On one side, Fletchling came out of her Pokéball, spreading her wings in the air and looking around… apparently she didn't see any place to farm aura so the bird sighed and on the other side was a Pokémon that I had seen back in the Dome.
Makuhita.
I at least hoped that this guy wasn't just spamming Fighting Pokémon and that they would give a bit of a challenge.
However he had been stuck in Rank Z for a while and not like I was trying to sound prideful, but he seemed to be really weak.
"Makuhita, start with Focus Energy!" He threw his fist forward and I sighed. Honestly… what did I expect?
Makuhita's body began glowing as it drew inward making the energy coil through its stocky frame, its small eyes sharpened with concentration and its knees bending slightly like a fighter settling into stance.
For a Pokémon that trained by slamming itself into trees, it at least looked the part but while it was doing that, I raised my hand.
"Fletchling, Quick Peck!"
Fletchling didn't wait for the energy to finish building.
She was already moving with her wings snapping tight to her body as she launched off the ground, white light flaring around her frame as Quick Attack kicked in and accelerated her to a speed that swallowed the distance between her and Makuhita in under a second.
Makuhita barely registered the incoming blur before Fletchling collided with it chest-first, the impact canceling the Focus Energy entirely as the Fighting Pokémon stumbled back.
And then… still riding the momentum of the Quick Attack and using the bounce off Makuhita's body to ascend, Fletchling spun in the air in a tight spiral with her wings folded then they snapped open to redirect herself downward, and dropped onto Makuhita's face with a Peck that hit like a hammer.
The crack of it echoed off the surrounding buildings.
"Maku~" Makuhita's body went limp on impact with its eyes swirling before it even hit the ground. It was done instantly.
Fletchling pulled back and hovered, turning to face Félix directly.
"Fletch!" She said it straight to his face and I had a feeling she was telling him exactly how weak he was.
Félix brought out the Pokéball and returned Makuhita with a grimace, holding the ball in his hand for a moment after.
"You did well, rest now." He said quietly.
Hey, even though he was a jerk, at least he was decent to his Pokémon.
"Meditite, go!" He yelled and the Pokéball spun upward, opening and releasing Meditite in a flash.
Honestly it was my first time seeing this Pokémon in person. It looked like a compact humanoid thing with a blue lower body, white wrists and feet, with round swirled ears and that perpetually meditating expression on its face.
Its eyes were half-closed and it really looked focused. I could guess it was a fighting type too but it was a bit strange.
"Fletchling, Quick Attack!"
"Meditite, hit it with a Confusion!"
Both orders came at the same time and I blinked. It knew Confusion?
Fletchling shot forward with the white aura flaring around her wings again and trajectory locked on Meditite. She collided with it before the psychic energy could fully charge and the impact knocked Meditite back a step but Meditite's hands were already glowing violet.
"Medi!"
The invisible strike hit Fletchling mid-air on her pullout.
She spun making the white Quick Attack aura vanish as the psychic force sent her into a brief tumble but she spread her wings and caught herself, glaring down at Meditite from the air with her feathers ruffled.
Fletchling was clearly annoyed.
"Quick Peck!" I called out and Fletchling answered immediately… folding her wings and descending at full speed with her beak forward, using the height advantage to build as much momentum as possible before impact.
"Counter with Force Palm!"
Meditite dropped into a fighting stance with one palm forward and a burst of energy gathering at the center to meet Fletchling's dive head on.
The two hit each other at the same time.
Force Palm discharged on contact, the burst of energy rippling through Fletchling's frame and making her cry out but her Peck drove clean through Meditite's guard simultaneously, the sheer momentum of the dive slamming Meditite into the pavement hard enough to leave a crack.
The dust settled.
Meditite's eyes were swirling and Fletchling was standing directly on top of it with her wings spread, completely refusing to acknowledge that Force Palm had clearly hit her as well.
The battle was over.
"I guess I lost…" Félix said while returning Meditite.
His face was a poker face but his jaw was tight. "Advice for you… everybody in the Battle Zones has at least one Pokémon out and is looking for people to battle. If you can sneak up on someone by taking advantage of the environment, it'll be easier to get an early hit which could secure you the battle. I wish you good luck…"
He paused. "Now I'll be going to the Pokémon Center as usual."
He walked past me and I hid my smile as he went. It was genuinely satisfying to see this simp get humbled for once… though he didn't seem that weak if I was being honest.
He just needed stronger Pokémon.
"Good work Fletchling." I said as she chirped and I raised her Pokéball. "Return."
The red light covered her and pulled her back inside.
Since there were people out there actively hunting opponents for first strike advantage, keeping her out was a liability… one electrical ambush and I'd be starting a battle already down.
