“Oh me, oh my, it looks like Gengar’s [Shadow Punch] landed right on the side of Seismitoad’s knee, and he’s struggling to put any weight on it now. Blake has to be worried the referee is going to call Seismitoad unable to battle. Let's see if Blake has anything up his sleeve that won’t involve Seismitoad needing to move,” the commentator energetically described the battle on Quinn’s TV.
Quinn wasn’t ready to process what he had just read and needed a distraction to steady himself. He flipped on the TV to see a broadcast of the Vorunda Open, a midseason tournament that the Vorunda Region put on through its Pokemon League with big cash prizes.
Ashford and Havenwood both were in the Vorunda Region with Ashford about 100 miles west and inland of Havenwood. Havenwood was around four times as large as Ashford and sat on Havenwood Bay with access to the Nebulite Ocean.
The Vorunda Open was kicking off the weekend with a headlining quarterfinals match between Blake Lineman and Jerry Christian, both of whom had made it respectively far into Vorunda’s playoffs last year. Quinn looked down at the graphics that framed the bottom of the screen to see that Jerry was down to his final Pokemon, Gengar, and Blake was down to two Pokemon with one of them being Seismitoad.
“Seismitoad, I know you’re hurting but let's finish it with this. Use [Hyper Voice]!” Blake yelled from his trainer’s box. Seismitoad took a deep breath and let out a soundwave that could be seen as a ripple across the battlefield. Luckily for the 20,000-plus fans in the stands, the high-grade field dampeners kept any dangerous moves like [Hyper Voice] contained to the battlefield. That didn’t help Gengar at all as he took the brunt of the soundwave and stumbled behind a large boulder for protection.
Jerry, knowing there was no chance of Gengar hearing him over the cacophony coming from Seismitoad, started to jump up and down and wave his hands in the air to get Gengar’s attention. “Plug your ears, folks. Looks like Gengar is going to need to wait out Seismitoad’s lungs on this one… Wait, it looks like Jerry is signaling, or, at the very least, miming instructions to Gengar,” said the commentator.
With a nod of the head, Gengar backed a few feet away from the boulder, lining himself up so that the boulder was directly between him and Seismitoad. Gengar then opened his mouth so far it almost touched the floor and unleashed a torrent of black rings at the boulder. The rings hit it so hard that it started to slide and then roll at an impressive speed right toward Seismitoad. “Rocking and rolling, how in the world did Jerry and Gengar coordinate that? That [Dark Pulse] is pushing the boulder right at the immobile Seismitoad!” said the commentator.
As soon as Seismitoad could see what was going on, he stopped his bellow and attempted to dodge out of the way. However, when he put pressure on his injured knee, it buckled and he crumbled to the ground still in the path of the boulder. Before the boulder could get any closer, Blake yelled “Seismitoad, return!” while pointing an Ultra Ball at him. In an instant, Seismitoad was teleported via a red beam away from danger. Blake then used the Ultra Ball to draw an X in the air, signaling to the referee that he was pulling Seismitoad from the battle. At that point, a semi-transparent X flashed over Seismitoad’s icon on the bottom of the screen and the referee gave the signal to Blake to choose his final Pokemon.
It’s Pokemon training 101 to know when your Pokemon is unable to keep battling, even Quinn knew that. Any trainer’s top priority is always to keep Pokemon from being permanently harmed. If trainers don’t pull their Pokemon when they need to, the referee has full authority to call the match, resulting in disqualification and heavy fines for the offending trainers. Accidents can happen, but whenever a Pokemon is killed or maimed in a battle, serious reform in league policies and practices is inevitable. All Pokemon have incredible regenerative abilities, but no respectable trainer would ever try to test those limits.
“What an amazing connection between Jerry and Gengar! As mentioned in the pregame show, Gengar is Jerry’s starter Pokemon and I'm convinced their brains have melded together over the past 15 years.” There was a lull in the action waiting to see who Blake’s final Pokemon would be. The commentator continued, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you'll be seeing highlights from this battle over and over again in the coming month, but the only thing that matters now is who walks away from this upcoming 1 vs. 1.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Without saying a word, Blake threw a Great Ball onto his side of the field, and out popped an enormous Nidorino. “Check this out, Blake is sending out his Nidorino! There was a lot of debate out there on whether or not Blake would be using Nidorino past the round of 16. Nidorino only had a 12% win rate in last year’s playoffs, which isn’t surprising for a non-final-evolution Pokemon. What is surprising is that Blake still hasn’t used a Moon Stone to evolve Nidorino.” A murmur ran through the crowd with a small percentage throwing out jeers to Blake and Nidorino. “Blake has defended this decision in multiple interviews, saying he believes that in order to get the best out of stone-evolution Pokemon, they need to prove themselves in their current evolution. He believes that Nidorino still has room to grow and so here we are.”
