The air in the stands became charged with excitement the moment everyone saw that two dark gold stage Pokemon would be facing each other. Honestly, the next part felt a bit like magic. One moment the crowd was cheering loudly, and the next everyone quietened down within just a few seconds.
That just showed how eager everyone was to watch the fight since they quietened down the moment Lickilicky and Titania/Niodqueen made a move.
I saw Lickilicky initiating a Defense Curl while Titania stomped her foot and caused an Earthquake. In the wake of Titania's blanket opener, Lickilicky ended up being hurt and I saw it flinch the moment Earthquake hit.
Still, the other side did not simply lie down and take it. No, Lickicky hopped into the air to avoid more damage. Meanwhile, I saw Titania sprinkling the field with Toxic Spikes while her foe was in the air. She was done spreading her spikes by the time Lickilicky began falling back down.
Parallel to that, a lot of Lickilicky appeared around the original. That was rather impressive considering that Lickilicky was hanging in the air since Double Team usually required rapid movement to create the illusionary doubles it creates.
Despite that, Lickilicky managed to create 3 more Lickilicky and all of them followed its example and curled into a ball before they all began to spin.
Well, obviously Mom's side would not let them go through with their plan and Titania released a Shock Wave that hit the Lickilicky just as they crashed onto the ground. While the original managed to ignore the electric attack, and I saw it momentarily gain a metallic glint that was most likely responsible for that, Lickilicky's copies were not that fortunate.
The copies got destroyed by Titania's Shock Wave before they could become useful, and the OG Lickilicky got revealed. I had to admit that I was impressed with how swiftly Lickilicky was able to switch from Rollout to what I was sure was Gyro Ball before switching back to Rollout.
Anyway, Lickilicky rolled around the battlefield, obviously trying to build up speed. While it did that I noticed that it moved through quite a few places with Toxic Spikes, but it seemed that none of them managed to prick it while it was rolling through.
My guess was that the rock energy from Rollout and its high-speed rolling kept it momentarily safe from the Toxic Spikes, and even allowed it to flatten the spikes instead.
It was naturally impossible for Mom and Titania to simply watch Lickilicky build up its momentum, so Titania caused a few Earthquakes that forced Lickilicky to a rolling jump, and while that allowed it to avoid the Earthquake and any damage that could have caused nearly every time, the action also bled away some of the speed Lickilicky managed to build up.
Obviously, Titania tried to nail Lickilicky each time it was hurling through the air once it jumped, but her long-range attacks failed to hit their target most of the time due to the meatballs momentum, though she managed to hit Lickilicky twice with a Thunderbolt and once with a Flamethrower.
Still, it was quite surprising to see Lickilicky and Thomas being so insistent on their strategy. So much so, that Lickilcky actually kept enduring Titania's bombardment for nearly ten minutes. The most Lickilicky did during that time as far as offense was concerned was to flick some of the chunks lying around at Titania.
Other than that, Lickilicky dodged everything it could and simply tanked what it couldn't, ignoring any damage it took during that time. Lickilicky was fully focused on building up momentum even if Titania occasionally managed to bleed off some of its speed with her attacks.
I was honestly wondering how long they wanted to keep up this cat-and-mouse game. The field had suffered quite a bit by now with small cracks going through parts of the ground caused by Earthquake and some of Titania's long-range moves, along with some chunks and mounds that were residue caused by Earth Power and some of the other moves that missed.
Reinforced battlefield or not, if they kept going like that, there would not be any "proper" ground left for Lickilicky to roll on, at least not while still being able to speed up. Besides, Lickilicky had gotten fast enough that he was releasing "sparks" so I could not understand why he was not crashing into Titania yet.
Well, coincidentally, just a few moments later it looked as if Lickilicky had reached whatever goal it had since it began heading for Titania. Titania fired a Thunderbolt at Lickilicky, but it just swerved to the side while still rolling forward. Seeing that, Titania went for a Shock Wave next, but Lickilicky just tanked it and kept going.
She released an Earthquake just as Lickilicky came within 10 or so meters of her, but it took Lickilicky just a second to veer to its left where a mound stood. It used the mound to fly at Titania at full speed and the scene made me think of a meteor movie scene.
Anyway, Titania swiftly reacted and erected a Protect barrier to receive Lickilicky. Yet, the expected crash did not happen since it seemed that crashing into Titania had not been its goal all along. Well, that or it managed to change its goal mid-flight.
Regardless, instead of slamming into Titania, Lickilicky slammed into the ground right in front of her, and what followed explained why it did that. The moment the crash happened, the whole battlefield began to shake like never before and even the barriers around the grandstand began to creak.
The Super Earthquake did not only cause the battlefield to shake severely, but Titania's Protect began to rapidly crack and it was obvious that it would not withstand Lickilicky's attack. Titania seemed to come to the same conclusion since she did not bother with her Protect and simply used the last moments it remained to prepare a Toxic which she then swiftly fired at Lickilicky.
While the Toxic hit Lickilicky, Titania's Protect finally broke and even though it had managed to help her withstand the worst period of the Super Earthquake, Titania still suffered from the still ongoing but weakening Earthquake.
She gritted her teeth and stomped her foot to release an Earthquake of her own to put Lickilicky's Earthquake to rest. On the other side, a drum noise began to sound out and everyone saw that it came from Lickilicky who was using Belly Drum, which surprised me a bit.
