Larry dug another tunnel into the divot he’d eaten himself into, and the muddy soil from above collapsed in on top of him with a heavy THUMP! He didn’t mind, though, as Larry once again began consuming the mud on top of him. To celebrate their successful tests, Valerie had brought them back to the forested area south of Viridian City, where Larry could eat all the soil he wanted. It turned out that no one owned the area, so they could use it freely.

  Both Valerie and Sybil were camping up above and eating some tasty treats, two tall cones of ice cream for themselves, while Larry stuffed himself deep inside the crater with more soil. Sybil had gone with a mishmash of various flavors, seemingly intending to find the tastiest one by eating a bit of everything. Valerie, meanwhile, went for a few scoops of her favourite, which was strawberry. Underneath the ground, Larry’s mind was elsewhere, though.

  ‘I can actually write now, I can talk to Valerie…’ The thought would’ve given him goosebumps if he could, but instead, only an uneasy feeling passed through his stomach.

  ‘I mean, it's been my goal from the start to go out there, explore the world, and finally do something with my life,’ Larry mused as he dug himself back down, ‘Talking and interacting with people was going to be a given sooner or later…It just still doesn’t feel real…’

  ‘We’ve been working on training, I can now actually respond…’ It was as if a weight had been lifted off of Larry's shoulders. After all, he’d managed to overcome the language barrier, even the barrier between species.

  ‘Do I tell her about my secret? I haven’t even told Mom…’ Larry threw the notion away almost as quickly as he’d gotten started, ‘No way, if I tell anyone, it's Mom first, and after that Valerie.’

  ‘If I don’t tell her about my first life, I can’t tell her about Team Rocket either, though…’ He deliberated, ‘If I just tell her all about how Giovanni is the leader of Team Rocket and cloning Mew into an entirely new legendary Pokemon, it's not going to help anyone, I’ll just sound crazy. It’s going to end up as another situation just like the one we’re in right now with the kidnapping.’

  He trusted Valerie to keep the secret, she wasn’t the kind of girl who’d spill her friends' most precious secrets, but Larry was also unsure how she’d react if the girl found out that one of her Pokemon had been a human once, ‘It would definitely mess with me, I wouldn’t even know how to act around them anymore…Do you treat me as a Pokemon or a human?’

  ‘I’ll use what I’ve learned to become a better Pokemon.’ Larry decided, ‘Being able to communicate with Valerie about the team's wants and needs more efficiently is definitely going to be useful. Maybe once I’ve told Mom I’ll find the courage to tell her too…”

  ‘We’ll definitely need it, with us challenging Giovanni and all…’ He already knew that the fight against Giovanni was at best going to be a hard-fought loss or, at worst, become the worst loss they’d ever received. From what Larry remembered, his status as the final gym leader in the games made him actually quite easy to beat, which, coupled with the minimal amount of Ground-Types in Kanto, forced the man to basically work with a large amount of Rock-Types.

  It was their one saving grace, a large part of his team was, at least according to his game knowledge, weak to Ground-Attack, of which Larry had two. Coupling those with his Stat-Boosting moves and a few Psychic-Moves by Sybil for the man's Nidoking and Nidoqueen, it was a surprisingly acceptable matchup in his eyes, even if the man's Pokemon had far more fighting experience. Well, as long as he didn’t use his Dugtrio, which they had no counter for. One could forget that Valerie, Larry, and Sybil were readying themselves for their first Gym and not for their eighth, ‘Well…Technically, Sybil has Peck, I don’t know if she’d hit a Dugtrio, but…No!’

  Larry shook away the bad thought as he finally surfaced again, ‘It’ll all go ok…We’ll go in, do our best, and then move on to the next Gym…’

  “Oh, Larry!” Valerie stirred from her place on a trunk of wood next to Sybil, walking up to him before recoiling when she neared, “Arceus, you’re filthy again!” She held out her ice cream to him, “Here, you said you didn’t want one before, but…”

  Valerie grazed the tip of her scoop with her finger and held it out towards Larry, “You want a taste?”

