661 CH42 (656), Explosive Exit

Igneel/Charizard had to face a Graveler for his third battle, and due to the other party's strategy, their battle took quite a bit longer than expected. Graveler first used Sandstorm to not only obscure Igneel's and my vision, but also for the continuous damage, at least that was what I thought, and the next step they took only reinforced that belief. Graveler used Rock Polish to increase its speed, before using what I was suspecting to be Defense Curl, followed up by Rollout, completing the standard combination.

While they were doing that, Igneel used Sunny Day, which unfortunately could coexist with Sandstorm, so neither got canceled. He then used Dragon Dance before releasing a bout of Dragon Rage, which the speedily rolling Graveler managed to dodge. Interestingly enough, that was all Graveler did. It kept rolling around building up speed until it had become so fast that it was zooming around the battlefield.

Igneel naturally tried to attack Graveler during all this and while he did manage to "land" a Dragon Rage, a Dragon Pulse, and a Flamethrower on it, Graveler tanked the damage and kept spinning/rolling. Sadly enough, at least for us, its high rotating speed did help Graveler reduce the damage it took from Igneel's attacks, as did the low contact duration due to its speed, so the damage Graveler took was not too bad.

In fact, I'd say that Igneel had suffered as much environmental damage during their battle so far due to the Sandstorm. Actually, I noticed that the Sandstorm had started to become denser, which consequently increased the damage it caused. I was pretty sure this was because Graveler kept rolling around everywhere at such a high speed. The marble of ruin was grinding down the battlefield as well as minuscule parts of its rock body, which then got caught up in the ongoing Sandstorm, increasing its density and threat level.

Unfortunately, we could not use fire/heat to turn the Sandstorm into an oven since this was an enclosed battlefield which meant that the overheated sand would hurt Igneel just as much if not more given how dense the Sandstorm was. I had initially thought that we could wait it out until the Sandstorm settled, but it had been nearly 8 minutes and the Sandstorm was still going strong, so Graveler had either mastered the move raising its duration to who knows how long, or it had learned how to perform the move while under Rollout, which allowed Graveler to prolong the Sandstorm continuously.

Usually, the fact that Rollout did not end unless stopped by either oneself or someone else and simply peaked at a certain speed was something I liked, but this time that was getting on my nerves quite a bit. I could not believe that the ongoing strategy of our opponent truly seemed to be to roll around dodging any of our attacks while waiting for the Sandstorm to literally grind us down.

Well, Igneel was obviously not just sitting ducks, or rather flying around aimlessly once it became clear that Graveler had become too fast for him to hit it with our long-range moves. No, I had him spam Dragon Dance to up his speed and strength for the only way we could break this statement before Igneel truly got ground down.

Roughly 11 minutes into the battle Igneel had topped out at 8 boosts, so I decided to proceed with the next part of Operation Atlas. I telepathically told him to release a Smokescreen to blank the battlefield in darkness to not only cover Igneel's next move but also to force Graveler to slow down a bit to avoid crashing into the walls due to the limited visibility. Igneel's boosted speed would then allow him to do the next big, which was to fly up/parallel to Graveler so that he could deliver an Iron Tail at its side.

Their similar speed would allow Igneel to time his attack properly and his 8 times boosted strength plus the power and type advantage of Iron Tail would allow him to deliver a devastating blow to Graveler. Igneel hitting the side of Graveler would prevent him from going against Graveler's momentum, which would definitely hurt Igneel as well, and it would also avoid reducing his attack's power by going along its momentum, which would happen if he tried attacking its back.

The situation developed just as I had planned, and we all heard Igneel's attack hit home thanks to the cracking stone sound that resounded. At the same time, I heard a whoosh sound and moments later we all heard a collision happening at the right wall. Igneel used his wings to blow the smoke away, and we saw Graveler embedded into the wall. Still, while I was sure that Igneel's attack and the collision with the wall had to have hurt, Graveler was still not out of the fight and was actually trying to push itself out of the wall.

We were naturally not going to miss this chance and Igneel flapped his wings, and flung himself at Graveler, both of his claws gleaming with Metal Claw, though he did not waste any time and bathed Graveler in flames first using Flamethrower. I had to admit that I had a slight worry that Graveler would try to go out with a bang, but no Explosion took place even when Igneel delivered his first Metal Claw. Igneel's attack caused the cracks in the wall to grow and the second Metal Claw dislodged Graveler from the wall.

Not that it helped Graveler since Igneel spun around mid-air and delivered an Iron Tail that sent Graveler crashing into the ground. That finally proved enough to knock it out, which caused the Sandstorm to finally die off, though it took a few seconds to fully stop, which did not stop the referee from declaring Graveler unable to battle and hence Igneel the winner. I commended Igneel on his victory before thanking my beaten foe for the interesting battle. The Graveler strategy was definitely worth studying especially the use of Rollout to boost the Sandstorm.

