That's the third gym trainer that got demolished by that espeon.'
A wall of flames rose and engulfed a noctowl of the fourth gym trainer.
'And the charmeleon too, pretty well-trained. Why hasn't it evolved yet?'
Winona sat in her private quarters as she read the novel Wallace just gave her, occasionally looking at the screen beside her. The live video footage showed the cat and lizard duo sweeping through her gym trainers like they are taking a stroll in their own garden.
'Who does these pokemon belong to?'
Winona got up from her seat and checked the earlier video footages, trying to find out who is the current challenger that is clearing out her gym trainers in battle. No advanced trainer had managed to beat the gym trainers that easily before.
She rewind the videos until she got a good look of the challenger that walked through her gym doors. She wore a black sleeveless shirt and dark blue skirt that ended right before her knees. Upon zooming in, she saw that the challenger have blond hair and emerald green eyes.
'It's her. That explains it.'
Norman had recently told the other gym leaders that Velda, the trainer which have caught their eyes more than half a year ago, had resumed her journey about three months ago after recovering from her untimely sickness. Winona clearly remembered the worry she felt for the young trainer when she first heard that Velda actually fainted right at the end of her battle with Norman, and fell into a coma. It would be a waste of potential if the trainer cannot continue to be a trainer due to her sickness. She had to admit that she was a little disappointed in not being able to face Velda in battle when she got the news from Norman that she was put on a travel ban by the doctors, she had been excited to face Velda in battle.
And now here she is, demolishing her gym trainers.
Winona wasted no time in donning her flying suit over her white shirt and lilac long pants. She grabbed her helmet and whistled for Bard outside her quarters, her starter and altaria, who sang a greeting as Winona climbed onto his back.
"To the gym, Bard, there will be an exciting battle today."
Bard sang once more, and flew towards the gym with his trainer on his back. He hasn't seen Winona getting so excited for a gym battle in a long time. Will it be an Elite challenge this time? It's been a long time since he can cut loose, not many can stand before the combined might of him and his trainer.
"Sorry Bard, the challenger is an advanced trainer." His trainer, as if sensing his thoughts, spoke to him. "But I can show you a video of our battle later on the TV. That challenger actually defeated all of the previous gym leaders in battle. Maybe we can challenge her again after she becomes an Elite trainer. How about it?"
Bard whistled a tune. Now that is impressive. No wonder his trainer is so eager to go to the gym today. Fighting such an opponent sounds fun. He cannot wait for the challenger to grow into an Elite trainer already. Will his trainer put an end to the challenger's win streak?
The gym appeared in their sights and Bard landed gently on the ground. His trainer jumped onto the ground from his back. She turned around and cupped both sides of his head fondly.
"Sorry partner, but I will try to find worthy opponents for you soon. Those are hard to come by nowadays. Wallace and I are going to meet soon, maybe we can have a spar with him?"
Bard sang back. He knew that he is too absurdly strong for most pokemons to be a challenge for him right now. Wallace's pokemons are stronger, and the only ones that can best him in battle as far as he knew. There are other strong pokemons from the other gym leaders, but they never fought before since their respective trainers have no desire to.
It's lonely to be at the top.
Bard watched as his trainer walked through the back door of the gym, the one that only authorised personnel are allowed to use. He spread his wings and flew again. His trainer will call for him when she is done.
Maybe he should get some training in as well. Winona did promise a spar with Wallace's pokemon. He had been getting a little lax in training from the lack of worthy opponents.
He changed his course and headed for the secret training field that only his trainer and the other members of his team knew. Maybe Scales can help with his training? They are both fellow dragons after all, on top of being a flying type.
He saw a Hurricane brewing at the secret training field. That's a good sign. Scales is up for a battle today.
Bard dove down and roared a challenge, different from the usual tunes he sang. It's time to get serious.
He have a battle to prepare for.
Winona was surprised to see that Velda was already waiting for her in the challenger's box of the arena. How did she clear the gym trainers in the short amount of time she flew here?
A pachirisu that made itself comfortable on Velda's shoulders squeaked excitedly, pointing at Winona. This brought Velda's attention onto Winona herself.
Winona and Velda had a short and friendly conversation while they completed the registration process. The gym leaders that interacted with Velda before all had high praises for her, especially Roxanne, who was the first to notice Velda's potential, and Norman, who Velda had worked under for more than half a year.
This trainer actually caught Norman's eye. Winona knew how high Norman's standards are, she worked with him a few times in her short stay in ACE, before she resigned and became a gym leader. That had been almost a decade now. Norman could have been a gym leader like her at that time, but there were no other vacancies and Norman preferred to stay in ACE, until he got married recently.
Norman actually got married, that was the biggest shock of the century. He actually got himself married before her, and she had been dating her boyfriend for far longer too.
Well, that can't be helped. Both she and her boyfriend are busy people, sometimes they can't even meet once a month. Winona idly wondered if the other gym leaders had much of a dating life, and how they managed to date on top of their busy schedule if they do. Juan got married before becoming a gym leader, Tate and Liza are still kids, Flannery... let's not go there. Her train of thoughts can be a little hard to follow, and it is hard to keep up with her energy level. So that's probably a no. Wattson's wife died a long time ago, and he never remarried. Brawly and Roxanne are nice people, but they never talk much to her due to a lack of common topics to talk about and the geographical location of their workplace means a lack of interaction. So Winona don't know much about their personal lives.
Winona suspected that there is something fishy going on between Brawly and Roxanne due to the way they interacted with each other in the last gym leaders' meeting. She had no evidence, but her sixth sense is tingling and her senses are rarely wrong when it comes to gossip.
Yes, even gym leaders gossip. Gym leaders need to lead a normal life as well.
The registration process was completed, and both Winona and Velda took the positions on the opposite ends of the arena. This will be a 6 vs 6 single battle as per usual, with a maximum of 6 pokemon each for both sides.
Winona had more than that number of pokemons on her currently, but seeing that it is Velda that she is facing, she decided to use the pokemons that are on the higher end of the advanced level. Maybe one or two that are almost at the Elite level, if the battles got exciting.
Winona sent out her swellow, who gave a cry as it shot into the air, circling the battlefield before hovering in front of her, eyes sharp and ready for battle.
Velda sent out a pupitar and Winona can feel her interest in Velda rising. Raising a pupitar into a tyranitar is a very delicate process, not to mention the amount of time and effort needed to devote in raising its species.
Winona's swellow shot towards pupitar leaving a sonic boom in its wake. This swellow has always been an impatient one.
Pupitar merely stood still as it raised rocks from the ground to shield itself from swellow's Steel Wing. That won't be enough to stop swellow, its wings can smash through concrete. Swellow bashed its wings into the rock shield, shattering it immediately, expecting to find its prey.
Only to find nothing.
Where'd it go?
The pupitar had literally disappeared. There were no traces of it anywhere, it's like it teleported away. That's not possible, the pupitar species does not know teleport. So how had it disappeared without a trace?
