"Come on, Jason! You've got this! Push it!" Maeve growled supportively, standing over and behind Jason, spotting him as he closed out his tenth rep of a 100kg bench press. His arms protested, and he felt like his eyes were going to pop out due to holding his breath, but he managed to rack the weight without assistance.
"Nice! That's what I'm talking about!" shouted Maeve, pumping her right fist. The weight he had just struggled with was barely a quarter of what she could lift, but after appointing herself Jason's personal trainer, she did her best to encourage and push him as he slowly but surely surpassed his limits.
Accepting Maeve's right hand as she moved around the bar and extended it to him, Jason breathed a sigh of relief, forced a smile, and joked, "I think I was about two seconds away from dropping that bar and weight directly onto my neck..."
"But you didn't. And it's guts like that which will allow you to keep growing well past this meager weight," asserted Maeve, smiling confidently as she effortlessly pulled Jason to his feet, placing them nearly at eye level with one another. Their sudden proximity filled Jason with tension and caused his heart to skip a beat, but since he knew Maeve was simply helping him up, not trying to flirt with him, he resisted the urge to stare deeply into her eyes and fish for a kiss.
As Jason had anticipated, Maeve released his hand the moment she pulled him to his feet. Then, without skipping a beat, she began looking around their expanded gym, clearly contemplating which exercise to do next while his arms recovered. Due to her preference for free weights and natural resistance training, the amount of equipment in the gym had more than doubled in a span of eighteen days. And Jason was gradually getting acquainted with it all...
"Jason! Ma-ayb...!" exclaimed a high-pitched, somewhat strained voice, followed by Ren running through the gym, ducking under, or parkouring over equipment on all-fours to reach them. Ordinarily, she would make a beeline for Jason, but in that particular instance, she ran up to Maeve and climbed up the awaiting beauty's body to exclaim, "Battle...!" with her tail wagging excitedly behind her.
"Are you asking to battle, or are you informing us there is one...?" asked Maeve, tilting her head slightly as she habitually supported Ren with her left arm. She didn't mind battling, but since they had told Ren more than once that she needed to ask for Jason's permission to battle, Maeve was prepared to chastise the young Riolu if she was asking her.
Feeling a prickly chill permeate her body, Ren flailed her right paw in the direction of the gym's entrance, exclaiming, "Battle! Korena! Nanaho...!" in a panic. Maeve had never disciplined her harshly, but as a veteran Poison-type specialist, she could give off a very scary aura.
"Korena...?" repeated Jason, his brows rising in realization as he asked, "Are you saying Korrina is here, battling Nanahoshi?"
Nodding enthusiastically, Ren confirmed, "Korena! Here...!" with her tail wagging even more excitedly. She was mostly only able to enunciate one word at a time, so she got very happy when people understood her.
"Sorry! But this is something I've got to see!" expressed Maeve, passing Ren to Jason before taking off on her own, starting with leaping nearly ten meters through the air to clear most of the equipment. Jason was a little taken aback by this, but instead of fretting, he took a moment to set Ren down, caress her head with his left hand, and affirm, "Good job, Ren. You did well to come and get us..."
"Good job, Ren!" repeated Ren, holding up and clenching her paws cutely with the most endearing smile on her face—sending an arrow of affection straight through Jason's heart. As a result, he couldn't resist cupping and fluffing her inordinately squishy cheeks before tickling her, causing her to laugh happily and feign resistance. If she felt so inclined, she could shove him clear across the room. Instead, she remained well within the range of his reach, pretending to try to escape while Jason kept pulling her back to continue tickling her...
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As Jason emerged from the gym with Ren riding on his shoulders and hugging his head, the first thing he noticed in the distance was a giant snake covered in silvery metallic scales. Six blade-like protrusions stuck out of its sides, and its prominent jaw, framed by wide and angular ridges, had the distinct contours of a shovel.
'That thing is horrifying, no matter how many times I see it...' thought Jason, his body tensing instinctively at the sight of the nearly twenty-meter-long Steel-type Pokémon, Steelix. It was infinitely more terrifying than its counterpart in the games and anime, as, rather than looking like a collection of metallic rocks held together by magic, its body was thick and tapered like a proper serpent, and it was covered in thousands of flexible metallic ridges that moved rhythmically to allow it to dig through terrain at high speeds.
"Bruce! Keep spreading Stealth Rocks...!" shouted Nanahoshi, striking a pointing pose and sporting an uncharacteristically fierce and determined look. In response, her Steelix reared its head back and released a ground-shaking roar that caused sharp stones to seemingly materialize out of thin air from hazy yellow energy that promptly faded, becoming nearly but not quite as transparent as glass.
"A smart move! Trying to flood the field with hazards to make up for the difference in our Pokémon's speeds! But my Mienfoo isn't going to fall for that...!" shouted Korrina, beaming from ear to ear as she struck a pose of her own and pealed, "Alright, Mienfoo! Let's keep wearing them down with Drain Punch!"
"Mien...!" responded Miensfoo, its brows creased to their limits as it moved forward at a steep angle with its hands trailing behind it. Steelix reactively slammed its colossal jaw forward, producing a seismic ripple and causing dust to rise from the ground for tens of meters, but Mienfoo was already leaping through the air, its flat, four-fingered, paw-like hands veiled in the fiery-orange haze that denoted it was using a Fighting-type move.
"Bruce! Dig...!" shouted Nanahoshi, her voice slightly panicked as she knew her Steelix wouldn't be able to endure many more super-effective hits from Korrina's Fighting-types. Steelix were some of the heaviest and most durable Pokémon around, but with Fighting-type energy piercing its durable hide as if it didn't exist, they were vulnerable to precision attacks that targeted the same area over and over.