I looked at my Rotomphone and opened the Z-A Royale app.
[⚔ Z-A ROYALE: BATTLE ZONE ACTIVE]
[Rank: Z]
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
[TICKET POINTS ▸ 350 / 1000 ██░░░░░░░░░░]
[WINS TONIGHT ▸ 1]
[PRIZE MEDALS ▸ 40]
[MULTIPLIER ▸ x1.0 — Defeat 10 trainers for x2.0]
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
"So I got 350 points… huh?" I looked at the bar. I needed two more wins for the Challenger Ticket at 1000 points. And 40 medals from that one win…
But to earn double at the end of the night, I needed ten battles.
"It's decided then." I muttered under my breath. "Time to win ten battles before daybreak."
"Mar~"
The cry was close… a bit too close for comfort.
I moved left immediately and a Thundershock blasted through the exact space my head had been occupying half a second ago, crackling past Ralts on my head.
"Fuck!" A middle-aged man with a gut that strained his jacket and a haircut shaped remarkably like a Great Ball stood right next to a Mareep pointed to me.
…That one was on me entirely. I shouldn't have been checking my phone in a literal Battle Royale.
"Alright then, boy." He approached with his Mareep trotting beside him. "Let's battle to our hearts' content. Mareep, go!"
Mareep stood in front of him looking fluffy and round with it's wool sparking at the tips.
"Ma maaa~"
"Ralts, down you go." I dropped Ralts gently from my head rather than letting her jump… I couldn't have her break her legs.
She landed with a tiny shuffle of her gown and looked up at Mareep with her usual expressionless calm.
"Start with Hypnosis!"
"Mareep, Tackle it!"
Mareep lowered its head and charged forward with its small hooves on the pavement, the wool on its body bounced as it built up speed but Ralts's horns had already shifted from violet to that deeper indigo, and several slow rolling waves of psionic energy emanated outward from her like something heavy dropped into still water.
The wave reached Mareep mid-stride.
Its run turned sluggish immediately and its legs gave out before it covered half the distance, Mareep sat down on the pavement and went still with its eyes closed.
The Pokémon was fast asleep.
"Mareep. You've got to wake—"
"Confusion."
Ralts's horns released the familiar violet glow and the invisible strike hit the sleeping Mareep with the psychic force landing clean and sending it rolling backward toward the trainer's feet, still completely unconscious.
"Come on Mareep, wake up!"
"Disarming Voice."
Ralts opened her mouth and sang.
She had a genuinely beautiful voice and it struck Mareep with a soft concussive force that should have been enough to wake it but instead Mareep's eyes just rolled under their closed lids and swirled peacefully.
It was somehow more deeply asleep now than it had been before.
"No…" the trainer said. He looked at his Mareep and then he looked at Ralts, something in his face crumpled completely.
"Nooooooooo!!!!!"
He scooped Mareep up in both arms mid-run and bolted for the Battle Zone exit, still yelling, Mareep tucked against his chest like a sleeping baby.
"Damn." I watched him go. "I didn't know a loss could hit that hard."
I put Ralts back on my head and let her resume the usual assault on my hair.
Since she had learned Hypnosis, we had developed a strict battle sequence around it: Hypnosis first to put them under, then Confusion while they slept, Disarming Voice if that wasn't enough, and a second Confusion if the Pokémon was still somehow unconscious and taking hits.
It was a good strategy that would work against rookie trainers like those in Rank Z honestly, though I was sure that there were experienced trainers here too but honestly I'd hate to be on the receiving end of it.
My Rotomphone pinged and I guessed the tally from that battle was registering so I was now one win away from the Challenger Ticket.
"Let's try sneaking up on someone this time and picking up some cards too." I moved forward in a crouch, slipping off the main road and into one of the narrow alleyways that ran between the two streets making up this Battle Zone.
The city light barely reached in here… The walls were close enough that sound bounced oddly between them and a patch of shadow ahead was thick enough to disappear into properly.
On the far end of the alley I could see a trainer in hiking gear standing near a Pokémon shaped like a floating rock with arms… It was a Geodude, I think I saw it in my research though I decided against confirming it with Rotom who was loud as hell and would immediately blow the approach.
'Perfect.' I thought, settling deeper into the crouch.
"Ralts, prepare to put it to—"
"Machop, you know what to do."
I slowly turned my head.
That voice had come from directly beside me and standing about two feet away in the same shadow I was crouching in was a trainer wearing genuinely large glasses, also in a crouch, also apparently trying to ambush the Hiker across the alley.
We looked at each other.
"Aha!" We both yelped at the same time and scrambled apart, the surprise ambush dissolving instantly into mutual chaos.
