The hyper fang that shall pierce the heavens (Pokemon SI)

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-/-

A cold splash of water hit Joey's face and then dripped down into the sink that he was leaning on, staring into the mirror. 

He was in the bathroom that he shared with the other orphans on his floor. Still, considering he was always the first one awake, it essentially belonged only to him in these early hours of the day.

His torso, still glistening from the shower, looked back at him in the reflection, but rather than focusing on his increasingly well-defined musculature, his gaze fell on the dark rings under his eyes.

It was the first time that he had them in this particular body, considering that with the knowledge of an adult, he'd built good habits ever since his birth. 

However, now he hadn't been sleeping as much because he was experiencing an emotional state that he hadn't even thought of in a long time.

He felt stressed. 

Today was the day he was supposed to go to Cerulean and attempt the gym challenge for his fourth badge.

He'd done everything he could. He'd trained Metapod, Diglett, Rattata and even himself into the ground. He'd done countless jobs to increase the likelihood of having some experience in whatever the challenge was going to be and he'd finished reading the book on the life of the Stinky Hobo and felt wiser for it.

And yet, a niggling feeling at the back of his mind persisted. A doubtful voice that he preferred not to listen to because living in optimism was almost always better than living in pessimism.

Why was this challenge, in particular, making him feel this way? He'd battled Kong with only a Rattata to his name. The gym leader of Celadon has raised the difficulty of the match in the middle of the battle. He'd thought for the longest time that he would have to face Surge with only two Pokemon.

And yet it was now, after all of these confidence-boosting experiences, which, if anything, should be making him feel better, that he felt the worst he had ever felt since he'd gained his licence.

Was it perhaps because he didn't know what specifically would be coming at him? Or was it because of the stakes that were riding on this victory? If he couldn't get his fourth badge now, then he would essentially have to wait forever to be able to catch Misdreavus.

Misdreavus, the Pokemon that he'd been training for a month now. The Pokemon who had absorbed all of his teachings and his own ghost techniques like a sponge and had quickly become almost as strong as the rest of his team. If he had her on her team instead of Diglett, then he would have perhaps felt secure in challenging King to an actual battle rather than just taking the challenge.

Not that he'd ever say that out loud. Diglett's confidence as a battler was just developing, and he wasn't going to crush it with a thoughtless remark like that. Even if there was always going to be someone more suited for a task and someone less suited for a task. That was just a way of life.

He ran a hand down his face, having dried completely from the shower during his room iterations.

If he won today then that meant that he would finish his first year as a trainer with four badges. Next year then, he would only need another four. It would allow him to plan two months of preparation for every gym and then another two months at the end of that to prepare for the Indigo Conference. Such a lax schedule would be an incredible asset for someone as hard-working as him.

If he succeded.

The bus was leaving in two hours so he wasn't in a rush to anywhere in particular, but he quickly got dressed thinking of how only action could ever repress the emotions he was currently experiencing.

Taking it easy only raised the state of anxiety to unbearable levels.

Walking back to his room, he found his Pokemon still sound asleep, feeling none of the negative emotions he was currently dwelling on. Rattata was curled up, snoring lightly, and a snot bubble was expanding from his nostrils under the study desk. Metapod had cocooned herself in the upper corner of the room in some semblance of metamorphosis. 

Diglett preferred to sleep in his Pokeball.

Joey quickly collected his things and roused his team, which stared at him blearily as if asking why he was waking them up so early. But they went along with it. If nothing else, he'd built a very respectable image of himself in the minds of his Pokemon in these past few months. Justifiably so, after all, he was loyal, attentive and intelligent. However, this image simply made him want to show less how insecure he actually felt at the moment.

He was out of the house by 6 a.m., but instead of going anywhere specific, he simply chose to wander around the city centre, taking a longer detour towards the North Gate.

It was there that he stopped at a bench, bought himself a bottle of water, and simply looked out at the city square, which seemed so much larger than even all of his dreams at the moment.

Then slowly people started appearing. Pensioners went shopping at the ungodly hours that they preferred doing so. Young men and women in unfashionable suits took long strides towards the place where they sold their lives away for the crumbs of capital that their corporations amassed, clutching paper coffee cups in their hands like they were lifelines.

