My dad hates Zubats. I can see why, especially since he's told me the reasons since I was old enough to understand him. Maybe he told me them before too, I wouldn't know.

"Zubats are the scum of the earth."

"They're so weak."

"They can't learn anything useful."

"They're annoying."

But I think the real reason he hates them is that, despite how bad they are, they sometimes manage to pose a challenge to his students. They resist the moves he wants to teach, and they have the tendency to make his students' Pokemon flinch away or get confused. It's more than just annoying, it's sad to watch. My dad's a Gym Leader. Or, as he likes to call it, Head Coach of the Gym. Nobody else calls him that, it's always "Gym Leader" this and "Gym Leader" that, unless it's one of his trainees. They usually just call him Coach. A gym leader's job is important. He acts as a local leader to the people, or maybe their servant, it's always unclear. Gym leaders have the strongest Pokemon in the nation, aside from maybe the League Champion. I think my dad could take him though. The way my dad battles . . . incredible. Just last week, he faced a challenger coming down from one of the richer islands. Honestly, one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

It started off the way it normally did, with one of my dad's better trainees coming down to the gym office. He was working on some kind of paperwork or something when the door was opened.

"Hey Coach, some kid managed to make his way to your bell and he's wondering why you're not coming out," the trainee said.

My dad looked up from his paperwork, took a glance at the wall, and noticed that one of the buzzers was lit up red. Swearing a bit to himself, he got out of his chair and made his way down to the main mats. I packed up some of my school work and my camera and followed him. If there was one thing that my dad could be counted on, it was being where the action was happening. Maybe making the action himself.

When my dad came to the main mat downstairs, he was met by a young (25 or so) kid wearing a purple coat and a matching purple hat with a feather in it. All in all, not the worst style I've seen on a challenger. Some of them would come in dressed like Charmander or in nothing but their bathing suit. At least this guy would be easy to photograph. The kid was standing on one end of the training mat, just waiting for my dad, I guess.

My dad took a hint of a glance at him and then called out, "How many badges do you have so far? Four?" Without waiting for a response, he went rifling through a bag marked "⅝."

The kid just nodded and stood stock-still, except for his arms which were fiddling with the PokeBalls strapped on his waist. My dad took his stance opposite the kid and crossed his arms, looking as intimidating as he could.

"Alright, I know why I'm here, you know why you're here. As this is going to be your fifth gym badge challenge, it's going to be a four-on-four rumble, one at a time. Anyway, what's your name."

The challenger adjusted his hat and smirked. Damn, I guess he wasn't as cool as he appeared to be. There was a breed of Pokemon trainer that would posture and smoulder whenever they wanted, probably looking for sponsorships or something. My dad would always say things about them, call them posers and such. They were also treated a lot harsher by my dad, who would sometimes go easy on trainers that had a lot of heart but were disadvantaged by type or skills. "Kyle," he scoffed out.

My dad's smile lost a bit of spark, and he launched into a speech I'd heard him give hundreds of times before. "You've gone a long way in your journey, but you're going to have to go a lot further to reach your goals. The way forward is paved with hard work, determination, and training. The bonds you make with your Pokemon are forged through the mutual blood sweat and tears that you shed when you work out with your partners. There is no substitute for the hours that you take trying to achieve your goal. This is how it is with Fighting-Type Pokemon! This is how it is in my gym! If you think you're going to get past me and get my badge, you're going to have to show me that you and your Pokemon have forged these bonds to become a lean, mean, fighting team! Now let's go! Conkeldurr!"

My dad threw a pokeball to unleash one of his Conkeldurr, a massive bipedal brute, carrying two stone pillars. The Pokemon took a look at who he was fighting, then back at my dad as if to say This guy? You sure?

In response, Kyle threw out a black-topped pokeball of his own, shouting "Go! Jet Black!" Out popped a Honchkrow, a bird Pokemon wearing a hat resembling his s trainer's. Goddamn, I hate it when trainers try to dress up like their Pokemon. I should've known it from the start too, it's such a unique looking hat. At this moment, most of my hopes for a cool trainer were dashed. Cool action shots, however, were still on the table.