"Kratos! City of Pillars!"
At once, the ground shook and pillars of rocks shot up from the ground. One of the pillars grazed swellow as it tried to get away from one of the rising pillars that rose beside it. The pillars rose rapidly all around the arena, and only stopped when it touched the ceiling of the gym.
I see now, so that's what she's planning.
Simply by raising pillars of rock, Velda had created an obstacle course for all of her flying pokemon. The battle is taking place in an indoor environment, and even if the ceilings are high enough to accommodate an aerial battle, there is a limit to how high flying type pokemon can fly. By raising the pillars to the height of her gym's ceiling, her pokemon have no choice but to fly around it, or destroy the pillars, which will waste unnecessary strength. Pupitar can simply raise the pillars again. So that means that the only choice left for her pokemon is to get around it. Winona doesn't think that the outcome will change even if the battle was taken outdoors. Pupitar clearly has the ability to raise the pillars even higher than those it just raised. Most of her pokemon on the advanced level also cannot deal significant damage to pupitar while flying up high, but pupitar's attacks can reach them from the ground, if the height of the pillars is any indication. Some of her other pokemons have more long-ranged attacks, but not swellow. Winona's swellow will be forced to fight up close no matter the outcome.
Pupitar had also lured swellow close to the ground by staying still and disappeared with its vanishing act, almost getting a clean hit on swellow with its pillars. All of these is achieved with a single move.
Velda had blossomed under Norman's tutelage, that's for sure.
Still, where did the pupitar go?
"Kratos, Sandstorm! Then make it rain!"
Rain? Pupitar is capable of learning Rain Dance, but what does a pupitar need rain for? It's neither a water or electric type pokemon.
The sands on the arena swirled before unleashing itself on the arena as a sandstorm. Swellow squawked as it tried to push through the high wind speeds created by the sandstorm, the situation is getting more unfavourable to her by the second.
"Swellow, Defog! Blow it away!"
Defog is not usually used like this, it is not meant to be used like this. But the strong winds produced by Defog is strong enough to blow away the sandstorm, clearing the skies once again.
Winona widened her eyes the moment the sandstorm cleared. They'd been had! The sandstorm was only a distraction!
Rocks appeared all around the air above swellow just when the sandstorm subsided. They are of various sizes, hovering dangerously in midair.
It rained.
The skies of her gym rained rocks.
Swellows dodged many of the rocks with aerial maneuvers that Winona had personally taught herself. It is not enough. There were too many rocks for swellow to safely avoid all of them. Pupitar just unleashed a large Rock Slide all over the arena, forcing swellow to be on the run. Is Velda aiming to tire swellow out?
Rocks continued to rain from the skies above as they piled up on the arena, swellow was gradually forced to fly lower and lower.
Oh no.
"Swellow! Pull up! Don't get close to the ground!"
Pupitar was half luring, half forcing swellow to fly closer to the ground. There was a small area that did not rain as heavily as the others. Flying above the rocks was impossible given the sheer number of rocks falling from the sky. That means that there was only a specific area that was relatively safer for swellow to fly to, which it did.
It was a trap. A very impressive trap. Just how many moves did Velda and her pokemon think ahead?
The fact that pupitar was constantly luring swellow to fly lower means that it can only be hiding underground, which she should have thought of earlier. Where else can it go anyway?
Swellow pulled up, dodging and weaving through the gaps of the falling rocks. They have to put a stop to the rocks, then force pupitar out of the ground, or swellow will tire itself out eventually. They have been on the defensive for too long. Time for a large attack, swellow will sustain some damage to itself, but it will force pupitar out. No pain, no gain.
"Sky Attack! Aim for the ground! Flush it out!"
Swellow cloaked itself in a harsh light before diving down straight into the ground. The resulting impact created an earthquake that shook the gym violently. This attack is not a real Earthquake, but the effects are similar enough. Any pokemon hiding underground will take a lot of damage from the vibrations. That pupitar will be forced to come out if it doesn't want to experience another of these tremors.
Swellow flew out of the resulting cloud of dust, looking a little battered from the self-inflicted damage, but also looking proud of itself for managing to stop the rain of falling rocks. They stopped falling immediately after the Sky Attack. That pupitar must have been too damaged by the artificial earthquake to maintain its focus on the Rock Slide.
Winona and swellow carefully scanned the ground of the arena. Pupitar will be coming out anytime now.
Pupitar did come out, but not in the way they expected.
Pupitar burst out from within one of the rock pillars that was raised at the start of the battle and propelled itself towards swellow, nailing swellow's torso by slamming its tough armour against swellow and sent them flying through one pillar before crashing into the one behind it.
That pupitar wasn't hiding in the ground at all! It was hiding in one of the pillars it had raised since the very start! It tricked Winona and swellow to damage itself willingly with Sky Attack!
"Kratos! Smack Down!"
Pupitar summoned a huge rock that slammed into swellow from above, knocking it into the ground below.
"Stone Edge!"
A large jagged rock shot up from below swellow and punched swellow as it was sent flying once again into the air before another Smack Down sent it dropping down. Another Stone Edge hit swellow from below and the pupitar used another Smack Down to hit it down once more. The whole process kept repeating itself.
Winona had no choice but to recall swellow back to its pokeball lest it becomes pupitar's ping-pong ball. It's too injured to continue battling anyway.
"Good job Kratos!"
Winona silently agreed. That was a job well done. They had led her around by the nose the entire time.
Time to amp up the pace of the battle. She had a reputation to maintain.
Winona's pelipper flew into battle, giving a deep squawk at pupitar, who is still uninjured from its previous battle. Will Velda let it continue battling despite the type disadvantage? Type advantages are not as big as an advantage it used to be once a trainer reaches the advanced level. Advanced trainers will have their pokemon prepared against any type disadvantages, so it is possible that Velda's pupitar would have something prepared even for a foe like pelipper.
Velda recalled pupitar, and sent out a pokemon that she had only seen once before in the hands of another trainer. A cradily.
Winona had only the vaguest idea on how to face this prehistoric pokemon. The only other time she saw a live cradily was the one that belonged to Steven Stone, and he didn't use it in battle against her when he was completing his gym circuit. The abilities of this pokemon is an unknown, and it is obviously well-trained from what she saw with a glance of her eyes, even more so than the espeon and charmeleon she had seen Velda used before. It is going to be a challenge taking cradily down.
A challenge that she accepted.
Pelipper blasted jets of water at cradily, who simply swayed out of the way on the spot it is standing at. Pelipper blasted a Hydro Pump at its feet in response, the only part of cradily that didn't move, and probably can't move. A wall of rocks blocked the attack.
Winona gritted her teeth. If pelipper can't blast it away, then they will just blow it away.
"Pelipper, Hurricane! Sweep it off!"
