CH67 (297), Road To The Finals (2)

The battle with Esma after that naturally ended in my favor as well. It took Tatsumaki, who was at the (high) silver stage and working hard on mastering her moves to evolve to Alakazam, only 17 minutes to beat Esma's Rapidash, Houndoom, and Ninetales.

It would have taken less, but it took her double the time to take out Houndoom, despite it being the weakest of Esma's chosen Pokemon, due to its dark typing.

Tatsumaki had to use Miracle Eye just to be able to hit it, and thanks to her mastery of the move the immunity turned into a major resistance. So far, at proficient mastery, she could use the move on those as strong as her or weaker, and the target retained a major resistance.

I mean it did not make sense to turn an immunity straight to a neutral relation, but I was hoping that it would come to that or as close to that as possible once she mastered the Miracle Eye. Well, at least she could target it with psychic moves after using it.

Regardless, since she only had a scant few non-psychic type moves due to her focus on evolving, Tatsumaki had to make sure not to get hit or be hit by any dark moves while she teleported around Houndoom, peppering him with her moves, slowly whittling down its health, stamina, and energy in the process.

After that demanding battle, Tatsumaki barely managed to beat Ninetales before being out of commission as well. I resolved to have her learn a bunch of moves of at least 3 to 5 types as soon as possible. She only had to learn them to have them in hand in case of emergency, raising their mastery could wait until she had evolved.

She was not too far off from mastering Calm Mind, only two or three more months before it happened. It would be her fourth mastered move out of the six necessary moves for her evolution. After Calm Mind, I would have her focus on Miracle Eye, and Gravity was the move we agreed on as her sixth as well as final move.

Anyway, once everyone congratulated me on my win I checked out when my next fight would be. Turns out my Pokemon battle would happen first, and it was scheduled for 5:30 pm, making it the second semi-final fight overall. My personal combat fight on the other hand was the third semi-final fight and was set for 6 p.m.

I still had nearly one and a half hours until I had to fight, but since everyone was eager to watch the battles, we had an hour until the start of the semifinals.

That was more than enough time for lunch, so we went to one of the restaurants we saw while walking from venue to venue. It looked the most inviting of the lot, which was the main reason we went there.

There was no real need to hurry, and we discussed my next opponents while eating. I would be facing John Snow from Frost Ice Academy, or just Frost Academy in Hail City. The Pokemon John had shown so far were a (mid) silver-stage Dewgong and Walrein, as well as a (low) silver-stage Al. Ninetales and Abomasnow.

Misty was enthusiastic about the fight for obvious reasons and suggested I use Stan/Gyarados for the battle since that fulfilled the conditions of my teachers. The others actually agreed with her, and I did as well since I wanted Stan to fight too.

They should be able to hold out long enough, and facing three of them might be enough to stimulate Stan enough for one of his parameters to increase, so I settled for him, and the others cheered when I confirmed it. Many of them admitted that they were curious about the reaction of everyone when they saw such a large Gyarados.

My personal fight was against Adam Gala, a fellow aura user from Spark Aura Academy in Spark City. He had revealed a combat style that used aura in tandem with a bit of fire, and with his Tier 2 First-Class reserves and strength, he already qualified as a pretty strong person at his young age.

Eventually, everyone was done eating, so we left after sharing the bill. I had to admit that I quite liked the steak, and the females praised the salad, so I would consider coming back if I was in the area. Anyway, we made it to the first fight on time despite taking our time at the restaurant.

The first battle was a personal one, and I used it to study both fighters since the winner would be the one I would be facing during the finals.

It quickly became apparent that one of them had the upper hand, and seeing how he was teleporting around I would say he was a Tier 2 First-Class Psychic.

His name was Saiki Law, and according to the announcer's intro, he was a local from Dawn Psychic Academy. His opponent was someone from a martial academy who had honed his body and will, in addition to having enough of a dark affinity as well as the necessary manipulation to interfere with Saiki's attempt at direct telekinesis.

Still, that was his limit, and it did not make him immune, so all it took was for Saiki to get a bit more creative. In the end, he managed to take down his opponent after grabbing ahold of his tiring foe, overwhelming what was left of his dark energy, and teleporting with him 10 meters into the air.

Saiki obviously knew that 10 meters would do nothing to his opponent, so he used his ability to levitate to stay in the air until he could do another teleportation, and he did that another two times to reach a height of 30 meters.

Now, Elementalists would not be worried about such heights since all of them had their ways to solve such a problem, but unfortunately for him, Saiki's opponent was not one of them. So, when Saiki indicated that he was going to hurl the already tired guy towards the ground, said guy simply surrendered.

The whole fight took 20 minutes, but I was positive Saiki could have won quicker if not for his foe's ability to use a bit of dark energy. There were still 10 minutes until it was time for my fight, so I made my way to the battlefield under the well-wishes of my friends and family.

John Snow was already there, so I tried to do some small talk since we still had more than 5 minutes until it was time I fight, but the guy only gave perfunctory answers. Seeing him behaving all stoically, I stopped my attempt at talking and we quietly waited the rest of the time.

The commentator did our introductions, the crowd went wild, and the referee gave the signal to start the battle after his usual spiel. John and I released our pokemon under the cheers of the crowd.

