—Jin Blackwood—

“Are you okay?” My sister’s voice interrupted my thoughts, bringing me back from watching that horrid battle. She held a pair of corndogs from the concession stands in her hands, one half-eaten.

“Not really,” I responded, grimacing. “I just lost half my brain cells watching that.”

“Wow, I didn’t know you had any to lose. I guess you learn something new every day.” She jabbed, smirking, although it didn’t hurt much with corndog bits around her mouth. “You want a corndog?”

As the older brother, I elected to be magnanimous and not retort to her comments, especially with this lovely bribe. “Sure, as long as it’s not the one you took a bite of.”

“Tsk, how’d you know.” She coughed, handed me the uneaten corndog, and sat down next to me. “Has dad appeared yet?”

“Nah, he’ll probably be in the next group. Looks like there’s only two more fights on the Green Line before they return.”

The Battle Subway, as its name would suggest, is a battling facility that is completely contained within the cars of a subway. While the number of cars varies based on the specific line you take and the format you choose to participate in, there are some conditions that stay the same no matter what.

First of which being the size of the car, or the space which fighters are allotted. Subway cars are naturally quite small in order to fit within the tunnels of the subway system, so almost all combat will be within close quarters.

The dimensions of each car can be measured out to roughly 12 meters in length, 3 meters in width, and 3.5 meters in height. This is not a lot of space for fighting. Poor lateral movement options can make it difficult to dodge incoming attacks, so smaller and more nimble Pokémon will be disadvantaged if they rely too much on speed.

But that doesn’t mean larger people and Pokémon have an advantage. Some can take up large amounts of the car by themselves, making them easy targets to attack, and in some cases they aren’t even able to respond at all.

So, the people who have the biggest advantage are all-rounders who do not rely on agility or size to fight, and instead are able to adapt to their surroundings.

The second condition that is permanent are the contents of the cars. They somewhat mimic the conditions of the subway cars from the Yellow Line, and I would assume other non-battle lines, but have some modifications to their interiors to make them more conducive for fighting.

There are a couple lines of benches at both the front and back fourths of each car, with an aisle splitting the middle for access. On the other hand, the middle half of the car is a much more open space, with the only obstructions being horizontal metal poles connected to the ceiling for fighters to grab onto.

Additionally, each car also has a first-aid kit with healing Berries, ointments, and occasionally potions for the fighters to utilize after they finish each round, if they don’t already possess some of their own. I heard that they used to not have this precaution a decade ago, but enough Trainers complained and stopped using the facilities that they were added.

The last condition is the speed of the car. All fights take place while the subway is moving, so fighters need to be aware of the changes in speed at all times and react accordingly.

This type of arena favors those with excellent control of their own bodies, and many movements which would be impossible on level ground now become possible.

That’s pretty much it for the conditions which are always the same, anything else just comes down to differences between the individual lines and formats.

Since today I didn’t really care about the Blue or Red Lines, I’ll briefly explain the format of the Green Line as well.

On the Green Line, there were a handful of restrictions placed on Trainers and Pokémon in order to keep the fighting fair. Well, as fair as it could be. Trainers were straight up unable to participate in the battles, and needed to stay within a designated area on each end of the car.

If they ignored that rule they’d be disqualified and barred from ever participating in the Battle Subway again.

Additionally, every Trainer would only be allowed to send one Pokémon out, with the restriction that the Pokémon could only be a Novice or Apprentice rank. I’m not exactly sure what the differences between ranks are due to not being a Trainer myself, but it seems like the workers were able to check before entrance.

Finally, the battle in each car ends whenever one Pokémon is unable to continue fighting, whether they go unconscious, lose all of their energy, or take too much damage.

Then, the winner continues fighting against the winners of other cars in the same fashion until a final winner is crowned.

It didn’t take long for all of the battles to finish, and the cameras panned to a young man celebrating with a Pawniard. They stopped back at the Station to pick up the next group of fighters, and the next set began.

“Do you see him?” Amira asked.

“Yeah, third screen from the left.” I responded, my gaze settling onto the screen where dad appeared. While I was interested in the rest of the battles, it wouldn’t be good manners to miss out on his battle when he brought us here.

***

At the back of the car, George stood within the Trainer’s box.

On the other side, another man of a similar age wearing a yellow hard hat took up a similar position.

‘What’s with his hat? This isn’t a construction zone.’

Each of them grabbed a Pokéball from their pocket —or in the construction workers case, their belt— and two flashes of white light illuminated the car.

“Min!” A Minccino appeared from the first light and hopped up onto one of the benches in front.

“Roggenrola!” On the other side, the construction worker sent out a Roggenrola, who stayed on the ground.

‘That’s not a good matchup. Roggenrola’s a Rock-Type so it’ll resist the majority of Min’s attacks, maybe even all of them. She needs to make use of her agility if she wants to win at all.’

“Battle, start!” A voice came from the loudspeaker, indicating the start of the match.

“Min! Grab the rails and Sing!” George yelled, coming to the same conclusion. Minccino immediately jumped off the bench and reached out to grab the railings. Because her arms weren’t long enough to reach even after jumping, she reached out with her tail instead.

‘Good plan, Roggenrola’s hearing is incredibly sensitive so it should be vulnerable after this.’

But the other Trainer wouldn’t stay still and just let her prepare.

