“As the challenger, Fredrick will release his pokemon first. Please do so now.” The adjudicator said. The crowd had fallen silent as they waited to see what Fredrick’s first pokemon would be. Fredrick threw the ball and in a flash of red light a nuzleaf appeared in the arena.
Grant grew concerned when Fredrick started off with a nuzleaf. Nuzleaf, being a second stage pokemon, would be naturally stronger than Grant’s pokemon which were only first stage evolution. Nuzleaf’s typing also made Grant concerned. Not only was he grass which would let him plow right through all of horsea’s attacks, but he was dark which lent him an even stronger resistance to grass than he would normally receive from grass typing. This was concerning, but all of this could be overcome. What really worried Grant was that Fredrick was leading with nuzleaf, which to Grant meant that Fredrick had something even stronger than nuzleaf lined up to go assuming Grant could take nuzleaf down. Afterall, nobody started with their ace when they had to release their pokemon first.
“Grant release your first pokemon.” The adjudicator said. Grant really didn’t have much of a choice in pokemon. Horsea would get shredded in five seconds because of the extreme type disadvantage. With that in mind, tangela was released. Tangela glared furiously at nuzleaf, and Grant just hoped she remembered their little talk about not murdering pokemon in challenges.
“This will be a 2v2 pokemon battle. Each trainer is permitted one substitution. The match will begin on my mark. Are both trainers ready?” Grant and Fredrick both nodded. Grant’s mind was spinning trying to come up with an opening move that would be effective against the duel typed nuzleaf. He would have to open with poison powder since nuzleaf weren’t very resistant, but after that?
“The match begins in 3, 2, 1, fight!”
“Nuzleaf use growth and then harden!”
“Tangela use poison powder and then growth!” A cloud of purple poison launched towards the nuzleaf who had just finished using harden. Its body had taken on a silvery metal look after using the move. It didn’t even try to dodge the poison as it used growth. Nuzleaf grew from three feet tall to four feet tall, and his muscles seemed to ripple under the metallic surface of his hardened skin. The poison powder connected and nuzleaf started coughing. Purple lines started to spread mixing with the silver cast of nuzleaf’s body. While nuzleaf coughed tangela had used growth as well. She had grown to be half a foot taller than nuzleaf, a wicked grin on her face as she spotted the nuzleaf’s surprise.
“Nuzleaf ignore the poison use astonish!” Fredrick yelled. Nuzleaf’s eyes started to glow a ghostly white color, before a beam shot from them and connected with tangela. She was sent stumbling a couple steps back from the attack.
“Now nuzleaf rollout!”
“Tangela use bind!” Grant called, but tangela for just an instant froze. She locked up, and nuzleaf slammed into her with the first attack from rollout. Tangela was sent skipping towards the side of the ring, but she thankfully regained her senses after the attack, and caught herself before she could exit the arena.
“Tangela, we need to interrupt the next rollout!” Grant called, and tangela nodded.
“Behind you!” Grant called too late. Tangela stood to look for nuzleaf, but he had circled around and slammed into tangela’s back sending her skipping again this time into the middle of the ring. Each time he attacked with rollout his speed grew, and Grant knew if nuzleaf was allowed to get the fifth rollout off uninterrupted then tangela would definitely faint.
Tangela struggled back to her feet and glared at the nuzleaf rolling around the arena in circles. It seemed like nuzleaf had a little trouble controlling the move at the greater speeds, and so took longer to line up the attack. Grant knew that was a pretty common problem for pokemon with rollout, but he hadn’t realized how difficult it could make actually getting off the five attacks without interruption. Grant had managed to watch the indigo league championship match from last year and the winner, Akira, had one because his sandslash had mastered rollout to the point they could strike all five times in rapid succession. Akira had challenged Lance after winning the Indigo League but had been swiftly defeated. Still, Grant felt that if he had a pokemon with rollout he would have been working nonstop to have his pokemon master rollout like Akira’s sandslash.
“Tangela use bind and then mega drain!” As it was when tangela used bind, the somewhat predictable arc of nuzleaf’s rollout, made it easy for tangela to connect. Her vines wrapped around nuzleaf and threw off its roll just enough that the move was canceled, and nuzleaf skipped across the ground for several more feet. Tangela had nuzleaf’s arms pinned to his sides with bind, and a stream of green life energy was swiftly traveling up the vine from the contact to heal the injuries tangela had taken so far.
“Grant started to feel a little bit of hope. Perhaps, they could win this after all, but then nuzleaf disappeared in a flash of red light, leaving tangela holding only air.
“Fredrick has chosen to use his one substitution!” The adjudicator called. A half second later the noctowl Grant had seen fighting above the pokemon center, the night of the dustox attack, had appeared. Grant hadn't realized the noctowl belonged to Fredrick, and he wasn't very happy to be finding out this way.