"Brave Bird!"

"Stone Edge!"

The Honchkrow took a bit of a running start and then launched himself into the air. Spiraling up a few times, he gained enough height for a dive bomb. With a loud Krow! the Pokemon threw itself at my dad's Pokemon, talons outstretched. In a flash, the Honchkrow -Jet Black- landed on the other side of the Conkeldurr, looking a little roughed up from the launch, but also satisfied. The Conkeldurr was stunned for a second, as glowing white lines appeared on its body. Then, with a huff of weariness, the Conkeldurr hefted one of its stone pillars in its hand, balancing it like a javelin. Then, also like it was a javelin, he threw it with the ease of a kid throwing a paper airplane. I readied my camera and started snapping away, knowing that the speed would make it hard to know when the right moment would be. Thum! and the pillar missiled its way through the air to land right on top of the Honchkrow. The Honchkrow, having lowered its guard and dropped its attention, dropped to the ground like a stone, knocked out cold.

"What a bastard! I shoulda gotten him," cried out the chump who just lost his first Pokemon to an unlucky attack and his own costly strategy. "Lets see how he fares against you, Slinky!" With this, he threw out another pokeball, a pink one this time, and a Pokemon (also pink, how imaginative) came out in a flash of red lightning. I snapped a few more pictures. There was always something cool about watching the light materialize a creature, even if that shot had been done a million times before. The Sylveon pranced around for a couple seconds before finally focusing on the big brute that was supposed to be its opponent.

"Play Rough!"

"Detect."

The Sylveon charged forward recklessly, pink energy gathering along its head, its teeth, and its paws. My dad's Pokemon waved its arms, and gently redirected the Sylveon's attack to the side. Then my dad and his opponent both yelled in unison, "Again!" The same thing happened, a charge and a redirection, but, if I was looking right, Slinky seemed to be a little quicker, a little less affected by the Conkeldurr's redirection. "Again!" This time it didn't work out. The Conkeldurr tried to nudge the Sylveon out of the way as he had been doing, but she whipped her head around to dodge the other Pokemon's arms and went right back for the attack, knocking the Conkeldurr out.

"Good job Conkeldurr, you held out for a while. It's kinda rude that your opponents were picked out specifically to be better than you, but what are you supposed to do? Anyways, let's see how you do, Toxicroak!" said my father, as he threw out another pokeball, releasing another Pokemon onto the field. My dad's Toxicroak was always one of my favourites, having a cheery smile most places he went. When I was young, he would play pranks on me, gluing up doorknobs when I was in doors, and then he would replace himself with a stuffed animal whenever I would try to get him back. I thought it was annoying when I was younger, but I couldn't imagine how frustrating it must be when you're in a League-sanctioned match. Every time the Sylveon would pounce on the Toxicroak, it would be revealed to be a toy the entire time, and the Toxicroak would step into the light, with the widest grin on his face. This dance went around for a couple minutes, my dad feigning boredom and cool kid Kyle getting more and more frustrated by the second. Eventually, my dad wrapped up the fun and his Toxicroak punched the Sylveon into unconsciousness.

Kyle threw out another pokeball, a normal one this time, yelling, "Let's see how you deal with my ace card! Go, Celeste!"

Out popped a rather nice looking Starmie wearing a smart looking scarf. I snapped pictures for later analysis. Sometimes the clothes that Pokemon wore in battles were just for aesthetics, but other times they were performance enhancing. Judging by the expression on my dad's face, this was one of the latter.

"Sucker Punch!"

"Calm Mind!"

Toxicroak readied a punch, a punch that was supposed to be thrown when the Starmie was throwing his own attack, but instead, the Starmie just spun in a happy circle a couple of times. Judging by the curses my dad threw out, this was not the optimal outcome. A couple seconds later, the Starmie shot out a beam of ice and knocked my dad's Toxicroak to the ground. My dad just grit his teeth and threw out another pokeball.

"Go, Scrafty!"

