CHAPTER 147

"That was something," I muttered as Mira recalled her Pokemon.

Her Pokemon were certainly threatening, but I felt like I needed to see her struggle more to see what she was really about. She was irritating to face for people that easily got frustrated with snarky comments, but I figured that if I ever had to fight her, those wouldn't work on me. Haunter's Curse was worrisome and Magnezone brought the raw power that Mira needed to her team, but the thing that worried me the most was that Kadabra's versatility. Like Princess, he was the one that would pull the strings in a battle, and the fact that I had identified him as the scariest thing on her team when he had only battled for barely one minute was proof enough.

Strangely, it looked like every non-psychic type attack came from his spoon. Pokemon all had different ways of using moves that weren't their typing, so a part of me wondered if I could cripple him by knocking his spoon out of his hand somehow. Hell, it might even make his psychic moves harder to use. I could have Angel twist his arm until the pain proved too much and he had to let go, maybe? With how frail Kadabra was, that was certainly an option, but there was a problem. Twisting his arm could leave him enough time to escape. With the way Goalducc had written about her, it seemed like Kadabra was capable of using Teleport even under severe pain or strain, so I'd need to permanently stop him from being able to grab things.

Shattering his hands, maybe? One Power Whip would probably be enough. But for that, I'd need to catch him in the first place, which would prove difficult with how adept he was at Teleport. I didn't exactly like that method, though. It felt a lot more ruthless than I wanted to be, even if it was probably the most efficient way of going about things.

I was starting to see battles through the lens of someone that needed to cripple her opponents in the quickest possible manner to take them out of the fight as quickly and neatly as possible, and I wanted to reign that in a little. This was a sport for fun, not some kind of life-or-death fight, and it'd make me a bad influence on Princess, who was already having problems with that distinction. Hell, even Sweetheart was starting to grow in that direction.

Oh well, I sighed. With how the brackets were arranged, Mira would have to go through Lauren before going through me, so I had time to figure it out.

We made our way toward Mira as soon as she was done with the reporters. She seemingly had annoyed them so much with her attitude that they quickly moved on to her opponent instead. The pink-haired girl pouted as she slowly walked toward us.

"Don't make that face when you won, it makes you look ungrateful," Maeve said.

"Alright, mom."

"You were great out there," Louis said. We all echoed his words.

"I know, right? I wanted my win to be more dominant, but it was still fun, and I'm super happy that Haunter behaved."

"What'd you even do to convince him?" I asked.

"Well, I told him that we'd stop playing catch if he killed anything."

We all stared at her confusedly.

"Play catch? How does that even work?" Denzel asked.

"You never play catch before, big boy? I throw the ball and he catches it. I have to play with gloves because his poison gets all over the ball when he carries it with his entire body."

"That's… innovative."

"He's been improving leaps and bounds ever since. I was thinking of buying a soccer ball to see how big we can go—"

Cecilia coughed to interrupt her. "Well, that's all of today's battle done. What is everyone's plan now?"

Everyone that would battle tomorrow answered with training, but Denzel, Mira, and I were free. I actually felt a bit miffed at that, since I wanted to see Cecilia's Golett again, but she wanted to be as secretive as possible. Everyone but us three in the group left.

"Don't look so down," Denzel said, gently patting my shoulder. "You can come hang with me for a bit."

"Don't exclude me," Mira said.

"Err, right."

"I was gonna practice too," I said. "I've got to get my starting lineup ready for my next battle—"

"Which is in two days," my friend interrupted. "A few hours with us won't hurt."

"You're just jealous that your team's at the Center and mine isn't," I jabbed.

"That is a low blow."

"You can take it," I smugly said. "But fine, I guess I'll hang. I had a few questions for Mira anyway."

"You want to know how I managed to be this awesome?" She asked as she struck a pose.

"No, I want to know about your Kadabra."

"That's off-limits, missy. At least until one of us is out of the tournament."

"Alright, alright," I innocently lifted my hands.

We started to walk toward our Pokemon Center so that Mira could get her team healed. Since it was late in the evening and Solaceon seemed to not believe in the concept of streetlights on its long, lonely roads, we were alone in the dark.

"You know, I do have a question that you could answer, though. How does a Kadabra evolve?"

I had the rough knowledge that it wasn't simply by encountering a stressful situation and getting stronger in battle, but I didn't actually know the exact method. They were rare enough that the League itself resigned to mass breeding and evolving Abra into Kadabra instead of their more advanced forms, so clearly there was a bottleneck somewhere.

