Ah I see how it is you Helix worshippers you who always don't count Kabutops. More seriously tho it's still be worth using one of them even considering that and Bertha knowing surf and ice beam or again at least mentioning them simply because you can always aim to hold it back to send them out after one of yours is ko'd for a good matchup or to try and force a switch. Probably the Marowak since given Arthur has an Electrode so Swampert is probably the most likely.
Hard Enough - Pokemon SI
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Ah I see how it is you Helix worshippers you who always don't count Kabutops. More seriously tho it's still be worth using one of them even considering that and Bertha knowing surf and ice beam or again at least mentioning them simply because you can always aim to hold it back to send them out after one of yours is ko'd for a good matchup or to try and force a switch. Probably the Marowak since given Arthur has an Electrode so Swampert is probably the most likely.
Chapter 205 - Harsh shake down
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Viva01
Uncomfortable with all the hugs he is given
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The crowd were stomping their feet and cheering to make themselves known after the explosion, but I only had eyes and ears for Arthur. He looked far too composed and pleased with himself.
He'd anticipated whom I was going to send out and what I'd try to do.
I'd certainly taken a toll on his Machamp for taking out Sanchez, but it was a hollow comfort to have in this moment.
With Selene on the field, I would have a much better chance to level the playing field.
"Crowner return!" called Arthur as he returned his pokemon just as Selene started to build up some psychic energy around her to finish her first foe in one hit. I grimaced, that, sadly, had been the best call he could make if he didn't have access to dark-type moves.
"Future Sight," I said with a small smirk. I might not get the chance to throw down a field effect like Stealth Rock, but I could still set a trap.
"Go Dagger!" called Arthur as he sent out his next pokemon.
When the red energy formed up into a Cacturne, I felt a certainty set in for me. Cacturne hadn't been a pokemon listed prior to today on his Ace team. It was a pokemon he'd prepared just for me. Arthur had planned for Selene, and Sanchez.
This entire set up was playing into his favour and with him dictating the pace of the match, I wouldn't be able to fight back.
A grass-dark type was perfect against her, as she couldn't learn Miracle Eye, which I needed.
I would have to withdraw her.
This was a terrible matchup for her and by all rights, I had better options available to me, such as Bertha, or…
That, or I would be stuck being restricted to secondary effects or… fairy-type moves.
I mentally stuttered to a halt.
I had to fight to keep the grin from taking over my features.
Selene knew a powerful fairy type move.
And if there was one thing I'd encountered repeatedly this year, it was that people did not yet have a grasp on fairy type moves or pokemon.
Fairy type were, at this stage, only academically considered to be strong against dragon pokemon.
"Selene! MB now!" I called, my hand shifting away from my pokebelt as I realised I had the answers to this situation already and I didn't need to withdraw her.
Cacturne however wasn't idle, and instead of remaining in place like most grass types, Arthur had him sprinting at us with dark energy around Cacturne.
"Abort! " I called before Selene could put too much energy into the Moonblast.
She flickered for a heartbeat but then glowed and vanished in a wave of psychic energy to reappear on Arthur's side of the field.
Safe as Cacturne stabbed his fists into the space she'd just been.
"Don't let up go again! Keep them on the back foot!" called Arthur, urging his pokemon to go for the throat and take out Selene. His eyes flickered up to me and I knew in that moment I had to show a flicker of doubt. I shifted uneasily before hardening my stance, selling the idea that I was incredibly nervous.
Cacturne charged towards Selene and I had to give Arthur credit, that was one fast pokemon.
Sadly for them, Selene's Teleport had given us what we'd been lacking moments before. I had room enough to watch them come, so I merely levelled an imperious stare at his pokemon as I called out my order.
"MB again," I said.
Arthur was aware of the shift in my posture within a heartbeat, but instead of calling Cacturne off, he gained a flicker of suspicion. Heh, he must think I was bluffing him with my confidence.
I grinned as Selene channelled up her attack. In front of her tips, a large pink orb grew in power and size before being unleashed straight at the oncoming Cacturne.
Cacturne crossed his arms over his body and continued headfirst into the attack, a dark glint in his eyes, and I knew that Cacturne was expecting to punch straight through the Moonblast without any ill effects.
Arthur, who'd been watching my reaction, hissed when my expression if anything grew more hungry as he committed to attacking my pokemon. "Dagger! Pro—" he began to shout an order that might have saved his pokemon.
It was too late, though.
They'd thought it was a psychic attack and that I had made a mistake for long enough to make Arthur step into the trap I'd laid.
Cacturne screamed in pain as it slammed face-first into a powerful fairy type move.
When the light show died away Cacturne was revealed on its knees with its head listlessly staring up into the air. I grinned savagely and shot Arthur a victorious look. I'd just flipped the table on him by laying a trap.
This trap stemmed from understanding his plan, or at least a snippet of it. He'd planned for me to send out Selene to smash his Machamp, which he'd counter with Cacturne.
On paper a perfect move. I could see his intent.
If I had faltered he'd have taken Selene out with a powerful dark type move.
Something about Cacturne being a dark type caused my mind to perk up and my eyes to reinspect the kneeling Cacturne. Why wasn't it falling over?
"Selene! MB aga—" I started to shout and to Selene's credit she began channelling up another Moonblast, only for Cacturne to twitch and launch itself at Selene with its arms spread out wide and a silky purple ribbon of energy lashing out between them.
Selene shot backwards, floating as fast as she could, and Cacturne landed, trying to take another step to pursue, only for its legs to give out. It raised its arm and pushed the ribbon leading out of it as hard as it could, reaching out to connect itself with Selene with what had to be a Destiny Bond.
It was a brilliant move and one I'd seen many times before from fighting with or against Karen in our Guardian training sessions. More than once had I seen her flip a seemingly disastrous situation into a victory with a well-executed Destiny Bond, or a Curse, or Fake Tears.
Which meant I knew that Selene wasn't going to escape.
Not conventionally, anyway.
"Psybeam that bond!" I roared.
Selene went from backpedalling to launching a powerful psychic attack that destabilised the ghost energy of the as-yet unconnected Destiny Bond. The Psybeam continued on and pushed Cacturne back, but didn't otherwise harm it.
"Tch!" said Arthur as he realised his gambit hadn't paid off.
I didn't let him lull me into a false sense of security, however. "MB!" I ordered, and Selene once again unleashed a powerful attack.
This time Cacturne was sent flying and it skipped in a ragdoll fashion over and over itself before falling still on my side of the field.
I punched the air as the referee raised a flag. "Dagger is unable to battle! The score is now one-to-one!"
Instead of licking his wounds and reconsidering his plan, Arthur surprised me by recalling his pokemon instantly, barely waiting for the announcement confirming his pokemon was down and out.
Instead, he locked eyes on Selene who was firmly on his side of the field and therefore fair game for a quick release on his side, where he could get a pokemon out on top of her.
"Selene! Get out of there!" I called.
Selene started channelling another Teleport, but Arthur wasn't going to let us escape that easily.
His arm whipped around and I could see him starting to bring his wrist into the throw in a manner that twigged another part of my brain.
"Go Shadow! Tear into them girl!" he shouted, throwing out his pokeball.
Without even seeing the pokeball land I knew where it would go.
"Selene stop!" I barked fearfully, my mind working in overdrive to understand that once again he'd tried to preempt me.
He had seen the chance to choke up my pokemon's position with a fast release.
In normal terms, there would have been no way for my pokemon to get out, but he knew that Selene was specially trained to Teleport, therefore invalidating his attempt.
Unless you planned for that, made Selene go for the Teleport, and then had a pokemon ready to pounce on her at the halfway line instead. His pokeball landed and disgorged a Mismagius that glowed with dark energy, in readiness for a move coming out straight away.
A Mismagius, who obviously expected a pokemon to be in front of her, twitching only to falter when nothing presented itself before her. She looked slightly to the left, then quickly right, before tilting her head up, confirming for me how Arthur thought.
She'd come out ready to throw out what had to be a Sucker Punch into Selene, who would have only just Teleported back to my side.
Instead, Selene was behind her and in a perfect position for my next move.
Selene, a rock-psychic type against a ghost type pokemon. Yet again, another terrible match-up for me, but one that if I was careful and played it smart, I knew I could win.
I'd just have to dance on a knife's edge to make sure I didn't slip into failure.
"Behind you girl!" Arthur warned, making his pokemon spin around to find Selene there waiting for her.
"Psychic," I growled out. Selene glowed and a moment later Mismagius glowed as Selene grasped her with psychic might.
Mismagius cried out in pain as Selene put the squeeze on the smaller ghost pokemon.
"PF!" said Arthur and his pokemon vanished in a flash of ghost energy, causing Selene's energy to collapse in on nothing.
The average trainer would have no idea what had just happened and might have called foul, but I knew exactly what this move was. It was Phantom Force. The average trainer would have had no idea what to do in this instance, but once again the training I did with the Guardians came in clutch for me.
Phantom Force was a move much like Fly or Dig in the gaming sense, or at least that's how I thought of it. To hear Agatha speak of it, the pokemon travelled into the spirit realm. Just to get her to talk about that had been tough, though, as she'd been very cagey, leading me to believe that this move, more than any other, was what Agatha knew that allowed her to walk through walls and floors like they weren't there.
Oddly enough this move seemed to negate Protect, making it a very useful move for any pokemon that could learn it. The only way I'd thus far discovered to escape it was to Dig into the ground. Something about reforming enough to get off the follow up attack meant it couldn't be used.
So I'd have to use something else instead.
"Future Sight!" I barked, I hadn't seen Selene's previous Future sSight come into effect in a notable way, but that might have had something to do with Cacturne being dark type.
It'd probably evaded the Future Sight or ignored the attack.
A second later Mismagius appeared from nowhere, lunging straight through Selene and causing her to shudder in pain as the super effective move landed.
"Psychi—"
"PF again!" said Arthur, keeping his orders shortened to give himself as much advantage as possible.
"Rest," I said, switching out the move I'd planned, and instead going for a recovery move to keep Selene in the fight.
A moment later Mismagius once again launched herself through my pokemon causing Selene to shudder, but then Future Sight activated and slammed Mismagius into the ground.
I pulsed some dark energy into the bond with Selene and she shook herself awake to find Mismagius struggling to rise. "MB," I said and once again, another pink orb of energy formed up and was launched into Mismagius, finally knocking her out.
I was ready to shout another order just in case, but the referee gave Mismagius a serious look before raising his flag to indicate that she was out of the fight.
"Score Two-one in favour of Brock!" shouted the referee and I punched the air.
That's more like it!
I felt the chills from dancing on a knife's edge with this duel between Mismagius and Selene evaporate, leaving only euphoria for pulling it off.
A grin stretched across my face as my heart thundered. Before Arthur could try and pull another attempt to choke up on my pokemon I used one of my trade outs, returning Selene.
I gave the pokeball containing her a proud grin. "You did incredible out there girl," I said to her.
I put her back on my pokebelt and reached for my next pokemon, as across from me, Arthur toyed with his own options. He only had four pokemon left now, one of which had to be Machamp.
I had a rough idea on what I'd face, but I also knew, rather first-hand, that he might have pokemon up his sleeve I had not accounted for on his Elite Team. The idea of facing an obviously strong trainer had my heart thundering in my ears and a twitch in my fingers as I decided on my next pokemon.
I hadn't felt like this for weeks, if not months now.
Not since my last truly hard battle. For all that I was ahead, I knew without a doubt in the short space of time that I'd fought him, Arthur was a great pokemon trainer. If I slipped up even once, he'd wrench back control of the match.
Arthur had come in with a plan that had me scrambling, but I was doing it. I was beating him back and taking control.
I didn't mind the pressure though, if anything, that merely added to the moment and made me feel more alive.
I stopped my hand on my next choice with a smirk.
Time to stop reacting.
Time to assert myself and take control.
"Yes!" shouted Yolanda as Selene got off a powerful Moonblast to blow away the ghost pokemon.
Next to her Crystal, Greta, and all the others in Brock's entourage, as he liked to call it, were on their feet cheering as the score was announced.
"Brock's on fire!" shouted Rachel.
A.J. grunted, his face locked in a frown, as he stared at the stage.
Next to him, Missy had an equally confused expression. "So, can anyone explain to me what was going on with Brock calling off the Teleport? Like, it seemed to be a good move, but how'd he do that? How'd he read Arthur? I know he watches a lot of matches of the trainer he faces in the lead-up, but that…" Missy waved a limp hand, as if unsure what to say.
"Brock read the throw," said Yolanda.
She earned herself a wall of blank expressions. She raised her hand and mimed a throwing action. "Like, he read Arthur's throwing action and realised what he had planned," she said.
"He read the throw? Just like that?" Missy said incredulously.
"That's it?" said A.J. with his frown lessening.
Yolanda giggled, realising she'd lost Missy and A.J. He had been thinking the same thing as Missy, having not quite understood what Brock had done. The thing was that A.J. was too proud to ask questions like that.
"So seriously, what did he do? Some energy trick with Future Sight? He did use that with Selene earlier", Missy doubled down.
"Oh, that makes more sense," said Crystal.
Yolanda pinched the bridge of her nose and held in a scream of annoyance. "No! I'm telling you, he read Arthur's throwing action."
Yolanda now found herself facing the same wall of disbelief. Missy licked her lips and shifted about nervously. "I'm not so sure—"
Yolanda held up a hand. "Missy, you might have forgotten this, but when the Gym Circuit is closed, Brock spends a lot of his time coaching Little League Baseball. He says that it helps kids with their throwing actions all the time, which directly translates to more accurate throws with pokeballs. What he doesn't mention is that he spends a lot of time in the batting cage coaching people in pitching and throwing. He spends a lot of time on the side watching opposing teams throw at his batters and gives feedback on things to look for."
Yolanda made a final decisive chopping action to put the argument to bed. "He knows when and how to judge people's throwing actions and if they're changing it at the last moment. Which is what happened with Arthur. He read his body language, or in this case, his wrist language, and realised what was going to happen."
"Huh," Missy said. "Baseball?" she asked a moment later with a whimsical tone.
"I might have to look into it," said A.J., earning himself a huff and roll of the eyes from Yolanda. She turned her attention back to the arena. Things had started poorly for Brock, and he'd been on the back foot, but if anything, he'd risen to the occasion, only further energized by it.
Yolanda gave the blown-up display of Brock a thoughtful look.
He looked vibrant, in a way she hadn't seen in quite a while.
Was this what he looked like when he fought against the best trainers? Alive and free?
Would he have reached this level earlier if he hadn't had to look after her and their siblings?
Yolanda found herself curling in on herself a little as dark thoughts started to intrude, only for two small rays of sunshine to pop out of two pokeballs, as though detecting her mood taking a downward spike.
"Spot! Terra! You're not—" was as far as Yolanda got before they both leapt into her hands and in doing so knocked her back into her seat. Terra hugged her while Spot licked her face, causing her to splutter and break out of her funk. "Fine! But stay in my lap! No wandering off if you want to watch," she said firmly.
Both pokemon turned to see what the spectacle was. They both wiggled happily when Brock threw out his next pokemon right after Arthur sent out an Arcanine.
Yolanda's breath hitched as Hypnotoad appeared on the battlefield.
Oh, damn, Brock was really seeking to run away with this fight after his initial stumble, wasn't he?
Yolanda leaned forward, intent on not missing anything as for the first time in the match Brock got the advantage with type match up.
Arthur took one look at the match-up only to catch the returning pokeball and trigger the return feature. "Return Arcanine, that's not a good match up for you!" he called.
"Bulk Up," I called, getting off a buff-up for Hypnotoad, who began doing push-ups like this was a regular training session with Trixie and not a ranked Ace match.
Arthur with his Arcanine tucked away reached for another pokeball which he hurled out, revealing an Electrode of all things. Damn it.
The temptation was there once again, I could have my pokemon fight through. It would be tough, but possible. I'd just need to play it perfectly.
Or I could play it smart.
"Return Hypnotoad," I said, pulling my pokemon out.
Arthur grinned. "Magnet Rise!" he ordered, making his pokemon spark up and begin to levitate above the ground, giving me pause. Huh, and he could do that. I shot Arthur an annoyed look. I'd been planning to send out Bertha to demolish him, but now I felt like that was a bit poor.
Arthur, more than any other trainer I had faced before, had a skill at preempting my moves. It felt like I was riding along only for him to attempt to shove a stick in my spokes every so often.
I could send out Shrek here, but that had the same issue.
I needed someone else.
My grin turned savage, and instantly Arthur was on guard, only for him to grimace as I tugged the greatball off my necklace and sent it out. "Titan! Go!" I shouted.
Titan appeared with a huge roar, and the stadium fell silent for a moment before the crowd rose, screaming and hollering as loudly as they could.
I locked eyes with Arthur, his arm slightly raised, as he had a moment of indecision. Heh, this time I tripped you up.
"Agility!" called Arthur, showing that the lapse was only momentary.
"Spin it up," I said cryptically.
Titan grunted, only to sweep his tail around in a long arc, causing a huge plume of dirt to be blown out, only to then arc around as dust and sand began to rise, filling the arena with a Sandstorm.
"Go on the hunt," I said ominously, right before I lost sight of Arthur. His eyes bulged, and I knew I'd just tripped him up again. That phrase was most certainly not one of the typical phrases I used when commanding Titan.
Everyone and their nanny knew about 'Go Titan' being a signal for Giga Impact, but I did have a few others tucked up my sleeve. Not that it was a phrase with any hidden meanings.
'Go on the hunt' was merely letting Titan play to his natural hunting instincts. Tyranitar after all were ambush predators.
I felt Titan's anticipation through the bond he and I had built over the years as he sank into the ground, hiding with Dig and worming his way in a slow arc towards where we'd last seen Electrode floating.
"—" shouted Arthur, his voice being lost over the howling winds, only for a huge plume of Thunder to blossom out, arcing through the Sandstorm and flash-frying sections of the field. The Thunder arced around, questing for something large, only to not find anything.
The lack of trade out for a flying type that would have easily controlled this had me smiling, Arthur didn't have any pokemon capable of clearing the field. No pokemon with Defog or pokemon that could alter the terrain.
Meaning that I now had true and full control of the battlefield with my rock and ground-type pokemon.
"—" Arthur continued to shout something, and more and more lightning rained down, only to find nothing, as Titan wasn't there.
Perhaps he was trying to glass the field? I thought after a moment when another Thunder rocked the field, that or he was building up a charge and trying to change the terrain through another method. Arthur must have realised this method wasn't working for him, as a red light flashed out and a quick glance to the side revealed that he'd used another trade-out.
I signalled in the bond for Titan to wait. To remain under the ground in readiness.
I shifted so I could keep both the field and the screen in sight, so that I'd know what was coming while Titan would know where it was.
"—" shouted Arthur, his voice still lost in the howling winds of the sandstorm. I frowned as Arcanine's picture was displayed. That was a poor choice… unless he had some tricks up his sleeve.
Whatever it was, Titan and I weren't going to let him play his game as I silently sent through the bond the urge to attack. Titan registered this and anticipation warped into hunger as he surged out of the ground and sank his fangs into Arcanine before it could get off any moves.
