CHAPTER 119

We all clapped and cheered as Justin walked over to get his badge from Fantina, drowning out the few complaints about the 'boring' ending to his battle. He had improved so much in these last few weeks that I barely recognized him. And winning without even using Growlithe?! Not many people could boast of beating Fantina with a Pokemon up, third badge or not. When he left, we all hurried down to the gym's lobby.

In a way, it was surprising how simple I had found both Pauline and Justin's battles. I hadn't been a three-badge holder for that long, and yet I often found myself widening my eyes in surprise at how easy the battle looked, but that was entirely because Fantina was holding back, and her heart just wasn't in it. Now that I had seen her battle in person, I was sure of it. I didn't think that Fantina was having any fun during her challenges.

And yet, she was still a formidable gym leader. I knew especially that she had held back her ghosts' true potential during both battles, only giving Justin and Pauline a taste of what they were capable of to give them a challenge to overcome. And overcome it, they did.

But it would be worse against me. Seeing another ghost, even from afar made me clam up, but I believed I'd be capable of focusing when I got into my groove. Fantina would use stronger ghosts, and she would definitely use better illusions, or at least she wouldn't just stop using them as soon as she had against the others.

"Justin! My boy!" Denzel yelled, splaying out his arms and his voice spreading throughout the lobby.

Our friend scratched his cheek and gave us an awkward smile.

"I knew you'd win," I said. "You were ready."

"I was," he nodded.

"Justin," Pauline said, wrapping his neck with her arm hard enough to choke him. "I'll forfeit this one, it was your win."

"Forfeit?" Emilia raised an eyebrow.

After struggling to free himself, Justin cleared his throat. "We were competing to see who'd have the better battle."

"And Pauline gave up?" Cecilia asked incredulously. "Incredible."

"What? I can see the obvious! If I had won without using Gothorita, then we could have maybe called it a tie."

"We should go somewhere to celebrate!" Emilia smiled.

"We can go drink something," I agreed. "But then, we need to find Chase. He was supposed to arrive today."

I checked my phone to see if he'd sent a message, but there was nothing. We exited the gym and went to the cafe that Emilia had shown us when introducing the group to Vincent. Pauline spoke to Cecilia about her gym battle, while Justin consulted me for advice. I thought that he had done exceptionally well, but there were still a lot of areas to iron out. If his Krokorok hadn't evolved, then the battle might have gone in another direction, and while getting bailed out by an evolution did feel nice, it was still something I considered a failure— even my battle against Roark stuck out like a sore thumb in that regard. Togetic certainly would have lost without evolving. I also told him what my current theory was for Yamask's illusion. I believed that the ghost was proficient enough with Shadow Ball to create it while still invisible, and the one Lombre had attacked before getting hit had just been a fake.

But I couldn't be too hard on him. It was hard to focus on things like that when you were in the thick of it, and I knew that fact all too well.

"Ah," Emilia said, looking at her phone. "Chase sent a message."

Immediately, Denzel, Cece, and I grabbed our Poketches. We were antsy to get started on organizing our battle. Even more so now that we had seen Justin and Pauline's own fights. Chase was finally in Hearthome, although it looked like he was staying in a different Center than we were— the one the closest to the gym.

"Ask him to meet," I told Denzel. He hurriedly typed his message and sent it.

Chase responded with his usual gusto that could somehow be heard and felt through text, asking us to come to his Center instead of him coming to us. Well, I could somewhat understand. He'd been traveling for days, and he had probably gone through a lot in Mount Coronet, since he stayed inside for so long. If I had to guess, he was just tired, but he didn't want to admit it.

"I'll pay the tab," Pauline smiled. "You guys go see him."

"Don't you want to meet him too?" I asked.

"Not particularly," she shrugged. "But we can do it later."

I nodded, and after saying our goodbyes, we were on our way to Chase's Center. The taxi ride was annoyingly long due to all the traffic, taking thirty minutes.

"What room's he in?" Denzel asked.

"218," Cece replied.

