Hard Enough

“Shiiiiiiiiit!” Celia stared at the television in the pokemon centre open-mouthed. She hadn’t had to bother people to get a spot on a couch and now she found herself agreeing with whoever had said that. She and all the other Pewter trainers that she’d gathered together for the last part of their journey were likewise transfixed as Brock laid down the law.

“Stone cold! Brock is stone-cold! I can’t believe I ever doubted him!” another trainer, someone Celia had written off but still invited anyway said. She smiled at his reversal of stance. Agreement rang out from the group at large.

“What’s going on?” A passing trainer said as they noticed the disturbance her group was making.

Celia stood up and waved. “Everyone turn to channel one! Lance is getting called out hard!”

Around the room, a few trainers did so only to gasp when they saw Brock and Lance locking gazes.

“Care to lay down a wager on that?” Brock’s voice, if Celia’s words hadn’t already, forced everyone to shut up and pay attention. There was a gravelly quality to it that just made you sit up. Celia thought of it as his growl. It rarely came out as Brock was very relaxed and more willing to speak quietly. When he had to speak up, he projected himself clearly without shouting. It made her squirm in her seat a little hearing him using it on the strongest trainer in their super-region.

“Of course!” Lance was no less intimidating. Celia sat as if an insanely powerful psychic pokemon had caught her in their control. She barely dared to breathe as lest these two powerhouse trainers notice her and turn their attention to her.

People choked on their spit and one guy even outright collapsed as Brock laid out the wager of ten million poke dollars. Celia nodded along before the amount registered. She blinked. What was going on? “How much did he say?” She questioned, testing her memory for faults. Perhaps this was tomorrow and she had been visited by a ghost pokemon that had munched on her dreams?

She pinched herself just in case before grimacing. Nope, not a dream. “Ten… million pokedollars…” The person next to her said. She nodded dumbly.

“Right, of course…” She blanked out for another second but Lance’s nod forced her back to the ground Kanto.

“I accept.” And just like that, one of the biggest pokemon wagers she’d ever heard of had been laid down. That was a crazy amount of money. Like stupid money surely. That would be enough to see Celia able to journey the world… like a hundred times over? She didn’t even know how to reference that.

More words were exchanged but Celia felt sick, excited, and suddenly so unsure of just who her mentor even was. Brock had been that rich? She’d never really thought about how much being a Gym Leader paid. Who paid them even? Was Brock loaning the money? Was he going to be in serious trouble if he lost? What was even going on?

“—I’m merely calling him out on it.” Brock sat in his chair and gave a satisfied smile. Celia felt weak even as her mentor gave out the most confident smile she’d ever seen. “Any questions?”

Celia found herself with so many.

“Are you for real?” someone asked. Celia blinked as Brock laughed, she quickly realised that had been one of the reporters.

“Yes, you’ll find I am indeed very real.”

“But, Ten Million? No way you have that money, even as a Gym Leader!”

Brock glanced over to the official. “May I borrow that case for this?”

The man handed it back reluctantly. Brock turned to demonstrate the case. “This is a protected case. You might not have noticed it but there is a certificate embedded in the top which is the real value. When I withdrew the money the bank manager looked like I had kicked their Growlithe in front of them.”

“So you took a loan for this? Isn’t that unreasonable? Your gym surely can't handle the debt.”

“I’m not leaning on the gym for a loan, nor am I leaning on the bank for this. I never would have gotten approval. This is my own money.”

“How did you earn it?”

“I have had the good fortune in my journey as a younger man to encounter some truly rare pokemon. If you care to investigate, you will find I made most of that money through one transaction through the pokenet when I sold an extremely rare example of an Onix. The rest have just been good decisions for me that have paid off. The purpose of that money was to merely show that I am undeniably serious about this challenge and I am forcing Lance to meet me.” Brock shrugged. “He can’t afford not to after all.”

The press conference, now with a missing champion continued as a one-man interview with a League official stewing next to Brock.

Celia stared at it and blew out a whistle. When Brock had apologised for ‘stealing’ the attention off her matches, she hadn’t realised he meant it this way. She suddenly found herself way more interested in her teacher. She’d have to go visit him before his match in two days.

