Broly - Kleavor
Quicksilver - Pidgeot (dead)
Kisame - Milotic
Igneel - Charizard
Kenpachi - Tyranitar
Ino - Gardevoir
Snorlax - Snorlax
Tsunade - Clefable
Gai - Hakomo-o
Magnezone - Magnezone
Now, let's get into the chapter without further ado.
"Snorlax, tank it and mega punch" I shouted to my pokemon as I watched a burly Dragonite slam into him with a dragon rush. Of course, the dragon type was holding back. It was the only way for this to even resemble a fair matchup, and we were still getting toasted.
Igneel intervened by burying both pokemon in an avalanche of flames. Snorlax took the attack with only a huff and the Dragon type was even less scathed. Any other pokemon would have been badly burned, but Oak's ace dragon acted like it was nothing but a light tap.
The gap between elite pokemon and my team had become even more apparent in the last three months. With less than half a year till the conference, my nerves were slowlty building up to a breaking point. The conference was the thing. I would win it, and challenge the elite four shortly after. That was the plan in my mind, at least. I needed to be on that level in a few months, and the gap only seemed to be getting wider.
Broly weaved around the Dragonite's tail at extreme speed and rolled up for a stone axe. The Dragon type caught the move with the same tail that had been out of position only a second ago and sent Broly flying. Hashirama's attempt to entangle the psuedo-legendary proved fruitless as it chased after Ino who'd been wearing it down with increased gravity since the battle started.
The trap I'd been preparing was sprung when the Dragonite overextended itself in its chase and was swallowed by a tidal wave of water. It rolled into a water prison and Magnezone struck the water with a bolt of lightning so bright, I could see it even with my eyes closed.
When I finally opened my eyes, it was to find the Dragonite standing perfectly still and intact. The bolts of electricity arcing across its body might be enough to deceive the uninitiated that the pokemon was paralyzed, but I learnt the hard way that Oak could teach his pokemon to ignore status conditions like paralysis. Bloody hacker.
Gai slammed into the Dragon with a kick that sent a shockwave across the field. He'd been on the sidelines combining all the status buffs he could. Chaining together dragon dance and belly drum could be devastating. Whenever he used this combo, I felt nothing but hunger for his evolution. With clangarous soul, this move would become orders of magnitude more dangerous. At that point, I was sure even Lance's dragonite wouldn't stand a chance (provided he somehow got to charge up the buffs).
Dragonite remained standing, but was forced a few steps back. More than anything we'd tried so far at least. Two more punches had the Dragonite's head moving along with the motion of Gai's hands. He reared back for a punch to the psuedo-legendary's mid-section and the beast somehow caught it with its tail. From there, it grabbed Gai and slammed into him with a body press.
From there, the beat down was total and complete. A mega punch sent Gai into Morpheus' realm and the Dragon decimated the rest of the team soon after. Even Ino's attempt to slow him down with Gravity became ineffective as the Dragon decided to hold back a little bit less.
"And what did you learn today?" Oak asked with that insanely smug smile on his face.
"Dragonite is fucking broken. That's what I learned" weeks of sparring with the dragon-type pokemon, and everyday he found a new way to beat the shit out of my team. This time, I even thought I'd have the advantage since one of the rules was that he wouldn't be using any long-range moves. Dragonite was a terrifying physical specimen, don't get me wrong, but he truly shined as a long-range attacker.
Hyperbeams worthy of the name, that could destroy entire cities were child's play to the borderline-legendary pokemon. If Oak's ageing dragonite was this powerful even while holding back, the thought that Lance would have three of these beasts both excited and terrified me.
"Today's lesson was about one thing and one thing only. 'Learn when you're outmatched.' I've pitted you against Dragonite everyday for weeks now, and not oce did you attempt to cheat or skew the odds in your favour. It says a lot about your sense of fairplay, but remember that fairplay isn't worth your life. Remember that, my boy" Oak almost looked fatherly as he placed a hand on my shoulder. I smiled up at him and nodded.
After healing my pokemon, I was going to be heading off today. Speaking of healing my pokemon, I turned to Tsunade and nodded at her. My adorable fairy type moved in to begin healing the team. She'd fessed up and said she wasn't too interested in battling about a month ago, so she'd begun receiving healing lessons from Oak's own chansey. She was a natural, if I do say so myself.