  Larry really didn’t want to taste the sickeningly sweet taste he remembered the berries back in Mt. Silver having, but he still licked the cream off of his trainer's finger. Yet, when the cold treat hit his taste buds, no terrible tastes manifested, “Huh? This tastes...ok?”

  “Not bad?” His trainer tested, “That's good, do you have any taste preferences? I’ll need to actually buy you some proper food once we go on the journey.”

  Nodding back, Larry made a motion for the girl's phone, more than happy to put his Pokemon interpreter skills to the test.

  She looked over to the nearby pond as she seemingly got an idea, “Say, you mind going over and taking a dip in the pond to clean off before writing it out? You’re kind of filthy.”

  Showering itself last time hadn’t been much of a hassle. The real issue was Michelle, who whined to them from the front door all the way to the edge of their tub about how much mud and dirt Larry left in a literal snail trail on his way there. It was still spring, but Larry took his chances and trotted over to the pond with a nod, receiving a smile and thumbs up from Valerie in return, “Thanks!”

  …

  Returning a bit wetter, slightly colder, but far cleaner for it, Larry again made a motion for Valerie’s phone.

  Handing the device to him, she asked a question first, “So, what kinds of foods do you like?”

  Composing the answer still took a somewhat awkward amount of time, but he was by now far less prone to errors, “I really like soil!”

  “Obviously.” Valerie rolled her eyes, “But I also want to pack some food that you actually like and that will make you stronger.”

  Thinking back to his days in Mt. Silver, Larry couldn’t help but think about all the exotic types of soil he ate there. He still remembered that patch of spicy soil he and his mother ate from, ‘She really hated the taste of it, but I think it was pretty good actually…Now I’m just wondering what it was…’

  Describing the rocks he had eaten back in Mt. Silver would be a real endeavor, so Larry simplified his request, “I want to eat special types of stone and rock!”

  Valerie hummed at the request, “You mean like…I don’t know, granite?” Nodding back, Valerie went on, “Sandstone, Limestone? I think those were also types of rock, or are they the same?”

  “I should probably consult a…rock expert on this?” She guessed the name of the profession, “Stone is pretty heavy, so I’m unsure if I can carry much in my backpack, it's pretty huge in there, but I wouldn’t want to just go ahead and shove straight up rocks in there…”

  Hand on her chin, Valerie made a suggestion, “We’re going to be traveling to a ton of different cities while on the journey. So, how about instead of buying all the rock here, we go out into the cities and surrounding areas and look for some shops and…deposits? That’s what they’re called, right?”

  Larry was more than happy to do so, as long as he got to taste some good food, ‘I wasn’t gourmet in my last life, but I won’t discount some fancy eating if I’ve got a bottomless hunger and a taste for rock’

  “Sure, sounds like a good idea!” He wrote back, before more of his game knowledge came back to his mind, forcing him to write out another sentence, “Also, buy us some vitamins!”

  Valerie's eyes opened at the mention, “I was planning on doing that, but they’re so damn pricy…And I don’t want to rely on Michelle more than I already have…”

  Before Larry could write out another argument, Valerie responded, “I’ll buy some Vitamins once we actually have some money from our journey, they’re only used by really rich trainers anyway…”

  Larry was happy with that, nodding back at Valerie. She smiled back, “Anything else you want to ask?”

  “What is our strategy for the gym?” He put a hand for Valerie to pause before he tapped in a new sentence, “I need to know how we vill win!” His writing skills had become far better, but the occasional error still slipped through.

  Sybil nodded beside him in agreement, “I foresee our fight going badly regardless of strategy, but I agree that we increase our chances of success by strategizing.”

  Valerie hadn’t understood what she’d said, but still nodded along, “I planned something, our chances aren’t high, but I want to at least try and beat a single one of Giovanni's Pokemon!”

  “His usual team consists of a Rhydon, Dugtrio, Nidoqueen, and a Nidoking. Sometimes he uses a Rhyhorn, the pre-evolution of Rhydon. He’s also used a Kanghaskan, Onix, and Nidorino on rare occasions. It's also known that he personally owns a Persian, which he’s used in Gym Fights on very rare occasions, though it doesn’t seem to be a fighter. You might not know all those names, but the gist of it is, he uses a lot of Rock, Ground, and Normal-Typed Pokemon, mainly Ground, since that's the Type of his Gym.”

