CH149 (763), Lazuli

Hamid vacated the battlefield, making room for the final Gym Trainer Yvonne, who entered the battlefield following her intro. She flashed me and the crowd a smile after taking her position before she took out her Pokeball showing that she was ready to rumble. Once the referee gave the signal Yvonne sent out a (high) gold Corsola, while I decided to go with Ali/Gallade, who was also at the (high) gold stage, though he was a bit further along the road to power since he was not too far off from completing his first round of limit-breaking.

Power comparison aside, Ali's looks caused some very interesting reactions in the crowd; There were those who had no idea what this Ralts evolution wannabe (aka Gallade) was, their words, not mine, which frankly was a bit surprising. Then, there were those who knew what a Gallade was but preferred Gardevoir thus shouting stuff like Gardevoir forever and there was one case where some crazy female shouted that he should have been a FemBoy instead. Lastly came those who knew what a Gallade was and actually cared that Ali looked different from a regular one, which I saw as the normal reaction one should have.

Still, I could not help but chuckle at some of the, in my opinion, more stupid shouts, and I saw Yvonne giggling at the Femboy one before she focused on her Corsola facing my Gallade. Unfortunately for them, Corsola's additional water typing did not help them all that much, and Ali managed to take it down without having to exert himself too much. While listening to the crowd's cheers at Ali's smooth victory, I could not help but wonder if Yvonne was going to mix things up and go with her suspected dark gold stage Pokemon next or if she was going to strictly stick to the script and go with a second (high) gold Pokemon.

She actually ended up sending out a (high) gold Solrock and looking at its typing, I was honestly not sure if she did that because she stuck to the script, or because she thought that Solrock's Rock/Psychic typing would help it against Ali since it was admittedly a decent type combination to use against a Gallade, at least as a rock specialist. Not that it was enough to stop Ali, who already had a Sword Dance and Moxie intus along with an Agility.

Ali kept flashing by Solrock's side, carving it up using moves like Night Slash, a string of Fury Cutters, Water Blade, as well as Nether Blade, and even if the moves did not benefit from a STAB bonus, they got a boost from his Sharpness ability to make up for it; Not to mention the strength boosts he had going. The few times that Solrock tried to Teleport away Ali simply followed after it with a Teleport of his own, and thanks to his apparent higher mastery of the move Ali was able to maneuver himself better after the teleportation, which allowed him to attack/react first even though Solrock was the one who Teleported/moved first.

Eventually, regardless of what Yvonne had imagined, Solrock fell under Ali's onslaught of blade strikes, leading to the referee declaring it unable to battle, which had the crowd cheering. I even heard the female who said that Ali should have been a Femboy shout that she was okay with him after all since he looked dashing which had me cracking up for a few moments, though I quickly calmed down and focused on Yvonne who released her final Pokemon. Honestly, a (low) dark gold Probopass was not that great of a match-up for Yvonne's side, and Ali only had a slightly harder time beating it than he did with Solrock.

With Yvonne beaten, only the Gym Leader was left and as soon as Yvonne had vacated the field, the emcee began the intro of the Gym Leader Lazuli Opalus. The crowd's enthusiasm and their frantic cheers as Lazuli stepped onto the field more than proved that she was without a doubt the reason why the stands were filled to the brim. I had heard that she was beautiful while strolling through the city but had not seen any pictures since I had made the decision to avoid any active research into the Gym and its trainers. Seeing her now I could say that they were right, Lazuli was truly incredibly beautiful.

Frankly, she kind of reminded me of someone with her shoulder-length blond hair, beautiful blue eyes, and very nice body, but I decided to stop getting distracted by her and focus on the reason I came here, the Gym Battle. It was better to leave the fascination to her fans, who only stopped cheering after she politely asked them to calm down so that we could get the Gym Battle started. The referee thanked her for the help, though he seemed used to it before he began to go through the rules and regulations. Our battle was going to be 5-vs-5, with me being granted the right for a single substitution.

Once he was done, the referee began the countdown, and we released our Pokemon onto the field. I went with Kimura/Hitmonform, while Lazuli released a (high) gold stage Alolan Golem, which had me feeling thankful that I had not gone with Kun/Azuraid as I had initially been considering. A.Golem's opening move had it set up Stealth Rock before initiating an Electric Terrain, while Kimura first performed a Bulk Work Up before finishing an Agility as Golem began to spin in what looked like a Rollout Gyro Ball mix, or a Rollout using steel energy. Either way, Kimura dodged out of the way of the rolling Golem, and I was sure that he noticed the accumulating current on Golem's body as well.

I was not sure if it was because of his steel Rollout alone or if Golem's Galvanize played a role even if the ability usually only targeted normal energy, but it was clear that Golem was steadily soaking up electric energy/electricity as he was rolling around the Electric Terrain covered battlefield, and while it was not a problem now, I could see how dangerous that could become since it appeared that the electric absorption was not stopping which combined with the "ever" building up Rollout was constituting a very serious threat.