I nodded at Oak's words, and extracted myself from the awkward situation to walk towards my recovering team. Tsunade's skill already allowed her to heal Broly and Kisame before I'd even gotten to them. They were the least damaged so it wasn't too surprising.
A roar sounded across the clearing, and I saw the Dragonite take off to his habitat as Oak finished talking to him about something. I prepared myself to begin cheering up my team. We'd normally focus on an after action report and highlighting all the places they could have done better, but I'd leave that for later. They were almost perfect, and Dragonite was so far beyond them that even if they'd executed every move with perfection, they would still come short.
XXXXXXXX
"Remember my terms, Donnell" Oak said as I prepared to climb on to Igneel's back. I nodded at his words and took off to Cinnabar. Oak's words had been clear. 'Stay away from Viridian'. He'd even promised me a special item that was guaranteed to impress me if I managed to avoid Giovanni intently. I accepted the deal because very little was going to make me face down Mewtwo a second time. Once was enough, thank you.
WHat that meant though, was that I had to get my final trophy from either a Johto gym or one of the minor gyms in Kanto. My choice there was obvious. WHat I had to decide was which Johto gym I'd be heading to.
Since I was avoiding the strongest gym in Kanto, my pride would let me do nothing less than take on the strongest in Johto. A toss-up between Mahogany and Blackthorne. Clair and Pryce. Claire was Lance's cousin, an elite level trainer by any metric while Pryce was actually a former elite four member himself. The strongest of the elite four that served under my father. Both were powerful trainers, so it was a question of which I felt more prepared to take on; Dragons or Ice-types.
Igneel's roar jolted me out of my thoughts and I noticed him flying towards a fearow. I reached out to him and sensed that the flying type pokemon had managed to annoy him in some way and he was intent on teaching it a lesson.
I held on tighter to the saddle and decided to let Igneel do as he wished. He banked around all the Fearow's attacks and finally slammed into it with his impressive bulk. The pokemon went careening off and could barely regain control of its descent before it hit the ground. I prevented Igneel from moving in for the kill and we continued our journey to Cinnabar.
Common sense told me to take Pryce and save my dragon-killing strategies for Lance, but pride reminded me that most of Pryce's team was aged. Would he give me a good fight? Hell yes, but the fact was that Clair's team was stronger. She was in her prime, and I couldn't say the same about Pryce.
We arrived at Cinnabar as the sun began to set. I found myself missing Quicksilver for the upteenth time. We made good speed but Igneel clearly wasn't made for this. He was already beginning to tire. We booked a room at one of the multiple hotels on the Island, and I began to run over my strategies for my gym challenge tomorrow.
"Welcome to the Cinnabar gym. A seventh badge challenge, is it?" Blaine was nothing like I expected him to look. Logically, I knew we were ways off from the anime, but seeing the man with a head full of red hair, and completely clean shaven threw me off a bit.
"Yes it is" I replied after a few minutes. I wasn't even surprised that he figured out my intentions so quickly, or even the number of badges I had. I'd booked my challenge after all, and landing a Charizard in the middle of town was the exact opposite of subtle.
"This will be a six-on-six battle. As customary for my seventh badge challenge, I will be using two pokemon from my own personal team, and four from my sixth badge level gym team." I smiled and nodded at him.
Blaine's challenge was famously difficult. After all, he was once in the Elite four, two members of his original team could decimate most trainer's entire teams in seconds. He and Pryce had been the cornerstones of Oak's elite four, so them retiring as he did wasn't a surprise to any in the region. The three of them had a bpond that most suspected the nature of. A bond that had the three of them coming together to perform some of the most heinous acts in the last Johto rebellion. When the dragons of Blackthorne had decided to secede from the league, it was Pryce who'd held dozens of children and civilians hostage, it was Blaine who'd massacred a hatchery of dratinis, and it was Oak who'd authorized it all while slaughtering his way through the best trainers Blackthorne could throw at him. Even now, none of them were welcomed in one of the League's biggest towns. More reason why I'd avoid Blackthorne like the plague. The dragons didn't blame children for the sins of their fathers but they might just make an exception for the son of Oak the Butcher.
"Donnell Oak. I'll be ecpecting a lot from you, so don't expect me to hold back" He said after teleporting to the other end of the arena.
"I'll release first. This pokemon hasn't had a real challenge in an eternity, so do well to impress me." I scowled at the Arcanine that appeared on the field. Blaze. His famous starter. There were very few known Arcanine in the world; Oak's and the one in front of me were by far the most impressive.