"I actually don't know either," Denzel said.

"Well, I said no questions, but I guess that one is innocent enough," Mira mused. "Kadabra will only evolve into Alakazam when they want to."

I frowned. "What? So you mean they can do it at any time?"

"Not exactly. They have to amass enough knowledge first, which could take months or years. It can be knowledge about anything, they just have to grow smart enough and learn stuff first. My Kadabra likes history and biology. He'll ramble at me for hours about how enzymes bind substrates to convert them into different molecules or about the books that Cynthia wrote back in the day about Sinnohan history or whatever. Honestly, that stuff goes in one ear and out the next. Or… well, that doesn't really work with telepathy, but you get it. His true passion, however, is Type Energy."

"Type Energy? Could you be more specific?" I asked. That actually went hand in hand with what I wanted to figure out.

"It's his life's work. He wants to figure out where it comes from and how it works exactly. Science can't explain it, the energy's just there inside of Pokemon or floating in the air, and they can convert that into moves. Kadabra channels it into his spoon to use all kinds of attacks. It's like gravity, right? A fundamental law of the universe, but only Pokemon can use it."

"I mean, my Electabuzz had to use physics to first start using moves like Fire Punch, but now he can just do it," I muttered. "So I suppose you're right."

"Same for Lopunny. It's a starting point. They get familiar with the move enough for them to eventually be able to pull on the energy and use it."

"See?" Mira smiled. "Anyway, Kadabra wants to figure out the ins and outs of TE. A Kadabra won't evolve until it learns everything there is to learn about the topic it's passionate about. Everything."

I let out a whistle. That was certainly interesting, but it seemed so daunting of a task that I believed it to be impossible.

And yet, Alakazam existed. They were rare, but they existed.

"And of course, they tend to pick the hardest topics in the Arceus damned universe, and the worse is, when they figure it out, they don't tell anybody. Even their trainers. They hoard the knowledge for themselves like Murkrow do with jewelry. Otherwise, don't you think we would have figured out a whole lot more by now? Hell, we'd probably be living in a utopia and have colonized the stars."

"Or maybe we should be glad that they don't kill us all and take over," Denzel joked.

"They would never do that. Kadabra in general think of themselves above petty human squabbles. War? Money? Power? Why worry about that when there's more knowledge to be gained."

"I know, I was just making a joke. I thought you of all people would know."

"Oh, my bad. I get really passionate about this stuff. Anyway, when a Kadabra evolves into an Alakazam, the floodgates open and they try to learn about everything in the world. Literally everything— all of the knowledge available to us right now. Needless to say, none of them have succeeded yet. They aren't immortal, so they never have enough time to do so. To be honest, even if they were, I doubt that there'd be any way for one to figure everything out."

"It makes you wonder what one might do if one did, though," I said nonchalantly.

Then, I realized what that implied and felt a chill run down my spine.

"Let's hope that day doesn't come," Denzel said with a nervous laugh.

After the two gave their Pokemon to Nurse Joy, we decided to stick in Denzel's room, since his was the cleanest. He took a selfie with his Sylveon to post online, hoping that it'd get more traction after his battle, and then we lazily lounged around his room.

"I heard you had a Milotic, big guy," Mira said. "I didn't think your Feebas would evolve that fast."

"Me neither. I didn't exactly have anything to do with it, which is kind of embarrassing," he said. "It feels bad that I had to reveal him this early. Goalducc already sent me an apology for calling him useless."

"I'm surprised at how good he was already though. He seemed to move quickly enough, and that Wrap was tight," I said.

"It took a bit of practice to get Wrap and Water Pulse up to par, but the biggest challenge was getting Milotic to move properly. Right now, I settled on him secreting water out of his scales to smoothen his movement."

"Don't make it sound so disgusting," Mira said.

"I'm just telling a fact…"

"A disgusting fact. Anyway, I actually had a favor to ask of you guys."

"You didn't want to answer my questions about Kadabra, so…" I said.

"I gave you so much information though! And I know you'll probably use it to your advantage. It's not even about this tournament anyway. It's about Chasey."

"Didn't he ask you not to call him that?" I said.

"Well, he's not here, is he?"

I was going to retort, but then I realized that I called my Turtonator Sunshine in my head or when he wasn't out of his ball even though he disliked it, so I couldn't really talk.

"Set me up with him," she continued. "He's hot."

"He also hates you," Denzel said.

"I can grow on him. I grow on everyone. I'm like moss or a fungus."