She might even go meet him in his room. Her mind began to play through potential scenarios only for someone to jostle her. She glanced over to see that everyone was looking at her. “Celia what was that?”

She blinked and realised that Brock wasn’t the only one about to sit through an interview. Although perhaps inquisition might be the more apt term in her case as more trainers closed in to ask her everything she knew about Brock.

“Thanks for tuning in, I'm Chuck Chinto and in today’s top news, bad blood at the start of the Indigo Plateau with the conference set to get underway! See it live here!”

On the prompter, the video events of the press conference played out. Chuck, now off-camera relaxes and glances at his producer. “Damn ballsy move of the kid. What angle are we taking on this one?”

The producer lifted their notepad and tapped it. “Neutral, simply state the facts. We’re going to run with this for a bit. We’re projecting interest to be high so we have a team looking into Brock and Lance. We’ve got another night to run a feature on both of them. Brock’s got footage from his conference matches and also took part in the Sevii league and Hoenn if you can believe it.” The woman gestured to the prompter as another technician indicated they would be crossing back to Chuck. Fingers counted down and Chuck adopted a serious expression.

“Shocking situations indeed! It seems the typically thick-skinned gym leader certainly felt the bite of the Champion's words. For this story, we thankfully have my co-host recently returned from the Plateau. What’s your take Abby?”

“Chuck, in what appears to have been an insult gone too far, Champion Lance has been confronted by Gym Leader Brock of Pewter city. Most will know Brock as one of the earliest challenges in the League when you start your circuit on the Kanto side of the region. Pewter city as the ‘first founded’ city is even known as the traditional beginning of Kanto. For this reason, many people don’t end up taking Brock on for a higher level challenge. This has given Pewter gym the unfortunate symbol of being a ‘weak gym’ with it being easy to get the badge. It was perhaps this that the Champion was referencing when he first spoke.”

“Abby, for a long while Brock refused to comment on the Champion's words and people had written him off. What made him lash out like this at the champion?”

“It may have been community pressure, or it might have been his pride.”

“Sticks and stones but words will break through the stony exterior?” said Chuck.

“Hmmm quite so, Chuck,” said Abby in response to the pun. “Brock is also a young gym leader. He was in fact the youngest to take up the mantle until Johto’s Falkner took over from his own father. Now while these two gym leaders share uptake from their fathers. Brock’s handover was anything but smooth if reports are to be believed. The young Gym Leader has faced a lot of criticism. We’ll be doing an in-depth dive on Brock in an exclusive later!”

Chuck nodded seriously, letting his hair catch the light while watching Abby. “And what of the Champ? How is he taking this?”

“The Champion has yet to make any more comments. In fact, he might not even be at the plateau anymore as a Dragonite taking off over Mt Silver was witnessed and it was believed that Lance may have been riding it.”

Chuck put his hands together and pointed them towards Abby’s chest, symbolically getting to the ‘heart’ of the issue. “What do you think his chances are Abby? Lance is a powerhouse that won through a gruelling slog against the previous champion Pryce. What should we expect from Brock? Can he topple the Champ?”

Abby nodded her head before speaking. “That’s the question on everyone’s minds Chuck! One thing we need to remember is that this was meant to be an exhibition match that was for pride. Then Brock threw down what has been deemed the largest wager in history on his victory in this match. Experts have not been able to find any other cases where an individual stood to win as much from a single match. It is still a daunting task.”

“If I stood to win ten million, I’d assemble a team and have a shot at the Champion,” Chuck said light-heartedly. His co-host Abby giggled demurely.

“As would I Chuck, but you also have to risk ten million!”

“I’m out then!” chuck raised his hands and backed off to show it was too expensive for him.

Abby flashed the cameras a practised smile that was no less genuine. “A lot of us would be! Now before I get caught in that angle of this match, I’d like to return to the question you posed. Can Brock win? Unsurprisingly when we polled residents of Pewter and Blackthorn, two cities almost on opposite sides of the Silver range we saw mirroring opinions.

Both Abby and Chuck turned towards a display that was set up to their side. First, a well dressed Blackthorn man scoffed at Brock’s challenge. Then a dirty farmer from Pewter appeared on-screen hollering about Brock and his ascendence. “—going all the way! Wooooh we love you Brock!”