The city got busy. More and more people started arriving until Joey descended into complete sensory overload, unable to tell left from right or up from down.

All of these people were bustling and hustling across one of the many squares in the city. By the time he finished his water, he must have seen thousands of people, and he hadn't even needed half an hour to do that.

Did they know? That the future Champion was sitting down and people gazing at this particular spot at this particular point in time?

Would they care?

The bus would leave soon, but for some reason, he didn't have the strength to stand up.

A bad premonition overtook his senses. It wasn't the fear of anything particularly terrible but rather a fear of something that he was going to feel awful about.

Slapping himself on the knees like an old man, Joey barely managed to stand up and start making his way towards where the bus would leave at the North Gate.

No matter how he felt, he had a responsibility to appear at his booked appointment and to give it his all.

He calmed himself down with the theory that he was simply starting to enter the beginning stages of puberty and that his hormones were starting to go a bit crazy.

After all, he hadn't gotten any indications that the journey he was about to go on would end badly, so why exactly was he feeling like this?

-/-

It was with a certain sense of nostalgia that Joey beheld the yellow school bus waiting for him at the North Gate.

In a way, today was the end of an era; perhaps that was why he felt so weird. This was going to be his last gym challenge as a youngster. From next year onwards, he was going to be a trainer until the end of his career.

Ruth, her ever-present Butterfree, Sabrina, and Mia were waiting for him on the bus.

It seemed to him that the group going on these excursions had been shrinking ever since their trip to Celadon.

There was also the bus driver and an older trainer that served as security, but they didn't matter as much.

He joined the group who were, oddly enough for the constellation, chatting with each other and received some worried looks.

"Did you not sleep well? You look a bit tired," Mia asked, getting straight to the point.

Joey shrugged listlessly. "I'm sure it's all going to turn out fine in the end," he said, not truly answering the question. He looked at Ruth as he removed his cap to run a hand through his hair. "That's everyone, right?"

The older woman nodded slowly, seeming contemplative. "Another year gone," she said.

So it wasn't only Joey feeling nostalgic. That was good to know, he felt.

They loaded themselves onto the bus, where Joey sat next to Mia. He barely exchanged more than a nod with Sabrina, who seemed lost in her own world.

"So what did you manage to figure out in the end?" Joey asked his friend, who had skipped out on Vermilion and had been training for Cerulean for half a year straight.

An admirable preparation effort; however, she wasn't going to manage to get all eight badges next season if this was the amount of time she took for each one.

"Lil Mouse has gotten really good with Thunder Shock, and Oddish can now make enough Poison Powder to cover an entire field," the girl bragged and puffed out her chest.

The bus engine started with a roar. The large metal gate opened and they started rolling down Route 5. Joey suddenly wondered why they were always taking a bus when there were hardly enough people on it to justify doing so. Couldn't they have just taken a minivan?

"It's been shown in the past that aggressive Pokemon are less likely to get involved with large vehicles," Ruth answered from where she was sitting in front of them.

Joey hadn't realised that he'd asked his question aloud.

"Only two people doing the gym battle today," he muttered. "Any idea in what order you're going to do it?" he asked Mia.

"Well, I was actually talking to Sabrina earlier," Mia responded. Joey quirked an eyebrow, "and we came to the conclusion that since I'm planning on poisoning the water, it's better I go second so that they don't have to lose too much time refilling the pool in between."

"You'll just go right after we arrive, right? To do the challenge," she asked in return. "Any idea what it will be?"

Joey shook his head. He would have felt less trepidation about it if he had known what exactly he was getting into. He could have prepared equipment and trained towards a specific goal. Instead, he was just going in blind now. For the first time, actually. All the jobs he'd taken in the past had been described in the listing, and all the Gym Leaders that he'd faced had countless videos of their battles online.

What had he told David back then? The kid who determined which gym he would go to next by the type of Pokemon he caught. Joey had told him that if prepared like that, he would never truly train his adaptability and that it would bite him in the ass eventually. Latest, by the conference, when he faced people who had been keeping strategies secret for this exact moment.

Wasn't he now eating his words by the sheer fact that he felt unadaptable? Maybe he should have prepared less for all the gym battles that he'd previously done.

Wasn't it stupid to have all of these resources that one had on the gym battle and not use them, however?

Preparation was also a skill set that one had to train after all.