"I don't know, the more you try to pry him open, the more he'll shut himself off. You've got to give him his space and act cool," I said.

Mira scoffed. "Pry him open? Who says that?"

"Me!"

"Okay, so acting cool… you mean like, distant? I don't like to play hard to get. I see something I like, I want to go get it, y'know? I wish he'd stayed. Now the only time I'll be able to meet him again is Veilstone."

"I just mean acting normally," I sighed.

"I mean, I guess I can try to help you, but don't expect results," Denzel said. "I managed with Cece and Grace, but—"

"Oooooh, you're the one that set them up? You've got a one hundred percent success rate!"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Yeah, because I only did it once."

"Whatever, that's good enough for me. Hey, Grace, Chase seems to like you enough, so I think he'd take your advice if you asked him to try to be my friend. I can start from there and work my way up."

"Err…"

I already had Pauline, Denzel, and Emilia to worry about, and now this? Sure, I'd told Cece that I'd let them figure things out on their own, but I still wanted to nudge them in the right direction somehow and observe their progress.

Plus, Chase seemed completely uninterested in Romance anyway.

"I'll try my best?"

"That's not a yes or a no, but I'll take it," Mira said.

—

It was currently the middle of the night, and I was standing outside close to Sunshine for his body heat that he had so graciously raised for me after I begged for ten minutes. It was a particularly cold night, but this was the only time I'd be able to train my Pokemon's new moves. Cecilia had warned me about some guy with two Cutiefly that had managed to catch her training, so I was on guard for anything. I wished I had a psychic to sense them, but unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to do so until my eighth gym badge and I got my license to carry more than six Pokemon. It might be good to start planning for it in advance, though.

But then again, the last time I had planned for a fire type, I was completely blindsided. Who knew what was going to happen in all those months?

Right now, I was in the middle of a Sandstorm. Togetic, Turtonator and Electabuzz stood with me, and we were protected by Princess' barrier that she had created with Psychic. Sunshine was actually tough enough to brave the Sandstorm, but he just hadn't felt like it, so he asked to be protected as well. It took some convincing for Princess to even deign to include him in her psychic bubble.

The bubble was actually new as well, and we had taken inspiration from Cecilia's Slowking for it. She wasn't as good as he was with it, and she couldn't keep it up for long, but it worked, and it would prove useful in my battle in two days, both for the Sandstorm and against Magnezone's attacks.

Well, tomorrow's battle now, since it was three in the morning.

So this was a way to train her resistance to Sandstorm. Jellicent was practicing his by standing in the storm and making his body as liquid as possible in hopes that the sand would just pass through him, but it didn't look like it was going to work. Tangrowth was simply trying his best to take the brunt of the damage, which his vines protected him from.

Jellicent, Tangrowth and Togetic were the ones I was sure I was going to use in the battle, and they were all training their resistance to Sandstorm. Larvitar was the source, of course, and she'd gotten quite good at it. This was nowhere near Palossand's power, but it would do for now. I doubted that Yasim's own Sandstorm would be that powerful anyway. I had looked up information about Tyranitar recently, and apparently the only ability they had was Sand Stream. That meant that Sweetheart's practice here would pay dividends down the line.

The oddest part of the Tyranitar line was their second stage, where they'd be stuck in a cocoon-like form. I didn't think it was likely, but on the off-chance that Sweetheart somehow evolved during this tournament, I needed to be ready. Luckily, I had a treasure trove of information called the internet.

Pupitar are slow-moving Pokemon that tend to spend most of their time underground to hide away from potential predators while they await their evolution. They live off a diet of rocks, minerals, and soil, but are also capable of eating meat or kibble-based foods. Berries and plants will not be enough to sustain your Pupitar. They are nocturnal Pokemon that are mostly active at night, but with enough work, it is possible to readjust a Pupitar's sleep pattern. They will actually spend most of their time asleep, as rest is quintessential to building up their energy to evolve…

I groaned and wiped some sand away from my screen. Some of the grains were breaking through. Princess let out a small apology, and I smiled at her.

"It's okay, I'm not mad. You pushed yourself well," I gently said. "Sweetheart, you can stop now!" I yelled.

The Sandstorm slowly subsided, and the rock type strode up to me confidently. Her win had made her a lot happier, and all she wanted to do was train all the time. I rubbed her hard cheeks and she nuzzled her head against my hand.

"That was a great Sandstorm. And you're not even tired!"

"Larvitar!" She exclaimed.

