CH36 (59), Watching A Gym Battle (2)

Aya called out a Muk.

She did not lose any time and told her Muk to use Double Shock, which Muk directly executed.

Multiple Muks started to appear and all of them released a purple surge at Clefable.

The poor Pokemon was hit by the move because it came so sudden and from everywhere, so before it could really react and dodge it was hit.

Toxic and Venoshock really made a nasty combination.

Celfable released a loud scream after it was hit by Venoshock but for one moment it looked like it could weather the venom combo but it ultimately couldn't hold on.

The previous damage from the Iron Tail at the head, as well as the poison damage from Toxic and on top of that a Venoshock was too much for Clefable.

It fainted and Fabian recalled it before the referee had managed to announce his verdict.

The referee still did his job and declared Clefable unable to battle, he also tells Fabian to call out his next Pokemon, which he does.

The Gym Leader's next Pokemon is an Azumarill and he loses no time to command it to use Rain Dance.

His next command immediately follows as well, he tells his Azumarill to use Defense Roll and it starts to perform a Rollout.

Mikail assumes, and the adults around him agree, that this is probably a combination of Defense Curls and Rollout.

Aya naturally does not simply stand around and does nothing.

As soon as Fabian gives the command for Rain Dance Aya briefly puts on a disgruntled look, probably because the water will interfere with many of the offensive moves of Muk before she returned to a neutral look.

She told her Muk to perform the prolonged battle protocol.

Mikail saw how Muk started to shine in purple and gray alternatively before it reapplied its Double Team.

It also looked to Mikail as if it was shrinking, so he assumed it was using Minimize, but it was the first time he saw Minimize really causing someone to shrink.

His mother seemed to have seen his confused face and started to do a live commentary for him, to explain to him what was happening on the field.

She said Muk used Acid Armor, to raise its defense and Minimize to raise its evasiveness.

She explained that Minimize generally only compacted the user a bit while also increasing the user's nimbleness to make dodging easier, but there were some Pokemon like Muk and Gastly that due to their physiology could really shrink their body using Minimize.

While Muk was boosting itself Azumarill started running/rolling over the Muk images trying to get the real one.

In a short time, Azumarill destroyed two images leaving only 5.

Aya seeing the situation tells Muk to use Mud-Slap all around the field, causing all places that the Mud-Slap lands on to become muddy thanks to the rain.

She planned to use the muddy ground to make Azumarill either slip or roll out of control.

Aya seeing the Rain Dance wear off then tells Muk to perform Poison Gas, but Fabian who saw her move and also noted the muddy ground tells Azumarill to stop and reapply Rain Dance.

It looks like Aya had expected this and had been waiting for it because as soon as Azumarill executed the move she told Muk to use Disable to stop them from repeatedly reapplying Rain Dance.

The current Rain Dance still dissolves Muk's Poison Gas but she says to Fabian that it won't be enough to stop her.

Just when Mikail wondered how she plans to let Muk attack Azumarill, since her long-distance poison and ground moves are being neutralized or weakened by the rain, she recalls her Muk and calls out another Pokemon, a Haunter.

He has to chuckle at that and the look on Fabian's face at her move.

It seems the Gym Leader, like Mikail, had expected her to let Muk use long-distance moves of other types or to let Muk approach Azumarill either for short-distance moves or to minimize the reduction on her long-range moves by the rain, but she simply changed her Pokemon instead.

It was a good idea too.

As soon Haunter was on the field, she told it to use Shadow Ray.

Haunter used Shadow Punch to appear behind Azumarill and instead of punching it, Haunter used Confuse Ray.

The combo was successful, and Azumarill got confused, but that was not all.

Aya told Haunter to use Hypnosis on it and Fabian tried to tell Azumarill to dodge the Hypnosis.

Unfortunately, his command did not get through to his confused Pokemon so it got lulled into sleep by Haunter.

Aya used Azumarill's defenselessness to command Haunter to use Curse on it, then to recover the damage Haunter received by its own move, she told it to use Dream Eater.

Fabian, who had been trying to call out to Azumarill to wake it up, stopped what he was doing after Haunter used Dream Eater the second time.

He saw that the probability of Azumarill waking up before it got knocked out by Curse and Dream Eater was slim and even then it wouldn't be able to fight for long, besides that the Rain had stopped so its water moves would not be boosted in case he tried to use them, furthermore poison moves were back on the table, so instead of allowing Haunter to keep recovering he recalled Azumarill.

The referee seeing Fabian recalling Azumarill says that the Gym Leader forfeited Azumarill by recalling it and that Haunter won.

He told Fabian to release his next Pokemon, who called out a Gardevoir.

Aya seeing Fabian's Pokemon recalled her Haunter and called out her Muk again.