With Titan locked on the mighty fire type, it was child's play to have him whip his head back and forth, slamming Arcanine into the ground and ending the fire type's attempt at fighting before it could get started.
Titan roared, and this time the sound carried over the howl of the winds. I felt an odd flicker that momentarily distracted Titan and I as Arthur returned his third pokemon. It had felt like something shifted with the bond. For a moment, I'd felt the coarse sand sweeping over my scales.
Titan sent me a feeling of slight confusion, but I shook it off and replied with focus and determination through the bond. He wanted to linger however on the shift, and I had to impart more of my will, reminding him now was very much not the time to experiment with the bond.
We needed our heads on straight. Arthur was too good a trainer for anything otherwise.
Titan must have been visible to Arthur as he quickly sent out another pokemon, and I was surprised when the screen depicted Machamp taking to the field.
Titan's attention narrowed with laser-like intensity, and I knew he could see the other pokemon. Titan rumbled a warning at Machamp, but I knew we were on the back foot here.
Once again, I decided to play it smart. The Sandstorm would start to weaken, but I knew it worked in my favour to trade, so I did, pulling Titan out instead of risking him and sending out Bertha.
Bertha appeared in front of me with a thump that shook the arena. If Arthur wasn't paying attention to the big screen to work out who I'd sent I had no doubts that he would have had a very large clue just from Bertha's arrival.
"—!" shouted Arthur, and once again he traded out pokemon.
I frowned as this time his Aggron took to the field.
"Bertha, Impact Driver but walk it right into that Aggron," I said. I had an inkling of what Arthur was trying to do here, but I wasn't going to let it happen.
In front of me, Bertha began spinning up her drills as no doubt a huge grin claimed her face. Her body hunkered down as the forces required for this move began to go to work.
A moment later Aggron shot out of the earth in front of Bertha and slammed his head right into her gut, trying to take her out with Dig, followed up by an Iron Tail that Bertha endured.
With each hit Aggron unleashed her grin only grew.
The sandstorm faded away just in time for Bertha to draw back her arm and throw it straight into Aggons chest.
A shriek of metal tore through the arena, causing the crowd to scream in pain at the intensity of the noise.
Aggron, who'd taken the hit from Bertha, was fired like a bullet out a gun into the other side of the field, where he slammed into the barrier before falling limply to the ground. Arthur sighed and returned his pokemon, his gaze travelling thoughtfully back to Bertha.
Bertha stood, with her arm extended and her face etched with a gigantic smile. I had an epiphany and projected a feeling of fake weakness to Bertha. Bertha took a moment to register the feeling, sending back confusion for a moment before understanding swept through the bond.
Without warning, she toppled to one knee, seemingly taking too much damage while charging up her attack.
She shuddered theatrically, and I tried to get her to tone it down, but she shot me a wink, and I could only sigh. I made a show of reaching for my pokeball only for Bertha to valiantly hold out a hand and deny me as she struggled back onto her feet.
Arthur's hand wavered on his pokebelt as he stared at me and Bertha, both of us staring him back down in challenge.
He sighed and raised a hand. "I shall withdraw. I tried my hand at a few tactics, and some of them worked while others didn't. I think I will keep some secrets going into the tournament next weekend," he said.
I blinked in surprise, suddenly finding myself in a bit of a lurch.
Bertha straightened, losing her 'fatigue' and snapping her fingers in annoyance. "Rhyperior!" she said petulantly.
Arthur blinked. "Wait? That was another bait?" he said incredulously. He grinned. "Heh! Turns out I have good instincts," he said aloud.
I huffed, shooting Bertha an annoyed glance only for her to ignore it, all the while shooting Arthur less than pleased looks with her arms crossed.
She'd obviously wanted a better showing with more fights, but instead had to settle for taking out only one of his pokemon.
I shook my head. Ah well, I'd tried something new there but it hadn't worked out. If the match had continued, that might have been a different matter.
I sighed, and as the podium lowered, I evaded the slow process, choosing instead to skip over the railing and land behind Bertha, who was still pouting. I patted her on the back. "Hey, you sold it pretty well, we were just in too strong a position, it seems," I said.
"Heh yeah, you were; Machamp was still a bit fried from that Explosion, and Electrode… well I don't think his Magnet Rise would have lasted much longer," Arthur said as he approached to shake my hand.
He gave me what must be his signature charming smile. "So? How'd I do?" he asked in a friendly manner.
I opened my mouth to give him his feedback, only to pause as my mind caught up with my mouth and strangled the words before they could come out. I shut my mouth and shot him a calculating look. "You're still going to be within the top ten after this match, aren't you?" I asked.
Arthur shrugged far too easily, and I narrowed my eyes. "You want me to give you feedback, but we're going to be facing each other again."
"Possibly, we might be in different brackets, but… well I wouldn't say no," he said cheekily.
I shook my head, denying him as my brain won out. "I got warned a while back that giving feedback would bite me in the backside, and with how many tactics you have, I think I need to stay on my toes for you."
"Heh," Arthur said. "That's funny." He waved a hand towards the crowd. "Look at the front row; most of them will be there as well," he said, indicating the front row, which had most of the top ten if not top twenty Ace trainers in Indigo watching with hungry looks.
Huh, he was right. They'd been watching and, no doubt, taking notes.
Arthur smiled easily. "Word of advice? Things are much tougher up here in the top ten. You'll fit in well if you can last, but don't think it'll be easy. Everyone's going to adapt to what they saw of you today, just like they will me. My withdrawal from the match? It wasn't shameful when I had a bigger prize in mind."
"It was strategic," I murmured, understanding that he was thinking a little longer.
Arthur nodded. "Good match, if we fight again? I will be stronger," he said with a smile that showed some teeth.
I gave him my own savage grin with Bertha backing me up. "So will we," I said, shaking his hand in farewell.
As we departed, I felt a sense of satisfaction run through me.
This had been a much tougher match than most of the matches I'd had so far, and Arthur was only ranked seventh.
What would Bruce, Carr, Kaede, Joshua or Corey be like to fight?
Despite having just fought, I felt another wave of anticipation run through me. I returned to my group with that same smile on my lips.
Yolanda nudged me. "Make a friend?" she asked, referencing my chat with Arthur at the end.
I chuckled. "More like a rival," I said happily.
A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support! For those looking to join we're up to chapter 252 on patreon!
Thanks also goes to Twmmy and Meneldur for proofreading this chapter
He'd anticipated whom I was going to send out and what I'd try to do.
I'd certainly taken a toll on his Machamp for taking out Sanchez, but it was a hollow comfort to have in this moment.
With Selene on the field, I would have a much better chance to level the playing field.
"Crowner return!" called Arthur as he returned his pokemon just as Selene started to build up some psychic energy around her to finish her first foe in one hit. I grimaced, that, sadly, had been the best call he could make if he didn't have access to dark-type moves.
"Future Sight," I said with a small smirk. I might not get the chance to throw down a field effect like Stealth Rock, but I could still set a trap.
"Go Dagger!" called Arthur as he sent out his next pokemon.
When the red energy formed up into a Cacturne, I felt a certainty set in for me. Cacturne hadn't been a pokemon listed prior to today on his Ace team. It was a pokemon he'd prepared just for me. Arthur had planned for Selene, and Sanchez.
This entire set up was playing into his favour and with him dictating the pace of the match, I wouldn't be able to fight back.
A grass-dark type was perfect against her, as she couldn't learn Miracle Eye, which I needed.
I would have to withdraw her.
This was a terrible matchup for her and by all rights, I had better options available to me, such as Bertha, or…
That, or I would be stuck being restricted to secondary effects or… fairy-type moves.
I mentally stuttered to a halt.
I had to fight to keep the grin from taking over my features.
Selene knew a powerful fairy type move.
And if there was one thing I'd encountered repeatedly this year, it was that people did not yet have a grasp on fairy type moves or pokemon.
Fairy type were, at this stage, only academically considered to be strong against dragon pokemon.
"Selene! MB now!" I called, my hand shifting away from my pokebelt as I realised I had the answers to this situation already and I didn't need to withdraw her.
Cacturne however wasn't idle, and instead of remaining in place like most grass types, Arthur had him sprinting at us with dark energy around Cacturne.
"Abort! " I called before Selene could put too much energy into the Moonblast.
She flickered for a heartbeat but then glowed and vanished in a wave of psychic energy to reappear on Arthur's side of the field.
Safe as Cacturne stabbed his fists into the space she'd just been.
"Don't let up go again! Keep them on the back foot!" called Arthur, urging his pokemon to go for the throat and take out Selene. His eyes flickered up to me and I knew in that moment I had to show a flicker of doubt. I shifted uneasily before hardening my stance, selling the idea that I was incredibly nervous.
Cacturne charged towards Selene and I had to give Arthur credit, that was one fast pokemon.
Sadly for them, Selene's Teleport had given us what we'd been lacking moments before. I had room enough to watch them come, so I merely levelled an imperious stare at his pokemon as I called out my order.
"MB again," I said.
Arthur was aware of the shift in my posture within a heartbeat, but instead of calling Cacturne off, he gained a flicker of suspicion. Heh, he must think I was bluffing him with my confidence.
I grinned as Selene channelled up her attack. In front of her tips, a large pink orb grew in power and size before being unleashed straight at the oncoming Cacturne.
Cacturne crossed his arms over his body and continued headfirst into the attack, a dark glint in his eyes, and I knew that Cacturne was expecting to punch straight through the Moonblast without any ill effects.
Arthur, who'd been watching my reaction, hissed when my expression if anything grew more hungry as he committed to attacking my pokemon. "Dagger! Pro—" he began to shout an order that might have saved his pokemon.
It was too late, though.
They'd thought it was a psychic attack and that I had made a mistake for long enough to make Arthur step into the trap I'd laid.
Cacturne screamed in pain as it slammed face-first into a powerful fairy type move.
When the light show died away Cacturne was revealed on its knees with its head listlessly staring up into the air. I grinned savagely and shot Arthur a victorious look. I'd just flipped the table on him by laying a trap.
This trap stemmed from understanding his plan, or at least a snippet of it. He'd planned for me to send out Selene to smash his Machamp, which he'd counter with Cacturne.
On paper a perfect move. I could see his intent.
If I had faltered he'd have taken Selene out with a powerful dark type move.
Something about Cacturne being a dark type caused my mind to perk up and my eyes to reinspect the kneeling Cacturne. Why wasn't it falling over?
"Selene! MB aga—" I started to shout and to Selene's credit she began channelling up another Moonblast, only for Cacturne to twitch and launch itself at Selene with its arms spread out wide and a silky purple ribbon of energy lashing out between them.
Selene shot backwards, floating as fast as she could, and Cacturne landed, trying to take another step to pursue, only for its legs to give out. It raised its arm and pushed the ribbon leading out of it as hard as it could, reaching out to connect itself with Selene with what had to be a Destiny Bond.
It was a brilliant move and one I'd seen many times before from fighting with or against Karen in our Guardian training sessions. More than once had I seen her flip a seemingly disastrous situation into a victory with a well-executed Destiny Bond, or a Curse, or Fake Tears.
Which meant I knew that Selene wasn't going to escape.
Not conventionally, anyway.
"Psybeam that bond!" I roared.
Selene went from backpedalling to launching a powerful psychic attack that destabilised the ghost energy of the as-yet unconnected Destiny Bond. The Psybeam continued on and pushed Cacturne back, but didn't otherwise harm it.
"Tch!" said Arthur as he realised his gambit hadn't paid off.
I didn't let him lull me into a false sense of security, however. "MB!" I ordered, and Selene once again unleashed a powerful attack.
This time Cacturne was sent flying and it skipped in a ragdoll fashion over and over itself before falling still on my side of the field.
I punched the air as the referee raised a flag. "Dagger is unable to battle! The score is now one-to-one!"
Instead of licking his wounds and reconsidering his plan, Arthur surprised me by recalling his pokemon instantly, barely waiting for the announcement confirming his pokemon was down and out.
Instead, he locked eyes on Selene who was firmly on his side of the field and therefore fair game for a quick release on his side, where he could get a pokemon out on top of her.
"Selene! Get out of there!" I called.
Selene started channelling another Teleport, but Arthur wasn't going to let us escape that easily.
His arm whipped around and I could see him starting to bring his wrist into the throw in a manner that twigged another part of my brain.
"Go Shadow! Tear into them girl!" he shouted, throwing out his pokeball.
Without even seeing the pokeball land I knew where it would go.
"Selene stop!" I barked fearfully, my mind working in overdrive to understand that once again he'd tried to preempt me.
He had seen the chance to choke up my pokemon's position with a fast release.
In normal terms, there would have been no way for my pokemon to get out, but he knew that Selene was specially trained to Teleport, therefore invalidating his attempt.
Unless you planned for that, made Selene go for the Teleport, and then had a pokemon ready to pounce on her at the halfway line instead. His pokeball landed and disgorged a Mismagius that glowed with dark energy, in readiness for a move coming out straight away.
A Mismagius, who obviously expected a pokemon to be in front of her, twitching only to falter when nothing presented itself before her. She looked slightly to the left, then quickly right, before tilting her head up, confirming for me how Arthur thought.
She'd come out ready to throw out what had to be a Sucker Punch into Selene, who would have only just Teleported back to my side.
Instead, Selene was behind her and in a perfect position for my next move.
Selene, a rock-psychic type against a ghost type pokemon. Yet again, another terrible match-up for me, but one that if I was careful and played it smart, I knew I could win.
I'd just have to dance on a knife's edge to make sure I didn't slip into failure.
"Behind you girl!" Arthur warned, making his pokemon spin around to find Selene there waiting for her.
"Psychic," I growled out. Selene glowed and a moment later Mismagius glowed as Selene grasped her with psychic might.
Mismagius cried out in pain as Selene put the squeeze on the smaller ghost pokemon.
"PF!" said Arthur and his pokemon vanished in a flash of ghost energy, causing Selene's energy to collapse in on nothing.
The average trainer would have no idea what had just happened and might have called foul, but I knew exactly what this move was. It was Phantom Force. The average trainer would have had no idea what to do in this instance, but once again the training I did with the Guardians came in clutch for me.
Phantom Force was a move much like Fly or Dig in the gaming sense, or at least that's how I thought of it. To hear Agatha speak of it, the pokemon travelled into the spirit realm. Just to get her to talk about that had been tough, though, as she'd been very cagey, leading me to believe that this move, more than any other, was what Agatha knew that allowed her to walk through walls and floors like they weren't there.
Oddly enough this move seemed to negate Protect, making it a very useful move for any pokemon that could learn it. The only way I'd thus far discovered to escape it was to Dig into the ground. Something about reforming enough to get off the follow up attack meant it couldn't be used.
So I'd have to use something else instead.
"Future Sight!" I barked, I hadn't seen Selene's previous Future sSight come into effect in a notable way, but that might have had something to do with Cacturne being dark type.
It'd probably evaded the Future Sight or ignored the attack.
A second later Mismagius appeared from nowhere, lunging straight through Selene and causing her to shudder in pain as the super effective move landed.
"Psychi—"
"PF again!" said Arthur, keeping his orders shortened to give himself as much advantage as possible.
"Rest," I said, switching out the move I'd planned, and instead going for a recovery move to keep Selene in the fight.
A moment later Mismagius once again launched herself through my pokemon causing Selene to shudder, but then Future Sight activated and slammed Mismagius into the ground.
I pulsed some dark energy into the bond with Selene and she shook herself awake to find Mismagius struggling to rise. "MB," I said and once again, another pink orb of energy formed up and was launched into Mismagius, finally knocking her out.
I was ready to shout another order just in case, but the referee gave Mismagius a serious look before raising his flag to indicate that she was out of the fight.
"Score Two-one in favour of Brock!" shouted the referee and I punched the air.
That's more like it!
I felt the chills from dancing on a knife's edge with this duel between Mismagius and Selene evaporate, leaving only euphoria for pulling it off.
A grin stretched across my face as my heart thundered. Before Arthur could try and pull another attempt to choke up on my pokemon I used one of my trade outs, returning Selene.
I gave the pokeball containing her a proud grin. "You did incredible out there girl," I said to her.
I put her back on my pokebelt and reached for my next pokemon, as across from me, Arthur toyed with his own options. He only had four pokemon left now, one of which had to be Machamp.
I had a rough idea on what I'd face, but I also knew, rather first-hand, that he might have pokemon up his sleeve I had not accounted for on his Elite Team. The idea of facing an obviously strong trainer had my heart thundering in my ears and a twitch in my fingers as I decided on my next pokemon.
I hadn't felt like this for weeks, if not months now.
Not since my last truly hard battle. For all that I was ahead, I knew without a doubt in the short space of time that I'd fought him, Arthur was a great pokemon trainer. If I slipped up even once, he'd wrench back control of the match.
Arthur had come in with a plan that had me scrambling, but I was doing it. I was beating him back and taking control.
I didn't mind the pressure though, if anything, that merely added to the moment and made me feel more alive.
I stopped my hand on my next choice with a smirk.
Time to stop reacting.
Time to assert myself and take control.
"Yes!" shouted Yolanda as Selene got off a powerful Moonblast to blow away the ghost pokemon.
Next to her Crystal, Greta, and all the others in Brock's entourage, as he liked to call it, were on their feet cheering as the score was announced.
"Brock's on fire!" shouted Rachel.
A.J. grunted, his face locked in a frown, as he stared at the stage.
Next to him, Missy had an equally confused expression. "So, can anyone explain to me what was going on with Brock calling off the Teleport? Like, it seemed to be a good move, but how'd he do that? How'd he read Arthur? I know he watches a lot of matches of the trainer he faces in the lead-up, but that…" Missy waved a limp hand, as if unsure what to say.
"Brock read the throw," said Yolanda.
She earned herself a wall of blank expressions. She raised her hand and mimed a throwing action. "Like, he read Arthur's throwing action and realised what he had planned," she said.
"He read the throw? Just like that?" Missy said incredulously.
"That's it?" said A.J. with his frown lessening.
Yolanda giggled, realising she'd lost Missy and A.J. He had been thinking the same thing as Missy, having not quite understood what Brock had done. The thing was that A.J. was too proud to ask questions like that.
"So seriously, what did he do? Some energy trick with Future Sight? He did use that with Selene earlier", Missy doubled down.
"Oh, that makes more sense," said Crystal.
Yolanda pinched the bridge of her nose and held in a scream of annoyance. "No! I'm telling you, he read Arthur's throwing action."
Yolanda now found herself facing the same wall of disbelief. Missy licked her lips and shifted about nervously. "I'm not so sure—"
Yolanda held up a hand. "Missy, you might have forgotten this, but when the Gym Circuit is closed, Brock spends a lot of his time coaching Little League Baseball. He says that it helps kids with their throwing actions all the time, which directly translates to more accurate throws with pokeballs. What he doesn't mention is that he spends a lot of time in the batting cage coaching people in pitching and throwing. He spends a lot of time on the side watching opposing teams throw at his batters and gives feedback on things to look for."
Yolanda made a final decisive chopping action to put the argument to bed. "He knows when and how to judge people's throwing actions and if they're changing it at the last moment. Which is what happened with Arthur. He read his body language, or in this case, his wrist language, and realised what was going to happen."