This followed with people of all stripes and situations with poke centre nurses Joy and Joy from both cities both smiling and saying they supported their respective hometown ‘boys’. Mothers and children both cheered for their respective representatives.

Abby grinned as the camera came back to her. “Looks like the people have their favourites as one would expect.”

“Lots of hometown cheer taking over indeed!”

Abby nodded. “It wasn’t just the hometown residents though as one reporter happened to find another Gym Leader from Kanto for his thoughts.”

On the screen, Surge appeared with a mike in front of him. “Brock? I’m backing him all the way! I think he can do it! When the champion laid down his challenge, he kicked a lot of dirt from his ivory tower down on the Kanto side of things. He was putting down all of us when he was digging into Brock like that. I’ve worked with Brock closely ever since his daddy left, and I tell you! I’ve never seen such a young talent. Pewter’s in good hands and now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lay a bet down on Brock!”

Abby and Chuck shared a look. “Gym Leader Surge of Vermillion city, it seems, thinks Brock has a chance.”

“Right again Chuck, this will certainly be dominating news for the next few days and probably beyond, I should imagine. We’ll return to this story but now let’s cross to Rebecca with the weather!”

“Is this the start of a new champion’s origin story, or is Brock merely an up jumped Gym Leader that is about to walk away a lot poorer? I’m Joshua of PTN News and this is the big news of today!

“Experts and League officials were shocked today when Pewter city Gym Leader—” the channel changed and a new face appeared.

“Who does this man think he is? Challenging the Champ! You’re supposed to apply through the League and await approval after winning enough recognition through tournaments! I never saw Brock win a tournament that mattered! The Sevii islands? Pah! Those are tourist attractions more than actual challenges!” Another press of a button, another channel.

“Is this the wake up call the young champion needed, do you think? A lot of people were very worried when he made his comments but it was written off. Now it seems his pidgeys have come home to roost.”

Another of the show’s co-hosts waved their arms about drawing laughter from the crowd. “I don’t know about his pidgeys roosting right now! If anything, they're up in the air flapping their wings! It’s the League that has egg on their faces, you watch. If they have their way they’ll get this whole thing called off!”

The remote was snatched from the first person’s hand. Small hands fought over the remote only for an older set to slap them off. “Hands off Gary! I don't want to watch old fuddy duddy’s talk about this! I need to see something way more important!”

“Sis! Not the lifestyle channel!”

“Shut up! We’ll swap back between the ads!”

The channel changed again to reveal a group of ladies on couches with a tea set up around them with floral gardens serving as their backdrop.

“When Lance and Brock were staring each other down? That moment. Oh, my, gosh! I was just weak! Weak at the knees!”

“I wasn’t weak I was rather—” the host waggled her eyes “—fired up you could say!” The rest of the women catcalled at this and Daisy Oak sat back and hugged a pillow while Gary sighed as he felt his brain abandon him.

“I’d sure be on my knees if you know what I mean!!!”

Why did his grandpa only own one good tv? He couldn’t steal the remote back from Daisy, otherwise she’d beat him up. He grumbled to himself. At least when the actual match was shown, his Gramps was sure to watch too, guaranteeing Gary would get to see it. He glanced around for the old guy. Surely with gramps around, he’d be able to get the tv onto something actually good right? Or maybe even convince him to buy another, better tv? For his room?

Smoke curled around Kruger’s head as he blotted out another line on his plan. He cursed as his cigarette gave up on him. Like a well-oiled machine his body unconsciously reached into his breast pocket. His hand emerged with a box that he tapped to have another lined up and in his mouth. His hand then searched around the desk for a wayward lighter. When it failed to find it, the brain became aware and Kruger found something new to curse while blaming all his woes on young trainers with too much pride for everyone’s good.

“Martha! Where’s my lighter?”

“In your draw to the left sir!” Came the reply from his receptionist. He scowled when he discovered she was right. A tap on the door gained a grunt from him. “Sir, did you want to reschedule your talk with Gym Leader Pryce?”

Kruger considered that before shaking his head. “No, we need to sound him out on his thoughts and make him favourable to us. What’s the media team’s take on this?”

