CH138 (752), Winona

Thor/Raichu eventually managed to take down that annoying little flying squirrel, but at that point, he was exhausted enough that I was considering simply forfeiting him when I saw Mia sent out (low) dark gold stage Scizor. I had the urge to mention that Scizor was not a flying type, but to be fair it had wings, was capable of flight to an extent, and its prevolution had the flying typing, so it was not inconceivable for her to use a Scizor against me. Still, Scizor's qualification to appear on this stage aside, I decided to let Thor go down fighting after asking him what he wanted to do. My guy was determined to see things through since he was still aiming for the push that would finally allow him to break through.

Still, as tired as Thor was, his determination did not allow him to keep going for long, so after hitting Scizor with his second Thunderbolt, he slumped with a grin since this one at least managed to hit, unlike the first one that got grounded. The audience cheered for both Pokemon once the referee declared Thor unable to battle; Scizor for winning and Thor for his guts. Scizor actually waved at the crowd, which I did not expect. Meanwhile, all Thor could manage was a thumbs/arm up, and after he had done that I recalled him before briefly considering whether I should continue with my initial plan to send out Gwen/Gardevoir next.

I had a feeling Scizor's appearance was actually aimed at Gwen since it was a pretty disadvantageous type match-up for us. I eventually decided to screw it; I sent Gwen out before telling her to go all out and not care about anything other than her current opponent. Gwen followed that order and by dragging things out she managed to chip away at Scizor until it fell under her persistent attacks. She did get hit a few times in the process which combined with her energy/stamina expenditure had her literally fall asleep out of exhaustion once the referee declared her the victor, though she had a bright smile on her face while she did that.

This actually meant that our score was currently 2:2, which had Mia release a happy laugh before we called out our third Pokemon. I thought that I might as well go all the way, and send out Kun/Azuraid who was in the same position as Thor, though that ended up being a less-than-ideal choice since Mia chose to send out a Tropius that directly released a Sunny Day before rushing towards Kun at surprising a speed, showing that it had Chlorophyll as its ability. I honestly expected it to fire a Solar Beam straight away as soon as the Sunny Day was set up, which was why Kun used Rain Dance since that would have slowed down Tropius' attack. However, Tropius' decision to follow up with Outrage of all things messed up Kun's game, allowing Tropius to crash into Kun.

What followed was Kun's attempt to take down the banana dino Pokemon and after battling for more than 5 minutes it was Kun who fell before Tropius. While Tropius did look properly beaten up, it had no trouble to continue fighting, so Mia kept it on the battlefield. This was the first time in who knows how long that I was actually at a disadvantage in a battle, and with the score being 3:2 against me, I decided to go with a safe bet just in case. I released Mothra/Butterfree at the prompt of the referee and the crowd was quite surprised when they saw a chibi Butterfree appear on the field. Some of them led by my group cheered very enthusiastically when they saw Mothra since they knew that she was my Ace.

The rest of the crowd joined their enthusiastic cheering when Mothra returned to her usual, bigger-than-typical size. Just as she was about to wave toward the cheering crowd, the referee interrupted her and drew her focus back to the battle when he gave the starting signal. Mothra lost no time to release a Spiral Galaxy at the somewhat battered Tropius. While that alone was not enough to take it down, it hurt a lot, slowed it down, and distracted/occupied it enough for Mothra to follow up with a Blizzard much to everyone but mine's surprise. Well, and maybe my parents and friends as well since they knew to expect the unexpected from Mothra. I believe some of them might have also seen her use an Ice Beam at some point, so yeah.

Either way, Tropius was unable to resist that Blizzard and lost the battle, forcing the referee to declare Mothra the victor less than a minute after their battle began. The crowd was rather enthused at that and cheered while we waited for Mia to call out her fourth/final Pokemon. She decided to go with a very solid choice and actually sent out a second (mid) dark gold stage Pokemon. Unlike the crowd that got very excited when they saw the Charizard appear, Mothra was the picture of calm since she was not worried about Charizard at all. In fact, I could feel her amusement at the situation, at least until Charizard released a disappointed huff at her, implying that it looked down on her despite being weaker/at a lower substage than her.

Once Charizard did that, Mothra shifted from amused to annoyed before her feelings went from annoyed to playful, and I briefly considered if I should tell her to not do whatever she had decided to do to teach Charizard a lesson, but I decided against that since I did not want her to pout at me just for a Charizard that kinda deserved a beating for looking down on us/Mothra. What happened after the referee gave the signal to battle made me wonder if I should have intervened after all, but the die had been cast as they say, and the Charizard would have to bear the burden of its actions, even if that meant getting beaten up solely through the use of bug type moves even though it was supposed to be very resistant against those, though Mothra's Tinted Lens forced that to a regular damage relation instead.