"Huh," Missy said. "Baseball?" she asked a moment later with a whimsical tone.
"I might have to look into it," said A.J., earning himself a huff and roll of the eyes from Yolanda. She turned her attention back to the arena. Things had started poorly for Brock, and he'd been on the back foot, but if anything, he'd risen to the occasion, only further energized by it.
Yolanda gave the blown-up display of Brock a thoughtful look.
He looked vibrant, in a way she hadn't seen in quite a while.
Was this what he looked like when he fought against the best trainers? Alive and free?
Would he have reached this level earlier if he hadn't had to look after her and their siblings?
Yolanda found herself curling in on herself a little as dark thoughts started to intrude, only for two small rays of sunshine to pop out of two pokeballs, as though detecting her mood taking a downward spike.
"Spot! Terra! You're not—" was as far as Yolanda got before they both leapt into her hands and in doing so knocked her back into her seat. Terra hugged her while Spot licked her face, causing her to splutter and break out of her funk. "Fine! But stay in my lap! No wandering off if you want to watch," she said firmly.
Both pokemon turned to see what the spectacle was. They both wiggled happily when Brock threw out his next pokemon right after Arthur sent out an Arcanine.
Yolanda's breath hitched as Hypnotoad appeared on the battlefield.
Oh, damn, Brock was really seeking to run away with this fight after his initial stumble, wasn't he?
Yolanda leaned forward, intent on not missing anything as for the first time in the match Brock got the advantage with type match up.
Arthur took one look at the match-up only to catch the returning pokeball and trigger the return feature. "Return Arcanine, that's not a good match up for you!" he called.
"Bulk Up," I called, getting off a buff-up for Hypnotoad, who began doing push-ups like this was a regular training session with Trixie and not a ranked Ace match.
Arthur with his Arcanine tucked away reached for another pokeball which he hurled out, revealing an Electrode of all things. Damn it.
The temptation was there once again, I could have my pokemon fight through. It would be tough, but possible. I'd just need to play it perfectly.
Or I could play it smart.
"Return Hypnotoad," I said, pulling my pokemon out.
Arthur grinned. "Magnet Rise!" he ordered, making his pokemon spark up and begin to levitate above the ground, giving me pause. Huh, and he could do that. I shot Arthur an annoyed look. I'd been planning to send out Bertha to demolish him, but now I felt like that was a bit poor.
Arthur, more than any other trainer I had faced before, had a skill at preempting my moves. It felt like I was riding along only for him to attempt to shove a stick in my spokes every so often.
I could send out Shrek here, but that had the same issue.
I needed someone else.
My grin turned savage, and instantly Arthur was on guard, only for him to grimace as I tugged the greatball off my necklace and sent it out. "Titan! Go!" I shouted.
Titan appeared with a huge roar, and the stadium fell silent for a moment before the crowd rose, screaming and hollering as loudly as they could.
I locked eyes with Arthur, his arm slightly raised, as he had a moment of indecision. Heh, this time I tripped you up.
"Agility!" called Arthur, showing that the lapse was only momentary.
"Spin it up," I said cryptically.
Titan grunted, only to sweep his tail around in a long arc, causing a huge plume of dirt to be blown out, only to then arc around as dust and sand began to rise, filling the arena with a Sandstorm.
"Go on the hunt," I said ominously, right before I lost sight of Arthur. His eyes bulged, and I knew I'd just tripped him up again. That phrase was most certainly not one of the typical phrases I used when commanding Titan.
Everyone and their nanny knew about 'Go Titan' being a signal for Giga Impact, but I did have a few others tucked up my sleeve. Not that it was a phrase with any hidden meanings.
'Go on the hunt' was merely letting Titan play to his natural hunting instincts. Tyranitar after all were ambush predators.
I felt Titan's anticipation through the bond he and I had built over the years as he sank into the ground, hiding with Dig and worming his way in a slow arc towards where we'd last seen Electrode floating.
"—" shouted Arthur, his voice being lost over the howling winds, only for a huge plume of Thunder to blossom out, arcing through the Sandstorm and flash-frying sections of the field. The Thunder arced around, questing for something large, only to not find anything.
The lack of trade out for a flying type that would have easily controlled this had me smiling, Arthur didn't have any pokemon capable of clearing the field. No pokemon with Defog or pokemon that could alter the terrain.
Meaning that I now had true and full control of the battlefield with my rock and ground-type pokemon.
"—" Arthur continued to shout something, and more and more lightning rained down, only to find nothing, as Titan wasn't there.
Perhaps he was trying to glass the field? I thought after a moment when another Thunder rocked the field, that or he was building up a charge and trying to change the terrain through another method. Arthur must have realised this method wasn't working for him, as a red light flashed out and a quick glance to the side revealed that he'd used another trade-out.
I signalled in the bond for Titan to wait. To remain under the ground in readiness.
I shifted so I could keep both the field and the screen in sight, so that I'd know what was coming while Titan would know where it was.
"—" shouted Arthur, his voice still lost in the howling winds of the sandstorm. I frowned as Arcanine's picture was displayed. That was a poor choice… unless he had some tricks up his sleeve.
Whatever it was, Titan and I weren't going to let him play his game as I silently sent through the bond the urge to attack. Titan registered this and anticipation warped into hunger as he surged out of the ground and sank his fangs into Arcanine before it could get off any moves.
With Titan locked on the mighty fire type, it was child's play to have him whip his head back and forth, slamming Arcanine into the ground and ending the fire type's attempt at fighting before it could get started.
Titan roared, and this time the sound carried over the howl of the winds. I felt an odd flicker that momentarily distracted Titan and I as Arthur returned his third pokemon. It had felt like something shifted with the bond. For a moment, I'd felt the coarse sand sweeping over my scales.
Titan sent me a feeling of slight confusion, but I shook it off and replied with focus and determination through the bond. He wanted to linger however on the shift, and I had to impart more of my will, reminding him now was very much not the time to experiment with the bond.
We needed our heads on straight. Arthur was too good a trainer for anything otherwise.
Titan must have been visible to Arthur as he quickly sent out another pokemon, and I was surprised when the screen depicted Machamp taking to the field.
Titan's attention narrowed with laser-like intensity, and I knew he could see the other pokemon. Titan rumbled a warning at Machamp, but I knew we were on the back foot here.
Once again, I decided to play it smart. The Sandstorm would start to weaken, but I knew it worked in my favour to trade, so I did, pulling Titan out instead of risking him and sending out Bertha.
Bertha appeared in front of me with a thump that shook the arena. If Arthur wasn't paying attention to the big screen to work out who I'd sent I had no doubts that he would have had a very large clue just from Bertha's arrival.
"—!" shouted Arthur, and once again he traded out pokemon.
I frowned as this time his Aggron took to the field.
"Bertha, Impact Driver but walk it right into that Aggron," I said. I had an inkling of what Arthur was trying to do here, but I wasn't going to let it happen.
In front of me, Bertha began spinning up her drills as no doubt a huge grin claimed her face. Her body hunkered down as the forces required for this move began to go to work.
A moment later Aggron shot out of the earth in front of Bertha and slammed his head right into her gut, trying to take her out with Dig, followed up by an Iron Tail that Bertha endured.
With each hit Aggron unleashed her grin only grew.
The sandstorm faded away just in time for Bertha to draw back her arm and throw it straight into Aggons chest.
A shriek of metal tore through the arena, causing the crowd to scream in pain at the intensity of the noise.
Aggron, who'd taken the hit from Bertha, was fired like a bullet out a gun into the other side of the field, where he slammed into the barrier before falling limply to the ground. Arthur sighed and returned his pokemon, his gaze travelling thoughtfully back to Bertha.
Bertha stood, with her arm extended and her face etched with a gigantic smile. I had an epiphany and projected a feeling of fake weakness to Bertha. Bertha took a moment to register the feeling, sending back confusion for a moment before understanding swept through the bond.
Without warning, she toppled to one knee, seemingly taking too much damage while charging up her attack.
She shuddered theatrically, and I tried to get her to tone it down, but she shot me a wink, and I could only sigh. I made a show of reaching for my pokeball only for Bertha to valiantly hold out a hand and deny me as she struggled back onto her feet.
Arthur's hand wavered on his pokebelt as he stared at me and Bertha, both of us staring him back down in challenge.
He sighed and raised a hand. "I shall withdraw. I tried my hand at a few tactics, and some of them worked while others didn't. I think I will keep some secrets going into the tournament next weekend," he said.
I blinked in surprise, suddenly finding myself in a bit of a lurch.
Bertha straightened, losing her 'fatigue' and snapping her fingers in annoyance. "Rhyperior!" she said petulantly.
Arthur blinked. "Wait? That was another bait?" he said incredulously. He grinned. "Heh! Turns out I have good instincts," he said aloud.
I huffed, shooting Bertha an annoyed glance only for her to ignore it, all the while shooting Arthur less than pleased looks with her arms crossed.
She'd obviously wanted a better showing with more fights, but instead had to settle for taking out only one of his pokemon.
I shook my head. Ah well, I'd tried something new there but it hadn't worked out. If the match had continued, that might have been a different matter.
I sighed, and as the podium lowered, I evaded the slow process, choosing instead to skip over the railing and land behind Bertha, who was still pouting. I patted her on the back. "Hey, you sold it pretty well, we were just in too strong a position, it seems," I said.
"Heh yeah, you were; Machamp was still a bit fried from that Explosion, and Electrode… well I don't think his Magnet Rise would have lasted much longer," Arthur said as he approached to shake my hand.
He gave me what must be his signature charming smile. "So? How'd I do?" he asked in a friendly manner.
I opened my mouth to give him his feedback, only to pause as my mind caught up with my mouth and strangled the words before they could come out. I shut my mouth and shot him a calculating look. "You're still going to be within the top ten after this match, aren't you?" I asked.
Arthur shrugged far too easily, and I narrowed my eyes. "You want me to give you feedback, but we're going to be facing each other again."
"Possibly, we might be in different brackets, but… well I wouldn't say no," he said cheekily.
I shook my head, denying him as my brain won out. "I got warned a while back that giving feedback would bite me in the backside, and with how many tactics you have, I think I need to stay on my toes for you."
"Heh," Arthur said. "That's funny." He waved a hand towards the crowd. "Look at the front row; most of them will be there as well," he said, indicating the front row, which had most of the top ten if not top twenty Ace trainers in Indigo watching with hungry looks.
Huh, he was right. They'd been watching and, no doubt, taking notes.
Arthur smiled easily. "Word of advice? Things are much tougher up here in the top ten. You'll fit in well if you can last, but don't think it'll be easy. Everyone's going to adapt to what they saw of you today, just like they will me. My withdrawal from the match? It wasn't shameful when I had a bigger prize in mind."
"It was strategic," I murmured, understanding that he was thinking a little longer.
Arthur nodded. "Good match, if we fight again? I will be stronger," he said with a smile that showed some teeth.
I gave him my own savage grin with Bertha backing me up. "So will we," I said, shaking his hand in farewell.
As we departed, I felt a sense of satisfaction run through me.
This had been a much tougher match than most of the matches I'd had so far, and Arthur was only ranked seventh.
What would Bruce, Carr, Kaede, Joshua or Corey be like to fight?
Despite having just fought, I felt another wave of anticipation run through me. I returned to my group with that same smile on my lips.
Yolanda nudged me. "Make a friend?" she asked, referencing my chat with Arthur at the end.
I chuckled. "More like a rival," I said happily.
A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support! For those looking to join we're up to chapter 252 on patreon!
Thanks also goes to Twmmy and Meneldur for proofreading this chapter
- Location
- Elsewhere
That last line, it instantly summoned this song into my head:
View: https://youtu.be/YEiVn63Ue34?si=hZQzO2e2xq44AMtG
View: https://youtu.be/YEiVn63Ue34?si=hZQzO2e2xq44AMtG
- Location
- Miami
Sneaky move with the withdrawal there, but I can respect it strategically.
Chapter 206 - Reviews and interrupts
New
Viva01
Uncomfortable with all the hugs he is given
- Location
- Australia
I shifted and bobbed from foot to foot as I waited for the Nurse Joy of Commerce City to heal up my pokemon team. Thankfully, the place was empty at the moment, barring my group.
"Ahahaha! Let's go! Damn, that was a fun match!" I said, as I bounced from foot to foot. Around me, my entourage snickered at my childish behaviour.
Missy shot me a smirk. "Good fights really get you fired up, eh?" she said, eying my bouncing form.
I shrugged. "Eh, it's the truth? Being challenged like that? I'm pretty sure they call it a battle high, but damn it feels good to push yourself. I was sweating and working overtime with switching up tactics. If this is what the top ten trainers are like, I am going to have to work for every win!" I could already see it, the fights growing tougher and tougher with each of the top ten being seasoned veterans. It sounded like the perfect conditions to grow stronger.
Missy flicked her eyes over me once again. "That doesn't seem to be a problem for you."
I laughed. "Guess I'm a battle junkie? But then again, who isn't?"
A.J. shrugged. "Eh, it makes more sense for you to react this way than other people." When the others looked at him, he waved an arm at me. "Most of the time, you have to hold back."
I waved a hand. "I wouldn't call what I do holding back. I have to find ways to test people and challenge them, it's—" I rubbed some fingers over my jawline in thought. "—Not really the same thing, it's still making me push myself, it's just that the stress is different."
Yolanda giggled. "Wait until you see him after an Elite Challenge when he pulls a win. He's bouncing off the walls."
Rachel snickered at the thought. "You are almost as cute as Trixie sometimes," said the small rainbow-haired girl.
I paused and considered Trixie. Instead of conjuring an image of her in cute poses or outfits, my mind shunted my thought process to that of her doing a salmon ladder. She was slamming the machine with her huge frame, and I could just imagine sweat glistening on her abs and a fierce grin as she worked herself further into rippled perfection.
Even in my imagination…
As a group, we shook our heads and I thought I heard Alexa say something about, "While we daydreamed, Trixie was training." The others giggled and this disrupted Rachel, causing her to wipe at her mouth to get rid of some drool before coughing. "Anyway, the point is you showed off some serious skills and were able to lock yourself into the tournament next week. Now you can focus on running the gym and getting your pokemon up to par for it."
I nodded, stretching out my arms. "Yup, gonna be a lot of review for this one, cause there were a ton of mistakes and moves that I think I'm going to have to expect going forward. Arthur has shown me that people are not sitting idly and letting me advance—" I got a number of blank faces at this, so I quickly tacked on a "—and getting results that force me onto the back foot," I said.
This got a round of murmurs and nods. Before today, there had been a level of… well, power difference was perhaps the kindest way of describing it.
The trainers had the right pokemon and the right moves, but they were too slow in their orders and tactics, and their pokemon were likewise lacking in power or speed to knock back my pokemon.
I chewed my lip. "I also don't think I'll get as lucky again with people remaining ignorant of fairy typing and its effects."
"What about it specifically?" asked Greta.
I rubbed my head. "A lot of people have associated it with being super effective against dragon types, but there's more to it than that. It's also strong against dark type pokemon, which shores up Selene's weakness rather well. However, it's also super effective against fighting type pokemon."
Everyone stared at me while I said this and it took a moment for me to realise that Greta had her pokedex out and was in fact recording me.
I coughed. "Really?" I said, giving her a dubious look.
Greta held up her pokedex like a shield, peering through it, so she didn't need to meet my eyes. "Uhm, it's just that a lot of the research that I've been able to read and what I've talked about with Professor Oak is its impact on dragon types, along with what moves and pokemons are and are not fairy types."
Yolanda tilted her head. "Huh, Brock was always very aware of them, I remember him telling lots of stories about Dian—" I coughed harshly to cut her off.
I did not need Yolanda 'helping out' by telling tales about Diancie. It didn't stop Greta from gaining a look and turning her attention to Yolanda who merely shrugged and whispered. "I'll tell you about her later," she said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I can hear you," I said, before deciding to ignore it. Instead, I exhaled in a long slow manner to get rid of the excess energy that I still had jittering through my body.
"Right, so that match fairly shook things up though," I said as I checked my watch. "Hmmm, we have another thirty minutes before our transport Teleport is booked in, so if everyone's alright with it, let's do a quiet debrief while things are fresh."
I gestured to a lounge off to the side while reaching into my pouch and drawing out one of the work laptops.
Alexa raised a hand. "You don't need me for this and I got a later Teleport lined up, as I've got a date."
Crystal wolf-whistled at Alexa. "I knew you were more dolled up than usual!"
Yolanda merely nodded. "Good luck on your date!"
I waved a hand, more than happy to let her clock off now. "Have fun and I will see you… Monday?" I said as I opened up the roster on the laptop to see that she had tomorrow off. I shot her an amused look and resisted the urge to ask her how late her Teleport was booked for.
I had a sneaking suspicion that if her date went well, she might just reschedule it for later. Alexa pointedly looked to the side, not meeting my knowing gaze as she waved and trotted off.
I heard Nurse Joy calling for me and I moved to collect my pokemon from her with the customary. "We hope to see you again!" given with a bow.
I turned back to find the younger girls nudging A.J., Crystal leading them. "Did you even notice that she had dressed up more than usual?"
A.J. opened his mouth and without having to hear what he was about to say I instinctively knew that he was going to put his foot in it. So I spoke over him. "A.J., when a lady asks you that, the safest and most correct answer is that they always look amazing. Never tell a girl they look tired or frumpy," I said as I quickly typed up some notes.
Missy, Yolanda, Greta, and Crystal's attentions all turned to me but I, like Alexa had earlier, avoided their gazes with a practised nonchalance. I finished what I was doing and clapped my hands. "Right! So, the match?" I said, nudging things along instead of letting them linger.
I spotted A.J. writing something in a small notepad, only to glance up and mouth a 'thanks' to me.
"Right, so one of the biggest and first things I noticed was that due to just the waiting area for this stadium, the meta is different," I said, getting us underway and further dispelling the girls' critical gazes.
I ran through my observations from earlier, noting how everyone had been prepared for it. "The situation is that of 'if you know, you know'. I can assure you that no emails or notifications were given to me regarding the shared space, but it could perhaps be implied depending on how many matches one has in the gym circuit," I said.
"How would that make you aware of it?" asked Greta with a raised hand.
I held in a chuckle at her schoolroom antics and gestured to her like a teacher would. "A lot of matches can be quite spontaneous or seemingly spontaneous when you are in the gym circuit. You don't hear about it, but there are a lot of trainers that are known as rookie crushers, or people that will 'snipe battle' you." I raised a hand and glanced around for a whiteboard and was rather surprised when there was one.
Huh, the Commerce City Pokecenter had a few nifty features I thought to myself as I pointed to the whiteboard and moved our group over to it. I grabbed a marker and began jotting down my thoughts.
"So! The rookie crushers are just that, bullies that like to come at young or inexperienced trainers. They will look for certain tells with their opponents and are typically way more active during the start of the circuit, as that's when you have the most young and inexperienced trainers moving about." I drew a free-hand drawing of a large brutish man laughing at a pair of young trainers, a little boy and a girl who looked like they were barking at the crusher.