"Machop, Rock Smash!"
The trainer recovered first, yelling his order as his Machop barreled out of the dark from behind him… it was a small powerfully built Fighting Pokémon that was gray and muscular with its arms already raised as it charged at us from the shadows.
"Ralts." I looked up.
Indigo psionic waves rolled down from Ralts's horns in slow deliberate pulses as the Hypnosis wave spreading forward through the alleyway like a fog.
It washed over Machop mid-charge and the Rock Smash didn't land.
Machop's legs slowed, its arms lowered, and it crumpled face-first onto the alley floor with a heavy thump before it reached us.
It was so dark in here I couldn't even see it clearly after it went down… I could only hear the sound of it hitting the pavement.
"Ra! Ra!"
Ralts unleashed Confusion into the dark. The psychic force hit so hard it didn't just send Machop backward… it sent Machop clear past the trainer who owned it and out the other side of the alley, colliding mid-flight with the Geodude the Hiker had been standing next to, both Pokémon going down in a heap.
The alley went quiet for a moment.
"Machop!" The glasses trainer turned around to find his Pokémon embedded in the opposite wall of the alley from where he was standing.
He began returning it to its Pokéball.
"What did you do to my Geodude?!" The Hiker came storming down the alley toward us with Geodude floating back up woozily beside him.
"I didn't do anything, it's that guy…" The glasses trainer pointed directly at me and raised both hands. "I don't even have any Pokémon anymore."
"You!" The Hiker stopped in front of me. "Battle… Now."
My Rotomphone pinged.
I opened it and the points bar was completely full and glowing too as the automated voice came through.
"Congratulations Trainer for getting your Challenger Ticket to rank up."
Honestly? I was surprised at how easy it had been.
It had barely been ten minutes since I entered the Battle Zone and it was only nine in the evening… Battle Zones stayed active until daybreak. It was hard to understand how so many people were still stuck at Rank Z, especially Félix.
"Now I'm sure you're wondering why so many trainers lurk in Rank Z and haven't ranked up yet." The automated voice continued, reading my thoughts with concerning accuracy. "If you are unable to finish three battles with a win in a single night and earn your Challenger Ticket, the points reset by morning. Additionally, if you receive your Challenger Ticket and fail the rank up match, you must re-collect another ticket."
Standard rules. It explained the bottleneck so that meant that three wins in one night consistently was apparently harder than it sounded for most people.
"After receiving your Challenger Ticket, you will see that your opponent is being shuffled on screen." She said and I looked at my Rotomphone.
A box appeared on the display with trainer profile pictures cycling through it rapidly with the faces flashing past in quick succession.
'Please pair me with a hot woman… pair me with a hot woman…'
The cycling slowed and stopped on a reasonably handsome guy with brown hair wearing what looked like a neat dark jacket. I could only see the top half of the image.
"You can tap on the picture to access your opponent's Trainer Profile, view their followers and following, and use the in-app chat to decide on a meeting location. Both trainers must agree on where to conduct their Challenger Match… within or outside the Battle Zone. Good luck, Trainer!"
The voice cut out and I tapped on the profile.
His name was Zach with 10,000 followers and he was a taxi driver.
I squinted at the screen… How did a taxi driver have ten thousand followers?
There was a small bio sitting under the follower count.
"Monsieur Le Z Éternel ☮️"
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
"Oi boy!" The Hiker called out and I finally turned back to face him. He had crossed to my side of the alley with Geodude hovering beside him.
"I'd have you know I'm a fully fledged adult." I said with a twitch of my eye. "I don't appreciate being called boy."
"Well sorry then." He said. Not particularly sorry. "Let's battle."
"Hold on." I raised one hand at him and opened the chat. "I need to text this guy."
His profile already had a message waiting so I scrolled to it.
[Zach: So you're my opponent today, huh? Mind waiting an hour or two…? I got my Challenger Ticket a while ago and I'm currently dropping off some passengers so when I'm free, we'll have the battle.]
[Paxton: Sure. What location?]
[Zach: Turn on your GPS feature in the menu so I can drop you a pin. I'll text you when it's time to meet up.]
I opened the menu, switched on GPS, and a location mapped out immediately… it was back in the Vert District according to the icon, not far from Hotel Z.
So an hour or two… that gave me some time.
I looked back at the Hiker, who was still standing there with his Geodude who had its arms crossed patiently waiting for us then I looked at my medal count and I grinned.
The Hiker's expression shifted slightly as he took in the grin.
It couldn't be that bad, right?
"It's time to make some money."
…
About two hours later I was walking in the direction of a taxi lot on South Boulevard with the night air moving through my hair as I went.
