The Second Archives

5- Bridging the Gaps of Battling

5- Bridging the Gaps of Battling

"Whew," said Dante, after sprinting out of the city with me. "That was tiring. But at least we're on our way again."

"Yah, you got that right," I replied.

"Time for me to catch another pokemon," said Dante.

"Great," I said. "hey, why did you enter the bike shop anyway?"

Instead of replying, Dante reached into his pocket and felt around for something. He pulled out a crumpled sheet of white paper, with some notes written on it.

"Seems my good'ol brother, Gavin, did actually get a bike there, roughly five days after he went missing."

My eyes went wide. "But then how..?"

"I dunno," replied Dante. "Who knows? Maybe he got a bike to run away, or something. But I think the reason was much more sinister."

"Hmmm. Anyway, let's get going," I said.

We walked across a long, yet narrow, bridge, spanning a small river. If you went through a large forest, you could make it to the other side, but the forest was large and hard to navigate, and it was obvious the bridge would be much quicker. I noticed a large flame in a clearing in the forest, quite close to the town that we were heading towards, but I didn't pay it much attention.

On the side of the bridge, aptly named 'Thin Bridge', there was a small, thin, stand with a person behind it. A sign read: 'The Battle Tutor- Cost-' after cost, a 4P sign was sign was crossed out, a 3P, 2P, and 1P sign crossed out likewise, leaving a 0P sign, followed by: '3.5 served'. How he served a half person is beyond me.

"Why, hello," exclaimed the man, beckoning us over.

"And why are you crossing this bridge?" he asked politely.

"To beat the gym leader in that town," answered Dante, pointed towards the small but easy to find town, due to it's rather tall buildings.

"Ahhh," sighed the man, "Aerial Town. Its residents rather have an affinity for heights. But, nevertheless, their gym leader is not an easy match. You'll need some pretty powerful electric or rock Pokemon, for she uses only Pokemon of the flying type. Would you like a -Gasp, It's free!- training session on battling??"

"Uhhh..." I said. This man is odd...

"Sure!" exclaimed Dante quickly.

"Alright," said the old man. He groaned and stood up.

"First, in a pokemon battle, be sure to have the best type of pokemon matchups. A matchup is when a pokemon is good or bad against the opposing pokemon. What is supereffective against fire?"

"Uhhh..." said Dante, "He... Water?"

"GREAT!" Exclaimed the odd man. "But so are rock and ground. Fire is supereffective on grass, but also steel as well as bug and ice! Here, take this. We have to get on with it."

He handed each of us a small device, mostly sceen with a small navigation pad on the bottom.

"To turn it on," said the man, "press the center button. Hold it to turn it off. If you want to know which type is effective on a type, navigate to the icon, and press the center button. Sound easy?"

"I guess," said Dante. I nodded.

"Okay, back to battling. Throw a pokeball," he said, motioning at me.

I released Bells.

"Looks like that pokemon has little battle experience," he noted.

"Well, I've already won three battles."