Like No One Ever Was

Despite my eagerness (and my nerves, wanting to get it over with fast), my match with Tracy was not up first. The first match was between two young teenagers, each one with a Fuecoco.

“Looks like we’ve got a mirror match to start,” the announcer began (I hadn’t heard her name, too focused on Tracy). She had a clear, booming voice that carried through the entire park. There was a Farigiraf who had been chewing grass beside her that stopped at the sound of her voice, raising his head and making a near perfectly translucent barrier over the field.

“Frasier, Rossica, are you ready to battle?” The announcer asked, to which both teens gave a loud ‘Yes!’ in response. “Then let the tournament…” She paused, looking at her Rotom hovering at her side, likely letting her coordinate with the other fields. “Begin!” She shouted suddenly. I watched the match carefully. I don’t know if they’ll make it up to the fourth round where I would face them, but I should keep an eye out anyways, just in case they’re a serious threat.

Both of the trainers scrambled, caught off guard by the sudden announcement. “Eh, ah, Ember!” Rossica called out. Hmm, it has same-type-attack-bonus, but the other Fuecoco will resist it. Perhaps her Fuecoco is heavily focused on special attacks?

“Not so fast! Fuecoco, counter it with your own Ember!” Fraiser said, grinning. The two small fireballs their adorable little crocodile-like guys spat out met in the center of the field, canceling each other out.

“Ember!” They both cried out again, and once again the flames clashed equally.

“I don’t get what they’re doing,” I muttered out loud.

Friede crouched down to talk to me on a more even level, a fact that made me irrationally upset for a moment. I can’t wait till I’m tall. Nemona was pretty tall from what I remember in the games, I think only that one wrestler girl was taller. “Oh? What’s got you confused? Professor Friede knows everything, after all.”

“I very much doubt that,” I said dryly. “No offense, it’s just… the world is a big place, full of mysteries no one’s ever seen or have been lost to time. But anyways, this fight,” I gestured at where the trainers were both calling out for the same attack again and again. “They aren’t changing anything up. Are they both endurance specialists and hoping the other one will tire out first?”

He just let out a small chuckle at my confusion. “Nah, they just don’t know enough about battling yet.” I just tilted my head. How… how do people not know this?! I mean, I’m not expecting kids to be geniuses but… Looking at the battlefield, I saw the two Fuecocos both panting heavily.

“Let’s finish this, Ember!” Rossica called out.

“Yeah, go Fuecoco!” Fraiser pointed his finger out at their foe.

The two once again met in the center without either side winning, but that was clearly the end of their stamina, both of them wobbling. Rossica’s Fuecoco fell, defeated, but Frasier's Fuecoco just barely hung on, standing shakily.

“The winner, Frasier!” He let out a cheer, running towards his Fuecoco and hoisting him up high. The Fuecoco gave a tired cheer of his own. It looks like it did come down to a stamina contest in the end. Not that I think either trainer was cognizant of how this would end.

“I’d be embarrassed with a match like that,” Friede scoffed. In many ways, I agreed with him. But looking out at the field and seeing Rossica rush up to her partner, hug them tight, and whisper her own words of encouragement and praise...

“They both have a ways to go, but everyone has to start somewhere. This was a good match.”

“Everyone might start ‘somewhere’, bzzt, but you started a lot further than them.” Rotom stated loftily.

Urk. I get that you’re trying to show me off for a Pokemon Professor Rotom, but I don’t need the scrutiny surrounding my past and sudden behavior changes. The Pokemon world is filled with mysteries, but I suspect even the people here would be skeptical of ‘I remembered my past life.’ Plus, I just didn’t want to. At least not with this Friede guy I didn’t know.

“I mean, even for me, I didn’t know everything instantly. I had to study a lot.” I got the feeling that my childish voice and appearance made me stress how much it sounded endearingly adorable, rather than agonizing, given the type of smile Leah gave me. It really is a bunch of work! “And even now, I’d hardly say I know everything about Pokemon or battling.”

“Well, keep on training hard and you’ll get there,” Friede said. I shook my head.

“Nah. There’s way too much to learn. So many ways I can grow. I could spend a hundred lifetimes and not get close to knowing it all. ‘The only thing I know is that I know nothing.’” It was a quote from a man others called wise in my past life. I’d only just scratched the surface of this world in my time here, but I knew that saying to be oh-so-true here too.

Friede’s face became serious for a moment, straightening up and frowning down at me. “Is that so?” The question wasn’t really for me, I could tell. Just something he was pondering to himself. Not knowing his situation, I just turned back to the battles going on the field.

The other battles tended to be a bit more interesting, with some back-and-forth going on. The plays were still decently low level, as would be expected, but trainers would call out dodges and switch up their Moves to try and break stalemates/get out of bad spots. It was impossible to tell for sure, but I’d bet that most of the more advanced commands came from Trainers who had earned their first badge.

Most of the Pokemon are either regional Starters or are a bit rarer than the ‘common’ ones. A Dhelmise swung horizontally through the air, sweeping into a Sprigattito and hitting it so hard into the psychic barrier that I winced. The small feline Pokemon didn’t seem critically injured and her trainer immediately rushed her off to the Pokemon Center.