Blaze, the powerful legendary pokemon that had shown the world the power of the rare evolution. Extreme speed, prodigious control over the fire element, and enough endurance to run to Johto and back. I was in for the fight of my life.
"A battle of the starters, then" I said in reply as I sent Broly out to the field. My rock type had grown a lot in the past few months. With a specialised diet Oak had managed to figure out for his species, he was even bigger than he'd been after his evolution. At least, a whole foot taller, and with greatly increased mass.
Blaine hadn't bothered with a referee, as I doubted there was anyone willing to stand in the active volcano Blaine had chosen for the arena. He didn't have any spectators either. The match was being live streamed at every bar or hotel in the city, and on multiple public billboards. I'd had to sign a few waivers to allow it to happen, and I was getting a measure of the revenue.
The fight began when the Arcanine went sailing through where Broly used to be. I'd told him to avoid being hit already. THe Arcanine was much stronger and larger than Broly was. A direct hit might as well spell the end for even a rock type as durable as he was. The Arcanine turned on a dime and started the fastest game of keepaway I'd ever seen. Broly's use of extreme speed had come a long way. He was fast enough to avoid the best of the Arcanine's attacks, even if only by the skin of his teeth.
"Dig" I said out loud like Oak had started training me to do. I needed to give some orders out loud, or I'd gather even more attention than I already had. Nobody had noticed yet, and those who had, simply attributed to Oak training my pokemon so well I didn't need to order them around. If I wanted to avoid rumours like that spreading even farther then I needed to be seen commanding my pokemon.
Broly disappeared into the ground between one second and the next.
"Do it" Blaine said and I watched his arcanine practically saunter over to the hole Broly had left behind. As the arcanine prepared to unleash a firestorm into the hole, Broly executed the next half of the plan I'd come up with weeks ago.
The legendary pokemon took a deep breath in and in the next second, all that air was driven outr of its lungs as Broly came flying out straight from underneath it. It was sent flying and I smiled in pride. Oak had shown me countless videos from his older battles, and even his actions during the Johto rebellion. It was in one of those videos that I saw Blaine use the tactic he was just about to to roast a steelix alive within the ground, and completely destroy the field to allow his Camerupt steamroll the rest of the opposing division near singlehandedly.
I smiled as I could practically hear Blaine grinding his teeth from across the room. Broly didn't allow the pokemon even a second's respite as he gathered the requisite ground type energy and tore the field apart with an earthquake. The Arcanine had no hope of avoiding the move, and was forced to take the brunt of the attack. I smiled at that. At least, I smiled until the dust cleared and the Arcanine was left standing with only a few bruises and scuff marks. Broly dug into the ground as the fire-type went sailing through were he'd been seconds earlier.
This time, Blaine didn't use the same strategy. He whispered something I couldn't quite catch and a massive sunny day lit up the volcano even more than the lava around us already did. The next thing to happen had my mouth wide open in shock.
His Arcanine unleashed the largest flamethrower I'd ever had the pleasure or displeasure since it was being used against me, of seeing. The shocking part was how it curved and bent to fly into the hole Broly had left behind. I felt the fire begin to affect my starter, and he had no choice but to surface after less than a minute of the unslaught.
The monster of an arcanine didn't even look winded. It just turned to me with a smug smile before continuing it's game of keepaway with Broly. 'Think. Think. Think' I muttered at myself as I tried to come up with a way to avoid the entire mess I'd found myself in. The Arcanine was relentless. It was getting even faster as the battle went on instead of slower. A true beast of a pokemon.
I sighed as I returned Broly to his pokeball.
"You've used your only switch. Wise choice. Your pokemon was fantastic, but Blaze is a few levels beyond him." He said while laughing a full belly laugh that brought a scowl to my face.
I prepared my next pokeball. I hadn't expected to be forced to use my ace so early in the battle. If any of my pokemon had grown in the last few months, then it was Kenpachi. Months of training with Oak's Nidoking and Charizard had refined him to a monster a few steps beyond the rest of my monstrous team. There's a reason I had him sit out the battle against Oak's dragonite yesterday. He usually ended up carrying the battle alone, and not giving the rest of the team the chance to fail or succeed on their own merits.
He appeared on the field with a titanic roar. Larger, stronger, more terrifying than he'd been at the point of his evolution. An apex predator if I'd ever seen one. The Arcanine sat up at his presence on the field, and even Blaine straightened up.