On John's side, his Walrein appeared, while on my side Stan appeared. As soon as Stan materialized, the crowd went silent, awed by his size on top of the fact that he was a Gyarados.

John was dazed for a split second as well, especially since he got a small feel of Stan's Intimidate, but he snapped out of it near instantly, returning to his stoic look. Walrein on the other hand received the full package and looked sufficiently cowed.

Yet, it instantly snapped out of it when John gave Walrein the order to use an Ice Beam, showing the great relationship they had. Stan countered Ice Beam with a Flamethrower, and it was even overpowering the Ice Beam, forcing Walrein to dodge, which it did through Rollout.

While it was dodging, Stan released a Rain Dance, before using an Ice Beam of his own to freeze the area in front of Walrein, causing it to lose control of its rolling. It was forced to stop to regain control, which Stan used to attack Walrein with a Thunder.

Seeing the currents in the air John called out "Sheer Wall", and Walrein actually blocked the Thunder by encasing itself in a block of Sheer Cold. This was the first time I saw using that move in a defensive capacity, and I had to admit it was pretty clever.

Walrein did not wait, and shattered the ice block, before using the ice shards to boost its Blizzard. Stan reacted and blew the Blizzard back to Walrein through a Hurricane, before firing off another Thunder. Walrein repeated its earlier trick and encased itself in Sheer Cold.

Stan used the moment it was frozen solid to use as many Dragon Dances as possible, and he managed to finish one before Walrein freed itself. In fact, by the time it got free he fired off a Scald at it.

Walrein blocked it with a Hydro Pump, but Stan had no problem matching the stronger move with his Scald. Still, he abruptly cut it off after the streams were more than halfway to Walrein. He instantly followed his attack up with a Thunderbolt that piggybacked the Hydro Pump to reach Walrein.

The pain made it interrupt its attack, and it barely managed to get a Rollout going to escape the Thunderbolt before Stan couldn't keep up the current any longer.

Yet, seeing the static flashes occasionally appearing on its body, it was obvious that it had to tank quite a bit before it got away. Stan went on the offensive, and moved towards Walrein and slapped it with an Iron Tail while it was rolling, making it fly away like a tennis ball.

It crashed into the wall on the side of the battlefield, before it fell to the ground. Yet, Stan did not wait for it to stand up and followed up with a Thunder. Unfortunately, for Walrein it could not block it and got to feel the full brunt of the Thunder.

That proved to be too much for it and it got knocked out, triggering Stan's Moxie. John recalled his Walrein and called out his next Pokemon, which was his Alolan Ninetales. Surprisingly, the undulations it was releasing indicated that it had reached the (mid) silver stage, which meant that it had advanced after John's last fight.

As soon as it appeared, the rain turned to Hail, but Stan ignored it and used another Dragon Dance, then he rushed towards Al. Ninetales before he abruptly turned around, slapping an Iron Tail towards it.

Al. Ninetales dodged that by jumping in the air, and it started an Ice Beam, but my guy had expected this to happen, so he was facing toward Al. Ninetales with a Flamethrower at ready, that he fired as soon as it was at the zenith of its jump.

Ninetales actually endured the pain of being burned, and used Extrasensory on Stan, interrupting his Flamethrower due to the pain he felt. Yet, my boy showed that he could endure pain as well, and he used Dark Pulse to counter the effect of Extrasensory.

He did not stop at that and kept it up to hurl Ninetales a bit away once it got hit. While Ninetales was rolling backward due to the momentum caused by the hit, Stan used another Dragon Dance to boost himself.

He moved after Ninetales who just managed to regain its bearing and slapped it with an Iron Tail before it could react. Like Walrein before it, it crashed into the wall and landed on the ground. It tried to stand up but while it was struggling, Stan mercilessly attacked it with a Flamethrower, knocking it out.

Once that happened, Moxie got triggered once more, raising Stan's Strength once more. I saw John struggling while contemplating whom he should call out next, his Dewgong or his Abomasnow. His shoulders sagged slightly, probably knowing that it would not make much of a difference, but unwilling to just give up.

He called out his last Pokemon, which was his Abomasnow, and with its appearance, the Hail that had started to slow down picked up once more. Not that it would change anything. As soon as the signal from the referee came, Stan rushed towards Abomasnow and released a physical onslaught, alternating between Crunch and Iron Tail.

Abomasnow did its best to withstand the onslaught but could do not much more than defend to the best of its abilities due to Stan's boosted state. It ultimately succumbed after holding out for two minutes. The referee declared Stan as well as me the winners, and the crowd went wild.

John recalled his Pokemon and I went up to him to thank him for the battle, before returning to the side of my group. With this victory I had moved on to the finals in the Pokemon battle category, so only the personal battle category was left.

-----------------------------

***A Big Thank You to Muhammad Mahmood for becoming a Patron***

***A Big Thank You to Gabriel Roldan for becoming a Patron***

Advertising plug-in:

The first goal has been completed, so for the duration of August the lowest number of advanced chapters available is 4, while the highest number of advanced chapters is 8. Those want access to them can find them on my patre*on.

If the second goal gets fulfilled, the lowest number of advanced chapters available will be 6, while the highest number of advanced chapters will be 10.

Help me stay motivated.

patreo*n/Azrail93