InsaneJournal

Current location:	On a Lombre's leaf
Current mood:	tired
Current music:	Bump of Chicken
Entry tags:	pokemon, rsescramble

RSE Scramble 07!
Raise your hand if you can see what's coming! Oh, I can't see 'em anyway. I'll just assume I can surprise everyone, then. >:D

It's morning once again. Anti gets up, has the Petalburg City Pokemon Center's continental breakfast (it's strawberry Poptarts with Cleffa sprinkles today), and heads straight for the gym.

She finds Norman just outside the doors, unlocking the building for the day. Using his Parent-dar to detect his kid's presence, he turns around with a big smile on his face.

"Anti! Welcome back!" he greets her. "How's your training been going?"



Anti silently shows Norman her first four badges. Dad nods in understanding, and steps into the gym ahead of her. "I'll be waiting in the back," he says, and disappears into the building.

Entering after her dad, Anti finds the first room already empty. Looks like he took a few cues from Trick Master. She decides to treat this challenge much the same, and clears out every room in the gym, owning all the item abusers and buff spammers, reaching the other end rather quickly. She opens the final door, steps through, and it automatically shuts behind her, the sound echoing off into silence.

Anti feels like there should be some dry ice fog or something to set the mood here. Prose and foreshadowing just isn't convincing enough for her, I guess. In any case, the room is well-lit, and her dad is standing there, waiting patiently with his arms folded. He smiles as Anti steps up to her side of the battlefield.

"I'm sure you've learned a lot in your journey so far," Dad remarks.

Already scowling, Anti shoots back, "Yeah, like how nobody gives a crap about what happens to their kids. You let us skip school and commit vandalism and burglary, and as long as we say we're training Pokemon, we can get off scot-free!"

She sums it up with an emphatic,



Dad smiles and nods, as if he knew these as well as anyone else experienced in life. "Well, even though you're my daughter, don't expect me to go easy on you!" And he sends out a Spinda.

Pissed that her words passed completely over Norman's head, Anti sics Dicey on the Spinda. She used to think her dad was the cooler of her two parents, and on that resentful thought, she commands Dicey to Bite the wobbly bipedal panda right on the head. While Spinda runs around howling in pain, Anti thinks that her mom might actually be the lesser of two evils here. She doesn't want to think about what might've happened to Spaz if she'd sent him to stay with Dad instead.

Spinda finally stops running in circles and faints, Dicey still firmly attached. Dad recalls the Spinda and sends out Vigoroth next, who immediately starts slicing up the Trapinch with his claws before Anti can switch her out. She trades Dicey for Bipolar, and has the Nosepass Block Vigoroth from escaping. The screechy primate counter-attacks by Slashing wildly, only managing to dull his claws against Bipolar's rock-solid body. She Thunder Waves the poor sucker, and finishes him off with a Rock Slide. After the boulders clear away, Dad returns Vigoroth and Linoone comes out in his place.

Anti snorts. Zigzagoons are as common in Hoenn as Rattatas are back where she used to live, and she doesn't think much of their evolutions, either. Switching out Bipolar for Toadstool, she has her Shroomish drug the enemy as usual. Unfortunately, this soon backfires, as Linoone responds to the poisoning by throwing himself into a Facade attack, hitting Toadstool right on the chin with a combination of status-doubled base power and STAB. Toadstool rockets backwards, flying past Anti inches from her face, and crashes loudly through the wall.



Looking through the Shroomish-shaped hole in the wall, Anti finds Toadstool lying at the bottom, out cold. She calls her back and pulls out Bipolar's ball again. The Nosepass covers for Toadstool, finishing off Linoone with the help of continual slowdowns from Rock Tomb, but by the time the badger finally faints, Bipolar is looking rather beat-up. Reaching for another ball the same time as her dad, Anti takes Bipolar back and sends out Somnolent to finish the battle.

Somnolent ends up facing a huge fat slob of a Pokemon comparable even to Snorlax, a lazy gorilla known as Slaking. The Kadabra Psybeams Slaking in the face on Anti's command... and he retaliates by rolling over and planting a fist squarely down on Somnolent's head in a Faint Attack. Somnolent passes out halfway through the floor.