Turtonator whispered a congratulation to her, and I teased him about it until he suddenly stood up, causing me to fall over, and walked away from me.

"Come on! I'm sorry!"

I walked up to him, but he stopped me with a glare. Meanwhile, he let Larvitar cuddle up to him as much as she wanted. Togetic stared daggers at him, but Electabuzz got her to chill out. He was getting good at that. His old self hadn't been that level-headed at all, which was a sign that he was growing up fast.

"Fine," I sighed, resigning to suffer in the cold. As I turned to Jellicent and Tangrowth, it seemed that they had taken some amount of damage. I had asked Buddy not to regenerate so we could see how much exactly at the end of the experiment, and there were deep gashes, cuts, and holes all over his head.

"Not bad," I whispered. "You can Recover now."

In a few seconds, he was as good as new. Tangrowth, meanwhile, looked to be relatively fine. Some of his vines had been torn up, but aside from that, I couldn't exactly tell how much damage he'd taken.

"Do you think you'd be able to fight like this without the sun?" I asked. The Sandstorm would stop us from using Sunny Day. "I think this battle will be longer and harder than the other one."

Angel blinked twice, but then motioned two vines to his eyes.

"The sand hurts your eyes the most, huh? We've got to figure out something for that… maybe Princess can give you a shield too? Or if that's too big, one around your eyes?"

"Toge…" the fairy type grumbled.

"Hard to do when he's moving, huh? Well, that's a bust for our fight, but we can work on it for the future, at least… after you get some rest. I don't think I'm going back the Pokemon Center tonight anyway, despite how cold it is," I said, raising my tone at the end of the sentence. Turtonator snorted, and Larvitar imitated him. "Hey, don't behave like he does! He's a bad influence on you! Come back here."

The rock type sadly shuffled toward me.

"Don't turn my kid into you," I said. "Otherwise, I'll have my hands full. One of you is enough."

The fire type rolled his eyes at me, Jellicent floated toward Larvitar to comfort her, and I went back to reading.

…If a Pupitar is caught by a predator and desperately needs to flee, it can fly by—

My eyes bulged, and my head snapped toward Sweetheart. "You can fly?!"

Larvitar blinked at me confusedly, but then excitedly agreed anyway.

"No, I mean—" I stopped, staring into her Lillipup eyes. "You know what, you can fly."

"Tar!" She beamed, her previous sadness completely forgotten.

—It can fly by forcefully ejecting pressurized gas from the numerous vents inside of its body. Once all of this gas is expunged, however, it is no longer capable of flight. It usually takes from ten to fifteen hours for the vents to reach full capacity again. A Pupitar will usually need to spend six months to a year in its cocoon form to evolve fully, but the evolution process can be sped up through the amount and quality of the food that it is fed.

That was interesting. So a Pupitar would always evolve into a Tyranitar, it was just a matter of how long it took. With the amount of food that Sweetheart already ate, I'd probably need to feed her evolved form as much as a Snorlax to get her to evolve quickly enough for the Conference. According to this though, it would mainly have to be nutrient-rich dirt and rocks, and normal dirt wasn't enough to speed up the process.

Where the hell was I going to find that? What did nutrient-rich dirt even mean? Wasn't all dirt… nutrient-rich? Eugh. Now I couldn't help but imagine what the hell was in that dirt.

After more sleuthing, there were apparently a few breeders that sold specialized soil for Pokemon that ate it, but their products cost an arm and a leg.

Well, hopefully by then, my contract with the Poketch Company will have been improved. Plus, I'd win money from this tournament if I placed into the top ten, and even more if I made it to the top four.

With a stretch, I yawned, and Electabuzz sat down to let me lean against his shoulder.

"Man, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow."

"Ele…"

"I know, I know, you told me to go to sleep. Sorry for making you worry about me."

—

And tired I was. I didn't know what I'd expected when pulling an all-nighter, but at least we had made good progress with training. There had been a little incident where Sweetheart got a little too excited and hit Turtonator with a Smack Down, but he paid her no mind. It wasn't like it even hurt him whatsoever. He was very gentle with her, especially compared to how he treated the rest of the team. He seemed to have some connection with Buddy, and they sometimes went on long tangents about depressing topics like the meaning of life, but he seemed pretty indifferent about the rest of the team, and obviously he still disliked Princess.

