CH119 (733), Brightwick Gym (4)

It did not take long for Luna/Clefable to become visible once more, and even though her pink fur did look slightly singed, which showed that her Protect broke under the might of the Explosion, Luna was mostly fine. In fact, the crowd went crazy and began to chant Clefable when they saw Luna cooly pat out some residual purple fire on her chest as if it was just some dust that landed on her body. Their cheers caused Luna to break her cool act and she happily waved towards the audience; I think I saw her specifically aim her waves at the areas where I noticed some kids cheering. 

Still, despite the way Luna was acting, I knew that blocking that explosion had been somewhat tiring since she was complaining about it over our telepathy channel before she began to interact with the crowd. As for the referee's declaration of Chandelure's defeat, that was nearly buried by the crowd's cheers, but the referee ignored them and did his job despite the noise. He asked Dennis to recall his Pokemon, which Dennis did. When Dennis brought out his next Pokemon the crowd finally quieted down and Luna turned her focus to the (high) gold Arcanine that appeared on the field with its Intimidating aura, which left Dennis with only one unknown Pokemon since his Rapidash had to be reused at some point.

Anyway, the referee gave the starting signal, and I was taken totally off guard by what happened next. Arcanine used Roar and Luna actually withdrew into her ball. I could understand why Arcanine and Dennis went for Roar considering how boosted Luna was at the moment, but what I had a hard time believing was that Roar actually worked against Luna when it shouldn't have. With the way Roar worked, the energy and sound released by it usually triggered the fight-and-flight instinct of the targeted Pokemon, though it obviously aimed to push the target to flee and not to fight.

For wild Pokemon that meant that they fled/ran away as long as Roar worked; For battles between trainers, Roar had to work perfectly or at least almost perfectly to force the Pokemon's instinct to trigger their PokeBall's "backdoor" recall feature available to the captured Pokemon, because if the Roar did not work perfectly, the Pokemon would just retreat or simply step back in fright instead of being recalled.

Now, many Trainer Pokemon were trained to resist moves like Roar, though simply having gone through a lot and being experienced oftentimes allowed one to resist Roar as well. My Pokemon on the other hand had not only faced quite a few Roars during their training but also during battles; On top of that, all of them had seen/experienced a lot of unusual stuff that made them very hard to startle/frighten to the degree necessary for an instinctive recall, which is why I was this shocked when it actually happened to Luna.

I was so surprised, that I was just staring at Luna's LunarBall in disbelief trying to wrap my head around what just happened. It was the referee giving me a formal warning to release my next Pokemon that brought my attention back to the present. "How?" I could not help but ask, and Dennis actually answered the question after a short proud laugh.

"My Arcanine mastered Roar," Dennis declared proudly. "Not only that, but he also mastered Howl and learned Noble Roar from Pyroar before using them to enhance his Roar's intimidation factor, ensuring that it works even on those who trained extensively to resist Roar's effect as long as they are not fully focused on resisting it. Even then it usually takes some time before they manage to resist it," he added even more proudly, and Arcanine looked pretty proud as well. Well, they had every right to be proud of Arcanine's achievement if it was truly as he said. 

"It's rather useful in forcing troublesome opponents to reveal their hand in advance and to deal with Pokemon that have boosted themselves extensively like your Clefable," he proudly finished, and as soon as he was done, the referee seemed to be done as well, with his patience that is. "Challenger Geo, you have 5 seconds to send out your next combatant or I'll be forced to issue a formal penalty for purposefully delaying the battle," the referee declared apparently not caring that the Gym Leader had decided to entertain my question, and I directly called out Thor/Raichu, not wanting to lose my 1 substitution over this.

The referee gave the starting signal without a moment's delay, and Arcanine directly used its Roar again; It once again succeeded in sending my Pokemon back in its PokeBall and proved that Dennis had not just been spouting drivel. Still, not planning to play into his hand, I decided to just send out Luna again, and she actually looked like she could not believe what had happened. That was not that surprising since it had been less than 15 seconds since she had been forcefully withdrawn from the battle, which did not give her much time to digest/accept what happened.

In fact, the time she had been out of combat was short enough that she was most likely still maintaining her boosts, which was nice. Still, I did not like Dennis' smile when he saw Luna, and reality proved that I was right in feeling like that. The moment the referee gave the signal to resume the battle, Arcanine used another Roar, and even though this was the second time, Luna still got sent back into her LunarBall. I did not like this at all, so I decided to be a bit stubborn and sent Thor back out, who looked like he was both miffed and confused.

