Chapter 145

Chapter 145

CHAPTER 145

"Damn it, of course I'd have to face her first."

Kyle Thornton grumbled as he slowly shambled his way to his arena. He stared at his opponent, who didn't even spare him a single look as he approached. Grace Pastel had been called many things. A rising star, a prodigy, the next Gardenia, and it looked like she had the ego to back it up too. What kind of trainer didn't even look at their opponent? Not even a small nod? A set of bleachers had been set up all along the battlefield that the organizers had set up, and there would be five battles running at the same time. The other four battlefields were interspersed all over the Hunters' land, so it was impossible to watch multiple at the same time. It gave the trainers spectating a sense of choice and agency. They had to choose which battle to look at and sacrifice potentially studying another trainer to do so. Kyle felt sad that he wouldn't go far enough to battle with commentators though. It had been his dream ever since he'd been a child to have a Pokemon battle caster gush over something he'd done.

The fact that he'd be fighting Grace Pastel had come as a terrifying surprise, and he had panicked so much that he'd spent a good chunk of his savings on buying information about her from a trainer with two Cutiefly that he used to spy on people. He wasn't even in the tournament, he was just here to make money.

Two hours after that, Kyle had realized that he had simply copied an analysis from a user called Goalducc42 on the forums. So much money wasted. He was a second year, yet he'd been fleeced like a rookie desperately trying to get their first badge.

The man ran a nervous, trembling hand through his hair.

The rational part of Kyle told him that there was no way to win this, but he sure as hell wouldn't give up. He stepped onto the raised platform, grabbing two of his Pokeballs. Grace Pastel supposedly knew every trick he could employ, but what else could he do but try? Watchog would be instrumental here. These arenas were smaller than a gym's, so his incredible range with Hypnosis meant that he'd be able to use the move without even approaching his opponents. Even though it'd take around ten seconds to go off at that distance, his range meant that it was enough time. Meanwhile, Probopass would protect him and buy the normal type enough time to get the attack off.

Further than that? Well, he was no savant. There was no way to plan that far ahead. They'd be fighting on the Rock Field, which was reminiscent of Roark's gym and was ideal for his Probopass.

"This is a battle between Grace Pastel and Kyle Thornton. Trainers, send out your Pokemon," The supervisor called out.

Kyle swallowed and nervously sent out Watchog and Probopass. His opponent sent out a Larvitar and that Arceus damned Tangrowth. He knew that if he didn't focus on the looming grass type, this would be a guaranteed loss. Kyle's Pokemon watched warily as Larvitar let out an excited yell and Tangrowth caressed her head with a vine.

"Begin!"

"Sunny Day," the blonde simply said.

Tangrowth closed its eyes, and the sunlight slowly began to grow harsher. That hadn't been in the information he'd gotten! Kyle snapped back to reality and swept his arm.

"Hypnosis the Tangrowth! Probopass, Lock-On and Power Gem Larvitar!"

Watchog's eyes shone, and he stared down the Tangrowth directly. Grace Pastel frowned as Probopass' eyes narrowed and blinding lights shot out of his turrets, all curving toward Larvitar.

"Block it with Rockslide, Sweetheart! Stop the Watchog too!"

A massive boulder next to Larvitar crumpled and moved in front of the rock type like a tidal wave. The Power Gem simply deflected off of the rocks. Meanwhile, another Rock Slide washed over Watchog, interrupting his Hypnosis right as it was about to go off. How could Larvitar control that many at the same time?! Tangrowth snapped back to reality and finished his Sunny Day.

"Now get in there and Power Whip. Leave Watchog to your sister."

Tangrowth took a single step.

And then ran forward, propelling itself with his vines as fast as a truck. It was harrowingly silent, not letting a single noise escape from wherever its mouth was. There was only the sound of its heavy steps and its vines whipping against the floor. There was no stopping this thing. All he could do was hope for—

Damn it, it was already here!

