Hard Enough - Chapter 404 - Final wrap for the holidays (Patreon)

“Broooock! Why is it snowing? Winter is supposed to be over!” shouted Suzie as she glared at the window.

Next to her Munchlax slowly sipped from a cup of coco, rather ruining the image of her pose but she ignored him. “Is there an Articuno out there?” she demanded, looking at me like I could go…

Well I could probably get out there and smack it around, but that would be bullying.

And we only did that to Lance of late. 

I lay on the couch, glad that today was one of my rest days. No training, for me or my pokemon.

“No, there’s no Articuno Suzie,” I offered without much sympathy as I enjoyed Sabrina’s ministrations to my scalp. “Sometimes the weather is just like this. They’re predicting a pretty serious heatwave for next week, remember? You’ll be able to go to the park then.”

“No! That’s when school starts!” shot back Cindy showing she was on the ball.

I pointed at her. “Correct!” I replied, enjoying her look of horror.

As an adult that had on and off had to deal with them for a few years, I was honestly glad when the majority of them were in school, and or daycare.

“Booo! Brock that’s evil!” whined Tommy. “We need school to get snowed out!”

“It did for a few days a month ago, remember Tommy?” tacked on Flint from the other side of the couch as he tried and failed to get the remote to work. “Kids, I swear I’m pushing all the right buttons but I can’t get this thing to work.”

Suzie huffed and marched over, tapping two buttons before getting the tv guide up. “Did you want to watch your boring show?” she asked with a tone that made it clear she fully knew what his response was going to be.

“It’s not—”

“It is. It’s a boring show about antiques with old people. Nothing fun ever happens!” whined Cindy. 

Flint huffed. “Well it’s my time for the television so I get to choose!” he replied, crossing his arms. Only to cough a moment later. “If you would please Suzie?”

Suzie loyally changed the channel to the antiques roadshow that appeared to be set up in Celadon.

“—join us at the lovely Celadon Gym Gardens where we—” I tuned the rest out and gave Sabrina a winning smile.

While the kids were bored that didn’t mean we had to be.

Sabrina shot me an amused look that let me know she’d seen my intention, noted it, and found it cute. Then she looked up right in time for Suzie and Cindy to appear before us. 

“Sabrina can you take us to Celadon? Surely there’s a doll you want to buy?”

“Not right now,” Sabrina smirked and raised a fist in the air. “I got all of them this time,” she declared with the air of a victor announcing they’d conquered a kingdom, salted the earth and taken all the spoils they could.

“Oh… uhmmm well, can you take us anyway? We promise not to ask for anything for like… a few days?” Cindy offered as her second attempt.

I snorted and coughed, earning myself an annoyed look from my younger sister.

“Sorry, not sure what came over me,” I muttered while looking anything but sorry.

Sabrina tapped me lightly. “It might not be a bad idea for us to take the kids out,” she said calmly, causing my sisters to both perk up.

I gave her a look, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to walk that statement back, but I wasn’t about to just give up my prime spot in her lap, not after what I’d endured with Celebi.

I wanted couch and chill.

No adventures, no surprises, just easy living.

“BATTLE STATIONS!” roared Billy as he ran into the room with a foam sword, causing the other boys to lunge for their weapons.

Cindy glowered at me. “If you don’t take us somewhere, I’m going to play the Samurai Furret song on my recorder badly for the next hour!” she growled.

I sat up and clapped my hands causing everyone to focus on me. “We’re going to the beach!” I declared.

“Is it even good conditions?” asked Salvadore from behind his giant encyclopedia. 

I snatched up the remote and with a deft press of two buttons had the weather channel up.

“And in Vermillion, there appears to be a rain cloud being caused by a large scale pokemon battle so make sure you have your umbrellas with you if you’re heading out. Make sure they’re plastic!” chimed the weather lady before she panned to a wide shot of kanto revealing that Fuchsia was currently perfect for swimming with sun and no cold winds.

“We’re going surfing!” I announced, causing everyone to perk up.

Suzie pumped both fists. “Yes!” she shouted before turning and dashing off.

Munchlax perked up and pointed at himself.

“Yes you too buddy,” I offered, only for Sylveon and Nanny Grav to also appear and raise their eyebrows.

I gave Sabrina a look and she huffed. “I’ll take anyone that wants to come,” she announced.

“Should I extend the offer to my pokemon as well?” I asked quietly.

Sabrina hummed at that and gave the lounge a slow look. “Remind them that the house will be empty if they want to watch some shows.”

“Ah, yeah that’ll work,” I replied.

________________________

It in fact, did not work.

