Subject: [PW!] [WC] [R3] Robert Faces Becky's Wrath Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 04:47:08 GMT From: Rob <robfrompw@yahoo.com> Organization: AT&T Worldnet Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Robert opens his eyes and glances over at the purple Pokegear on the nightstand next to the bed he's sleeping in. When he reads the display, he thinks, "Mmm, it's only 3:42 AM, I've got about six more hours before I have to wake up..." He pulls up his bedsheets up to his head and turns in his bed to face the other wall of his room at the Scarlet City Pokemon Center. Fortunately, his room happens to have a window on that wall, and when Robert sees sunlight pouring in, he squints and thinks, "That can't be right..." before mumbling in a raspy voice, "Go back down, sun! It's not time for you to be up yet!" The Gym Leader closes his eyes - and just as he's about to drift back into unconsciousness, he realizes that it's more likely that his Pokegear's wrong and not the sun. Robert abruptly sits up. He picks up the purple Pokegear, which he had used for many hours the night before to tell his girlfriend all about his match with Travis, and notices a little blinking image of a battery with an "X" through it, "Oh no! I talked with Rilli so much I drained the Pokegear's battery and it switched over to suspend mode to save energy! What time is it?!" Robert reaches for the alarm clock on the night stand, which he didn't set because he trusted his Pokegear more than it, and reads the time, "9:30 AM?! My match starts in half an hour!" Ten minutes later, Robert, his black hair even messier than usual, runs out of his room fully dressed, quickly locks the door behind him, and races into the Pokemon Center's Lobby. There, he hurries up to the Nurse Joy sitting at the front desk and says, "CanyoucalltheColiseumandtellthemImightbealittlelate?!" "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there." The pink-haired nurse motions over to the balding middle-aged male programmer next to her, "I'm busy right now, but I'll be with you in just a minute. Have you found the problem in the system, Mr. Doors?" Robert jumps from one leg to another as he waits. He's desperate to arrive at the Coliseum on time, but he's afraid that if he tries running there without calling in advance and he's late, his match will automatically go to his opponent. "Yeah, don't worry - the information's still in the system." Mr. Doors types something into keyboard attached to the Whirl Cup's Computer Server, "Fortunately, the program was written in P++, a language that doesn't perform automatic garbage collection if items aren't reachable through pointers. Two pointers to Contestant objects in the linked list for day four are all that's been deleted, not the objects themselves - I just have to manually insert new pointers into the linked list." "Wow." Nurse Joy smiles and says, "I have no idea what you just said." Mr. Doors is the first person the nurse has met who knows more about computers than she does, "Hey, Mr. Doors, are you doing something later tonight?" "No." Mr. Doors answers, then points up at the giant computer screen behind the desk, "There you go - all fixed." Robert looks up at the monitor to see the Round Three match-ups displayed on it: [ Robert ] vs. [ Becky ] [ Yolei ] vs. [ Aerie ] [ Trent ] vs. [ Mamoru ] [ Cappie ] vs. [ Rudy ] "Oh, thank you!" Nurse Joy hugs Mr. Doors, then asks the stiff middle-aged man who doesn't hug her back, "I was wondering..." "I'm wondering something too!" Robert blurts out, knowing he has less than twenty minutes to get to the Coliseum, which is a few blocks away, on time, "My name's Robert - I'm battling in the first match today, and I'm running a little late, so could you please call the Coliseum and tell them this so they don't disqualify me?!" "Yeah, sure, whatever." The techie Nurse Joy waves at Robert before turning her attention back to Mr. Doors, but the Diversity Gym Leader is already racing out of the Pokemon Center when she does this. Robert runs down the streets of Scarlet City, ignoring the few people who are on the streets instead of in the Coliseum to watch the Round Three matches. He starts slowing down about halfway to the Coliseum, but when he sees the huge building's only a few more meters away, he hits his second wind and speeds up again, pulling out his identification to show the Guards on his way into the western preparation area. He races past the guards, past the area where both Yolei and Cappie are preparing for their upcoming matches, and out onto the stone platform just as the referee says, "This match goes to..." "WAIT!" Robert shouts before the referee can say the name of the girl on the stone platform on the other end of the Arena. He breathes deeply, doubled over, as he says, "I'm sorry... I'm late... My alarm... didn't... go off... this morning!" Becky, his opponent, a black-haired girl who's wearing a white gi and a black belt, shouts over to Robert, "I'll go first." She removes a Pokeball from the black belt tying her gi and chucks it into the water. A lovely blue Lapras appears in the Arena's Pool and Becky tells her Pokemon, "Waverider, get ready to use Ice Beam when Robert sends out a Pokemon." "Slow... bro... I... choose... you!" Robert, still doubled over, pulls his Slowbro's Pokeball off his belt and rolls it into the pool, too tired from running to throw it onto a floating white platform. The Slowbro appears in the water and lazily floats on his back, basking in the morning sunlight. "Ahhh, slowbro, slow..." The Whirl Cup announcer declares, "Becky has started with her Lapras, and Robert's countered with his Slowbro!" Slowbro's moment of relaxation is soon cut short when a very cold Ice Beam, released by the Lapras across the Pool, encases his legs and arms in ice. Were Slowbro not as big and fat as he is, his entire body might've been encased in ice, disqualifying him from the Competition, but fortunately for Robert, Slowbro hasn't ever gone on a diet in his entire life. Robert commands, "Slowbro, Surf over to the other side of the Pool!" Seconds later, Slowbro's Surfing on a