Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, credit for that goes to Satoshi Tajiri and the Pokemon Company.
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The smoke in the arena began to clear as the 2 competitors on either side tried to see the aftermath of the two attacks meeting in the middle of the arena, the Audience trying to do the same as well as the commentators watching and the Nurse Joy on standby.
It was so quiet that the only sounds heard was the trainers breathes due to the mics they wore.
The smoke near the outer field faded and the audience could see the trainers, the challenger was a young girl who seemed to be in her early 20s, she was pretty averaged sized but appeared taller due to her boots, she wore blue jeans with an old shirt that had the Indigo League logo on it, she had long hot pink coloured hair that was tied back into a ponytail and she also had 2 black arm sleeves on.
She was currently searching through the smoke for anything that could determine her partners' condition, after some of the smoke cleared she could just make out her Pokémon.
"Trex!" she cried in concern as she could see her Tyranitar was exhausted.
After more of the smoke cleared thanks to a sudden wind change a Gengar could be seen, it was clearly unable to battle any more.
The referee made the call, holding up a red flag and speaking "Gengar is unable to battle! The winner of this round goes to Lisa!"
A large section of the crowd cheered loudly at that, the commentator being almost drowned out over the loudspeakers
"What a fantastic match! For a while it looked like Tyranitar was done for but came back with a super effective Dark Pulse!"
"well done old friend, return" the man on the other side of the field said, he was tall and athletic with dark hair and wore black jeans and singlet, he held the ball to his mouth "that was a good battle" and he proceeded to put the ball onto his belt.
Drake looked up at Lisa with a smile. "It seems I underestimated your Pokémon and for that I apologise, that Tyranitar is truly well trained" he turned serious "but this battle isn't over yet!" he pulled off the poke ball on his necklace and threw it into the air, a flash of light coming out to reveal a Dragonite.
Lisa was shocked "WAIT! You had a poke ball as a necklace?!"
"Yep, see Dragonite here is my best friend, I like to keep him close" Drake simply said with his eyes shut.
Lisa was suddenly intimidated, she knew this was coming but it had been so long since someone had beaten Drakes dragonite, in fact it had been almost 6 years since the last trainer that pulled off that feat.
"I'm glad we got to this point, Lisa you are truly a great trainer to get to this point but I'm afraid this is as far as you are going to get" Drake said to her with a smirk, unknown to Lisa he was trying to get her back in the match and he knew his plan had worked when Lisa suddenly shouted her command.
"Alright Trex use Dragon Tail!"
Drake quickly responded "Dragonite dodge and use ice beam!"
Trex moved slower due to exhaustion and had to get into closer range while Dragonite just fired the Ice Beam attack, Trex tried to dodge but was too slow, managing to dodge the worst of it but still stumbled forward, a trail of ice from the dodge making jumping back no longer an option Trex was now stuck at close range, but yet Lisa realised she could turn it around
"Alright Trex one more Dragon Tail!"
"Dragonite get away" but it was too close to dodge and took the attack, howling in pain, Drake concerned with his friend's wellbeing.
Before Drake could actually give an order Dragonite fired a Dragon Rage attack hitting Trex head on and finishing what Gengar started.
"Tyranitar is no longer able to battle! The winner of this round is Drake!"
"I'm so proud of you Trex, you did a great job" Lisa proudly said to her Pokémon as she returned it "you just rest up okay?"
"And it looks like it's the final round ladies and gentlemen with both sides having only 1 Pokémon each! Will Dragonite be able to withstand what Lisa throws or will we have a new contender for the Championship after 4 years?" the crowd became excited at the announcers words.
"Okay, this is it, I'm counting on you!" Lisa grabbed a poke ball that seemed to have a small sticker on it into the air, a beam of light forming a Houndoom.
Drake looked at the fire type.
"Well Lisa, it looks like this is it, although Dragonite is injured I wouldn't count it out just yet"
Lisa grinned "we'll see about that"
The Referee stood up "This is the final round, Dragonite vs Houndoom, with one Pokémon left per side, Trainers ready?" both trainers nodded "Go!"
"Houndy use Fire Blast!" A powerful fire blast began to form
"Quick counter with Hyper Beam!" Drake ordered, both attacks met in the middle of the arena, the explosion causing smoke and the wind to completely cover Dragonite as Lisa realised the true purpose of that hyper beam
'it wasn't meant the counter, Drake must have known the wind was on his side, I can't attack if I can't see and by the time the smoke clears Dragonite will be ready' Lisa thought to herself
"Alright let's not waste time! Houndy use Nasty Plot"
Houndooms eyes turned purple for a brief moment and it began to grin like its trainer.
"Alright Dragonite hit it with another hyper beam!"
"AGAIN?!" Lisa was shocked but suddenly remembered the ice trail "Houndy run towards Dragonite!"
Houndy obeyed, trusting its trainer and thinking it knew what the plan was.
Dragonite fired the Hyper Beam but before it could hit Lisa shouted "NOW!" Houndy suddenly lunged onto the ice path with headed straight towards where Dragonite was now visible, the resulting blast from the hyper beam giving Houndoom a boost in speed
"Houndy jump at Dragonite and hit it with Thunder Fang!" Houndoom quickly got its back legs and used them to quickly lunge at the immobilized dragon type, biting its arm with sparks coming from its mouth.
"DRAGONITE!" drake yelled with concern as Houndoom let go and jumped away.
'this is it, that dragonite looks like it's about to fall, better hold off and see what happens' Lisa thought, knowing it was no time to get excited as Dragonite was a pretty strong Pokémon.