We took the stairs instead of the elevator. Since this was the Center the closest to the gym, it was packed, unlike ours. I knocked on Chase's door, and I was confused when I saw it open, but didn't see anyone there. I looked down and smiled when I saw a furry little blue Pokemon. Riolu had opened the door for us. To be honest, I had almost expected him to have evolved, but he was still the good old Riolu I knew.

"Hey Ri," I greeted him. The others did the same, and he led us into the room.

Chase was crashed onto the bed with all of his dirty, traveling clothes and even his shoes. He shot up when he noticed that we were here. He seemed to have gained muscle, but he had huge bags under his eyes and looked paler than usual.

"What the hell? Already? You guys were fast," he complained, looking half-asleep.

"Such wonderful first words for our reunion," Cecilia smiled, crossing her arms. "How are you?"

"Eh, been better," he sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed.

"I'm mentally hugging you right now," I said, resisting the urge to tackle him.

"And I'm mentally dodging your hug, Pastel."

"Ow," Denzel said. "What happened to you, man? You look dead."

"My team and I went through some special training in the mountain," he shrugged. "It was tough, but we handled it."

"I told you he'd say that," I boasted.

"Don't bet on what I say," Chase complained. "I assume you're here for our battle?"

"We were hoping to do it tomorrow?" Denzel asked.

Cecilia frowned. "He looks very tired, I don't think—"

"I can do tomorrow, but it'll have to be in the evening so the Nurses can finish looking after my Pokemon. Riolu here got out unscathed, but the rest got beaten up pretty good, especially since I didn't have potions."

My eyes almost fell out of their sockets. "Excuse me?"

"What? I'm completely broke, and no one wants to battle me. They're scared they'll lose. I had a few, but I ran out quick," he shrugged. "There's this new substitute going around that people are selling made out of energy roots or something, but it didn't work very well."

"What if—"

I was about to berate him for taking risks, but I realize I shouldn't be the one to talk.

"Well, if you think you can handle it," I sighed. "You better be at one hundred percent."

"Please, Pastel," he scoffed. "I'm at one hundred and twenty percent one hundred percent of the time."

"Not how numbers work, but it sounds cool," Denzel said, sitting down at Chase's desk.

"By the way…" Cecilia hesitated. "I know this is a long shot, but have you seen Louis anywhere? He isn't traveling with us at the moment, and we've been worried."

"Bianchi? Yeah, I saw him at the outpost, although we didn't talk. He was traveling with two other chicks too. He'll probably make it soon. I left before he did."

We all breathed a huge sigh of relief. Louis was okay. I wished he had sent us any signs of life, but he probably still needed space. I was curious to learn about who he was traveling with, though. He would have had to meet them somewhere along the route, or maybe he had grouped up with people to make it past Mount Coronet.

"Let's get started then. First things first, the teams. It's kind of unofficial, but it's basically been decided that Cece and Grace will be on opposite sides, so it's all about which teams Chase and I are joining."

"Obel, I'm on your team."

"What? I wanted Denzel."

"I want revenge on Pastel for that time she beat me at the Eterna Forest outpost," he explained. "I don't care who I'm with, I want to be against her."

Cecilia brought a hand to her forehead and exhaled. "Fine."

I couldn't blame her for worrying. Cooperating with Chase would probably be a bit of a hassle.

Okay, it would actually be a huge pain in the ass, and I was happy I wouldn't have to do it.

"Well, that took a lot less time than I thought it would," Denzel chortled. "Next up, the format."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"We agreed on a double battle, right?" Cecilia said.

"But how many Pokemon per trainer?"

"I'm okay with anything other than six," Chase said, meaning that he hadn't caught his sixth yet.

I raised a hand. "Well, Cece can't use Scyther, so—"

"Not so fast," she interrupted. "Four-on-four is fine."

"W—wait. You and Scyther are fine now?!" I exclaimed.

"Not fine, no," she shook her head. "But there are a few agreements in place. A deal, if you will."

"Arceus, why didn't you tell me?" I pouted. "I'm so proud of you!"

"Because I thought I could have hidden it for the battle," she explained. "It would have tripped you up pretty good."