I would have taken a cab directly to the spot but honestly, I just wanted the wind to hit my face right now.
I looked down at my Rotomphone and let out a slow breath.
"Fifteen wins on my first night is crazy." I muttered.
"Rara~" Ralts cheered from my head.
Most of the trainers in the Battle Zone tonight had been running one or two Pokémon, some going three or four, but it seemed like the more Pokémon they had the weaker each individual one got… they were spread too thin on training, probably.
I had also run into Stacy again and beaten her faster than the first time, which she handled with exactly as much cursing as expected.
On my way here I passed several Challenger Matches playing out on side streets with trainers under portable battlefield projections from their Rotomphones and small crowds gathered to watch.
The city at night during the Z-A Royale had a completely different energy from the day… Tourists from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and even Sinnoh had come specifically for the Royale, which explained some of the heavier competition I'd run into in the later battles.
"Aha, it's you!"
I looked up.
Zach was standing at the entrance to the taxi lot with his hands in the pockets of his Lumi Cab uniform… it was a clean dark navy jacket with the yellow Lumi Cab insignia on the breast pocket, pressed dark trousers and polished shoes.
His brown hair was neat and his blue eyes looked cool too.
Behind him, several cabs sat parked in neat rows and around the perimeter of the lot, a small crowd had gathered.. trainers and onlookers who had apparently been waiting with some holding up their Rotomphones to record.
I finally spotted Taunie somewhere in the crowd and she saw me at the same moment, pumping her fist.
"Go Pax!" She cheered and half the crowd turned to look at her.
I wondered why she was here. I doubted she had known I was battling Zach specifically… so she must have just stumbled onto the Challenger Match location and stayed to watch.
More importantly though, the chocolate woman from the Vert General Store was standing near the edge of the crowd. We made eye contact and she gave me a small nod.
Strange… I had been fairly certain she was actively avoiding me this morning.
"Ah, Emma, you know him?" I heard Taunie ask her from the crowd.
"We met earlier this morning…" Emma said. "So he's that Paxton person you've been talking about."
I tuned out the rest of the conversation and focused on Zach standing in front of me. He was just a little bit taller, which I noted with mild irritation.
I needed more height.
"You really don't look anything like your profile picture." He said, studying my face.
"I got a haircut." I said. "Are we starting now? I have dinner to get to."
"Of course." He took a step back quietly. "But before we begin… allow me to introduce myself."
He reached for his Pokéball.
"I am Zach. Commonly known as Monsieur Le Z Éternel… The Eternal Z." He said it with no embarrassment. "I have participated in ninety-nine Promotion Matches and I have lost every single one of them."
Hold on.
Ninety-nine losses? Lost every single one? How bad at Pokémon training did a person have to be to lose ninety-nine consecutive Promotion Matches? Did he have a team of Bug types or something? Did he even train at all?
"My wish is to reach Rank A and abolish all forms of transportation in Lumiose City… except for taxis."
And now I could see exactly why he kept losing.
He was out here losing battle after battle in service of a goal that would personally inconvenience every non-taxi rider in a city of thousands. The man had conviction, I would give him that but he just had absolutely terrible priorities.
"Paxton, you will be my hundredth match." He said, walking toward me until our Rotomphones were close enough to pair. "I hope we have a splendid battle."
Both devices flew up, met mid-air, and the crackling of a formal match link filled the space between us.
"Trainer Paxton… Trainer Zach… Your Promotion Match will begin now." The projected battle field spread out across the taxi lot, marking our positions at opposite ends.
The small crowd settled. "Send out your Pokémon."
We both stepped back to our marks.
I held Fletchling's Pokéball and he held his own.
"Go!" We threw at the same time and the balls collided mid-air, bouncing back to our hands as they opened and released our Pokémon in twin flashes of light.
Fletchling landed on my side with wings spread and her head already scanning the field. She looked ready to take it out on whoever was in front of her now.
On Zach's side stood a Slowpoke.
It was a large, soft-looking pink Pokémon with a broad flat head, a dull expression, and a tail that curled lazily behind it.
Its eyes were wide open and seeing absolutely nothing of consequence. Its mouth hung slightly open and it blinked once, very slowly, apparently processing the existence of the crowd.
The crowd began chanting from behind Zach.
"Monsieur Le Z Éternel!"
"Monsieur Le Z Éternel!"
Slowpoke's ear twitched, It looked at Fletchling and it looked back at the crowd then it looked at Fletchling again with the same vacant expression.
"Slow?"
"Slowpoke!" Zach pointed at Fletchling with a straight arm with convinction in his voice. "Let's start off the battle with Water Gun!"