I had initially been planning to use Shino/Yanmega for the third round, but seeing Empoleon I changed my mind. I took out Hashirama/Venusaur's ball instead and released him onto the field. Hashirama only had to look out for any flying moves from Empoleon since they did some extra damage due to Hahsirama's minor weakness toward flying energy. On the other hand, Hashirama could do some extra damage using ground moves, so they were even on the matter. Not that I was planning to rely on Earthquake, or Earth Power to win the battle.
Anyway, the crowd seemed excited at seeing two royal Pokemon facing each other, and under their excited cheers, the referee gave the starting signal. As soon as the battle began, Hashirama used Sunny Day to activate his Chlorophyll ability along with his Solar Overgrowth talent. Chlorophyll would double Hashirama's speed, while Solar Overgrowth would provide him with a small amount of continuous healing along with raising the power of all his grass-type moves by 50%.
That bonus stacked with the usual STAB bonus, meaning that the power of Hashirama's grass moves was double their standard power, so a simple Sunny Day doubled Hashirama's speed, the power of his grass moves, and granted him an enhanced recovery factor. That was why Sunny Day was the first move Hashirama mastered and why he was still working on it in hopes of raising it to transcendent mastery. It was also his mastery over Sunny Day that stopped Empoleon's attempt to cover the sun.
Empoleon interrupted its own opening move when it saw Hashirama use Sunny Day and switched to Rain Dance in an attempt to prevent Hashirama from getting the weather advantage. Unfortunately for Empoleon, its mastery over Rain Dance was not enough to neutralize the Sunny Day, much less overpower it, so Hashirama's Sunny Day stayed active, though its duration did get cut short by a few minutes, which was fine since one of Hashi's Sunny Days could stay active for roughly 12 minutes, so even a loss of 2-3 minutes was not a problem. I did not believe that Hasirama would need that much time to beat Empoleon anyway.
Still, that did not mean that it was impossible to get rid of Sunny Day, so when Empoleon attempted another Rain dance, Hashirama reinforced Sunny Day with a second one, ensuring that it would take Empoleon at least 4 to 5 more Rain Dances to neutralize the extra sunshine, which meant that he could ignore Empoleon's future attempts at Rain Dance for some time and focus on taking it down instead. With the second Sunny Day done, Hashirama sent out a Sleep Bomb at Empoleon, who was glaring at Hashirama after noting that its second Rain Dance was useless as well.
Empoleon fired an Ice Beam at the Sleep Bomb, perfectly neutralizing it since its frozen state prevented it from exploding and spreading Sleep Powder. My guy did not let that stop him and kept sending out one bomb after the other in quick succession. To circumvent the slight cooldown between move repetitions, Hashi alternated between Sleep Bomb and Happy Bomb. The nice thing about Happy Bomb was that the relaxed state it forced its target into made the target even more susceptible to the effect of Sleep Powder/Bomb.
Not that it came in use since Empoleon kept freezing each bomb that Hashirama sent out. Still, that was exactly what we wanted, Empoleon's focus on Hashirama's bomb barrage. While Empoleon was focusing on neutralizing those bombs, Hashirama was slowly and carefully having some of his vines burrow a bit beneath the ground and dig toward Empoleon's position. The process was slow because Hashirama was practically multitasking by using two extra moves at the same time as the bombs he was releasing which was not easy at all.
Still, roughly two and a half minutes into their exchange the vines made it right beneath Empoleon, so he retracted them so that he could swap them out with Sleep Vines. It took Hashirama another 30 or so seconds to move the Sleep Powder-covered Power Whip into position. Once that was the case, we waited for an opportune moment which came just a few moments later. As soon as Empoleon released another Ice Beam to freeze the latest Sleep Bomb Hashirama sent out, the Sleep Vine broke through the little bit of ground that was covering it and entangled Empoleon.
The Power Whips wrapped around Empoleon, pushing its wings/flippers to its body while spreading the Sleep Powder on the vines all over Empoleon's body in the process. For safety's sake, the vine extended to the tip of Empoleon's trident and wrapped around it before tugging down to force Empoleon to face upwards which would prevent it from releasing Ice Beam at the vines or in Hashirama's direction. Empoleon naturally did not plan to stay wrapped up like that and tried to struggle out of Hashirama's hold.
Its steel typing allowed it to resist the sleep powder on its skin to a certain degree which was why it had yet to fall asleep, but with every passing second its struggle weakened and its head began to slacken. To speed up the process, Hashirama sent a Sleep Bomb over, which exploded on top of Empoleon's head and bathed its head in Sleep Powder. Empoleon was forced to inhale that whether it wanted or not, and a few seconds later its body slackened, showing that it had finally fallen asleep.
Its trainer naturally tried to wake her Empoleon up through shouts, but Empoleon kept sleeping. Hashirama naturally did not let go of the opportunity, and after withdrawing his vines from Empoleon's upper body, he released a Solar Beam at that area. Seconds after the first Solar Beam ceased, Hashirama released a second one, and then a third one. Empoleon looked worse for wear after that, but it also showed signs of waking up, so Hashirama stopped using Solar Beam and switched back to using Sleep Vine.