"A truly impressive specimen. I've seen a few Tyranitars, and yours does them no shame" I bowed my head at the compliment. Any Tyranitars he'd seen were probably at elite-level, so saying Kenpachi matched up was a compliment I was happy to receive.
Kenpachi started off the battle with a shadow beam that tore the arena in two as he chased after the fleeing arcanine. It was fast, but few things could outrun the speedy mass of darkness. I smiled at seeing the move. An original one we'd created by combining the concepts of the shadow ball and hyperbeam. The legendary fire type managed to outpace the move by the time Kenpachi tired and stopped firing. It took the opportunity to charge straight at him. Kenpachi didn't even bother trying to dodge and took the attack head-on.
He didn't budge, and used the opportunity to grab on to the fire hound's tail before it could escape. He tightened his grip and used the tail as leverage to slam the legendary pokemon into the ground repeatedly, before sending it flying off into another corner of the field, and following it up with another shadow beam.
I was unsurprised by the way the Arcanine managed to land on its feet and still dodge Kenpachi's move in the next second. My psuedo-lengendary monster didn't waste any time in tearing the field apart with a second earthquake. Whatever advantage the Arcanine had was being swiftly dismantled with successive earthquakes. It proved its role as an elite pokemon by somehow manoeuvring through the tremors to hit Kenpachi with a flame charge. My ace acted like he hadn't even felt the move, and wrestled the Arcanine to the ground once more.
A point-blank shadow beam drove the Arcanine even deeper into the ground. To ensure he didn't get up, Kenpachi prepared a hyperbeam to end things but a massive flamethrower drove him off his quarry. When the flamethrower ended, I was unsurprised to see Kenpachi unharmed, but his armour had become red hot because of the attack. While he wasn't a steel type, his armour did share some of the weaknesses of steel type armour, so we had to end this fast before the heat would become too debilitating.
With things looking as they did, I pulled out a move very few people would expect. "Rip it apart" I screamed at Kenpachi and he added his voice to my roar as he rose his hand to the air and thrust it back to the ground with devastating power. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the view of the chaos I just unleashed.
Everything went still, and then a few rocks in the arena began to shake. The shakes grew more and more intense until the ground began to split apart. I watched realization appear on Blaine's face and the panic I could see in his expression almost made me laugh. The cracks in the ground began to build up slowly, and the cracks in Blaine's stoic facade built up faster.
Eventually, Blaine couldn't take it anymore and returned his pokemon to its ball while screaming at me for my recklessness. "You've doomed us both" He said while wrestling with his pokebelt. 'What a shame' I sighed while nodding at Kenpachi. The move that seemed to have been building up died out instantly and I smiled in victory. Psychological combat was really effective. I'd basically faked Blaine out by acting like Kenpachi was about to use Fissure, the most powerful ground type move out there. A move so powerful it was practically guaranteed to kill the pokemon on the receiving end. It took a while, but I managed to train Kenpachi to mimic the effects of the move's buildup with precise earth manipulation. It wouldn't have worked on a trainer as experienced as Blaine if not for the second element I'd added to the fake-out, Dark-type energy. He used his instinctive control of the dark type to create an aura of fear that reduced my opponents ability to reason. Those two things plus the element of surprise practically ensured that everyone would fall for it.
Blaine's expression when he grasped just how he'd been had was one for the history books. He shifted between anger, shame and finally amusement. His laughter rang across the arena and I joined him. His panic had truly been comedic.
"Nice one, Oak. Just the kind of thing old Samuel would have done. I won't be falling for that again though." He said as he released his next pokemon on the field. The Magmar that replaced the Arcanine was every bit as famous as its counterpart. Even if I knew that Magmar wasn't the final evolution of the species, I had a lot of respect for this one. It was built like a fucking tank and had scars running down its arms, chest and sides. These scars didn't detract from its appearance. Quite the opposite in fact. The scars made it an even more terrifying pokemon. Scars that showed this pokemon had been to war. Had fought the best and brightest and had prevailed. It had survived all challengers. All the horrors and rigours of war, with each one leaving its mark. Each scar told a tale.
