Flying to the gym

Riding on top of her Pidgeot, Levina soared above Agate City. Nestled between her legs was her Umbreon and for added security, Levina had her arms on either side of him. Although she would have preferred to have him in his Pokeball, he didn't want to be inside, so she let him ride with her. Pidgeot was strong enough to carry the both of them anyway. Once their destination was in sight, Levina had Pidgeot drop in altitude until she finally landed in front of the gym.

"You want to rest?" she asked the bird, holding out her Pokeball. Pidgeot shook her head and then took off into the skies again. Levina was unconcerned, knowing she wouldn't go far. She took out two other Pokeballs and released the Pokemon contained inside - her Charmander and Jolteon.

As soon as she was out of the Pokeball, Jolteon ran to the door of the gym and jumped up, trying to open it. Umbreon growled at her, wanting her to behave, but she ignored him. Levina walked over to the door and opened it and her Jolteon darted in, looking for her friend. Umbreon and Charmander just followed Levina, and knowing it would be a while, Umbreon found a nice, dark corner and lay down.

"Ace!" Levina shouted. "Ace! I know you're in here!"

Ace heard the door opening and thinking it might be a challenger, he stood up from where he was hanging out in the gym's office to request that the challenger come back later. He wasn't in the mood to battle. But his Jolteon jumped to his feet and ran to the door, wanting out and soon after, he heard Levina shouting. He opened the door and Jolteon went flying out to see his friend, running at her with sparks flying.

"Hey, Levina," Ace said. "What's up?"


Hi! Jolteon said when he reached Levina's Jolteon. I haven't seen you in so long!

Levina grinned when she saw the door opening and was then very quickly distracted by Ace's Jolteon running towards her own Jolteon. Her Jolteon sent sparks up as well, only she wasn't controlling herself very well and nearly hit Umbreon with a stray lightning bolt. Umbreon growled, then put his head back down.

"It's not my fault you live so far away!" Levina's Jolteon said, excitedly as she jumped on Ace's. "Plus I'm busy training so I can get stronger than Mr. Grumpy over there." She glanced over at Umbreon.

"Never gonna happen, kid," Umbreon grumbled, not even opening his eyes.

"I thought she needed to spend some time with her best friend," Levina said to Ace while watching their Pokemon play and talk to each other. "That and I actually wanted some help with my Charmander. I can't get him to evolve. I know he's strong enough, but I don't think he's really battled enough."

"Char?" Charmander looked up at his trainer with a slightly confused expression.

Don't listen to him, Jolteon said, nuzzling the other affectionately. Let's go outside and play. He started walking out towards the back where there was a convenient door easily used by most Pokemon, glancing back to see if Jolteon would follow.

"I see," Ace said, looking down at the Charmander. He wasn't sure that Levina had the right idea about why her Pokemon wouldn't evolve and decided to say so. "Are you sure he just doesn't want to evolve?"

Jolteon eagerly followed her friend, wanting to spend some quality time alone with him. Living in a gym, she rarely got alone time.

"I'm sure that's not it," Levina said. "My Luxio's got that problem. He likes the way he is. Him, I asked if he wanted to evolve and he definitely didn't want to, but watch this. Hey Charmander, do you want to evolve?"

"Char?" Once again, Charmander looked up at his trainer with a confused expression.

"See?" she said to Ace. "It's like he has no idea what evolution even is. So I figure if he starts battling a bit, he might just evolve. So how about it Ace? A little friendly battle? Or you just afraid to battle me again?" She couldn't help but grin as she teased her friend about his inability to defeat her in battle.

"Afraid? Of you? Pssh." Ace rolled his eyes at that. He wasn't afraid to battle her, he just usually didn't care to battle since he knew he would always lose. He had long since accepted the fact that Levina was better than he was and he didn't really care. Battling wasn't everything. "I'll go get my Pokemon. And just a friendly battle, okay?"

He started to head back to the office where he had been working earlier and where all his Pokeballs were kept. He wasn't sure how many he would need, so he just picked out four, hoping it would be enough.

"Of course it's friendly," Levina said. "I don't even have any other Pokemon to battle with so it's as many as Charmander can handle. Not unless Umbreon wants to get involved, but you know him. This kinda stuff is beneath him."

"Damn straight," Umbreon muttered, half asleep in his corner, not caring that there was no one to understand him around. He knew his trainer got the message. After spending so much time together, Umbreon felt like his human understood him quite well.

"So, Ace, if I win, do I get a badge?"

"I'll give you a badge when you challenge me properly as a gym leader," Ace said as he selected his first Pokemon. He held the ball in his hand, ready to release the Pokemon inside. "If it's not an official challenge, you don't get an official badge. So, you ready to start this?"

"Yeah, well, that's too much work," Levina replied, even though it was absolutely no work at all to challenge a gym leader. She only had to state her intent to challenge him for a badge and agree to follow official rules, but she hated rules. And that would defeat the purpose of seeing how many opponents Charmander could defeat.

"Let's do this." Levina headed to the far side of the arena, and her Charmander followed. She pushed him back towards the center of the arena. "You're battling, Charmander."

"Char!" He said it with such confidence that Levina couldn't believe he had been confused just seconds earlier.

"Figure I'd start easy on you guys," Ace said as he released his first Pokemon, his Sneasel. As soon as he was out of his Pokeball, he was ready to battle, flashing his claws at his opponent. "All right, Sneasel, use quick attack!" Without hesitation, the small, dark Pokemon darted forward to attack Charmander.

