Steel managed to shake off the Pokémon but now his leg was bleeding where it'd bitten him. Ferro spun his tail around, hoping to catch the raticate but it was small and quick enough to dodge the massive rock tail.
Steel leaned against Ferro and looked around, looking for the raticate's trainer. He rested his weight on one leg and let the other one go limp. Ferro roared and was looking at someone in the crowd. Steel followed his line of sight and met eyes with a familiar looking Zephyr, he wore the blue jacket but he'd pinned a yellow diamond shaped badge onto it. His stance had a certain arrogance about it and he was shootingeyes daggers at Steel.
Steel's eyes widened in recognition and he indicated him for Ferro, "Rock throw!" Ferro whipped his tail around and threw rocks in that direction but a nearby pidgeot used air slash and destroyed the boulder.
"Twister!" the Zephyr ordered and the pidgeot blew all the stealth rocks away. Steel darted to behind Ferro whose rock body wouldn't be cut up by the flying shards but when he breathed the air in his eyes watered like he'd inhaled fire.
"R-rock throw!" Steel ordered hoarsely but the pidgeot dodged again.
"I will not let beat me this time Steel!" he yelled as he walked closer and that when the recognition kicked in.
"Blair!" Steel exclaimed but then he narrowed his eyes with threat, "I beat you last time and I'll do it again!"
Blair ran a nonchalant hand through his extravagant blonde curls but his eyes were full of his true feelings, utter rage, and "I was going easy on an arrogant little boy in Goldenrod." Blair clenched his fists, "But now I know who you really are! And I'm going all out on the league's pawn!" His raticate bound forward and bared its fangs dangerously.
"Bind!" Steel called and Ferro's tail suddenly appeared in Raticate's path. It cried out as it collided with rock and then as it was trapped in Ferro's hold. Blair was about to order an attack from his pidgeot but Steel held out a hand as he recalled his Pokémon with the other. "One on one Blair! Last one standing decides the loser's fate."
Blair gritted his teeth but hid it behind a cocky smile, "Full teams this time. Let's see how you've improved!" he looked to his raticate, "Super fang!"
The raticate's teeth glowed gold and enlarged under the glow and it brought it down on Ferro. It barely damaged the rocks and Ferro tightened the bind.
"Rock throw!" Steel called and Ferro swung the rest of his snake-like body to indicate the rock's path. A massive boulder flew at Raticate and hit it on the head. It was only by some sort of miracle that Raticate didn't faint there and then.
"Swords dance!" Blair ordered and the raticate looked more like he was flailing, rather than dancing but it seemed to work because when it next used super fang it actually got Ferro to let go. But Ferro was quicker to recover since Raticate was so close to fainting and quickly attacked the raticate with a tackle. Raticate was sent flying and when it hit the ground it fainted.
Blair returned his Pokémon and growled, "You're lucky I started with my new raticate."
"New?"
"You shattered his teeth!" Blair shouted and Steel grimaced at the memory. Blair threw out his next Pokémon and his furret chattered its teeth menacingly. "Use hyper voice!"
Furret screamed and while Ferro was fine, Steel had to dig in his heels to avoid being knocked off his feet while he pressed his hands against his ears.
"Slam!" Blair called but Furret jumped over Ferro who'd been bracing and instead headed for Steel. Steel dived out the way just in time for it to miss and for Ferro to catch up when he realised that his Pokémon were only obstacles to Blair, obstacles that block his way to Steel.
Steel knew that Ferro had no chance of catching such a small Pokémon so instead of bind he ordered tackle. Ferro threw himself at Furret and the ground underneath the area of collision crumbled. Furret didn't manage to escape but he held on.
"Rock throw!" he ordered but Blair's crafty smile had returned.
"Sucker punch!" Furret had already hit Ferro before he'd worked out where it'd gone. Ferro fell backwards and Steel had to sprint to avoid being crushed but he beamed when Ferro got back up.
"You can do it!" Steel called encouragingly, "Use tackle!" Ferro briefly nodded and lunged at Furret again who was caught under the sheer bulk of an onix.