I readied myself, this was normally the last Pokemon my dad would use in these high-stakes matches, and normally he would play a little bit easier. But when Scrafty was thrown out early, then it was because my dad had already decided that his challenger didn't deserve the badge they were fighting for. Scrafty could wipe the floor with most of the Pokemon that gave his other Pokemon a hard time. My dad was staring straight into his opponents eyes. He always told me that in a fight, you should never look into someone's eyes. They can lie with their eyes, once they learn how to, but they can't lie with their chest. Muscles have to move in order to throw a punch or even ready a kick, so you stare a guy straight in his chest. Pokemon battles were different. There's no muscles involved when you're training someone else, so you lie with your eyes. And you tell the truth from your fingers. Kyle was tapping his fingers against his leg in a regular pattern, then he smirked. His fingers kept tapping though.

"Calm Mind!"

"Dragon Dance."

Starmie spun in a circle again, and this time, so did my dad's Pokemon, lowering himself onto the ground, using the crest of his head as a contact point, and spun around on it. After a couple lazy spins on his head, he spun on his shoulder, then lowered himself into a reclining pose, practically screaming Paint me like one of your Kalos girls. Kyle took a few short blinks before trying to smirk again. His fingers were still tapping away though.

"Calm Mind!"

"Dragon Dance."

Kyle didn't even try for another smirk, actively switching over to his other facial expression, the scowl. More importantly though, and I was sure my dad noticed this too, his fingers had subconsciously moved into a fist. I raised my camera to my face, waiting for him to speak, to start the next encounter. Whatever he began to say was drowned out by my father's triumphant yell.

"SUCKER PUNCH!"

The Starmie tried to gather some energy, but was interrupted by the Scrafty bouncing forward like a cannonball, slamming its fist directly into the Starmie's exposed gem. The Starmie flew into one of the ring's ropes, then another, then finally the ground, where it stayed. I took a look at my shot, a glowing Starmie having its stones handed to it by a tiny ball of raw power. Perfection. Kyle was left gaping in surprise.

"Oh look, a third expression," I accidentally said out loud.

"Shut up," my dad chided.

Kyle finally sent out a Lucario, which was promptly punched until it dropped, rather unceremoniously. Pouting like a child, he put his head down while my dad gave one of his League-required speeches. After a fight, he would give a speech, regardless of if he won or lost. If he liked the challenger, he would give them a nice critique on what they did, ask them who they planned on facing next in the Gym circuit if they won, and just generally have a nice time. If they lost however . . .

"Not everyone is cut out for the League challenge, and that's not a bad thing. I know you must have tried hard, but you need to train more, and actually train well. I could tell during the fight that you wished you had done something differently, and I agree. Just so you know, the more gym challenges people face, the more likely it is that they'll realize they're not good enough. The fighting type spirit isn't in everyone, but to go far in life, you have to internalize the lessons learned from all of them. There is no one good way to train your Pokemon, but there are plenty of bad ways. Learn to unlearn them. So with this loss, go forth and find what you're really good in. Good luck."My father was really good at being absolutely devastating in a very subtextual way. Everything he just said was perfectly true, but had the strong undercurrent of Kyle already being a failure. Kyle could sense it too, and kept his head down for the entire speech, leaving as soon as it was over.

After the mats were all cleaned up, I went up to my father. "I know I've asked before, but you mean everything you say in those speeches, right?"

He nodded.

"I want a Pokemon."

"Of course you do," he replied. "It's been a while and you're practically grown up now. You've been through all the schooling I've asked you to go through and you deserve to go on an adventure of your own. What kind of Pokemon do you want? I have my connections," he said, waggling his eyebrows.

"Of course, I would love a taste of that sweet, sweet nepotism. Who do you have?" I knew he had guys for any sort of Pokemon he wanted, to give his trainees or anyone who asked him for help.

"I got a Stufful guy, a Meditite guy, a Clobbopus guy, anything you could want. I know a guy who knows a guy who can get you a Riolu, as long as that boy didn't throw you off that whole line."