"Dodge!" Levina shouted immediately, but instead of following the order, Charmander turned to look at his trainer and was hit by the attack and went flying back. Levina was embarrassed to be his trainer at that point, and was no longer wondering why he had not yet evolved. But she wasn't about to give up yet. "Fire fang!"

Climbing to his feet, flames appeared around his small but sharp teeth and he charged towards Sneasel, in an attempt to get a good bite in.

Sneasel didn't need to be told to avoid the attack. He knew exactly how damaging a fire type attack was and didn't want to get hit by hit. Fortunately he was very fast, as were most of Ace's Pokemon and he ducked out of the way and moved behind the Charmander.

"Hit him with faint attack!" Ace called out another instruction, and Sneasel quickly complied, approaching Charmander from behind to hit him while he wasn't looking.

Once again, Charmander didn't even see the attack coming and once again found himself on the ground. He definitely was not Levina's best battler. Still, since they were up against an ice type, Levina knew one trick that would always work well. She only had not used it before since she wanted to prolong the battle, however, after getting hit by two attacks and knowing that her Charmander would never be able to match Sneasel's speed, she decided it was the proper time - the goal of the entire exercise was to get Charmander to win battles, after all.

"Flamethrower!" Upon hearing the command, a jet of flame shot from Charmander's mouth towards the Sneasel.

Sneasel darted out of the way, but still ended up getting singed. Although not bad, he still cried out. As was true of most ice Pokemon, he hated fire and was not happy about getting hit. With Levina using such a powerful attack and one with a much longer range, Ace decided Sneasel's battle was over and returned him to his Pokeball.

"It's friendly, remember?" Ace said even as he pulled out another Pokeball. He was about to release his next Pokemon when he changed his mind and grabbed a different ball, sending out his Absol. "Razor wind!"

Absol began preparing her attack, her head scythe glowing and a wind whipping up inside the gym.

"I'm making it as friendly as I can!" Levina shouted at him. When she saw him change his mind about what Pokemon he was going to send out, she was curious and almost demanded that he explain why he changed his mind, but Absol was out before she could question her friend and she had more important things to worry about than Ace's decision making skills.

"Like that's going to work!" she said loudly after Ace called out his attack. "Hit her with slash, Charmander!" The small fire Pokemon charged forward, claws ready.

"I knew you'd go back to short range!" Ace actually hadn't been sure, although he doubted that Levina would use flamethrower again, and as far as he knew, that was the only long range attack Charmander knew. He waited until Charmander was close and then ordered Absol to attack. She released powerful wind energy, but she still ended up taking Charmander's attack.

"Shoulda seen that one coming," Levina grumbled, knowing it she had been an idiot to not know Ace would do that. Although she saw Charmander's attack hit, she also knew there was no way he would avoid taking the razor wind. Her Pokemon flew back towards her, and without thinking twice, she recalled him to his Pokeball.

"I think he's had enough," she said. "At least for now. But who were you going to send out against us?"

"At least you got him some experience," Ace said with a shrug, returning his injured Absol to her Pokeball as well. "It's just going to kill you if I don't tell you, right?" He smiled, loving the fact he could torture Levina simply by withholding information.

"Charmander's still got enough energy to burn this place down," Levina threatened, although she would never follow through on it and knew that Ace knew that very well. "Or you know, I can just hang out here and disrupt every single battle you ever have until you tell me."

"Well, I can see you doing that," Ace laughed, although the idea was slightly frightening. As much as he liked Levina, he wasn't sure he could put up with her constant presence forever. "I was going to send out Ponyta, but then I thought Absol would be better. She is stronger and I don't know. I like her style?"

"Ponyta? Why do I get the feeling putting your Ponyta and my Charmander together would result in your gym being burnt down?"

Levina looked down at Charmander's Pokeball, which was still in her hand. She really hoped he would have done better at battling. She really wished that he'd just evolve already. Perhaps more battling was in order. "Guess I should go get him healed and then start training him even more. I really wish I knew what was wrong with him."

"She is rather careless with her flames, isn't she?" Ace remarked about his Ponyta. He'd tried battling indoors with her once and that had not ended well.

"I'll help you train some more if you want," he offered. "And I might as well get mine healed as well. But you got that Charmander from Professor Spruce, right? Maybe he knows something about him and why he won't evolve."

"Thanks, Ace." Levina was glad that she had at least one human friend. She'd made far too many enemies in her life, although that was almost always her own fault. She just got along better with Pokemon than she did with people. Since they were talking about healing their Pokemon, she headed for the door of the gym so they could go to the city's Pokemon Center.

"You think the professor would know something?" she asked as she opened the door. Not allowing Ace anytime to respond, she said, "I suppose it's worth a try. Might have to head down to Talc Town soon."

"Maybe he's got an everstone embedded in his skull or something," Ace said, thinking out loud. It was a ridiculous idea, but it sounded good in his head. He followed Levina to the door and walked outside, realizing he had not yet seen the sun that day. He really needed to get out more.

"You think our Jolteon's will be okay here by themselves?" he asked.

"That would explain a lot about him," Levina grumbled. Although she loved Charmander as she did all her Pokemon, she couldn't help but wonder if he was just a little... special. When she first got him, he'd been unable to even use a basic scratch attack and she'd had to have her Meowth tutor him in that. Of course, he also picked up slash from Meowth rather quickly, so she really wasn't sure.

"They'll be fine," Levina said as she held the door open for a second longer as Umbreon trotted out to join them. "Not like we haven't left them alone before."