CH98 (328), Final Global Competition Day (2)

Once I received the go-ahead from one of the staff members, I made my way onto the freshly repaired field, while the host did our introduction. I saw Allister entering from the other side as well, and for some reason, he looked familiar now that I was seeing him for myself.

Black hair, white skin, and even purple eyes were not really rare, so I was unsure what it was. I mean, it was not as if he was impressively built either for someone our age at Tier 2 with his roughly 160 cm.

His haircut stuck out a bit, but it was the mention of his hometown, Lateral City, by the host that tied everything together for me. Allister Parley was the future ghost-type Gym Leader of Lateral City and Galar.

However, unlike in the games and anime, he did not wear a mask or his canon attire, nor did he behave like a gloomy edge lord. On the contrary, he behaved pretty chipper. The missing mask and gloominess were why I failed to recognize him while looking at his picture, or at first glance.

Still, canon character or not, future Gym Leader or not, all that made no difference for me. I was going to kick his ass either way. At least that was the plan. Anyway, the introductions finished, and the referee went through his usual speech before he gave the starting signal.

Allister and I released our first Pokemon at that moment. Polteageist appeared on his side, while Manami/Lapras appeared on mine. Both went through their opening moves, and neither interfered with the other during that moment.

Manami directly used Rain Dance before using Safeguard and Aqua Ring, which was more of a precaution due to Hydration and Rain Absorb. Only after that did she fully focus on her opponent's actions.

Meanwhile, Polteageist first used Shell Smash before using its increased speed to run in the opposite direction, away from Manami. Only after it was satisfied with the distance it had opened, did it stop and use another Shell Smash.

By the time Manami focused on it, Polteageist had already run away and was about to use its second Shell Smash. Seeing how she would be unable to stop it from doing that, she ignored Polteageist for the moment and turned the rain into Freezing Rain.

She did not do that from the start since Rain Dance was faster, and we wanted to get the benefits starting as fast as possible. Moreover, it was easier to go from Rain Dance to Freezing Rain, than it was to directly start with it.

The moment the Freezing Rain took off, Polteageist successfully finished its second Shell Smash raising both its offensive parameters as well as speed greatly for a second time.

Manami began attacking it with Thunder but it managed to dodge it. Manami knew that Polteageist needed to come closer to Curse her, or to absorb her health with draining moves, so she kept it at bay with Thunderbolt and Thunder, her fastest moves.

She succeeded for now since Polteageist was unwilling to get hit due to its twice-reduced overall defense, so it was forced to rely on its greatly boosted speed to seek a breakthrough point to Curse Manami.

Still, seeing how Polteageist managed to escape her Thunderbolt and Thunder over and over again, Manami suddenly switched to the omnidirectional Shockwave.

Being unable to dodge the move Polteageist used Protect to block it until it "washed" over its shield. It then rushed towards Manami and it managed to make it close enough to apply its Curse. However, due to its close proximity to Manami, Polteageist failed to dodge Manami's retaliatory Surf and got swept away.

Not only that, but Manami immediately followed up her Surf with a Shockwave, lighting up the wave a bit. Poltergeist got a bit shocked before it managed to break free from the wave. It looked pretty banged up, and as soon as broke free, it ran away.

It did keep moving around, hoping its boosted curse would finish Manami off, but even though the curse managed to outpace the rate at which the rain healed Manami, Aqua Ring nearly made up for the difference, which meant that it would fall long before her.

It was suffering continuous damage from the Freezing Rain after all, and together with the damage it suffered from the Surf and Shockwave combo due to its reduced overall defense, Polteageist was bound to lose soon if it did nothing to solve its health problem.

Probably coming to the same or a similar conclusion, the other side changed tactics and attacked Manami with Shadow Balls while dodging/running away.

Manami chose to be patient, she simply blocked the Shadow Balls and returned fire with Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, as well as Hydro Pump, while waiting for it to run out of juice.

However, when Polteageist ignored its safety and rushed at her while starting to shine, she tried to actively stop it, but it managed to make it through her attacks and within a meter of her.

Recognizing what it was trying to do, Manami tried to stop it with Sheer Cold, but even after it got encased in ice, the explosion caused by Self-Destruct still happened, and due to Polteageist's boosted state the explosion was enormous.

It was much bigger than it would have normally been, and it engulfed Manami as well. After the resulting smoke cloud faded the unconscious Polteageist became visible. However, one could also see that Manami got hurt quite a bit by that enormous explosion, even if she was healing thanks to the rain.

The referee declared Polteageist unable to battle and Lapras/Manami the winner. Allister recalled his downed Pokemon, and I did the same with Manami, but only after the referee asked me if I wanted to keep her in or switch her out. I also gave her a signal that told her to disperse the Freezing Rain, which she did moments before she returned to her ball.