“Atticus wins! What an impressive showing!” The announcer exclaimed. The young boy smirked, recalling his Dhelmise and waving to the crowd. He had dark blue hair, tinged with yellow at the ends. That’s probably the weirdest thing I find about the anime hair here. The fact that individual parts like just the ends of someone’s hair can be a different color ‘naturally’. I reached up at one of my own two green locks of hair. Not that I can say anything or I’d be the one looking weird.

In about the middle of the round, my match was called up. I took my place on one end of the battlefield while Tracy took hers at the other. “Hey, uh, don’t worry Nemona, they’ve got really good healers here. Just try to have fun.” Resisting the urge to frown was difficult. I could appreciate encouragement, but she was just looking down on me.

Both of us drew and held up our Pokeballs waiting for the signal from the referee. There were several specific rules for battling like this. Technically you could ask for them in casual battles, but they tended to be ignored or forgotten there, but were strictly enforced in big tournaments like this. One of them was that trainers had to have the Pokeballs held out before releasing their Pokemon to prevent a trainer ‘accidentally’ lagging behind their opponent in releasing their Pokemon to see what the opponent sent out and then picking out there.

You could have your Pokemon released already, but you had to make it clear that you were going to start with it if that was the case. The move was colloquially called the ‘Ketchum Clause’, and was seen as a bold tactic in high-level play. Either a cunning strategy that caught your opponent off guard and caused them to second guess themselves… or more likely, an arrogant strategy that backfired as the opponent out-maneuvered your lead. Of course, plenty of people here are leading openly, but it’s not really about them being strategic or arrogant here, too low level for that.

The referee gave us the signal and we both released our Pokemon. Dunsparce landed on the field with a small roar, eyes fixed ahead at his opponent. Which was a small odd engine-looking thing.

The top of its body was made of steel and looked very much like a motor vehicle engine with something that looked like a tailpipe out the back. It had yellow eyes on its sides and the bottom half seemed rocky with four stone-like wheels.

A few people ‘ooh’d’ at her Pokemon, something that seemed to upset Dun. I guess it’s because her Pokemon is relatively rare compared to a more ‘common’ Dunsparce. “Don’t worry Dun, you’re the strongest out there and we’ll make everyone see that.”

“Dun dun!”

“Trainers, are you ready?” The referee asked, and we both nodded. “Begin!” He shouted and we both launched into giving commands.

“Alright Varoom, let’s make it quick!” The Varoom’s wheels spun as it raced ahead and I distantly noticed that it was a good deal slower than Dun. Odd, Dun’s weakest area is his speed. I didn’t have too much time to focus on that however as I had already given my command and was watching it take effect as well.

“Earthquake!” Dunsparce immediately slammed his body into the arena, sending cracks branching out a few feet in various directions from where he landed and making the entire arena shake. More than just the arena, actually; I could feel my feet shifting and saw the spectators in the park gasping and trying to keep their balance.

Varoom had it the worst, each bump of the ground beneath it hitting hard into its body. Its path became uncontrolled as it was jostled around, spinning out around Dun, and crashing into the barrier at my end of the arena.

I drew a breath ready to give another command- then stopped as I saw that the Varoom was lying on its side, not moving. A shocked silence descended over the field before the announcer stammered out “Wh-what an upset! A surprising victory for Nemona Glitterati!”

Cheers erupted out of the audience and a grin started to break through on my face. We did it! We won our first match! I hadn’t expected it to be that easy, but that’s double Type weakness for you.

My good mood was interrupted relatively quickly by Tracy running forward, tears in her eyes. “Varoom! Varooooom!” She dived down to cradle her fallen Pokemon. Worry filled me for a moment that her Pokemon might have been seriously injured, but I saw that its weird metal mouth extrusion thing seemed to be wheezing and it was just knocked out.

Still, not wanting to be rude I offered “Do you need a hand getting to the Pokemon Center?” Rather than look relieved, she whipped around to glare at me.

“I don’t need help from a cheater like you!” The sheer venom in her voice made me take a step back, aghast.

“What- but I didn’t-” TM Moves are totally legal, I checked!

“How else could you have beat Varoom with only one attack?” Rather than wait for an answer she grabbed up her fallen Pokemon and marched off.

I was still a little distracted by all of that so Dunsparce had to slither over and nudge my leg so I would make way for the next battlers (though they had to wait too for some of the staff to fix up the field from the damage we made).

“You did great!” Leah cried out, sweeping me into a big hug. “Oh, I’m so proud of you.” I couldn’t help but smile at her joy, but something must have shown in my eyes as she put me down. “What’s wrong sweetie?”

“Nothing. I mean, I’m really happy we won! Just… I wish she didn’t have to be so upset about that. And we didn’t cheat!” I pouted. I had never liked being accused of dishonesty or unfairness in my prior life and I didn’t like it here either. “Learning Moves from Technical Machines isn’t cheating.”

Friede just chuckled, a tinge of bitterness in his voice. “That’s just how it is, kid. People don’t think you can do anything, that it must all be a trick until you outright prove them wrong. Then they turn around and start sucking up to you.” Ouch. But I suppose this guy must have been hailed as a prodigy - a true genius, not a fake like me - from the start. Must be rough for a kid growing up like that.

Leah glared at Professor Friede for a moment, causing him to take a step back. “Don’t worry about any of that, young Miss. I’m sure that other competitors will act with a bit more dignity in the future.”

“Thanks.” I wasn’t truly convinced by her words, but just knowing that she was in my corner was nice. Besides, this is it. I took my first step as a trainer, and it was a success. That’s what I’m going to focus on.