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“You’re done kid.” Fredrick said with a satisfied grin. Grant knew that tangela had no shot at taking the noctowl out of the fight. Noctowl was a rare grade pokemon and given the size of this particular noctowl it had to be at least a knight rank alpha. Tangela would get destroyed in a stand-up fight, but Grant thought tangela could still help take the noctowl down.
“Tangela poison powder!”
“Noctowl air slash!” Noctowl turned in the air, to slash a glowing wing towards tangela. An arc of air energy was launched at tangela, but the move prevented noctowl from dodging the cloud of poison powder. It connected full on, and noctowl started coughing heavily as thick purple lines traveled along it’s body. The poison had a remarkably strong effect on noctowl, which was important for the next part of the plan.
Before the air slash could land Grant pulled out tangela’s pokeball and sucked her back in, letting her avoid the super effective attack.
“Grant has elected to use his one substitution!” The adjudicator called. Grant knew that horsea had very long odds in being able to take down the noctowl. However, with the poison in effect Grant hoped horsea could harass the noctowl long enough for the poison to whittle away its strength.
Horsea appeared in a flash of red light, already glaring at the noctowl that flew in lazy circles over the arena. Horsea knew that since he was in the fight tangela had likely already been defeated. Grant just hoped that the anger he saw in horsea’s eyes would be enough to carry them through this fight.
“Smokescreen and then alternate water gun and bubblebeam!” Oddly, Fredrick didn’t give any orders to his noctowl. That made Grant extremely nervous. Did they have a plan? Or did Fredrick simply consider them so little of a threat that he didn’t feel acknowledging horsea’s attacks was necessary.
Horsea’s smokescreen was up, and the first charged water gun fired. It connected but splashed harmlessly off the noctowl’s chest. There was a slight adjustment in its flight, but horsea didn’t have the strength to knock a bird weighing over 200 pounds out of the sky. He had managed the dustox, but they were a lot smaller and not as well trained as noctowl.
“Again, bubblebeam this time!” Horsea did as instructed and a slowly moving beam of bubbles floated up to meet the noctowl. Noctowl intentionally swerved into the path of the very easily dodged attack and looked down in contempt at the cloud of smoke horsea hid within.
“You steal from my shop, and you think you can defeat my strongest pokemon with bubbles?” Fredrick laughed. Grant’s face heated up in embarrassment. He knew the move wasn’t ready, but he didn’t know what else to do. Noctowl was stronger than horsea so leer wouldn’t help, twister wasn’t ready, and splash was never useful. The only other move besides the water gun which hadn’t been effective was bubblebeam.
“Noctowl clear this smoke away.” Fredrick called. Noctowl didn’t even use a move, it just flew in close to the cloud, and flapped it’s wings a few times, and the smoke cloud blew apart exposing horsea.
“Good now psycho shift.” Fredrick didn’t even need to shout to give commands now, as the small crowd had fallen silent.
Grant had never heard of the move psycho shift. That wasn’t unusual there were a lot of moves Grant wasn’t familiar with, but he wished he had known about it, because the effect was devastating.
Psychic energy built in noctowl’s body. It focused in on the purple lines streaking over its chest and then swiftly the purple lines disappeared. The purple energy of poison mixed with the pinkish psychic energy in a ball launch from the noctowl’s mouth.
The ball of purple and pink energy smashed into horsea. Lines of purple began to spread over his body, and he was sent shooting back several feet. Only by the barest margin was horsea able to regain control of the water orb he floated on and stay in the arena. Grant knew it didn’t matter though.
Tangela’s poison was strong when it connected with the noctowl. Now, when it was used on horsea, the attack was even more deadly. Horsea hacked huge heaving coughs and struggled to drag in a full breath. A small stream of purple tinged water dripped out of his mouth to mix with his water orb. Grant was reaching for horsea’s pokeball to recall horsea, but noctowl was faster.
In the split second of hesitation between horsea regaining control of himself, and Grant reaching for his pokeball, noctowl had launched another air slash. The attack thundered into the wounded horsea, and sent him flying out of the arena, to impact heavily against the back of the pokemon center. Grant supposed they were just lucky horsea hadn’t been flung towards the small crowd. Grant finally got horsea’s ball out and recalled the fainted pokemon.
“Horsea has been eliminated. Grant send out your final pokemon!” The adjudicator called. With a sinking feeling in Grant’s chest, he did as requested. Tangela appeared and seemed surprised to see the noctowl un-poisoned.
It was over quickly. Tangela threw vine whips, mega drains, binds, and a storm of poison powder at the noctowl, but it was no use. Noctowl only needed to land two air slashes and tangela went down covered in thick cuts. Grant stared down at the pokeballs in his hands. He couldn’t believe they had actually lost.