CH150 (764), Lazuli (2)

Unlike against Carbink, Hashirama/Venusaur actually bothered setting up the battlefield against Aggron. As soon as the referee gave the starting signal, Hashirama set up a Sunny Day, which triggered his Chlorophyll ability, doubling his speed, before initiating his Solar Overgrowth talent, which granted all grass moves a 50% boost and continuously healed only Hashirama for as long as the Sun was up. I was not worried about not being able to make use of Aggron's major ground weakness since Hashirama could still use Earth Power which was not affected by his pseudo-Grassy Terrain.

Still, due to Aggron's steel typing, there were not many moves Hashirama could attack Aggron with to cause proper damage aside from Earth Power, Power Whip, Solar Beam, and Frenzy Plant, though the latter was more like a finisher in my eyes, just like an unmastered Hyper Beam. Hence, why Hashirama used Power Whip to mostly briefly entangle/immobilize Aggron or trip it up, before hitting it with either an Earth Power or a Solar Beam-barrage. Unfortunately, Hashirama's various powder whip moves were useless, even the nonpoisonous ones because Aggron's steel plating/skin did not absorb any of the the powders.

The only way to use them was in their classic cloud form, and even then Aggron simply held its breath to avoid being affected by the stun or sleep powders. It had no problem holding its breath until it had either run out of the powder-shrouded area or dispersed the powder cloud in some manner. Still, that did not mean that they were useless since they were used to obscure Aggron's sight for a few moments. Hashirama also used Grass Knot once or twice in conjunction with Power Whip to trip Aggron up and cause some damage to it. I would have had him use Leech Seed along with them, but it got either destroyed or slipped off whenever Aggron moved, so we stopped using Leech Seed after the second failed attempt.

Aggron naturally did not just sit still and let us do all that; It did retaliate, but even when it managed to hit my surprisingly, at least in their perspective, speedy boy, it did not take long for Solar Overgrowth to heal up most of the damage Aggron managed to cause him. Hashirama's relatively high speed compared to Aggron resulted in it being unable to inflict damage to Hashirama often enough for it to actually have a notable effect on him. On the flip side, the damage Aggron suffered kept stacking so much that it eventually even failed to avoid the Sleep Powder cloud due to the heavy panting it did, which resulted in Aggron succumbing to sleep.

That pretty much signaled the end of their battle since there was no way for Aggron to persist until it woke up due to the damage it had suffered until now, though Hashirama obviously did not stop before he was declared the victor by the referee. Lazuli seemed to think so as well since she recalled her Aggron just as Hashirama released another Sunny Day to recharge the ongoing one. It was clear that she did not want to give Hashirama the chance to take advantage of the situation, and her announcing that she was forfeiting Aggron caused Hashirama to stop himself from executing the Growth he was going to use next.

Strictly speaking, if we went exactly by the book/rules, Hashirama could have actually still gone through with Growth since the referee had not declared Aggron forfeit or Hashirama the victor, but that was a technicality that would see one booed by the crowd and would leave bad impressions on practically everyone. Hence, none of my Pokemon would do something like that during an official trainer battle. Other occasions did not have "problems" like that so it was just one of the little things that set trainer battles apart from "real" fights as the "True Battlers" liked to call them.

Heck, even the "True Battlers" were not of one mind since they were split into multiple groups as far as I knew, with the "purest" one being the Everything Goes faction, which literally went by the creed that everything was okay during a battle, including targeting the trainer, ganging up on an opponent, and only stopping once they had won. Honestly, Criminals used that to taunt "regular" trainers as well, though obviously, that did not mean that being a "True Battler" equaled being a criminal, even if their philosophy sounded like the creed a criminal would follow, but thankfully the majority of them followed alliance laws.

The alliance to show that they respected their philosophy even accommodated them to a certain extent by having battle formats, events, and certain clubs that allowed them to battle like that outside the wild where a battle style like that was actually not surprising. They did this to prevent a surge in "cage battles" or other underground battles, though obviously that kind of stuff still happened. The alliance simply aimed to stop the "True Battlers" from participating in them just because they had no alternative. This way anyone caught in an illegal event had no excuse.

Anyway, I went off topic again, so I stopped thinking about other stuff and focused back on Lazuli who had just taken out the Pokeball containing her fifth/final Pokemon. She released it on the field and I could not help but want to whistle due to how impressed I was when I saw her release a (mid) dark gold stage Tyranitar onto the battlefield. The crowd had no reason to hold back and cheered frantically when they saw the apex/pseudo-legendary Pokemon appear on the field. They only began to calm down after Lazuli raised her arm to request them to quieten down, and I was once again impressed by how much the audience/her fans listened to Lazuli.