And within the hour we found ourselves on the beach of Fuchsia with Sanchez, Titan and Bertha making a giant sand castle while Tilly and Billy added small decals to the walls with their buckets and sand shaping toys.

Jormungandr had set himself up on the beach and was enjoying a good sunbake, which after the cold of winter, must have felt like bliss. Bertha had instead added him to the castle wall, dumping sand upon him and packing the wall without any issues.

Nanny Grav had taken it upon herself to stay close to the young children which in turn allowed Lola complete freedom to release her pokemon upon the water.

Such was the spread of water type pokemon that local residents came down to our position expecting to find the Cerulean triplet Gym Leaders. More than a few young males were very disappointed when they only saw Lola and Flint, and Sabrina and I while the rest of my family gamboled around.

The local kids however perked up when they spotted the giant sandcastle.

Rather than help out however they attempted to storm the castle and destroy it.

They didn’t get far however as Bertha was quick to gently bunt them around by pushing mounds of sand into them, trapping them like terrible sand statues.

The kids in turn tried to lay siege to the castle which seemed to suit the adults perfectly fine as they set out their umbrellas and lay down for a nap, trusting in my family and our pokemon to be safe to hang with.

Funny that even in another city, a Gym Leader’s pokemon were considered ‘safe’ enough to have young children around.

I was just glad to be out on the water, sitting on my surfboard and watching it all unfold from afar.

“You’re sure I’m ready?” asked Salvadore as he adjusted for perhaps the fifth time on his surfboard.

“Yes Salvadore, you’re ready,” Sabrina replied patiently. “If you want however, you can wait and watch Brock have another go at the wave,” she prompted.

I huffed, knowing that my attempts at surfing weren’t anywhere near as good as Sabrina. Or indeed Brawly’s, but then again I wasn’t as gifted as Brawly, nor could I cheat like Sabrina.

She shot me a less-than-impressed look, likely picking up on the direction of my thoughts.

Rolling my eyes I paddled out as Tide set up a wave for me to surf on. I sped up furiously, my arms working overtime to build up speed until I felt like I was in a good spot within the wave, then I shifted my weight carefully to my feet and then into a crouched position. 

I blinked in surprise when I stuck the landing and didn’t instantly fall off like I had a few times only to grin as I held position and powered ahead

Oh wow! I was doing it.

Wait, was I doing this or was Sabrina helping?”

I couldn’t really check so I decided to push my luck and shift my weight so the board tucked into the wave. I rode along it, feeling giddy at the success I was having only for a huge head to breach through the wave and a mouth to appear.

My feet kicked out instantly, not wanting to sail straight into that mouth. 

Instead the surfboard slammed into the Gyarados’ face while I tipped over to the side, splashing heavily.

I tumbled in the water for a little only to right myself and drift upwards.

When I breached the surface I found Gyarados staring down at me, unimpressed.

On the shores, Sanchez stepped to the top of the tower, suddenly serious as an electrical charge built up around him. He was more than ready to launch a Thunder if needed.

Gyarados twitched, showing that it did have some awareness of the threat on shore.

“Are you Lola’s pokemon, or am I gonna have to fry a serpent?” I asked, weighing up whether I should still do it anyway. 

There’d be a bit of residual shock but I’d be fine. Gyarados on the other hand. Yeah it would be toast.

The mighty sea serpent bowed its head to me and warbled something unintelligible.

“Oh! He says he’s sorry Brock baby! He was enjoying a swim and came up without looking! He didn’t mean to disrupt you!” called Lola, causing me to sigh.

If it had been a wild Gyarados I could have zapped it. I mentally gave Sanchez the order to stand down and he pouted but did so, causing the static in the air to decrease.

Regathering my surfboard I paddled back to where Sabrina, Salvadore, and Yolanda were camped up.

Yolanda waved at me. “Wow you were doing great, until you crashed!”

I swept some water from my face. “Heh, Brock, a story told in one brutal synopsis.”

Salvadore and Yolanda blinked, the joke flying over their head while Sabrina’s lips twitched. Gesturing to Salvadore I waved for him to take his run and he finally began to paddle out. Tide saw this and powered back on the wave he generated.

Savladore rode it well until he attempted to get up on his feet, he tipped to the side and rather than catch him Sabrina let him fall.

He hit the water and was up in moments.

“How come you didn’t catch him?” Yolanda asked.

“Because it helps for him to realise that what he’s afraid of happening, isn’t that likely, nor that bad,” Sabrina replied. Nodding along I watched Salvadore beeline straight back towards us. I shook my head. “Nice work bud, you rode it for a bit there!”