"Confuse R—"

Tangrowth wrapped a vine around Watchog and threw him back towards Larvitar, who had just been patiently standing around like a kid waiting for fucking candy. The grass type then proceeded to completely dominate his Probopass. Kyle called out for a Thunder Wave, but the Power Whips were too quick and powerful for the steel type to focus on striking back. Watchog shook himself off and got up just in time for Larvitar to run him through with a Horn Attack. It pushed the normal type up to Kadabra's barrier with jubilant screams while Kyle could only watch in horror as his starter failed to even fight back. With the way he was pinned against the wall, there was no way for Watchog to even use any moves.

Kyle watched as Tangrowth calmly slammed Probopass with one last Power Whip, and the rock type stayed unmoving on the floor. Its vines all wriggled as one, working in unison like a school of Remoraid, and he blankly stared directly into Kyle's eyes. The trainer shivered in fear as he grabbed Probopass' Pokeball.

"Keep it up Angel!" Grace smiled. How could someone smile at such violence? His Probopass was more wounded than it had ever been!

Kyle recalled his Pokemon and immediately sent out his Kricketune.

"Sing!" He yelled. If he couldn't get this Tangrowth out of the picture, then it was over. Kricketune strimmed his knifelike arms against the string on his belly, but Tangrowth again just slapped him around like a damn toy, not even bothering to use a move. On the other side of the arena, Watchog was still being pinned.

"Stop playing around and get serious," Grace told her Larvitar.

The rock type grunted and let Watchog go, her horn soaked in blood. This was his moment! She'd grown cocky! Enough with the status moves, he had to go on the offensive! One Pokemon. He'd at least take down one!

"Smack Down!" She yelled.

"Detect!"

Watchog blurred impossibly quickly, dodging the blindingly fast rock that shot up from the ground like a bullet. He didn't avoid the fragments however, and like shrapnel, they tore through Watchog's body.

"Crunch and finish it off."

With a twisted smirk, Larvitar opened its mouth, revealing the darkness festering within. Already bloodied and battered, Watchog was too exhausted to even use another Detect. The rock type tore across his thigh, and Kyle recalled him, putting his Pokemon out of the fight.

Such brutality. Nothing was working. It was like he was being dissected.

Kyle felt empty as he sent out his Gogoat just in time for Kricketune to have fallen. The bug type was simply broken. His arms were bent the wrong way, and his body was crumpled like an old wrinkled shirt. He recalled him as well.

"Aerial Ace the Tangrowth!" Kyle screamed. And yet, his voice felt felt hollow.

Gogoat bleated and started running, slowly building up his speed as streaks of air surrounded his body. If he could get one hit in at least...

"I did alright," I said with a smile of my own. "Need to improve in a lot of areas still."

"Come on, just take the win and stop humble bragging," Pauline said. "Your Tangrowth just completely manhandled everything that poor guy had on his team. I bet you could have fought one against four and still won."

"Probably not, since Kyle had Hypnosis and Sing—"

"Well, I wouldn't want to face such a thing no matter what moves I owned," Maeve shuddered. "It was my first time seeing you battle, and you're seriously scary."

"This praise is embarrassing me. When's Denzel's battle again?"

"Should be in an hour," Pauline immediately said. "Well, more like fifty-four minutes now."

"Should we go watch battles while we wait? I'd like to see what our next potential opponents could be like," Justin said.

Maeve was definitely right, though. So long as Angel had the time to pull Sunny Day off, he was nigh unstoppable by anything that wasn't a poison or fire type— or a tough, big Pokemon that he couldn't lift and hit around like a ragdoll.

"There are a lot of bets going around," Louis explained. "People are looking to make money off of the tournament."

"There was a 19:1 odd of you winning, by the way," Pauline smirked. "It was basically free money."

"You bet?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's fun. I tried to get the others to join, but they didn't want to. I made a few pennies."

"It felt disrespectful to Grace's opponent," Cecilia said. "He looked devastated when he stepped off the platform."

"What?" I said, my heart sinking. "I should find him, he wasn't bad—"

"You speaking to him would probably just worsen the problem," Justin said.