He sent another Sleep Bomb at Empoleon just to be sure, and after inhaling a fresh dose of Sleep Powder it once again fell back to deep sleep. Hashirama's next move was to continue spamming Solar Beams and just when it looked like Empoleon was about to go down, the Gym Trainer raised her hand and declared that she was forfeiting Empoleon, putting a finish to the battle that had become surprisingly one-sided after the vine ambush succeeded.
Anyway, Hashirama, who was about to release another Solar Beam was forced to interrupt his attack, and he also let go of Empoleon after the referee declared him the winner of the battle. Once Empoleon was free of vines, the Gym Trainer recalled her Pokemon before calling out her next one. Seeing the Alolan Dugtrio burrow out of the ground, I raised my hand and forfeited Hashirama. By now no one raised an eyebrow at my move, though there was some excitement in the crowd when I swapped in Abzu/Milotic in his stead.
I had to admit that Abzu, or any water type capable of utilizing vast amounts of water really, was the worst opponent for any member of the Diglett line, and Abzu was going to demonstrate why pretty soon. As soon as the referee gave the starting signal both Pokemon did their opening move, and fully expecting Dugtrio to start with Sandstorm due to its abilities, I gave Abzu the order to start with Rain Dance in advance. Things went as I expected them to, and with both Pokemon using weather moves the moves ended up canceling each other, which showed that Dugtrio's mastery over Sandstorm was about as high as Abzu's mastery over Rain Dance.
Both Pokemon followed up on that failed weather clash with a wide-area attack. Dugtrio used Earthquake while Abzu performed Surf, and while the Earthquake did hurt Abzu a bit, it also made things easier for us since the loosened earth absorbed the water of the Surf easier. While that did weaken the Surf a bit, which was good for Dugtrio, it also made the whole battlefield muddy which was bad for it. Not only would it be forced to move through the mud, but a few more Surfs would turn the place from Dugtrio's home ground to its hell ground.
It was just too bad for them that the Diglet line refused to leave the ground even if it meant their doom or Dugtrio could have easily avoided this dilemma. At least I had yet to hear about a Diglett or Dugtrio that was willing to leave the ground without being forced to do so by an external party, and I was talking about literally pushing or pulling them out of the ground. Nonetheless, it seemed that the Gym Trainer was aware of how bad the situation was looking since she gave an order that was more of a last resort thing, at least in my opinion.
She ordered Dugtrio to use a "Super Fissure", which I assumed was an overpowered/overcharged Fissure, seeing how Dugtrio slumped over in exhaustion after executing her order. Not to mention the exaggerated tears that went through the whole battlefield. Still, its attack did succeed since Abzu had nowhere to dodge. Abzu fell into one of the Fissure-caused tears, and the walls closed in on him. However, what Dugtrio and its trainer neglected was the state of the ground. While Fissure did cause Abzu quite a lot of damage, it failed to knock him out because a not inconsiderable part of the ground was muddy/soft.
After enduring Fissure, Abzu forced himself out of the ground, which pretty much determined the end of this battle since Dugtrio, while still in pretty good health, looked extremely exhausted, though it looked slightly better than it did right after using Fissure. Nonetheless, Dugtrio could not even muster the energy to dodge when Abzu fired a Hydro Pump at it in retaliation for its attack, and Abzu gave it no time to recover. He fired one water attack after the other and poor Dugtrio had no choice but to take them head on. Dugtrio eventually got knocked out after being hit by the third Hydro Pump, and its trainer recalled it once the referee declared it unable to battle.
Considering her previous actions, I had honestly expected her to forfeit Dugtrio after the failed Fissure, but she actually kept it out until it got knocked out by Abzu, which surprised me since things developed contrary to my expectations. Maybe she was training its water resistance through us or she used us to teach it a lesson. Not that it could have done much better than it did unless it somehow managed to overcome its deeply ingrained species instinct to stick to the ground.
Pushing the distracting thoughts aside I watched as the final Pokemon we had to face got sent out, and it ended up being a Corviknight. Once Corviknight made its appearance I raised my hand and forfeited Abzu to no one's surprise. I then recalled Abzu after praising him for his victory. Considering how easy the previous two battles went, I decided to go with a slightly worse match-up. Was I making things unnecessarily hard on myself by sending out Shino/Yanmega against Corviknight?
Yes, I was, but I could afford to do so since I still had Manami/Lapras in reserve, and I was absolutely certain that she could take down Corviknight if she had to. Not to mention that there was no way that Corviknight could take down Shino without suffering in the process even if it somehow managed to beat him, which I highly doubted.
Anyway, Shino appeared on the field and I saw the Gym Lady actually raise one of her eyebrows in surprise at my Pokemon of choice and the audience seemed to mirror her surprise from what I could hear. Still, I ignored that and focused on Shino and the battle that was about to start. I gave Shino his opening order through telepathy, and as soon as the referee gave the starting signal, Shino took off into the air and executed my order.
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