Blair's eye twitched as Ferro revealed an unconscious Furret lying in the crater. He exhaled a swear as Ferro glowed. Ferro actually didn't seem to change that much, he grew slightly, his jaw became more square, spikes sprouted from several of the boulders and his tail became sharper but when the glow broke it revealed shiny, tough metal in place of the rock. Blair loudly repeated his swear and he looked livid as he called out his next Pokémon.
Steel was shocked at how unimpressive it was though after Furret he should have stopped being surprised. It was small and lavender with a cute, simple face.
"Transform!" Blair commanded and for a second Steel thought it was evolving. The Pokémon began to change its shape but not with a glow. Its body grew and contorted until Steel was looking at yet another Steelix. Blair had levelled the playing field in the only way he knew how, unfairly. His steelix wasn't tired from battling two others.
"Rock throw!" he ordered and a boulder was thrown at Ferro who took it well but Steel began seeing that he was exhausted.
"Tackle!" Steel yelled but Ferro did something different. It looked like he was doing a forward flip but it turned into a roll and spun incredibly quickly towards Blair's ditto.
Gyro ball hit the fake steelix low and swept it off the ground but then it returned with a rock throw faster than any regular steelix.
Steel cried out but couldn't do anything as Ferro fell to the ground. The shockwave shook Steel and Blair sneered as he returned Ferro to his pokéball.
Steel knew that Blair's Pokémon was a steel ground type so he racked his mind for advantages among his Pokémon.
"Go Charlie!" he called and the happy miltank appeared. She beamed but Steel had to awkwardly point to the huge Pokémon facing it.
"Rollout!" Charlie contorted itself into a ball and began rolling at high speed towards the fake steelix. She collided into the steelix and kept rolling around the battlefield, swerving to avoid the rocks and hitting the metal snake with increasing power.
"Rock throw!" Blair ordered but every time the steelix reared, preparing to throw a boulder at Steel, Charlie would attack and throw off his balance. Blair gritted his teeth and resolved to actually focus on the miltank instead of the boy.
"Rock throw on the miltank! Don't stop until you've hit it!" Blair ordered and his Pokémon tried over and over to hit Charlie. Dents appeared in the ground and one lucky rock hit the ground near Charlie, she dodged it quickly but the resulting tremors knocked off her balance.
She uncurled and slowed down enough for one of the rocks to catch her. She was shot across and hit the ground hard.
"Now use bind!" Blair yelled but Charlie was still recovering from the fall as the metal snake advanced.
"Heal bell!" Steel called and Charlie radiated soothing green light. She became less stiff but the metal snake Pokémon had already reached her by then. The tail curled around Charlie and she cried out in pain as it began to crush her.
"Charlie!" Steel exclaimed but Blair's ditto wasn't going to let up, "Defence curl!" Charlie nodded weakly and curled into a ball, allowing Steelix to have a tighter grip on her but her hide toughened.
"Keep it going!" Blair growled to his ditto and Steelix coiled, breaking through Charlie's defence as she was overwhelmed by the power until it was too much and she fainted.
"Stop!" Steel shouted, "Stop!" but Blair found no reason to desist. "Go Brooke!" he called and Brooke appeared before the steelix. She gazed wide-eyed at the Pokémon that was eight times his size and much fiercer but she steeled her nerves and clenched her fists.
"Use water gun!" he called and Brooke shot the still relatively slow steelix with a water blast but Steel cringed at how little it did but Blair saw that there was something else to fight and ordered Ditto to let Charlie go. She fell to the ground and Steel returned her to his pokéball before Blair could do anymore damage.
"Tackle!" Blair called. Steel and Brooke ran while Brooke tried to blast it away with water gun. The steelix fell to the ground and the shockwave blew Steel and Brooke off their feet. Steel cried out as he landed on his injured arm but he didn't have time as the massive steelix began throwing another boulder at them. Brooke managed to redirect it so it landed next to them and not on them but they weren't getting anything done at this rate.
