Winona sent out her Altaria next, and like all the Pokemon she was going to use, at least as far as I knew, Altaria was at the (high) dark gold stage as well. The crowd cheered very enthusiastically at Altaria's appearance and I understood why since it was one of the objectively most beautiful Pokemon species. Still, being good-looking was not going to help Altaria against Hera. Actually, I was taking that back, if Altaria was male and decided to use moves like Attract its good look would help, but that wouldn't happen, right? I could not remember hearing or reading anything about Winona using honey traps in her battles, so we were fine; Maybe, hopefully.
Anyway, the referee gave the starting signal, and my worries in that regard proved to be unnecessary, which I did not mind at all. Instead, Altaria chose to use a mix of dragon and fairy-type moves to attack Hera. It alternated between Dragon Breath, Dragon Pulse, and Moonblast to attack from afar, while using moves like Dragon Claw, Play Rough, and Body Slam whenever the two adversaries got close to one another. Other than that Altaria intermittently tried to use Sing at Hera which it sometimes switched with Round and vice versa. Hera had to use Mirror Move to counter those attempts since sound-based moves were the best at blocking sound-based moves. Oh, and I made a note to have Hera learn Uproar at some point.
Regardless, there was no doubt that Altaria was a much harder opponent than Staraptor since it did not get hard-countered by Hera's "specialness" as Staraptor did. Even without being able to use flying moves, Altaria was able to battle Hera without any problems, and more importantly, Altaria's Cloud Nine stopped Hera's Tailwind from taking effect, indirectly preventing Hera from triggering her One With The Wind talent. Furthermore, Altaria avoided using any flying-type moves, so Hera was not recovering any stamina and energy during their battle, which was unfortunate. Nonetheless, all those points only leveled the playing field somewhat, which did not stop Hera from beating up Altaria the regular way.
The battle between Hera and Altaria had the audience on the edges of their seats fervently staring at the sky for more than 10 minutes before a victor was finally decided. Ultimately, it was Altaria that fell out of the sky, but not before releasing what sounded like a last mournful Round attempt, but turned out to be a Perish Song instead. Winona recalled her plummeting Pokemon and praised it for a moment before bringing out her next Pokemon. At the same time as her Togekiss appeared, Perish Song triggered before the referee could even signal the start of the battle, and Hera actually released a cry of pain as she got hit with a decent amount of damage. However, that was nothing that couldn't be mitigated once Hera got her Tailwind going.
Togekiss put a damper on that plan when it used Imprison as its opening move, which ended up preventing Hera from using Tailwind along with a bunch of other moves that the two apparently shared, though their loss was much less grating than the one of Tailwind. Yet, despite that setback, Hera still gave it her all and fought Togekiss to the best of her abilities. Their fight started out pretty even, but roughly 3 minutes in Hera began to fall into a disadvantage due to the stacking damage and exhaustion; In regards to both physical as well as energy reserves as far as the latter was concerned.
Still, despite all that, Hera kept fighting; She strived to at least take Togekiss down with her, which she ultimately failed to do. It was impressive enough that Hera held out for another 5 minutes, but she eventually ended up falling without achieving her goal. Nonetheless, there was no doubt that Togekiss did look worse for wear despite its victory, so Hera did a great job regardless, and I made sure to tell her as much as I recalled her. She had taken out 2 Gym Leader Pokemon and softened up a third one all on her own despite being at a stage disadvantage, even if it was a small one, so Hera definitely deserved all the praise and cheers she was getting.
In fact, Hera had done such a good job, that I was currently considering something that I would otherwise not have entertained at all since it was guaranteed to end with a loss, though that guaranteed loss was against Winona's fourth Pokemon. Anyway, I was contemplating whether I should let Thor/Raichu have a shot at Togekiss since he actually had a chance at beating it after the battle it had with Hera. While I was not sure if that was enough to allow Thor to win since there was a whole stage between them, which was more than any of the dark gold stage Pokemon he had faced so far, I was absolutely sure that it would allow Thor to go all out and push him beyond his limits.
When the referee prompted me to release my next Pokemon I decided to go with Thor since it was an opportunity for him; One that I could afford to indulge thanks to Hera, so I asked him to get back inside his ball and brought it out of Utopia before releasing him onto the field. The crowd was shocked to see Thor, deeming it a poor choice on my part despite Thor's prior impressive performances. They, and, from what I could feel, even Winona as well as the referee felt that Thor had no chance at winning, but the audience still cheered for Thor, though their shouts were more along the line of "Do your best", "Just give it your all", and "It's okay even if you lose".
