On The Road

Chapter Six

Larance stood before the doors of the gym, nervously twiddling his fingers. Eevee sat by her trainer, looking up at him. Combusken held Cascoon in her arms, eyes never leaving the doors. Larance jumped a little when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Wally smiling at him.

"You okay?" he asked.

Larance took a deep breath before replying. "Yeah. Let's do this."

Gathering up his courage, he walked through the doors, Wally, Arriete, and Bina following behind him. The gym was mostly empty except for one person standing at the other side of the battlefield. Larance swallowed his nervousness before making his way to the person standing on the other side while the others sat on the sidelines. As he came closer to the person, he notice that it was a girl no more than eighteen. She had red eyes and brown hair, which was pulled up into two pigtails with a red bow with a small black U-stripe. She wore a grey school sleeveless uniform skirt with a rectangular print, which was white on the inside, a white undershirt with short sleeves, pink leggings, and a pair of black shoes. He hands were on her hips, and she smiled a bit when she noticed Larance.

"You must be Larance," she stated. "Norman told me that you would be coming. I'm Roxanne. Nice to meet you."

"I-It's nice to meet you too, Roxanne," Larance replied, surprise leaving him. "I've come to challenge you to a gym battle."

"Of course," Roxanne smiled, taking out a pokeball. "Just step on over to the other side of the battlefield and we'll begin."

Larance did as he was told just as a referee stepped in.

"This will be a two on two battle!" he announced. "Both challenger and leader are able to switch Pokemon! The last Pokemon standing wins! Battle, begin!"

"Geodude, go!" Roxanne shouted, throwing her pokeball.

"Eevee!" Larance yelled, Eevee running onto the field.

"Rollout!"

"Dodge and use Double Team!"

Eevee dodged out of the way just as Geodude rolled towards her. She then multiplied into multiple copies of herself. Geodude continued to roll around uncontrollably until it slammed into a wall, sending dust flying everywhere. Wally broke out into a coughing fit as the dust filled his lungs.

"Wally?!?" Bina and Arriete asked in a panic.

"Need...fresh...air..." Wally managed to gasp out.

"Tell us how the battle turns out afterwards, Arriete," Bina muttered as she led Wally out of the gym.

Arriete nodded in reply as the two friends left and she turned her attention back to the battlefield.

"Tackle!"

The Eevee clones disappeared and Eevee launched herself at the Geodude, knocking it into the wall again. Geodude fell to the ground, fainted.

"Geodude is unable to battle, Eevee is the winner!" the referee announced.

"Way to go Eevee!" Larance laughed as Eevee leapt into her trainer's arms, Arriete cheering from the sidelines.

"Good job, Geodude," Roxanne smiled as she returned her Pokémon. "Take a good rest. Nosepass, go!"

She threw a pokeball, and soon, her Nosepass was facing Eevee. Larance narrowed his eyes at his new opponent. Eevee was still new at this, so he'll have to use his strongest one.

"Eevee, come back," Larance commanded with a grim look on his face. He turned to Combusken, and nodded.

Combusken stepped onto the battlefield just as the referee yelled "Begin!"