Chapter 10 - Match-ups
Buizel, after clearing a small path for Dragonite, Pansage, Togekiss, Croagunk, Beautifly, and Heracross, had continued it's bounding and rebounding flight pattern through the very accurately named Battle Cloud. At some point, Misty's Gyarados had become injured, and it's last action before fainting was launching her Azumarill upwards into the air to be caught by Buizel, who placed the smaller water-type on Dragonite's back, next to Pansage. The cloud had sped up it's rising action after their team had disrupted it, and after only three minutes, the cloud hit the level of the lowest Pokeringer balloons.
As the mystery trainer had predicted, many of the truces formed by trainers had immediately broken apart as soon as they realized that they had passed the first balloon. It quickly turned into a game of every pokemon for themselves, and the trainers soon turned on each other. A very good example of this was Barry.
"Heracross, use Horn Attack on Beautifly!" he ordered the Bug and Fighting-type
May's Beautifly, not expecting an attack to come from Heracross behind it, was shocked and unable to move out of the way of Heracross' glowing, white horn. The attack struck it dead in the center, knocking the Butterfly Pokemon upwards, passing in front of Dawn's Togekiss. Luckily for May and Beautifly, Togekiss swooped underneath the now falling pokemon and caught it. Brock's Croagunk, who had teamed up with Togekiss after Piplup had been knocked out, grabbed Beautifly to keep it from falling off of Togekiss' back.
"Barry! What do you think you're doing?!" Brock angrily asked the young trainer.
The blond-haired Twinleaf native turned around to face Brock and exclaimed, "In case you haven't noticed, it's gotten to be a free-for-all up there! No more truces, and it's every man for himself!"
Misty somehow appeared behind Barry and swung her mallet down, leaving a large bump on the back of his head and a dazed Barry on the ground.
"Or woman..." Barry muttered, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head.
Misty pulled Barry to his feet by the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards her. "That's not what I'm mad about, you idiot! Just because everyone else has broken their truces doesn't mean we have to!"
Meanwhile, up in the air...
Somewhere in the middle of Misty lecturing (READ: yelling at) Barry, Buizel landed on top of a Salamence. The Salamence flew upwards, towards the higher balloons where there were less pokemon, carrying Buizel with it.
It was harder to hear the land-bound trainers' voices from that far up high, but most of the pokemon could still make out their orders if they listened carefully.
"Aqua Jet! Get to the highest balloon!"
Buizel surrounded itself in a veil of water once again, spinning it's two tails to propel itself as quickly as it could to get up to the red balloon. Pushing off of the Salamence trying to shake it off was difficult, and Buizel almost lost balance and fell, but the water-type quickly righted itself and flew upwards, towards the Jenny Haniver.
Dragonite forced it's way past a group of a battling Staraptor, Swellow, and Unfezant, (there used to be a Pigeot, but it had served as Buizel's rebounder as the water-type passed through the air battle) nearly getting hit by several Aerial Ace attacks in the process. It then continued following Buizel's mostly cleared path through the air, hitting several flying types with a sizzling Thunderpunch to the wing in the process.
The Staraptor was diving down at Dragonite using Brave Bird for interfering with it's battle, but the dragon-type didn't notice. Pansage, however, did, and it gathered solar energy as the bird pokemon approached. Just before they would've been hit by the devastating attack, it launched the Solarbeam, knocking out the attacking Staraptor and saving them from being hit.
Buizel grabbed the silver ring in it's right paw as it hung onto the rope hanging from the basket with it's left. The added weight caused the balloon to wobble while Buizel swung gently back and forth. Mew floated out of the basket she'd teleported to after giving 'Stalia' the ring, and drifted down to Buizel's level to investigate what was causing her balloon to sway. The psychic-type caught sight of Buizel and flew around it in circles, Buizel trying to turn around to look at her.
'Hi!' Mew exclaimed to the hanging Buizel, 'What're you doing up here?'
