While bitter animosity had marked the first two matches of the quarterfinals, the same could not possibly hold true for the others. Palmer, long isolated in his tower, elicited few strong emotions from anyone: his match with Karen was an anomaly which had started out so bitter only because she saw him and the Battle Tower as representing a reckless search for competitive power which snuffed out the spirit of pokemon battles. But she had come to see the error of her ways, and the three pokedex holders before him did not see him in that negative light.

Green and Crys alike hoped not to battle Silver: not because they feared his power, in a tournament like this, there were no easy matches, but because they each considered him a friend and did not want to be in a position to either eliminate him or lose trying.

Green would get her wish this round, although she had cause to wonder if facing Palmer was better. Crys and Silver would have their battle, but it was not announced through their faces appearing on the scoreboard, but by the process of elimination: they returned to the seats to watch, for their match would be tomorrow.

The battlefield this time was based around the theme of weather; not a specific type of weather, but every one of them at once. With a bright sun shining down on the field, an unseasonable hail battered pokemon against the equally dangerous swirling sands. And rain pounded onto the ground, not the normal rain of an ordinary match, but a harshly corrosive acid rain, more poison than water.

No pokemon could stay out in these conditions long. At least, no ordinary pokemon could. But neither Green nor Palmer trained ordinary pokemon, and both were skilled trainers capable of using even harsh terrain to their advantage.

"If only I had taught it how to turn into Mamoswine," Green muttered, releasing a pink blob which blended into the wet sand covering the ground. "Ditto, go!"

"Not trying the Mew trick again, huh?"

"A good trickster never repeats her schemes. Especially when her opponent's seen them before," Green said with a wink.

Palmer smiled. "I wonder if you'll just turn into your opponent, or if you have something else in mind. You know, I never see Ditto in my tower... and I think there's a reason for that. No fake Heatran is going to beat the real thing," he said, opening his pokeball. Something between a Camerupt and a Torterra in appearance, a walking volcano covered in armor emerged, standing firm against the sand and sunlight, shrugging off the hail and even the acid; it was the rain, of all things, which seemed to bother it. As the saying goes, everyone except Sableye and Spiritomb has their weaknesses, and water was one of Heatran's.

"Ditto, Transform!"

"Heatran, before it gets the chance, Magma Storm!" Palmer shouted, wondering whether the intensity of his attack would grow from the sun or be squelched by the rain – it was time to find out! The goo which composed Ditto began to twist and turn into the shape of another turtle, but this one was blue to Heatran's red and silver and rose tall on its hind legs, with enormous cannons facing forward out of the shell on its back. Blastoise was a pokemon at home in the water, and it shrugged off the Magma Storm to little effect, its change of form allowing it to escape the magma's trap; it seemed more concerned by the bright, piercing sunlight and swirling sand.

"You waited," Palmer accused, "not just to see what I'd send out, but even to check what attack I'd use so you could turn into whatever resisted it."

"Exactly," Green answered with a smile. "It cost me the first move of the match, but I think it was worth it. Dittostoise, Hydro Cannon!" The transformation was perfect, so the term "dittostoise" seemed less than apt; this was no case of Ditto-face, but Green still wanted to distinguish it from the real thing. The cannons on Blastoise's back swelled up with water, then shot out in enormous twin jets towards the Heatran, pushing their own user back a few feet from the force of the attack and sending Heatran crashing into the base of Palmer's trainer's box.

Unfortunately for Green, the shape of a trainer's box made it the ideal place for a pokemon to seek shelter from this storm. "Quick, Dittostoise! Withdraw before the weather beats you!"

Palmer laughed. "Hiding in your shell from the storm? Time to see if your Ditto can hide from this! Solarbeam!" Ordinarily, Solarbeam focused the sun's rays with such intensity that only the trickiest pokemon could avoid it, and in direct sunlight especially it struck too fast to be dodged.

But Palmer had made a mistake. A mistake based on his years battling on the top floor of a tower, indoors and impervious to the terrain difficulties which hampered so many real trainers.

And it was a tremendous mistake he was lucky to survive.

Heatran, fearful to venture out into the mother of all storms, had not moved the volcano on its back out into the battlefield. The legendary pokemon did not look before it shot, but instead fired a Solarbeam in its usual upward arc shape, only to find the attack's path blocked by the box where its own trainer stood. Palmer retreated to the back of his box and took one step towards a six-foot fall into wet sand, then regained his footing as he watched the front half of the elevated platform get swiftly incinerated, and with it Heatran's protection from the elements.

Green was never one to hold her laughter to begin with, but she would not have been able to even if she tried. "Dittostoise," she began, trying to speak through her laughter, "give it another Hydro Cannon."

Heatran was if anything an even easier target than before, but the swirling sand and hail was enough to distort any pokemon's attack, and the water poured harmlessly into an empty patch of sand.