"I was thinking like a Ghastly or something. Maybe a Scyther?" I saw the colour drain a little from his face. I didn't think he'd have a guy for that, but I thought maybe he'd have leads or something? Like, people looked up to him, not just fighting guys. I was pretty sure he could find someone.

"How about something simpler, like a Machop or a Mienfoo?" He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. I got it, Ghastly was a difficult Pokemon, or so I've heard, always playing pranks like a Croagunk, but with less to grab on to. And Scyther were known as being hot headed and arrogant. Maybe it would be a good idea to start with someone easier.

"How about a Ponyta?" I asked.

"Too much, you could set the house on fire.

"Bulbasaur?" Bulbasaur was safe as hell, and a pretty good Pokemon to boot. Who could resist the smiling wide face, the almond eyes, or the fact that they weren't at all dangerous or hard to train? My dad.

"Bulbasaur are lame, remember that kid who walked in here the other day? A Bulbasaur and two Pidgey? He was such a little kid. How about a Pancham? They're definitely cool Pokemon."

"He was literally 12, and he beat you? And I think you were trying that time too."

"I wasn't trying, he just had waited too long to get his first badge and you know that my first gym Pokemon are not my strong suit." He was deflecting and I was starting to get fed up.

"Name one Pokemon that's not a fighting type that you'd help me find." Boom! Ultimatum. This was normally a sure fire way to communicate with my dad. Not that time though.

"Let me give you one of my Pokemon for a month, just so that you can see how good fighting types are, with no commitment. I just picked up a new Crabrawler and I need it to be a little trained before I can use it."

"And after this, I can choose any Pokemon I want?"

"After this, you'll want to keep the Crabrawler." That was the best I was going to get from him, and it wouldn't hurt to give an inch in good faith.

So I got a Crabrawler for a couple of weeks, and they were some of the worst weeks of my life. For one thing, she was incredibly strong, and not at all scared to show it. Every so often, when I had her out of the ball, she would show her affection by landing a blow on my shins. I had seen her shatter boulders and punch hard enough to boil off water if her fists were wet, so I knew it was a love tap. Still, it kind of hurt.

"Ow, you're a jerk!" I yelled, after the millionth time she hit me for no reason. She ignored me. Women generally ignore me. It had still been a while having the Crawbrawler, and I hoped that she would have started to care about me, or at the very least realized when I was hurting. "How about we try to aim your wrath in some other direction? Look, here's some Bidoof, you can punch those." We walked along a river bank, trying to gather the attention of the fluffy brown Pokemon. It worked. Within minutes, a horde of Bidoof had gotten agitated enough to start trying to charge me and "my" Pokemon.

"Crabrawler, hit them with literally any punch!"

"Crabra! Crabra!"

A string of bubbles came out of my Crabrawler's mouth, gently pushing the Bidoof back. They came forwards, and fast, too. The Crabrawler jumped on my shoulder, still spewing bubbles into the air. I tried my hardest to push her off, get her to actually start training. Unfortunately, she took this as an invitation to start punching my hand. With the Bidoof hot on my heels and the idiot on my shoulder, I sprinted all the way home, and waited for my dad to come back. Sitting on my couch, I took the opportunity to talk to the Pokemon he had given me.

"Hey, hey you!" I looked the Crabrawler straight in the eyes, hoping that there would be a glimmer of understanding there. "You have to do what I tell you to do, or else what's the point?"

"Awler! Awler!" She jumped around a little bit, then shot a bubble at me.

"I don't know what that means! Nod if you're listening?" There came another jump. Maybe that was close enough to a nod? "Why aren't you listening to me?" No more jump, but a punch in the air. "You want to punch? That's why you're not listening to me? Even if I tell you to punch?" She jumped again, and I started to think that jumping wasn't a yes. "Alright, let's do some dry training, Crabra."

I kneeled down in front of her, and held out my hands like sparring mitts. "Punch! Do it!" She just bubbled some more. "Fine, I give up, I'm just going to tell my dad that it's not working out." She jumped a bit, then punched me in the nose. "Bastard!"

