both GLOWING hands. Mike, seeing what you see, quickly reverses his previous decree.

The glow on Onix's tail fades away, prompting Charmy to start yelling as he now pushes back the offending tail before, with a much louder cry, actually severing the back four segments of the Onix. Onix lets out a screech of pain at that, before Charmy leaps at it and begins clawing the heck out of the rock type. You watch detached as you try to fight out how he was able do such a thing, before it hits you.

As Onix's tail descended, Charmy somehow figured out Metal Claw at that moment. Even more impressive was that he had also lucky enough to experience the strength boost of the technique. It still did devastating damage, but somehow not enough in a short enough amount of time to prevent the activation of 'Blaze', which unlike what most people think, boosts the Pokemon's entire being. Most simply used the boost to unleash their most powerful ranged attack.

You are pulled from your thoughts by an almost painful squeal of pain, just in time to see Onix fall to the ground in defeat, long gouges in its rock body and a few more segments missing. Charmy climbs on top of the fallen foe, and lets out a victory cry complete with some flames spewing from his mouth as Mike calls the match in your favor. You immediately rush for Charmy, which turns out to be a good idea as you are just able to catch him as he falls limply of the rock snake. "You idiot." you murmur to him with tears in your eyes as you cradle him carefully. You are almost certain he's broken at least every bone in his body, and there are a ton of bleeding cut on his body, yet he seems so hurt that he can't even feel the pain. Reluctantly, you return him to his ball as you hear the other **** Pokemon being recalled as well.

"Damn. That Charmander you have. I've never seen anything like it." He shakes his head in disbelief, before he begins what sounds like a well rehearsed speech. "By the rules of the Pokemon League, in recognition of your victory in this battle, I, Brock, Gym Leader of the Pewter City Gym, do present to you, Red, the Boulder Badge. Carry it with pride and honor." He says, handing you the badge, before a grin breaks out on his face. "Now get that future powerhouse to the Pokemon Center. I can't wait to hear how far you two go."

You nod, before you break out into a sprint for the Pokemon Center. You weave through the city crowd, making your way to Nurse Joy in record time. She wordlessly takes your two Pokemon and places them on the scanner. As she reads the diagnosis, her face pales and her mouth slowly falls open before looking at you, then back at the display and back at you. "How?"

"Um, Charmy tanked an Iron Tail from Brock's Onix?" you say uncertainly, cringing back in preparation for getting your ass chewed out. She draws a deep breath when you both hear a ding, drawing both of your attention toward the newcomer. Apparently, Brock really cares for that Onix, because it's him.

"Whatever she told you, it's true." He says. Nurse joy wastes no time going into a very impressive rant about a wide range of things; your Pokemon, his, other trainers that came before you before branching into other topics such as his parentage, his attitude in school, and his sexual performance complete with the whole stomping up to him and jamming her finger into his chest. In an effort to shut her up if nothing else, he grabs her by the hips and draws her into a deep, soulful kiss. It surprises her for a moment, before she melts into it. Apparently he's a really good kisser or something because they don't break it, instead they make there way towards the employee restroom groping at one another's clothing the whole way. Thankfully, they only manage to throw off her apron and hat before getting inside, before loud passionate moans begin echoing in the Center's lobby.

You stand there, eye twitching as the Chansey behind the counter begins to treat your Pokemon. A Happiny hops onto the counter and hands you a room key, which you take as a cue to escape and as how long your Pokemon will need to be treated.

That night when you finally see the bed you have for the night, you fall face first dead asleep without even bothering to change. When you awake, you have no idea why you were so tired.

****

Party

Charmy, the male Charmander