“It doesn’t count unless I do it while standing though!”

“Hey just catching a wave is impressive,” I offered, causing him to slowly nod.

I then tapped him on the head. “Just next time swim out wide and back to us, if you come straight on we can’t send out another surfer,” I pointed out, causing him to duck his head.

“Oh! Sorry!” he replied to Yolanda who rolled her eyes and paddled out herself.

She got onto her feet and as far as turning in on the wave only to overcorrect and launch herself out over the lip of the wave where she smashed into the water.

I gave Sabrina a look. “You’re hoping to also tire them out a bit, aren’t you?”

Sabrina smirked. “No idea what you mean,” she offered as she took long elegant strokes to get in position before setting off. She surfed like a pro. Or at least, she looked the best to me, but again there weren’t any other surfers in our part of the beach.

The true surfers were further down using the natural break waters rather than using a pokemon to generate waves. I sat back for a bit, when it was supposed to be my turn I waved the others forward, merely content to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the feel of the water underneath me.

In my half-daze state I still watched the others being pushed along by the waves that Tide had generated.

A flicker of frustration made me look to the beach to find Sanchez being blasted away by Bertha over something he did. Tapping into his senses he seemed to be arguing something about renovations while she held firm with tried and true decor.

He tumbled back and rather than argue attempted to change up a hallway only for Bertha to send him flying again.

Rather than being hurt he rode the wave of sand as a large boulder and rolled out a few dozen metres before turning and rolling right back in with a cackle.

Huh, he could do that…

My mind, once lazy and slow, perked up at the odd detail. If a pokemon could be buoyed by a Surf, were there other moves that could propel them?

I knew the answer to mostly be yes, but what about… Hmmm an idea began to form in my mind for a potentially powerful combination move.

It would be like using a cannon with an exploding payload if it worked like I was imagining it might…

Deciding that I’d had enough water for the day I paddled in. 

“Brock?” Sabrina called but I waved back at her.

“Just thought of something that I want to workshop. Need to play around in the sand a bit,” I shouted over my shoulder.

Sbarina sighed but remained out with my brother and sister, more than happy to help them out. In the meantime I headed to the castle and pulled out an old worn Titan action figure that I deposited in the sand.

“It would be like Sand Veil even… making their accuracy far worse while allowing us to tear out an opposing team’s heart,” I murmured, the idea of the Sand Surf attack coming together along with all the benefits of it.

Titan could start with Giga Impact and become both the focus, the fake out, and then the true threat all at once with this.

If I could get him to ride a wave of sand, it would be perfect.

In the sand, I played at shifting a wave of sand to scooping up Titan before tossing him forward.

A shadow fell over me and without looking I knew I had Titan’s attention. He squatted low, sniffing and watching as I demonstrated my idea, communicating through thoughts and emotions rather than words.

Eagerness returned to me via the bond.

The best part was that we wouldn’t need to adjust Titan’s movepool for this. We could just tweak the timing of the move so that when it got used it was in sync.

There was, however, one catch.

The only pokemon I knew that could propel that much sand… was Regirock with its Sand Blast attack.

A move that was extremely dangerous to handle.

Was this overkill then?

Thoughts of having to face Blaine with just Rhyhorn surged to the fore. Blaine had been strong, his pokemon had been able to take some frankly insane hits.

While Water Orb wasn’t a great move strength-wise I wasn’t about to discount it when it was a Legendary pokemon launching the attack.

Case in point was how the healing moves had gotten us from ragged to tip top shape unlike what was supposed to happen with such support moves.

Bertha was already a heavy hitter, as were Empress, Titan, and Regirock. To a lesser extent, Don and Tide also had power in reserve if I needed it. Don more so with the Mega Evolution looming in the future.

Did I need… oh who was I kidding, I absolutely wanted this. Titan matched my enthusiasm with a grin and a furious sweeping of his tail that led to him creating a small sand storm.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” I declared, standing up and feeling extremely motivated.

Only to realise that I hadn’t brought Regirock. For all that he was part of the team he wasn’t that interested in heading out of the reserve. If anything, he’d rather be standing sentinel atop the plateau that allowed him to look out over the entire reserve.

More often than not I could see him alongside selene and Quirrina when I came out for morning training.

It was like having a statue with the sun and the moon hanging above each shoulder.

I’d had Rachel snap a picture of it from a nice angle and made it a poster for the Gym that we sold in the giftshop while I used the photo as my background for my computer.

“Damn… this kind of sucks,” I muttered as I stared out at the lovely beach vista where my family were playing around in the water or sand.