Buize stared with an incredulous expression on it's face, 'I'm hanging hundreds of feet from the ground by a rope, there are pokemon coming up here to attack anyone with these rings, you're a Mew, and you ask what I'm doing here?!'
'Yup.' Mew responded, floating in front of Buizel's face, 'Hey, do you know Pikachu?'
'Uh... Yeah?' Buizel hesitantly said.
'Tell him I said hi, and I'm sorry about taking them to the Tree last time.' Mew then teleported away, back to ground-level where she met up with Stalia as a Zorua.
'Huh?' Buizel was just confused, What's Mew doing here at a tournament? And does she know Pikachu somehow? Eh, stupid thought, with everything that little mouse gets into, chances are the answer's yes.
Dragonite waved at Buizel from a few feet below, Pansage calling up to it, 'Hey, jump! We'll catch you!'
Buizel noticed them and quickly forgot about Mew, releasing the rope and falling onto Dragonite's back, tightly hanging onto it's ring. Pansage held up two rings in one hand, one for Cilan and one for Iris, and Marill gripped one to give to Misty.
Down on the ground
Barry had been thoroughly lectured by Brock and Misty, and very much regretted commanding Heracross to use Horn Attack on Beautifly.
"Um, guys," he said, "Shouldn't we get back to the Pokeringer match?"
"Ahh!" Brock and Misty exclaimed in unison, "We forgot!"
The two of them quickly turned their eyes back to the sky, focusing on the massive air battle above them, searching for Togekiss and Dragonite. Many pokemon had been knocked out from the fight, but there were still over a hundred in the Battle Cloud. However, the edges of said cloud were hard to make out, compared to the very defined borders it had at the start of the match, signifying that the pokemon were spreading out, attempting to capture a ring instead of eliminating the competition.
While Brock and Misty were distracted, Barry crawled away until he couldn't see them. He then stood up and dusted himself off, only to come face to face with May. She had Beautifly on her shoulder, a ring already clamped onto her wrist, and the princess of Hoenn was very angry at the trainer responsible for Beautifly's injury.
Barry nervously said, "Uh, can we just talk about thi-Ack!"
In the air...
Dragonite dived. The air rushed past Buizel, Pansage, and Azumarill so fast that they were nearly blown off of Dragonite's back altogether. The speed of the dive actually got them through the thickest part of the Battle Cloud unharmed, and Dragonite slowed down slightly when they reached open air. They passed by Togekiss and Croagunk, who each had a ring, and were quickly coming closer and closer to the hard, dirt ground.
Dragonite pulled up at the very last second, harmlessly passing over Fantina and Volkner, and landing in front of Ash, Iris, and Cilan.
Iris ran up to her pokemon and hugged it, shouting out, "You did it, Dragonite, you did it!"
Pansage hopped off of Dragonite's back and into Cilan's welcoming arms, "You were fantastic as well, Pansage. That Solarbeam was perfectly executed." He took the offered ring from Pansage and slipped it around his left wrist, where the silver ring glowed a slightly eerie blue and shrunk down to fit perfectly around Cilan's wrist.
He held the other ring out to Iris, who gladly fit it around her own wrist, punching the air and exclaiming, "Alright! We've passed the preliminary!"
Buizel jumped down as well and held out the ring to Ash. He took the ring from Buizel's paw and slipped it on. Yet again, the ring glowed blue and shrunk to fit.
"Buizel, you did great. Thanks for getting us through the preliminary." Ash said to the smiling water-type.
Then Iris and Cilan returned their pokemon, and the three trainers joined the rest of the group behind them.
Brock gently slipped on the silver ring offered to him by Croagunk, observing it as it glowed and shrunk to fit him.
Dawn did the same, along with Paul, Kenny, Misty, Nando and everyone else. Except for Barry and Stalia.
Stalia wasn't crying anymore, but she was still a little sad. She noticed Barry sulking, slightly apart from the rest of the group and walked over, looking for a distraction from her memories.
"What's wrong?" she asked the normally chipper trainer.