A large hurricane was formed with a few beats of pelipper's powerful wings, and pelipper sent it crashing into the cradily, who simply stood still and withstood the attack. But the cradily didn't even move from its spot, even if it took significant damage. How?
The cradily's body limped sideways after the Hurricane, looking absolutely damaged. Good, time to finish this.
"Pelipper, use-"
Winona was cut short as she watched in shocked at the speed in which cradily healed her wounds. Its wounds vanished in the blink of an eye as the limped cradily was revitalised and sprang up from its spot on the ground, looking absolutely refreshed.
"That was a Stockpile and Swallow combo, if you are wondering. Lily has been Stockpiling ever since it has been released for battle. That's why it hasn't attacked yet."
That piece of information made Winona's eyes widened in realisation before she recovered her composure. The speed in which cradily Stockpiled is fast.
"That recovery speed was fast, I give you that. But can you keep playing defensively like that?"
"Stockpile was just a precaution. I plan to go on the offensive here. Lily! Swing into action!"
Winona witnessed one of the most eye-boggling thing she ever witnessed in her career as a trainer. The cradily spread and lengthened its tentacles, before wrapping one of its tentacles around a nearby rock pillar, and true to Velda's command, literally swung itself from pillar to pillar. Winona and pelipper stared in surprise, that's how cradily moved around? She will have to make a call to Prof. Birch later to check about the cradily species.
Seeing how cradily swing itself easily across the pillars, Winona suddenly felt the urgent need to destroy the pillars, she never thought that Velda would have planned so many steps ahead with one move. She needs to destroy cradily's ability to move around fluidly across the arena.
"Whirlpool!"
Pelipper produced a raging swirling mass of water that engulfed the entire arena, sweeping the pillars and destroying each of them in turn. The large amount of water and debris was so thick that Winona could not see what was happening within the whirlpool. What will Velda do now?
The Whirlpool subsided, and cradily just stood in the middle of where the Whirlpool used to be, wet but otherwise unharmed, swaying on the spot playfully.
"Stop swaying, Lily. You have a pelipper to catch here."
Upon its trainer's words, cradily pointed two tentacles to the ground and lifted itself up from the ground, its tentacles acting as legs, before "walking" awkwardly, but not slowly, towards pelipper, picking up speed along the way. Winona really do not know if she should stare on in wonder, or laugh at the brilliant stupidity happening in front of her eyes. This whole gym battle had felt like a joke for some reason, as if whatever powers that Winona had in her hands cannot be unleashed properly, that it had been muffled somehow. Velda is not taking this battle seriously, is she?
"Pelipper, Blizzard."
Pelipper sucked in a breath before unleashing a snowstorm across the battlefield, dropping the temperature and turning the battlefield into a crystallised white.
"Rock Armour."
Cradily raised rocks from the ground before covering itself with plates of rocks as a makeshift armour. The armour is well-made, the armours are smooth and didn't hinder cradily's movement as it braved the Blizzard. The ice from Blizzard covered the armour, but didn't harm the wearer within. It is an ingenious move. Cradily's advance towards pelipper hasn't been stopped.
Winona bit the inside of her cheek. She is running out of options. She is wary of a close quarter combat with cradily due to its tentacles, but her long range moves didn't even faze the prehistoric plant. Cradily can also heal itself in the same time she took to blink. There is nothing she can do to deal heavy damage to cradily.
"Pelipper, return! Go honchkrow!"
The dark crow pokemon screeched, and flew around cradily, looking for a chance to strike. Velda's gaze hardened, and Winona finally saw Velda getting serious.
"Lily, you need to take out honchkrow so that the rest of our team can come out later. Get serious. City of Pillars. Now."
Winona watched in frustration as the pillars that she thought she had gotten rid of once and for all rose once more to their full height from the ground into the ceiling. Honchkrow fired off a few Air Cutter to try to cut down a few pillars, but more pillars will rise to take their place. Seeing the difference in speed in which the pillars are created, Winona realised that Velda's pupitar was only an amateur when it comes to this "City of Pillars" move. Cradily is the master here.
"Go, grab it."
"Heat Wave!"
Honchkrow exhaled hot breaths of air at cradily while it simply swung through the heat and into the air faster than what she previously witnessed. Whatever wounds cradily suffered from Heat Wave was healed by Recover an instant later as it continued to make its charge towards honchkrow, who is flying around trying to avoid cradily's charge. A long piece of grass suddenly shot from up from the ground, snaring honchkrow by its feet with Grass Knot, delaying honchkrow just enough for cradily to wrapped its tentacles around honchkrow. One of it wrapped around honchkrow's beak, preventing honchkrow from opening it, two of the tentacles curled around on both honchkrow's wings, one on each wing, another tentacle wrapped around honchkrow's torso as another tied both its legs together.
"Wring Out, followed by Giga Drain."
Cradily gave a crushing squeeze on honchkrow as it cried out in pain from its forcefully closed beak. Winona watched on as cradily greedily sapped away honchkrow's energy with Giga Drain.
"Drill Peck! Then Incinerate!"
Honchkrow spun itself at high speeds, which forced cradily to free it, before breathing out scorching flames at cradily at point-blank range. Honchkrow didn't let up on the flames, and continued to breathe a Heat Wave on cradily after Incinerate ended, engulfing cradily in flames once more.
"Tailwind."
Honchkrow whipped up a turbulent whirlwind that can be felt throughout the arena. A normal Tailwind raises the speed for the pokemons on the user's side, honchkrow's Tailwind in this case had the added effect of fanning the flames, causing it to grow bigger.
When the flames ended, the cradily limped, with its head on the ground and tentacles burned, breathing heavily. Only one more hit in and it's over for cradily. Honchkrow dived down, determined to end it with an Aerial Ace
"Lily," Winona heard Velda called out to cradily with a tinge of fond exasperation just as honchkrow is speeding towards it. "stop playing dead already. I know you survived the attack with Endure. Heal yourself up already. I know you don't like to battle flying types but just take down the honchkrow for me. Please? We really need to get this honchkrow out of the way first. I won't send you out again after this unless I really need to."
Winona watched for what could be the third or fourth time as cradily's healing prowess healed it back up to full health in a split second. It snared honchkrow with its tentacles once more as honchkrow tried to change directions at the last minute, and slammed it onto the ground with a Smack Down. It shot a highly powered stream of water from its mouth, sending honchkrow into unconsciousness with a well-aimed Brine.
"Thank you, Lily. Sorry about this. Return."
Winona watched as the cradily gurgled happily before returning to its pokeball, seemingly happy that it doesn't need to battle anymore.
"Sorry about that, but Lily hates to fight flying type pokemon for some reason."