The last one was rather on the nose, and Thor got fired up, wanting to show that he could take down that feathered fluff ball; His words, not mine. Well, he said it over our telepathic link. I had to chuckle when he, nearly immediately after saying that, asked me to not mention that particular bit to Fortuna/Togekiss. Anyway, as usual, Thor set up an Electric Terrain to boost his speed, and seeing how he had to fight against a flyer, he went ahead and used Magnet Rise. The move was a somewhat recent addition and thus not very useful on its own, at least not against an actual flying type, but in combination with Volt Step, it allowed Thor to race through the sky at nearly the same speed as he did on the ground.
Seeing Thor run around the air like that impressed a lot of people, and some of them were asking how he did that without getting an answer, while others just cheered. Still, just because Thor made it possible for himself to force a direct confrontation if he wanted to did not change the fact that he was at a slight disadvantage, despite the type advantage. It did however give him the chance to go all out without being handicapped and that was what Thor did; He went all out. He paid no mind to setting aside any of his energy or stamina since he knew that he did not have to care about the next battle. All he had to care about was the present battle, so he threw out moves like Thunder, Thunderbolt, Discharge, Volt Tackle, as well as Ion Tail like they were cheap candy, and it worked.
Thor's, I was inclined to call it reckless, fighting style allowed him to drag down Togekiss while being pretty much done himself. Yet, as he stood there, head held up proudly cheering for his victory, as he ignored the sluggishness that came with being out of juice and pretty banged up, the crowd joined his cheers, and I had to say that Thor definitely earned that applause as well as praise. Thor turned toward me under the crowd's cheers and gave me a bright smile before he fell onto his back and began to pant heavily. I heard him complain about feeling heavy over the mental link, and he asked me to quickly move him to Utopia so that he could recover.
I naturally obliged his request and recalled him as soon as the referee declared him the winner, though I did forfeit him first since I did not want this to count as my 1 substitution. With both Pokemon off the field, the referee asked us to ready our next Pokemon before asking if we were ready; Upon receiving our confirmation, he began the countdown. We then released our next combatants on his signal, and I had to suppress the wince I felt when I saw the Pokemon she sent out. It had been a 3 in 1 chance, but we ended up facing the worst matchup. I actually contemplated if I should make use of my substitution, but I knew that Parvati/Beedrill would never accept that and that she would be very cross with me if I went through with it.
To Parvati, it did not matter that she was facing a Talonflame while being at the (mid) dark gold stage compared to its (high) dark gold stage, which was a difference I would not have minded if her opponent was either Winona's Tropius or Mandibuzz as I had hoped. Yet, against Talonflame that difference posed a risk I was not comfortable with. It was not that I could not accept losing, it was just that I would have liked to avoid losing with Parvati since I knew that she would get depressed if that happened due to how competitive she was, especially since Mothra had easily won her battles. That her opponents had been weaker than Mothra would get ignored by Parvati.
No, it was too early to think about this stuff. Parvati had not lost yet, and it was not as if she stood no chance at winning either. As long as she was not reckless and managed to poison Talonflame, she actually had a decent shot at winning. Yes, think positively like that I hyped myself, before focusing on the battlefield as the two Pokemon performed their opening moves. For Parvati that was Agility and Tailwind to boost her speed to allow her to go through phase two with a reduced risk of being hit. Phase two consisted of her using Iron Defense while releasing Toxic Threads as she was flitting around.
Meanwhile, Talonflame actually performed the same opening move as Parvati, which caused their currents/tailwinds to briefly clash, pushing both Pokemon back for a bit, before the moves/air currents settled around their respective targets. Following that, Talonflame rushed straight at Parvati using Flame Charge, and if not for the Toxic Threads slowing it down a bit as they got burned without being able to poison it, Talonflame would have caught up with Parvati and slammed into her like a flaming bullet. Still, there was something most people within the Gym had most likely missed; While it was true that the Toxic Threads burned up and failed to poison Talonflame, a tiny bit of the poison that got vaporized still got inhaled by Talonflame.
That tiny amount might be useless individually, but Talonflame was not just burning a single thread; No, it was burning through dozens of them to reach Parvati, and the number was rising as Parvati stopped using Iron Defense in favor of using Agility after the first one seeing how the persistent Talonflame was starting to catch up on her despite having to deal with her threads. The chase continued for nearly two minutes before Winona and Talonflame noticed that something was off, but at that point, Talonflame had already gotten poisoned even if it was a somewhat light poisoning.
However, even if it was only lightly poisoned, the poison was still affecting Talonflame's performance, giving Parvati some breathing room to start working on an actual counterattack. As frustrated as Parvati was due to getting chased like she did, Parvati gleefully used Double Team in preparation for her revenge blow.
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