Both trainers simultaneously gave their commands.

Fabian told his Gardevoir to use Teleporting Team, which it did, resulting in 8 Gardevoir that kept changing positions.

Unfortunately, the move was useless against the move Aya told Muk to use, which was Poison Gas.

The poisonous gas filled the whole field except for the trainer boxes that were protected, so Gardevoir could not escape it and got poisoned.

Fabian, who saw his Pokemon get poisoned decide to go on the offensive.

He told it to approach it and use Hypnosis, but Aya reacted to his command and told Muk to counter with Screech.

Mikail, who saw that was impressed.

'To use Screech to disrupt Gardevoir's concentration hence her Hypnosis is a good idea.

It seems the strategy to use sound-based moves to counter sing or even hypnosis is not that rare, at least amongst Senior trainers and up.

I'll have to remember that the counter can be used for Hypnosis as well and maybe even against other moves that required great focus/concentration.'

Fabian, who saw that his plan had failed told Gardevoir to Teleport away and use Calm Mind after that it should use Psybeam to attack from a distance while dodging any attacks with Teleport.

Gardevoir executed Fabian's instructions as soon as she could.

Aya told Muk to use Protect against the Psybeams but it did not hold on for too long before it was destroyed.

Still following Aya's commands, it managed to perform a few boosting moves as well as a Double Team.

Unfortunately Fabian did not seem interested in playing with this many Muks, so he told her to use a Misty Terrain and a Disarming Voice.

The boosted move managed to disrupt all fake images and the real Muk was the only one left, so Gardevoir resumed its Hit and Teleport tactic.

Aya who saw this told Muk to use another Double Team but Gardevoir just disrupted it like before, not only that Fabien told it to use Heal Pulse allowing it to recover most of the damage it had suffered from being poisoned.

Aya who saw this told Muk to keep using Disable until it hit Gardevoir and he even managed to hit it, but only after it had dodged the first two moves with Teleport, so the move that was blocked was Teleport not Heal Pulse.

Nevertheless, this was good for Aya as well, since Gardevoir would be unable to dodge Muk's attacks as easily as it had been before.

She told Muk to use Sludge Wave and Fabian told Gardevoir to use Psychic to block the attack.

While it was occupied with the Sludge Wave Aya told Muk to approach it and use Venoshock.

It seemed Fabian had been waiting for Muk to approach and Gardevoir had been faking the difficulty it was having with Sludge Wave because once Muk was near enough she simply threw the Wave aside and used Hypnosis on Muk who was unable to dodge or block the move.

Aya who wondered when Fabian had told Gardevoir to use Hypnosis, thought about her options.

Compared to her Mikail instantly thought about Telepathy when he saw Gardevoir acting without any instructions.

He had wondered why Fabian had not been using the Telepathy of Gardevoir during the battle but it seemed it was to mislead his opponent.

He nodded at that before he focused on Aya to see what she would do now that her Muk was asleep.

Aya knew she couldn't recall Muk while he was sleeping or he would be deemed unable to battle since the 45 seconds of inability to continue would pass.

Her only option was hoping Muk would wake up before he was knocked out or the time was up.

She used their bond to urge him to wake up faster, but she saw how Gardevoir was using Dream Eater on her Muk.

Just as she thought that Muk would be beaten before he could do anything she felt him stirring and commanded him to use Venoshock.

Gardevoir and Fabien were unable to react to the surprise attack and Gardevoir was hit, which caused it more damage than it had recovered through Dream Eater, but it was not enough to knock it out and it retaliated with a Psychic that was enough to knock out the already weakened Muk.

The referee declared Muk unable to battle and told her to call out her next Pokemon.

Aya simply recalled her Muk and released her Venomoth.

She directly told her Venomoth to use Bug Buzz to disrupt Gardevoir from using any Psychic moves, knowing that Bug Buzz had that little effect on most psychic moves that were not sufficiently mastered, because it interfered with the opponent's concentration and with psionic energy as well, making it harder to use psychic moves in general.

Aya then commanded Venomoth to use Sleep Powder causing the already weary Gardevoir to fall asleep, but instead of pressing her advantage, she told her Venomoth to keep using Quiver Dance.

Fabian who saw through Aya's plan decided that instead of allowing Venomoth to boost itself to the maximum before it attacked his Gardevoir, he would rather recall it forfeiting it in the process.

This way he could attack Venomoth before it managed to gain too many boosts, so that's what he did.

He recalled Gardevoir, causing the referee to deem her unable to battle and telling him to release his last Pokemon before he called out his Ninetales.

As soon as the Alolan Ninetales appeared on the field Rose who had been relatively quiet until now, besides occasionally releasing an "ooohhhh" or "aaahhhh", released a squeal so loud, that Mikail thought she had mastered Screech as well.