Anyway, I returned to the lobby after that and began to once more wait for the announcement that I was up. Now that Igneel had gotten his share of fights as well, only Freyja/Lopunny, Hypno, as well as Hestia/Eevee had not fought yet, so one of them would be leading the next battle, and I decided that Hypno would be the one to do so. Once the speakers told me to head to hall 8, I sat up and made my way over to my next battlefield.

The lady I had to fight against was already there, so the referee began his speech as soon as I had taken my place. Eventually, he started the countdown, and as soon as he finished, we simultaneously released our Pokemon. Hypno made his appearance on my side, and a Mightyena appeared on the other side. This was not a good matchup for a psychic type at all. Unfortunately, Hypno had not managed to learn Miracle Eye yet, though it was not from lack of trying. Yet, I was still confident that Hypno would win this thing, though I still went ahead and set up a mental link to avoid wasting time during the battle.

The usual opening would not work, so I had him use Poison Gas instead. That worked and Mightyena became poisoned, putting it on a clock. When it released a Snarl in retaliation Hypno Teleported out of the way and appeared some distance away behind it. He immediately used Scary Face to slow Mightyena down to make his fight easier, and while Mightyena turned around, Hypno released a Confuse Ray that had Mightyena jumping to the side to dodge.

It immediately retaliated with another Snarl, which Hypno once more dodged with a Teleport. This time Hypno reappeared close to Mightyena's back and used Encore to force Mightyena to keep using Snarl before using Disable to block it from using Snarl. While Mightyena and its trainer were confused at its sudden inability to use any moves, Hypno closed in and used a Brick Break at its head before releasing a Confuse Ray that Mightyena could not dodge.

That was pretty much the coup de grace, leaving the poisoned, confused, and Encore-Disabled Mightyena unable to stop Hypno from wailing on it using Low Kick and Brick Break. Surprisingly enough, Mightyena actually managed to break out of its Encore state before it got knocked out and used a near-point-blank Yawn before it fell under a final Brick Break. We knew as soon as that happened, that Hypno was on a clock before he fell asleep.

Unfortunately, we were not the only ones who knew that, the other side knew it as well, and she was in no hurry to call out her next Pokemon. She waited for the referee to declare her Mightyena unable to battle before she even took her PokeBall out. Then she took her time recalling it, barely skirting the point where the referee would issue a warning. The same happened when it was time for her to release her second Pokemon. By the time her Weezing was on the field and the referee declared the start of the battle, nearly 40 seconds had passed.

Due to the delay, Hypno was close to falling asleep and barely managed to Teleport to one of the corners on my side of the battlefield before he began slumbering. I knew I could not wake him up straight away, but thankfully he had opened quite a bit of distance between himself and Weezing, so by the time Weezing had closed in enough to aim a Flamethrower at Hypno, about 15 seconds had passed, which was enough for me to release a mental shout over our telepathic link.

That was enough to jolt Hypno awake and he immediately Teleported away seeing the flame column that was closing in on him. Hypno reappeared behind Weezing and used Encore on it since Flamethrower was much better than the various poison or kamikaze moves it could use instead. He directly Teleported away again, just in time to dodge another Flamethrower that Weezing released after turning its body.

Moments after Hypno reappeared, he Teleported away again and this time, he appeared to Weezing's left, right beside its smaller head. They locked eyes, and Hypno began to use Hypnosis on it. The little head's eyes dropped, and thanks to the connection between the two heads, the bigger head followed suit after looking over as well. With Weezing asleep, Hypno first used Nasty Plot before attacking Weezing with Psychic.

One Psychic was not enough to knock it out and even the second one proved insufficient. Yet, Weezing actually began to stir, indicating that he was about to wake up, and seeing that I had Hypno switch to Confuse Ray. The move succeeded just as Weezing opened its eyes, but then things took a pretty bad turn. I had no idea if that was what Weezing intended to do or if it was because of its confused state, but it actually blew up right away without giving Hypno the chance to Teleport away.

Seeing how Nina hurriedly recalled her wounded Weezing and ran out of the room after declaring that she was giving up, I was pretty sure that Weezing's Self Destruct was caused by confusion, which explained why she was in such a hurry to presumably head to a Nurse Joy since an uncontrolled/rampant Self Destruct or Explosion could cause very serious damage to its user. It was honestly quite the bad luck on their part that things ended up going the way they did with that Self Destruct.

Nonetheless, no rules were broken, so Hypno, who was pushing himself back on his feet after having been sent flying by the explosion, was declared the winner of the battle, and since Nina gave up I won by default. I praised Hypno on his great battle performance before recalling him and heading back to the lobby to wait for my next match. Hypno's battle ended prematurely and theoretically, he had not lost, even if he had gotten quite hurt due to the Explosion, so I was debating if I should allow him to sub in for others if it became necessary or if I should accept his turn as complete.

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