“Mostly the media is focussing on if Brock has a chance,” she paused when Kruger snorted dismissively, “Some media channels are slinging their usual Muk but so far we are not taking any criticism.”

“That’s bad. No, that is even worse than bad! The League can’t be seen as irrelevant! We’re supposed to be the governing body! Lance, as a young Champion, was to see us returned to former strength as a body not cast us further into support roles!” Kruger thumped his desk. “What was the media team’s take on my idea of disavowing the match as not in the spirit?”

“It wouldn’t occur. Mayor Jonathan of Pewter has even mentioned that if we didn’t allow it, he’d be happy to let the fight take place at Pewter.”

“And see the ticket revenue go to him!? Ha! Not likely!” Kruger plucked another form before wadding it up and tossing it. “Get another pot of coffee on and tell everyone else we’re working through the night! We need to get ahead of this and be seen in control! I am not letting us slip back into irrelevance!”

“Yes sir!” Said Martha as she walked out to make the needed phone calls to keep staff on. Kruger mentally cursed the need to pay overtime but that was the job. Right now he needed an angle. He’d have to be seen running with it and being in fact favourable to it.

“Schedule another press conference!” he bellowed before remembering something, “And tell the technicians to get a prompter with my name on it! People think I’m just an aide of the champion, and not the chairman of the League! Again, we can’t let that happen! Has anyone even mentioned me in the news articles?” He cursed the answer and settled in for a long few nights. He didn’t know how but somehow he was going to come out ahead of this nightmare.

Lance knelt on a worn mat. Only a few candles lit the room but most people here were used to this atmosphere. When the clan gathered together for something serious, they made sure to hold their meeting in their shrine within the cave that housed their dragon pokemon.

You needed to have a firm hand with Dragon pokemon yes, but you also needed to give them an austere environment to help soothe them. Shrine maidens held a certain appeal that both man and pokemon understood. This had been discovered and exploited in the olden times leading to the clan’s strength that held even to this day.

They’d faced many threats. This would merely be the newest.

“You overstepped yourself, nephew!” Shouted an old weather-beaten crone. Around her shoulders, a small Dragonair wrapped itself like a scarf.

“Perhaps,” said Lance.

“Perhaps!? Perhaps? Boy, you disparaged a Gym Leader from another region. Tensions are always simmering due to the differences of Johto and Kanto. The joining of the two regions is not that long ago in some memories! Your arrogance has led to flaring up of tensions and even a threat emerging to you!” Her aura lashed out like a slap and Lance flexed his own around him to stop it from hitting. He was no child to be scolded so.

“He’s not a threat! I will handle it!” he replied, barely holding in a snarl.

“Will you be putting up the ten million?” another voice asked.

Lance grit his teeth. “I was hoping I could draw on clan funds for this, when I win I will repay it half again.”

“Half! Arrogance upon arrogance! You want to draw on funds not your own in your time of need!”

Lance glanced to the side and saw his cousin and childhood friend. She met his gaze and held it. She wasn’t attacking his actions but nor was she supporting him. He lifted his chin and she nodded. “Lance has the right of it. He needed to speak that way to show his strength with his new role as Champion.”

“No. He did not.” At this voice, everyone went quiet. There was no laced aura in the words. Everyone held their tongues and let the Eldest speak. The man rubbed his fine white beard and nodded to himself after taking a moment to think. “You have been arrogant young Lance, of this there can be no doubt. You have let the success you had swell your pride and this has seen you acting out. You are typically more in control of yourself. Your recent behaviour since winning? I was going to ask you to visit me after the conference but now you have been called out. This must be rectified now before you face Gym Leader Brock in two nights' time.”

He stared straight through Lance. “Tell me, when you entered that press conference, you used your aura on those people did you not?”

Lance swallowed, his recent behaviour, now that it had been pointed out did cause him some shame. He was supposed to be the Dragon Master. If he let their energies affect him like this, how could he claim mastery? “I did, yes.”

The Elder nodded before flexing his aura to chop Lance on the shoulder. It was not strong but it still stung. It was a firm strike of discipline. Lance had felt it many times in his youth while meditating with the Eldest to control his aura. Part of him rebelled at the idea that he should simply lower his head at being ‘punished’, but he knew that to be an irrational side of himself that he needed to control.

