General POV

"Battle Begin!"

As soon as those words were yelled neither student hesitated. Both pointed their PokeBalls towards each other as blue and white energy erupted from them. In front of Leo stood (or more flew) a Butterfree. It flapped its large wings, almost dancing around the air with its large purple body.

At the same time, standing in front of Leaf was Machop, who flexed his powerful biceps, letting out a fierce cry as it did so. Blue screens appeared at their sides, the texts on them read out the pokémon's movesets–but in less than a minute the text disappeared. However, less than a minute it seemed was all the time Leo needed.

"Confusion!" he roared, wasting no time to begin the assault.

Leaf's pov

The moveset list disappeared annoyingly, I barely got time to read anything! Whatever, I got this! I'v trained for–

"Confusion!"

My eyes widened as I saw Butterfree's eyes go purple, firing a purple wave of rippling energy at Machop.

"Dodge it!" I yell out slightly frantically. I got distracted. Rookie mistake. Machop just barely dived away from the attack, with the energy harmlessly dispelling as it hit the spot Machop was in. "Machop, use karate chop!" I honestly didn't wanna hurt the creature too much...butterfrees are frail. As much as I liked the Caterpie line, they were better pets than vicious warriors.

I watched as the Machop rushed closer to Butterfree, Its hand had a slightly red aura surrounding it before leaping in the air and bringing it down in a chopping motion. However, butterfree, as if predicting that attack, swerved to the side allowing the attack to hit the ground and causing large cracks to form on the damaged concrete.

"Gust!" was Leo's calm but fierce reply as Butterfree wasted no time, flapping its wings and causing a strong gust of wind that pushed Machop back a few meters. "Confusion!" he said again in that annoyingly calm tone.

"Duck under it!" I yelled at machop who as instructed, ducked under the psychic energy wave. "Low kick" I roared and without hesitation, machop followed. His movements were fluid; as if I was watching something out of a kung fu movie. He went for a powerful kick to the lower section of butterfree's body–but before it even connected, butterfree fired confusion again.

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Just as machop's attack connected he got hit by the psychic attack, causing him to clutch his head in pain. I could hear his whimpers of pain as he moved side to side making erratic movements. He was confused, but on the bright side: he managed to connect against Butterfree, who'd been knocked to his side and seemed bruised. "Butterfree is frail," I thought. One more good hit should be enough to finish him.

What was concerning was that Butterfree was making moves without its trainer's instruction.

Dad told me usually high-level trainers who've trained with their pokémon for long periods can manage that. Leo was always average in class, it was hard to think he could manage that. Gary always said that Leo was probably one of the best trainers in class...but he couldn't be that good at gaining full command of a pokémon he didn't even train! No, something else must be going on...he couldn't be this good.

"Machop use karate chop!" I yelled. Through the painful headache he seemed to have, he still followed my command, charging straight towards Butterfree at high speed. However, butterfree started flying higher into the air and what I saw next irritated me to no end.

Leo smirked.

Not a cute endearing smirk like the one Gary has. Oh no, what he had was cold. and. It was honestly kinda unsettling.

"Sleep powder," he said again, his voice dripping with indifference.

Butterfree flew high above; spreading the sleep power around machop. I was about to yell at him to doge but the sleep powder went around him not directly at him...so there was no need.

A smile finally graced my lips. I could still turn things around!

"Karate chop!"

Machop was about to leap but then stopped to swat away at the air, before accidentally slapping himself.

"Machop stop hitting yourself!" I snapped...only to hear a laugh come from Leo. "Oh, so you think you're funny?!" I hissed out. He gave me a simple stare before smiling coldly

"Gust."

Butterfree flapped his wing and created a powerful gust.

"Dodge, machop!" he obeyed my orders and rolled out the attack's way, "Machop, use karate chop again!" I yelled out, hoping he'd resist the confusion effects. However...instead of moving–he stumbled, dazed, and fell to the floor snoring. "What?! But sleep powder missed! why did he fall asleep?"

"Confusion." was Leo's simple response. Even asleep, I saw machop's body spasm from the attack.

But how did he even...? My eyes widened in realization: He missed on purpose to spread his spores around, then used gust to kick them up into the air, Increasing the chances of machop inhaling them...it was stupidly simple! I couldn't believe I'd actually lost to that!

"Confusion." Along with his words came several more spasms from machop', who was still hopelessly asleep. I grit my teeth.

"Okay that's enough, kids! The match is over!" the professor announced.

"Hold up, wait! I can keep going!" I protested, I couldn't have such a pathetic showing.

"You can, but machop cannot–you're done," the professor said with finality, "The winners of the battle are Leo and Butterfree!" At this declaration, Butterfree cried with joy, flying to Leo...who looked amused.

Guess Gary was right: Leo's a lot more interesting then I thought...