Unfortunately, Louis' and Justin's battles were at the same time. Louis would battle on the Rocky Field, and Justin would battle on the Desert Field. After checking in with Justin to see if he didn't mind, I opted to go see Louis battle to see how much he had progressed. Cecilia, Mira, Maeve and Denzel were with me while Pauline was watching Justin battle. Like Louis, he was fighting a fellow trainer with three badges, so at least they would probably be on equal footing. Louis' opponent's name was Victor Hamilton, and I didn't know much about him. I had expected Denzel to fill me in, but with all the training and spying he had to focus on, he hadn't had much time to stay informed about trainers that didn't pertain to him. Still, maybe it'd be interesting to see someone that I had no idea about fight. Maybe I'd try to predict what he wanted to do next.

"This is a battle between Louis Bianchi and Victor Hamilton. Trainers, send out your Pokemon," the supervisor said.

Louis sent out his Vulpix and Gible, while Victor sent out a Rhyhorn and Murkrow. Gible had grown a whole lot in size, and he was at least one point five times bigger than the last time I'd seen him. The dragon type flashed his thick, sharp teeth and roared while Vulpix just stared at him with surprisingly human annoyance. Victor's Rhyhorn had an unexpected amount of intellect behind those eyes that I didn't usually see in Rhyhorn and Rhydon, while Murkrow just lazily took flight.

"Begin!"

"Murkrow, Haze!" Victor yelled.

The dark type let out an ominous caw and beat its wings, and a thick fog set in. A groan ran through the bleachers now that we wouldn't be able to see anything that was going on unless the action came close to the barriers.

"Now, Bulldoze them to bits!" He continued.

I heard Rhyhorn yell and then the floor began to shake. I immediately understood the strategy here. Murkrow's job was to keep Rhyhorn hidden, while the rock type hopefully would Bulldoze their opponents into submissions before they could fight back. I was honestly impressed. Vulpix cried out in pain, and Louis clicked his tongue.

"Gible, Sandstorm!" He ordered.

The dragon slammed a foot against the floor, mixing a Sandstorm with Murkrow's Haze. It was weaker than Sweetheart's but it would at least deal damage to the bird.

"Keep your Bulldoze going!" Victor screamed.

"Use Bulldoze! Find the Rhyhorn!" Louis said. "Vulpix, try to find Murkrow with Flamethrower!"

Streaks of light broke through the Haze and Sandstorm, illuminating the battlefield from within. Both trainers seemed content to let their ground types run wild, but Louis was the one at a disadvantage here. Vulpix was taking collateral damage, and Murkrow wasn't. She wasn't having much luck finding the bird in the air either. If Louis wanted to win, he needed to neutralize that Murkrow.

But he did not. He kept the situation to a standstill until Vulpix's Flamethrowers stopped. She was down. He immediately sent out another Pokemon, and I recognized Prinplup's honk. Louis fought differently from how everyone else did. Trainers were usually proactive, meaning that they tried to get ahead of whatever their opponent had in store. He used to do the same, but he had changed completely. Now, he was a slow battler, and he reacted instead of acting. I didn't like it, but I'd have to wait to see if it paid off.

"Icy Wind! Spread it as wide as you can toward the sky!" Louis ordered.

I couldn't see if the attack hit its mark, but I heard a thud on the floor, and the fog slowly started to clear.

"Ice Beam the Murkrow! Gible, stop your Bulldoze and Sand Tomb Rhyhorn!"

Murkrow shrieked as the thin beam of ice completely froze its wing, and Rhyhorn sank into the muddy floor. Gible's Sand Tomb had changed, and it was now like Krokorok's. The rock type's Bulldoze stopped as it struggled to even stand up in the pool of mud.

"Gible, Twister the Murkrow. Prinplup, Ice Beam again."

A tornado started to pick up, kicking up dust, rocks and draconic energy. Murkrow was stuck in the middle, getting hit by everything. The dark type cawed and attempted to fly off, but it couldn't fly with its frozen wing. Another Ice Beam hit it directly in the face, and the crow finally fell. Before Victor could even send his next Pokemon, Louis pivoted the attack to Rhyhorn.

Victor released a Misdreavus, and it flickered in the morning light, clearly unhappy with the weather. I was surprised that he owned a ghost. Outside of Fantina and Mira, this was the only trained one I'd seen.

"Misdreavus, Shadow Ball!" He yelled, pointing toward Gible.

"Gible, keep that Rhyhorn trapped!"

"Stop fucking panicking and get out of that pit!" Victor yelled at Rhyhorn. "You know what, nevermind, just Rock Slide, damn it!"

