---------------

“Come on Zilla!”

“You can do it Whisca!”

“Kick some ass Triton!”

Carracosta, Whiscash, and Jane’s Golisopod each take turns blasting out of the canyon pond and into the air. Naomi’s Whimsicott, Argo, is using a piece of charcoal to track the height on the canyon wall.

Ofcourse, each time Citro shouts for his big blue catfish I feel my eye twitch. From his tone you’d think Whisca was the underdog here. No, that monster has been evolved for months longer than the other two and knows how to throw her bulk around.

Each Aqua Jet, the damn fish sails easily another five to ten feet higher than Jane’s bug and an additional five over my turtle. Zilla gets maybe 6 feet of clearance giving it everything she's got.

Meanwhile Blake’s ridiculous pineapple duck is maintaining a waterspout and dancing on it. Gloating or quaking a song, your pick.

“Time!” Shout’s Naomi, “Whiscash wins!”

Zilla scoots ashore and stands up, a low growl rumbling. She notices an innocent rock rubbing in her loss, I guess. Either way, a flipper slap sends it smashing into the canyon wall across the pond.

“I know we haven’t done a lot of Special Attack training, but it shouldn’t be this bad.”

She glares at me a moment before rolling her eyes. Next she scoops up a rock in her clawed flippers and crushes it with a clap! Then, turning her head to the pond, she spurts out a stream of water. No better than a broken drinking fountain might spray.

“Alright I get it, maybe.” Scratching my chin scruff, “Are you saying you need more practice with special attacks?”

A head shake.

“Are you saying that there's no point?”

Another shake with a frustrated grunt. Once more she sputters out a squirt gun’s worth of water into the pond.

“Wait,” this shouldn’t be right, “Is it your water moves in general?”

Finally a nod, she points to her ball on my belt.

The fancy faux turtle shell, Fossil Ball… with a Rock Z crystal mounted on it.

Then the big turtle kicks the dirt surrounding us everywhere.

“Okay, you’ve been focusing rock energy almost entirely, and we’ve been inland for weeks now.”

Naomi finally cuts in, “This is another reason our schedule was built this way. We’ve put off really training our water pokemon because east hoenn is a whole different dynamic. Training for all of it at once is a way too common rookie mistake.”

I did notice she left her Clamperl back at the Mauville Aquarium still.

“Pokemon need time in their appropriate environment to properly develop their inherent strengths.” She’s in full lecture mode.

So Ofcourse Jane breaks her stride, “Ya ya Princess, but how does that help us in Lavaridge, you know, the fire gym?”

Citro tilts his head from petting the catfish, “Um, Jane, most of your team still has type advantage.”

“That's great for Red here,” pointing back to Naomi, “but you and I have a serious challenge on our hands.”

Watts rolls her eyes while returning Whimsicott, “We’re not even facing Flannery. You’ve got Sandslash, Pallosand, and Carracosta, you’ll be fine.”

Jane snorts, “A rock from Big Z there will knock out any Pokémon.”

The boy stands up and stretches, “Is it time to get going? You said we’d have lunch at the ranch, how far is it?”

Naomi stretches as well, “Two hours, we’re actually only on the periphery of the deeper canyons. The closer you get to the mountain, the more powerful pokemon you’ll encounter.”

“Well, that’s not the business of a bunch of rookies like us.” I start double checking the RATV to make sure we’re all packed up. “Like we said, we're having difficulties just allocating time for all of our teams.”

Citro hops into his seat, “Well that’s because of the Rookie Journey right? Most pro’s have weeks to months of down time from what I’ve heard.”

All hopping in, Naomi replies, “We have two weeks after Lavaridge to brush up our training some more… I actually tried to reschedule but Gym Leader Ourboro shot that down.”