My musings almost had me missing the first exchange of the battle. The Magmar took a deep breath and set the entire arena alight. THe heat from the volcano intensified to become even more uncomfortable. I'd come in beach shorts and a tank top, and I was boiling. It was so hot, I began to truly fear the chances of getting a heat stroke. I guess this is why Blaine was the second least challenged gym leader. I guess with what happened in Vermillion, he'd taken a step up that list.
I couldn't focus enough to give orders with aura so I spoke out loud. "Kenpachi, stop it. Whatever it takes." My ace took my orders to heart and charged up a hyperbeam that swept across the field, forcing the Magmar to dodge. THe heat settled a bit, and Kenpachi kept going, not allowing his opponent a second's breath. Boulders the size of me started flying around the field, trying to catch up to the Magmar.
It wasn't fast enough to even try dodging them all so it started destroying them all with fists covered in flame. They shattered on contact and I tried to come up with a strategy to take care of this problem. It was stronger than Kenpachi. When my ace made the mistake of allowing it to come in for close combat, it had sent his head ringing with a single punch. Since then, Kenpachi was careful to avoid letting the monster get that close.
Kenpachi had to use a rock throw to prevent the Magmar from charging straight at him. "Earthquake" I ordered when things started to look truly dire. Unlike the Arcanine, this one couldn't just waltz through the powerful ground type move. It had to huddle down and wait out the tremors. In that time, I had Kenpachi working on a completely different strategy.
The Magmar started its approach once the waves died down. I had Kenpachi fire off a hyper beam large as any I'd seen from him so far, and the Magmar had to use a protect to save itself from the brunt of the attack. The beam shattered the protect but couldn't make it to the pokemon itself. The Magmar continued, and Kenpachi threw everything and the kitchen sink at it to slow it down or ward it off. It all proved to be ineffective since nothing Kenpachi did stopped or even slowed down the approaching monster for very long.
When it got close enough, it started the melee with a haymaker that sailed past my ace as he leaned back. Kenpachi's tail rose up to wrap around the fire-type, but it dodged around it easily.
One haymaker smashed through my ace's instinctive protect and the next one was barely blocked by Kenpachi's crossed arms. His tail lashed out to do some damage but the fire type showed its skill by weaving through the attacks as he tried breaking through Kenpachi's defence. As powerful as I knew the pseudo-legendary to be, we couldn't keep this up for long. Every video Oak had shown me had me sure of that. The Arcanine was my opponent's ace, but it was the Magmar that Johto had come to fear. A fire type that just never stayed down. It was the ultimate shonen protagonist. Never stopping, never slowing down, never tiring. Unreal.
I racked my brain for a strategy to get out of this mess but I couldn't think of anything that would work and actually put my opponent down for the count. Nothing, until the maddest of mad ideas came to me.
I communicated with Kenpachi at the speed of thought. I couldn't say this one out loud. The risk that Blaine could figure out my plan with only a few hints was too high to take. Kenpachi swept a massive shadow beam across the field to force his opponent to retreat in order to dodge. And then, a white aura built around him with me shouting my next words to sell the ruse. "Giga Impact". The white around his body exploded in intensity as he went flying straight at his opponent. The Magmar's protect looked unassailable, but even that couldn't stand against the might of my pseudo-legendary.
Kenpachi's giga impact broke through the protect and crashed straight into the burly pokemon. They both went flying into the ground, the dust cloud around them hampered visibilty from both sides of the field.
It would have been an issue for me if I didn't have aura witchery on my side. Kenpachi was able to tell me that he was all tapped out, but his opponent still had some strength left. I scowled as I was forced to implement the second half of my plan.
I whipped out my pokeball and returned Kenpachi before replacing him with Hashirama immediately. The dust still hadn't settled down, Kenpachi had used some minor ground type manipulation to ensure that, so the black glow that surrounded Hashirama as he appeared wasn't noticed by anyone on the field. It took a few seconds for the dust to settle, and I had fun watching Blaine's confused expression as he noticed that I'd replaced my pseudo-legendary with a grass type pokemon.
"That pokemon has to have some tricks up its sleeves. Finish it quickly." Blaine instructed his Magmar and I could barely resist the urge to smile.
The Magmar bolted across the field too quickly for Hashirama to react and was about to let loose with a devastating fire punch when Blaine suddenly shouted, "Stop!". I looked on in confusion as the Magmar stopped right in front of my pokemon with an outstretched fist.
"Too easy. You're smarter than this. It's a trick. But what trick? Bide? No, not bide. It's a ghost type. Destiny bond?" Blaine rattled off assumptions and something on my face must have confirmed his deductions as he grinned in triumph.