"Now, they do this as there is the possibility of earning a decent amount of prize winnings from young trainers if you can get three or four a day." I made the pokedollar symbol and tripled it. "If they can get more than that? They're doing very well for themselves." I added another two pokedollar symbols to the board.
"Now these people are an example of this, as they can generally tell what young trainers will start with depending on the area they are in and what gym badges they have. Something that lots of young trainers are known for is flashing their badges, which can inadvertently signal themselves as weak and or inexperienced."
"I've faced a few around Pewter on the patrols I go on," said A.J. with crossed arms. "They like to run around with Machop and Growlithe for any rock, bug, or grass types."
"Oh?" said Greta, turning her head along with the other girls apart from Missy who was nodding along. This caused the younger girls to blink and shoot me some looks.
I grinned. "It's not something that I advertise, but I do have gym trainers that break up fights like this by challenging and running off rookie crushers in my area when out on patrol. This limits them to the lower earnings bracket most of the time, but… well, during the Trainer surge I know numbers were way higher, while also being something we couldn't deal with as they were actually legitimate trainers."
"You.. don't get me to do that?" said Greta with a tilted head.
I grinned. "I hadn't so far, but I think you're overdue a 'promotion', so to speak," I said, giving her a nod. "You've handled yourself well against some tough fights."
I dropped the smile to allow myself to grow serious. "That said, you and A.J. are going to be facing some of the crushers that will adapt to you, and indeed to our gym trainers."
I wrote out the second name I'd mentioned earlier. Snipe Trainers.
"These are the sort that will sit back and examine your team, your favoured tactics, and create teams or tricks that deliberately counter you. These are the people that we see more often for Ace matches. Will was an extreme case of this, as while I can never prove it, I think the number of Ace trainers that happened to have a few psychic pokemon that went against me in the lead-up to Will's match was… highly irregular," I said.
The group nodded and I paused as I noticed that a few kids that had wandered in had inched over to listen in. I smiled and showed that I was fine with others listening in.
"So, experience with this is something that if you're sticking around a specific city for any amount of time will result in trainers getting to learn some of your tricks. For Ace trainers, this happens with us watching each other's matches in the lead-up while also reviewing what pokemon they have publicly listed or displayed.
"Now, where there is some overlap is that people can see what pokeballs you have and extrapolate certain degrees of information. It's not listed on your public page, but if people watch enough matches they can start accumulating lists of which pokeballs are associated with which pokemon."
"That would be rather tough to do when we're out in public though, no?" Crystal asked doubtfully.
I locked my eyes with hers. "Depends on how much the person has to win from beating you, or if they just feel they don't like you. Sometimes people can be irrational. Rivalries that are on the extreme scale would use this."
"Ohhhhh!" said Crystal as she understood. "So if I had my Eevee on display and A.J. wanted to snipe me, he could check my pokebelt or which pokemon I had out with me."
I nodded and made a circling gesture. "Yes, you can also get people that will deliberately antagonise you in the hopes of making you use that very pokemon," I said.
This caused the girls to nod while A.J. scoffed. "Sandshrew and I will just crush them right back!" he said.
I nodded in amusement, knowing that he wouldn't be shying away from any fights and was going to probably run into a lot of walls where he didn't need to, but if he wanted to do things his way that was on him.
"The other option, which a lot of the local Aces seemed to have adapted, is something I hadn't thought of: hiding their pokebelts with coverings," I said.
The group all nodded along at this, only for Yolanda to giggle, drawing people's attention.
"Something to add?" I said, interested in what had her reacting like that.
"Well, it's just that finding out which pokeballs are on your belt doesn't actually help," she said. "You hide some of your pokeballs from view or in the small of your back where people don't expect them from." She grinned and I chuckled as she casually revealed a trick of mine that I'd used since I was on my Journey..
I coughed, pleased that she was observant enough to notice, but also not wanting to air the entirety of my trick, nor that I had the expanded limit of ten pokeballs to the public.
I gave the now larger group another look over and was amused to find that a camera crew had snuck in while I'd been writing out the points about hidden pokeball carriers.
I considered calling things to a close before deciding to shrug and run with it. I flicked Rachel a look and directed her to the camera crew to make sure they behaved.
"Right! So hiding some of my pokeballs, while working out for me partially today, is actually an old habit of mine that I adapted in response to rookie crushers," I said with a smirk. "When I sauntered into a new town or city I would invariably get in some battles to test out my team. Some of the crushers back then would challenge me to four versus four or more matches and fake apologise when they thought I couldn't match them."
I raised a hand. "That is a bait tactic that plays on young trainers' pride in their pokemon, as the typical response for a young trainer is?"
I pointed at A.J. for an answer and he scoffed. "My pokemon are worth a hundred of some nobody!" he said, giving the perfect example with his response.
Yolanda giggled again and I nodded. "That is what they expect, and some of them will exploit it. Remember, these people make a lot of money off this, so they can field a very highly experienced team of pokemon," I said.
A.J. frowned, growing if anything more reluctant to admit he was playing into the trope.
I just moved on. "If you can field a full team though, you can switch things up and put them on the back foot," I said.
"So, that was prematch differences, what about during the match?" I said, opening the floor to my entourage.
"Sanchez starting for you was baited," Missy said and I nodded.
"Arthur has a lot of flying types and pokemon that in another situation can be powerful. I was playing the odds, or betting on possible arrogance as he does typically start with them. Instead, Arthur understood what he was doing and potentially risking and instead opened with his Starter, Machamp."
I wrote up Sanchez and listed out his typing and moves. "Now, Sanchez is a great pokemon to open with as if he can get an opening he can set up the field. That field set-up also relies on pokemon that can typically use flying type moves or wide-scale attacks to clear away before other pokemon can safely enter," I said, highlighting Stealth Rock.
I sighed. "Sadly, Arthur had prepared well and was able to negate a lot of Sanchez's strengths. He went on the attack straight away and kept us on the backfoot. Machamp… was a very strong pokemon, and the outcome didn't surprise me," I said with a sigh.
I considered that for a moment. Was I becoming predictable with Sanchez? He was one of the better opening move pokemon and I did enjoy getting him out for the chance to set off either a Stealth Rock or an Explosion. Hmmm, maybe that was the issue? He was safe. I'd need to consider that more.
A smile came over me as I considered what came next in the fight.
Selene came out and Arthur revealed his second 'trump card' regarding Cacturne. A perfect pokemon that I sadly had the answer to with Selene's moveset. I didn't go into depth explaining fairy typing again and its strengths, and I could see more than a few people in the crowd that were listening in looking confused. My desire to teach them warred with my desire to keep Selene's ace in the hole up my sleeve for a moment before the latter won out. I moved on.
I continued sketching out the fight play-by-play and when I reached the point where Mismagius had taken the field A.J. raised his hand. "Did you really read the throw to work out what was about to happen?"
I blinked and recalled that moment.
I grinned, remembering the spike of certainty I'd had come over me when I'd seen his wrist twitch.
"Yup!" I said smugly.
A.J. blinked at me and for some reason Yolanda reached over to punch him. "See! I told you!" she said.
I shot her a nod. She really was coming along as a trainer with a lot of skills and insights. "Do you know what gave it away?" I asked her.
Yolanda licked her lips and made a face as she considered what she'd seen. "... something in his throwing action, or was it where he looked?" she said uncertainty. The crowd stirred at this and a round of murmurs took over the room. Yolanda blinked and glanced behind her only to twitch in surprise. Oh? She hadn't noticed the room filling up? When A.J., Missy and Yolanda likewise reacted I flicked my eyes at the whiteboard. The talk hadn't been that engrossing, had it?
I pushed those thoughts to the side. "Yes to the first, and while you can track where people are going to throw through their eyes, that's not as doable with the pokemon stadium's fields. On smaller fields and sporting games it is possible but not what I used."
I took a pokeball in hand and mimed throwing it directly. I then repeated the action, only changing the throw at the end. I then made a different throw, showing how position could be changed. "You can also read the body language that people give off, a good point of reference is to look where their hips or shoulders are lining up to get the best idea. This can change depending on sports or situations. Arthur hid a lot of his body language until after Mismagius went down," I said.
"After that, you can tell he doesn't rate his chances of winning," I tapped the board. "He didn't stop fighting though, why?"
"Pride?" called someone from the back of the room.
I nodded and wrote it down. "What else?" I said prompting more involvement, amused with how my debrief had turned into a teaching session.
I got a wide range of answers and I happily jotted them down. I didn't stop when people got the answer I'd been looking for regarding the competition and the chances of us facing off again.
The other answers, such as fighting on, or looking for a mistake to flip the battle around were certainly acceptable. I laughed when someone proposed that he'd done it to impress a girl.
I had still written it up.
"Good reasons," I said with a smirk and a laugh before progressing things along with what I'd need to consider for the next match and how I needed to improve.
We came up with a few points such as not being as predictable, to catching more pokemon, which earned a nod from me. It was a solution.
"This one is one that a lot of people may fall back on, but you have to remember that for the majority of trainers there is going to be a limit, so you should be careful with the pokemon you bring onto your teams. Compatibility with you and your team, capabilities to raise said pokemon and comradeship are all important to consider," I said, writing down the points.
I was about to expand on those when my Xtranssicver buzzed. I glanced at it. "Ah, and that is sadly all the time I have today! We have a Teleport to catch gang!" I said, hustling my entourage to pack up.
Rachel jogged over with a smile on her lips and nodded when I glanced her way. "They were playing it straight. They're a news crew that heard you were here. Came to talk but they seemed very pleased to catch your lecture instead," she said, offering up what looked like a local news anchor's business card.
"Huh, neat," I said, turning the card over and inspecting it.
Yolanda jogged up to me with a wide smile and I eyed her. "What's up?"
"Nothing! You're just smiling," she said, pointing at herself and I realised I was and that she was merely mirroring me.
"Eh," I shrugged, enjoying how loose my shoulders felt. "I feel pretty good about today. It was a good day," I said with a grin. "Tomorrow is looking good, what's not to like?"
"I think it's because you had a pretty good match and you got to lecture," she said as we jogged into the Teleporter hall where we were met with a receptionist. She quickly guided us to a trio of Hypno who nodded politely before we vanished in a flash of Teleport.
We appeared in front of the Pewter Gym and I thanked the Hypnos before they vanished in another Teleport. I played with what Yolanda had said as I bid the others goodbye for the afternoon.
I was feeling pretty good after the match with Arthur, more so than usual, and while getting the chance to educate a lot of trainers had been nice, I was already feeling good.
"I think," I said slowly, sounding the words out and drawing Yolanda's attention back to me as we walked towards the front entrance to our house. "That the fight was good, both in that we won, but also in that there was a… trainer difference, today."
"What do you mean by that?" Yolanda said, pausing to turn and watch me with interest.
I waved a hand, slowing to stand in the entryway of the garden. I could see Nanny Grav watering our garden of Lileep and Cradily "Arthur has pokemon that are on par with mine."
I rubbed my chin and considered what I'd seen. "Or at least close enough that it is debatable. I'd faced this before with a few matches and I've spoken about the top ten or even top twenty trainers being better, but it was really on display and that excites me, but mostly I think I'm happy…because the difference was me as a trainer. I could have played things better, especially at the beginning, but we countered and rose to the occasion. I had the answers, I'd done the research with my entourage, I was able to pick up on his plays and counter plays and just negate them. Today, I felt like I was syncing up with my team."
Yolanda nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think you're right, you had the options and plans going in, and while things didn't start off as you might have liked, you did make the difference in a lot of notable ways." She reached up, stretching onto her tiptoes to pat my head. "Good job," she said with a grin and I huffed at her.
"You're messing up my hair!" I fake whined at her, earning myself a giggle and a swat.
"Well it'll help keep boys away from you!" she said in a fake gruff-sounding voice.
"I never said that," I said with a raised eyebrow, knowing that it was one of the points of advice that I'd read in the parenting books that I'd implemented.
Yolanda adopted a stern expression. "I never said that," she mimed back at me and I snorted, recalling fake meme images of Morgan Freeman quoting him as saying just that. With his iconic voice you could turn heads. I tried adopting it and rumbled. "I didn't say that," I said with as much smooth velvetiness as I could.
Yolanda squinted at me and tried to make her voice gruffer, even going so far as to hunch in on herself. "I didn't say that," she almost grunted out.
I chuckled and dragged her into a hug before making my way towards the house to enjoy some family time. I released my pokemon in the garden.
They all appeared with a snort and shake of their heads. Sanchez perked up and glanced around, when he locked eyes with me I nodded. This got him to relax and a grin to break over his face.
"Go? Go lem?" he cried when he spied Nanny Grav in her apron. He snatched up a bunch of Lileep and held them out to her like he was wooing her, earning himself some giggles. Nanny Grav pretended to sniff them only to fall on her back and faint.
Sanchez sniffed the Lileep and copied her a moment later, only for both of them to shoot to their feet and laugh.
I chuckled and turned my attention to Titan, whose gaze I'd been able to feel as soon as he'd come out. I paid a little more attention to our bond and found it had changed from the fight.
I sent Titan an impression of growth and he replied in kind before looking in another direction. I felt the bond shift as he fed me his point of view.
My mind swam with the extra senses available to me. To Titan the world was sharper, with smells and some colours that stood out to him while others were muted.
I sat down and shook my head. Then I looked in the other direction and sent my own view of the garden.
Titan crooned in surprise, and I felt his body stiffen up through the bond.
Huh, so we could share the other's senses if we wanted to? Interesting. I sent Titan a more complex idea, how he could move and shift. I'd done something vaguely the same with a bit of training against Pryce, but that had been nothing compared to this.
Now I felt like we were practically of one mind.
This… had some serious implications. Would I even need to give Titan verbal orders any more?
Wait, there had been something like this in the anime, hadn't there?
Between Ash and his Greninja.
Shock ran through me and Titan stiffened, turning to check on me, only to get a feel of the excitement coursing through me. This was going to be so much more than just sharing senses and having a tactical improvement.
This… this was a Bond Phenomenon.
The implications were huge and I shared a huge grin with Titan.
Damn if finding him a mega stone hadn't just grown even more important for us.
I toyed with the Bond for a little while longer, enjoying the closeness it brought to my closest friend.
"Hey bro! Come play Hide and Seek with us! Titan and you can pair up!" shouted Salvadore.
Titan and I shared a smirk.
Titan and I used the bond to hunt for my family and the other pokemon. With our combined senses and awareness it became all too easy to track everyone down.
Titan and I took a moment to relax after the game, enjoying the knowledge that we had grown closer.
We watched another round of games between my siblings and pokemon. The noise drew in the younger pokemon to my Elite team with Zubat leading the charge into my face. When she slammed a hug into my face I was amused to find Titan reeling back as I forgot to stop feeding him my point of view.
I dimmed the bond a little and allowed myself to return to normal. Titan nodded at me and then nodded his head to Bertha, causing me to sigh in relief. If he was going to get intimate I didn't want to feel that.
Not that they were going to do anything in front of the kids. Dinner that evening was a shared event, with us setting up in the garden. Bertha happily took the head of the table with Cindy sitting next to her.
When Sabrina came around, she congratulated me on my win with a kiss and levitating me a burger and drink while sitting next to me. I chuckled, amused at how she'd gotten me some food without having to lift a finger. Having a psychic girlfriend certainly had some perks.
Later that night we relaxed with a movie and I went to bed with Sabrina.
Plans for tomorrow swirled about in my mind, only to be rudely ripped from my slumbering mind as an alarm went off, causing Sabrina and I to stir at what must have been midnight.
I dragged open my bedside drawers to find the Guardians' holopad raising a racket. I tapped it and Koga's visage appeared on the scene.
"Brock, we have a situation. Team Aqua just made landfall on New Island, we need to get there now!" he said and I felt my stomach drop out.
A military group landing on an island with a possible volatile pokemon like Mewtwo?
This… was the very definition of not good.
A.N. Congrats those people who guessed it last chapter!
Bond Phenomenon! Now I will have to create something epic for Titan to show off his super special power up!
Thanks go to my patreons! Your support really helps me out! Thanks also go to Melendur for prrofreading this chapter!
"Ahahaha! Let's go! Damn, that was a fun match!" I said, as I bounced from foot to foot. Around me, my entourage snickered at my childish behaviour.
Missy shot me a smirk. "Good fights really get you fired up, eh?" she said, eying my bouncing form.
I shrugged. "Eh, it's the truth? Being challenged like that? I'm pretty sure they call it a battle high, but damn it feels good to push yourself. I was sweating and working overtime with switching up tactics. If this is what the top ten trainers are like, I am going to have to work for every win!" I could already see it, the fights growing tougher and tougher with each of the top ten being seasoned veterans. It sounded like the perfect conditions to grow stronger.
Missy flicked her eyes over me once again. "That doesn't seem to be a problem for you."
I laughed. "Guess I'm a battle junkie? But then again, who isn't?"
A.J. shrugged. "Eh, it makes more sense for you to react this way than other people." When the others looked at him, he waved an arm at me. "Most of the time, you have to hold back."
I waved a hand. "I wouldn't call what I do holding back. I have to find ways to test people and challenge them, it's—" I rubbed some fingers over my jawline in thought. "—Not really the same thing, it's still making me push myself, it's just that the stress is different."
Yolanda giggled. "Wait until you see him after an Elite Challenge when he pulls a win. He's bouncing off the walls."
Rachel snickered at the thought. "You are almost as cute as Trixie sometimes," said the small rainbow-haired girl.
I paused and considered Trixie. Instead of conjuring an image of her in cute poses or outfits, my mind shunted my thought process to that of her doing a salmon ladder. She was slamming the machine with her huge frame, and I could just imagine sweat glistening on her abs and a fierce grin as she worked herself further into rippled perfection.
Even in my imagination…
As a group, we shook our heads and I thought I heard Alexa say something about, "While we daydreamed, Trixie was training." The others giggled and this disrupted Rachel, causing her to wipe at her mouth to get rid of some drool before coughing. "Anyway, the point is you showed off some serious skills and were able to lock yourself into the tournament next week. Now you can focus on running the gym and getting your pokemon up to par for it."
I nodded, stretching out my arms. "Yup, gonna be a lot of review for this one, cause there were a ton of mistakes and moves that I think I'm going to have to expect going forward. Arthur has shown me that people are not sitting idly and letting me advance—" I got a number of blank faces at this, so I quickly tacked on a "—and getting results that force me onto the back foot," I said.
This got a round of murmurs and nods. Before today, there had been a level of… well, power difference was perhaps the kindest way of describing it.
The trainers had the right pokemon and the right moves, but they were too slow in their orders and tactics, and their pokemon were likewise lacking in power or speed to knock back my pokemon.
I chewed my lip. "I also don't think I'll get as lucky again with people remaining ignorant of fairy typing and its effects."
"What about it specifically?" asked Greta.
I rubbed my head. "A lot of people have associated it with being super effective against dragon types, but there's more to it than that. It's also strong against dark type pokemon, which shores up Selene's weakness rather well. However, it's also super effective against fighting type pokemon."
Everyone stared at me while I said this and it took a moment for me to realise that Greta had her pokedex out and was in fact recording me.
I coughed. "Really?" I said, giving her a dubious look.
