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The three weeks after Paul and Charmander left from their visit passed quickly to Malcolm and Pikachu. With some help from Paul and Charmander, they had altered their training regimen slightly, and now Pikachu was making even more progress than before. Malcolm could hardly believe how far Pikachu had come since the beginning of his training two months ago. Since Pikachu's battle with Charmander, Malcolm had been doing some research and designing. He sat at his computer in his study this particular afternoon, and had a clipboard full of paper in front of him which he would scribble things down onto every so often.

Malcolm had several things he was looking up at the moment. The first was the list of the approved offensive upgrades for Pikachu suggested to him from both the Pokemon Trainers' Association and from other trainers who took a liking to Pikachu after watching his battle with Charmander. There were, as Paul had said, many good ideas contained in the lists. Malcolm decided to start slow, though -- he didn't want to overwhelm Pikachu with new gadgets and abilities for him to learn. The other windows Malcolm had open were various suggested suit modifications to help Pikachu out in battle. These were also recommended from the other trainers, and a few were ones he had thought of himself. Malcolm had been working on these for almost five days straight non-stop, and he was finally almost finished. He flipped through the pages in his clipboard, nodding to himself as he made sure everything was finalized and in order. With that, Malcolm began to open various online shopping sites to which he placed orders for the components he'd need to work on Pikachu's suit.

While Malcolm worked, Pikachu wandered in the room looking for Malcolm. Pikachu heard the sound of typing, confirming where Malcolm was, and he ran over to the side of Malcolm's chair, greeting him with a happy "pika!" Malcolm looked over, smiling as he rubbed Pikachu's head affectionately. Pikachu, however, grabbed the leg of Malcolm's pants, pulling on it slightly with a soft whine. Malcolm knew exactly what Pikachu wanted -- he wanted to go outside. The weather had been great lately, and every day for the last week, Malcolm had been taking Pikachu outside to play in the backyard. It was cool and sunny, and Malcolm didn't mind spending some time outside, either... even though he had been a bit hesitant to do it lately. Malcolm had the distinct feeling that for the last two or three days, someone or something was watching them. He even noticed some nearby bushes rustling yesterday, but upon examination, there was nothing there. Malcolm wrote it off as being a wild animal of some sort, and gave the matter no further thought.

Pikachu pulled on Malcolm's pant leg again.

"Piiiiiii!" Pikachu whined impatiently.

"Now, now, hold on just a few minutes, Pikachu. Give me about ten minutes to finish up these orders I'm placing. After all, they're all for you, you know!" Pikachu tipped his head, curious by what Malcolm meant.

"Pika?" For him, he wondered?

"That's right, for you. Once I order all of this, everything should be here within a week and a half. And once it arrives, I'll be able to give your whole suit a makeover!" Pikachu beamed happily -- he didn't even know Malcolm was ready to do work on his suit. Pikachu had just assumed until now that Malcolm said he would get around to doing it eventually, but it would be one of those things that never actually got done...

Once Malcolm finished everything up, he and Pikachu headed out to their backyard through the back door. Malcolm's backyard was fairly large. It was fenced in with an average height chain link fence, and there was really nothing out there save for some bushes against the house and short, soft grass covering almost all of the yard. There was a large dirt pile under the roof gutter's drainage pipe where some of the grass had died, though, which Pikachu had been using as a makeshift sandbox. Malcolm sat down on the small steps outside his back door, and Pikachu bounded around the yard, content to play in the grass. When he was bored of that (which only took about two minutes), he began to look for the balls he had been playing with for the last week. Malcolm had gone out to the store to get them specially for Pikachu to play with. They were of varying sizes, and Pikachu went around the yard, gathering them all. Once he had them arranged how he wanted, he climbed on top of the first ball, which was about the size of a beach ball, balancing. Malcolm watched in surprise as Pikachu hopped to the next ball, landing on it and managing to maintain his balance. Malcolm chuckled; Pikachu had gotten quite good at that over the course of just a week. Malcolm yawned. With Pikachu keeping himself occupied, Malcolm could lean back against his back door and let his mind wander for a while.