tsunami over to the east side of the Arena, the wave around him melting the ice on his arms and legs just before it crashes onto Waverider! Noticing that Slowbro is now floating right next to her Lapras, Becky calls out, "Waverider, use Psychic!" Robert stands up straight when he hears Becky issue her order, and he cries out, "What, did you and Travis get a two-for-one special on Psychic TMs?! Slowbro, fight Psychic with... well, you don't know Psychic yet. Fight Psychic with Confusion!" Becky's Lapras unleashes a devastating Psychic attack on the Slowbro floating next to where she's swimming. He twirls around in the Pool as he's being hit with Psychic waves, then about five seconds later, he shoots psychic waves of his own at Waverider - Confusion waves. Waverider is shoved a few feet in the water, then she starts spinning in circles, confused. "Oh no!" Becky frowns when she sees Waverider spinning around, "Well, maybe you'll be able to overcome your Confusion and freeze that Slowbro... Waverider, shoot another Ice Beam!" Hearing Becky's strategy, Robert's now concerned that Slowbro might get frozen if the Lapras uses Ice Beam again since the fat pink Pokemon is so close to the Lapras, "Slowbro, try to down that Lapras before she attacks you! Use Swift!" "Slow?" Robert's Slowbro asks, just as the blue Shellder attached to his tail floats up to the surface of the water and spews Swift stars at the confused Lapras, aiming them at her soft neck but hitting her shell instead since the Lapras is spinning around. Though the Swift attack does hurt her a little, but the Lapras is hurt even more when she slams her head against her own shell, thinking it would be a better strategy than the one Becky suggested because she's so confused. Robert shouts, "Swift again, Slowbro!" Becky figures a Solarbeam might be able to defeat the weakened Slowbro, but she's reluctant to use it since Waverider would have to overcome her confusion twice for it to work. Still, if she kept trying to use Ice Beam, Slowbro might defeat the Lapras using Swift before she'd be able to freeze him. Becky decides to take the risk and commands, "Waverider, Solarbeam!" As Robert's pink Slowbro floats on the surface of the Pool, relaxing, the Shellder on his tail, still on the surface, Swiftly spits another stream of little stars at Waverider. This time, the speedy stars successfully hit the soft spot on Waverider's neck just as the Lapras raises her head up to the sky and opens her mouth wide, absorbing the sunlight above. "Hmmm, that Lapras only hit Slowbro with Ice Beam and Psychic." Robert ponders what his Slowbro's next attack should be, "He should be able to survive a Solarbeam if that Lapras overcomes her confusion... right? All I know is one Swift attack isn't going to defeat the Lapras, but one more Confusion attack should. I'll take the chance." He calls out, "Slowbro, Confusion!" Before the Slowbro, who's been taking a break from the battle while the Shellder latched to his tail battled for him, is even slower to react than usual. Slowbro doesn't even blink as Becky's Lapras points her head at him, an orb of light in her mouth, and he doesn't move until the powerful Solarbeam Waverider shoots out of her mouth makes contact with him, blasting him down to the bottom of the Pool! It takes fifteen seconds for Slowbro to surface after the attack... ...and when he does emerge from the water, he's unconscious. The referee notices this and declares, "Slowbro is unable to battle! Robert must send out another Water Pokemon." "D'oh!" says Robert before returning Slowbro to his Pokeball and putting back on his belt. He pulls his Horsea's Pokeball off his belt, enlarges it, and says, "Okay, Horsea, it's all up to you now. I just hope you can defeat both of Becky's Pokemon just like you defeated both of Travis' Pokemon!" Robert tosses the Pokeball into the water and a cute blue Horsea appears in a flash of white light. The Horsea looks up at the large Lapras she's facing and says, "Hor's sea hor sea e horse!" "Despite what Jasmine might tell you, size doesn't matter, Horsea!" Robert encourages his Pokemon, "You defeated that huge Tentacruel using Twister yesterday, remember? We're going to try the same strategy today - use Twister on that Lapras!" Becky doesn't make the mistake of underestimating Robert's little Pokemon and shouts, "Waverider, Psychic!" Waverider's faster than Robert's Horsea, so she immediately looks at the Pokemon across the Pool and proceeds to bite herself in the stomach as Horsea dives underwater. Becky falls over, then quickly hops back up and says, "You're STILL confused?!" "Not for long!" Robert calls out to his opponent, "Soon she's going to be unconscious!" Just as Robert says this, Horsea's Twister attack emerges on the surface of the pool and sucks in Becky's Lapras! Waverider continues to gnaw at herself as she spins around in the Twister and she doesn't stop until she's lifted from the Pool and thrown at one of the walls of the Coliseum, much like Travis' Tentacruel was in Robert's last battle. When the Lapras splashes into the pool, she's fainted. "Lapras is unable to battle!" The referee decrees, "Becky must... What's this? HORSEA is evolving!" Everyone looking at the referee, including Robert and Becky, turns their attention to the Horsea that's peeking her head out of the Pool, noticing she's starting to glow white. The brightness of the glow increases then the shape of the Horsea's head starts to shift. Spikes emerge from the Horsea's body as the entire Pokemon grows in size. When the glow subsides, the Pokemon swimming in the Pool is no longer a small Horsea, but a fairly large Seadra who declares, "Sea dooo! Sea sea doo!" "WOO HOO!" Robert throws his arms up and exclaims, "Horsea finally evolved into Seadra! I can't wait to tell Rilli!" As Robert's Seadra swims around the Coliseum's giant Pool getting used to her new form, the referee continues what he was saying earlier, "Becky must send out another Water Pokemon!" Robert admires his speedy Seadra as she races around the Pool and he smiles, saying, "It looks like you just got your second wind, Seadra!" -Robert