Greta held up her pokedex like a shield, peering through it, so she didn't need to meet my eyes. "Uhm, it's just that a lot of the research that I've been able to read and what I've talked about with Professor Oak is its impact on dragon types, along with what moves and pokemons are and are not fairy types."
Yolanda tilted her head. "Huh, Brock was always very aware of them, I remember him telling lots of stories about Dian—" I coughed harshly to cut her off.
I did not need Yolanda 'helping out' by telling tales about Diancie. It didn't stop Greta from gaining a look and turning her attention to Yolanda who merely shrugged and whispered. "I'll tell you about her later," she said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I can hear you," I said, before deciding to ignore it. Instead, I exhaled in a long slow manner to get rid of the excess energy that I still had jittering through my body.
"Right, so that match fairly shook things up though," I said as I checked my watch. "Hmmm, we have another thirty minutes before our transport Teleport is booked in, so if everyone's alright with it, let's do a quiet debrief while things are fresh."
I gestured to a lounge off to the side while reaching into my pouch and drawing out one of the work laptops.
Alexa raised a hand. "You don't need me for this and I got a later Teleport lined up, as I've got a date."
Crystal wolf-whistled at Alexa. "I knew you were more dolled up than usual!"
Yolanda merely nodded. "Good luck on your date!"
I waved a hand, more than happy to let her clock off now. "Have fun and I will see you… Monday?" I said as I opened up the roster on the laptop to see that she had tomorrow off. I shot her an amused look and resisted the urge to ask her how late her Teleport was booked for.
I had a sneaking suspicion that if her date went well, she might just reschedule it for later. Alexa pointedly looked to the side, not meeting my knowing gaze as she waved and trotted off.
I heard Nurse Joy calling for me and I moved to collect my pokemon from her with the customary. "We hope to see you again!" given with a bow.
I turned back to find the younger girls nudging A.J., Crystal leading them. "Did you even notice that she had dressed up more than usual?"
A.J. opened his mouth and without having to hear what he was about to say I instinctively knew that he was going to put his foot in it. So I spoke over him. "A.J., when a lady asks you that, the safest and most correct answer is that they always look amazing. Never tell a girl they look tired or frumpy," I said as I quickly typed up some notes.
Missy, Yolanda, Greta, and Crystal's attentions all turned to me but I, like Alexa had earlier, avoided their gazes with a practised nonchalance. I finished what I was doing and clapped my hands. "Right! So, the match?" I said, nudging things along instead of letting them linger.
I spotted A.J. writing something in a small notepad, only to glance up and mouth a 'thanks' to me.
"Right, so one of the biggest and first things I noticed was that due to just the waiting area for this stadium, the meta is different," I said, getting us underway and further dispelling the girls' critical gazes.
I ran through my observations from earlier, noting how everyone had been prepared for it. "The situation is that of 'if you know, you know'. I can assure you that no emails or notifications were given to me regarding the shared space, but it could perhaps be implied depending on how many matches one has in the gym circuit," I said.
"How would that make you aware of it?" asked Greta with a raised hand.
I held in a chuckle at her schoolroom antics and gestured to her like a teacher would. "A lot of matches can be quite spontaneous or seemingly spontaneous when you are in the gym circuit. You don't hear about it, but there are a lot of trainers that are known as rookie crushers, or people that will 'snipe battle' you." I raised a hand and glanced around for a whiteboard and was rather surprised when there was one.
Huh, the Commerce City Pokecenter had a few nifty features I thought to myself as I pointed to the whiteboard and moved our group over to it. I grabbed a marker and began jotting down my thoughts.
"So! The rookie crushers are just that, bullies that like to come at young or inexperienced trainers. They will look for certain tells with their opponents and are typically way more active during the start of the circuit, as that's when you have the most young and inexperienced trainers moving about." I drew a free-hand drawing of a large brutish man laughing at a pair of young trainers, a little boy and a girl who looked like they were barking at the crusher.
"Now, they do this as there is the possibility of earning a decent amount of prize winnings from young trainers if you can get three or four a day." I made the pokedollar symbol and tripled it. "If they can get more than that? They're doing very well for themselves." I added another two pokedollar symbols to the board.
"Now these people are an example of this, as they can generally tell what young trainers will start with depending on the area they are in and what gym badges they have. Something that lots of young trainers are known for is flashing their badges, which can inadvertently signal themselves as weak and or inexperienced."
"I've faced a few around Pewter on the patrols I go on," said A.J. with crossed arms. "They like to run around with Machop and Growlithe for any rock, bug, or grass types."
"Oh?" said Greta, turning her head along with the other girls apart from Missy who was nodding along. This caused the younger girls to blink and shoot me some looks.
I grinned. "It's not something that I advertise, but I do have gym trainers that break up fights like this by challenging and running off rookie crushers in my area when out on patrol. This limits them to the lower earnings bracket most of the time, but… well, during the Trainer surge I know numbers were way higher, while also being something we couldn't deal with as they were actually legitimate trainers."
"You.. don't get me to do that?" said Greta with a tilted head.
I grinned. "I hadn't so far, but I think you're overdue a 'promotion', so to speak," I said, giving her a nod. "You've handled yourself well against some tough fights."
I dropped the smile to allow myself to grow serious. "That said, you and A.J. are going to be facing some of the crushers that will adapt to you, and indeed to our gym trainers."
I wrote out the second name I'd mentioned earlier. Snipe Trainers.
"These are the sort that will sit back and examine your team, your favoured tactics, and create teams or tricks that deliberately counter you. These are the people that we see more often for Ace matches. Will was an extreme case of this, as while I can never prove it, I think the number of Ace trainers that happened to have a few psychic pokemon that went against me in the lead-up to Will's match was… highly irregular," I said.
The group nodded and I paused as I noticed that a few kids that had wandered in had inched over to listen in. I smiled and showed that I was fine with others listening in.
"So, experience with this is something that if you're sticking around a specific city for any amount of time will result in trainers getting to learn some of your tricks. For Ace trainers, this happens with us watching each other's matches in the lead-up while also reviewing what pokemon they have publicly listed or displayed.
"Now, where there is some overlap is that people can see what pokeballs you have and extrapolate certain degrees of information. It's not listed on your public page, but if people watch enough matches they can start accumulating lists of which pokeballs are associated with which pokemon."
"That would be rather tough to do when we're out in public though, no?" Crystal asked doubtfully.
I locked my eyes with hers. "Depends on how much the person has to win from beating you, or if they just feel they don't like you. Sometimes people can be irrational. Rivalries that are on the extreme scale would use this."
"Ohhhhh!" said Crystal as she understood. "So if I had my Eevee on display and A.J. wanted to snipe me, he could check my pokebelt or which pokemon I had out with me."
I nodded and made a circling gesture. "Yes, you can also get people that will deliberately antagonise you in the hopes of making you use that very pokemon," I said.
This caused the girls to nod while A.J. scoffed. "Sandshrew and I will just crush them right back!" he said.
I nodded in amusement, knowing that he wouldn't be shying away from any fights and was going to probably run into a lot of walls where he didn't need to, but if he wanted to do things his way that was on him.
"The other option, which a lot of the local Aces seemed to have adapted, is something I hadn't thought of: hiding their pokebelts with coverings," I said.
The group all nodded along at this, only for Yolanda to giggle, drawing people's attention.
"Something to add?" I said, interested in what had her reacting like that.
"Well, it's just that finding out which pokeballs are on your belt doesn't actually help," she said. "You hide some of your pokeballs from view or in the small of your back where people don't expect them from." She grinned and I chuckled as she casually revealed a trick of mine that I'd used since I was on my Journey..
I coughed, pleased that she was observant enough to notice, but also not wanting to air the entirety of my trick, nor that I had the expanded limit of ten pokeballs to the public.
I gave the now larger group another look over and was amused to find that a camera crew had snuck in while I'd been writing out the points about hidden pokeball carriers.
I considered calling things to a close before deciding to shrug and run with it. I flicked Rachel a look and directed her to the camera crew to make sure they behaved.
"Right! So hiding some of my pokeballs, while working out for me partially today, is actually an old habit of mine that I adapted in response to rookie crushers," I said with a smirk. "When I sauntered into a new town or city I would invariably get in some battles to test out my team. Some of the crushers back then would challenge me to four versus four or more matches and fake apologise when they thought I couldn't match them."
I raised a hand. "That is a bait tactic that plays on young trainers' pride in their pokemon, as the typical response for a young trainer is?"
I pointed at A.J. for an answer and he scoffed. "My pokemon are worth a hundred of some nobody!" he said, giving the perfect example with his response.
Yolanda giggled again and I nodded. "That is what they expect, and some of them will exploit it. Remember, these people make a lot of money off this, so they can field a very highly experienced team of pokemon," I said.
A.J. frowned, growing if anything more reluctant to admit he was playing into the trope.
I just moved on. "If you can field a full team though, you can switch things up and put them on the back foot," I said.
"So, that was prematch differences, what about during the match?" I said, opening the floor to my entourage.
"Sanchez starting for you was baited," Missy said and I nodded.
"Arthur has a lot of flying types and pokemon that in another situation can be powerful. I was playing the odds, or betting on possible arrogance as he does typically start with them. Instead, Arthur understood what he was doing and potentially risking and instead opened with his Starter, Machamp."
I wrote up Sanchez and listed out his typing and moves. "Now, Sanchez is a great pokemon to open with as if he can get an opening he can set up the field. That field set-up also relies on pokemon that can typically use flying type moves or wide-scale attacks to clear away before other pokemon can safely enter," I said, highlighting Stealth Rock.
I sighed. "Sadly, Arthur had prepared well and was able to negate a lot of Sanchez's strengths. He went on the attack straight away and kept us on the backfoot. Machamp… was a very strong pokemon, and the outcome didn't surprise me," I said with a sigh.
I considered that for a moment. Was I becoming predictable with Sanchez? He was one of the better opening move pokemon and I did enjoy getting him out for the chance to set off either a Stealth Rock or an Explosion. Hmmm, maybe that was the issue? He was safe. I'd need to consider that more.
A smile came over me as I considered what came next in the fight.
Selene came out and Arthur revealed his second 'trump card' regarding Cacturne. A perfect pokemon that I sadly had the answer to with Selene's moveset. I didn't go into depth explaining fairy typing again and its strengths, and I could see more than a few people in the crowd that were listening in looking confused. My desire to teach them warred with my desire to keep Selene's ace in the hole up my sleeve for a moment before the latter won out. I moved on.
I continued sketching out the fight play-by-play and when I reached the point where Mismagius had taken the field A.J. raised his hand. "Did you really read the throw to work out what was about to happen?"
I blinked and recalled that moment.
I grinned, remembering the spike of certainty I'd had come over me when I'd seen his wrist twitch.
"Yup!" I said smugly.
A.J. blinked at me and for some reason Yolanda reached over to punch him. "See! I told you!" she said.
I shot her a nod. She really was coming along as a trainer with a lot of skills and insights. "Do you know what gave it away?" I asked her.
Yolanda licked her lips and made a face as she considered what she'd seen. "... something in his throwing action, or was it where he looked?" she said uncertainty. The crowd stirred at this and a round of murmurs took over the room. Yolanda blinked and glanced behind her only to twitch in surprise. Oh? She hadn't noticed the room filling up? When A.J., Missy and Yolanda likewise reacted I flicked my eyes at the whiteboard. The talk hadn't been that engrossing, had it?
I pushed those thoughts to the side. "Yes to the first, and while you can track where people are going to throw through their eyes, that's not as doable with the pokemon stadium's fields. On smaller fields and sporting games it is possible but not what I used."
I took a pokeball in hand and mimed throwing it directly. I then repeated the action, only changing the throw at the end. I then made a different throw, showing how position could be changed. "You can also read the body language that people give off, a good point of reference is to look where their hips or shoulders are lining up to get the best idea. This can change depending on sports or situations. Arthur hid a lot of his body language until after Mismagius went down," I said.
"After that, you can tell he doesn't rate his chances of winning," I tapped the board. "He didn't stop fighting though, why?"
"Pride?" called someone from the back of the room.
I nodded and wrote it down. "What else?" I said prompting more involvement, amused with how my debrief had turned into a teaching session.
I got a wide range of answers and I happily jotted them down. I didn't stop when people got the answer I'd been looking for regarding the competition and the chances of us facing off again.
The other answers, such as fighting on, or looking for a mistake to flip the battle around were certainly acceptable. I laughed when someone proposed that he'd done it to impress a girl.
I had still written it up.
"Good reasons," I said with a smirk and a laugh before progressing things along with what I'd need to consider for the next match and how I needed to improve.
We came up with a few points such as not being as predictable, to catching more pokemon, which earned a nod from me. It was a solution.
"This one is one that a lot of people may fall back on, but you have to remember that for the majority of trainers there is going to be a limit, so you should be careful with the pokemon you bring onto your teams. Compatibility with you and your team, capabilities to raise said pokemon and comradeship are all important to consider," I said, writing down the points.
I was about to expand on those when my Xtranssicver buzzed. I glanced at it. "Ah, and that is sadly all the time I have today! We have a Teleport to catch gang!" I said, hustling my entourage to pack up.
Rachel jogged over with a smile on her lips and nodded when I glanced her way. "They were playing it straight. They're a news crew that heard you were here. Came to talk but they seemed very pleased to catch your lecture instead," she said, offering up what looked like a local news anchor's business card.
"Huh, neat," I said, turning the card over and inspecting it.
Yolanda jogged up to me with a wide smile and I eyed her. "What's up?"
"Nothing! You're just smiling," she said, pointing at herself and I realised I was and that she was merely mirroring me.
"Eh," I shrugged, enjoying how loose my shoulders felt. "I feel pretty good about today. It was a good day," I said with a grin. "Tomorrow is looking good, what's not to like?"
"I think it's because you had a pretty good match and you got to lecture," she said as we jogged into the Teleporter hall where we were met with a receptionist. She quickly guided us to a trio of Hypno who nodded politely before we vanished in a flash of Teleport.
We appeared in front of the Pewter Gym and I thanked the Hypnos before they vanished in another Teleport. I played with what Yolanda had said as I bid the others goodbye for the afternoon.
I was feeling pretty good after the match with Arthur, more so than usual, and while getting the chance to educate a lot of trainers had been nice, I was already feeling good.
"I think," I said slowly, sounding the words out and drawing Yolanda's attention back to me as we walked towards the front entrance to our house. "That the fight was good, both in that we won, but also in that there was a… trainer difference, today."
"What do you mean by that?" Yolanda said, pausing to turn and watch me with interest.
I waved a hand, slowing to stand in the entryway of the garden. I could see Nanny Grav watering our garden of Lileep and Cradily "Arthur has pokemon that are on par with mine."
I rubbed my chin and considered what I'd seen. "Or at least close enough that it is debatable. I'd faced this before with a few matches and I've spoken about the top ten or even top twenty trainers being better, but it was really on display and that excites me, but mostly I think I'm happy…because the difference was me as a trainer. I could have played things better, especially at the beginning, but we countered and rose to the occasion. I had the answers, I'd done the research with my entourage, I was able to pick up on his plays and counter plays and just negate them. Today, I felt like I was syncing up with my team."
Yolanda nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think you're right, you had the options and plans going in, and while things didn't start off as you might have liked, you did make the difference in a lot of notable ways." She reached up, stretching onto her tiptoes to pat my head. "Good job," she said with a grin and I huffed at her.
"You're messing up my hair!" I fake whined at her, earning myself a giggle and a swat.
"Well it'll help keep boys away from you!" she said in a fake gruff-sounding voice.
"I never said that," I said with a raised eyebrow, knowing that it was one of the points of advice that I'd read in the parenting books that I'd implemented.
Yolanda adopted a stern expression. "I never said that," she mimed back at me and I snorted, recalling fake meme images of Morgan Freeman quoting him as saying just that. With his iconic voice you could turn heads. I tried adopting it and rumbled. "I didn't say that," I said with as much smooth velvetiness as I could.
Yolanda squinted at me and tried to make her voice gruffer, even going so far as to hunch in on herself. "I didn't say that," she almost grunted out.
I chuckled and dragged her into a hug before making my way towards the house to enjoy some family time. I released my pokemon in the garden.
They all appeared with a snort and shake of their heads. Sanchez perked up and glanced around, when he locked eyes with me I nodded. This got him to relax and a grin to break over his face.
"Go? Go lem?" he cried when he spied Nanny Grav in her apron. He snatched up a bunch of Lileep and held them out to her like he was wooing her, earning himself some giggles. Nanny Grav pretended to sniff them only to fall on her back and faint.
Sanchez sniffed the Lileep and copied her a moment later, only for both of them to shoot to their feet and laugh.
I chuckled and turned my attention to Titan, whose gaze I'd been able to feel as soon as he'd come out. I paid a little more attention to our bond and found it had changed from the fight.
I sent Titan an impression of growth and he replied in kind before looking in another direction. I felt the bond shift as he fed me his point of view.
My mind swam with the extra senses available to me. To Titan the world was sharper, with smells and some colours that stood out to him while others were muted.
I sat down and shook my head. Then I looked in the other direction and sent my own view of the garden.
Titan crooned in surprise, and I felt his body stiffen up through the bond.
Huh, so we could share the other's senses if we wanted to? Interesting. I sent Titan a more complex idea, how he could move and shift. I'd done something vaguely the same with a bit of training against Pryce, but that had been nothing compared to this.
Now I felt like we were practically of one mind.
This… had some serious implications. Would I even need to give Titan verbal orders any more?
Wait, there had been something like this in the anime, hadn't there?
Between Ash and his Greninja.
Shock ran through me and Titan stiffened, turning to check on me, only to get a feel of the excitement coursing through me. This was going to be so much more than just sharing senses and having a tactical improvement.
This… this was a Bond Phenomenon.
The implications were huge and I shared a huge grin with Titan.
Damn if finding him a mega stone hadn't just grown even more important for us.
I toyed with the Bond for a little while longer, enjoying the closeness it brought to my closest friend.
"Hey bro! Come play Hide and Seek with us! Titan and you can pair up!" shouted Salvadore.
Titan and I shared a smirk.
Titan and I used the bond to hunt for my family and the other pokemon. With our combined senses and awareness it became all too easy to track everyone down.
Titan and I took a moment to relax after the game, enjoying the knowledge that we had grown closer.
We watched another round of games between my siblings and pokemon. The noise drew in the younger pokemon to my Elite team with Zubat leading the charge into my face. When she slammed a hug into my face I was amused to find Titan reeling back as I forgot to stop feeding him my point of view.
I dimmed the bond a little and allowed myself to return to normal. Titan nodded at me and then nodded his head to Bertha, causing me to sigh in relief. If he was going to get intimate I didn't want to feel that.
Not that they were going to do anything in front of the kids. Dinner that evening was a shared event, with us setting up in the garden. Bertha happily took the head of the table with Cindy sitting next to her.
When Sabrina came around, she congratulated me on my win with a kiss and levitating me a burger and drink while sitting next to me. I chuckled, amused at how she'd gotten me some food without having to lift a finger. Having a psychic girlfriend certainly had some perks.
Later that night we relaxed with a movie and I went to bed with Sabrina.