Anti grits her teeth and returns Somnolent to his Great Ball, then pulls out her last fighter. At first she considers having him take one for the team, drawing attacks from the Slaking to buy enough time for Anti to revive and heal one of her other Pokemon, but she decides to trust him, and sends Chester into the fray.

Luckily for her, Slaking is too busy being morbidly obese to attack again right away, so Anti takes advantage of the free turn and has Chester use Assist. He channels Toadstool's Poisonpowder first, and Anti inwardly cringes, remembering the Linoone's Facade rampage, and thinking she just blew her chances at winning. The move misses, though, so Anti immediately follows up with another Assist to start the next turn, and crosses her fingers.

Chester uses Assist, borrowing one of his comrade's moves again. As he starts charging toward the Slaking, Anti can already tell it's another one of Toadstool's moves... but then the music that's been playing since Somnolent's defeat, too low to detect at first, begins to swell from somewhere in the background. Anti notices it in the back of her mind, and wondering where the Hell the speakers are, she watches as Chester starts off at a trot, then a run, then full-out pelts across the gym floor as fast as his nubby legs can carry him.



Slaking, totally not threatened by this fluffy pink kitten, picks his nose with one pinky, and rears back a fist in preparation to Counter the hit. Anti sees it coming, but it's already too late, and Chester launches himself into the air, aiming for the fatty.

Even though she knows what move the Skitty was about to use, Anti's not counting on him to do it the same way as its usual performer. As Chester starts spinning in midair, the music rises to a peak, and the Slaking lunges his fist forward.

Chester's tiny spinning body brushes narrowly past Slaking's hamfist. His cool shades start glowing with the power of his burning spirit and inexplicably change shape as Chester touches the untouchable, breaks the unbreakable, and hits Slaking right on the forehead with a critical Headbutt drill.



There is an explosion from the impact for no other reason than it's frigging awesome, and Anti gets knocked back from the shockwave. When she gets to her feet, she sees Chester standing squarely on all fours, his shades now looking quite different, while the Slaking sits there in mid-punch. After a long moment, Slaking's eyes roll into the back of his head, and he slumps backward with a groan.

"YES!" Anti practically screams in victory, and Chester meows happily.

...Then two things go off at the same time. First, Slaking's Sitrus Berry. Second, Counter. As roof-breaking and heaven-piercing as that Headbutt was, it didn't flinch the Slaking, and a massive delayed reaction suddenly hits Chester, flipping him tail-over-teakettle.



Anti turns, slow and dramatic, goes over to her Skitty, and puts him back in his ball. Then she picks up the shades and puts them on, quickly turning on her heel to face her father with a new and powerful look in her eyes.



She sends out Bipolar, who takes advantage of Slaking's Truant turn to set up Thunder Wave. That fatface is faster than he looks, Anti realizes. Thanks to the status effect, Bipolar gets in the first move on the next turn, Rock Sliding in an effort to bury Slaking. He brushes it off and Facades back to finish the already battle-worn Nosepass, however... which isn't all that dramatic, because Bipolar just sort of falls over, still pointing northward, until Anti returns her to her ball.

Anti sends out Dicey again without hesitation. She knows her Trapinch won't be faster than Slaking, even with paralysis in play, so she uses the Truant turn to have Dicey Dig violently through the floor. Anti's much too hot-blooded right now to care if she gets in trouble for messing up her dad's gym. Besides, she knows that by having Dicey use Dig now, even though she's still slower than Slaking, she can do damage on the turns to follow without taking any hits.

Instead of whiffing an attack on his next active turn just before Dicey is due to come back up, Slaking instead looks down at where Dicey's going to emerge, and cocks a fist back in preparation.

