CH130 (744), Are You Worthy? Let’s Test It (2)

The elder turned to one of the spectating Sceptile and told it to come up. The Sceptile in question released (high) dark gold undulations; I brought out Tatsumaki/Alakazam as our combatant, and she was another battler that was at a lower substage. Still, I honestly did not expect the upcoming battle to take all that long. As soon as the elder gave the signal Tastsumaki went all out. She first used Gravity to force Sceptile to struggle to move before she followed up with Psychic to stop it from even being able to struggle, but not for the lack of trying as we could all see Sceptile twitching since that was pretty much all its current resistance amounted to.

Honestly, the synergy between these two moves was pretty great as Tatsumaki was showing right now. Not that everyone could do what she was doing since she was essentially keeping up two continuous moves, and it was the continuous factor that made this combo hard to use. Still, Tastumaki went and took it up a notch by slowly using Hypnosis even while maintaining Gravity and Psychic, practically triple casting in nightmare mode. It took her a bit longer to complete the Hypnosis, but we all watched as the final resistance of Sceptile began to cease and its body began to stop twitching before it slackened, solely remaining upright due to Tatsumaki's Psychic hold.

Tatsumaki then laid Sceptile on the ground before releasing Gravity and Psychic in favor of charging a Hyper Beam, which she continued to charge even after it reached the regular standard, practically overcharging it. She visibly aimed the Hyper Beam that was gradually becoming more and more dangerous at the still sleeping Sceptile's head before looking toward the elder, silently asking him to make a choice. It looked like she was threatening the elder to forfeit for her opponent because that's what she was literally doing. Wait, no, she was hesitating to inflict what she felt was unnecessary harm on someone she considered checkmated which was why she turned to the elder.

Not to indicate that he should declare her the winner because she would otherwise release her attack, but because the circumstances would otherwise force her to release her attack. That might sound the same, but there was a difference in the nuance, which put her in a better light, and I was going with that in my narrative. Anyway, the elder stared at Tatsumaki for a few moments before releasing a sigh, following which Elder Sceptile declared Tatsumaki as the victor. Tatasumaki released a foxy, no; Not a foxy, but a gentle smile at that and began to disperse the energy that had accumulated in her Hyper Beam/across her spoons. She had to take it a bit slow because the energy concentration had gotten too high to simply dismiss the move.

Meanwhile, the audience could not believe what had just happened before their eyes. The battle that they had expected to take the longest and to be the hardest fought one, ended up finishing in roughly a minute, give or take a few seconds; Moreover, the battle was overwhelmingly one-sided from start to finish, and as if that was not enough, the opponent was only at the (mid) dark gold stage while their battler was at the (high) dark gold stage. Hence, it was no surprise that a disbelieving hush reigned on their side. I on the other hand praised Tatsumaki for a brilliant performance.

Personally, if I had been the one giving orders instead of Tatsumaki going solo, I would have probably had her go a bit easier on Sceptile, allowing it to at least fight a little bit to give them some face before beating it down. It might have prolonged the battle by a minute or two, which would still have been incredible in everyone's eyes, but at least Sceptile would have been able to keep some form of dignity. As it were I did not want to know what Sceptile was going to feel once it woke up. Honestly, it would either become despondent, begin a redemption/training arc, or go down the villain road; Stuff like this was what others used to start a villain arc.

That's why I asked the elder for a moment when he called over some assistants to carry away the still-sleeping Sceptile. I went to Sceptile's side and surrounded it with my aura while radiating feelings of amusement, assurance, acceptance, and determination to help Sceptile once it woke up. It wouldn't force those feelings upon it, but the fading presence of those feelings would help it look at the situation using those feelings, which would hopefully make Sceptile adopt them on its own. None of the Sceptile interfered with my action, and they just stood back and watched as I did that. Still, I could feel their approval of my actions and some budding appreciation for me, which was very nice.

After I was done and stepped back, the elder motioned for the assistant Sceptile to continue, and we all watched as they carried the sleeping Sceptile away. The elder cleared his throat once they were out of sight, attracting everyone's attention, including mine and Tatsumaki's, who had yet to be moved back inside Utopia. Once he had our attention, the elder congratulated me on passing the first test; He then revealed that passing this test actually allowed me to negotiate for the chance to add a Treecko to my team, but he added that only passing the second test would allow me to add the truly promising younglings to the negotiation.