Dragonite had fallen to all fours and was trying to get back up much to everyone's shock, including Drake.
Dragonite roared and suddenly collapsed, Drake running over to his Pokémon to check on him.
"Dragonite is no longer able to battle, the winner of this round being Houndoom which means the victory goes to Lisa of Trovita Island" the referee declared.
"And it looks like we have a new contender for the Orange League championship title! What a match ladies and gentlemen! It was a close one but in the end Lisa managed to pull off a rare feat not seen in nearly 7 years!" The commentary was again barely heard over the sounds of the Lisa supporters.
Back on the field Drake had returned his Dragonite back to its poke ball "well done old friend, well done" he handed his poke balls to the waiting Nurse Joy and began walking over at Lisa, who was currently on the ground being licked by a completely different acting Houndoom, who got off Lisa allowing her to stand up and face Drake who was now standing right in front of her.
"Lisa, it's clear that you care for your team and they feel the same way about you" he put out his hand to shake, Lisa smiled and returned the favour
"It really was a great match" Drake continued "you should be proud of both yourself and your Pokémon"
Lisa bowed her head "thank you" but was suddenly shocked when Drake threw her arm into the air, driving the crowd back into a frenzy at the show of sportsmanship between the trainers.
Lisa noticed that a camera crew was making their way towards them and started feeling nervous until Drake suddenly spoke up to them. "I'm sorry but this will have to wait as I need to debrief the contender" and without warning Drake took Lisa off the stadium floor and away from the press.
"Thanks… I'm not a fan of media" Lisa simply said.
"That's okay" Drake replied "besides I didn't actually lie, we need to speak about the Championship match anyway"
They arrived at the large room with a desk in the middle that was cluttered with letters and a few boxes.
Drake looked at the desk and sighed "you know I sometimes miss the days when the Orange League was more of an independent thing, the era of the orange crew" He sat down and pointed to a bean bag chair, Lisa sitting down and her Houndoom jumping onto her lap, she gave drake a look of apology but he simply shrugged "he as long as he don't burn anything it's cool"
"Yeah I remember hearing about the Orange Crew becoming an official league run by the same people who run the Indigo League right?" Lisa asked "but that's all I know, like I said I don't really pay much attention to media"
"well basically the Orange Crew used to be less like the mainland gym leaders and more like fun challenges, but when the Pokémon League decided to make it more like the other leagues it became a region with 6 gyms, luckily 2 gym leaders from Kanto decided to set up shop, I mean a 4 gym league?" Drake shook his head "anyway to good thing is after a trial and error the leaders here got to do challenges too and even got to make the rules harder as long as they were still fair, pretty much went back to the old format this season, many trainers got put off by that and left, but others relished the challenges"
"Damn right, the harder the better" Lisa grinned
"Yeah, speaking of challenges I nearly forgot why I brought you in here" drake said embarrassingly
"Yeah what happens now?"
"well pretty much since you're the contender we need to set up the championship match on a date that works for both of you sometime within the next few months, once we got a date you'll get a months' notice to train and get ready for it"
Lisa nodded "cool, I guess I gotta figure out a strategy"
"Yep, the guys tough" drake looked at the time "oh crap, I'm gonna have to cut this short, I need to make that call before the guys asleep"
Lisa checked her watch "wow, it's THAT late? Anyways" she stood up and shaked Drakes hand "thank you for the match"
"It was my pleasure, I look forward to the match coming up, if the guy kept training it's gonna be one to remember" Drake grinned.
Lisa waved as she left the room with her Houndoom following.
Drake turned to his desk and began to search the database on his PC to get the Champions contact details.
"Hmm it is pretty late, I guess it can wait 'til the morning" Drake said as he shut his PC down and began to leave his office...
The next morning a phone began to make noise inside a tent on the mountains somewhere north of Pewter City in the Kanto Region, a figure stirred and began to try and find the Xtransceiver that was causing him to awaken from a dream he was enjoying, his arm finally finding it's target, he grabbed it and pulled his long hair off his face to see who it was, the contact name being an important one so he answered immediately
"Hello?"
Well here it is readers, the new and I hope improved version, many may wonder why I took the original down in the first place, the reason is simple, you see I wasn't happy with the flow and felt it wasn't what it could be, at the time I was also going through some personal issues that made me rethink a few things, this story being one of them, however I believe I have got my flow back so this story will continue, however updates may be slower because I really want to get it right, you MAY have the opinion that this chapter wasn't very well written well that's cos I'm lacking an editor and am trying to find one.
Now I'm going to warn you: even though there will be AAML (I'm a pokeshipper) this story will have some dark moments as well as moments that some of you may not like but this is my story, so while I do hope it's liked I accept that not everyone will.
To make it fun though I'm going to include some trivia about this story in the notes.
Here is the first one: Lisa was originally going to be Mahri aka the younger sister of Rudy of Trovita Island but I decided to use an original character to save Mahri for a future chapter.
Now that you've read this I have a few recommendations I'd like to do:
Firstly
The Road You Choose series by Skylight Sparkle, these stories are so well written and are awesome as, in fact these stories have helped inspire me again so a public thank you to you SS if you read this (hope you do)
AAML: Diamond and Pearl version by EchidnaPower, another fantastic story and the way the writer alternates the stories to fit new characters feels so natural.
Ashes of the Past by Saphroneth, this one is full of awesome moments (one word: Squirtle) and has an excellent story
There are many more to recommend but I'm gonna save em for the next chapter.
Anyways that's it from me, hope you liked the story and please leave a review, I will answer all reviews in each chapters notes.
Thanks for reading.