Nonetheless, I understood that it was planning to take down Titania no matter the cost since it had gotten poisoned and had accumulated some damage while rolling around, meaning that its time was numbered anyway.
By the time Titania had dealt with the Earthquake, Lickilicky was done with its drum performance and immediately went on offense. Considering that there was only a meter or so between them, there was not much Titania could do aside from directly blocking Lickilicky's Giga Impact.
She fired a point-blank Hyper Beam which collided with Lickilicky. Still, it relied on Giga Impact to tank the Hyper Beam and smashed through it, crashing into Titania. Their collision caused an energy explosion which threw up quite a bit of dust.
It took a few moments for the dust to settle, but none of us saw any movement coming from the collision center during that time, which made sense since both parties use moves that temporarily immobilized their user. Still, once Lickilicky and Titania became visible, everyone saw both Pokemon off their feet and on their back or belly in Lickilicky's case.
Both Pokemon were doing their best to stand up, but it was impossible to miss that the two were quite hurt. Though admittedly Lickilicky looked worse off than Titania, and it showed since its attempt at getting back on its feet was not going well. Honestly, Lickilicky looked like one big bruise, a poisoned bruise at that.
Titania on the other hand had an easier time standing back up. Admittedly, her arms looked pretty banged up, and seeing them hang limply at her sides, it was obvious that she would not be able to use them for now, but the rest of her body was in much better shape since she used/sacrificed her arms to block most of the impact/damage.
Hence, it was no surprise to me to see that Titania managed to get on her feet first while Lickilicky was still struggling. Naturally, she did not give Lickilicky any more time to recover and directly attacked it with a Venoshock.
That ended up being too much for Lickilicky and it finally succumbed to the darkness. Thomas recalled him and everyone heard him thank Lickilicky for doing its best before putting its ball away.
Well, Lickilicky might have been beaten, but the two attacks it delivered caused quite some damage, not to mention the energy Titania had to expend using all those moves during the cat-and-mouse game before Lickilicky went on the offensive.
Still, even if Mom recalled Titania now, it was questionable if she would be able to return to fight again with just a few minutes of "rest", so I was not surprised to see that Titania wanted to stay on the field and do as much damage as she could before going down. At least I was assuming that that was the reason why she remained on the field.
Regardless, Thomas called out his final Pokemon, and I can't lie, seeing how he used his Lickilicky as his fifth Pokemon, I was a bit worried that it would end up being some kind of trump card he left to turn this whole thing around.
When a Gyarados appeared on the field and released a challenging roar before its Intimidate got triggered, that worry spiked. Unlike me, some of the viewers of UtopiaTV were rather excited to see a Gyarados appear during the final confrontation.
Still, Sinister Six's excitement aside, I felt a bit relieved when the pressure Gyarados released happened to be that of the gold stage and not the dark gold one that I had been worrying about.
Well, (high) gold stage or not, Gyarados was actually a bad match-up for Titania considering its water typing. Not to mention her being in a rather sorry state. Nonetheless, Titania stayed on the field for a reason and she did her best to cause as much damage to Gyarados as she could before she ran out of steam.
By that point, Gyarados got nailed by a Thunderbolt and a suicidal Hyper Beam. The last one was her coup de grace before Mom had to recall her. Still, while she got in two decent hits, Gyarados was far from done. Unfortunately, at least for Gyarados, Rivers/Poliwrath was the next one to appear on the field, and he certainly had no plans to lose.
Rivers put on a lucha libre-like performance while using the sea serpent as his target. We got to see some Seismic Tosses, a Submission hold, some Body Slams, a few Ice Punches, some underhanded Poison Jabs, and a final Circle Throw that flung Gyarados into the air which led to a Hyper Beam showdown, which Rivers won hands down.
Rivers being the stronger Pokemon with better energy parameters probably had something to do with that. Regardless, what was important was that Gyarados went down as a result of that clash which meant that all of Thomas' Pokemon were beaten.
That meant that Mom had won and was now the Senior League Champion. The crowd went wild cheering for her and our group was naturally among those cheering for her as well. The referee announced the end of the battle and declared Mom the winner, while the commentator proclaimed her the champion.
Nonetheless, there still had to be an official ceremony where she got crowned the champion, and Dad as well as I got to see her before that happened. I could not help but laugh a bit when she told me that I now had a champion mommy before turning to Dad to tell him that he did not have to worry about not being a Champion since he would become an Elite soon.
The way she emphasized Champion and Elite, it was obvious that she was teasing him, and Dad let her have the moment and simply laughed along.
When the moment came and Mom got called onto the stage where she got handed the golden cup/trophy she was beaming. Our group was at the foot of the stage and clapped as well as cheered for her as she was officially declared this circuit's Senior League Champion. We made sure to record the whole thing and the cheering/applause that could be heard was phenomenal.
Following the official ceremony, we took a few photos of Mom and her cup. Afterward, we took some more photos with just our family, then one with our whole group, before the girls took a few photos with Mom. I believe we stayed there for more than half an hour before we were done.
Some reporters came up to Mom to ask her some questions and take some photos as well. Mom finished that up within just 10 or so minutes, and once she was done we went to celebrate her victory.
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