Winona grunted a response as her eyebrows furrowed. Velda is clearly above the level of an advanced trainer. None of Velda's pokemon that Winona saw felt motivated to battle seriously, except for the pupitar, who is probably new to the team given the difference in power between the pupitar and Velda's cradily, charmeleon and espeon. Velda is probably at the level of an Elite trainer already, even if she does not realise it, if the way she carried herself is any indication. She is more than worthy of the Feather Badge from her performance so far. None of her pokemons at the advanced level can make her feel any pressure in battle. Hell, even Winona herself don't feel the need to continue this farce of a battle anymore. But quitting here right now leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
"I am going to change the rules of the battle, right here, right now." Winona spoke as Velda's reactions showed her surprise. "None of my pokemons on the advanced level can make you feel any pressure, and you don't seem motivated in continuing this battle. I don't blame you, they are too easy for you to handle at your current level. Why fight a poochyena when you can easily fight off a salamence? So, I am going to spice things up." Winona pressed a button, which opened the roofs of the gym. The ceilings parted, revealing the clear blue sky of Hoenn. The battlefield has widened, the sky is now the battlefield.
Winona put a silver whistle in her mouth and blew. The shrill sound of the whistle was responded with a loud roar.
Velda eyes widened in fright as a large dragonite and altaria flew in through the opened ceiling and landed on the battlefield violently in an earthquake, decimating any remaining rock pillars on the battlefield. The walls of the gym folded away, and only the arena was left in which the gym once stood. It's like the gym had never been there.
"This special feature to hide away the entire gym cost me a bomb, but I needed the feature. The gym is too small for my flying type pokemons when they have to go all out, and I hardly use it because I rarely met challengers that can force me to. You should feel honoured, Velda. The last time I did this was when Steven Stone challenged my gym for the Feather Badge. Release your entire team for battle, you will need them to fight all at once. The maximum of six pokemon rule doesn't apply anymore to you, I had already rescind it. These are the last two pokemons you will have to face in my gym if you want to earn my badge. Steel yourself, harden your wings. You will need every single drop of power you have if you want to face both Bard and Scales together and come out alive."
Bard and Scales roared in response, eager to face a worthy opponent.
Winona saw Velda gripped the hem of her skirt tightly as she scowled, seemingly deep in thought, before she released her entire team out for battle.
Winona placed the goggles attached to her helmet over her eyes as both her's and the challenger's box retreated further away from the arena, the psychic barriers won't contain the power of those of her main team. Retreating backwards was the only option to keep both trainers safe. The winds around her picked up as Bard and Scales began to release their power, it's been a long time since they can cut loose.
They are going to go all out.
"Kel, dodge it!"
A Hyper Beam shot into where Kel was, who was saved by Kratos when he Rock Surfed her away. I've never felt so screwed in my life before. I was not prepared for this.
The Hyper Beam created a crater the size of a snorlax, and the debris flew past my team and I to crash somewhere behind us. The psychic barriers surrounding the arena was long gone, incapable of containing the powers being thrown around by dragonite and altaria. The Hyper Beam wasn't even fully powered. Holy mother of Arceus.
"Flamel, get closer!"
Flamel jumped up and climbed from pillars to pillars that Bigblue had raised like a mountain goat, with Toothless clung onto his back as his rider, breathing flames at altaria who either redirected the flames with a single beat of its wings, or flew out of the way. Rena fired off her attacks as she stayed close to Bigblue, who is busy maintaining our line of defense together with Lily, who had finally gotten serious in her battle the moment she spotted altaria and dragonite, the presence of the twin dragons practically screaming "DANGER!".
There's no way these two aren't on her main team. They are too freakishly strong.
Winona haven't even give a single command to her pokemons, and they are toying with us.
This is the power of one of the thirteen pillars of Hoenn.
That dragonite of hers took to the skies again as it summoned a Hurricane, intending to destroy Bigblue and Lily, taking out our defenders. Dolly and Rena used a Psychic in conjunction, and only barely managed to redirect the Hurricane to another direction, missing its target. Snap crashed furiously into the dragonite with a Dragon Rush, clawing furiously and spewing flames to drive it off, giving Bigblue and Lily some breathing space. Even Fuzzy joined in the battle on Snap's back, and he tried to pin Winona's twin dragons down with its electricity, sending huge bursts of it. However, anything on the power of a Shock Wave or below had no effect, as we had found out shortly after the start of the battle. I would have tried to slowly wear them down with a status ailment, but dragonite is constantly protecting itself and altaria with a Safeguard. Perish Song won't be of any use since it will just take everyone in the arena down with it, which isn't the point of this battle. I'm not sure if I will subject Dolly to Suicide Maneuvers, I'm not sure if my team can hold off long enough for Curse to bring the twin dragons down. I'm running out of options other than to defend and wait.
Bigblue saved Flamel and Toothless from a possible KO from altaria with a Battering Ram, putting himself in harm's way to defend his teammates, summoning rocks to shield and battle what is known to the public as a gentle songbird, but is a vicious dragon-bird under Winona's command. Altaria tried to put Bigblue to sleep with a Sing, but was interrupted by Kel with a Throat Chop, temporarily preventing any usage of sound based attacks. Flamel attacked altaria with his own version of Battering Ram by slamming down on its back after it jumped and dropped down from the air with Bounce while Toothless blasted altaria with a Dragon Pulse from Flamel's back, one of its egg moves.
Altaria just threw them off and flew into the air again, it performed a Dragon Dance out of the reach of our attacks, and began to glow brightly.
"Incoming Sky Attack from Altaria! Defend!"
Altaria sped down from the sky with an audible 'boom' and crashed into the ground, sending shock waves and flying debris all over the area. My pokemon huddled behind Bigblue and Lily, who raised rock shields while Kel and Kratos helped to maintain a shield of Protect at the front of the shields. Even then, my entire team were pushed back.
"Incoming Hyper Beam from dragonite! Snap! Intercept it!"
Snap dashed into the skies with Fuzzy on its back, firing its own Hyper Beam as the two beams of condensed energies collided and exploded in the sky. Fuzzy tried to disrupt dragonite's vision with bright sparks of electricity, but dragonite just seemed unaffected. Bigblue's Ice Beam saved Snap from dragonite's Dragon Claw as Snap flew away from dragonite's reach, Snap had overextended himself back there.
In an incredible display of acrobatics and heroics, Fuzzy jumped off from Snap's back, created a platform with Protect in midair, and used it as a foothold to jump onto dragonite's back, running around its entire length while shooting attacks, trying to annoy it as much as possible.
Nice one, Fuzzy! But since when can he do that?!
Snap took the opportunity to heal itself briefly with Roost, before slashing at dragonite with Dragon Claw. Snap's ranged attacks was too dangerous for Fuzzy with him riding on dragonite. Fuzzy had stopped sparking, the electric attacks probably cannot penetrate dragonite's thick scales. It's not the end of the world, Fuzzy has more than electricity as its weapons.
"Fuzzy, Super Fang!"
There are always some weird moves that can reduce a pokemon's health to a set percentage no matter how strong the target of the move is. Super Fang is one of them, together with Endeavour. Scientists have never figured out the 'how' part of it either, but I'm not complaining.