Oh balls, he's gonna Counter! Anti thinks. The floor shakes as Dicey Digs back up to hit the Slaking, and summoning up all her will, Anti screams at her Pokemon,



The Trapinch breaks through the floor and rams herself right into Slaking's chin. The gorilla's head snaps backward so fast Anti's positive she just heard the whiplash, and his whole body rolls back a good several feet from the force. Dicey tumbles to the ground on her back, wiggling her four little legs frantically for a couple seconds before tipping her giant head to flip herself back onto her feet.

Dicey is up, Slaking is down. Dad returns his Slaking, and doesn't send out another Pokemon. Smiling and shaking his head, he steps over the hole in the floor to clasp Anti's shoulders.

"I can hardly believe it!" Dad crows. "I never thought I'd get beaten by my own kid... especially not so soon. I figured it'd be a good few years or so before you came to challenge me."

Anti gives her dad a dirty look through her starlock shades. "What, you think I WANT to still be training that far down the line? Are you KIDDING me?! Having everyone wanna fight me every single second is annoying as Hell! Pokemon training's messed up, lettin' kids go off on their own with no police or child protection services around is messed up, and letting crazies run loose tryin' to blow everything up and callin' it world domination?" She glares hard at Norman. "Is messed. UP."

Dad regards her thoughtfully for a moment, then claps her right shoulder proudly. "You're just the spitting image of myself at your age, Anti! I can tell that you'll go far in the Pokemon League."

Anti's jaw falls slack in disbelief, her glasses temporarily going crooked, before she rolls her eyes and makes a sound of disgust. "I'm leaving," she says, turning swiftly out of her father's grip. "Tell Mom I said hi." And Anti exits the gym, leaving her father smiling at the empty air.

"I know you like that Brendan boy, but wait until you're at least seventeen, okay sweetie?"



Luckily, Anti doesn't hear Dad's sage advice, because waiting for her right outside the gym... isn't Brendan, but someone who still seems vaguely familiar.

"Hi, I'm Wally's uncle," the man introduces himself. "I heard from him that you're the one who helped him capture his Ralts..." Anti nods, raising an eyebrow in an indication for him to get to the point. "Well, ever since he got his own Pokemon, it's done wonders for his health and self-confidence." His smile wavers a little, but Anti doesn't think much of it, or anything else, as Wally's uncle hands her a shiny new HM. "This is my thanks." After a short goodbye, he heads back to his home.

Anti grins. It's the incredibly hard-to-find Surf HM!



Though it's a little weird that it's so difficult to get, since so many trainers have Surfing Pokemon nowadays. Nevertheless, she puts it in her bag and rushes to the Pokemon Center, gets her team healed, then goes out to Petalburg's pond and sets everyone loose on the grass.

Ready to make one of her teammates into a boogie board, she checks the back of HM03 to see who can learn it.



No one is compatible. What does she do now?

Figuring there's no other way around it, Anti heads north to Rustboro. She checks the HM with wild Pokemon she meets on the way, but among those that can learn Surf, none of them are all that suited for riding the waves on, at least as far as Anti's concerned. She wants to stay dry, and not half-drown on an undersized Zigzagoon in the middle of the ocean.

Anti's wandering continues up past Rustboro and north onto Route 115 (she cheats over the ledge by using Bipolar's Rock Slide to make a staircase). Her path takes her through Meteor Falls, where Toadstool, Spaz, and Chester play in the shallow puddle-steps. Anti and the playful trio emerge onto Route 114, and as they clamber down the rocky slope together, Anti spots something moving not too far ahead.

In the tall grass below, a couple of teenage schoolgirls are having a picnic. While they talk about nothing in particular, the thing Anti saw moving sneaks closer, its dish-like leaf poking above the grass. The girls chatter on obliviously, and when the creature slaps a slimy hand on the back of both their necks, they shriek so loud an entire flock of Swablu fly up from the route like cottonweed blowing in a strong wind.



The schoolgirls get out of there about as fast as the birds, leaving their lunch behind. The prankster laughs and helps itself to the spoils, and Anti grins widely.

"THERE'S my boogie board!" Anti declares, jumping down into the grass to face the Lombre. It looks up from its lunch just in time to see a Skitty with GAR-shaped glasses grinning at it.