Misdreavus disappeared right as it started charging up a Shadow Ball, and Rhyhorn simply ceased his struggling as a boulder next to it disintegrated and the large fragments flew toward Prinplup.

"Whirpool! Gible, Dragon Breath Rhyhorn!"

Prinplup ejected an incredible amount of water from his mouth, and it quickly began to spin, forming into a spiral. The Rock Slide was caught in the vortex, and only the quickest of the rocks made it through, cutting and hitting the water type all over his body. Gible roared, and a Dragon Breath shot out toward Rhyhorn. Misdreavus appeared behind the dragon with a weak-looking Shadow Ball—

"Now!"

Gible turned one hundred and eighty degrees as darkness danced in his mouth. The Shadow Ball crashed into his face. Prinplup quickly shot out a Bubblebeam at the Misdreavus, who hadn't expected such a quick reaction, and neither did Victor.

It took me a bit to understand why. Louis had fought Fantina and won, meaning that he was used to ghostly tricks. Most of the trainers here came from the east, and they hadn't fought Fantina quite yet. In fact, they were probably on their way to do so and participating in the tournament because they were passing through. With how rare ghosts were, Victor probably wasn't used to his opponents being able to fight back.

Gible bit at the Misdreavus with a short awkward hop and destroyed half of its body using Crunch. Some of the Bubblebeam hit the dragon too, but it looked like he hadn't even been phased.

"Finish off the Rhyhorn, quick!"

That poor Rhyhorn had still been stuck in Sand Tomb. It was too heavy to just walk out, even when Gible stopped using the move. It just kept sinking into the quicksand the more it tried to get out. An Ice Beam dealt the final blow, and Victor recalled his rock type.

Louis had looked like he was on the defensive, but he was winning.

Victor grimaced as he sent his out a Skuntank. I reflectively wrinkled my nose, but the Kadabra barriers would keep the smell contained. Misdreavus reappeared next to her companion, ghostly energy leaking out of her.

Louis waited for him to do the first move.

"Skuntank, get in there and Night Slash! Misdreavus, Nasty Plot and support her from afar!"

Misdreavus sniggered as the whispers emanating from the ghost grew louder and louder. With surprising speed, Skuntank dashed toward her opponents, her claws growing dark.

"Gible, Sand Tomb!"

"Jump!"

The poison type leaped over the liquefied sand, landing right next to Prinplup and slashing across his chest. Blood seeped out of the three claw marks, and the water type was knocked to the ground.

"Gible, Dragon Claw—"

"Sucker Punch!"

The poison type blurred behind Gible and knocked him down with another clawed attack. His tough scales blocked the brunt of the damage, but when Gible turned to fight back, a Shadow Ball from Misdreavus hit his side.

"Prinplup, Ice Beam that Skuntank!"

Still on the floor, Prinplup spat out another ray of ice. The dark type's eyes narrowed, and it used Sucker Punch to dodge again, this time hitting Prinplup instead.

"Stop his assault with Bulldoze!"

Before Skuntank could Sucker Punch again, the floor shook and interrupted her. Misdreavus appeared above the melee and hit Prinpup with a powerful Hex. The water type fainted, but in a fit of rage that reminded me of his old self, Gible wildly slashed at Skuntank with Dragon Claw instead of finishing his Bulldoze.

Was he… attached to Prinplup now? Skuntank let out a pain-filled scream as Gible kept digging toward its insides. Misdreavus helped its ally with another Hex, but Skuntank's flank was almost unrecognizable. There was no more purple fur, only flesh, and even bone in some places, but a sharp yell from Louis got Gible to stop before an accident could occur.

"Keep your shitter under control, you incompetent fuck," Victor hissed.

"I apologize," Louis said, recalling his Prinplup. This time, Pawniard came out of the ball. "Prinplup just went down. Retaliate."

If reaction had a move, Retaliate would be it. Pawniard whetted its blades and blurred, slashing across Skuntanks' exposed flesh.

"But it had to be done," Louis finished.

The poison type fell unconscious, unable to deal with the pain. Victor only had his Misdreavus left.

"Strengthen your Sandstorm, Gible. We will drag this ghost out of its hiding place if need be. Pawniard, when it comes out, Assurance."

I smiled. It looked like Louis had regained some of his ego after all. The Sandstorm filled the entire arena, obscuring the fight from view once more. I couldn't see what went on, but Misdreavus eventually fell. Apparently, Pawniard could somewhat see through the Sandstorm.

"Victory to Louis Bianchi."