Pokémon story prologue pt.2

“Ekans is unable to battle! Ran Carr is out of pokémon! Bugsy is the winner!” After those words, things became blurry for Ran. Afterwards, he’d have near-total recollection of his first twenty four hours as a pokémon trainer, but, from the moment the referee called out Bugsy’s name, it was as if he only caught glimpses.

He’d caught Ekans after a tense fight, Slowpoke’s trademark slowness making the fight a lot closer than it should have been, but eventually, Ran’s lone pokéball had connected with Ekans and successfully captured him. He’d immediately let the snake out of his pokéball and, with eager words and the aid of the Potion he’d been given by the Gym earlier, won Ekans’ trust. They’d rushed back to Azalea, turning Slowpoke in to the Pokécenter for proper treatment and getting Ekans’ a quick check-up.

Part of him had worried about the time not spent training, especially when the Pokécenter Nurse had confirmed that none of the other candidates had been by yet, but the need for Ekans to be at his very best the next day had left him convinced of the necessity of a check-up. Then they’d spent long hours practicing and figuring out just what Ekans could do.

With Wrap, Leer, Poison Sting, Bite and Glare all already in Ekans’ arsenal, he’d felt great about their chances. Going to sleep, despite his eagerness for the next day, had actually been a breeze, Ekans already coiled up at the foot end of his bed as if it’d always been that way. 

The next morning, they’d spent a few hours drilling lightly, working hard to make sure Ekans was capable of following Ran’s orders swiftly. By the time he’d returned to the Gym, Ekans in his pokéball as to not give his competitors an early edge by giving away what pokémon he’d caught prematurely, he’d been confident about his odds.

Confidence which had only increased when two of the other candidates returned without a successful capture. Then his mood had increased further when of the other three remaining competitors, one had been foolish enough to keep his new Ledyba out of its ball. Before the Gym leader had even shown up to announce the match-ups, Ran had already decided how Ekans and he would dismantle the bug.

The lots the leader had them draw had been in his favor, as they saw him meeting Ledyba and its underwhelming trainer in the first round. He’d turned his plan into reality, swiftly dismantling them, with Glare freezing the other pokémon in place long enough for Ekans to close the gap, Wrap around the other pokémon and squeeze it relentlessly into submission.

It had all been going perfectly. Ekans hadn’t taken so much as a scratch and, assuming the other fight was more competitive and both trainers had already used their own allotted Potions, they’d be sailing into the final, decisive fight with the clear advantage. 

But then… then it happened. Bugsy, as everyone their age had been calling the purple-haired Bug-enthusiast for years, unveiled his own first pokémon. When Ekans materialized on Ran’s side of the battlefield, he faced a Scyther on Bugsy’s side. Ran had frozen in disbelief for a few seconds, unable to comprehend the sight before him.

He couldn’t understand how Bugsy had caught a pokémon that had its place in Conference Finals. It shouldn’t be possible for someone to go out with a loaner Slowpoke for a day and come back with a Scyther, one of the premier Bug types not just in Johto, but in the world.

Yet as the shock had faded, he’d noticed the hints of battle damage on Scyther. There were a few minor marks on its carapace, one of its blades had a visible dent in it and there were traces of soot and char across its body. Whatever fight it had faced in the previous round, it had not come out entirely unscathed, unlike Ekans.

For a few moments, hope had flared up once more, as Ran called out an instant order to use Glare when the fight began. Before Ekans had even finished rearing up, however, Scyther had blurred away. They’d changed strategies, Ekans firing out Poison Sting in as wide an arc as he could manage, spraying the battlefield with salvo after salvo of tiny poisonous stingers. 

Before they could land a single hit however, Scyther had reappeared, hacking away at Ekans with its blades. Ran’s starter fought back valiantly, managing to wrap around Scyther’s legs, immobilizing the other pokémon. But by then the damage had already been done, Ekans’ last gasp attempt at Bite not connecting before pain, shock and blood loss forced the poison type into unconsciousness.