Fuzzy chomped down hard into dragonite from where he is using his sharp front fang, and dragonite gave its first scream of pain. Super Fang reduces the target's health to half of what it originally is before getting inflicted by the move. Fuzzy's Super Fang was the first attack to deal significant damage to dragonite. We all know that we cannot allow dragonite the opportunity to recover its lost health with Roost. Snap grabbed the opportunity Fuzzy opened for us, and increased the ferocity of his attacks, slashing with his claws and shooting Laser Breath from its mouth at close range. Despite this, dragonite is still able to hold off their combined attacks, and somehow managed to grab Fuzzy before throwing him onto the ground below. Fuzzy would have been turned to paste if it wasn't for the intervention for Kratos, who raised rocks to gently grab Fuzzy and soften his fall, allowing him to land safely.
Thank god for Kratos, he may still be too weak to fight on this level, but he is a very good support to the team. I turned my attention back to the fight. Flamel, Toothless, Bigblue, and Kel is holding off altaria and seemed to be able to hold their own for awhile. Bigblue had to leave the role of being the team's defender to Lily, he cannot afford to hold back anymore, Toothless and Flamel need his offensive powers. Lily is trying to defend everyone from the onslaught of attacks from Winona's pokemons. Kratos and Dolly is on support duty, trying to attack if possible, and help save certain members of our team from attacks that would have taken them out. Fuzzy had jumped back into the fray with Snap, its electric attacks would not affect Snap as Snap is a part ground type, and they make a good duo. Rena is dashing around the battlefield trying to launch her attacks at dragonite from below.
The biggest immediate threat to our team is dragonite despite the large drop in its health. He alone prevented us to use moves that can inflict status ailment with Safeguard, a large part of our bread and butter in battles. Altaria is able to use that move as well, but I have to assume that dragonite is more proficient with it since it is the one using it right now. Safeguard had forced us to fight them in a straight forward fight in a contest of strength, which we are not ready for yet. First, we need to reduce dragonite's powers.
"Rena, Power Swap Dragonite, then onto Snap!"
Rena's own raw powers is not something to be underestimated, but even her powers pales in comparison to the raw power that dragonite possessed. In this case, Power Swap would be the best and safest option to take away the powers of dragonite by swapping it with Rena, who will then swap it with Snap, our powerhouse of the team.
Snap roared as the stolen powers surged through his veins while dragonite roared back in rage. They continued to clash. Power Swap may have stole dragonite's powers, but his years of combat experience is still there. Snap, on the other hand, may have increased in power, but may not necessarily have the experience needed to control the large increase in power for delicate and controlled attacks. We need a crude and direct hit onto dragonite. We need Dolly, our best saboteur.
Seeing as Flamel, Toothless, Bigblue, and Kel are able to keep altaria at bay for now. I focused my attention onto Winona's dragonite. I had communicated my plan to Dolly and the other members of the team fighting dragonite through Rena's telepathy. Time to put it into action.
Snap flew to the ground and threw up a cloud of sand to obscure dragonite's vision of us. Seeing as dragonite is high up in the sky while raining attacks down on us and far away from any shadows, Dolly closed the distance between her and dragonite with Phantom Force. She fired a Shadow Ball to dragonite's face to announce her presence and used Screech to throw it off balance. What happened next is a series of moves that were chained one after another that was only achieved after weeks of training.
Dolly used Taunt, to prevent dragonite from using any recovery moves or power boosting moves, followed by a Disable to temporarily prevent dragonite from using Dragon Pulse, an attack it was fond of using against us. She followed up with a barrage of Shadow Balls that dragonite blocked with its arms and dragonite slashed at Dolly with Dragon Claw, only to find itself slashing at an after-image of Dolly that was achieved by a well-timed Double Team. Dolly appeared behind dragonite, and pulled off the last stage of the plan.
Dolly swapped places with Snap with Ally Switch, and dragonite suddenly found a very angry Snap with a fully primed Draco Meteor at its back.
Snap still did not managed to master Draco Meteor to the point of being able to freely control its trajectory, but shooting that mass of energy at dragonite's back only a few feet away? That is doable.
The Draco Meteor, fueled by the stolen power, collided with dragonite and dragonite was sent spiraling into the ground. Fuzzy, Rena and Dolly rained their attacks onto dragonite, not allowing it to have a chance to rest.
"Bard, Haze. Scales, Outrage."
You've got be kidding me.
Dragonite went on a rampage, and the entire team have to scatter to avoid the angry dragon on its warpath. Altaria's Haze had reset any power changes, meaning everyone's power levels had reset to what they were before the battle begun, which means that dragonite had returned to its original level of power. Altaria had took to flying higher in the air to use this time to get a power up with Dragon Dance. Oh shit.
"Bigblue, bounce dragonite's attack back! Kel, Dolly, prepare against either of the dragons! Whichever is more convenient! The rest of you, support them!"
Bigblue shot towards dragonite with a Battering Ram, braced the Outrage with an Endure before sending back twice the damage with Counter. Dragonite was send flying backwards while altaria dove down at the same time to try and finish Bigblue off.
Lily's tentacles shot up from within the ground around Bigblue, two of which pulled Bigblue to safety just right before altaria got him. Bigblue used Rest to try and recover lost health, trusting the team to keep him safe in the meantime. The other tentacles fired off an oily Sludge Wave from its end, and altaria dodged the Sludge Wave at the last moment at an almost ninety degree turn, pulling up from the ground without losing speed. A wave of wind blades of Razor Winds rained down from above altaria to try and cut off its escape route. Altaria continued on and simply dodged or batted away the Razor Winds with its huge wings. Dolly stood in its way trying to form a Shadow Ball, and altaria was ready to fire off a Dragon Breath until Dolly used Ally Switch and altaria found a snarling Kel instead, who used Punishment followed by an empowered Play Rough. Kel had copied the effects of altaria's Dragon Dance with a Psych Up, so that Play Rough ought to have hurt. Altaria regained its balance in the air as Kel landed on the ground, and altaria begun to heal its wounds with Roost, only to find it being unable to due to a Taunt Dolly had used while pretending to use a Shadow Ball earlier. Flamel jumped into the air and slammed into altaria with a Flare Blitz, which Snap followed up with a Dragon Rush to push altaria to the ground, who had recovered enough to continue fighting after pulling off Draco Meteor.
We would have succeeded in bringing altaria to the ground if it wasn't for the untimely intervention of dragonite, who had forced everyone to back off by charging in with an Extreme Speed. It punched Kel with a Power-Up Punch, and thankfully Kel had managed to lessen the damage with a wall of rocks by using Stone Edge, and aided by Rena with a wall of Reflect. Lily tried to hold dragonite down to the ground with her tentacles, but was blocked off by dragonite's Fire Punch. Flamel and Toothless worked in tandem to unleash their flames at dragonite, who only flew off into the skies. The two fire types blasted the skies with intense heat, hoping to get one of Winona's pokemon. The two half-dragon half-flying type just weaved effortlessly through their attacks.