Plans for tomorrow swirled about in my mind, only to be rudely ripped from my slumbering mind as an alarm went off, causing Sabrina and I to stir at what must have been midnight.
I dragged open my bedside drawers to find the Guardians' holopad raising a racket. I tapped it and Koga's visage appeared on the scene.
"Brock, we have a situation. Team Aqua just made landfall on New Island, we need to get there now!" he said and I felt my stomach drop out.
A military group landing on an island with a possible volatile pokemon like Mewtwo?
This… was the very definition of not good.
A.N. Congrats those people who guessed it last chapter!
Bond Phenomenon! Now I will have to create something epic for Titan to show off his super special power up!
Thanks go to my patreons! Your support really helps me out! Thanks also go to Melendur for prrofreading this chapter!
Oh imagine the sheer panic Steven Stone would have if Block managed to pull Mega Evolution with Titan through the bond phenomenon without a Mega Stone or Keystone.
xbox432
Lover of Editing
Trixie was training!
Yeah, A.J. realized that the Bro Code saved him. He could TELL that the girls were getting ready to growlithe pile him.
Brock really is pulling extra duty as a Pokemon Professor. Sabrina is going to.. like that interview. Isn't she?
On the other hand, I wonder if Arthur will be amused or mortified that Brock turned their match into a broadcasted lesson plan? Especially with the implications of Arthur being mentioned on the same whiteboard as rookie crushers and snipers?
- Location
- Cyberspace
Is it possible without using a Mega Stone beforehand as "training wheels" of a kind?
Well Ash's Greninja is literally the only time it ever happens, so it's reasonable to assume there's something special about Greninja as well, after all most experienced trainers form some sort of bond with their starters, and the other Guardians have even been doing similar aura stuff for longer than Brock's been a trainer with no signs of them doing it.
Looking at the wiki, the bond phenomenon is different from mega evolution. The differences I can see are thus: it only applies to Greninja (obviously not for this fic), it doesn't require any items to use, and it makes the pokemon even more powerful than mega evolution (Greninja's stats are raised by a total of 110 compared to mega's 100, along with bond raising the power of a specific move).
So it's very similar to Mega Evolution, but not quite the same in the games or show. I think it might be a more natural form of Mega Evolution, one that doesn't require the exotic energy from the legendary pokemon that result in mega stones. One that's stronger because of it perhaps? It really just looks like a one-off experiment the creators toyed with before deciding against it and moving on. There's a lot of room for the author to decide how to implement it in this story.
So it's very similar to Mega Evolution, but not quite the same in the games or show. I think it might be a more natural form of Mega Evolution, one that doesn't require the exotic energy from the legendary pokemon that result in mega stones. One that's stronger because of it perhaps? It really just looks like a one-off experiment the creators toyed with before deciding against it and moving on. There's a lot of room for the author to decide how to implement it in this story.
The other Guardians aren't shown to have the ability to mega evolve any of their pokemon. Correct me if I'm mistaken of course, as I don't have a perfect memory of this story, but it's possible that Brock's experimenting with mega evolving Jormungandr helped this happen.
I think even if it worked it'd be majorly draining. Mega with a stone and a strong bond already is
Surprised Brock didn't discuss the sharing senses with his genius psychic girlfriend.
Pretty sure Ash never got a mega or key stone as Ash-Greninja was basically his.
Pretty sure the anime showed that plus the bond at higher lvs meant Ash started feeling the pain of the hits.
Pretty sure Ash never got a mega or key stone as Ash-Greninja was basically his.
Pretty sure the anime showed that plus the bond at higher lvs meant Ash started feeling the pain of the hits.
Chapter 207 - New Island
New
Viva01
Uncomfortable with all the hugs he is given
- Location
- Australia
Sabrina had us at Fuchsia City within minutes.
We arrived at Koga's Gym to find the place eerily quiet.
Not the quiet that one would expect of a residence where everyone was asleep as they should at this hour, but rather the house was silent as though the very earth itself was holding its breath in anticipation.
No pokemon stirred, no wind blew through the branches of elegantly spaced trees and no noise came from the house. It had my skin crawling and the hairs on my neck standing up.
I eyed the trees and flicked my eyes about; well aware that in Koga's domain, you were always being observed by ninjas. The fact that they were making it so apparent with how quiet it was, meant they were in a way warning anyone off.
The traditional house that stood forebodingly before us had all the sliding doors pulled open but only darkness peered back when you directed your gaze inside the building.
If you couldn't tell coming here was bad news you were either an idiot or acting in extremely bad faith.
When Karen and Agatha stepped out of the darkness I had a momentary flash of memory for my initiation fight and half considered if they might have baited me here for some training exercise.
One look at Karen's face revealed that this wasn't a drill or some shitty hidden test.
This was serious.
I pushed forward, ignoring the fluttering leaves in the trees that were probably shinobi. If I were a paranoid sort I suppose they would only be doing that much as a warning to 'announce, or prove myself to be who I was'. I called up my rock and dark energy and became a towering edifice that surveyed all before me. A dark mountain that looms.
"Who are we waiting for?" I asked, my voice having an interesting resonance that rumbled forth and silenced the twitching trees.
Sabrina merely floated along next to me, making me realise I'd lengthened my stride without really noticing, the act of covering more distance simply happening and not a conscious thought on my part.
Agatha smiled but didn't cackle at the display of power I'd unknowingly performed. "We only just arrived. I have brought with me a few channelers and Karen her minions."
"They're my Trainer Entourage!" growled Karen without the usual heat. I glanced past the two women and noticed some familiar faces.
"Molly and Annabelle, right?" I said recalling the time we'd raided a Team Rocket base together with Dennis. The pair nodded and stood a little taller at me recognising them. To the other side, a pair of familiar faces from the Guardian training we'd undergone bowed politely.
"Katrina, … Tiffany," I said, easily greeting the first only to eye the second.
Tiffany bowed demurely and rose languidly, making sure to display how her dress clung to her form. She smiled when our eyes met and I snorted in exasperation.
I'd always recalled Tiffany as being part of the very rough introduction to the Guardians and thus kept a careful eye on her. She was always a little too friendly for my liking.
Sabrina glowed a little brighter and Tiffany straightened and looked away from me, her smile vanishing faster than ice in the face of a Fire Blast.
"Koga?" I asked, looking around only for the man himself to appear, on his back a sword was strapped while bracers with wicked-looking hooks were also attached. I blinked in surprise and considered asking if he didn't think that was overkill only to realise that if anything, I should be copying him.
We were about to engage with a group known for being part of the Hoenn military, specifically their navy.
I swallowed. "What do we need to know?" I asked.
Koga nodded seriously. "You will need to know much in a very short space of time, but here is not the place to talk," he said.
He gestured for us to follow him towards a nondescript bush that stood off to the side. He marched up only to crouch before it. He tugged on something that I couldn't see and the entire bush shifted on a hinge revealing a hidden doorway into darkness. "Come, the true logistics centre is in here," he said, moving down into the tunnel without concern.
"I think I'll avoid the Ratata warren and make my own way," Agatha said with a sniff before she grinned. I could feel the moment her ghost energy twisted through her form only for her to vanish in the next moment as she fell through the ground.
Tiffany and Karein smirked at us before copying Agatha causing me to raise an eyebrow. They'd never done that before at training. Had they been holding back, or was this a recent development for them?
Karen scowled and tossed her head. "Come on girls, don't let Koga leave us behind," she said as she strode into the tunnel after him. Annabelle and Molly followed her. Sabrina and I trailed through the narrow tunnel after Karen and her entourage
The tunnel twisted in and around on itself a few times and from my talks with Surge in the past along with my training with the Guardians, I could recognise them as ambush points or positions where traps could be installed to waylay intruders.
For the moment they were empty.
When we exited the tunnel it was a sudden and unannounced occurrence, going from near darkness to sudden light quickly. I glanced back at the doorway to find that a thin cloth trailed down in multiple layers causing less and less light to escape. I'd walked through that cloth without even noticing.
Koga must have a very specialised Ariados to pull that trick off. I reached out and brushed my hand through the cloth only to barely feel anything, and that was while I was expecting it.
I turned away from the entrance to look at the rest of the room only to be surprised to find what looked like an old war centre with maps laid out and several wall-mounted radios.
"Koga… you really need to update your command centre if this is the best you can do," said Karen with an unimpressed tone.
Agatha huffed. "Don't disregard the old tools, most of the League is too caught up with modernisation to care for older methods of communication allowing for unrestricted and unmonitored lines of communication for those that hold to older methods."
Karen sighed. "I'm just saying, you could have some computers and holopads set up to—"
Koga flicked a switch and the maps shifted causing a three-dimensional display to appear.
Agatha shot him a look and he coughed. "Janine has been working on this," he said.
He flicked his fingers and the display shifted to a map overlooking Kanto. With deft movements, he zoomed in to Fuchsia from above. On it, the Seafoam islands were shown, and further south, just on the edges of Kanto's sea border, sat New Island.
"Twenty minutes ago two submarines were spotted moving towards New Island. It would appear the extremely fast development of the island has not gone unnoticed by Team Aqua. They have sent an expeditionary force to investigate. While we do not have anyone within their organisation we have been able to intercept radio broadcasts between their sea vessels."
On the map, two small blue blips began to move towards New Island. "They will make landfall within ten minutes by our estimate. We will not be able to stop them reaching the island, but we should be able to intercept them before they can penetrate too deeply into the facility that Mewtwo has created and potentially enrage him."
Sabrina shifted, eyeing the distances involved. "I won't be able to Teleport us very close…Within ten kilometres at most which will still put us directly above the sea."
Konga nodded and tapped at the holopad only for Janine to cough and type in something on her side.
A circle formed around the island marking the ten-kilometre distance and just how much ocean we would have to cover.
I chewed my lip. In any other situation, I doubted that would be an issue for Zephyr, but with Mewtwo possibly raising a storm? That might make it a bit more touch-and-go. It would depend on how amiable Mewtwo was.
"Any thoughts on how Mewtwo is responding to Team Aqua encroaching on his territory?" I asked. That was the big issue here after all. We did not want to agitate a Legendary pokemon if we could.
Team Aqua sticking their heads right into the Feraligatr's maw rather forced our hand, however.
"No response as yet," said Koga. "We need to stop Team Aqua from antagonising him. For that, Sabrina's psychic abilities will be of paramount importance."
Sabrina made a face. "Once we get closer I don't think it wise to rely on my psychic abilities as I have no doubt that Mewtwo would be aware of me."
"As the person that has the best interactions with Mewtwo thus far, you are crucial to making peaceful contact should it be required," said Koga. Agatha nodded at this while Karen bit her lips. I could just tell that she wanted to scoff, but she knew she couldn't refute the words.
She did straighten up after a moment. "What if Team Aqua has specialists like myself? Dark-type trainers to negate Mewtwo, or pass undetected?"
Koga made a face. "We will need to act on humanity's behalf. We cannot allow them to enrage a Legendary."
Koga made a gesture and the map rose with the Seafoam islands and Shamouti being highlighted in red.
I grimaced, both sites housed other Legendary pokemon. If Mewtwo became agitated it might cause a chain reaction, especially if he called forth a storm like he had in the first movie featuring him.
"So we're going into a hot situation that is delicate, to say the least, against a force that will have no issue with going…" I paused, having been about to say nuclear, but that wasn't the term in this life. "Well, going Legendary on the situation," I said tentatively.
"Yes, a rampaging Legendary, or more, is at risk. We will need to be quick and extremely clever, but most of all lucky!" said Agatha with a smirk.
She inhaled and straightened up as her shadow gained its own grin. "Ah! Just like old times!" she said and I could only shake my head, my eyes locked on the tiny pinprick that depicted where everything was going to come to a head.
"Alright? New island here we come," I said.
Sabrina teleported us to the seafoam islands first. Having been watching for it, I was not surprised when she flinched minutely. I squeezed her hand as the question I'd been wondering about the seafoam islands was answered.
Articuno had a nest here.
Sabrina squeezed me back before gesturing with her head to the south. "We will be teleporting in a few seconds, have your flying or water type pokemon prepared," she said.
I reached for Zephyr's pokeball while Sabrina looked to Alakazam.
"Three, two, one," said Sabrina counting down the next teleport, so that all of us would be ready to move. From a single practice session with the Guardians we'd learnt it was important to have a verbal cue, otherwise, people like myself or Karen were slow to react.
A flash of light momentarily blinded me but I was ready for it, and was already releasing Zephyr a heartbeat after I felt my environment change.
Zephyr appeared beneath me and I fell all of a few metres before landing on his back with him only buckling a little.
"Stay within ten metres of sea level! Otherwise, the radar that Team Aqua uses will detect us!" called Koga from his position on his Charizard's back.
Karen, who was using a giant Honchkrow glowered at Koga and eyed the waves and howling wind. I hid a pleased smile as I strapped myself into my flying saddle, only to tug my scarf into position so that no cold air ran down my flying jacket.
Karen and her entourage, it turned out, were the only people in our group who didn't have some form of flight jacket.
Agatha had a rather interesting canvas-like uniform with a leather helmet that looked like a flight suit from my past life for the First World War aviators. She wasn't using a flying type but instead had a pack of Ghost-type pokemon supporting her and the Channelers that she had brought with her.
Sabrina herself merely hovered in the air, held aloft with her own psychic power.
I whistled, impressed despite having seen her do feats like this multiple times before.
Sabrina gave me a smile only to nod to the side indicating an oncoming wave that Zephyr and I had to dodge around.
"Spoink shit!" growled Karen as she barely avoided the wave.
With that the team began to move, gliding over the water and occasionally dodging the waves. With each splash and burst of wind, Karen released a new torrent of curses that carried on the wind.
Koga slowed his Charizard to match her. "If you keep that up! They'll hear us!" he called to her only for her to glower at him.
"Screw you! You have a Charizard! You're not freezing your ass off!"
Koga sighed and tapped his pokemon on the shoulder.
Charizard performed a barrel roll over the back of Karen's Honchkrow and I could only watch as Koga's hands blurred.
Buckles unclasped and straps were thrown aside and for a moment I thought Koga was about to throw Karen into the ocean to fish out later.
Instead, the barrel roll ended and I was left gaping.
Somehow, Karen and Koga had switched places. Now Karen sat atop Charizard's back while Koga… stood with his scarf flapping in the wind.
If it had been impressive when the Pewter Flight club did it, it was even more impressive seeing Koga pull it off without his partner even knowing what was happening. It was a wonder Karen hadn't flinched and caused an accident.
Or had she and Koga merely accommodated for that as well? It was hard to judge with how quick he'd been.
I turned my head away.
For all that Koga could be frustrating to deal with sometimes, that had been cool.
I felt like it spoke more of Koga's skill than Karen's calm attitude that the manoeuver had been pulled off.
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Karen was still looking a bit dumbfounded at her changed position.
Heh, that was certainly one way to silence her.
"New Island! Dead ahead! Prepare yourselves!" called Agatha from the midst of her ghost pack.
I leaned down into Zephyr's back, my left hand moving to Tide and Shrek's pokeballs, more than ready to deploy them should we come under fire.
We raced low along the water, eyes peeled for any incoming missiles or rocks that might threaten us. I couldn't see anything but I still felt like something or someone was watching us. I shot Sabrina a look and she had a tense expression on her face as she flew on. Her eyes weren't tracking the shoreline but instead the top of the island where the dark castle loomed.
Glancing up was enough to send a shiver of fear through me. It was everything I'd imagined with tall dark towers that dotted the top of the island, while numerous small windmills spun silently. Green and yellow orbs bobbed like fey lights beckoning us to come closer while lighting up the dark metallic walls with a green pallour that made me think of horror movies.
If she could feel Mewtwo, surely Mewtwo could feel her, right?
I swallowed wondering how he was going to react to our appearance. Sabrina had mentioned feeding him positive core memories to help him. Would that mean he was different from the cold and vengeful pokemon that appeared in the first pokemon movie?
Or would he be something else? More thoughtful and collected?
If he was as sentient as a human he might be struggling with the newfound emotions.
Was that even a good thing?
I knew for a fact that pokemon could get emotional, or even hormonal. What would it be like for a pokemon that had been repressed for so long to experience emotions once more.
No lights flickered, and nothing seemed to stir on New Island as we came closer. We had only the barest idea of what we were racing towards.
The timeline and situation had changed enough that I wasn't confident I knew how Mewtwo would respond to this invasion. Last time he had… not fled, a pokemon as powerful as him couldn't be said to have fled.
He'd adjourned to contemplate the information.
I cast my mind back, back then he'd rejected Giovanni and seized freedom, but he'd also spurned Sabrina's offer of friendship.
Would us turning up here cause more issues?
I had no idea what it would do. None of us did, which was a big problem.
I pushed the thoughts away as I darted my gaze about the shoreline, not spotting the submarines that had caused this entire situation.
Koga flew in front of me, still posed in an upright standing position that… well I had to give it to him, made him look damn cool. "Make landfall on the upper level and call in your pokemon," Koga barked.
We did just that, landing and dismounting from our pokemon before returning them. I shifted, feeling like something was off. I eyed the area around where we'd landed. There wasn't much actual free area with the size of the building Mewtwo had created. Had we landed near the arena… had Mewtwo even built the arena this time?
What was this facility for?
Koga was also surveying the area with a critical eye. "Mewtwo has suffused his power throughout the island…" he said with narrowed eyes.
Agatha and Sabrina all nodded.
I glanced over and found Karen, like me, was also able to feel that something was off but unable to put our fingers on what.
Agatha waved a hand and a trio of Haunter floated away, notably without their typical jeering or menacing attitude.
They must have been able to feel the crisp power of Mewtwo. Had his building everything on this island caused a pseudo-Psychic terrain or something? I chewed my lip and pushed the thought to the side to ask Sabrina about it later.
"Do we know where they made… landfall?" I asked.
Koga shook his head. "Only that they intended to, from our approach I detected nothing amiss," his eyes continued to dart about. "Apart from the psychic presence," he continued after a moment.
I grunted, and when Koga made some signs for us to move as one I felt a surge of relief. We weren't going to break the party. Yes, Agatha had sent some Haunter out as scouts but that was just good thinking.
Breaking the party would have surely triggered all the red flags.
Heck just being here made me start mentally reviewing the guide on how to survive in a horror movie.
First, if there was a noise, it wasn't just the wind. Should I check it out? No. Were we wearing the right attire? I reinspected everyone only to pause on the Channellers. They seemed to be wearing some sort of traditional footwear rather than supportive runners.
"Hey, girls got any joggers?" I said, causing them to blink owlishly at me.
Sabrina frowned at me only to blink and reassess her surroundings. She, as the only other person who had entered an obviously haunted castle with me in the past, knew about my 'plans for haunted houses'.
"You should release Gawain," Sabrina said while eying Katrina and Tiffany. "Can you run in that outfit?"
When they shook their heads and made to argue the importance of their attire Sabrina dismissed them. "They will make decent sacrifices," she said firmly alluding to one of the rules I'd told her once.
Women who wore impractical clothing into a haunted house actively lowered their chances of survival, and should never be stood next to.
I'd mostly said that to make Sabrina stop wearing that extremely doll-like dress.