Both Malcolm and Pikachu were caught quite off-guard, however, as they heard a strange noise. Pikachu hopped down from the ball he was balancing on, and Malcolm looked around, trying to determine where the noise came from. Malcolm almost screamed in surprise as a Scyther jumped down from an awning above the steps where Malcolm was sitting. Malcolm blinked, staring at the Scyther. He was impressively built, and his suit was amazing. He looked like the suit covered him in a hard shell from head to toe, but in reality the suit was made from rubber, just like Pikachu's. He was bipedal, like Pikachu, but he was standing at full height and was only about six inches shorter than Malcolm. Malcolm realized that meant whoever was in the suit wasn't restrained very much, and was standing up at full height. His arms didn't look restrained at all either, and instead of hands or claws, Scyther wielded two large, shiny blades. Two large sets of pale yellow, bug-like wings on his back flapped every so often, and even though they didn't let him fly they made him look that much more intimidating. Pikachu darted over in front of Malcolm to protect him. Without warning, the Scyther took an attack position.

"What the hell is the meaning of this?!" Malcolm screamed in an outrage, jumping to his feet. "Who are you?" he demanded. He felt rather silly when he got his reply.

"Scytherrr!" Malcolm sighed; apparently, that was as much information as he was going to get. The Scyther brandished his blades once more, and Malcolm realized he had no choice but to battle the Scyther. He looked around, figuring there had to have been another trainer nearby giving Scyther orders, but he saw nobody.

"All right, Pikachu, it's probably some trainer trying to take us down. Don't let him win, Pikachu!"

"Pika!" Pikachu ran forward into the grass, ready to face off against Scyther.

Malcolm wondered how he should even begin against such a formidable opponent, but he got his answer as the Scyther began to charge forward at Pikachu.

"Pikachu, dodge left, quick!" Scyther ran right past where Pikachu was standing, his slash missing by a mile as Pikachu quickly jumped off the side. Scyther brought himself to a stop, and spun around to face Pikachu again. Malcolm noticed, however, that Pikachu was standing right next to one of his play balls, and he got an idea. "Pikachu, 360R on all fours, quick!" Thanks to their new training regimen suggested to them by Paul and Charmander, Malcolm had a quicker way of issuing orders to Pikachu. Pikachu knew "360R" meant to spin 360 degrees to his right. Pikachu was a bit confused by the command -- he had no way of knowing the ball was right next to him -- but he did as he was told. As he spun, his tail whacked the ball, sending it flying at Scyther. The ball flew right at Scyther's head, but he struck it away with one of his blades, unimpressed. Scyther charged at Pikachu again, and Malcolm told Pikachu to dodge right this time, Scyther again missing his mark. Malcolm's command had placed Pikachu right in front of another ball. Scyther faced Pikachu again; his face was beginning to show obvious annoyance at Pikachu's agility. Scyther charged at Pikachu once more, not even noticing the ball behind Pikachu, and Malcolm told Pikachu to dodge right again. "Pikachu, roll!" Malcolm cried out while Pikachu was in midair; Pikachu did a front roll as he landed, a slash from Scyther just barely missing him. This time, however, Scyther couldn't stop his charge in time to avoid tripping over the ball, landing flat on his face with a loud groan.

Malcolm knew an opening when he saw one, but before he could even begin to issue the command for Pikachu to go in for the win, Scyther was back up and on his feet, panting. This time, he charged at Pikachu again, but when Pikachu jumped to dodge at Malcolm's command, Scyther did a small side hop of his own, matching Pikachu's movement and slamming him with a blade in mid-air. Even though the blades looked sharp and menacing, they were actually blunt and padded slightly (to keep within the league rules that a pokemon's natural weapons cannot be sharp or overly hard). This meant Pikachu got about the equivalent of a very, very hard hit with a Nerf bat, but it was more than enough to send Pikachu crashing to the ground with a wheeze, knocking the wind out of him.