"MYAA!" Chester says, then Doubleslaps Lombre into the dirt.

Anti throws a ball soon after and captures it, naming the Quirky Lombre Skeaze. She teaches him Surf, and proceeds to do so to get to the little island in the middle of the lake, sitting comfortably on Skeaze's dish leaf and looking very proud of herself.



Anti lands at the island and finds a tree. She recalls it as the same sort of tree the kid she got Secret Power from was standing in front of, and remembering what he told her about secret bases, she teaches Skeaze the move and has him use it. Skeaze does some kind of weird dance, then reaches up and pulls down a hanging vine. Anti climbs it and discovers a ready-made treehouse. And thus, Anti's secret base is born.



Then Anti hears sirens outside... so there ARE cops in Hoenn. Crap. She leaves out the back door and surfs under the bridge when the cops aren't looking, then dashes into the first house she sees.

A woman inside the house promptly shrieks, "GAH! Don't rob me! There's nothing you'd want in here, anyway!"

Anti blinks at her. "I didn't even DO anything yet."

"Then why do I hear sirens?" the harried woman asks.

Anti throws up her hands in frustration. "Hell if I know! I just got a Pokemon that can learn Surf, and--"

"Wait, you just caught a Pokemon?" the woman asks. "Let me see what else you have with you."

Confused, Anti sends out her entire team. Including Spaz, the fighters, and her Surfing Lombre, the Pokemon she's carrying total seven.

"Ooh, I see." The woman nods thoughtfully. "Seven's one too many. You'd better store one."

"And how am I supposed to do that? The cops are kinda blocking the way to the nearest Pokemon Center," Anti replies in high dudgeon.

The woman smirks. "I'm Lanette; I'm the one who built the Pokemon storage system for this region. What makes you think you wouldn't be able to do it right from my house?"

"Oh. Huh." Anti takes a look around. "Okay, so where's your computer?"

"It's right--" Lanette stares around at the piles of books and empty coffee mugs stacked everywhere. "Oh, crap."

Using Somnolent to mind-control any cops who get near the house, Anti helps Lanette look for her laptop. They finally find it in the middle of torrenting the latest Linux build, and Lanette opens up the Pokemon storage system.

Anti holds up one of her team's Poke Balls. "Wait, how do I use it with a laptop?" she asks.

"Just put it in the DVD drive," Lanette tells her. With no idea as to how that's supposed to make any kind of workable sense, Anti does as she's bidden, and puts Toadstool's ball in the disk tray's hole. It fits perfectly, blips out of sight, and the tray closes itself. Toadstool is sent to Anti's mom's house for a well-deserved rest, having led the team through many battles since almost the beginning of Anti's journey.

As soon as this is done, the cops stop trying to break down the door, and Anti hears car doors slamming and tires kicking up dirt as the police quickly leave the area. Shrugging, Anti leaves the house, only noticing after she's gone a few feet from the door that Skeaze has something clasped in his sticky little hands. Belatedly deciding that Lanette won't miss her Lotad plushie, Anti yoinks it from the Lombre and stuffs it in her backpack.

Anti uses Dicey to Dig back to Petalburg. There's a stretch of water she remembers on Route 103 from way back at the start of her journey, and she wants to see if there's anything on the other side. Maybe less stupid and/or crazy people, but she's not getting her hopes up on that.

*Team Anti*


Somnolent (Kadabra M), L.32
-Psybeam
-Recover
-Reflect
-Thief

Chester (Skitty M), L.29 @Blackglasses
-Faint Attack
-Attract
-Doubleslap
-Assist

Bipolar (Nosepass F), L.30 @Hard Stone
-Rock Slide
-Thunder Wave
-Block
-Rock Tomb

Dicey (Trapinch F), L.26 @Quick Claw
-Dig
-Faint Attack
-Bite
-Sand-Attack

Plus Spaz and Skeaze. And...

Toadstool (Shroomish F), L.30 @Miracleseed
-Takin' a break.

Next time... camping. Yes indeed.