Urgh! It was such a good idea!

Titan sat next to me in commiseration as we both allowed our darkness to swirl around us.

Munchlax kind of ruined the moment by walking up and offering us both an ice cream cone before sitting next to us to cheerfully lick his.

Titan and I shared a look, both of us determined to keep our mood. We devoured ours quickly to return to glowering only for Sylveon to choose my lap to curl up in.

Damn fairy types.

It would seem we weren’t going to be able to keep our edgy behaviour.

Sabrina took one look at us on the beach and promptly began levitating several toy super soakers to attack us.

Titan and I shared a look as water trickled down our faces. “Right, this means war,” I declared seriously.

Sadly, it was never going to be a war that we’d win, as the assaulter didn’t believe in leaving anything to chance. She brought Tide into the mix on her side and quickly had Titan and I drenched.

It did however break us out of our funk and let us enjoy the rest of the morning with my family. We finished up around lunch time as things were starting to get too hot and returned home.

Only to find an icebox of a house waiting for us.

“Who left the door open?!” screamed Lola as she clutched at Flint for warmth.

Orion’s head appeared, followed by a trio of small faces from the lounge room as they eyed the distance to the door.

Ah, busted.

_____________________

As Sabrina had predicted, most of the kids were pretty worn out after running around and playing for most of the morning. While coming back to a near-freezing house was a shock that woke them up, a quick blanket, some coco and a position in front of the television to watch the latest release of Samurai Furret had them practically silent.

I had to admit I sort of wanted to stick around to watch this one, as it was foreshadowing Titan and Bertha appearing in future movies. But at the same time, I knew their cameo appearances were just that, short cameos during the end credits.

So instead of being in the warming room, pointing out Bertha and Titan’s moment for a room of sleepy children who’d probably miss it, I was trudging through the slush of the reserve to the training field.

Around the area, my various fire type pokemon were burning off the last snow of the season, but Titan and I only had eyes for the training field.

Looking up to the plateau, I waved towards Regirock.

“Regi! We need your help with something!” I called to it.

Rather than take a walk around the slope leading down, Regirock hopped off the top.

Regirock hit the ground like an artillery strike, sending a wave of dirt and snow blasting out only to stand and march up to us, beeping and flashing with its eyes.

“Right so I have this idea—” I started to explain the idea and Regirock listened on silently.

By the time I was done, Titan was once more wagging his tail with enthusiasm while Bertha who’d come along to see what we were up to was bouncing slightly on the spot, just as excited for this idea of mine.

Regirock merely stared at us. Then it looked to Titan and raised a limb.

“Ah! No! Not yet! We’re going to chain it with a Giga Impact first!” I exclaimed, knowing Regirock well enough that it was about to blast Titan.

“Rhy! Rhy! Rhy!” Bertha, rather than helping started egging Regirock on.

I swatted her to get her to stop and instead set up the area for the new combination. “Let’s make sure the area is clear first!” I stated as I swept the area with my aura. Then I did some napkin math.

A Sand Blast attack alone could hit up to two hundred metres away effectively… add in a charging Titan…

Hmmm, double seemed far too small. I started walking out a length of clear space that was roughly a kilometre long.

“Right we’re going to set you up in the centre but there’s going to be some issues with you potentially going off centre. With training we’ll get you more accurate but for now we just need to see if it is possible.”

Glancing at the cleared space, as well as my pokemon I gave my safety measures another considering glance. “Bertha, can you go get Chansey?” I asked. “We’re probably going to need her.”

Bertha hustled off to do that while Titan and Regirock performed some checks. I made sure Regirock had its swing as straight as possible, keeping the motion in an up-down manner.

Titan, in the meantime, performed sprints to get a feel for the terrain, making sure it was firm enough for him to pull the moves that we were about to attempt.

When Bertha returned with Chansey, Chansey looked thoroughly annoyed.

“It’s for a good cause?” I offered only for her unimpressed look to remain firmly in place. “Right, well have some chocolate and watch us probably mess this up.”

Titan’s head snapped around and I made a gesture to show I didn’t mean that.

“Right. We’ve got a safety area, both pokemon are healthy and well. We’ve got a medic just in case,” I muttered, looking around the area thoughtfully. What was I missing?

“Hmm I think we’re good to go!” I declared as I set Titan into position before having him move ten metres further. He was going to need a bit of lead time as well as having a bit of a buffer.

“Alright, so Titan will charge first and then after his fifth step. Now we’ll go for five because his speed will be built up as well as having a slight buffer for his Giga Impact aura, which manifests by the third step. On the fifth Regirock will swing with Sand Blast, propelling Titan forward.”

