Chapter 34

The last gym in Hoenn region, Sootopolis city. Evan and Ash were introduced to a 5v5 comprehensive challenge by the gym leader, Juan.

In the first round of double match, Ash lost his first Pokémon carelessly and Snorunt was eliminated.

"I'm counting on you, Corphish! " After Ash sent out Corphish and Pikachu formed a new team.

"Want to confront each other head on, alright I'll take it" Juan responded confidently.

Ash decided to attack from a long distance with bubble beam, Juan immediately ordered Seaking to dive underwater, and then Sealeo to attack with Aurora beam and Seaking to attack with horn drill at Pikachu and Corphish.

Corphish uses its pincers to grab Seaking's horn, however, Corphish misjudged it's strength and was thrown away by Seaking.

Fortunately, Pikachu's iron tail hit Seaking directly loosing it's ability to battle at the right time avoiding Sealeo's impact of aurora beam by tiny lines.

Juan didn't panic and decided to change his strategy "Sealeo, use ice ball."

Ash also did not back down ordering Pikachu to smash the ice ball by iron tail and charge forward to Sealeo.

"Misjudgement" Evan shook his head helplessly, as the ice ball was being shot continuously it was becoming bigger and stronger at the same time, At this time dodging the enhanced ice ball would have been a better choice.

Sure enough before Pikachu and Corphish could reach Sealeo they were sent flying with an enhanced ice ball, wasting a good chance for a comeback.

"Why is it too fast, Doesn't the charging time for each ice ball increase!" Ash who misjudged the situation and wanted to take advantage of the situation when Sealeo accumulates it's power to charge the ice ball was confuse.

"Idiot, while we were coming to the gym, Juan clearly mentioned that his Pokémon speciality is fast and gorgeous, Did you even listen to what he said?! " Evan covered his face looking at the naive Ash.

As the ice ball has reached its fifth shot, it has already become so huge.

Fortunately with a powerful thunderbolt of Pikachu was able to smash the huge ice ball, at this moment now it was Sealeo who was surprised to see the charging Corphish towards itself, and with a powerful crab hammer Sealeo was smashed to the wall outside the arena directly loosing the ability to battle.

"Great Ash won the first round! " May and Max cheered for Ash happily.

The doubles battle ended, as they entered the singles battle. Juan changed the battle ring to a different battle ring with a set of land, water and pillars around it.

The singles started and Ash still has four Pokémon whereas Juan only has three Pokémon.

In the first battle of singles, Ash sent out his Grovyle and Juan his Luvdisc. Both are Pokémon with high mobility, they were fighting with dexterity, and since it wasn't working Juan changed his strategy and used sweet kiss which directly effect on Grovyle.

Without Luvdisc exerting it's force, Grovyle hit the pillars and with one water gun it lose the ability to fight directly, Loosing it's ability to fight very fast Ash sent out his Corphish again. And Corphish lived up to Ash's expectation and defeated Luvdisc with a crab hammer.

After eliminating Luvdisc, Corphish was defeated by Juan's Whiscash.

Next Ash sent his Swellow and defeated Whiscash, thus forcing Juan to send out his Trump card, Milotic with its Recover ability.

Thinking about the plot of the anime, Evan decided to leave the gym.

"Evan aren't you going to watch the battle till the end?" May asked Evan strangely.

"The match is already decided by Ash, I'm going back first to prepare for my gym battle tomorrow!" With a wave of his hand Evan stood up and left, According to the plot Ash was sure to win.

Back at the Pokémon center, Evan was thinking which five Pokémon to use. Just when he was thinking Ash, Max, May and Brock returned cheerfully.

"Seeing that you are happy, I guess you've got your eighth badge, Congratulations!" Evan congratulated Ash.

"Yup, Evan look, look, the eighth badge" Ash started showing off with a playful expression.

"Yeah yeah, I'm going to bed, if you want to watch my battle wake up early in the morning tomorrow, I will be challenging the gym in the morning" After greeted Brock and the others , Evan went to his room to get a good sleep.

The next morning,after a night of sleep, Evan, May and Max came back to the Sootopolis gym again.

Naturally, Evan was welcomed to the gym and Juan accepted the challenge.

"Evan let me see the strength between you and Ash, the rules for the battle are same as yesterday so let's get started!" Juan spoke first.

"Come out Luvdisc and Seaking! " Juan made some change and put Luvdisc into a doubles line up.

"Alright go Absol and Milotic!" Evan was beyond everyone's expectations. "Sol~" "Mmm~"

"Milotic from the beginning?" Max looked at the Arena strangely.

"Let the battle begin!"

As soon as the referee's voice fell Evan immediately made a move "Milotic freeze the entire Arena with ice beam!"

"What!!" Under Juan's surprise eyes, the entire pool became frozen in to a lump of hard ice, unless Luvdisc and Seaking could use flame thrower the ice battle field wouldn't melt easily.

"Milotic you've done your job, Return!" Evan took back Milotic quite fast "Sylveon I choose you!" "Sylveon~"

On the Arena cool looking Absol and Cute Sylveon stood together.

"Is it an action to corner me? It's amazing" Juan was surprised by Evan's tactics.

While Juan was still talking Evan took the initiative to launch an attack "Sylveon use sweet kiss on Seaking and Absol use night slash on them!"

"No dodge" Under trapped battlefield Juan's face became ugly.

Bang! Before Luvdisc and Seaking could jump up, they were hit hard by a night slash.

Looking at the Luvdisc and Seaking lying on the ice Juan was loosing his mind.

"Alright sylveon attack with moonblast, Absol use dark pulse" "Syl~veonn~" "sol~~"

Without giving a chance to Juan, Evan made his continuos moves and won the first round.