Thankfully, Golem was only at the (high) gold stage, so Kimura's early reaction was enough to prevent things from escalating beyond our control. He first used an Earthquake to force Golem to slow down, before using Protect to tank the majority of the impact following which he literally suplexed Golem into the ground to get rid of the charge it had built up. Kimura did get a bit shocked during the process, but at least the risk was taken care of, and just as he was going to lay it on the planted Golem, I heard Lazuli speak up with steel in her tone. She told Golem to light up, and we had heard similar stuff often enough to know what that meant, so Kimura stopped everything else and tried to throw up a Protect as Golem lit up and Exploded, which thanks to Galvanize was even more brutal than what we were used to.

I was not surprised to see Kimura being flung out of the dust/electricity cloud that had formed in the wake of the G.Explosion since I had expected that the Protect would be unable to hold out. Still, it had taken the initial impact and I was mostly sure that Kimura would not be taken out by the rest of the G.Explosion. Kimura proved that I was right when he stood back up after rolling on the ground for a bit, though he did look a tad singed and I actually saw a current briefly run across his body which had him flinch. Nonetheless, singed and potentially paralyzed or not, Golem was out while Kimura was still standing, so the referee declared him the victor, and asked Lazuli who had just recalled her Golem to send out her next Pokemon.

The crowd, or rather her fans were cheering her on even though it was Kimura that won. I heard shouts telling her not to mind it, and funnily enough some yells asking Kimura how he dared to still keep standing after "his" Lazuli's Golem had gone down like that, which had me chuckle at the absurdity of the question. I felt a tiny wave of embarrassment coming from Lazuli when I chuckled before it got buried. I watched as she pulled out her second Pokeball with a blank face though I could have sworn that I saw a very brief pink dusting on her cheeks.

A quick check of the memory confirmed that which was quite impressive since it showed the control Lazuli had over her body/emotions. There was a pretty good chance that Lazuli was a body practitioner of some kind or maybe a Rock Elementalist, though I was not sure if that was true or if I was just overthinking. Either way, I stopped letting my thoughts wander and focused back on the battle as Lazuli released her second Pokemon onto the field. It was a (low) dark gold Minior, which interestingly enough used an uber Shell Smash to get rid of its outer shell in advance. Its move not allowed it to avoid the parameter reduction caused by Shell Smash through this "sacrifice", but it still gained the boosts granted by Shell Smash.

On top of that, Minior also managed to change into its core form without having suffered any damage. At least that was what I inferred from the events that followed, and I had to say it was a brilliant opening move. Kimura simply used the time Minior did that to initiate another Bulk Work Up along with a second Agility, which together with the previous ones, allowed Kimura to keep up with Lazuli's boosted Minior (Core). I was really happy that he did not get paralyzed after all since things would probably have gone very differently if that had been the case.

Without anything to hold Kimura back, the two flitted back and forth occasionally clashing when they were not using their considerable speed to dodge each other. Their battle went on for nearly 10 minutes, but eventually, Minior fell from the sky and crash-landed, its swirly eyes closed in defeat, causing the referee to declare it unable to battle and thus Hitmonform the victor.  Kimura slumped as soon as he did that, causing the referee to declare him unable to battle as well before prompting both of us to recall our Pokemon and ready our next combatants.

Seeing how Lazuli's second Pokemon had been at the dark gold stage, I decided to send out someone at that stage as well since I assumed that she would either send out another (low) dark gold Pokemon or a (mid) dark gold one. Since I had no (low) dark gold stage Pokemon I sent out Hashirama/Venusaur once the referee gave the signal, and my plant dino tanked the Stealth Rock that triggered without flinching. He focused on the Pokemon across from him instead, who funnily enough ended up being a (high) gold Carbink.

I felt a bit awkward at my miscalculation, but the die had been cast, and I was not going to have Hashirama go easy on Carbink just because we were facing a weaker opponent for once. This was still a Gym Battle after all, so I had my boy fight seriously even if the audience did not like how quickly their darling Lazuli's Pokemon was taken down. The referee declared Carbink unable to battle the moment it fell unconscious and Lazuli recalled it before asking the audience to turn it down a bit since it reflected badly on her as the Gym Leader if her Gym's audience insulted her challengers.

The audience actually listened to her and stopped the insults while also quieting down considerably. The control Lazuli had over the audience was impressive, really, and I gave her a nod to acknowledge her professionalism which she returned with a smile that caused a few "kyaaas" in the crowd. The referee then asked her to ready her fourth Pokemon which she did. It ended up being a (low) dark gold Aggron, which was a relief since it allowed Hashirama to have a proper battle where he could actually go all out.

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