The elder then inquired if I wanted to stop here and directly move on to the negotiation phase or if I wanted to attempt the second test instead. I naturally asked him to tell me what the second test entailed first before I made my decision, and the elder told me that the second test only needed me to prove myself to the tribe. He made sure to emphasize that this test was about me as an individual and not about my Pokemon. He was nice enough to add that I could just demonstrate things that made me stand out from the average trainer/human in a positive manner.

Well, unlike others who might have to worry about what to show off due to a lack of things that made them stand out, I had the opposite problem. After thinking for a moment I shared with Tatsumaki, Mothra, and the others that I was planning to show off how far along I was on the path of an Aura User since those were generally seen in a good light. They agreed that it was a good idea, and once I was done, Tatsumaki suggested that I also demonstrate my ability to teleport, as well as my telekinesis to show that I could keep myself and others safe by teleporting away if it came down to it.

I could feel that my little demonstration had impressed my hosts, and just when I began to consider if I should show off some more, the elder announced that this was enough and that I had without a doubt passed the second test. Following that he asked me to wait for a moment before he walked towards a certain part of the crowd around us. I did not try to listen in since that would have been rude, but I did see that they sent off some Sceptile on an errand. After that happened, the elder once again made his way to my side and told me that they had sent for the promising youngsters of their tribe.

The elder told me that I would be given an hour to interact with the young ones once they had arrived to see which one(s) clicked with me or roused my interest before we would then begin to negotiate what I was willing to offer the tribe to allow me to leave with the youngling if the young one(s) in question was willing to go with me. He made sure to emphasize the last part, and the elder made it clear that I would leave empty-handed if I failed to gain the goodwill/interest of any younglings by the time the hour was up. Passing the first and second tests would become irrelevant once that happened.

According to him, I would then have to look into catching one of the Treecko that were roaming around their territory on their own without any supervision. What was not said but seemed to be implied was that the Treecko I would get that way would very likely be several magnitudes worse than the one I would have missed out on during this selection. Well, at least I was not being denied the chance to get a Treecko even if things did not work out, but in such a situation, I honestly would have hoped that the elder would have offered me to check out the first group I would have been introduced to if I had declined or failed the second test.

Nonetheless, their tribe, their rules, so I nodded and told the elder that I would accept the situation if that happened, before thanking him for the explanation and the opportunity I was being given; Even if the rules seemed a tad unfair and I theoretically earned the chance myself. Still, being polite did not hurt, and the elder Sceptile gave me an amiable smile when he heard my words, which was what I was aiming for. Regardless, roughly 5 minutes into our wait, we saw two Sceptile with a bunch of Treecko in tow making their way through the crowd, moving toward us.

I saw roughly 30 Treecko; I confirmed that there were 32 once their group stopped in front of us. The elder turned to me and proudly declared that those were the best younglings in their tribe. After acknowledging his words I asked for permission to approach the Treecko, and once he gave the okay, I together with my Pokemon approached the small crowd of Treecko that had been observing me/us ever since they arrived. I was naturally going to stick with the strategy that had proven to work every single time I wanted to get the goodwill of some Pokemon, especially younger ones.

I was obviously referring to food, and because I only had an hour cooking/preparing something on site was out since that would take too much time, but I had more than enough snacks that were prepared especially with pure grass types in mind, so I brought out a bag of those and offered them to the Treecko after greeting them. Once the first brave one took one of the snacks/pellets and confirmed with his reaction that they were tasty, the others swiftly followed suit as well, and just like that, I had all Treecko sitting around me, snacking within less than 5 minutes.

Once they finished the snack in their hands, the Treecko came up to me and asked for more, and this time around I used the chance to check their status sheets during the handover. After checking all 32 Treecko, I had to admit that the elder Sceptile had every right to be proud of this batch of Treecko. The lowest potential among them was green, while the highest was actually deep blue. Potential aside, the weakest among them was at the (mid) iron stage, though that was because it was younger than the others, while the strongest among them was at the (mid) bronze stage. 

I got curious about the latter and spoke with him about why he was delaying his evolution since he was more than ready to evolve. Treecko actually told me that his goal was to master everything he could as a Treecko before evolving to Grovyle. It was rather unfortunate that his potential was only at light blue, or I might have been interested in adding him to our family, but there were actually 3 Treecko that stood out more to me, so he got pushed out of the race by them.

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