Kai woke to thin grey light coming through the cracked window and the smell of something cooking somewhere down the corridor.
For a moment, he didn't move. The bed was soft. The notepad was still on the pillow next to him, the pencil somewhere lost in the sheets, and his own scrawled diagrams stared back up at him — arrows, names, half-sentences he'd written at one in the morning and could only half make sense of now. He'd fallen asleep mid-thought. Again.
He lay there a second longer, then sat up. Today was the day.
The thought put a strange, fizzing feeling in his chest. Not quite fear. Not quite excitement. Something with a foot in both.
He washed, dressed, and went down to the lobby with the notepad folded into his jacket pocket, where he could get at it.
Nurse Joy was already at the counter, and she smiled the second she saw him. "Morning. You'll be wanting these, I expect."
She set a tray down in front of him. Seven Poké Balls, lined up neatly, the metal of each one catching the lobby light. Kai felt some small knot in him loosen at the sight of them.
"They've all made a full recovery," she said. "No lasting damage from any of it — they were just worn out, and a bit bruised. They've slept it off." She tapped the tray. "I've put Sandshrew back in its Ball for now, so it can rest properly — but it was up bright and early, demanding breakfast. I'd say it's more than ready for you."
Kai laughed, picking the Balls up one by one and clipping them back onto his belt. They felt right there. Familiar. He hadn't realised how naked he'd felt all morning without the weight of them.
"Thank you," he said.
"It's what we're here for." She gave him a look then, the kind that was warm but had something steadier underneath it. "Are you planning on challenging the gym today?"
There she went again, reading his mind like a book.
"Yeah," Kai said with a smile.
"Then good luck, young man." She nodded once. "You take care of them up there. And they'll take care of you. I'll be here if you need to come back and rest up."
Kai nodded back and headed for the doors, thanking Nurse Joy one more time before he left.
The morning was cool and bright, the kind of light that made the old stone of Violet City look soft and golden around the edges. The bells were going somewhere over the rooftops, that low, rolling sound he'd stopped noticing and now, walking under it, noticed all over again.
Shopkeepers were rolling up their shutters. A Sentret sat on a low wall, washing its face. A pair of Pidgey scrapped over something in the gutter and scattered when he got close.
He didn't rush. There was no point. He let the city carry him along its narrow cobbled streets, hands in his pockets, the route mostly remembered and partly just followed by instinct. Past the academy, where the courtyard was already busy with kids and cones. Past a baker's that smelled good enough to stop him for a second.
And then there it was.
The Gym sat on a wide rise at the end of the street, set back behind its own low wall. It was bigger than he'd expected — taller, broader, built of pale stone that went up and up into a roof that wasn't quite a roof. From down here, he could see open sky through the top of it, the structure peeling away into open air the higher it went, like the building wanted to be a cage for the wind and had thought better of it halfway up.
Kai stopped at the bottom of the steps and just looked at it for a moment.
This was it. The first one. The thing he'd been walking toward since Newbark, since the train, since a wooded route on the way into the city with a campfire and a notepad. The Tower had been a test — the elder had said as much — but this was the real thing. A badge. An official one. The first rung of a ladder he'd climbed a hundred times in a world made of pixels and never once for real.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
His Pokémon were rested. His plans were in his mind and pocket. He'd lain awake half the night turning them over, and now, standing here, he found he wasn't second-guessing them. He knew how he wanted to play this, and now he would stick to his guns.
"Right," he said quietly, to nobody. "Let's go and get that badge."
He went up the steps and pushed through the doors.
He'd been braced for something dramatic — a wind tunnel, a wall of Pidgey, some kind of obstacle. What he got instead was a reception desk.
The inside of the Gym opened into a clean, bright lobby, with a counter along one side and a young woman sitting behind it, tapping at something on a screen. There were a couple of benches against the wall. A water cooler. It looked, weirdly, like a dentist's waiting room.
Kai stood there a second, thrown.
Then the woman looked up at him. "Morning. Can I help you?"
"Uh — yeah." He stepped up to the counter, recovering, and pulled his trainer card out of his jacket. "I'm here to challenge the Gym Leader. Falkner."