"Destiny bond, huh? Nice one. Almost worked. Perhaps if you hadn't tricked me to forfeit my ace with an impressive fakeout, I might have underestimated you enough to fall for it. Retreat. You know what to do" His last words were to his pokemon and I watched with a small scowl as the monster avoided the trap I'd forfeited Kenpachi to set up. Fuck.
The Magmar jumped a few feet back and I could feel the temperature of the arena climb even higher. The Magmar stretched out its hands towards the lava and it started getting even brighter. I panicked as the plan was obvious to see. Hashirama sent multiple vines at the fire type, but the heat around its body was enough to dehydrate and burn the vines to cinders before they could even touch it.
There were three ways to defeat destiny bond: allow a different pokemon knockout your opponent, exhaust it till it could no longer keep up the connection or allow environmental factors to defeat your opponent on your behalf. It was clear that Blaine would be going with the third option here.
Hashirama's aura told me everything I needed to know. Blaine's plan was working. Quite effectively, at that. I'd never trained any of my pokemon in extreme weather conditions so this didn't surprise me a bit. It was one of the shortcomings that Oak had been quick to point out but uninterested in fixing. According to him, I could only ever optimise for a limited number of things. Training my pokemon to survive conditions they were very unlikely to run into would be a waste of time when they still had multiple basics to run through.
I curse the old bastard in my head as I tried to come up with a way out of this conundrum.
There seemed to be very little I could do at this point. "Solar beam" I commanded reluctantly. If I couldn't stop this madness, then I'd just ensure Hashirama went out with a bang befitting his status.
Harnessing the heat and the sunny day above him, Hashirama fired off a solar beam as wide as he was tall straight at his opponent.
That insufferable protect appeared again, looking as indestructible as ever. The solar beam washed across it, but couldn't break through. It was no giga impact.
Multiple shadow balls whipped out from my ghost's vines and went flying at the fire-type. The protect still kept it safe from my ghost's attacks. We tried everything. Wood hammer, shadow claw, shadow sneak, all of them were useless. At the end of the day, Hashirama fell to the environment's assault and I returned him with a grim smile.
I only had three pokemon left and we were still only on his second pokemon. The good news was that the other pokemon on his team would be nowhere near this level. I could only imagine how difficult Blaine's eight badge challenge would be. Four pokemon from his original team and two from his six-badge level. Unreal.
My next choice, Snorlax, appeared on the field with a relaxed atmosphere. Months on the ranch had done him much good. He'd seen the least physical growth, but his mental growth was the most noticeable. He hadn't lost his love for battling at all, but he'd stopped letting it dictate his actions so much.
He got in a fighting stance once he noticed the opponent across from him. "Let's go, Blaine" I said with a smirk. If anyone was going to take out this monster, it would be Snorlax. The magmar rushed at Snorlax with a punch that my normal type didn't even bother reacting to. He just let loose a trio of punches. The Magmar dodged them all, but ended up taking a haymaker to the face as he came in for another attack. Gai had trained Snorlax well.
The Magmar flew off in the distance, but wasn't down for more than a few seconds before it came rushing at Snorlax again. The same exchange repeated itself. This time, the Magmar lasted for almost a minute before a punch sent it spinning away.
Blaine was just content to watch the exchanges, and it took me a painfully long time to realise what was happening. The Magmar was adapting to Snorlax. The exchanges started getting longer and the fire-type started succeeding in getting more and more hits in. It would have been impressive to watch if it wasn't my pokemon that was being figured out and taken apart in real time.
"Hyper beam" I snarled. The next time the Magmar came in for an exchange, it found itself blasted away by a hyper beam that barely qualified as one. Snorlax used the reprieve to gather the required energy and use rain dance.
I saw the shock on Blaine's face as the clouds gathered and overcame the sunny day before unleashing a downpour on the field. His fire type brawler looked saddened by the sudden reversal of weather conditions. The rain wasn't enough to completely cool down the field, but it was enough to stop me feeling like I was being boiled alive.
This time, Snorlax went on the offensive. He gathered the weather beneath him in a surf and covered the distance between he and his opponent in a blink. From there, the rest was history. The fire type fell to a concentrated combination of attacks. It got a few hits in, but with Snorlax refusing to allow it to disengage, it had no chance and was knocked into Morpheus' realm after a few minutes.