  Larry already knew all that, he still remembered his fight against Giovanni in the games and the ease with which he’d swept through the man, all because he had a single Water-Type on his team. ‘Now we don’t have that luxury though…’

  Their trainer looked serious, “I’m going to be honest, we don’t have the best matchup against him, this would be a tricky fight even if he was at our level. The only saving grace is that we have moves which counter his team's typing.”

  “We’ll be forced to fight evasively, chipping away at his defensively-typed team until we can finally find an opening.” She cracked her knuckles as she looked between her Pokemon, both of them looking back at her tensely. Suddenly, she quirked up a grin, “Well, normally we’d be doing that. I have a plan, though.”

  “What I’m thinking of doing is a very, very risky strategy that could go wrong very, very quickly.” She paused, “But I think it's the only way we could take any sort of win from this, especially with the extreme difference in experience.”

  Pointing a finger at him, she began explaining, “You’ll be the most important part of the plan, Larry.”

  “Me?” Larry pointed a finger at himself, ‘I guess I am still the strongest member on the team, but what is the plan?’

  “It all focuses around the Pokemon Giovanni’s team is composed of,” Valerie explained, “almost all of Giovanni’s Pokemon are big, heavy, lumbering Ground-Types.”

  She held out a hand in his direction, “And you just learned two Speed-boosting moves, didn’t you, Larry?”

  “Dragon Dance and Rock Polish…” Larry answered as he finally realized his trainer's plan, “You want to sweep his team using setup moves?!”

  “I didn’t quite catch that, but by your surprise, I can imagine you got to the correct answer.” Valerie smiled back at him with a cheeky grin.

  “I see,” Sybil commented, “We abuse his team's lethargic pace by powering up before we can be defeated. Quite the dangerous strategy.”

  “If I go down too quickly, we’ll basically just lose.” Larry typed in his trainer's phone before erasing the text to replace it with another sentence, “Would a Gym Leader allow us to do that during a fight anyway?”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Valerie's confident grin weakened slightly, “I do have some ideas! You like fighting without too many commands, right? I think it could really throw him for a loop if I simply didn’t command you to use any moves.”

  ‘Oh, that sounds neat.’ Larry nodded along with Valerie's explanation.

  “We could also use your Sandstrom to obscure the fact that you’re powering up, if you start up a Sandstorm and then start using Rock Polish and Dragon Dance inside it without me instructing you, even Giovanni won’t have any idea what you’re doing before it's too late!”

  Larry was actually quite happy the girl had thought of the fact, but he still had some fears. Typing in her phone, he responded, “Wouldn’t a Sandstorm also strengthen his Pokemon?”

  “It would, yeah…” Valerie rubbed the back of her neck, “But you can dispel it once you’ve powered up. I don’t think it would be wise to keep it up during the fight anyway. We still have some time to workshop a plan out.”

  He grimaced at the lackadaisical way his trainer threw around the action he was going to take during the fight. Once again, he wrote a new sentence, “What about Status-Moves?”

  “Don’t think I haven’t planned this out,” Their trainer countered, “The reason I haven’t mentioned Status-Moves is I’ve taken my time and researched Giovanni. His team basically only focuses on raw strength, with only his Nidoking and Nidoqueen sometimes managing to poison his opponent through their horns.”

  Waving off his concern, she continued, “Being poisoned is a boon to us anyway. You have the Guts ability, which makes you stronger if you have been hit by a Status-Condition.”

  “Who likes being poisoned, though?” Larry answered matter-of-factly, using her phone, ‘I’m a Ground-Type anyway…I think unless he manages to stab through my skin, I won’t get poisoned.’

  “Of course,” She agreed before continuing, “Another thing we’ll have to watch out for is Earthquake. It's one of his favourite moves, he even gives it out as a TM after the fight if you win, so we’ll have to use Dig carefully.”