"Yeah… it would have," I said.

"Well, four Pokemon per person is fine," Denzel said. "Next up, the picking order. I actually have a suggestion for that."

We all stared at him curiously.

"We should do it like they do it in the Conference. You give the organizers— well, in this case, it'll have to be a referee, but you give them the order and the Pokemon you want to use, meaning that you're locked into sending that first Pokemon no matter what happens."

"I like that," I nodded. "Better than that Arceus damned coinflip system in Floaroma…"

"The Floaroma thing is just their gimmick. The element of randomness is how they differentiate themselves from all the other tournaments out there," Denzel said.

"Where do we battle?" I asked.

"Just pick some random arena," Chase said.

"There might be an audience…" Denzel said, looking at me.

"I'm fine with an audience," I shrugged. "As long as they don't heckle."

Not like I could notice anything around me when I was in the zone anyway. If anything, I'd probably have to remind myself to breathe so I didn't pass out again, because doing so a second time would be seriously embarrassing. After ironing out a few other terms, organizing the battle was done. We would each be allowed one switch, and there would be no time limit, meaning that we'd fight until the last Pokemon. Justin had agreed via text to be the referee, and we'd have to send him our teams at least an hour before the battle, which would take place tomorrow night at eight-thirty.

Finally.

Finally, it was time to strategize.

"Denzel! Come with me!" I exclaimed, dragging my friend by the arm.

"Already? I wanted to—"

"No buts! The clock's ticking!"

We left Cece in Chase's room. I wondered what strategy they'd employ, but I could only focus on myself.

No, it wasn't just me. It was me and Denzel. We quickly rode the bus back to our Center, entered my room, and took our respective seats.

"Okay, so we're deciding what Pokemon to use, and stuff?" He asked.

"Well, it's pretty obvious what I and Cece are going to use, and they know that," I explained, grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen. "Chase is the wildcard since he has five, and you can't use Feebas."

"Well, Riolu is in for sure, I don't think Chase will ever fight a battle without him. But let's think about the rest from a strategic standpoint."

"Everything we're talking about is from a strategic standpoint," I said.

"You know what I meant," he rolled his eyes. "Cece has Zweilous, Fletchinder, Slowpoke and… Scyther. Chase has Riolu, Houndoom, Snover, Zangoose and Charjabug."

Right, I thought as I wrote down all of the Pokemon's typings. Denzel thought by keeping a conversation flowing, while I was more of a visual learner.

"In my opinion," he continued. "Snover's probably the one he's the most unlikely to use."

"I was thinking either Snover or Charjabug," I nodded.

"Charjabug has that trick to take down fliers, whereas Snover… well, we don't know what he's capable of. That means Togetic could be in danger."

"Princess will be able to stop his String Shots."

"But Chase doesn't know— wait, nevermind, he will know. Cece's probably spilling the beans about everything. Okay, never mind, I think Charjabug will be the one that isn't used."

I nodded. "Now we have a rough idea of who will use what, but what do we think that they'll lead with? We should pick our leads based on their choices."

"There's a pattern to Cece's battle. Have you noticed?" He asked. After racking my brain for twenty seconds, I shook my head. "She always leads with Slowpoke. She did against Roark, Gardenia, and Candice. Now, she could trip us up and lead with something else, but I don't think she's even noticed the pattern herself."

I slammed my fist into my palm. Even I had had a pattern I didn't notice. I always led with Frillish! "Shit, you're right! Okay, so we have Slowpoke. What about Chase?"

"No pattern there," Denzel shook his head.

"So he'll probably pick based on what he thinks we'll pick."

"Chase likes prioritizing the type advantage. If you were Cece and Chase right now, who what would you think we'd be picking to lead?"

I closed my eyes. "Um… Cece probably thinks I'm going to lead with Frillish, since that's what she might be used to. For Chase… I don't know. I'd say Frillish too, since that's what Cece's going to tell him, but I can't be sure."

"What's a Pokemon they'd never think you'd lead with? We need to strike a balance of surprise and utility here."