Jane waves goodbye to the senior trainers, “The man sounds like a jerk the more I hear of him. Anyway, I can’t wait to see some of the full teams of trainers we battled. The region invitational is going to be great this year!”

~~~~~~

My initial hopes of cruising through washed out roads flew out the window when Citro felt the need to say, “They use Palossand to fix the roads after a storm hits parts of the islands.”

Watching my ghost do an impression of a wet vac wasn’t the exciting drive I had in mind. At least it only took a couple minutes each time

As Naomi said, we only finished speculating how far some of the second year trainers will get when the cliffs started spreading out.

From tight winding corridors to open basins. Clusters of mini spires, like man sized mushrooms of stone, pop up from fields of tall yellow grass. Route 112 is home to small family herds of the Camerupt and Rapidash line. Those weird Baltoy pokemon can be found here too.

The navigation screen gave us a warning once we officially left the Valley of Steel to watch out for more sand pits. Here is where a lucky trainer might encounter a friendly Gible or the unlucky may find a rare and territorial Hippowdon. Near one pool of water, Jane points out a wild Sandshrew and Cacnea battling.

Naomi brings our attention back to the road, “The Lavaridge Ranch is just around the next bend!”

We round a larger plateau towards Mt. Chimney and see fences lining the road up the hill side. Large pastures of soft beige grass host all manner of pokemon. Tauros, more Numel, Ponyta, Torkoal, even a lounging pride of Pyroar carefully watching the tumbling mess of playful Litleos.

Citro hops in his seat, “Are those Combuskens?!”

Sure enough, a line of racing fire chickens kicks up dust along the fence line. The pens get smaller as we near the main ranch house. I spot one zone that’s been coated in a layer of hardened lava. Familiar fire lizards scramble over charred earth.

“Pretty sure those are the Salandit that we caught.” I point out one riding a Magcargo to Jane’s delight. The girls manage to snap a picture to post on Naomi’s Poke’gram account.

Pulling up the main drive I can see dozens of workers going about their business, including a girl I’m pretty sure is part of the local rookie team. She’s carrying a box while an unfamiliar, goat pokemon is following with blankets on its back.

“What was her name again?”

Naomi spots who I’m talking about, “That’s Amber, she had the Quilava in The Mosh. I bet they got called back to help the town while Flannery was out of commission… Is that a Dubwool?”

“It's adorable!” sprouts Jane, “I want one!”

Really? “That might be one of the most normal pokemon I’ve seen.”

“It is a Normal type.” States Citro, looking utterly confused.

“No. As in, it looks like any goat from my home.”

“””Ooooh.””” all three speak before laughing.

“Whatever,” I pull into a parking stall, “Let's just head inside.”

While getting out Citro points off towards the mountain, “I can see Lavaridge!”

The peaks of traditional asian roofs snake their way up the mountain side amongst the edge of a forest that wraps towards the north side of the volcano. I can barely make out a larger temple building at the highest part of town.

Naomi smirks, “Wait till you see it at night! Lavaridge has become a resort town to rival any city, in any region.”

“Let's head inside,” I start walking towards the front door.

“Hey Wattson girl!” an older woman calls out to us.

Over by the fence for some stables, the woman pats the side of a waist height ponyta… on fire. Blue fire.

“Come learn to take care of your new partner.” She holds up a horse brush.

“Eeeeh YES!” Naomi does that teenage girl spasm and grabs Jane’s hand to drag her along towards her Ponyta.

Citro looks a bit conflicted so I pat him on the back, “Go check it out. We’ll probably be here for a couple hours. So check out the pokemon, in fact, I bet the ranchers know a lot about your new Scraggy and tips for your Salazzle.”

“That's right!” The kid rushes off so fast he nearly collides with that Amber Girl coming around the corner. She almost drops a basket of berries but the lad saves it.

“Oh, boy. I’m not here to watch anime tropes unfold.”

Saloon style doors swing into a lobby right out of a steakhouse. Really, there's folks at tables eating lunch. More ranchers sit at a bar with drinks while the tv above plays the usual league channel stuff.

“Ah, it’s an actual saloon.” okay maybe I’m having a little squee moment. But internally… cause manliness or something. “Cool.”

“Kurt.” Hodge waves to me from the front counter. His shaggy red hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, his cowboy hat hanging on a taurus horn mounted above his desk. “Did Aunt Julie find your teammates?”

I shake the redhead steve irwin’s hand, “The gal with the Ponyta? Ya, the whole blue fire thing still blows my mind.”

He chuckles, “Pokemon are amazing creatures. Did you see the rascals you caught in Alola on your way? The rest are adjusting just fine. We’ve already got reservations for Tepig and Magby for next year’s rookies.”

“That’s cool, I imagine you guys supply the Torchics as well?” We walk towards a back office out of the busy front lobby.

Inside a pair of desks mirror each other, Vivi is typing away, but a soft bark draws my attention to the black dog taking up a couch to herself. Houndoom, still sporting a cloth back brace, wags her tail while giving me another cheerful bark.

“Hey there Miss Wick, feeling better already?”

Vivi spins in her chair, “Definitely not, hello Kurt. Thanks again for bringing our pokemon home.”

She points to a basket in the corner with three small puppies snoozing away. “I talked to my brother,” Wick barks, “And Houndoom. We think you should borrow her for one of your gym challenges. Not this coming one though, obviously.”

Hodge takes over, “Are you guys challenging Fortree or Fallarbor?”

“Fallarbor, in a few weeks,” the fire pokemon is giving me some serious puppy eyes, “and ya, I’d love to get her out to stretch those legs once she’s healed up.”

Vivi sports a huge smile, “That’s great! There ya go girl, you get to battle with Kurt some more.” turning back to me, “We’re fairly sure Houndoom wants to repay you for rescuing the pups you could. She started barking up a storm when she saw a teaser for your team's Canyon King battles on tv.”

The door cracks open, another familiar girl sporting a red mohawk of dreads peeks in, “Great I found you! Sorry Ranch Boss, Mr. Kurt, I just told the rest of your team, they said you’d be in here.”

“What’s up?” Ah, I’m pretty sure her name was Avril. She had a Torkoal in The Mosh.

Girl’s got a smirk I don’t like, “I was told to let you guys know your Lavaridge Gym battle has been rescheduled a bit.”

Vivi claps, “Is it official?!”

“Yup,” Avril puts her hands on her hips, “Kurt, you and the Wattson Princess will be the premier battle for the new, official, Lavaridge Gym Leader! Torch is gonna burn you both in a Doubles Challenge!”

… “A what?”

Her cocky smirk falters, “Um, it’s a 4v2 match. You and Naomi each send out two pokemon against Torch’s two pokemon.”

That sounds pretty cool, “Like, all at the same time?”

Hodge chuckles while Avril has really lost the wind from her sails, “Geez man, this really is your rookie year isn’t it? I mean, I honestly didn’t buy it but… ya know what, just go talk to Wattson out front.”

The girl turns, throwing up her hands and walking away.

“She didn’t answer my question.”

Vivi giggles, “Yes Kurt, all at the same time. Flannery has officially stepped down. I talked to her earlier,” now she’s got the mischievous grin, “You’ll battle her real team at the coming world's tournament.”

---------------------