Just as I expected and how I wanted it to be. The skies are their domain, I accepted that. But the ground is ours. Time to drop the flying types out of their domain and into ours.
The skies had started to rain with storm clouds forming, Kratos had started on the next stage of our plan with Rain Dance. I was a Naruto fan in my previous life, this attack was inspired from what I remembered in the manga series. Since it's scientifically and theoretically doable, I taught my team on how to do it together in our free time, even though it was supposed to be a joke to "make Fuzzy the strongest pokemon ever". We have never planned to use it ever due to how troublesome it is to set this up, but it seemed like our best option against Winona.
"Nice weather, isn't it?" I said to Winona, catching her attention. I need to buy as much time as possible. "Surprised how fast it took for Rain Dance to take effect? Flamel and Toothless had helped to form clouds with the heat. Do you know what comes next? Word of warning, look UP."
I don't have a Sasuke on my team, and we don't have chakra, BUT.
We have a Fuzzy.
Fuzzy had made its way to the front of my team, who had regrouped, and began to spark erratically.
A Thunder so huge that it can cover both of Winona's pokemon crashed down from the sky as Fuzzy directed the natural lightning onto our foes. The two flying types tried to move out of the way, but were temporarily held in place with Psychic by Rena and Dolly, who are safe behind Lily and Bigblue, who had already woken up. The rest of our team stood behind our team's best defenders as they threw up walls of stone, strengthened by a Protect from Kratos and Kel. Flamel used a Protect on Fuzzy to prevent Fuzzy's small frame from being blown back by the impact of its own attack. I don't need Rena and Dolly to hold Winona's pokemon for long with Psychic, just enough so that they couldn't dodge Fuzzy's attack even if they want to. Winona's pokemon are still under Taunt's effect, and they cannot protect themselves with any defensive moves, the best they can do is to fight back with their offensive moves. But can they fight back a force of nature under Fuzzy's control? I highly doubt it.
The Thunder attack struck both altaria and dragonite and they crashed onto the ground. The battlefield fell into temporary silence as our vision were blocked out with a huge cloud of dust. I'm not going to let up on our attacks. That Thunder may or may not have dealt significant damage to them, but no way are they out of the count yet.
They are pokemons from a gym leader's main team.
"Bigblue, Snap. Land Wave, drag them down."
Our two ground types slammed their feet on the ground, channeling their powers, and the entire arena liquefied with their ground type techniques.
The area of liquefied ground on the sides of the arena rose up like the rising waves of the sea while the area at the middle of the arena caved downwards where altaria and dragonite supposedly are, forming a U-shape bowl, trapping them in as the liquid ground closed itself into a sphere and shrinked its size down towards its prisoners and dragging them into the ground. This is a way larger scale of the quicksand tactic that Snap is so fond of, but we turned the entire ground into liquid mud instead of sand, which is harder to control but also more difficult for foes to get out of due to the viscosity. As long as Winona's pokemon are on the ground, Bigblue and Snap can sense them, and from the looks of it, they are still on the ground somewhere either preparing a counter-attack, or waiting for us to finish them. I still believe the former is more likely to happen.
I heard dragonite's angry roar as it tried to blast through the mud with a condensed Hurricane. The mud simply reformed around whatever the Hurricane had destroyed as it tried to drag both dragonite and altaria down in the depths of the earth and bury them six feet under.
Seeing as there are no other way, Winona's two resident monsters broke through the Land Wave with a Dragon Rush. They received a warm welcome from the rest of my team as my team immediately launched attacks of their own the moment the two flying types broke through, and I watched in delight as altaria found itself having troubles trying to find its balance in the air due to all the mud on its cloud-like feathers. The mud was discreetly filled with the oils of Sludge Wave from Lily, and it will prevent altaria from flying properly by clumping its feathers, something that I had learnt to deal with annoying flying types back at Petalburg gym. Dragonite is spared from this treatment as it had scales instead of feathers, but at least it will help in bringing one of them down.
Snap flew off to engage in an aerial battle with dragonite to force it away from altaria together with Flamel,Toothless, Kratos, and Fuzzy as his support. The rest of us focused on bringing altaria down.
Lily finally decided to rush in with Rock Surf as she led the charge for our remaining members that were running behind her. Altaria tried to gain altitude, but it still had trouble flying properly with all the oil and mud on its wings. Lily simply increased her altitude faster than what altaria could by raising herself with Stone Edge. She finally ensnared altaria with her tentacles and used Smack Down, bringing altaria down onto the ground with her tentacles. Lily's Wring Out caused a lot of pain for altaria as it tried to bathe Lily in flames with Flamethrower, only for Bigblue to intercept and douse the flames with his water attacks. It tried to cut through Lily's tentacles with a Dragon Claw using its talons, only for Kel to use a Me First and stopped altaria in its tracks. Lily held on to her grip on altaria and used Giga Drain to sap its strength. Rena and Dolly tried to get as many attacks as possible onto altaria.
"Bard, get up and use Fly!"
With a ridiculous show of Strength, altaria managed to flap its powerful wings out of Lily's hold and flicked the majority of the mud off its feathers. It proceeded to use Fly even when under attack, trying to fly into the skies while Lily tried very hard to pull it back down with her other tentacles still wrapped around altaria's torso, and anchored herself into the ground with Ingrain. It was then I noticed, we had bought enough time for Safeguard to wear off, and Winona's pokemon cannot use another Safeguard or any other recovery moves with Taunt still active as Dolly and Kel took turns in using it, preventing altaria from recovering. Dragonite is still too far away for Kel and Dolly to use Taunt on it again after Taunt's effect ended on dragonite, but Kratos is there helping Snap and Kratos does know Taunt, even if he is not good in it. Kratos can help to keep Taunt active on dragonite.
"Lily, Toxic!"
Finally.
Altaria screamed in pain from the poison as it faltered momentarily, but continued to try and reach for the skies. Bigblue summoned a huge rock that was at least five times its own size, and send it down onto altaria from above. Altaria blasted it into smithereens with a Dragon Pulse, but the broken pieces of rocks just stopped its fall midair, before turning back and began to pelt on altaria with Bigblue's use of Focus Rock. Dolly cackled as she sent a Hex at altaria that was strengthened by Rena's Helping Hand.
From the other side of the battlefield, dragonite saw the danger that altaria was in and charged recklessly in Lily's direction. Snap attempted to block it with a Protect but dragonite just pushed it away with brute strength and sent Snap falling onto the ground below while Kratos tried to soften Snap's fall. Bigblue charged towards dragonite with Battering Ram and the two titans clashed in a wrestle of physical strength after their collision. Bigblue used Strength to increase his strength and slowly pushed dragonite back, only for dragonite to slip itself from Bigblue's hold, wrapped its thick arms around Bigblue, and carried him into the air.
Please don't tell me that's a Sky Drop.