I breathed a sigh of relief as Blaine returned the pokemon to its ball. If I never had to see another Magmar again, it would be too soon.
Of course, the next pokemon Blaine sent out had to be a Magmar. I sighed at the thought of the long day I had in front of me. This Magmar was nowhere near as strong as the first one and it proved that when it failed to stand up to Snorlax's first earthquake. It tripped and was tossed around by the powerful tremors before being knocked out with a single hyperbeam. I turned to Blaine with a smile and noted a look of pure interest on his face. I guess he couldn't actually appreciate how strong my pokemon were when faced with those monsters of his. It didn't matter whether they weren't yet at the true elite-level, since they were so far on the journey across that chasm that Blaine's six-badge pokemon just couldn't compare.
Snorlax highlighed the gap once more, when Blaine sent out a massive Typhlosion on the field. It's very presence took the temperature up a few notches, but all it took to bring it back down to the cool that I'd begun to appreciate was a clenching of Snorlax's fist. Kisame was better with the move, true, but that didn't mean Snorlax couldn't throw down with the best water types when it came to sheer power. His species were feared for a reason. The perfect normal types by all accounts. After all, what made the normal type so great in the first place? Their ability to essentially use all the other types. Nowhere near as good as those pokemon with actual typings, but much better than any pokemon without the type or matching egg-group had any right to.
"Firestorm" Blaine commanded and the Typlosion exploded in a ball of flame, before rolling across the field straight at Snorlax with deadly accuracy. I had no need to give any orders here since Snorlax knew exactly what to do. He centred himself and lowered his centre of gravity. The fire type rolled, creating enough heat that he was evaporating the water he rolled over and moving faster than the fastest supercars from my old world. All of it mattered little as Snorlax concentrated and fucking caught it in his bare hands.
The fire-type kept struggling against Snorlax's grip, trying to move or gain some traction, but it was all for nothing. Snorlax stayed solid, apart from skidding back by a few inches from the first impact.
Snorlax showed that prodigious strength of his when he then lifted the Typlosion off ground and tossed it straight out of the ring. Blaine was barely able to return it before it actually fell into the lava. That wouldn't have killed it, but it would have done a whole lot of damage. Most fire types couldn't just casually chill in volcanos like Moltres and the Magby-line.
Blaine sighed before sending out his next choice, a Chandelure. It took me a few seconds to get over my shock. A ghost/fire type. This one had to be a new addition to his team. Not saying I knew everything there was to know about the man, but I'd seen virtually all his battles, both those available to the general public, and the one's Oak got from his personal body-camera. The professor had this weird obssession with documenting everything so I had a boatload of information.
"Shadow barrage", my opponent said with a smile. I noticed the shadows in the arena get darker and deeper, before they consumed Snorlax entirely. I couldn't see anything on the field, and even my feeling of Snorlax's aura was muted. For the first time in a professional battle, I was truly blind to what was going on. I did my best to fight the panic that threatened to rear it's ugly head and make me start giving out random orders and just trusted my pokemon to do what he did best. Snorlax was a fighter. A terrifyingly powerful fighter by all metrics. Even Kenpachi was only stronger than him by virtue of sheer durability.
It took five minutes for the darkness to clear up, and when it did, I found Snorlax stood above the knocked out Chandelure, breathing heavily and looking incredibly banged up. The darkness had been so complete and total that there was no way for me to even tell who'd been winning the battle. Blaine returned his pokemon, and I followed suit. There was no need to continue with Snorlax and risk him getting more injured and something going wrong. Career-ending wounds were rare among pokemon, but they still happened every once in a while.
My next choice was perhaps what everyone would have expected me to lead with considering the gym I faced and the reputation of the leader. Kisame appeared on the field with a grace and calm that was quite at odds with the rest of my team. I'd always be the first to admit that my team was made up of terrifying brutes. Pure power and strength. Kisame was quite different from the rest in that regard. Even Ino couldn't quite match up with the effortless grace that the pokemon practically made to counter Gyrados brought to bear with only her appearance.
"A water type, huh. Thought you'd be a bit different from the rest. Please forgive me for this, but I must vary the custom for this match of ours. My six-badge pokemon are clearly no match for yours. A gym challenge is meant to present a challenge and if we continue like this, there'd be no challenge. Good luck, Oak" Blaine said while stroking his beard. He was using another member of that monster team of his?