"Pikachu!" Malcolm cried out, worried. Scyther darted over to Pikachu, grabbing Pikachu from behind while he went for a victory. Malcolm, however, noticed that Scyther was having a bit of trouble holding onto him with blades instead of hands. He waited until Pikachu caught his breath and began to struggle, and when he felt Scyther was close to blowing his load, Malcolm nodded. "Pikachu, roll forward! Break out of his grip!" Pikachu did as he was told, rolling forwards and easily breaking free from Scyther's grasp. Scyther whined slightly; it was obvious he was very close to winning. Before Scyther could react, and even without an order from Malcolm, Pikachu spun around, charging at Scyther at full speed. He caught the slightly distracted Scyther off-guard, ramming his legs and knocking Scyther to the ground as Pikachu ran right through him. Scyther fell forwards, and Pikachu ended up behind Scyther... a short distance away from another of his play balls. "Pikachu, 10 back 5 L!" Pikachu did as he was told, quickly taking five steps to his left and ten steps back from where he originally was, placing him right to the side of another one of his play balls. This one was more like the type of ball one would use in dodge ball, and was much more solid than the inflatable balls he had been hitting earlier. "When I give you the word, 360 L, Pikachu!" Pikachu prepared himself to spin again. As soon as Scyther turned around, Malcolm shouted "Now!" Pikachu spun, and the ball flew at Scyther. Before Scyther could react to the ball flying at him, it struck him. Pikachu got a lucky hit; the ball hit Scyther square in the balls, causing him to drop to his knees in pain. Malcolm grinned. "Pikachu, get around behind him and pin him!" Pikachu charged at Scyther, darting behind him and pouncing on his back, pinning him to the ground. Scyther could only writhe in pain as Pikachu went for the aggressive victory, taking it quite easily as he exploded inside Scyther's tailhole.

As soon as Pikachu was finished, he hopped down.

"Awesome job, Pikachu! Come here, quickly!" Pikachu ran over to Malcolm, who watched Scyther carefully to see what he would do. Scyther slowly got to his feet, and rubbed his head, groaning. He shook it off, though, and looked at Malcolm, grinning. It was only just then that Malcolm realized, as Scyther looked at him, that he was able to see. Scyther removed his headpiece, revealing a rather hot and sweaty-looking young man inside the suit. He shook some sweat out of his hair, and looked back up at Malcolm, still grinning.

"Congratulations!" he said, startling Malcolm somewhat. "Wow, that was incredible! I mean, I got randomly selected to battle you and your Pikachu, and when I checked out your standings, I was pretty disappointed. I mean, what with you guys being ranked as beginners and all. But you guys are great! See, my record so far is 52 and 6... well, 7 now," he corrected himself. "But that was definitely one heck of a battle. You and your Pikachu are great!" He thought for a moment, then got a look on his face as if he just remembered something. "Whoops, I've gone and talked way too much... I was just supposed to give you this!" With surprising dexterity, Scyther used the tips of his blades to open a previously invisible pouch-like pocket on the front of his costume, taking out two cards. They were about the size of playing cards, and he handed them to Malcolm, who took them, sticking them in his pocket for the time being.

"Er... thank you," Malcolm said, still in a bit of a state of shock over everything that had just happened. Scyther nodded, pulling his headpiece back on and adjusting it. Even though it looked like a simple mask, it fit quite well against his head and allowed him to speak and convey facial expressions very well.

"I've got to get going now," Scyther said as he turned away, heading towards the fence that separated Malcolm's backyard from his front. Scyther waved with one of his blades. "Congratulations again, guys, hope we get to battle again sometime soon!" Scyther shouted as he ran towards Malcolm's fence, hopping over it. With that, Scyther was gone, leaving Malcolm and Pikachu standing on the back steps, absolutely clueless as to what just happened.