The referee once again gave the starting signal, but it ended up being a repeat of the previous exchange, with Thor being forced back inside his ball again. I felt a bit better when I saw the referee stare at Dennis for a moment, showing that I was not the only one annoyed at his actions/tactic, though the audience seemed to like it since they laughed and cheered after each forced withdrawal.

Well, the joke was on them, or rather on Dennis since I decided to just use this as a training opportunity. I was going to send out Luna and then Thor again and again until they either managed to resist Arcanine's enhanced Roar or the other side gave up on forcing the issue. The crowds still found the situation amusing during the next Roar that had me send in Thor, and the three Roars after that. Still, after more than 2 minutes of just me sending out Luna or Thor and Arcanine forcing them back using Roar, the situation lost its novelty.

They had gotten quiet by now, and their laughter/amusement had changed to some grumbling as well as discussions wondering how long this was going to continue. I heard some asking whether this was even legal. Unfortunately, the referee, who had actually given Dennis a glare after the 10th time Clefable entered the field, addressed the question after the complaints from the crowd had gotten more vocal, and according to him, there were no rules that forbid Dennis from doing what he was doing, though I heard him silently grumble that he would try to force a change in that regard once this mess was over. His voice was barely a whisper since he obviously did not intend for anyone to hear him, but I did, and from the way he snickered, I was sure that Dennis did as well.

Honestly, this was the most frustrating battle I had taken part in up until today, and it took more than 4 minutes for the situation to finally change. It was not the other side that gave up using Roar, but Luna who, after experiencing 18 enhanced Roars, finally managed to resist the move. Luna immediately used Gravity and she targeted Arcanine's head, not only staggering the Pokemon but also preventing it from using its head, or rather mouth.

While Arcanine's head was introduced to the floor, Luna Teleported behind it and released a Thunder Wave aimed at its head. She then threw a Water Pulse at Arcanine, who had just seized up, before following up with a Thunderbolt. Looking at her actions, one would think that she was holding a grudge, but Luna was above such petty stuff. Yes, she just wanted to finish the battle as quickly as possible to prevent another mishap, which was why she followed up the Thunderbolt with a Gravity Crush aimed at Arcanine's head, reintroducing it to the floor.

It was also why she used Sing on the dazed Arcanine before following up with a Wake Up Slap. She did that three times in a row because she wanted to take out Arcanine, who had suffered no damage before due to the Roar fiasco, as efficiently as possible and not to vent her frustration. Yes, that's why she finished things off with a final Water Pulse at the nogging after sending Arcanine back to sleep with a final Sing. The huff she released after Arcanine was down was just to release the breath she held during all this due to the nervousness she felt while trying to prevent Arcanine from possibly countering her.

Anyway, after the pretty much one-sided beatdown by Luna, the audience was silent in disbelief. I could understand why they had trouble believing what they had seen, especially after Arcanine's earlier Roar dominance, but they broke out into excited cheers once the referee broke the spell of silence that had befallen them by declaring Arcanine unable to battle and Clefable/Luna the victor.

Still, while the whole thing might have looked somewhat easy with Luna dominating Arcanine the whole time, doing what she had done, namely forcing the moves out as fast as she did, had cost her quite a bit of extra stamina and energy. The frustration she felt had her expend more energy during the moves she used as well, and adding the previous battles to that, Luna was quite exhausted, even if she did not look like it, so even though I could hear the audience excitedly discuss if she/Luna would be able to sweep the Gym on her own, I knew that she would not be able to do it.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the disbelief I felt radiate from Dennis, who woodenly recalled his unconscious Arcanine at the prompt from the referee. He released a cough after putting the Pokeball away before shaking his head. "That was something alright," he said and I could hear the surprise in his voice. "I'm safe, right?" he jokingly asked, obviously referring to the somewhat vicious way Luna beat up his Arcanine, and it was Luna who had calmed down by now that answered him by giving him a thumbs up.

"That's good," he said while releasing an exaggerated sigh of relief, which had the audience laugh, and after that little comedic showmanship, Dennis put up a serious face. "Still, even if you have already taken down two of my Pokemon, I can't let you win this battle without taking my pound of meat, so don't get complacent," he declared seriously. Well, by now I was convinced that (saying) slightly chunni stuff like this was part of a Gym Leader's duty since all Gym Leaders I faced so far had said similar stuff, and the crowd loved it, which was why they probably did it in the first place.

Regardless, after saying all that he ended up sending out his Rapidash again, and having experienced the way Luna fought, they first reapplied Sunny Day since the previous one had long run out before they chose to force Luna to stay away by using long-range and wide range moves along with status effect moves. Unfortunately for them, that was easier said than done thanks to Teleport, but they did a pretty good job nonetheless.

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