"Snap! Save Bigblue!"
Snap flew after dragonite trying to stop dragonite while firing its ranged attacks. Dragonite merely used Bigblue as a shield that forced Snap to stop his assault. Flamel attempted to get closer with Bounce, but was swatted away with a Dragon Tail. It dodged Toothless's flames with ease as it rose higher and higher into the sky.
Should I attempt to get altaria while it's still in our grasp, our should I focus on saving Bigblue?
Fuck it, I will do both. I have to trust Bigblue on this.
"Lily, maintain your hold on altaria! Snap, get on the ground! Land Wave!"
The ground liquefied once again, altaria is slowly succumbing to its wounds as it tried to get Kel or Dolly, seeing as they are the reason why it cannot use recovery moves. It ignored Lily since she simply healed up from whatever damage altaria dealt to her. Dragonite and Bigblue are a speck in the sky now. I hope Bigblue's ok.
Dragonite sent Bigblue hurtling down like a meteorite as Bigblue tried to use a Protect in front of him as he fell facing the ground. The liquid ground shot up and tried to wrap around Bigblue to cushion his fall, but a blast of draconic flames from dragonite forced Snap to lose his focus as he lost control of Land Wave. Flamel and Toothless retaliated, as Kratos threw rocks at dragonite as a distraction. I focused on Bigblue's descent, and turned to Dolly.
"Dolly, take Bigblue to safety with your shadows."
Similar to how she had transported me in Lavaridge gym, Dolly used the large shadows that were cast by the wave of mud that rose halfway before Snap lost control and covered Bigblue with the shadows. Bigblue emerged beside Dolly, wheezing for air but otherwise safe.
Thank Arceus.
Dragonite dropped down from the sky and attempted to squash Lily with its weight, and Rena pushed dragonite off course with a Psychic, forcing it to land onto the ground and she shot a Dazzling Gleam at it. Dragonite braved the attack, and Flamel charged at dragonite with a Flare Blitz before releasing an Inferno at point-blank range, burning dragonite and inflicting a burn. Dolly took the opportunity to blast dragonite with Hex as it dodged a Dragon Breath from altaria, who is still in Lily's hold. Lily swung altaria and used it as a bat to smack dragonite who had landed too close to her, and dragonite took a few steps back, only to find its right leg sinking and stuck in mud.
Snap roared from the ground as it quickly tried to sink dragonite into the ground once more with Land Wave. Kratos and Toothless summoned a combined but crudely made Rock Tomb to box it in as Bigblue surrounded the area around dragonite with Whirlpool. Kel hides at the back of the team, making sure that Taunt is constantly in effect on both of our captured opponents. Fuzzy sent another Thunder, this time without the aid of nature, to zap dragonite as the water from Whirlpool increased the intensity of the electric attack. Lily is slowly draining the strength of the captured altaria with Dolly's aid in bombarding it with continuous attacks.
We can finally see a glimpse of our victory. All we had to do is to wait it out.
What I didn't expect was for dragonite to willingly sink into the ground and quickly heat it up from underneath with a Heat Wave, hardening the ground around the area, before bursting out of our trap. It punched an unprepared Lily with a Fire Punch, which caused Lily to lose her hold on altaria, and altaria flew off into the skies again. Dragonite proceeded to scatter my entire team with a Brutal Swing using its tail, who had no choice but to dodge out of the way
"Target absol, banette, and the pupitar."
Shit, Winona wants to take out everyone that can use Taunt on my team so that her pokemons can recover.
With a speed faster than any other pokemon I ever saw in my life, dragonite flew towards Dolly, with a Dragon Pulse forming in its opened mouth to blast her into oblivion. Dolly is too far away from my team's protection after the unexpected turnaround from dragonite. I wanted Dolly to get out with Phantom Force, even if I'm unsure if she could make it, until Dolly's eyes suddenly had a determined gleam.
Please, Dolly, not that. It is not worth it for a gym battle.
Dolly immediately cut its health with a Curse, bringing her health to less than half of what she had, and dashed into dragonite's Dragon Pulse.
"DOLLY! DON'T BE STUPID! I DIDN'T PERMIT YOU TO USE THAT! GET OUT OF THERE! THAT'S AN ORDER, DAMN IT!"
Dolly either didn't hear me, or chose to ignore me in favour of bringing at least one of Winona's dragons down as she finally linked herself to dragonite with a carefully timed Destiny Bond right before taking the full brunt of dragonite's Dragon Pulse. I didn't wait to see what happened, I know what will follow next the moment Dragon Pulse found Dolly as its target. I recalled Dolly. Destiny Bond is a dangerous move to use in battle. Use it too early before the user is brought down, and it won't have any effect on the target. Use it too late, and the user will be taken out before Destiny Bond can be used. What Dolly did is especially dangerous since she purposely used Curse to bring her health down into dangerously low levels to ensure that she can be taken out in a single hit of dragonite's Dragon Pulse and timed her Destiny Bond to activate right before Dragon Pulse hit, which admittedly takes a lot of skill to pull off.
But what she did was still dangerous. Dolly may have our best interests in mind, but this is not a life-or-death battle. I will not permit her to use it like that again in an official battle, and I will ensure that my orders will be followed through this time. She could have died.
Winona recalled her dragonite back to her pokeball as it fell prey to Dolly's Destiny Bond. The escapade that dragonite had performed prevented the continuous usage of Taunt on it and altaria, altaria had taken the opportunity to heal itself with Refresh and Roost high up in the air, as good as new.
I know that we can keep going and bring altaria down, even if it's just another long fight. Altaria is a lot more defenseless without dragonite, and also less powerful in terms of power, but I really don't have the mood to battle anymore after Dolly's unauthorised stupid suicidal stunt. I had told her time and time again to not use such a combo unless it's a life-or-death situation ever since I taught her how to chain Curse and Destiny Bond together. The reason I even taught her something like that was for her to use as a precaution just in case something went FUBAR outside of official battles during our journey and we really need to die trying to take something out of battle. I didn't teach her to use it like that.
My team was still raring to go even after Dolly fell, but I really do not have to mood to carry on with the battle anymore. What's the point of collecting gym badges if it is earned by sacrificial suicidal tactics? You are just trading lives for honour. And what use are honours if there are no lives left for it? Living is always better than staying dead, in my opinion. I don't really care if we never completed the gym circuit, even though I really enjoyed it. My dream hasn't changed. I want to travel the world, that's all. I want my team to be alive and well at the end of our travels, and what Dolly did almost killed herself.
I want Dolly alive, not dead.
I punched the forfeit button next to me in the challenger stand and an alarm rang out across the arena, surprising everyone.
"I give, there's no point in this battle anymore, not after Dolly pulled that stunt. I will come back for the challenge another time, sorry for the trouble." I recalled my team back into their pokeballs before they could protest, spun on my heels, and left in the direction of the pokemon center.