After getting a ready signal from both trainers, the referee started the final battle with a loud whistle. “Nidorino, close the distance,” Blake instructed. With an acceleration that you would expect from a leaner Pokemon, Nidorino beelined straight at Gengar.
“Gengar, jump in the air and blast him with a [Shadow Ball],” Jerry countered. Gengar did just that, producing a [Shadow Ball] that was half the size of Gengar himself. After firing the [Shadow Ball], he floated back down to the ground. Not needing instruction from Blake, Nidorino broke off his direct path, banking to the right to get to his target. Unfortunately for Nidorino, the [Shadow Ball] had tracking capabilities and was still homing on the evasive Poison-type.
“You know what to do!” Blake yelled, referencing a strategy that the two must have cooked up before the battle. At that moment, Nidorino stopped in the middle of a clearing and his legs started to glow. With the [Shadow Ball] only 10 feet away, Jerry yelled out “Now!” Suddenly, Gengar split the [Shadow Ball] into three smaller projectiles.
With the energy already stored up in his leg and no updated commands from Blake, Nidorino followed through with the plan and used [Double Kick] to instantly move himself to the left and squarely into the path of one of the balls.
“Oh, shiver my timbers! Gengar scored a direct hit with his highly technical manipulation of a classic [Shadow Ball]. You have to assume that was only a third of the power, but that's still got to hurt!” The commentator gave context to the impressive display.
After taking a moment to reorient himself, Nidorino once again locked in on Gengar. “Nidorino, pick his pocket!” Blake yelled from the sidelines. Nidorino vanished from the field.
Jerry, having raised a trickster Pokemon, recognized the Dark-type move [Thief] immediately. He urgently warned Gengar, “Turn around!”
Gengar, not missing a beat, turned around expecting to see a Nidorino trying to get the jump on him. However, it was Blake and Nidorino’s turn to outsmart, and Nidorino appeared right where Gengar was previously looking. With a gasp from the crowd, Nidorino drove his horn right into Gengar’s back. Gengar fell flat on his face and around Nidorino’s horn was a Spell Tag, which Gengar had been using to power up all of his Ghost-type moves.
Jerry, seeing few options available since Gengar had taken massive damage from the super-effective move, threw out a Hail Mary, banking on Gengar simply being the stronger Pokemon. “Gengar, [Destiny Bond]!”
“Oh me, oh my, we don’t see this move often, and for good reason! [Destiny Bond] will make it so each Pokemon takes the exact same injury from this point on, no matter who inflicts the injury! This is going to come down to who can take more hits and keep going!” The commentator yelled, making sure to be heard over the roar of the crowd.
The battle then turned into a slugfest with Nidorino preferring close-quarters combat and Gengar not wanting to cancel his [Destiny Bond]. Punches, kicks, bites and jabs flew left and right as the crowd was whipped up into a primal frenzy of cheering. With the [Destiny Bond] in effect, both Pokemon were fading fast as they took double the amount of damage. While both Pokemon were hurting, Jerry saw Nidorino’s hulking stature and a fire in his eyes that left no doubt — Gengar’s Hail Mary was coming up short. Sensing the inevitable, Jerry mumbled, “Gengar, return,” recalling his Gengar back and drawing an X with his Pokeball.
Nidorino, triumphing in victory, let out a roar so loud it shut up all of his doubters. As the crowd continued to cheer, Nidorino turned back to Blake with expectant eyes. Blake nodded with a smile, reaching into his pocket to produce a Moon Stone, and ran up to Nidorino. Only a small percentage of the crowd noticed what was going on as they tried to calm their cheering neighbors enough to explain.
In those seconds, Quinn leaned forward, completely engrossed in what was happening on his 32-inch TV screen. The commentator’s frantic commentary, the crowd's barbaric screams, the referee declaring Blake the winner, Phanpy splashing in the tub, and even the loudest thing in the room — a letter telling Quinn who his father was — all faded out of his mind. All that mattered was a bond between a trainer and his Pokemon.