I released Gawain and he raised his axe-like claws with a tentative glance around. "Klea-vor?" he asked. I pat him on the shoulder.
"Need you out so that if something jumps us you can Stone Axe them," I said seriously.
The others took that moment to release their own singular pokemon that would be able to walk with us without making our group too large.
Sabrina's Alakazam merely stroked his moustache, his spoons held out as he slowly rotated in a slow orbit. Karen noticed this and frowned. "What's he doing?"
"Divining where Team Aqua are," Sabrina replied.
When Alakazam started to lean forward and his spoons began pointing down I could only click my tongue in annoyance. "There must be a grotto down there or something," I said.
Hadn't Team Rocket entered New Island via that method… no, Ash, Misty and the OG Brock had as well on the boat… no that was wrong as well they'd capsized and needed to use water pokemon to save themselves.
"It makes sense they'd find a route in via the ocean. We must have missed it by how we came in," I said. "Should we circle back around?"
Koga and Agatha shook their heads. "Team Aqua will have secured their exit," said Agatha.
Koga nodded. "There is also a chance that they will have set out mines."
"So no water entry and we need to find a way to them… or a way to talk to Mewtwo," I summarised.
"Preferably the former," said Agatha as her eyes flicked up towards the tower structure that screamed 'boss fight area' in my mind.
Agatha gestured towards the tower. "Team aqua if they encounter us while negotiating with Mewtwo will disrupt us."
I turned to Sabrina to see if she'd been able to make contact with Mewtwo only for her to shake her head. "He seems to be ignoring me, or focussed on something else, I can't tell and I am not willing to… poke at his mind for his attention."
I nodded grimly. "So, maximum effort?" I said with a smile to which Sabrina nodded. The others looked at me and I just rolled my eyes and gestured for Koga to lead us into the totally not a haunted castle that Mewtwo had made for himself.
We approached what looked like a large circle only for the circle to split apart, retracting into itself.
We all paused when we found ourselves in a room that expanded out before us. The, room unlike outside, was well lit with lights that sat atop small platforms. Each of them were the shape of pokeballs.
Above us, balconies twirled around the room making me itch as I realised how many alcoves there were for people to have the high ground against us.
In the middle of the room, a spiral staircase rose while surrounded by a moat of water. I paused, realising I knew precisely where we were.
This was the room where Fergus, Corey, Neesha, Ash, Brock, and Misty would recover from braving the storm in the movie.
This was where they would meet the most 'powerful trainer in the world' only to learn he was also the most powerful pokemon.
A pretentious claim, but one that was oddly suitable for drawing in strong trainers.
Often all a trainer or an organiser for a specific event had to do was claim the title of strongest in the world and it would result in trainers piling in to prove themselves against them. It was a great way of generating hype and interest.
I blamed the last World Cup's results.
Due to the format, there hadn't been a method to deal with draws when each trainer simultaneously knocked out the other's pokemon.
This had led to a lot of chaos and the winner not actually being possible with four double knock outs, narrowing the field of trainers that reached the end while others advanced unimpeded with how the rules had been set up.
Lance himself had been one such double knockout from memory but I couldn't recall who he'd faced.
I hadn't given the World Cup much attention as I'd thought it overly pretentious for Indigo, Hoenn, Orange and Sevii to call themselves 'the World'.
I think Wallace from Hoenn had been the winner in the end but I was probably wrong about that.
Koga waved us forward and our group advanced, fanning out and forming a loose circle with myself on the right edge while Karen and her crew formed the left edge of our circle. Sabrina and Alakazam hovered in the middle, their gazes swivelling around and taking in all the features of the room.
I glanced up only to find myself looking into darkness with the lights not being strong enough to reveal what was at the top of the spiral staircase.
"Agatha, recon?" Koga called, his eyes darting about. He out of all of us looked to be the most on edge, but that was probably due to his being forced to stay out in the open while Mewtwo was unaccounted for. With Koga being a horrible match up and Mewtwo's powers. Agatha had put her foot down on Koga doing his usual sneak-off routine.
Forcing the ninja out in the open in a potential combat situation seemed to be rather fraying his nerves, however.
It had to be counter to his instincts at the very least.
"We need to find a way to secure any access points to any waterways beneath us," Koga said, pointing towards a cluster of doors. "We need to find out which are our targets quickly," he said as he looked into each shadow pointedly as we moved further into the room.
Agatha raised a hand and from her shadow, another four ghost pokemon spilled out leaving only a single set of eyes to glower out and wink at us sinisterly.
I watched the ghost pokemon race out, some went high and others went low before I lost sight of them as they became invisible.
The ghost pokemon reappeared at the doorways and the various doorways on our level.
Two doorways led into large rooms much like this one while another led to a hallway that glowed green in a manner that caused an itch in my brain.
Hadn't the room where Mewtwo cloned other pokemon glowed green like that? Was that what was down there? The cloning facility?
"There!" called Katrina, her hand pointing to the left where a Mismagius had revealed a door that opened to a cave system that angled down.
Voices echoed up and I knew straight away that we had found what we'd been seeking. We broke into a jog making straight for the door only for a trio of men and women to appear in the doorway.
All of them sported white and blue shirts and socks that made me think of stereotypical sailors. On top of their heads scarves were banded tightly around their heads with the Team Aqua symbol proudly on display.
"Boss! We got company!" screamed one woman back down the tunnel they'd come from even as the other two released all of their pokemon revealing a small force of twelve pokemon.
Muk, Golbat, Pelliper, Mightyena, Starmie, two Crawdaunt, another pair of Tentacruel, a Cloyster, Sealeo, and a Golduck.
Their trainers both gave their teams orders as we raced to close the gap with them, our hands reaching for our own pokeballs.
"Charge!" shouted one of them while the other slashed his hand in front of him.
"Defence Up!" he called and all of his pokemon began to howl, screech, or buff up as our pokemon were released.
Sanchez took one look at the assembled pokemon and began to spark up, knowing he was going to go big for this line-up.
I didn't hesitate to unleash him as I twitched the bond we shared and fired off a thunder straight away at the pokemon charging us.
Pelliper and Golbat vanished as the lightning arced down. When the powerful electric move ended it revealed a knocked-out Pelliper on the ground while Golbat was revealed to be in a Protect shell.
This didn't stop my other pokemon from knocking it out of the air the instant the Protect faded.
From there the battle was joined with me, Karen, Molly, Annabelle and Tiffany overwhelmed the trainer that had sent his pokemon out to engage and slow us down. We made short work of the six pokemon with the twenty we had, twenty we'd released but it did slow us down as after Pelliper, each pokemon held with a Protect or a Detect, avoiding our initial strikes only to be taken down with follow-up strikes.
As the final pokemon, a Crawdaunt went down under a barrage of Dark Pusles from Knight and Karen's Houndoom.
I spotted the aggressive Grunt begin to twitch and froth at the mouth.
Hmmm he was whiting out from six pokemon being taken out? He truly was a Grunt then, despite his rather impressive— for a Grunt— pokemon roster.
He'd still done enough to slow us down.
Or at least slow down half our group.
We were after all more than used to working as a team on multiple different objectives.
While we'd been stomping down on one of the Grunts, Koga, Agatha, Sabrina, and Katrina continued to race forward. They made a beeline straight for the trainer who was trying to create a beachhead for his fellows.
Sabrina even tried to snipe him with a well-placed light fixture that was ripped from its bracket in an attempt to brain the Grunt into submission. Sadly, another Crawdaunt stepped into the path of the attempted snipe, catching and crushing the light while shrouding itself with dark energy.
"They're playing for keeps!" shouted the grunt with a high-pitched tone. Heh, he must have been rattled with how Sabrina had gone after him.
For a second it looked like the Grunt would flee, only for his resolve to be bolstered by the return of the female Team Aqua Grunt.
The girl released her own pokemon to help hold the line and I could only click my tongue as they unleashed a series of Surf only to freeze them solid.
Koga pointed and from his team, an Arbok leapt forward exhaling a huge gout of purple gas straight at one of the walls. When the poison touched the ice I was impressed to see that it was causing the ice to sizzle and hiss.
Koga didn't leave it there though. With the gas beginning to liquify the wall while condensing itself, he followed up with his Charizard unleashing a powerful Fire Blast that knocked the base level out from the frozen surf.
The icy walls tumbled down with a deafening boom that shook the room. Within the mists, shapes moved as we lost sight of our targets.
They however couldn't see us closing on them with my group and our pokemon made up of some truly powerful pokemon that barreled into the side of the Team Aqua pokemon forcing them into melee.
A moment later the mist was blown away by a powerful gust of wind that I leaned into as it threatened to knock us back.
Damn, that hadn't been one of ours. I snapped my hand out, grabbing at Tiffany as her large robes acted like sails causing her to be blown back.
"Urgh!" she grunted as she came to a sudden stop in my grip.
I smirked to myself, Sabrina had warned her.
I held in the urge to tease the woman however as I instead noted that Team Aqua reinforcements had arrived with what seemed to be a whole platoon of trainers. I stepped away from her, my mind aware of the second part of the warning I'd given Sabrina.
Twenty trainers, with all of them reaching for their pokeballs grinning at us sinisterly.
I cracked my neck, locking eyes with a man wearing what looked like a white sailor's jacket draped across his shoulders.
Around him was his pokemon team along with some lower-ranked Aqua members.
His team seemed to be the cause of the winds. I was interested to spot a pair of Gyarados with their fins fanning the winds. Alongside them were a Snorlax, a Lanturn, a Scizor, and a Swampert.
Gawain locked eyes with his modern evolution, his axes rising up in challenge. Shrek did the same with his counterpart as around us pokemon and Team Aqua roared and growled in anticipation of the coming battle. The noise they unleashed was an intimidating show of force alone.
But it wasn't enough to have any pokemon or people in our group faltering.
This was exactly what we'd trained for.
I leaned forward a small smirk on my lips as I let Tiffany huddle behind me, her ghost pokemon pulsing and glowing in agitation as our own pokemon gave back their own battle cries.
I released the other pokemon I'd been holding back, allowing Titan and Empress to take to the field.
My smirk grew as more than a few Team Aqua grunts stepped back at my pokemon merely appearing.
Koga drew his blade and raised it towards Team Aqua. "Guardians of Indigo! To battle!" he roared, signalling the start to the battle proper.
Our pokemon surged forward, I readied myself for a fight that hadn't been seen in years, a proper battle of two forces fighting to conquer each other.
Defeat wasn't an option. We needed to put them down hard.
"Hyper Barrage! Full Broadside!" roared the Aqua Commander.
I blinked in surprise as not one, but a full wave of pokemon rose up, their maws beginning to glow as they heralded the oncoming wave of Hyper Beams.
Fuck, I thought.
That was a good opening move.
A.N. The battle of New Island begins!
Thanks go to my Patreons for your continued support!
Thanks also go to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!
We arrived at Koga's Gym to find the place eerily quiet.
Not the quiet that one would expect of a residence where everyone was asleep as they should at this hour, but rather the house was silent as though the very earth itself was holding its breath in anticipation.
No pokemon stirred, no wind blew through the branches of elegantly spaced trees and no noise came from the house. It had my skin crawling and the hairs on my neck standing up.
I eyed the trees and flicked my eyes about; well aware that in Koga's domain, you were always being observed by ninjas. The fact that they were making it so apparent with how quiet it was, meant they were in a way warning anyone off.
The traditional house that stood forebodingly before us had all the sliding doors pulled open but only darkness peered back when you directed your gaze inside the building.
If you couldn't tell coming here was bad news you were either an idiot or acting in extremely bad faith.
When Karen and Agatha stepped out of the darkness I had a momentary flash of memory for my initiation fight and half considered if they might have baited me here for some training exercise.
One look at Karen's face revealed that this wasn't a drill or some shitty hidden test.
This was serious.
I pushed forward, ignoring the fluttering leaves in the trees that were probably shinobi. If I were a paranoid sort I suppose they would only be doing that much as a warning to 'announce, or prove myself to be who I was'. I called up my rock and dark energy and became a towering edifice that surveyed all before me. A dark mountain that looms.
"Who are we waiting for?" I asked, my voice having an interesting resonance that rumbled forth and silenced the twitching trees.
Sabrina merely floated along next to me, making me realise I'd lengthened my stride without really noticing, the act of covering more distance simply happening and not a conscious thought on my part.
Agatha smiled but didn't cackle at the display of power I'd unknowingly performed. "We only just arrived. I have brought with me a few channelers and Karen her minions."
"They're my Trainer Entourage!" growled Karen without the usual heat. I glanced past the two women and noticed some familiar faces.
"Molly and Annabelle, right?" I said recalling the time we'd raided a Team Rocket base together with Dennis. The pair nodded and stood a little taller at me recognising them. To the other side, a pair of familiar faces from the Guardian training we'd undergone bowed politely.
"Katrina, … Tiffany," I said, easily greeting the first only to eye the second.
Tiffany bowed demurely and rose languidly, making sure to display how her dress clung to her form. She smiled when our eyes met and I snorted in exasperation.
I'd always recalled Tiffany as being part of the very rough introduction to the Guardians and thus kept a careful eye on her. She was always a little too friendly for my liking.
Sabrina glowed a little brighter and Tiffany straightened and looked away from me, her smile vanishing faster than ice in the face of a Fire Blast.
"Koga?" I asked, looking around only for the man himself to appear, on his back a sword was strapped while bracers with wicked-looking hooks were also attached. I blinked in surprise and considered asking if he didn't think that was overkill only to realise that if anything, I should be copying him.
We were about to engage with a group known for being part of the Hoenn military, specifically their navy.
I swallowed. "What do we need to know?" I asked.
Koga nodded seriously. "You will need to know much in a very short space of time, but here is not the place to talk," he said.
He gestured for us to follow him towards a nondescript bush that stood off to the side. He marched up only to crouch before it. He tugged on something that I couldn't see and the entire bush shifted on a hinge revealing a hidden doorway into darkness. "Come, the true logistics centre is in here," he said, moving down into the tunnel without concern.
"I think I'll avoid the Ratata warren and make my own way," Agatha said with a sniff before she grinned. I could feel the moment her ghost energy twisted through her form only for her to vanish in the next moment as she fell through the ground.
Tiffany and Karein smirked at us before copying Agatha causing me to raise an eyebrow. They'd never done that before at training. Had they been holding back, or was this a recent development for them?
Karen scowled and tossed her head. "Come on girls, don't let Koga leave us behind," she said as she strode into the tunnel after him. Annabelle and Molly followed her. Sabrina and I trailed through the narrow tunnel after Karen and her entourage
The tunnel twisted in and around on itself a few times and from my talks with Surge in the past along with my training with the Guardians, I could recognise them as ambush points or positions where traps could be installed to waylay intruders.
For the moment they were empty.
When we exited the tunnel it was a sudden and unannounced occurrence, going from near darkness to sudden light quickly. I glanced back at the doorway to find that a thin cloth trailed down in multiple layers causing less and less light to escape. I'd walked through that cloth without even noticing.
Koga must have a very specialised Ariados to pull that trick off. I reached out and brushed my hand through the cloth only to barely feel anything, and that was while I was expecting it.
I turned away from the entrance to look at the rest of the room only to be surprised to find what looked like an old war centre with maps laid out and several wall-mounted radios.
"Koga… you really need to update your command centre if this is the best you can do," said Karen with an unimpressed tone.
Agatha huffed. "Don't disregard the old tools, most of the League is too caught up with modernisation to care for older methods of communication allowing for unrestricted and unmonitored lines of communication for those that hold to older methods."
Karen sighed. "I'm just saying, you could have some computers and holopads set up to—"
Koga flicked a switch and the maps shifted causing a three-dimensional display to appear.
Agatha shot him a look and he coughed. "Janine has been working on this," he said.
He flicked his fingers and the display shifted to a map overlooking Kanto. With deft movements, he zoomed in to Fuchsia from above. On it, the Seafoam islands were shown, and further south, just on the edges of Kanto's sea border, sat New Island.
"Twenty minutes ago two submarines were spotted moving towards New Island. It would appear the extremely fast development of the island has not gone unnoticed by Team Aqua. They have sent an expeditionary force to investigate. While we do not have anyone within their organisation we have been able to intercept radio broadcasts between their sea vessels."
On the map, two small blue blips began to move towards New Island. "They will make landfall within ten minutes by our estimate. We will not be able to stop them reaching the island, but we should be able to intercept them before they can penetrate too deeply into the facility that Mewtwo has created and potentially enrage him."
Sabrina shifted, eyeing the distances involved. "I won't be able to Teleport us very close…Within ten kilometres at most which will still put us directly above the sea."
Konga nodded and tapped at the holopad only for Janine to cough and type in something on her side.
A circle formed around the island marking the ten-kilometre distance and just how much ocean we would have to cover.
I chewed my lip. In any other situation, I doubted that would be an issue for Zephyr, but with Mewtwo possibly raising a storm? That might make it a bit more touch-and-go. It would depend on how amiable Mewtwo was.
"Any thoughts on how Mewtwo is responding to Team Aqua encroaching on his territory?" I asked. That was the big issue here after all. We did not want to agitate a Legendary pokemon if we could.
Team Aqua sticking their heads right into the Feraligatr's maw rather forced our hand, however.
"No response as yet," said Koga. "We need to stop Team Aqua from antagonising him. For that, Sabrina's psychic abilities will be of paramount importance."
Sabrina made a face. "Once we get closer I don't think it wise to rely on my psychic abilities as I have no doubt that Mewtwo would be aware of me."
"As the person that has the best interactions with Mewtwo thus far, you are crucial to making peaceful contact should it be required," said Koga. Agatha nodded at this while Karen bit her lips. I could just tell that she wanted to scoff, but she knew she couldn't refute the words.
She did straighten up after a moment. "What if Team Aqua has specialists like myself? Dark-type trainers to negate Mewtwo, or pass undetected?"
Koga made a face. "We will need to act on humanity's behalf. We cannot allow them to enrage a Legendary."
Koga made a gesture and the map rose with the Seafoam islands and Shamouti being highlighted in red.
I grimaced, both sites housed other Legendary pokemon. If Mewtwo became agitated it might cause a chain reaction, especially if he called forth a storm like he had in the first movie featuring him.
"So we're going into a hot situation that is delicate, to say the least, against a force that will have no issue with going…" I paused, having been about to say nuclear, but that wasn't the term in this life. "Well, going Legendary on the situation," I said tentatively.
"Yes, a rampaging Legendary, or more, is at risk. We will need to be quick and extremely clever, but most of all lucky!" said Agatha with a smirk.
She inhaled and straightened up as her shadow gained its own grin. "Ah! Just like old times!" she said and I could only shake my head, my eyes locked on the tiny pinprick that depicted where everything was going to come to a head.
"Alright? New island here we come," I said.
Sabrina teleported us to the seafoam islands first. Having been watching for it, I was not surprised when she flinched minutely. I squeezed her hand as the question I'd been wondering about the seafoam islands was answered.
Articuno had a nest here.
Sabrina squeezed me back before gesturing with her head to the south. "We will be teleporting in a few seconds, have your flying or water type pokemon prepared," she said.
I reached for Zephyr's pokeball while Sabrina looked to Alakazam.
