The PokéGames (A Pokémon/Hunger Games Crossover Fan Fiction)

Chapter 11: The Boy

Anton broke off the handshake abruptly and stalked off, followed by the few tributes remaining by the battlefield. That just left Dylan and me. I approached him slowly.

Dylan was taller than me, but nowhere near as tall as Anton, who was six-foot-ridiculous. He wasn't overly muscular, but he was definitely more built than any of the other tributes. He had wavy dark brown hair that curled just over his forehead, the same color as his thick eyebrows, and the surprisingly dark eyelashes that framed his shining green eyes. His nose had a bump in the middle that was only really visible from the side, and he had a strong, square jawline.

"Congratulations." I said, because silence was starting to feel awkward, and that seemed like an appropriate thing to say to someone who had just won a battle.

"That doesn't seem sincere," he noted quickly.

"Well, you got me there. You barely had any strategy, and mostly won by chance." Oh, that's great, flatter him through criticism, that oughta make him not want to kill you.

"Oh, really? Well then, why don't you tell me what I could have done better?" His tone was light, and he was smiling a little with one eyebrow raised in curiosity. Thank goodness he wasn't as quick-tempered as some of the other tributes.

"Well for starters, you had a fighting type Pokémon, which, I'm going to assume was the best of your choices, since fighting types are especially effective against five other types, matched in effectiveness only with ground, might I add."

"I thought you were going to tell me how to improve, not pretend to praise me for things I did well, while really just showing off your apparently extensive knowledge of Pokemon?" Dylan interrupted my train of thought rudely.

I blushed, because he was totally correct, but I continued talking smoothly. "I was getting to that, before you interrupted me. Anyway, even though both types are fairly good at offense, neither one has a type advantage over the other. So, then we look at their stats. Fighting types are generally high in attack, and ground types are generally above average in defense. So, you could have called it even and just tried to do as much damage as quickly as possible, which you did, or you could have thought a little bit and taken advantage of some of your non-damaging moves. Actually, one in particular called-"

"Leer, which would have lowered my opponent's defense and given my fighting Pokémon's high attack stat a chance to be more affective?"

I would have said something. I really would have, if I had known what to say. His knowledge kind of threw me off guard. Dylan started smirking as he continued speaking.

"Yeah, I could have done that. But then he could have used Growl, which would have lowered my Pokémon's attack stat and made us basically even again. So, yeah, we could have leered and growled till training ended, but that would have made for a really boring battle. Plus, I'd rather not bring out that strategy until after training is over, so then the other tributes can't get any ideas while they can still access the necessary information to figure out why making their Pokémon stare menacingly at the opponent may be a better strategy than going in for a tackle."

"True. I'm impressed." And I had also realized that I probably shouldn't be talking battle strategy with a guy who could potentially use it against me in the arena.

"It seems that you're not the only one who is well-educated in the field of Pokemon." He was absolutely right, and that fact both surprised and confused me.

"How do you know so much about battling?"

"Well, it appears to me that you know just as much." There was a hint of mischief in Dylan's eyes as he countered my question.