"You were saying?" Palmer asked: to him, pokemon battles were a matter of the utmost seriousness, and there was something about this carefree opponent that was really irking him. "Now that my box is out of the way, Heatran, there's no obstacle to a successful Solarbeam!"

Again, the sun's light poured into the volcano. Again, the volcano, like a magnifying glass, reflected it upwards in an arc – but this time, rather than nearly killing its own trainer, it shot like a catapult towards the enemy Blastoise, cracking its shell with its force.

It would be the last attack Heatran would manage this battle. The hail and acid rain had become too much for it. Perhaps it had been running on pure fighting spirit even when it had launched that attack. Palmer looked somber as he recalled it and a bit of fear crept into his stern visage; he was losing on a battlefield he had not prepared for, and to a Ditto at that! Could he actually lose this match? Was this how his championship dream would end?

Not if the wisdom of the ancients had anything to say about it. He didn't know much about the builders of Regigigas and its counterparts, save for the common speculation that these giant artificial pokemon were their eyes in more ways than one. He just hoped these machines could function in all weather conditions. "Regigigas, go!" he yelled, and an enormous pokemon - something like a Christmas tree cross-bred with a fat steampunk mech – emerged from his poke ball and promptly sunk into the sand.

Well, that part wasn't working. Maybe he'd have been better off with Golurk – good old Unovan engineering at least taught their mechs how to fly, and they didn't take as long to charge up either. But it was too late to withdraw his choice, so he'd just have to crack that turtle's shell, one way or another. "Gigaton Punch!"

Regigigas' jets weren't strong enough to lift it into the air, but it skidded across the bizarre terrain with a terrifying speed all the same, its legs covered with snow and sand. The giant then raised its fist as Blastoise withdrew into its shell – not a true Withdraw, just the natural way for one of those pokemon to protect itself. But the recoiling away was not fast enough, and its face met one ancient, leafy, and enormously heavy fist.

"Hydro Cannon!" Green commanded, and water welled up inside the cannons to prepare for a point-blank shot.

"Plug the cannons with your fists!" Palmer shouted; an unorthodox tactic, to be sure, but this tournament was giving him the hang of unorthodox tactics. And it worked perfectly: Regigigas' hands were soon soaked, but Blastoise's cannons expanded and expanded without making any headway, until they looked like they were about to detonate in a mess of water and falling steel.

"Stop!" Green ordered Blastoise, and the attack ceased – but perhaps not because of her orders, for Blastoise, either from the punches or the harsh weather, soon fell over onto its shell and closed its eyes.

"Blastoise – I mean, Ditto is unable to battle!" The judge announced as the transformation began to reverse itself.

Green recalled her pokemon, wondering who to use next: she regretted leaving the real Blastoise off her tournament team this time around, although she feared that Regigigas would plug its cannons just as easily as it had Ditto's. Mew, for all its ingenuity, looked so tiny against the giant mech. And really, Green only had one pokemon which was both big enough and could match up against a pokemon who commanded golems of ice, rock and steel.

"Wigglytuff, go! And inflate yourself to Regigigigas' size!" Green found herself tripping over the name of her opponent's pokemon, then watched as her pink balloon with a trace of rabbit blood took in air, sand, hail, and acid rain, absorbing them and letting them mix with its predominately helium interior to allow it to expand to an enormous size, even taller (albeit less wide) than its legendary foe.

"Regigigas, pop that balloon with a Focus Punch!" As Wigglytuff inflated, Regigigas began to slowly concentrate, moving its arm in a careful, deliberate windup carried out while searching for a weak spot on a rapidly expanding pokemon. Any attack could have interrupted it, and it was a miracle it maintained its focus even still, with the weather being what it was, but it maintained its focus and smacked Wigglytuff with an uppercut that sent it floating helplessly into the air.

And yet Green didn't even seem to mind. "Higher!" she shouted. "Rise some more! Regigigas can't hit you when you're floating above the stands!"

"And you can hit Regigigas?" Palmer asked the cheering girl.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I can. Wigglytuff, Hyper Beam!" Regigigas was dazzled by and engulfed in a brilliant orange burst of light as wide as Wigglytuff's newly inflated mouth. As the balloon pokemon continued to float away, the beam burnt the sand around it, then slammed into its foe with a slight movement of Wigglytuff's mouth. A few seconds later, the beam stopped, but Regigigas looked unable to take advantage of its foe's rest, for Wigglytuff was too high in the sky for any punch to hit.

"Regigigas, remember that item I gave you! Stop watching and knock it out of the sky with a Fling!" It didn't look like much, but Regigigas' lights flashed as it retrieved an oddly shaped rock from the top of its head, than threw it with the speed of a fastball at the floating balloon of a pokemon. The attack only managed to skim Wigglytuff's head, but the rock's spikes were sharp enough to rip a tiny hole in its curl of hair, which allowed for the excess air to escape. Wigglytuff was sent floating back down to earth as it shrunk to normal size before the wound grew too small to have an impact: what was left was more pokemon than balloon.