Obeying Nanahoshi's command, Bruce, her Steelix, twisted its head and body, veiled in a faint yellow energy. Said energy allowed it to soften all but the hardest rocks and soil, but before it disappeared into the sizeable hole produced in its wake, Mienfoo landed a super-effective but deflected Draining Punch to its abdomen.
As Nanohoshi breathed a sigh of relief across from her, Korrina posed with her hands on her hips and spiritedly remarked, "I've gotta hand it to you, Nanahoshi. Your Steelix is seriously tough. But against my Fighting-types, your Steel-types are at a disadvantage."
"Yes! I'm well aware!" responded Nanahoshi, a bead of sweat trickling from her forehead and down the left side of her nose as she prepared a custom, silver-hued Poké Ball in her right hand. She knew challenging a Gym Leader like Korrina wouldn't be easy, but despite feeling as though she was on the verge of losing, an excited smile spread itself across her face.
As Jason and Ren approached the periphery of the relatively recently completed battlefield to join Maeve, Nanahoshi flung her custom Poké Ball into the air, shouting, "Alright, Ace! Let's show Korrina that there is more to Steel-types than simply being tough."
Punctuating Nanahoshi's shout, the custom Poké Ball opened to deposit one of Jason's all-time favorite Pokémon onto the field, Metagross. Like the other Pokémon he had encountered, it looks distinctly different and had more realistic proportions compared to its counterpart in the anime and video games, but it was unmistakably a Metagross with its metallic, gem-shaped body, four powerful legs tipped in electrode-like claws, and a large, silvery X spanning its face, accentuating glowing crimson eyes set against a backdrop of darkness.
"Are we switching things up to make this into a Double Battle...?" asked Korrina, readily preparing a Poké Ball of her own. She was well aware of what Metagross were capable of, as it was a common Steel-type counter to Fighting-types, so she had long prepared a measure against it.
"Thanks for understanding...!" responded Nanahoshi, seizing the initiative to strike a pose and shout, "Ace! Attack pattern Gamma...!"
"Meta—gross...!" responded Ace, its deep voice reverberating, its crimson eyes glowing blue, and its metallic body gaining a hazy amethyst hue as it levitated its extremely dense and heavy body a few centimeters from the ground and accelerated toward Mienfoo with surprising speed.
Though it was surprised by Ace's speed, Mienfoo's expression remained focused and resolute as it proactively dodged to the side while using the Dark-type Pokémon Power, Hone Claws, to bolster its attack and improve its focus. At the same time, Korrina raised her left foot nearly parallel with her body, shouting, "Come on out...!" before high-speed-pitching out her counter to Ace's dual Steel/Psychic-typing, the evolved form of Scraggy, the Dark/Fighting-type Scrafty.
"Skrrrrrrrrrr..." groaned Scrafty, standing around 120cm tall, with similar features to its pre-evolution but more orange, modeling an angular red ridge like a rooster's comb, and sporting a baggy hoodie alongside its shed-formed pants. It had a distinctly bored look on its face, but its eyes were sharp as it followed Ace's movements.
"Oof...if Korrina has a Scrafty, Nanahoshi might be cooked..." remarked Maeve, causing Jason's pupils to briefly dilate as he always felt slightly disjointed hearing what the people of his previous world referred to as brainrot from the pink-haired beauty's lips.
Though it was unnecessary, Maeve, as an experienced Pokémon Trainer, glanced at Jason and explained, "Scrafty is a Dark/Fighting type, so it's immune to the Psychic-type attacks that typically give Fighting-types a hard time. Its acid and Dark-type moves are also super-effective against Metagross' dual Steel/Psychic-type, so if Nanahoshi's Ace takes a direct hit, it's going to do a lot of damage."
"Thanks for the explanation," responded Jason, understanding that Maeve was trying to be helpful. Pointing out that he already knew everything she was explaining would be needlessly abrasive and might dissuade her from sharing genuinely useful information in the future.
"Korena...cool..." muttered Ren, causing Jason and Maeve to perk. When the latter looked at her, she noticed Ren's red eyes were glistening with fascination and a growing desire to do battle, so without saying anything aloud, she met and held Jason's gaze. When he nodded in response, her expression didn't change, but, much like Ren, she started feeling excited by the prospect of their forthcoming battle...
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Though Nanahoshi's Steelix managed to catch Scrafty in its powerful jaws and incapacitate it using the powerful Dark-type Pokémon Power, Crunch, the battle ended in Korrina's favor. Overcoming type disadvantages on the fly was easier said than done, and since Korrina was freshly returned from a successful Island Challenge, her team was very nearly in top form. They still had room for improvement, but just as Jason struggled with the 100kg milestone on his bench press, growing stronger past a certain point was a slow burn that required tremendous persistence.
"Phew! That was a great match, Nanahoshi!" expressed Korrina, shaking hands with a slightly annoyed-looking Nanahoshi. Losing never felt good, but as a seasoned Trainer who regularly participated in public showcases like the World Coronation Series, she managed to maintain her composure and respond, "I look forward to our next match," with expectation and fire in her golden-brown eyes.
"Anytime!" responded Korrina, beaming happily before casually freeing her hand from Nanahoshi's vice-like but weaker grip and shifting her gaze to Jason, Ren, and Maeve. Seeing them caused her expression to light up even more than her victory, so with shimmering, slightly mischievous blue eyes, she abruptly bolted toward them at full speed, chiming, "Jason!" as she leaped at him through the air with open arms...
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