"Three, two, one," said Sabrina counting down the next teleport, so that all of us would be ready to move. From a single practice session with the Guardians we'd learnt it was important to have a verbal cue, otherwise, people like myself or Karen were slow to react.
A flash of light momentarily blinded me but I was ready for it, and was already releasing Zephyr a heartbeat after I felt my environment change.
Zephyr appeared beneath me and I fell all of a few metres before landing on his back with him only buckling a little.
"Stay within ten metres of sea level! Otherwise, the radar that Team Aqua uses will detect us!" called Koga from his position on his Charizard's back.
Karen, who was using a giant Honchkrow glowered at Koga and eyed the waves and howling wind. I hid a pleased smile as I strapped myself into my flying saddle, only to tug my scarf into position so that no cold air ran down my flying jacket.
Karen and her entourage, it turned out, were the only people in our group who didn't have some form of flight jacket.
Agatha had a rather interesting canvas-like uniform with a leather helmet that looked like a flight suit from my past life for the First World War aviators. She wasn't using a flying type but instead had a pack of Ghost-type pokemon supporting her and the Channelers that she had brought with her.
Sabrina herself merely hovered in the air, held aloft with her own psychic power.
I whistled, impressed despite having seen her do feats like this multiple times before.
Sabrina gave me a smile only to nod to the side indicating an oncoming wave that Zephyr and I had to dodge around.
"Spoink shit!" growled Karen as she barely avoided the wave.
With that the team began to move, gliding over the water and occasionally dodging the waves. With each splash and burst of wind, Karen released a new torrent of curses that carried on the wind.
Koga slowed his Charizard to match her. "If you keep that up! They'll hear us!" he called to her only for her to glower at him.
"Screw you! You have a Charizard! You're not freezing your ass off!"
Koga sighed and tapped his pokemon on the shoulder.
Charizard performed a barrel roll over the back of Karen's Honchkrow and I could only watch as Koga's hands blurred.
Buckles unclasped and straps were thrown aside and for a moment I thought Koga was about to throw Karen into the ocean to fish out later.
Instead, the barrel roll ended and I was left gaping.
Somehow, Karen and Koga had switched places. Now Karen sat atop Charizard's back while Koga… stood with his scarf flapping in the wind.
If it had been impressive when the Pewter Flight club did it, it was even more impressive seeing Koga pull it off without his partner even knowing what was happening. It was a wonder Karen hadn't flinched and caused an accident.
Or had she and Koga merely accommodated for that as well? It was hard to judge with how quick he'd been.
I turned my head away.
For all that Koga could be frustrating to deal with sometimes, that had been cool.
I felt like it spoke more of Koga's skill than Karen's calm attitude that the manoeuver had been pulled off.
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Karen was still looking a bit dumbfounded at her changed position.
Heh, that was certainly one way to silence her.
"New Island! Dead ahead! Prepare yourselves!" called Agatha from the midst of her ghost pack.
I leaned down into Zephyr's back, my left hand moving to Tide and Shrek's pokeballs, more than ready to deploy them should we come under fire.
We raced low along the water, eyes peeled for any incoming missiles or rocks that might threaten us. I couldn't see anything but I still felt like something or someone was watching us. I shot Sabrina a look and she had a tense expression on her face as she flew on. Her eyes weren't tracking the shoreline but instead the top of the island where the dark castle loomed.
Glancing up was enough to send a shiver of fear through me. It was everything I'd imagined with tall dark towers that dotted the top of the island, while numerous small windmills spun silently. Green and yellow orbs bobbed like fey lights beckoning us to come closer while lighting up the dark metallic walls with a green pallour that made me think of horror movies.
If she could feel Mewtwo, surely Mewtwo could feel her, right?
I swallowed wondering how he was going to react to our appearance. Sabrina had mentioned feeding him positive core memories to help him. Would that mean he was different from the cold and vengeful pokemon that appeared in the first pokemon movie?
Or would he be something else? More thoughtful and collected?
If he was as sentient as a human he might be struggling with the newfound emotions.
Was that even a good thing?
I knew for a fact that pokemon could get emotional, or even hormonal. What would it be like for a pokemon that had been repressed for so long to experience emotions once more.
No lights flickered, and nothing seemed to stir on New Island as we came closer. We had only the barest idea of what we were racing towards.
The timeline and situation had changed enough that I wasn't confident I knew how Mewtwo would respond to this invasion. Last time he had… not fled, a pokemon as powerful as him couldn't be said to have fled.
He'd adjourned to contemplate the information.
I cast my mind back, back then he'd rejected Giovanni and seized freedom, but he'd also spurned Sabrina's offer of friendship.
Would us turning up here cause more issues?
I had no idea what it would do. None of us did, which was a big problem.
I pushed the thoughts away as I darted my gaze about the shoreline, not spotting the submarines that had caused this entire situation.
Koga flew in front of me, still posed in an upright standing position that… well I had to give it to him, made him look damn cool. "Make landfall on the upper level and call in your pokemon," Koga barked.
We did just that, landing and dismounting from our pokemon before returning them. I shifted, feeling like something was off. I eyed the area around where we'd landed. There wasn't much actual free area with the size of the building Mewtwo had created. Had we landed near the arena… had Mewtwo even built the arena this time?
What was this facility for?
Koga was also surveying the area with a critical eye. "Mewtwo has suffused his power throughout the island…" he said with narrowed eyes.
Agatha and Sabrina all nodded.
I glanced over and found Karen, like me, was also able to feel that something was off but unable to put our fingers on what.
Agatha waved a hand and a trio of Haunter floated away, notably without their typical jeering or menacing attitude.
They must have been able to feel the crisp power of Mewtwo. Had his building everything on this island caused a pseudo-Psychic terrain or something? I chewed my lip and pushed the thought to the side to ask Sabrina about it later.
"Do we know where they made… landfall?" I asked.
Koga shook his head. "Only that they intended to, from our approach I detected nothing amiss," his eyes continued to dart about. "Apart from the psychic presence," he continued after a moment.
I grunted, and when Koga made some signs for us to move as one I felt a surge of relief. We weren't going to break the party. Yes, Agatha had sent some Haunter out as scouts but that was just good thinking.
Breaking the party would have surely triggered all the red flags.
Heck just being here made me start mentally reviewing the guide on how to survive in a horror movie.
First, if there was a noise, it wasn't just the wind. Should I check it out? No. Were we wearing the right attire? I reinspected everyone only to pause on the Channellers. They seemed to be wearing some sort of traditional footwear rather than supportive runners.
"Hey, girls got any joggers?" I said, causing them to blink owlishly at me.
Sabrina frowned at me only to blink and reassess her surroundings. She, as the only other person who had entered an obviously haunted castle with me in the past, knew about my 'plans for haunted houses'.
"You should release Gawain," Sabrina said while eying Katrina and Tiffany. "Can you run in that outfit?"
When they shook their heads and made to argue the importance of their attire Sabrina dismissed them. "They will make decent sacrifices," she said firmly alluding to one of the rules I'd told her once.
Women who wore impractical clothing into a haunted house actively lowered their chances of survival, and should never be stood next to.
I'd mostly said that to make Sabrina stop wearing that extremely doll-like dress.
I released Gawain and he raised his axe-like claws with a tentative glance around. "Klea-vor?" he asked. I pat him on the shoulder.
"Need you out so that if something jumps us you can Stone Axe them," I said seriously.
The others took that moment to release their own singular pokemon that would be able to walk with us without making our group too large.
Sabrina's Alakazam merely stroked his moustache, his spoons held out as he slowly rotated in a slow orbit. Karen noticed this and frowned. "What's he doing?"
"Divining where Team Aqua are," Sabrina replied.
When Alakazam started to lean forward and his spoons began pointing down I could only click my tongue in annoyance. "There must be a grotto down there or something," I said.
Hadn't Team Rocket entered New Island via that method… no, Ash, Misty and the OG Brock had as well on the boat… no that was wrong as well they'd capsized and needed to use water pokemon to save themselves.
"It makes sense they'd find a route in via the ocean. We must have missed it by how we came in," I said. "Should we circle back around?"
Koga and Agatha shook their heads. "Team Aqua will have secured their exit," said Agatha.
Koga nodded. "There is also a chance that they will have set out mines."
"So no water entry and we need to find a way to them… or a way to talk to Mewtwo," I summarised.
"Preferably the former," said Agatha as her eyes flicked up towards the tower structure that screamed 'boss fight area' in my mind.
Agatha gestured towards the tower. "Team aqua if they encounter us while negotiating with Mewtwo will disrupt us."
I turned to Sabrina to see if she'd been able to make contact with Mewtwo only for her to shake her head. "He seems to be ignoring me, or focussed on something else, I can't tell and I am not willing to… poke at his mind for his attention."
I nodded grimly. "So, maximum effort?" I said with a smile to which Sabrina nodded. The others looked at me and I just rolled my eyes and gestured for Koga to lead us into the totally not a haunted castle that Mewtwo had made for himself.
We approached what looked like a large circle only for the circle to split apart, retracting into itself.
We all paused when we found ourselves in a room that expanded out before us. The, room unlike outside, was well lit with lights that sat atop small platforms. Each of them were the shape of pokeballs.
Above us, balconies twirled around the room making me itch as I realised how many alcoves there were for people to have the high ground against us.
In the middle of the room, a spiral staircase rose while surrounded by a moat of water. I paused, realising I knew precisely where we were.
This was the room where Fergus, Corey, Neesha, Ash, Brock, and Misty would recover from braving the storm in the movie.
This was where they would meet the most 'powerful trainer in the world' only to learn he was also the most powerful pokemon.
A pretentious claim, but one that was oddly suitable for drawing in strong trainers.
Often all a trainer or an organiser for a specific event had to do was claim the title of strongest in the world and it would result in trainers piling in to prove themselves against them. It was a great way of generating hype and interest.
I blamed the last World Cup's results.
Due to the format, there hadn't been a method to deal with draws when each trainer simultaneously knocked out the other's pokemon.
This had led to a lot of chaos and the winner not actually being possible with four double knock outs, narrowing the field of trainers that reached the end while others advanced unimpeded with how the rules had been set up.
Lance himself had been one such double knockout from memory but I couldn't recall who he'd faced.
I hadn't given the World Cup much attention as I'd thought it overly pretentious for Indigo, Hoenn, Orange and Sevii to call themselves 'the World'.
I think Wallace from Hoenn had been the winner in the end but I was probably wrong about that.
Koga waved us forward and our group advanced, fanning out and forming a loose circle with myself on the right edge while Karen and her crew formed the left edge of our circle. Sabrina and Alakazam hovered in the middle, their gazes swivelling around and taking in all the features of the room.
I glanced up only to find myself looking into darkness with the lights not being strong enough to reveal what was at the top of the spiral staircase.
"Agatha, recon?" Koga called, his eyes darting about. He out of all of us looked to be the most on edge, but that was probably due to his being forced to stay out in the open while Mewtwo was unaccounted for. With Koga being a horrible match up and Mewtwo's powers. Agatha had put her foot down on Koga doing his usual sneak-off routine.
Forcing the ninja out in the open in a potential combat situation seemed to be rather fraying his nerves, however.
It had to be counter to his instincts at the very least.
"We need to find a way to secure any access points to any waterways beneath us," Koga said, pointing towards a cluster of doors. "We need to find out which are our targets quickly," he said as he looked into each shadow pointedly as we moved further into the room.
Agatha raised a hand and from her shadow, another four ghost pokemon spilled out leaving only a single set of eyes to glower out and wink at us sinisterly.
I watched the ghost pokemon race out, some went high and others went low before I lost sight of them as they became invisible.
The ghost pokemon reappeared at the doorways and the various doorways on our level.
Two doorways led into large rooms much like this one while another led to a hallway that glowed green in a manner that caused an itch in my brain.
Hadn't the room where Mewtwo cloned other pokemon glowed green like that? Was that what was down there? The cloning facility?
"There!" called Katrina, her hand pointing to the left where a Mismagius had revealed a door that opened to a cave system that angled down.
Voices echoed up and I knew straight away that we had found what we'd been seeking. We broke into a jog making straight for the door only for a trio of men and women to appear in the doorway.
All of them sported white and blue shirts and socks that made me think of stereotypical sailors. On top of their heads scarves were banded tightly around their heads with the Team Aqua symbol proudly on display.
"Boss! We got company!" screamed one woman back down the tunnel they'd come from even as the other two released all of their pokemon revealing a small force of twelve pokemon.
Muk, Golbat, Pelliper, Mightyena, Starmie, two Crawdaunt, another pair of Tentacruel, a Cloyster, Sealeo, and a Golduck.
Their trainers both gave their teams orders as we raced to close the gap with them, our hands reaching for our own pokeballs.
"Charge!" shouted one of them while the other slashed his hand in front of him.
"Defence Up!" he called and all of his pokemon began to howl, screech, or buff up as our pokemon were released.
Sanchez took one look at the assembled pokemon and began to spark up, knowing he was going to go big for this line-up.
I didn't hesitate to unleash him as I twitched the bond we shared and fired off a thunder straight away at the pokemon charging us.
Pelliper and Golbat vanished as the lightning arced down. When the powerful electric move ended it revealed a knocked-out Pelliper on the ground while Golbat was revealed to be in a Protect shell.
This didn't stop my other pokemon from knocking it out of the air the instant the Protect faded.
From there the battle was joined with me, Karen, Molly, Annabelle and Tiffany overwhelmed the trainer that had sent his pokemon out to engage and slow us down. We made short work of the six pokemon with the twenty we had, twenty we'd released but it did slow us down as after Pelliper, each pokemon held with a Protect or a Detect, avoiding our initial strikes only to be taken down with follow-up strikes.
As the final pokemon, a Crawdaunt went down under a barrage of Dark Pusles from Knight and Karen's Houndoom.
I spotted the aggressive Grunt begin to twitch and froth at the mouth.
Hmmm he was whiting out from six pokemon being taken out? He truly was a Grunt then, despite his rather impressive— for a Grunt— pokemon roster.
He'd still done enough to slow us down.
Or at least slow down half our group.
We were after all more than used to working as a team on multiple different objectives.
While we'd been stomping down on one of the Grunts, Koga, Agatha, Sabrina, and Katrina continued to race forward. They made a beeline straight for the trainer who was trying to create a beachhead for his fellows.
Sabrina even tried to snipe him with a well-placed light fixture that was ripped from its bracket in an attempt to brain the Grunt into submission. Sadly, another Crawdaunt stepped into the path of the attempted snipe, catching and crushing the light while shrouding itself with dark energy.
"They're playing for keeps!" shouted the grunt with a high-pitched tone. Heh, he must have been rattled with how Sabrina had gone after him.
For a second it looked like the Grunt would flee, only for his resolve to be bolstered by the return of the female Team Aqua Grunt.
The girl released her own pokemon to help hold the line and I could only click my tongue as they unleashed a series of Surf only to freeze them solid.
Koga pointed and from his team, an Arbok leapt forward exhaling a huge gout of purple gas straight at one of the walls. When the poison touched the ice I was impressed to see that it was causing the ice to sizzle and hiss.
Koga didn't leave it there though. With the gas beginning to liquify the wall while condensing itself, he followed up with his Charizard unleashing a powerful Fire Blast that knocked the base level out from the frozen surf.
The icy walls tumbled down with a deafening boom that shook the room. Within the mists, shapes moved as we lost sight of our targets.
They however couldn't see us closing on them with my group and our pokemon made up of some truly powerful pokemon that barreled into the side of the Team Aqua pokemon forcing them into melee.
A moment later the mist was blown away by a powerful gust of wind that I leaned into as it threatened to knock us back.
Damn, that hadn't been one of ours. I snapped my hand out, grabbing at Tiffany as her large robes acted like sails causing her to be blown back.
"Urgh!" she grunted as she came to a sudden stop in my grip.
I smirked to myself, Sabrina had warned her.
I held in the urge to tease the woman however as I instead noted that Team Aqua reinforcements had arrived with what seemed to be a whole platoon of trainers. I stepped away from her, my mind aware of the second part of the warning I'd given Sabrina.
Twenty trainers, with all of them reaching for their pokeballs grinning at us sinisterly.
I cracked my neck, locking eyes with a man wearing what looked like a white sailor's jacket draped across his shoulders.
Around him was his pokemon team along with some lower-ranked Aqua members.
His team seemed to be the cause of the winds. I was interested to spot a pair of Gyarados with their fins fanning the winds. Alongside them were a Snorlax, a Lanturn, a Scizor, and a Swampert.
Gawain locked eyes with his modern evolution, his axes rising up in challenge. Shrek did the same with his counterpart as around us pokemon and Team Aqua roared and growled in anticipation of the coming battle. The noise they unleashed was an intimidating show of force alone.
But it wasn't enough to have any pokemon or people in our group faltering.
This was exactly what we'd trained for.
I leaned forward a small smirk on my lips as I let Tiffany huddle behind me, her ghost pokemon pulsing and glowing in agitation as our own pokemon gave back their own battle cries.
I released the other pokemon I'd been holding back, allowing Titan and Empress to take to the field.
My smirk grew as more than a few Team Aqua grunts stepped back at my pokemon merely appearing.
Koga drew his blade and raised it towards Team Aqua. "Guardians of Indigo! To battle!" he roared, signalling the start to the battle proper.
Our pokemon surged forward, I readied myself for a fight that hadn't been seen in years, a proper battle of two forces fighting to conquer each other.
Defeat wasn't an option. We needed to put them down hard.
"Hyper Barrage! Full Broadside!" roared the Aqua Commander.
I blinked in surprise as not one, but a full wave of pokemon rose up, their maws beginning to glow as they heralded the oncoming wave of Hyper Beams.
Fuck, I thought.
That was a good opening move.
A.N. The battle of New Island begins!
Thanks go to my Patreons for your continued support!
Thanks also go to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!
verycoolname
Not actually cool
The way Team Aqua referred to their group move by a nautical term is a clever bit of world building.
- Location
- Miami
Civil Trainer battles are nice, but outright combat with Pokemon has got to be my favorite to read.
It looks incredibly adorable tho
- Location
- Scotland
True, but best save it for the right occasion, such as a nice date night between her and Brock. Especially not for going into an expected combat zone. Heck, even Agatha knows this which is why she's wearing basically a military outfit. Shame she didn't drum the lesson into her own minions.
- Location
- Texas
So nothing will change?
In the OTL Mewtwo mistakenly believed that all humans were as selfish and cruel as Giovanni but in this timeline he realized that things aren't that simple and went into seclusion to think about it. He's definitely gonna be very angry that a bunch of humans interrupted his big think by having a huge fight in his backyard but there's a chance that he won't be as indiscriminate as he would have been.
- Location
- Texas
I mean, the joke was supposed to be that Mewtwo already said 'Fuck all this just leave me alone.' in this timeline. So him wanting everyone to leave him alone and being done with people would mean nothing changed, which is probably good for the world.
Agatha is the type to make people learn the hard way. It has its merits - the burned hand learns quickest, after all - but it does mean there are unfortunate teething periods.
Regarding Mewtwo, I'm going to buck the trend and be positive. Maybe he'll be touched that the Guardians are risking life and limb to defend him?