Climb to Victory!

Bonnie and Max arrive at the Gym just as Grant is opening it up. He hears them coming and turns around to see who it is. "Ah, Clemont's younger sister," he says brightly as she and Max approach. "I was wondering when I'd see you come to challenge my Gym." Bonnie steps forward eagerly. "Yep," she says just as eagerly. "I'm here for my second badge!" Grant laughs at that. "Well isn't someone confident," he says cheerfully. "But be warned that if you don't possess a grass, water of fighting type, you'll have a tough time with my Gym." Then he turns to Max. "Since you'll be spectating this match, you need to take this lift up to the spectators area." Max nods, wishes Bonnie luck, then heads over to the lift. Bonnie steels herself, then follows Grant into the building.

Once Bonnie is inside the Gym, she notices that Grant isn't there anymore. She briefly wonders where he went, them remembers what Ash went through when he challenged the Gym four years ago. Sure enough, when she goes to the centre of the gym, she sees Grant standing at the top of a large stone tower. The only up to him are grips in the side of the tower for her to climb. She looks over to Max and sees the look of confusion on his face. She waves at him, then focuses on Grant, who has started speaking. "You already know what to do here," he calls down to her, "as you've seen Ash do it before so I won't bore you with the details. We'll have our battle once you get up to me!" Bonnie gives a thumbs up, then approaches the wall.

The climb up is a lot harder than Ash made it look when she watched him do it. She releases Fletchinder out of her pokéball so that she can catch her if she falls off from fatigue. Once or twice she loses her grip or footing and nearly plummets before managing to grab back on or have Fletchinder push her back onto the wall. It's very tiring work, but she does eventually make it to the top, where Grant greets her with a smile. "I see that was tougher than you expected" he says once she catches her breath. "How the hell did you and Ash make it look so easy!?" she demands. Grant chuckles at that. "Ash and I probably just have more experience than you at something like that," he replies, before pulling out a pokéball. "But enough talking. Let's get on with this battle." Bonnie nods eagerly, then pulls out her first choice. The ref explains the rules, then declares the battle to commence.

Bonnie immediately sends out Kirlia, while Grant sends out his Onix. Onix immediately uses dig and burrows under the ground. Bonnie immediately puts one of Max's strategies into play and has Kirlia use Psychic on one of the rocks that are thrown up as Onix buries itself. Then, she hops onto it right before Onix re-emerges from the ground, thus sparing her from the attack. Max beams with pride at the sight of one of his plans working so well. Kirlia leaps off of the floating piece of stone and uses Psychic to hurl it into Onix's mouth as it tries to attack again. While it splutters, Kirlia charges in with cuts lashing at it with her arms until it tries to attack her again, causing her to jump away. However she isn't quick enough to avoid Onix's tail slamming down onto her. She's able to withstand the attack, so Onix sends out a rock tomb. But, thanks to Max's brain, Bonnie has a contingency for that too. As the rocks come barrelling towards her, Kirlia uses Psychic again and stops all of the rocks before any of them hit the ground. Then, with great effort, she hurls every single rock and stone at Onix, who despite being a rock type takes considerable damage from it. While it's weakened, Kirlia hits it with one more cut, Knocking it out.

"Onix is unable to battle," the ref declares, "making challenger Bonnie the winner of this match!" Bonnie hears Max cheer for her as Grant returns Onix, which causes her cheeks to go slightly warm. "Don't think you've won yet," Grant says, choosing his next pokémon. "I still have one more left, and he's no pushover. Come on out Tyrunt!" He sends out a smaller version of the Tyrantrum he used at the Battle Chateau. The battle is called to resume, and before Kirlia even has time to react, Tyrunt is barrelling towards her, jaws open wide. She launches a psybeam to try to slow it down, but it isn't enough, Tyrunt bites down on Kirlia and throws her away, k coking her out pretty quickly.

"Kirlia is unable to battle!" declares the ref, "making Leader Grant the winner of this match!" Bonnie returns Kirlia to her ball and thanks her for a great battle. Then, she pulls out her final pokémon, Dedenne. The match commences, and Grant yells out, "Alright Tyrunt let's end this quick! Use Draco Meteor!" Tyrunt's mouth glows and it fires a ball of flame into the air. Suddenly, hundreds of meteors come hurtling down towards the arena. Max begins panicking. He had no idea that's a move, and didn't come up with a counter for it. Bonnie however, already has one in mind. She orders Dedenne to jump up the meteors as fast as he can. Dedenne does so with near blinding speed. "Don't you think I'd have thought of that?" Grant asks her, before clapping his hands together. Tyrunt roars and fires another ball of flame into the sky, summoning another Draco Meteor. "Keep raining them down Tyrunt!" Grant ordered. "Crush that Dedenne and win the match!" But Bonnie isn't about to back out now. "Keep climbing!" she cries. "Don't stop until Tyrunt tires out!"

And so, it quickly became a battle of attrition between the two pokémon. Tyrunt has to keep running around the arena as it fires the Draco Meteor over and over again. Dedenne needs to use quick attack over again as well in order to continue his climb. At last, Dedenne reaches the top of the Draco Meteor shower. At this, Bonnie smirks. "This is what I've been waiting for!" she says proudly. "Alright Dedenne, thunderbolt!" Dedenne charges up the attack and launches it down on Tyrunt. Despite it not doing much damage, it does what Bonnie intended, as Tyrunt is paralysed. Then, all of the meteors collapse to the ground, and Tyrunt is buried in the meteors. Just to make sure he stays down, Bonnie has Dedenne use play rough on the pile. The pile of rocks is destroyed, and Tyrunt is seen with swirly eyes. The battle is over.

"Tyrunt is unable to battle!" the ref declares. "Making challenger Bonnie the winner of this match and the overall battle!" Bonnie and Max both cheer loudly as this is announced. Grant returns Tyrunt and smiles, before walking over to her and shaking her hand. "I must congratulate you on this battle," he says cheerfully. "And I must say, those were some excellent strategies you had." Bonnie smiles broadly. "Thank you," she replies. "But most of them were his idea." She points over to Max, who blushes as usual whenever she compliments his brain. Grant smiles and hands her the cliff badge, while saying, "Well, I think you two make a pretty good team." Bonnie blushes slightly before taking the badge, then she makes her way back to Max so the two of them can celebrate her second badge.