  Larry still wasn't entirely sure how good a strategy this was going to be, and his trainer must've seen his unsure expression.

  Valerie sighed at Larry's unsure expression, “Look, I know this is a reckless strategy, but we have a real chance of beating at least one of his Pokemon if we take this strategy. Winning the entire Gym is impossible, Giovanni fights at an eighth badge level after all, but I want to at least walk out of it with something tangible if we won't get a badge.”

  “I know you want a good fight too, just imagine bringing down a Pokemon far stronger than you after powering up.”

  The thought alone of standing toe-to-toe with a Rhyhorn or another huge Ground-Type made Larry far too giddy. He hadn’t even spent much time yet to train while powered up.

  She put on her best attempt at Puppy-Dog Eyes as she looked at Larry, “So, won't you please let us try beating the Gym this way? Pretty please?”

  Huffing at his trainer's begging attitude, Larry began to type out another sentence, “You know I was going to go with your plan anyway, right? It’s not a bad plan, just reckless.”

  “Really?” She questioned, “I thought it was kind of dangerous, so I wasn’t sure if you guys would want to try it.”

  “I think it is our only way of winning in any way,” Sybil commented, “If this Gym Leader is truly as strong as you say, we will not have a chance otherwise.”

  Larry nodded in agreement before typing again, “I agree with Sybil, it is our best shot at defeating at least one of his team.”

  Valerie smiled down fondly at her Pokemon, “Thanks, guys.”

  She stood and stretched as she took her phone from Larry, “Alright, then for the next six days, we’ve got nothing but training on the agenda! Woo!”

  Both Pokemon mirrored her excitement, the odds might be against them, but they weren’t out of the count yet.

  “Some changes are in order, though,” Valerie corrected, “I’ve heard that Gym Leaders keep an eye on the local training grounds to know what they’re up against. To keep the element surprise, we’ll need a new, secret training ground.”

  Looking around the quaint little forest, Larry and Sybil could already guess their trainers' next words, “I guess we’ll take this spot here, right? No Gym Leaders are going to look inside forests for trainers.”

  …

  Larry’s muscles bulged with immense power as he twirled around the forest floor. It was Tuesday now, and they were trying to string together multiple Status-Boosting Moves one after another. He was performing his second Dragon Dance, both of which followed a single Rock Polish. In game terms, he should be up to a +4 on Speed and a +2 on Attack when he manages to finish his second Dragon Dance.

  Though some problems have shown themselves. While Larry's Speed and Attack were indeed both powered up to ludicrous levels, Larry did find himself fighting against his newfound power and speed while trying to execute the second Dragon Dance.

  ‘Kh! C’mon 1-2-3-4…123- Fuck! Too fast!’ Just short before the completion of the move, the Dragon-TE once again vanished into thin air, just like his wavering concentration. It was exceedingly hard to keep the same rhythm he had used while in his hastened state.

  Valerie spoke up from the side in a worried tone, “Is it too much, Larry? We can try and work it out with more speed and less power if Dragon Dance is harder to perform?”

  “No!” Larry shook his head emotionally, “I’ll get it, you hold tight!” By now, it was more about his pride than actual strategy, it was important for the future to get Dragon Dance down perfectly, yet he still felt far testier than normal.

  He once again leaned into a twirl as Matthias spoke up from his seat on the fallen log next to Valerie, “Ssssooo…Y-You’re not trying to beat the gym fully?”

  She simply scoffed back, “It’s an eighth badge gym, Matt. I’m lucky I even get to challenge the leader because they use a Gym Challenge instead of Gym Trainers. We’ll be lucky if we take down a single one of his Pokemon, even with the crazy strategy we’re using.” Feeding Sybil another pellet of PokeChow, she looked towards the boy, “We’re basically betting everything on Larry here.”

  “A-And if it doesn’t work?” Matt received an agreeing nod from Patrat as Larry tried to tune the two out as best as he could during another twirl.

  Valerie simply shrugged, “Well, then we’re done. You’re not supposed to challenge Giovanni this early into the Gym Year anyway, as a brand new trainer, we’d be stupid to complain about the loss.”