Barry sadly responded, "I didn't get a ring. Heracross was knocked out while Brock and Misty were lecturing me, and now I can't compete in the rest of the tournament! I was gonna win it too... But I guess I deserve this after what I said in the courtyard, and attacking May's Beautifly..."
Stalia tilted her head, thinking for a few moments, and then reached into her pocket. "Here." she said, offering her ring, "You can have it. I was going to throw my next match anyway."
"Really?" Barry said, hope and disbelief on his face, "I can have it?"
Stalia nodded.
"Wahoo!" Barry exclaimed, "I can battle in the rest of the tournament! Yes!" He turned to Stalia, "Thanks a lot. But why were you going to throw your match?"
Stalia froze, a panicked expression on her face, "Oh, uh... I was... thinking about entering... but, um... it was my, uh, cousin... my younger cousin, Maya, who convinced me to. And, uh... I, don't really like to battle, so... um... I planned on throwing the match after the preliminary?"
Barry looked slightly incredulous, "Really? Huh, I guess not everyone likes to battle. Thanks again!" He ran over to Paul, back to being his happy and energetic self, trying to get a practice battle out of him later.
Stalia had felt a little sad before, but helping Barry and seeing how happy he was had cheered her up. She picked up Zorua and walked back to the main group, cheerful and happy as she'd been before seeing the mystery pokemon.
Buizel and Pikachu's side conversation...
Buizel walked over to Pikachu, 'Hey.'
The yellow, mouse-like pokemon turned around to face him, 'Hi Buizel, what's up?'
Buizel looked around for a moment and then leaned in and whispered, 'The weirdest thing happened when I was hanging from that rope. Mew came out of the basket and told me to tell you a message: "Hi, I'm sorry about taking you guys to the Tree last time." It was strange. Not the weirdest thing we've seen, but strange.'
Pikachu looked mildly surprised, 'Huh, well at least Mew feels sorry about it.'
Buizel became curious and asked, 'About what?'
Pikachu replied, 'She pokenapped me and Team Rocket's Meowth, we ended up on that giant tree thing. One of those huge adventures we somehow get into, I'll tell you the rest later. But what was Mew doing inside a mini-hot-air balloon?'
Buiel just shrugged and said, 'Who knows?'
There was another short burst of static, signifying that the speakers were now on. 'Stalia' winced at the sound. We've got to fix that later.
Marian announced, "All sixty-four rings have been activated. We will now show the randomized match-ups for Block A on the big screen!"
Everyone's heads turned to the giant screen mounted on the rim of the arena, which flashed a blue and green bubble pattern before the match-ups appeared onscreen. Several match-ups stood out in particular.
Block A: Misty VS. Volkner, Brock VS. Sabrina, Iris+Cilan VS. Kenny
The match-ups were shown by a picture of the trainer with a silver border with a flaming orange VS. logo in between that photo and another. A battle team's picture consisted of the two trainers' pictures stuck together without a border in between them. There were twelve individual trainers onscreen, and two battle teams, one of which consisted of Iris and Cilan.
"There will be seven battles taking place in the A Block, all of them will be happening tomorrow." Marian continued, "B Block match-ups will be shown tomorrow at the end of the last match, so make sure you're here, but the actual battles will be taking place the day after. If you are battling tomorrow, you have to be here at the start of the first match at one, or you will be disqualified. The rest of today is free, so have fun and make sure to be back for more battles!"
AN: The Jenny Haniver is a reference to a sci-fi book series I read. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, but get ready for some Team Rocket action next chapter... Check out the story poll on my profile and as always, please review!
Mewtwo: Where am I in all this?
Rio: Unconscious in a locked storage room underneath the stadium.
Mewtwo: Then how am I talking to you?
Rio: It's one of the many mysteries of the pokemon world.
Mewtwo: Seriously.
Rio: Fine, I admit it. I broke open the forth wall with a sledgehammer. Happy?
Mewtwo: No. Now we have to repair it next chapter.
Rio: You just shattered it even more!
Mewtwo: We have to fix it anyway. (Turns to audience) Review. Now.