Mothra spent roughly 5 minutes attacking Charizard with bug-type moves before she finished it off by growing a bit more and using a Bug Bite on its neck. I was pretty sure Mothra had left a very deep impression on a lot of people with this battle, especially with her last act. Seeing a Butterfree hovering in the air with a limp Charizard in its mouth was just that impressive. I was certain that at least half of the audience was currently considering if they should get themselves a Butterfree as well, and from now on none of them would think that bug types were weak since they would remember Mothra with Charizard hanging from her mouth whenever that thought/topic came up.

Anyway, even the referee was dazed by what he witnessed and he only declared Mothra the victor after the thud Charizard released upon falling onto the ground after Mothra let it go. The referee's declaration of Mothra's victory caused the audience to snap out of it and erupt into cheers, which Mothra happily met by waving at them with happy chittering/laughing. Meanwhile, Mia was absentmindedly recalling her Charizard, and I kind of felt bad for her, so I told her to not mind that since Mothra was my strongest and that she had beaten multiple platinum-stage top species members already.

I could feel her incredulousness at my words, along with the unbelieving cries from the crowd who obviously heard my words as well, but their initial reaction aside, I was happy to note that my words did make Mia feel better about their loss, or rather she did not feel as bad about it as she did before I "consoled" her. I had honestly expected her to know how overpowered Mothra was since she fought in the battle against Stephanie, which could be found online, but it seemed someone had not done their homework properly. Well, that was not my problem, so I kept mum on the matter.

Anyway, Mia stepped off the battlefield after that and the emcee began Winona's intro. Her being the Gym Leader naturally meant that the emcee hyped her up a bit, and as usual, Gym Leader Birnbaum, nah, that might be her surname but it just sounded wrong; Gym Leader Winona said a few opening lines that riled up the audience and after her bit of showmanship the referee began doing his usual opening bit, though with the adjustments for a Gym Battle, which included that this was a 6-vs-6 battle with the Gym Leader having no substitutions while I had 1, which was actually less than the 2 Stephanie had granted me, but I was fine with that. Winona's 3-star team was weaker than Stephanie's 3-star team after all, so giving the challenger less of an advantage made sense.

Regardless, the referee finished his part and asked us if we were ready before beginning the countdown. As soon as he gave the signal, Winona and I released our first Pokemon. I sent out Hera/Pidgeot, while Winona sent out her (high) dark gold Staraptor, and while Staraptor had the stage advantage, it was Hera who had the overall advantage thanks to her Wind Rider ability and One With The Wind talent. Staraptor's Intimidate ability did trigger, but I did not think that it would help them. Anyway, Winona seemed to have watched her Gym Trainer's battle against me since she did not have her Staraptor use any flying-type moves against Hera but ordered it to go with alternative moves instead. Unfortunately for them, Staraptor did not seem to know many of those.

Staraptor tried to battle Hera with Double Team, Quick Attack, Close Combat, the rare Heat Wave, along with Take Down, and Double Edge; The power of the latter two revealed that Staraptor had Reckless as its second ability, though that did not help with the recoil damage whenever Hera decided to tank or block one of them since she could recover from the damage they caused her thanks to the Tailwind Winona and her Pokemon failed to stop. Frankly, everyone could see that Hera had the upper hand throughout the battle, and before long Staraptor looked ready to keel over while Hera was still looking good to go. That was when Staraptor closed in using Quick Attack again, but this time around it used Final Gambit instead of Take Down or Double Edge, in hopes of causing as much damage to Hera as possible before it lost.

Staraptor lost consciousness after hitting Hera with Final Gambit and fell out of the sky, prompting Winona to recall her falling bird. Hera on the other hand had to flap her wings pretty hard to counterbalance the impact making it hard for others to see her state properly. Once she had regained her bearing, everyone could see that her feathers had gotten rather ruffled and that she seemed hurt, which meant that Staraptor's gambit had paid off even if it was nowhere enough to take Hera down. What they could not see right now however but I knew thanks to our mental link, was that Hera was getting better every second that passed. 

Honestly, Hera was a beast to fight since she could recover her stamina and energy while she was fighting, which only left taking her down as quickly as possible since a prolonged battle was to her advantage or trying to force her to expend all her energy and stamina in a way that exceeded her recovery rate. Well, or one could prevent her from setting up Tailwind, which was how she triggered One With The Wind in the first place, but that was easier said than done. Anyway, while the crowd cheered, the referee declared Hera the victor before prompting Winona to release her second Pokemon.

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