  “W-Why does he design his gym like that anyway?” Matt asked, Patrat on his shoulder, nodding in agreement at the question equally, “I-I doubt many trainers like that.”

  “From what I’ve read, it’s because he runs the Gym closest to Victory Road and the Indigo League.” Valerie explained, “He sees himself as the last challenge before trainers challenge the Indigo Conference.”

  “H-Huh…” Matt seemed stumped, “I-I, uhm, I guess that’s a good point…”

  Finally, in the lull of quiet, Larry managed to focus enough to get Dragon Dance to active. The move superpowered his muscles again, and he felt himself literally blow up like a balloon from the inside with the sheer power, “Yes! Finally!”

  “Oh! You got it!” Valerie clapped, “I think we won’t be able to get more than three boosts off before the match can properly begin, so let's try and get the failure rate down for now and get you accustomed to moving around while boosted, ok?”

  As Larry began tentatively moving, Matt broke the silence again, “I-I think I get your plan for Larry, b-but, uhm…What’s your plan for Sybil?”

  Valerie could only sigh, “Haah…I am honestly unsure. Natu and Xatu usually play the role of support in teams, they’re used to set up moves and to reflect the moves your opponent might throw at your team back. Because of that, Sybil doesn’t really work well against someone like Giovanni, who overwhelmingly uses raw power.”

  If Sybil was offended by the insinuation, she didn’t show it, the ever-prevalent stare not even twitching an inch. Valerie continued her explanation as she petted the bird on the head, “It doesn’t help that Sybil is still quite young and doesn’t know a lot of moves yet.”

  “S-Sybil has Teleport, doesn’t she?” Matt looked between the stone-faced bird and its trainer, “I-If, uhh, If Govanni’s Pokemon are really so slow, you could use that to your advantage, couldn’t you?”

  Letting the thought run through her head, Valerie nodded along, “I guess so, that is the strategy we’ve been using so far…”

  A light bulb seemed to go off in Matt’s head, “W-Why not use it with Confuse Ray!”

  “Hmm…I doubt an eighth badge gym leader would fall for a strategy like that, but I think we could give it a try?” She turned to her Pokemon, “What about it, Sybil?”

  Sybil, with her hand still on top of its head, bowed in agreement, “It sounds like a fair strategy.”

  “Sounds like a deal then!” Valerie grinned back, “Now we’ve just gotta hope you don’t get any future sights during the fight…”

  “T-They’ve happened less, right?” Matt questioned.

  “From what I could tell, yeah.” Valerie nodded, “Around one every day or two, if I catch them.”

  Their trainer had kept up more with their habits, and while Larry knew that her count was slightly off, it was still a valiant effort to count them. Larry knew they were more, since he, as a Pokemon, could see Type Energy far more easily. By his own count, it might’ve been one or two daily, ‘I wonder if Sybil’s going to evolve soon, from what I can remember, Natu evolves pretty early.”

  Patrat hopped off Matt’s shoulder and was approaching Larry, who had just managed to get his balance correct with all the boosts, “Hey Larry, come on! Show me a real hit with those boosts!”

  “You sure?” Larry waddled over to a large tree. He reeled back his arm, “Here, let’s try this!”

  The muscles in his arm released like a spring, launching his stubby arm straight into the bark with a deafening crunch.

  CRACK!

  CRUUNCH!

  Patrat jumped back in shock, as he looked at the splintered wooden hole punched straight into the tree, his arm was now stuck in.

  Larry grinned back viciously at Patrat, “Ho Mama! That’s got some power!” Ripping his arm out of the bark, Larry reeled back for another, “Eat this!”

  CRACK!

  CRUUUUNCH!

  “Haha! I’m not even using a move!” All eyes were now on the two, as both Matt and Valerie exchanged worried glances. Larry hadn’t noticed it himself yet, but it seemed like too many uses of Dragon-TE, one after another, made for a very ‘volatile’ mindset.

  Patrat backed away even more, “I-I think it looks strong, you- you can sto-”

  “Let’s try it with a move!” Larry’s fist was tinted in an inky black energy as he reeled back a third time for a Payback.

