The Professor's Secret

15. Neighbors

Funny how, even through it all, it felt right: almost as if I could have anticipated that Calem and I would be facing each other in a big and decisive battle...

Though still vague, we had just begun to uncovered the truth behind mega stones and the mega evolutions, and we now stood before each other, looking into each other's eyes and trying to sort out the feelings of rivalry, fear of defeat and friendship, all for the Mega Ring – the missing piece to unlock the mega evolutions on our Pokémon, handed down to us by the guru himself. I was scared – always insecure, always too careful, constantly overshadowed by Calem's fearless determination... But there I could see he feared, too: he couldn't afford to lose, finally... And his fear made me believe I could do it!

Charmeleon was the first out of his Pokeball – Calem sent out his Meowstic. While both seemed equally locked in a preliminary staring contest, Meowstic let out an uncalled-for fake out, which left Charmeleon dumbfounded. Calem laughed and ordered him use disarming voice, the singing hit my yet confused Charmeleon at full blast.

"Ouch! That was a good start." Trevor remarked.

Half a minute into battle and Charmeleon had already sustained two hits and inflicted none, but before I could succumb to pessimistic worry, the fire creature recomposed with an angry roar, and ran headfirst towards his foe.

"Charmeleon, use dragon rage!" The command was appreciated, Charmeleon obeyed promptly. Two embers later, the clever Meowstic was down, and we rose victorious.

Calem wasn't fazed by the early defeat though. I'd seen enough of his battles to know they meant nothing to shake his steady foundation, cause he was a master at turning the tables when victory seemed most unlikely. His next choice was his Quilladin.

Despite the advantage in types matchup, Quilladin proved itself quite an adversary, being the most experienced one in the party: with a defense curl, it avoided most of Charmeleon's flamethrower damage, brushing it off as if it was nothing and picking himself up for battle again! His admirable token of determination in face of the odds made me nervous, and made Charmeleon angry: I let it go full force against Quilladin in a physical attack, hoping to break his defense – terrible idea! Quilladin waited patiently, hardly breaking a sweat while Charmeleon furiously charged at him... At the last second, Calem commanded a rollout attack, catching my Pokémon completely off his guard. Charmeleon fell to the ground, and even though he clumsily managed to dodge the next hit, he got rolled over twice after that – enduring it as best as he could, I perceived. By the third one, he was out. Calem smiled presumptuously.

"Right!" I sighed to myself, trying to stay calm. Quilladin had an iron defense... I needed super effectiveness to defeat it, but mostly speed, before he could charge his rollout. "I know just the guy..." I held the Pokéball next to my sweaty brow, whispering him to try his best... and sent out my Fletchinder.

"Same mistake again, neighbor?" Calem laughed.

"Not this time..." I sweated nervously, but only then beginning to feel the excitement of the battle flowing through my veins. "Ember!" – I commanded, pointing ahead. Fletchinder flashed me a quick glance, then onwards he went with the prompt.

"Take him, Quilladin! Rollout!" Calem angrily screamed, and Quilladin jumped in the air, curling itself into a ball and dropping back like lead, skidding and rolling Fletchinder's way.

But, just as I hoped, Fletchinder's speed greatly surpassed Quilladin's, enabling him to cover the heavy ball with fire and dodge its attack at the last second.

"Do it again and he's done for!!" I energetically ordered before Fletchinder was too far from Quilladin, and watched as the bird made a quick maneuver, flying above my head and charging at Quilladin again.