On the other hand, considering how his last three Gym battles had gone, one could say that Joey's preparation skills were already quite good.

Wouldn't it be time then to train his ability to improvise?

Well, if nothing else, no matter the result, his ability to adapt on the fly was something that he was going to get to train today.

The bus drove along while Joey remained lost in his thoughts, and it arrived in Cerulean too quickly for comfort, but also too slowly for peace.

Instead of how it had gone down the last two times, the bus dropped them off directly in front of the gym, where they disembarked and glanced around at the not-so-coastal city they were now in.

Joey didn't really understand why they had built a city on the coast but just far inwards enough that one couldn't use the whole of the sea. He guessed that it had something to do with the fact that this part of the ocean had less natural breaking spots for large waves than Vermilion did and thus they stayed a bit out to protect their infrastructure.

After they'd all disembarked and looked around, Ruth led them to the gym, which looked to be built according to the standard design practices, just that one could already see from the outside of the windows that a ginormous pool dominated the inside.

The automatic door opened for them, and they walked in. An older woman from behind the receptionist's desk immediately greeted them.

She smiled at them, and looking at the group composition—three girls and one boy—she correctly identified Joey as the person she'd been told to single out.

"You must be Jonathan," she said before turning to the two girls. "The gym leader will first instruct you on the challenge before starting the normal battles," she explained before stepping out from the desk and bidding Joey to follow her.

Joey for his part patted Mia on the back, waved at Ruth and ignored Sabrina as he followed the receptionist behind one of the stands that were erected on the left and on the right side of the pool towards the back end of the gym. 

As they emerged on the other side, on the platform reserved for the gym leader, he looked back at his friends from across the pool curious at, for the first time, seeing the gym leader's perspective. It was nothing special, in the end. Just the same thing from the other side.

He ended up following the receptionist all the way to a nondescript door in the white wall at the end of the gym where she promptly knocked.

After an affirmative resounded from within, she opened the door outwards and bid Joey to enter.

Inside was a man who some referred to as one of the three devils of Kanto. The title was given to the trio of the currently toughest gym leaders to beat. Giovanni in Viridian, Koga in Fuschia, and King in Cerulean. In the future, this would likely expand to the four devils, Blaine, Sabrina, Koga and Giovanni. 

Contrary to his reputation, King looked like a jolly older man in his mid-40s. He had a big walrus moustache and a protruding stomach, barely hidden by his navy-like uniform.

"Jonathan," King greeted the youngster from behind his small plastic desk. He was smoking a cigarette and drinking either water or vodka.

It was a sparse office, with another door in the back, probably leading to some sort of training centre. It only held some nautical maps on the walls along with the occasional seafaring gadget such as a compass or a sextant.

"Gym leader King, thank you for accommodating my request," Joey greeted as he stood to attention before the man. He wanted to make a good impression. Who knew when the favour of a gym leader would come in handy?

"No worries, it was an interesting challenge, finding a challenge," the gym leader chuckled. "Usually, the people who opt out of the battles are doing so for their 8th badge, not for their 4th, so we didn't really have anything prepared for you."

Joey was somewhat curious as to what the 8th badge challenge consisted of but refrained from asking so that they could get to the point.

Seemingly noticing his intention, King proceeded to do just that.

"It was particularly difficult as well because as part of the youngster program trip, you're only here for one day, which means we had to come up with something that was not time-sensitive as it was appropriately difficult. Thankfully, a local land development conglomerate provided a simple enough task that can be completed within a few hours if you're lucky and a day if you're not. The people they hired to do the job are currently on vacation, so you jumping in makes perfect sense, and you won't be competing with anyone," the man explained.

"What does the job consist of?" Joey asked.

"As you likely know from all of the maps of Kanto that are scattered in every classroom in the country," King started as he lit another cigarette, having finished his previous one. "Cerulean is actually bordering on something like a half river, half sea situation. However, if you cross the bridge to our North, you get to experience a beautiful riviera, which is currently being considered for further development. The League has tentatively accepted the architectural and urban planning suggestions of the conglomerate I mentioned earlier to develop the area into a tourist resort. Under these conditions, they have also laid the responsibility of habitat transformation to the conglomerate. Partially so they don't have any responsibility themselves in case it goes wrong, and partially because, well, if they want to build something there that's not essential for human civilisation, they can sure damn well pay it themselves."