"I could lead with Togetic, but I want to keep her in the back for Wish…" I muttered. "I'll lead with Tangrowth. It'll help against Slowpoke, he has power, and he can lock down opponents with his vines."

"Okay. Like you said, Cece will probably convince Chase that you're leading with Frillish, which means if I had to guess, he'll lead with Snover."

I scribbled down on my notebook. "Okay, we have Slowpoke and Snover as leads… against Tangrowth and…?

"Roselia. There's a synergy there, isn't there? You lock people down, she sprays them with spores and poison."

I nodded. "Synergies are important here. They'll be the difference between a win and a loss."

"Now that we have our leads, we should probably work out what Pokemon we'd want out at the same time."

"Togetic can work with anyone. She's my most versatile Pokemon."

"I was thinking we save the fairies for Zweilous? He's going to be a problem. The problem."

"That works. Electabuzz can fight both close-up and from afar, and you've seen what he can do. What do you think?"

"Can he keep threats away from Snorunt?" Denzel asked with a determined look.

"If they try to go for her? Yes," I nodded. "He's also my Counter against Fletchinder with Discharge, and Cecilia'll probably use her against Snorunt. You saw me use it against Turtonator."

"Okay, that works. By the way, I've been hiding this, but she's actually my most powerful attacker. She knows Blizzard, which can easily knock out both opponents at once if you let her charge it up."

"What?!"

"I didn't know if I'd be on your team or not," he shrugged. "I'll give you a list of all of my moves later, and you can do the same for me. Let's stick to broad strategy for now."

"We have Frillish and Buneary left. Not the best combination, but we shouldn't get in each other's way either."

"That's fine. Most of these probably won't happen anyway, plans always go haywire, which is why you shouldn't rely on them too much."

"You can make backup plans…" I grumbled.

"Aw, did I offend you?" He laughed. "Don't take it too hard."

"Whatever," I huffed. "Moving on! I actually had this plan… what if we focus on one person's Pokemon?"

"Focus on them? Like only attack their Pokemon until they run out?"

"Yeah, I was thinking we could do Chase's so that we can beat Cecilia's Zweilous. I think she'll save it for last."

"Are you sure?"

"That's just how she is," I nodded. "This power stuff is kind of an art for her, and she likes saving the best for last. If we can get a one versus two against Zweilous, our odds improve massively."

"I mean, there are two heads, so technically, it'd be a two versus two," Denzel said. "But I get what you mean. I think I agree. That dragon's going to be a problem… didn't she say she was going to buy TMs when we got there?"

I gasped. "Holy shit! Thank the Legendaries you reminded me of that. What were they again?"

"I remember hearing about the elemental fang moves… Stomping Tantrum too."

"Okay," I said. "I'm gonna write down every known move for all of their Pokemon so that we have an easier time visualizing 'em. Chase probably taught his Pokemon a bunch of new moves, but there isn't really a way of figuring it out."

"I mean, I can take a gander. Houndoom probably learned Flamethrower by now."

I agreed and changed Incinerate to Flamethrower, and we came up with a few other moves his Pokemon might have learned by now too. I then proceeded to explain the strategy I wanted to use with Wish. One switch would make it only usable once, but Togetic could use the move on herself too. It took me a few tries to get the mechanics of the move through Denzel, but after ten minutes, he understood it completely.

"I don't think Togetic staying unhurt is doable," he said. "So you'll only be able to use it on her when she's on the field."

I nodded. "And I'll only be able to use it on your Pokemon, since we have one switch."

"Sylveon would be ideal. He'll be in the thick of things, and he'll get hit a lot."

"Well, we were planning on using them together anyway for a bit, so that works out. I'll just switch before the Wish comes back down."

"Let's get back to the start of the battle. I know you said that we should focus on taking down Chase's Pokemon, but I think that taking down Slowpoke first would be ideal."

"Is it because of Psychic?" I asked. It was the only way his suggestion made sense.

"Yep. It's going to be annoying as hell to deal with offensively, but it'll also mean he can keep our Pokemon off of Chase's."