I nodded with a sigh, and we went to sit down to wait for Denzel's battle. In all of the excitement and my drive to improve, I had forgotten that I had possibly ruined someone's day. Or week. Or month? When had I gotten so big-headed? It wasn't all that long ago that I'd been battling in Eterna city's arenas and gently helping the trainers I beat to improve themselves after each loss, and instead I had just rushed to leave. Sure, the reporters were a problem, but I could have...

But then again, like Justin had said, unsolicited advice could make it look like I was just talking them down and belittling their skill.

Damn it, this was hard.

"What's Denzel fighting? And which arena?" I asked, trying to clear my head.

"The Grass Field," Pauline answered.

"It would have been funny if it was the snow one," I said, thinking of his Froslass.

Along with the Rock, the Grass and the Snow Fields, there was the Water and the Desert Field. The first three weren't that interesting, but the last two offered actual variations that could sway a battle. First, the Water Field was reminiscent of Crasher Wake's gym, and the entire battlefield would be submerged in water with a few platforms non-water types could stand on. That meant that water types would obviously be king there, and fire types would be at a serious disadvantage. However, if you had an electric type or electric type attacks, countering swimmers would be ridiculously easy unless they were part ground. Meanwhile, the Desert Field was simply odd because Sinnoh had no deserts to speak of outside of the Battle Frontier— which only eight badgers were allowed in— so our Pokemon simply weren't used to fighting on the sand. The weird footing would be a problem and create some variables that were impossible to predict. This wouldn't be like standing on a beach. The sand was deep, and there were dunes of different heights all throughout the field.

"He's fighting against a really weird guy too," Maeve said.

"He told you about it?" Pauline asked aggressively.

"Chill out, okay?" I rolled my eyes. "Sorry about her, she—"

The redhead put a hand over my mouth, and I squirmed in place until Cecilia jabbed her with a finger, finally causing her to release me.

"Don't say anything," Pauline grumbled.

Well, she was just making it obvious now. Justin uncomfortably stared away, probably desperately thinking about how Pauline would even make this work when she already had Emilia. I personally found it impossible to understand too, but I wasn't one to judge. So long as they came to an agreement before they did anything...

In retrospect, they probably were nowhere near that yet. Denzel, for all his expertise in relationship matters, seemed completely blind to it, and Pauline was content with the status quo. I had no idea if Emilia knew about it, too. Maybe I'd try to talk to Pauline about it with some help from Cece.

"Anyway!" Pauline coughed. "Go on, Maeve. I'm sorry, by the way."

"It's okay," she replied. "He's fighting some guy with a really weird team. He just owns six Smeargles."

"Six of them?" Louis scoffed. "Is he an artist, perhaps? I'd love to see what paintings they can come up with."

"No, he's just some weird roleplayer," Pauline rolled her eyes. "Calls himself and his team the 'Heroes of Justice'. He's tried to find Team Galactic grunts and fight them off, but he hasn't gotten any success at finding any so far, so he just fights petty criminals whenever he's in a city."

"Even with the weird team, he's actually good. He's got four badges, and he's still in his first year, so he must be close to you guys, or maybe even on par," Maeve said.

My interest peaked at that. Type specialists were rarer than generalists, but people that only owned one kind of Pokemon were almost unheard of. I did know that Smeargle was capable of learning a lot of moves by copying them, although they'd be a bootleg version of the original. For that reason, not many people used Smeargle, but if this guy managed to get four badges like us, I was sure he'd be somewhat difficult for Denzel to face.

It was still really weird that he owned six, though.

After around thirty minutes of watching battles, we made our way toward the Grass Field and eagerly awaited for Denzel's match to start. His opponent was actually there early, and he wore some kind of war paint on his face, along with a flowing cape that reminded me of Lance. It was like he was wearing a superhero costume, and it was literally impossible to take him seriously. Some people were laughing at his extravagant appearance, but he didn't appear to care whatsoever.

Denzel showed up just in time, and he had a confident smile on his face.