Chapter 33: The Second Trainer.
Kai wandered along the floor of the tower, walking around the other side of the large central pillar. He kept Sandshrew braced on his shoulder and his hand near his belt in case of a sudden attack.
The boards groaned under him. One of the loose tendrils from the great Bellsprout brushed against his hair as he passed, ducking under it, before it withdrew with what felt uncannily like a polite sort of curiosity.
Kai came around the curve of the pillar and there was the next monk.
Brother Tien was his name. He was a younger, broader man — late forties, maybe, with a square jaw and the build of someone who looked like they trained their body hard. His robe was the same ochre, but his sash was knotted differently and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing forearms that wouldn't have looked out of place on a bodybuilder.
He was leaning on a low partition, watching Kai approach, with his arms crossed and a PokéBall held loosely between two fingers.
He didn't waste time on greetings.
"You beat Anh."
"Yeah." Kai nodded.
"With a Zubat."
"Yeah."Kai said again, knowing he must have been watching their battle.
Tien grunted. It wasn't quite approval. It wasn't quite not.
"Right then. Let's see what else you've got." He said, throwing his PokeBall.
The Hoothoot that came out was a different beast altogether from the one Kai had startled into the rafters earlier. This one was bigger — chest-puffed, alert, balancing on one foot with the other already drawn up close to its body in a fighting stance Kai didn't know owls had. Its eyes were enormous. Yellow and ringed with red, like two warning signs.
It looked at Kai, and Kai had the brief sense that this Hoothoot was strong and used to battle.
Sandshrew suddenly shifted against his shoulder.
Kai felt it through his jacket, the small change in weight and grip that meant his partner was ready before he'd even said anything.
"Yeah," he muttered with a smile. "I was going to ask."
He held out his arm and Sandshrew ran along it before jumping off.
It hit the boards in a crouch, claws spread, low and tight, looking up at the Hoothoot with that flat, careful focus that Kai loved watching on its face. Not aggressive. Not afraid. Just focused on the battle ahead, just like him.
"Let us begin," Tien said. "Hoothoot use Peck."
The Hoothoot didn't flap. It launched itself forward.
It came off the floor in a single hard wing-beat and crossed the gap between them in less than half a second, beak-first, head dropped low and aimed like a spear at Sandshrew's exposed shoulder.
"Dodge it — rapid spin into it!"
Sandshrew tucked.
It moved on instinct as much as on command, the way it always did with Rapid Spin now — leaning, twisting, ball-rolling sideways out of the line of the dive in one fluid motion. The Hoothoot's beak punched through the empty air where its shoulder had been and skidded across the boards behind it with a sharp wooden crack.
Sandshrew was already accelerating across the floor in the other direction, a small grey spinning blur, with dust kicking up behind it.
Kai could feel the speed boost as he watched.
He couldn't have explained it to someone who wasn't a trainer — it was a thing in the air, a small charge that came off Sandshrew when Rapid Spin caught properly, when the motion fed back into the body and the body fed back into the motion and everything came up a click.
Sandshrew came out of the spin already faster than it had been when it went in, gaining a speed boost from the use of the move.
"Rollout. Now." Kai yelled, wanting to take advantage of it.
Sandshrew didn't break form. Instead it quickly tucked into a ball and flew toward the Hoothoot, rolling and gaining more speed, flying toward the small bird Pokémon with a dangerous attack.
The monk could see the Sandshrew coming, knowing that Rollout was a rock type attack, and that if it made contact it would be a problem.
"Up. Get clear now." Tien yelled out.
The Hoothoot went straight up. One beat of its wings and it was off the floor; another and it was almost at the rafters, tilting sideways to clear a beam. Sandshrew's first revolution howled past underneath it, taking a chunk of plaster out of the partition Tien had been leaning against, and curved back along the boards toward where the Hoothoot was hovering, gathering itself for a second pass.
The Hoothoot beat its wings again, starting to pivot in mid-air, getting ready to come down on Sandshrew from above with another attack. However, Kai had other plans.
Sandshrew rolled along the ground faster than before, having gained more speed. Bouncing off the ground, Sandshrew flew through the air toward the Hoothoot, testing its agility now.
"Dodge it Hoothoot, and counter it with a wing attack!" The monk yelled.
"Sandshrew, now break out and use scratch!" Kai yelled.
Suddenly, Sandshrew unfolded coming out of its tight ball in mid-arc — its body uncurling, claws extending, mouth open in a small fierce noise — and instead of finishing the curve toward the floor, and for one suspended second both Pokémon were the same height as each other.
The Hoothoot's huge yellow eyes went enormous, shocked that Sandshrew had been able to take it off gaurd like that, with it having nowhere and no way to go.
"No way!" The monk cried out, seeing what had happened, and that there was nothing Hoohoot could do.
Sandshrew's claws cut through the air, with the Scratch raking across the Hoothoot's chest in a single swiping motion, three red lines cutting across.
It was a direct hit, and the force was enough to knock Hoothoot out of the air, sending it flying back while Sandshrew fell to the floor.
The Hoothoot let out a high startled hoot and folded, wings drawn in. Sandshrew hit the boards first, on its feet, scattering dust. The Hoothoot hit a second later, three feet off, and didn't get back up, signalling the end of the battle.
Kai realised he hadn't been breathing, holding his breath from the intensity of the battle.
"Hoothoot, return."
Tien was already stepping forward.
The recall light pulled the Hoothoot back into its Ball, and Tien clipped it to his belt without looking, his eyes still on Sandshrew.
Sandshrew was already trotting back toward Kai, tail switching, looking very pleased with itself in a way it wasn't trying to hide.
Tien let out a breath through his nose, and then spoke.
"I can see the bond you have with your Sandshrew is strong."
"Yeah." Kai said with a smile.
Tien looked at Kai for a long second. Then at Sandshrew. Then he nodded — once, slowly.
"Well done. Both of you."
"Thanks."
"The way you had your Sandshrew abandon its rollout attack mid-air into a scratch attack was impressive to say the least."
Kai didn't really have an answer for that. He bent down instead, and Sandshrew scrabbled up his arm and onto his shoulder, where it bumped its head once, hard, against the side of his jaw.
"Yeah, I know," Kai murmured to it. "I know. Good lad."
Tien's mouth twitched.
"You may pass, trainer. The stairs are behind the eastern screen. Brother Quan is on the floor above. He will not go easy on you."
"Easy?" Kai asked.
"You think that was hard?" Tien actually grinned, briefly. It transformed his whole face.
"I have a Gloom. Brother Anh has a Weepinbell. We use the Bellsprout and the Hoothoot for the level of the floor." The monk said, letting Kai in on that fact.
"Right... That makes sense." Kai said, realizing that the monks were not using their strongest Pokémon on purpose.
He bowed. Tien bowed back, and Kai walked on.
The eastern screen was painted with some kind of faded mural — herons, maybe, or cranes — and the door behind it slid open without a sound. The next staircase rose into a dimmer dark than the one he'd come up.
The bells outside started up again somewhere over the city. Eleven, by his count. He'd been in here longer than he thought.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs.
Sandshrew, on his shoulder, was breathing harder than usual. Not winded. Just — wound up. Adrenaline still high. Kai reached up and rubbed it under the chin with his thumb the way it liked.
"One more," he said. "Then the Elder."
Sandshrew snorted, acting tough, making Kai smile.
"Come on, lets get a move on."