She took the card, glanced at it, and ran it under a scanner without any fuss at all. "Kai. From New Bark." She handed it back. "You're a registered trainer, that's all in order." She tapped a few more times. "I'll let Falkner know you're here. If he accepts the challenge, you'll be cleared to go up. If you'll just take a seat — it shouldn't be long."
Kai blinked. "That's... it?"
"Were you expecting more?" she said, with the faint smile of someone who'd clearly heard the question before.
"I dunno. I thought maybe I'd have to — battle some other trainers first. To get to him." He half-laughed, hearing how it sounded out loud.
In the game, that was exactly how it went. You fought your way through a Gym full of trainers, each one a step toward the Leader at the back, like beating a level. He'd half-expected to walk in and find a row of bird-keepers waiting to scrap with him on the way to the top.
"Some Gyms run it that way," she said, easily. "Falkner doesn't. He likes to see challengers fresh, not worn down on the way up. He says it tells him more." She nodded toward the benches. "Go on. Take a seat."
Kai sat. Of course, it wasn't like the game, he thought. Why would it be? Nothing else here had been.
It still caught him off guard every time. That little gap between the world he remembered and the one he was actually standing in. He'd spent the whole walk over picturing a Gym full of bird trainers, and instead he was sitting on a bench by a water cooler, waiting like he had an appointment.
He didn't sit long.
The woman's screen chimed. She read it, then looked up at him with a small nod.
"You're in luck. Falkner accepts your challenge." She gestured to a lift at the back of the lobby, its doors already standing open. "Take the lift to the top floor. He'll meet you there."
Kai stood up, and the fizzing feeling came back all at once, sharper now. He swallowed it down.
"Thanks," he said, and walked to the lift.
The doors slid shut, and the floor pushed gently up under his feet.
He watched the numbers climb. His hand drifted to his belt, touched each Ball once, a little ritual he didn't entirely know he'd developed. Sandshrew. Snubbull. Totodile. Rattata. Zubat. Mankey, and now Sentret, all there. All rested.
It's about the bond between you and your Pokémon, he'd told the girl outside the Tower yesterday, knowing there was more to it than that.
The lift slowed to a stop, juddering slightly before the doors opened.
As they did, the wind hit him, being able to feel the chill of the morning breeze.
It wasn't strong, but it was real — moving air, fresh and cool, coming straight in off the open sky. Kai stepped out onto the top floor of the Gym and stopped, taking it all in.
It was huge. A wide, open battlefield of pale stone stretched out in front of him, marked with faded lines, and above it — nothing. No ceiling at all. The walls rose to a certain height and then just stopped, opening the whole arena to the sky. Cloud moved overhead. A current of air rolled across the floor and tugged at his jacket slightly.
He understood it instantly, with a small sinking feeling.
This whole place is built for them, he thought, looking up at all that open air. All that room to climb, to dive, to disappear into. A flying type could go straight up out of reach, and there'd be nowhere for it to be cornered. The arena itself was a part of the fight. The home advantage, made of stone and sky.
Of course it was...
Across the field, near the far edge where the floor met the open air, there were figures. Two younger kids — trainers, by the look of them — and standing with them, talking, gesturing easily, a taller figure in dark clothes. Even at this distance, Kai could see the shape of a long coat moving in the wind, the easy set of the shoulders of someone completely at home up here.
Falkner.
One of the kids said something, and Falkner laughed, clapping the boy on the shoulder before sending the pair of them off toward a side stairwell. They passed Kai on their way out, both of them giving him a quick, curious look — the look of people who knew exactly what he was here for and had their own opinions about how it'd go.
Then it was just the two of them. Kai at one end of the great open floor, and the Gym Leader at the other, the wind moving between them.
Kai's heart was going. He breathed in, slow, the cool air filling his lungs, and let his hand settle on Sandshrew's Ball for just a second. Steadying.
You've trained for this. You've thought about this all night. You climbed a swaying tower and beat a Noctowl with a Sandshrew that shouldn't have stood a chance. You can do this.
He took the first step out onto the battlefield, the stone solid under his boots, the sky open above him.
This is it.
This is where we earn our first badge!
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That's the end of this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it.