Rose started shouting how beautiful Ninetales was, how elegant it looked, and then she asked why it was blue instead of yellow.

While her parents were answering her question Mikail noted that he had either missed Fabian commanding his Ninetales to release a Blizzard or Ninetales had Snow Warning as an ability, because there currently was one on the field.

Well, it could have been both as well, because the Blizzard was strong.

Fabian had indeed told Ninetales to use Blizzard as soon as she appeared on the field, knowing that it would be boosted by the Hail summoned through her ability.

Then knowing that Hail would support the move on its own for a short while, he told her to use Imprison on Venomoth to prevent it from using any moves that his Ninetales knew, before he told her to attack it with Ice Beam as well.

Aya was unable to see her Pokemon, but she knew it was taking quite the damage by Ninetales entry move. She tried to tell him to use Supersonic all around himself to at least confuse their enemy, but it turned out to be futile.

Ninetales used Ice Beam and hit Venomoth two times, and after the second hit her Ice Beam boosted by the current mega-Hail managed to freeze Venomoth, so she used her Iron Tail to punt her frozen for across the field, knocking it out just as the hail returned to being a normal one, giving everyone back an only slightly impeded vision instead of a bad one.

The referee noted that the Venomoth got knocked out and declared it unable to battle.

He told Aya to recall and to call out her last Pokemon, which was the Haunter that she previously used.

Aya knew that her chances to win the battle were drastically reduced after her starter got beaten quite handily at that, but she did not plan to give up.

As soon as Haunter was out she told him to Bond with the foe through Shadow Ray.

Fabian, who had expected that after the last time Haunter used the combo, told his Ninetales to dodge, which she successfully did.

Nonetheless, Mikail and everyone else could see Aya grinning despite Haunter missing his attack.

Aya told Haunter to use Curse on Ninetales and Fabian told his Ninetales to retaliate with Extrasensory, but to everyone's surprise, Haunter did not bother to dodge the attack, despite being quite weakened because of its previous battle as well as the Curse it just used.

Predictably Haunter got knocked out by Ninetales's Extrasensory.

What surprised everyone was that Ninetales got knocked out together with Haunter.

Mikail and most of the experienced trainers that were watching the battle understood that Aya had command Haunter to use Destiny Bond during her first command, which was clever.

'Good strategy, she knew that she could not beat Ninetales with her Haunter, so she decided to force a draw and she used the longer command to hide the instruction for Destiny Bond in it.'

Mikail nodded at his conclusion.

He saw how the referee declared both Pokemon were unable to battle, which meant the battle was a draw.

Both Aya, the challenger, as well as Fabian, the Gym Leader, met in the middle of the field to shake hands and Fabian congratulated Aya for her performance.

He said he was impressed by her strategies, and her resolve, as well as her success in forcing a draw after falling into a disadvantage.

He declared that he decided that she had earned the Orchid Badge and he handed her a Badge that he took out from inside his vest.

Aya thanked him with a happy face and she talked with Fabian for a bit before they both left the field, without giving anyone the chance to approach them.

Aya probably went towards the PokeCenter to heal her Pokemon and the Gym Leader to his bureau or wherever he waited for his challengers.

When Mikail saw Fabian giving Aya the Badge despite her not winning the battle, he looked at his parents with a "what's going on face".

Before he could even ask why Aya had still received a Badge despite only managing a draw, his father told him the answer.

It seemed that on Terra Gym Leader had the right to decide if a challenger deserved a Badge in case of a draw.

They had to give out the Badge in case the challenger won the battle and they were forbidden to give out the Badge if the challenger lost.

So there were no cases where a Gym Leader could simply give out Badges without a fight or to a beaten challenger for one reason or another.

On Terra, you either won and got your Badge or you managed a draw and received one if the Gym Leader was impressed by you.

After clearing up Mikail's doubt, they stood up and walked out of the Gym.

While they were walking Rose was excitedly talking about the fight.

She would repeat scenes from her perspective or talk about how beautiful Ninetales had been.

Everyone laughed a bit at how much fun she was having, but Mikail had to confess that he was excited because of the battle he witnessed as well.

How could he not be excited?

He had just witnessed a real Gym battle, so his steps were giddy as well and he was not alone in his excitement.

Natu, and Mothra, who had watched the battle together with him, but had kept mostly quiet, fully concentrated on the battles that were happening, were really excited as well.

He could feel it not only through their bond but also through his telepathy and through the emotion-sensing he gained thanks to his aura.

In short, all younglings were excited by the battle they had seen.

Now that they had left the Gym the adults decide to walk around for 2 hours before going to a restaurant for dinner.

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