"Wigglytuff, Last Resort!" Unlike Clefable, Wigglytuff's connections to outer space are often forgotten, but they still evolve with Moon Stones. And it was the moon's sky which this latest attack resembled, for Wigglytuff, like a Swift on steroids, encircled Regigigas in a sea of bladed stars. With a tiny, pink raised hand, the stars stopped orbiting the large mechanical pokemon and flew into it all at once, slicing the robot with a thousand tiny cuts.

"Regigigas, Return!" Palmer yelled, holding up his poke ball, but it was a feint: while Green and her Wigglytuff relaxed, Regigigas was wise enough to know the difference between "come back" and "Return" and slammed into Wigglytuff with another thousand megatons of force.

The larger Wigglytuff could take such an attack, but at its current size, the balloon simply became a pancake. It would re-inflate in time even without a pokemon center, but it had fainted, and Green was down to her last pokemon.

"Mew, it's all up to you! Size isn't everything in a pokemon battle – let's prove it to that giant!" Green shouted, as much to encourage her pokemon as to reassure herself. The story of how she had caught Mew was an interesting one, based around Green's trademark trickery. After her Ditto had impersonated it, she had recalled not her Mew, but the real one with Ditto's poke ball, then recaptured her own Ditto the old-fashioned way. Mew was shocked to find itself in a poke ball, but out of respect for the skills of its newfound trainer, decided to live a few decades as a trained pokemon; after all, it did appreciate a good deception and it hadn't been captured in a while.

Before Green called out an attack, Palmer already had to recall Regigigas. Wigglytuff had defeated it in a way; water and sand had poured in through the many cuts it inflicted and clogged up its machinery, leaving it unable to battle or even move. With a sigh, he held up a poke ball, returned Regigigas and summoned his final pokemon – at least Mew was a bit exposed to the weather in the interval, and every bit counted in a match like this.

Palmer could not claim a type advantage: indeed, for all he knew Green expected this matchup and had taught Mew the appropriate counters. But at the very least, he had a tough pokemon which wasn't too weak (like Dragonite or Rhyperior) against any particular type. "Milotic, go!"

Serpents are usually thought of as terrifying beasts, but this pokemon was literally a thing of beauty, with a mermaid's red hair and a tail of interlocking blue and red diamonds at opposite ends up the water pokemon's thick, lithe body. "Milotic, start things off with a Surf!" It was easy to forget that beneath the wet sand and ice covering the field lay a thin layer of freezing acidic water, and Milotic smashed the ice with its tail, then summoned an enormous, multi-elemental wave which even Mew could not stop from washing over it. It didn't wash Mew away, but it certainly hurt.

"Mew, Roost!" The technique was a triply odd one: not only did Mew not fly to begin with, but Green's fear of birds made it a difficult technique for it to practice, and it was being used on Mew's first turn of the match. But between the deadly weather and the fact that Milotic had used up nearly all the water on its side, the announcers had nothing but praise for the call. Mew rested on its tail, balancing on it like a bird on its legs, and like a bird who takes a breather or a psychic using Recover, its damage was wiped away in an instant.

"Milotic, Blizzard!" This time, rather than relying on all the weather at once, Milotic opened its mouth and blew an enormous storm of snow Mew's way, which mixed with the hail to cover the small feline in frozen water.

It would not be enough. Mew was clearly wounded, but still very much going – and it looked healthy enough to survive another round of weather, to boot.

"Mew, Thunderbolt!" Sand and acid rain and hail and sunlight were bad enough, but nothing cripples water pokemon quite like lightning. A bolt from Mew's cheeks rose into to the sky above its serpentine foe and enveloped Milotic in a column of light.

It wasn't the deadliest attack, and Milotic were known for their strong defenses. In an ordinary battle, Milotic would have struck back next turn, Mew would be wiped away, and the match would be over.

This was not an ordinary battle. Again, like Heatran, Blastoise, and Regigigas before it, Milotic was defeated not by Green, but by the weather.

"Imagine that. All three of my pokemon, defeated by the weather." Palmer said, recalling his last pokemon with a sigh, then waited for the field to rotate to something less dangerous and walked across the field to meet his conqueror. His clothing was drenched and slightly punctured and he felt like he needed a pokemon center, and Green, from the looks of things, was in even worse shape. (He tried not to look too long, although the same could not be said of the TV cameras: then again, the girl wasn't shy.)

Green shook her head. "It wasn't the weather that defeated you."

Palmer nodded. It was tempting to blame his loss on the terrain, but it was Green who had used that terrain perfectly to her advantage. She had to have calculated how much damage the acid rain was doing per turn and factored it into her strategy. And that was something that he, who had never seen this condition, was simply too set in his ways to pull off.

"You're right. The best trainer won. Now win the next two matches: I don't want to lose to anyone but the champion."

With a wink and a nod, Green promised him that she would do exactly that. She hoped she could keep her promise. After all, she wasn't the first pokemon trainer to swear that they would become the champion.