  CRACK!

  BOOOM!

  “Kya!” Valerie flinched back at the explosion of splintered wood.

  “Wha-!” Matt mirrored her panic.

  His fist launched at an unprecedented speed into the bark of the tree, only to blast out the entire midsection of the tree. All the nearby Flying-Type in the vicinity fled into the sky at the explosive noise.

  The tree, now left floating in the air, quite obviously began to drop. Patrat was the first to cry out, “It’s gonna fall on us!”

  “Oh, hell no!” Larry jumped into action immediately, backpedaling as he raised his arms. He enhanced his arms with Dark-TE once again as he lunged upwards with a deft jump, “You’re!”

  “Not gonna!” He twirled in the air, the tree now at a 75° angle, he readied a kick, “Fall!

  The trunk finally appeared next to him in the air, and Larry released a kick like a bullet, snapping into the tree's side with a loud THWACK!

  The entire tree stopped its descent, as its trunk was launched sideways into another row of trees, reverberating through them, but not toppling them with a loud THUMP! Before smashing into the ground with another loud BOOM!

  Larry landed with prose, before speeding up to Valerie's side within what seemed to be the same second, “Are you ok?!”

  His trainer was still simply sitting on the tree trunk with Matthias in the same slack-jawed and wide-eyed look, watching the tree trunk Larry had kicked roll to a stop. Her gaze finally turned down to Larry at her shin.

  Patrat mirrored their expressions, but recovered quickly as he hopped up to him angrily, “You almost killed us, you moron!”

  At Patrat's indignant cries, Valerie recovered, “Ok, I think two Dragon Dances and one Rock Polish are enough.”

  “You sure?” Larry turned his head unsuredly.

  …

  ‘Oh God,’ Larry admonished himself, ‘I totally lost it back there…’

  VRRT! VRRT!

  Now in bed back at home, lying in bed with Valerie, Larry nursed his sore hand. He’d come back to his senses after being recalled, and the Dragon Dances were quite a doozy to behold. Too many successful consecutive Dragon Dances seemingly affected one in the same way the Dragon-TE was conjured.

  In Larry's case, he became a cocky, testy moron when too many Dragon Dances were used one after another. It was obvious when he realized just how Dragon Dance worked, what with a cloud of Dragon-TE conjuring around himself to empower his muscles, some of that Dragon-TE isn’t going to perfectly fit into his muscles and affect him in other ways.

  “Oh…Oak just wrote me!” Valerie sat up and showed him the screen, and after quickly turning his head to his side and squinting his eyes, he could finally understand what was written.

  ‘Everything has been prepared for your Gym Challenge. Please wait outside of the gym on the day of!’ The Professor had written in the chat window.

  “He’s really keeping it secret…” Valerie grumbled before beginning to write out a response.

  ‘Thank you, but you still haven’t told me what you have planned.’

  “It’s just making me anxious…” She complained as she pulled Larry in close like a plush toy, “He should just tell me…”

  Her phone once again vibrated, and Larry took another peek at the message,

  ‘Do not worry yourself. You will be safe while taking your Gym Challenge.’

  Valerie grimaced, “Fine…If he wants to be that way…”

  ‘I trust you, Professor. Thank you.’

  Putting her phone away onto her nightstand, Valerie dropped back onto her bed with a sigh, “Haah…I know we can’t possibly win…But this whole mess with Team Rocket and Oak still has me anxious…”

  Larry sidled up next to her, “We’re gonna have a great time, don’t worry.”

  Sybil, sitting up by the windowsill and gazing out towards the setting sun, gave a coo of agreement, “I see a fortunate future for us.”

  Larry sat up again, “You’re going to tell us what is going to happen then?”

  Sybils stared towards the falling sun, froze, her gaze traveling down in deliberation, “I…”

  “I won’t force you,” Larry added, “but shouldn’t you use your strengths in some way?”

  “...It…” Sybil turned, “...The gym battle…It will go positively…probably…”

  “Oh!” Larry realized, “So we’ll win?”

  She quickly averted herself, “I cannot say…”

  “Aww…”