“Roggenrola! Set Stealth Rocks!” The construction worker yelled. Hearing its Trainer’s command, the Roggenrola condensed a couple balls of Rock Essence above itself, which then exploded into shards of rocks and flew into the surroundings, embedding themselves into the entire car.

Both of the Trainers were fine from the protective mechanisms around the Trainer boxes. The same couldn’t be said for Minccino, who got grazed by one of the stray shards and drew blood from her ear.

“Stay up!” George yelled, and Minccino wrapped her tail around the railing to not fall off. Dropping at this point could result in Minccino getting heavily injured, and it would be better to stay up in the air where Roggenrola would have a difficult time landing attacks.

“Min, Min, Minccino!” Minccino began singing, and a stream of Essence drifted down from the ceiling towards the Roggenrola.

“Hide!” Roggenrola repositioned behind one of the last benches a couple of meters away, and used Harden on itself just in case Sing connected.

‘Good call, that makes it even more difficult for Min to deal enough damage now.’

Seeing the Roggenrola hide, Minccino swung itself a couple of times to gain momentum and flung itself in the direction of Roggenrola. She avoided landing on the ground covered in spiky rocks, and instead grabbed onto the closest bench.

“Min, Min!” She kept singing, hearing no movement from Roggenrola’s side, just in case it had been put to sleep. Sing’s effects only stayed for as long as the user kept singing, so if she stopped then there wasn’t a question Roggenrola would awaken.

“Wake up!”

The good thing was that the construction worker was yelling at his partner, so she knew the song worked.

Minccino jumped over a couple more benches, checking under each one to make sure Roggenrola wasn’t hidden, until she reached the final bench.

Climbing over the last bench, she finally saw her target asleep, and jumped down into the corner. None of the rocks managed to reach over here even after the explosion, so she had more freedom in her movement.

“Min!” She gathered Essence within her tail and unleashed five Tail Slaps onto the sleeping Roggenrola.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Each strike connected with the target, but none of them seemed to deal any damage. In fact, if it weren’t for the coat of Essence covering Minccino’s tail, she probably would’ve been the one injured.

“Rogg?” Sadly, Minccino didn’t have enough time to let another barrage at Roggenrola, who woke up groggy.

“Roggenrola! Mud Slap!” The construction worker yelled. Roggenrola stopped for a moment like it was a buffering television, before condensing an orb of Ground Essence in front of its face.

It shot the orb straight at Minccino, but she scurried over the top of the bench to dodge and it splattered against the wall.

Peeking its head up from the other side, it pulled down on its right eyelid and stuck out its tongue in an attempt to provoke the Roggenrola. But the Roggenrola didn’t respond and repositioned again, this time under the bench.

‘Okay, it has Stealth Rock, Harden, Mud Slap, and maybe more. There really isn’t a good way for Minccino to take this fight unless it has more tricks up its sleeve, especially now that it’s hiding.’

Staying on the aggressive here and dropping down would be playing right into Roggenrola’s… hands? Limbs? Honestly, it didn’t matter what they were called, but it was a bad idea, and Minccino knew that.

Nimbly, Minccino jumped over the aisle onto another bench, making sure not to touch any of the lingering rocks, and disengaged. Although Roggenrola seemed to have a ranged attack, unlike what she expected at the start of the fight, that wouldn’t be too big of an issue.

The projectile couldn’t move quickly and had a somewhat length charge time, so she could count on dodging it as long as she wasn’t completely point-blank.

“New strategy! Use your new Move Min!” George yelled from across the car, making sure not to give away the strategy to the opposing Trainer.

“Min!” Minccino responded, scampering towards the open center of the car. She hadn’t noticed Roggenrola enter the aisle, so it had to still be on the opposite side.

Arriving at the closest bench to the center, Min jumped back across to the other side and peeked her head below the bottom of the bench. One unique property about these benches was that each one had a hollow gap that small Pokémon could hide in, and the gap extended from the first bench all the way to the last.

Effectively, it was a semi-exposed tunnel, making it a difficult place to move quickly and one of the areas of the car that Minccino wouldn’t dare go.

About halfway through the gap, Minccino spotted the Roggenrola approaching quickly.

…well, as quickly as a Roggenrola could.

Minccino grinned, and charged Essence within her body. Then, after charging for a couple seconds while the Roggenrola kept approaching, she released a beam of star-shaped rays from her mouth.

Schwee! Schwee! Schwee!

‘Minccino learned Swift? Is this new?’

The rays streaked towards Roggenrola, pelting it with a shower of light and stopping it dead in its tracks. Still, Swift was a Normal-Type Move, so it couldn’t show its full power against Roggenrola, but did a lot more than the previous Tail Slaps.

“Rogg!” Roggenrola cried out in pain, and instinctively used Harden again. Seeing this opportunity, Minccino didn’t hesitate and unleashed another Swift, connecting once more.

This time, the damage was done and Roggenrola couldn’t stay on its feet, flying back through the gap and colliding with the back of the subway car.

“Roggenrola! Are you okay!” The construction worker yelled, worry evident in his voice.

“Rogg…” The Roggenrola tried standing up, but fell over right as it got back on its feet as Minccino sent another wave of Swift from the opposite side of the gap.

With Roggenrola unable to stand back up, the loudspeaker announced the results from the first battle.

“Roggenrola is unable to continue! Apprentice Trainer George Blackwood and Minccino have won their first match!”