“You tried to use it on Brock as well. How did he… feel to you?”

Lance drew his mind away from the moment and cast back to the start of the conference. That had been the first sign that things weren’t simply going to go the way he had deluded himself into believing. “My aura felt like it ran into a boul—no a wall, a cliff face? A cave?”

The Eldest rubbed his beard again. “Hmmm, multifaceted? Surprising to find that he has such skill. I wonder who trained him in Aura?”

The clan as one pondered this. Claire eventually spoke up. “It couldn’t have been his father. The man never demonstrated it in the past and he departed before Brock took over.”

“Hmmm yes. Yes, you challenged him. A young man and from what I have had read to me, I see a tale of a young man who has worked hard to grow himself and his gym strong. It must have stung to have you belittle him.” No chop came with his words but Lance grimaced nevertheless. Painted this way, he seemed like the villain.

“What should I do?”

The Elder sighed before raising his head to show dull, unseeing eyes. “You must win young Lance. While in the wrong, you cannot falter. We will train you to regain control of your wayward energies and ready your best team. … We will also support you with our funding. Do not entertain a loss for now. If that should occur we will discuss what we can do then. For now, ready yourself to show the world Lance, the Champion of Indigo.”

Lance and the rest of the clan straightened. Their paths were set.

Erika sat in an out of the way garden. It was a quaint little thing and she enjoyed the quiet moments. Thankfully the other girls that had come with her from her gym were also in a tranquil mood. Part of that might have been due to her Bellosom wandering around the garden, a sweet scent that calmed the mind wafting from her petals.

To most people, it would be unnoticeable. Only one of the other girls had noticed and she naturally was a quieter sort of girl. She gave Erika a grateful look as some of the more rambunctious girls settled down. Usually, they were all aflutter with gossip or being crass, or even harassing each other.

Running a gym that solely allowed female trainers brought challenges with it. Most of it was from the trainers themselves. Most people liked to think it was from the leering crowds that liked to daydream but they kept their distance and were usually rather shy. They were well behaved most of the time and could easily be chased off with her pokemon keeping a firm boundary for non-challengers approaching the gym.

No, most of the drama that occurred with her gym came from her girls. Some of them were wonderful, some of the rich socialites that liked to hang out at the Gym, some of them wanted tips and tricks on raising Grass types. None of them were rough sorts. She would not tolerate such around her gym.

But she did occasionally need to calm the mood. Something Grass types were perfect for.

And so she sat and enjoyed the turning of the season and the end of the circuit. This had almost become like a ritual for her since she became a gym leader last year. A nice calm garden before watching the opening ceremony in a few days.

There were numerous benefits to be had at such large events. Some of which was getting out of Celadon and having her right-hand woman close up the gym for the circuit. She liked raising the pokemon, and working with them, and even the battles were nice. It was such a joy to see young trainers rise to the occasion against her.

She could do without so much paperwork. Everything had to be documented and detailed. She found the entire thing mindboggling and was thankful for the reprieve.

And so here she sat, enjoying the ‘roses’ such that they were on a small holiday before watching the trainers that had gained all eight badges partook of the Indigo conference.

“ERIKA!” shouted a voice. The shrill tone acted like a set of razor-sharp garden shears straight through a perfectly trimmed hedge. At the completely wrong angle. As one all the girls and Erika shuddered before looking up to see one of their number sprinting towards them. “ERRRRRIIIIIIKAAAAAA!” The girl pumped her arms, and legs. Her hair flew freely behind her in the wind as she charged on, bellowing out each breath.

“EEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAA!” Erika felt her eye twitch a little. Her girls could be such brats.

Erika reflexively prepared herself to hop to the side. Jill wasn’t very good with her legs and it wasn’t uncommon— Her leg spasmed and she fell in a tumble of limbs and hair. She rolled a little and stopped a few feet shy of Erika. She huffed and blew out a length of hair before righting herself and rounding on the nearest girl, still half-blind with hair in her face. She spat some grass out of her mouth before grabbing the girl’s hands.

“Erika! You like! Have to hear the latest gossip! I was like! With Becky and Brittany at the pokecenter chatting up this total cutey and like he was into me more than Becky but Brittany was also trying to get his number and I was like please girlfriend! Don’t go there! I’ll cut you! But seriously I love that girl! So I was like don’t step on my grass! Hahahaha!”