I jumped up and went to get some ice, leaving her behind on the floor. Minutes passed of me just holding it to my face and waiting for the pain to subside until I heard my dad come in and ask me how I was doing.

"Dad, your Crabrawler's, like, defective or something. It doesn't listen to me at all." Hopefully he would let me get a Bulbasaur now, I had been trying for a while now and all days seemed to end up like this.

"Nah, you're just doing something wrong, don't worry about it. You'll get it eventually," he suggested gently.

I was unconvinced though. "I've been trying everything you've said for however long you've said it, and it's not working at all. I've tried being forceful, I've tried conversations-"

"You haven't tried fighting her yet," he stated. This was true, I hadn't. Right away, my dad had told me to establish dominance by just beating her up until she understood, if she didn't right away. My dad made it sound more gentle, just sparring and pinning, until she knew that I was better than her, and that she could learn from me and benefit from listening to me. I didn't see things his way. He wanted me to beat up a tiny Pokemon and pretend that that made us friends, and I wasn't doing it.

"You try fighting her, I gave it two weeks, and that's all you told me to do. I'm not into fighting types and I think we've proven that, okay?"

"I think we haven't proven that yet, you haven't given it a fair shot if you haven't followed my advice. If you won't box with a Crabrawler, maybe you'll spar with a Mienfoo? I'm sure there are a couple who would love to have you as a trainer. Just, you gotta make sure it listens to you from the start, you can't go easy on it like you did to this little lady." My dad backpedaled a bit, but not enough for me this time. There was something fundamentally different between him and me.

"I'm not going to bond well with a Pokemon that I have to beat into submission." I tried to hold eye contact with my dad, as hard as that was to do. One . . . two . . . three . . . he didn't look away, but neither did I.

"It's not beating them, it's sparring with them, they don't get hurt at all, you're just teaching them that you're someone who deserves to be learned from."

"I don't care, I'm not doing it." We stared at each other like that for a while, just waiting for one of us to say more. I didn't break first, but neither did he. The Crabrawler in the other room screamed its own name, and then the sound of wood splintering could be heard.

"Damn," grunted my dad, then he ran out of the kitchen to deal with it.

I ran in the other direction to make it to my room, and shut the door. I had to regroup and find out what to do. It wasn't like I needed my dad to give me a Pokemon. I had plenty of opportunities to get one on my own. I could . . . ask the nurse. She could enroll me in the nursing school and then I could get a Chansey just like that. After five years of work after graduating, I could even keep the Chansey after retiring, so I would only be about thirty years old. That made nursing a nice plan B, especially since Chansey was kind of motherly for a first Pokemon. I could always just ask my brother to send me something. He was up in the mountains, training for his eventual eighth gym challenge. He would probably agree with dad though, and get me another fighting type Pokemon. That was no good, that would be a plan D, under telling my dad that he was right. Plan A though, was to find a Pokemon, something weak but trainable, and capture it by myself, just by throwing a ball at it. The risks were high, as I would be alone without a Pokemon to defend me, but the rewards were higher. I would have my own Pokemon, something that I could teach and train and have as a buddy while I adventured. I would have a friend to help me get out of this town. So of course, I went with plan A.

In the dead of night, I opened my bedroom window and stepped out. Living on the first floor had some advantages. There was a cave right on the edge of town, filled with Pokemon. That was my destination.

I climbed over a couple of fences which had been emblazoned with the words "keep out" and "no entry without Pokemon partners." I was too mad for them to stop me. Right at the entrance of the cave were the Pokemon I was seeking. Rings upon things of them, surrounding one of their own in the middle. They cooed, in their speech, adding an air of spookiness to the whole thing. I had one shot, so I knew I had to make it count. I took a deep breath, made a quick prayer to Arceus, then another to Giratina, and threw one of the Pokeballs that my dad had given me a couple weeks ago. After bated breath and crossed fingers, a ding echoed through the cave. The Pokemon I had sought for was caught. My Pokemon. A prince among princes.

My own Zubat.