"Ahh, yeah, probably. We should overwhelm him right when the fight starts, then. He won't be able to defend against all of Tangrowth's vines and Roselia's attacks."

"Okay, great. For Zangoose, I was actually thinking…"

We must have spent hours in that room, going over every single possibility we could foresee in the battle. For example, I told him about unorthodox ways to use Tangrowth's vines, like pulling one of his Pokemon to safety or Togetic's Extrasensory throwing a Pokemon into the fray, so long as it wasn't too heavy. He told me that his Snorunt had already mastered Shadow Ball and that Sylveon had combined Disarming Voice and his ribbons to make a Pokemon lose its will to fight for seconds if he touched them long enough, and since he was a physical fighter, I knew that was certainly doable.

Seconds were everything in a battle.

There was much to think about and to keep track of. So many moving parts.

This was so much fun.

—

Night had fallen in Hearthome City, and Cecilia was standing on route 209. Fletchinder landed on her shoulder and cooed affectionately. She pet the bird's hot feathers and smiled.

"Are you done preparing for tomorrow, darling?"

Fletchinder squawked, and Cecilia responded with a smirk. Strategizing with Chase certainly had been a headache, especially with how headstrong he was about doing things his way, but she was satisfied with what they had come up with. Zweilous stood a few feet away from her.

"Incinerate," she said.

Flames gathered in Sol's mouth, and he spat out a huge stream of flames, illuminating the night sky. Zerst, meanwhile, used the same move, igniting an isolated tree in the distance.

Cecilia gently clicked her tongue. "No, Zerst. Remember this. When I give out orders, they're for Sol. You don't have to listen. Do whatever you want, so long as you take down your opponents flawlessly."

Sol bowed his head, and Zerst snarled. Cecilia cupped both of their chins with her hands.

Deceit, she had called it to Pauline, although she had only told her one facet of how she planned to deceive Grace. Cecilia knew she was no longer far ahead enough to blow past Grace with power alone. Misdirection would be needed to win. She would not go as far as calling out a move to mean another— no, that was dishonorable of a trainer to do, and not how she wanted to do things. But since she had a Zweilous, and there were two heads… well, why not give an order to one and leave the other to be an unpredictable factor in the battlefield? They were a little slow, so she would have to work on her tactics until the time of the battle came.

Scyther hissed, menacingly showing off his claws as he emerged from behind the burning tree.

"My apologies," Cece bowed her head slightly. "You know Zerst. He can be trigger-happy."

Zerst roared at Scyther, drooling all over the floor.

It had taken a long time to come to an agreement with Scyther. Weeks of slow, incremental progress. The bug type still hadn't forgiven her— far from it. She would probably have to atone for her brutality for years. Nor had he gained any respect for her either. Even though it was less pronounced, Scyther still stared at her with hatred in his eyes.

At least he didn't try to kill her anymore.

Scyther hunted whenever he wanted, and he didn't listen to anything she said, but she had managed to convince him to be used in battles. Of course, that meant that she wouldn't actually command him, which in this case would work out, since it was another foil to Grace's planning. Unpredictability was her biggest weakness. As it turned out, Cecilia had not been wrong in her initial assessment all those months ago that Scyther wanted to grow stronger, but she certainly had come at it the wrong way. Seeing all of her Pokemon grow so strong convinced the bug type to reluctantly follow her, and now he had started sparring with Zweilous and Fletchinder, although he was still the weakest member of her team. There was a lot of catching up to do.

Scyther fanned his wings and flew off somewhere. Initially, Cecilia had been worried that he would run away, but she had promised the flying type to release him in two months if she couldn't convince him to stay anyway. Those two months were almost up, now, so if he ran away, it would only be her fault. She would have tried everything she could, and she would have paid the price for her sins.

But he hadn't run away. He came back every single time.

Cecilia heard steps behind her, and she turned toward the last member of her team.

"Is everything to your liking, darling?"

Yes, lady Cecilia. Everything is working as intended.

A splitting headache hit Cecilia, but she stood proud and tall.