After putting away her ball, I pulled out Ryujin/Gyarados's ball and nodded toward the referee when he asked if we were ready. However, I saw Allister look at the ball in his hand before looking at me when the question came.

To my curiosity, he then shook his head before he put the ball in his hand away and pulled out another one. Only then did he give the sign that he was ready. After he obtained the ok from both of us, the referee gave us the starting signal and we released our second Pokemon.

As soon as the Pokemon appeared on the field the crowd went wild, and this time around I was unsure if my Pokemon was the reason for that or not.

Ryujin definitely was impressive with his 14+ meters, and he looked plainly different from a regular Gyarados, there was no mistaking that. I mean, the back part of his scales was greenish-purple, while the belly part and the row of spots on the back were blue.

His barbels were nearly twice as long as the regular ones and the crest on his head turned from a three-pointer to a two-pointed one that was a bit longer.

The white fins on each side of a normal Gyarados had combined and kinda gave off a beardish vibe. Those fins and the ones on its back as well as tail had turned kinda wavy and were yellow-green, so Ryujin's look practically screamed I am a variant of some kind. Some might even be able to guess that he was a dragon variant

However, despite all that, his appearance might not have caused as much of a commotion as the Dragapult that appeared on Allister's side. Yes, the little guy had actually pulled out a pseudo-legendary, and a fully mature one at that. That it was also the dragon and ghost-type Dragapult, was just the cherry on top.

It was no wonder the crowd reacted as it did. Also from the aura that Dragapult began releasing after it got provoked by Ryujin's Intimidate, it was actually at the gold stage. The (low) gold stage for sure, but the gold stage nonetheless.

I could see the surprise on Allister's face when that happened since he undoubtedly believed that Intimidate was useless against Dragapult due to its Clear Body ability, and normally he would be right.

However, Ryujin had Mold Breaker, which allowed him to ignore the effect of Clear Body, so his Intimidate worked on Dragapult. It reduced its offense a bit and provoked its anger while doing so, resulting in it releasing its gold stage aura for everyone to feel.

As soon as it did that the stadium became quiet before the crowd broke out in an even bigger uproar. Still, the two Pokemon on the field ignored the commotion and focused on the battle at hand.

Ryujin set off some fresh rain using Rain Dance before he switched to Dragon Dance to quickly boost himself once. At the same time, Dragapult used Dragon Dance as well to boost itself.

Meanwhile, I was contemplating whether Ryujin could take on Dragapult or not, and the chances were a bit against him. Ryujin was really close to finishing the second round of his limit-breaking, missing only one more parameter to start the third/final round.

However, while that allowed him to take on a regular Gyarados at the (low) gold stage and win most of the time, it probably would not be enough to win against a pseudo-legendary at the (low) gold stage without a fierce struggle and some luck.

I gave Ryujin a 10-15% chance of winning and that was because he was my Pokemon. A regular (high) silver-stage Pokemon had less than a 1-2% chance to win through some super lucky chain of events. Well, my assumption was on the premise that the Dragapult had not freshly broken through, in that case, I would raise his chances to 60-70%.

Anyway, after the two dragons had boosted themselves, they directly attacked each other. Dragapult fired a Dragonbreath at Ryujin who matched it with a Dragon Pulse. They kept that clash going for nearly a minute, but neither could overpower the other move.

At the end of the minute, they both had to stop the move, but they directly began the second clash after taking a deep breath of fresh air. This time it was Dragapult who used Dragon Pulse, but Ryujin switched to Hydro Pump to match it.

He was cautious in case he was unable to match Dragapult's power while using the same move due to its higher stage. I could feel that it irked him that he had to do it, but he knew that he had to act like that if he wanted a chance at winning so he did.

The second round looked to be evenly matched as well, but I could see that Ryujin's Hydro Pump had a slight advantage, and was slowly pushing Dragapult's Dragon Pulse back. No doubt thanks to the boost from the ongoing Rain Dance.

Dragapult visibly exerted more effort and forcibly raised the power of its Dragon Pulse, matching the Hydro Pump, and causing an energy explosion that interrupted both their energy streams/moves. Neither Pokemon flinched or moved their stare from their opponent. They simply began their next exchange.

Dragapult made use of Ryujin's rain and released a Thunder, which Ryujin grounded through Iron Head and Iron Tail. He still suffered some really small damage, but he ignored it. Instead, he focused on firing a Dragonbreath at Dragapult in retaliation, which it dodged by using Phantom Force.

The Dragonbreath simply went through it while it rushed up to Ryujin before becoming tangible once more to slam its ghost energy-laden claw at Ryujin, who blocked it by slamming his tail at it using Dragon Hammer.

The clash of claw and tail caused a small energy explosion and both Pokemon were sent back a few meters. However, they swiftly regained control of their flight and resumed a ready position, ready to start their next clash.

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