Malcolm and Pikachu went inside, and Malcolm spent the next fifteen minutes or so getting Pikachu cleaned up from his battle. Pikachu decided to take a nap on the couch -- a well-earned one, Malcolm figured -- and Malcolm went into his study. Malcolm was about to e-mail Paul to tell him what had just happened, but as soon as he opened his e-mail program he found he had a large number of new messages from other trainers. As he skimmed through them, Malcolm found it was fan mail. The messages congratulated Malcolm and Pikachu on their victory. A new message popped up from Scyther himself -- like him, the message was rather long-winded, but it also congratulated Malcolm and Pikachu again on defeating him, especially without using any special attacks. Malcolm came across one message, though, that he hoped would explain everything that just happened. It was a message from the Pokemon Trainers' Association with the subject "Congratulations". Malcolm opened it up, and began to read.

"To trainer Malcolm: Congratulations on winning your first random encounter. The Scyther you and Pikachu battled is one of the league's random encounter operatives. Trainers are monitored and, at random times, a randomly chosen pokemon from our list of random encounter operatives may be sent to battle with the trainer's pokemon. Trainers, of course, have the option to run away from or otherwise deny the battle, but most are eager to participate. As we are sure you noticed, the random encounter operatives have the ability to see and speak, which negates the need for a trainer to be present. To compensate for this advantage, they are not allowed to use any special attacks of any kind. Other than that, they have been trained to act and battle like a standard pokemon. Hidden cameras were set up prior to the battle so that the league could monitor your match. Random battles are beneficial to trainers in many ways. Besides impromptu battle experience, it allows you to boost your league ranking and accumulate point, item, and field cards, depending on how well your match goes. Please refer to the attached link if you are not familiar with the card system. Again, congratulations on doing splendidly on your first random encounter. Your standings should be updated within the half hour."

Malcolm blinked. Random encounters? Point cards? Item cards? Field cards? What the heck had he gotten himself into? Malcolm clicked the link, going to the official league page which explained point and field cards. As he waited for the page to load, Malcolm remembered the cards Scyther had given him earlier. He took them out of his pocket, looking at them. One card was labeled with simply the number 5 on both sides. Malcolm could only assume this was a point card. The other card had "Playground 1" printed on the front, a faded picture of some balls and balance beams in the background of the card. Confused, Malcolm began to read the page.

It took Malcolm about fifteen minutes to read everything, but he felt like he understood the system better. Field cards -- which was what his Playground 1 card was -- allowed trainers a one-time alteration of a battle arena before a tournament battle. Field cards had the potential to help a trainer's pokemon and hinder the opponent's. All Malcolm had to do was submit one field card of his choice to the officials before a tournament match began. Field cards came in three levels; as the field card's level increased, so did the area of the arena that would be dedicated to that particular field card. There were many types of field cards, but trainers had to either earn them or see them in battle themselves to see what they did! All the site would give were the names of some of the more common types of field cards, such as Playground -- which Malcolm received -- Water, Factory, Foliage, and Mountain. Field cards could only be obtained one of two ways. The first was random battles, as Malcolm had just discovered. The second was through the point card system.

There were many ways trainers and their pokemon could earn points; random encounters, battles with other trainers, and in tournaments. The better the pokemon perform in these situations, the more points they are awarded. For points awarded remotely, such as the points Malcolm and Pikachu earned with their battle against Charmander, Malcolm could pick up the point cards at the next tournament. Points allowed the trainer to "buy" field cards and item cards. Item cards, like field cards, affected the tournament arena as well. However, as opposed to only being able to use one before a match, up to five could be used by the trainer during the match. Item cards provided the pokemon in the arena with any one of a huge variety of offensive items, defensive items, weather effects, field hazards, and more.

This was all way too much for Malcolm to take in at the moment; he decided to instead check his league standings page to see if it had updated. It had, and while Pikachu only had a 1-1 record so far, his most recent victory against Scyther earned him much renown and respect amongst other trainers. Pikachu and Malcolm shot up the rankings, and their class had been raised from "Beginner" to "Rising Star". Malcolm chuckled slightly; even he was impressed with how well Pikachu was doing. Now Malcolm was anxious for Pikachu's new equipment to arrive in the mail so he could start working on Pikachu's new suit. If Pikachu was doing well now, Malcolm thought to himself as he turned off his computer, the skills this suit would give him would increase his abilities so much more...

[Mar 16 2005]