Winona gritted her teeth in frustration and worry as she tried to find Velda. It's been a day after their battle and she still cannot locate her, even if she knew that Velda is in Fortree from the records in the Pokemon Center. Velda is probably evading her, even if Winona does not know how she managed to do it.
She berated herself for thinking it was a good idea to go all out with her main team against an advanced trainer. No matter how skilled Velda is, she's still a 12 year old, still a child, and Winona going all out had probably traumatised her. Her banette had nearly died trying to take down Scales, even if it had succeeded in bringing Scales down. Thankfully, that banette is still alive from what she knew, thanks to the nurses at the pokemon center.
Winona knew about the pain in losing your own pokemon in battle. She had lost Soar and Talon when she was in ACE. It devastated her, and she nearly quit being a trainer.
It simply was a bad idea to go all out against an advanced trainer. She doesn't even normally do that against an Elite trainer. She had seen Velda's previous gym battles from the videos, and she was so excited at Velda's growth as a trainer. She was excited that Velda's growth was so huge that she can unofficially be classified as an Elite trainer in strength. She was excited at facing a real challenge again, something which she had not experienced in a while. She was so excited that she had made the mistake of sending out both Bard and Scales together, even if Velda was allowed to use all of her pokemon. That was simply overkill.
Still, Winona can appreciate the tactics that Velda had came up with during the battle with Bard and Scales. From stealing powers with Power Swap, surfing on the ground with rocks, changing positions with Ally Switch, to using natural lightning to create an overpowered Thunder, creating liquefied ground, usage of Taunts to prevent any use of recovery moves, banette's shadow teleportation on swampert to bring it to safety, and many other things that had been used in their battle. Winona was mind-blown at the creativity and the difficulty of these maneuvers, and she had never seen some of the tactics being employed before. She would never expect a pachirisu of all pokemon to be able to control and direct natural lightning, its species is just not suited for combat at the higher levels of battling.
Flight, the swellow on her main team, flew down and circled around her. She had probably found Velda.
Flight led Winona into a small, isolated clearing on the outskirts of Fortree. Velda was sitting on the ground, back towards Winona while facing a small lake, hugging her banette close to her and her legs tucked halfway towards her chest. Velda rested her chin on banette's head as she sat in silence as the rest of the pokemon huddled around her. They don't seemed surprise by Winona's appearance, and had probably sensed her approach some time back. They made way for her as Winona sat down beside Velda, who gave no indication of knowing of her arrival.
They continued to sit together in silence for a while, until Velda spoke.
"I'm sorry for leaving the battle like that. It was rude of me."
"It was me that have gone overboard, I don't even usually send Bard and Scales in battle against Elite trainers. But I sent them out against you."
Winona brought out a Feather Badge and a Aerial Ace TM, and slid it over to Velda.
"Take it, you have more than earn it. Disregarding your banette's reckless actions in our battle, you have already proved yourself to be more capable than most Elite trainers I know. Not many can push me and my pokemon from my main team to that point. I know you aren't happy with what your banette did, I know how dangerous it was, but you should feel proud of your progress, as well as those of your pokemon. You are only 12, and yet you already possess powers that many trainers are incapable of achieving in their lifetime. I never wish for this to be a setback for you. I'm sorry."
Velda took a look at the spoils of her victory, before pocketing it halfheartedly.
"I can't bring myself to be mad at Dolly, honestly, or at anyone else for that matter. I'm just worried. She just used a combo that I explicitly said to not use unless it's a life-or-death situation." Velda's banette shifted guiltily in her arms. "But you are right. My pokemons did show progress, and it was obvious that their hardwork had paid off. I should be proud of them." Velda continued to gaze at the lake, but a small smile had crept up her face.
Winona inwardly let out a sigh of relief. It seemed that Velda's depressed mood had lifted.
"Seriously though, are all gym leaders crazy strong like you? If that is only two of your pokemon from your main team. I don't want to think how scary your entire main team is. Or the ones of any other gym leader, for that matter. I'm close with Roxanne, but even I can't tell the depth of the power she wielded, only that she is very strong. If everyone is on your level..." Velda ended her sentence while looking at her.
"I'm not the strongest among the gym leaders, that's for sure." Winona admitted. "That honour used to be Juan's, until there was a major change of gym leaders a few years ago. No one is sure now. I lost to Norman once, many years ago before we became gym leaders. But I know he's probably still stronger than me." Winona huffed. "I still can't believe he got married and had a kid, you should have seen him when he was younger."
Velda eyes visibly twinkled, even if Winona don't know how that is possible for a human. Velda leaned in closer excitedly.
"This, I need to hear. He always made fun of me for being the shortest gym trainer in Hoenn, I need some ammunition against him."
Winona grinned, she haven't had a gossip partner for so long, and she missed the gossip session she used to share with her friends before she became gym leader. They had moved on with their lives outside Fortree, and they hardly meet anymore.
"Well, there was one time when Norman was actively pursued as a love interest by many operatives of both genders when we were in ACE. It all started when a female operative gave him a love letter after he saved her during a mission..."
AN: I wanted to write a normal gym battle, until I saw Winona's lineup in the games from Bulbapedia. I tried writing a normal battle until honchkrow's battle, but the moves of the remaining pokemons on her team is very limited and disappointing, and it is hard for me to write an exciting battle based on their limited movepools while Velda's pokemon is overpowered in terms of the range of moves they can use. I also found out that I need to improve on writing detailed battles from a third person's pov, something which I need to take note of in the future. To make this chapter exciting, I decided to try the idea of having a gym leader going all out, even if it's only two pokemons from their main team. I hoped I didn't screw it up, it kind of didn't feel right since I changed my mind on how the original battle was supposed to be halfway.
Anyway, the writing of Bard and Scales have brought me an inspiration of a battle where gym leaders of Hoenn can go all out in the face of crisis. I will see if I can weave it in the original plan for IJWTTTW without starting a war in the pokemon world, seeing how strong I made the gym leaders in IJWTTTW.
Anyway, it's Christmas when I post this chapter. SO, here's me wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Hoped you enjoyed the chapter.
Character and Pokemon List:
Velda Vera, Age: 12, Female, Pokemon Trainer, Reincarnated Soul (to be kept a secret until the day she dies again)
Pokemon on hand:
1) Rapidash (Flamel), male
2) Swampert (Bigblue), male
3) Banette (Dolly), female
4) Flygon (Snap), male
5) Absol (Kelsa), female
6) Charmeleon (Toothless), male
7) Cradily (Lily), female
8) Espeon (Rena), female
9) Pachirisu (Fuzzy), male
10) Larvitar, (Kratos), male
Winona, Age: 30, Female, Fortree City Gym Leader, Ex Ace Operative
1) Altaria (Bard), male
2) Dragonite (Scales), male
3) Swellow (Flight), female
4) ?, Soar, deceased
5) ?, Talon, deceased
6) Swellow
7) Pelipper
8) Honchkrow