Under Evan's instructions, he won his doubles battle almost without any injury, and the battles between the side became singles.

The familiar mixture of pool and land rose up, and Juan looked at Evan with a serious face.

"Come out Sealeo" Juan used Sealeo as his first Pokémon for the singles battle in second round.

"Alright Sceptile, I choose you! " Evan sent his fourth Pokémon for the second round.

"Bullet seed, Sceptile!" Evan wasn't polite anymore and gave out his order.

"Sealeo Aurora beam" Bullet seed and Aurora beam collided with each other.

"Sealeo use Ice ball" Juan changed his tactic again , as long as Sealeo could hold on until it's fifth ice ball it would indeed affect Sceptile hard, but Evan wouldn't just stay there and let him do whatever they want.

"Sceptile dodge and use sunny day!" Just as Sealeo sent out his first ice ball Sceptile dodged it and used sunny day.

Sealeo then started collecting energy again for his second ice ball.

"Sceptile smash it with leaf blade" Evan smashed the second ice ball with leaf blade.

Juan was silent, he could only bet on ice ball now.

As Sealeo was getting ready to shot his third ice ball, Evan seized the opportunity to attack.

"The opportunity is here, Sceptile use solar beam! "

With the help of sunny day, the dazzling solar beam was sent smashing the ice ball and blasting it on Sealeo.

Sealeo was overwhelmed by the power of solar beam, thus loosing it's ability to battle.

"Yes Evan won the match, Evan is in control of the situation!" Max cheered happily for Evan.

"Sealeo return, you did well" Juan took back Sealeo with a sigh of relief, he was being abused by Evan's Sceptile.

"You're next Walrein!" Juan's second Pokémon turned out to be Walrein and not Whiscash,which surprised Evan.

"Then Return Sceptile!, come out, Gallade!"

"Gallade~" Evan send out his fifth Pokémon.

"Walrein use blizzard!" Juan initiated a large scale attack as soon as the match started.

"Gallade dodge, teleport" Evan didn't panic and commaded calmly.

"Use ice beam on Gallade"Juan doesn't care anymore and was continuously attacking.

"Use teleport and use thunder punch" Evan didn't hesitate and directly chose to use an effective attack.

Boom! Sure enough thunder punch hit really hard. Walrein took a hard blow but it didn't seem to hurt much.

"There's no way this kind of damage won't work on Walrein" Juan felt that he had regain his momentum.

"In this case use, leaf blade!" Gallade jumped towards Walrein in two jumps and two shiny green blades shone on it's elbow and hit Walrein, but he still stood on arena.

"Walrein hail!" Juan seized an opportunity to bring snow on the battle field.

The snow flaked fell onto Walrein's body and there was a trace of green recovery light.

"Tsk~this Walrein actually has Ice bodybody, it's troublesome" Evan frowned slightly.

"Come on Gallade, swords dance then psycho cut"

After using swords dance, Gallade sent his psycho cut hitting Walrein directly into it's chest.

"Now Gallade use leaf blade continuously" Seizing the opportunity of the momentum Evan ordered Gallade for a continuous attack hitting Walrein until it lose completely the ability to fight.

"Gallade~" Looking at the panting Gallade, one could know that the continuous attack have a heavy load.

"That's a great bonding you have there with your Pokémon, As long as you win the next match the Rain Badge will be completely yours!" Juan then send out his Trump card which is Milotic.

"Gallade return, you did a great job!" Evan withdrew the tired Gallade and looked at the gorgeous Milotic in the field.

"Alright then Milotic, I choose you!" Evan send out his Milotic again. "Mmmm~"

"Milotic iron tail" Juan initiated the battle.

"Milotic use safeguard" Evan's Milotic took the attack head on with safeguard.

"What?!!" Juan didn't expect to see this kind of tactic.

"Milotic now attack with dragon tail" Evan seized the opportunity when Juan was on daze.

The light green shone on Milotic's tail, In Juan's surprise eyes dragon tail hit on Juan's milotic hard.

"Mmmm~" Juan's milotic let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground but it got up again.

"Milotic use aqua tail! " Juan ordered.

"Milotic we too, use aqua tail!" As the two aqua tail collide with each other 2 milotic's were sent backwards.

"Milotic use dragon breath" Juan sent his next move again.

"Milotic use reflect" As the dragon breath came towards Evan's milotic it directly used reflect and sent it's attack back hitting Juan's milotic.

Evan wouldn't waste such a good opportunity and did his next move "now Milotic wrap it up with dragon pulse! " "Mmmm~"

"Mmmmmmm~~~" Juan's milotic let out a cry of pain, fell to the ground loosing the ability to battle.

Juan sighed as he took back his Milotic and came towards Evan with a badge "You've grown well Evan, here this is the Rain Badge, which is the proof that you've defeated me."

"Thank you Juan, Milotic we got the Rain Badge!" "Mmmm~" Evan hugged Milotic cheerfully.

"I'm looking forward towards the Hoenn league" Juan said to Evan as he patted on Evan's shoulder.

"Yes you can count on me" After receiving the Rain badge, Evan couldn't help smiling earning the ticket to join the Hoenn league.

"That's great Evan you got the last badge" May and Max who came with Evan cheered for him happily.

The butler Sebastian also informed Evan as he congratulated "Congratulation master Evan on earning your eighth badge,the Hoenn league will be held at Ever Grande City in three months."

Juan also informed that there is a Gorgeous Pokémon Contest in a few days at Pacifidlog town.

In this way, Evan earned his Rain badge and the next destination has also been decided, which is Pacifidlog town.

After bidding farewell to Juan and the butler Sebastian, Evan, May and Max came back to Pokémon Center to join Ash and Brock.

~To Be Continued...