Erika sighed, letting the vapid gossip of the girl wash over her. She listened as it was amusing to let the girl talk if nothing else.

“Jill,” Erika said cutting her off.

Jill stiffened her head glancing down at the hands she had in hers. “Eh? You’re not Erika?”

“I’m over here,” Erika said to the giggles of the group. Jill spun and Erika raised a hand. “Jill, what was so important?”

“I was getting to that!”

“Please if it’s important enough to have you running like that, then I probably need to hear about it first… You and the girl’s love lives can wait.”

Jill shifted and mumbled loudly, “Just cause you can’t…” Erika’s glare cut her off.

“You were saying?” Jill coughed as the glare continued.

“Right! Uhm, the tv was on and they were showing Brock and Lance! Only! Only Brock wasn’t rolling over for the champ! In fact, I think he’s super angry! He challenged the champ and set a prize of ten million pokedollars!”

The group stirred at that. Erika merely nodded, well used to the girl’s antics of inflating things to make for a good story. “Of course he did.”

Jill gave her a pleading look. “Eriiiikaaaaaa! I’m serious!”

Erika merely nodded. “I’m sure you are.”

“ERRRRRRIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKAAAAA!” screamed two more voices. The Grass specialist looked up to see Britanny and Becky jogging up with frantic looks on their faces. Erika watched them approach. They didn’t trip but they did collapse in front of her. They heaved in great gasps of air.

“O-oh my Go-gosh! Brock is pissed!” “Yah! He’s got an insane prize pool set down!” Erika blinked as Jill’s head bounced up and down.

“I just said that!”

“You weren’t just inflating it for the story?” Erika asked curiously. She had to think about that. That was a lot of money. How much did it take to run her gym? She got a lot of deals from the parents of the girls that she helped train for putting up with them so… Ten million… that would be enough to run her gym for years wouldn’t it?

She blinked and looked up to find the three new arrivals all gossiping with the others. “—it was so hot! Oh! Look Lifestyle ladies are having a chat about it! Eiiiiii!”

“Urgh those bitches—” “Andrea,” chimed Erika.

The girl wilted. “Sorry!”

“Don’t apologise, merely stop swearing,” she said to chastise the girl lightly.

Andrea bobbed her head before coughing. “I hate hearing those old skanks!” “They’re only nineteen!” chorussed some of the older girls feeling the need to stand up for the older women as arrows struck home at them as well.

Erika hummed before rising to watch on one of the girl's rather clunky portable screens. She watched as Brock and Lance locked eyes like they were going to fight then and there.

“Oh dear…” She continued to watch and while she was impressed she also couldn’t help but be worried. Brock was obviously upset about being dismissed as he had been.

Erika didn’t quite know why it had bothered him. They’d… interacted during Gym Leader meetings on the phone before… Actually, she didn’t really know him that well did she? There seemed to be a lot of media grabbing the story and running with it though.

She chewed her lip in thought. “I think I should meet him…”

The girls all looked up at her. “Really!?” Andrea said excitedly.

“Alone,” Erika said firmly. She did not want to pour in with a group of girls and swamp him before his big match. The girls took this to mean something else though as they all tittered and ooooh’d like children. Erika rolled her eyes at them. “I need to meet with him first though… who could introduce us?”

One of the older girls raised their hands. “Surge knows him yeah?” Erika nodded slowly. “Well~, like~, me and Surge are like… You know? So I could ask him to introduce you!”

Erika almost asked what she meant before deciding not to. She didn’t care what her girls got up to during their downtime. Good for her… And apparently Surge. She had her in, now she just needed something to gift to help make a favourable impression. She’d come up with something tonight, for now ,she tuned in to listen to various shows explode as word spread about Brock’s counter to Lance’s Challenge.

That was bad. The media had found a potential issue and were stirring up trouble and no one seemed to care. She watched people declare their loyalties to their respective trainers as a frown marred her features.

This was bad. She really did need to see what Brock was like. Was he stirring up old tensions deliberately? Was this all about something deeper? Or was it just male pride?

She wasn’t sure about a lot of what was going on but she was determined to at least find out some answers.