"Habitat transformation," Joey murdered quietly. "If I remember correctly, this is a job usually done by rangers and is relatively high risk. It consists of catching and relocating certain Pokemon, right?" he asked.

King nodded. "Exactly that. However, in the northern part of Cerulean, if you ignore one cave you don't have access to, it is considered one of the safest places in the region. Enough so that the rich have started building homes there, being perfectly content to live outside of the city. I think Bill, the inventor of the Pokemon storage system, is currently having a house built there as well." 

"Unexpected for the league to go for something like this," Joey said, airing his opinion. "They stopped Saffron's expansion a long time ago. Why suddenly accept suggestions such as these?" he wondered aloud.

King gave him a curious look, seemingly wondering why exactly Joey was thinking about it to such an extent. He took a sip from his glass of clear liquid. "The League as a government institution is always facing the challenge of balancing the need to keep a stable economy by permitting for growth while respecting Pokemon territories or at least infringing them in areas which are less likely to cause a reaction. Suppose they approve this expansion in the area where the wild Pokemon are not particularly strong or territorial. In that case, it'll create a lot of construction jobs to build the resort and further tourism in the region without increasing risk too much. But that's not something you have to worry about," the man concluded.

Joey nodded decisively. "You're right. Just tell me what I have to do."

"It's simple really. While the company bidding for the land is being forced to hire in the private sector to catch the Pokemon, which will then be relocated, the Rangers are still taking care of the actual relocation. I assume you learned how that works in your classes, but if you need a refresher, let's sum it up. Every Pokemon lives in a permanent state of reaction to their surroundings. Territories are merely momentary if we look at it from a larger-scale perspective. That means that if, for example, humans were to go to area A and catch Pokemon there to relocate them elsewhere, that area would soon become sparser of wild Pokemon as they would learn that it is not convenient to live there. Doing this for a year or two is usually enough to create a Pokemon-free environment, which can then get a building permit since there is no more native Pokemon population that the construction would disturb. Your job, in this case, as something that we can easily verify, will be to go to the aforementioned location and catch at least five of the native Pokemon, which you will then bring back so that we can send them to the Rangers and relocate them. Doing so in one day, considering you don't have any familiarity with the area, could be considered a challenge worthy of someone going for their fourth badge."

Joey mulled the job over and realised that it wasn't actually as difficult as he'd feared. 

"Of course, there's a caveat because you are taking on this challenge through the water-type gym. It would be remiss of me if I didn't have you narrow your focus a bit to teach you how to deal with water Pokémon. For this sake, you will be required to present out of the five, at least three water Pokemon. One exception: Magikarp doesn't count," King said, causing Joey to sigh.

This made things a bit more difficult, but it was still a surmountable challenge. He'd have to buy a fishing rod to make it easier for himself unless he just happened to pass by a whole colony of Krabby walking on the land, but he was sure he could do it. "Anything else?" he asked, ready to set out and get this over with as fast as possible.

"Do be careful out there, as there has been some reported criminal activity," King warned, shrugging his shoulders. "But isn't that the case everywhere these days?" he asked rhetorically. "Otherwise, I was curious why you decided to take the challenge rather than the gym battle."

Joey wondered if you should reveal the real reason before deciding that he wasn't going to battle anyway, so it didn't matter. "I have a Diglett on my team, and I don't really feel like I have a chance in a three-on-three with that, considering your platforms wouldn't even allow him to move."

King blinked for a moment. "Well, you could have just asked," he said. "We have separate rulings for moments like this and can source an expert to raise an earthen platform in the middle. It's just cheaper to use the floaties, so that's what we usually do. Not many people catch Diglett, so it's very rare, though."

Joey suddenly felt like an idiot, but with his team composition, he still wouldn't have felt confident anyway, and maybe it would be good to do a gym challenge to further his perspective.

"Let's do this then," he said with a sigh.

-/-

AN: Decent chapter with some world-building, connecting the resorts we saw in the anime with the habitation sparsity of the games. Tutorial-level chapter for what's about to unfold. I think the whole Cerulean saga will be about 4-6 chapters. You can finish reading it and the tournament arc coming after on Patreon where the League season has officially ended.