Titan nodded at this and got into a bracing position. 

“Ready! GO!” I ordered, and Titan shot forward. Like usual, Titan started slow, but each step saw him increasing his speed. It only took a half second but Titan reached his fifth step much quicker than I thought.

Then, like a whip, Regirock swung its limb, causing a wave of force to be blown forward. Sand erupted straight out in a large cone, and I felt through the bond how Titan felt himself suddenly being picked up and hurled along with the attack, only for his weight to see him back on the ground where he powered forward only to stumble and trip.

“Damn,” I muttered as a small earthquake shook the field. “But it sort of worked…”

As we waited for the dust to settle Sabrina called out to me. “Brock, what are you doing?” she asked, floating down from above with her Alakazam.

“Oh, I’m conducting an experiment for a potential combination between Titan and Regirock!” I declared.

Alakazam instantly looked much more interested in what I was doing. He began gesticulating wildly, only to look back at me expectantly.

Having dealt with him several times in the past, I looked away from meeting his gaze. 

Alakazam levitated down to my eye height, staring at me.

“No… I didn’t set up any cameras to record the initial test, nor did I perform any calculations,” I replied when the silence grew too heavy.

This drew an exasperated sigh and a nod from Alakazam only for him to twitch his fingers and reveal several whiteboards along with cameras. 

“Hey! You knew how I was going to answer!” I accused, earning an amused chuckle from Alakzam as he stroked his moustache.

Shaking my head, I glanced towards Titan only to find him lying in a long furrow that he’d apparently carved into the ground when he’d tripped. Bertha and Chansey were both inspecting him only for him to raise a hand and give them a thumbs up.

Sand was all around him, far more than I’d been expecting in fact, especially with the dampness of the environment with all the ice slush. That… might be nothing, or it might be something.

“A double effect at play? Sand Blast, along with a Tyranitar’s natural ability to generate Sandstorms for hunts might have caused more buildup than I’d anticipated.”

Sabrina dropped down next to me, observing for a moment as Alakazam and I began workshopping my idea.

“This is what had you pouting at the beach?” she asked.

“I wasn’t pouting, I was brooding, it’s completely different,” I replied firmly.

“I’m sure,” she offered back mildly, ignoring me only to giggle, letting me know that she was teasing me. “Let’s take a look at this shall we? It has potential.”

Grinning, I walked her and Alakazam through my thought process as Titan walked back to us.

For the second round we had a much more professional measuring system laid out and we had created a target with several large inflatable props. 

We still didn’t get it to work in the next hour however, as Titan would stumble, spin away, or trip from the force. 

Sabrina and I watched him recover from the seventh attempt, and I hummed, rubbing my chin. “He’s getting better?” I prompted.

“It might be something he needs to learn how to adjust for,” Sabrina conceded. “Give it some proper training and I think you’ll have something potent here.”

I glanced towards the various trenches that we’d accidentally dug with Titan. The shortest of which was fifty metres long, and that had been a spin off to the side, resulting in Titan slamming through several boulders.

“That is going to be a dangerous move if you can get it to work,” Sabrina commented.

“Yeah, I think we can keep working on it and—” 

Sabrina nudged me and gave me a look like I was being dense.

Oh.

Oh?

Turning back to Titan and the others I clapped my hands. “That’s a wrap for today gang! We’ve proved that it works, and this is going to take a while to iron out the wrinkles! We’ll keep working on it tomorrow.”

Don, who’d come to observe Titan stacking it constantly, shrieked at me, and I coughed. “After my sessions with Don to get him Mega Evolution ready!” I corrected as Sabrina put a hand on me and teleported me to our bedroom to relax after a long day.

Tomorrow was going to be busy with finalising the Gym’s young trainers’ tournament to see who gets sponsored by me, along with a special event that Yolanda was trying to be sneaky about.

But that was for later, for the moment allowed myself to lay in bed with Sabrina in my arms.

When she turned and gave me a look, I smirked, knowing she had a different idea of how we were going to relax.

When we were done and cuddling up in bed, delightfully breathless I lay back, feeling everything was settling back down for the moment.

It was looking like a more relaxed circuit this time around. Shame Johto were going to be dealing with a surge themselves, but that was a them issue.

______________________

A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support.

It also goes to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!

This is the end of the Time Arc.

Going forward, I will be running on again off again the story for Rock Hard- Yolanda’s Journey. I’ll do a few chapters and post them in pace of Hard Enough chapters and we’ll see what people think.

Obviously this will still feature in the HE universe with HE Cast.