Either way, Tyranitar and Hashirama began to battle as soon as the referee gave the starting signal. If I had to be frank, I would say that Tyranitar was an easier Pokemon to face than an Aggron simply because it was not as limiting move-wise for Hashirama. However, Tyranitar, being not only stronger than Aggron but also a member of an apex tribe, put up a better fight against Hashirama than Aggron did. Tyranitar did its best and it even managed to stack up quite a bit of damage on Hashirama despite the healing provided by Solar Overgworth, though it suffered as much if not more damage in the process, but all its work became useless when Hashirama used Synthesis which had him nearly back to peak health.

I saw Lazuli's cold facade crack for a moment when that happened, and part of the crowd, most likely Lazuli's hardcore fans, booed for a few moments, before switching to cheering again when they saw how Tyranitar and Lazuli continued to battle without any hesitation. The most surprising thing was when Tyranitar actually advanced to the (high) dark gold stage a minute or so after that Synthesis blow. The crowd went bonkers when that happened, though I was not sure if their enthusiasm was due to Tyranitar's advancement or because a truly beautiful smile bloomed on Lazuli's face when that happened.

Unfortunately for them, all advancing did was help Tyranitar hold out for longer. Eventually, Tyranitar still ended up falling after being hit by yet another Solar Beam moments after being unbalanced/distracted by an Earth Power eruption beneath its feet. There was a moment of pure silence when Tyranitar fell and did not get back up before the referee declared it unable to battle and the crowd erupted in boos. Well, there were cheers as well but there were as many if not more boos, which was something I was experiencing for the first time. Until now, I always experienced the audience cheering once a Gym Battle had concluded whether the Gym Leader won or not, but it seemed that a considerable part of Lazuli's fans thought otherwise.

It was a different experience, but honestly, there was not much else I could do but ignore them. I instead praised Hashirama who was a bit confused by the boos mixed in with the cheers. The boos had him hesitate since he was unsure if he should wave toward the crowd or not. Lazuli seeing Hashirama's dilemma actually stepped up and admonished the booing fans for once again going too far in their support of her before publicly praising Hashirama for the great battle he put up against three of her Pokemon. She also thanked Hashi for pushing her Tyranitar into advancing, before she joked that she would now have to consider if she should keep Tyranitar on the Gym Roster or take him down because he had gotten too strong for the usual 3-star challenge.

I just kept quiet since I knew that she would make the decision irrespective of our input, while Hashirama gave her a smile before seriously telling her that he believed that she would find a proper solution, though I was not sure if she got that since I had no idea how good Lazuli's PokeSpeech. Still, she smiled and nodded at Hashirama before turning to me. She congratulated me on defeating her before she tucked the left split of her hair behind her ear, which triggered some yells of "How beautiful" and "Please, marry me". I had to crack a smile at those shouts, while Lazuli ignored them and turned to her assistant, who had brought over the Gym Badge.

Lazuli took the badge from her assistants and handed it to me as she told me I had more than earned the Bowl City Badge, though looking at the badge, my first thought was that it looked nothing like a bowl. I heard some in the crowd call it the Lazuli Badge, and I had to say that it sounded more appropriate than Bowl City Badge. Standard Gyms with A-rank Badges like this one were able to choose the shape of their Badge, but unlike Major Gyms they had to keep the city name. Hence, why this Badge was called Bowl City Badge even though it was blue colored and oval-shaped, which I believe was an allusion to (Lapis)lazuli.

The Badge really looked like the display models of blue opals or lapislazulis in gem stores, and I'd say that it was the best-looking Badge so far. I was sure it would have been even more visually appealing if not for the 3 stars as well as the A and Bowl City embossed on its sides. Anyway, I thanked Lazuli for the Badge before I placed it beside the other Badges I had gathered so far. With the Badge from Lazuli I now had 2 S-rank, 2 A-rank, as well as 4 B-rank Badges, and if we converted all of them to A-rank Badges we got the equivalent of 8 Badges.

However, to qualify for the Hoenn Senior League Tournament one needed 12 A-rank Badges, which was actually lower than the 16 A-rank Badges required for the Kanto Senior League Tournament. Still, it made sense for Hoenn to have a lower requirement since Hoenn had only 14 Standard Gyms while Kanto had 22. Nonetheless, all things considered, I still needed 4 more A-rank Badges or their equivalent to qualify for the Hoenn Senior League Tournament, though I was still aiming to get them all.

Anyway, I wished Lazuli a good day before I swiftly made my way out of the Gym. Lazuli's fans were a bit too enthusiastic in my opinion and I did not want to risk getting mobbed by them before I was able to leave since dealing with that would be too troublesome. Once I was out, I made my way to one of the most recommended restaurants in the city for lunch following which I entered Utopia to once again commend the battlers and to spend time with my Pokemon. We also celebrated the new Badge after dinner, which we followed up with a special movie night since I felt like watching Terminator for some reason.

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