The referee ended the match and then his recollection of events became much blurrier. Only a few moments stood out: recalling Ekans, watching Bugsy accept the Gym leader’s congratulations, sitting in the Pokécenter numbly despite the nurse’s insistence that it’d be at least a day before Ekans would be ready to be discharged again, coming home and seeing his father’s cautiously hopeful expression fall.

Ran spent the next week in a listless haze, only vaguely processing that Bugsy had set out, Scyther by his side, on the journey that should have been Ran’s. Eventually, his father felt that enough time had passed to ask about Ran’s failed bid for the sponsorship, which led to a conversation that finally drew Ran out of his rut.

“So you made it all the way to the final two?” His father asked, for what had to have been the third time. 

“Yes,” Ran affirmed dully once more, “I passed the initial test, the type simulation, the capture test and the first round of the battle test. But Bugsy caught a Scyther and wiped the floor with me.”

The first time, his father had muttered in disbelief at the mention of a Scyther, but that reaction didn’t rear its head again, the man instead seeming intent to keep the conversation moving.

“The Azalea Town Gym has been sponsoring a trainer every year for decades, Ran. Not once, and I mean literally not once, has anyone started out with a Scyther! Any other year, you would probably have won the whole thing!” His father insisted, irking Ran as those words only felt like needless kicks when he was already down.

“Yeah but I didn’t turn twelve during any of those years, did I? I missed my only shot! What, do you think that me losing because of bad luck makes any of this any better? "It doesn't!" Ran shouted, as emotions finally punched through the numb fog that’d been hanging over him for a week.

Anger firmly in the driver’s seat, he continued, “I did everything right! I studied my ass off to make sure I’d pass the first tests! I made a plan, a good plan! A plan that took into account not just the capture of my starter, but everything all the way to what pokémon the others were likely to have! I did everything right! Telling me that it would have been enough any other year doesn’t help me! I'm stuck here!”

His father’s answer, ever the disciplinarian, was curt, “You will not raise your voice to me again. Understood?”

“Y-yes sir.” Ran stuttered, his ire dying down quickly in the face of raising his father’s far more potent brand.

“Good. Now, my point, as it happens, isn’t that you were unlucky. It’s that you’ve clearly got the potential to be a real trainer. One who makes a living, a real living, as a battler,” His father continued, stern gaze still fixed on his son, “The sponsorship was the sure thing, the guarantee of success. But there are plenty of self-made trainers who succeed without such help, even if it is an uphill battle.”

Ran hesitated, a bevy of half-formed retorts on the tip of his tongue, but he knew better than to speak out of emotion again. His father had no such compunctions, continuing to think out loud after a moment’s pause.

“Money will be an issue, that’s true enough, but there are ways for you to train that Ekans of yours without bankrupting us. As you’re not journeying, your own necessities are something you won’t have to worry about. So you’d just need to make enough money to feed Ekans, properly care for him and purchase the equipment and supplies a full-time trainer needs.” 

“You have a handful of free Pokécenter visits a year, so as long as you keep close track of that number and don’t overtrain, that’s an expense you can avoid. Feeding is something you can cut down on by letting him hunt. It’s… not for the faint of heart, but it’s how he’d keep himself alive as a wild pokémon in the first place and it's sure to be better for him than the generic cheap chow the Mart has on offer.” Ran’s father continued to reason out loud, slowly but steadily chipping away at each unspoken objection the boy was yet to give voice to.

“The stakes in low-level trainer battles aren’t worth the Pokécenter visits, but you could collect apricorns for Kurt and help out at the Charcoal Kiln. If you’re willing to put the work in and if you’ve really got the talent, you might be one of the rare cases to beat the odds.” The older man finally finished speaking, looking at his son’s stunned expression shrewdly.

“Unless you’d prefer moping around and going back to school when the break ends in a week?”

One week later, Ran knocked on the front door of Kurt’s house, Ekans’ pokéball by his side and an eager smile plastered on his face.