"Get in close and use bite! Don't let it get on top of you!" Steel called and Brooke dashed away. She leapt onto Steelix's back and began biting at it. But Steelix writhed to try and throw her off while continuing to throw rocks at Steel who was getting increasingly exhausted.
The ground under Steel's feet disappeared as he unwittingly fell into one of the craters. Steelix was about to attack but then jolted. Brooke had just bitten it again but this time a ring of ice was left around the bite. Steel winced and clutched his bitten leg, "Keep using ice fang!" he called and Brooke nodded. Brooke had shocked Steelix enough to give Steel time to stumble out of the crater but the moment he got out he faced a massive Pokémon charging at him.
Brooke leapt off Steelix and held out its hands, bracing for impact. Steel cried out but Brooke was unmoving and determined. Blair scoffed at the impossibility of Brooke's actions and thought the battle would be quickly over but when they collided Brooke actually held on. She was being pushed back at a constant rate but she kept trying to push Steelix away but Brooke was still considerably smaller, as she was.
Brooke's face was screwed up in concentration but she began to shine and grow. The spikes on her back grew in size and number while her jaw became squarer and larger. She became bulkier and stronger and when the glow dissipated it showed a much stronger Pokémon. Brooke and the fake steelix were now met for strength since the steelix was a fake.
"Use water gun!" he called and the steelix's eyes widened in shock just before it was blown backwards. Steelix fell to the ground and Brooke ran at the metal snake on Steel's orders.
"Use rock throw!"Blair ordered but when Steelix tried, nothing happened. Blair looked wide eyed as the feraligatr pounced and bared its massive jaws.
"Ice fang!" Steel yelled and with a final crunch the steelix fainted. It shrunk back into a ditto and Blair returned it angrily. He chucked his ambipom's pokéball into the air and the battle raged on.
They both had three Pokémon left and, to Blair's horror, were equally matched. He was shocked to find that his 'all out' was becoming not enough. The boy's insufferable feraligatr managed to knock out his ambipom, after taking a few hits itself but it was a loss nonetheless.
Steel quickly sent out Lancer before Blair could get another shot at him and was about to call out an attack but then he heard a small explosion. Steel whipped his head around to the source of the sound despite Blair shouting insults.
"Lancer, keep him out of this!" Steel commanded. Lancer nodded and shot spikes at Blair. Blair raised his arms to protect himself but saw that the spikes hit an invisible shield, spiralling around him and trapping him like poison barbed wire.
"Come back you coward!" Blair bellowed but another round of twineedles shot into the ground and blasted him off his feet. Blair crashed onto the earth and he blacked out.
Steel started running towards Copper and Lancer caught up, lifting Steel above the battle. They flew to another clearing that was ringed with fire. He saw Jolie burning several Zephyrs and furrowed his eyebrows. Copper's other Pokémon were fighting back Zephyrs except for Bruce but he couldn't see Conrad. There was a large green Pokémon next to Copper that Steel didn't recognise but he guessed it was Lore because of the familiar colour and shape.
He landed next to Copper and was immediately thrown by the despair in the air. Copper's hair had fallen over her face to hide her emotions but she was shivering and her breathing was ragged. Lore had noticed him but her eyes were forlorn and she didn't react. Steel had landed behind her and saw Bruce. Then he noticed what he was holding. Steel's eyes widened and he gently placed a hand on her shoulder. She reacted explosively, screaming and kicking back.
"Copper! Copper, it's just me!" he protested. She looked at him and he was shocked by the tears running down her face. Her eyes were staring at him but unfocused and unseeing and they began clouding with rage.
"What happened?" he asked, his eyes kept glancing to Conrad who Bruce had placed on the ground so he could join the fight.
"Where are they!?" Copper demanded, sounding furious but her voice cracked at the end and Steel's heart melted.
"What happened?" he repeated calmly but sorrow was creeping into his voice too.
Copper's voice was so full of emotion yet so emotionless at the same time, "They took Conrad's life." Steel had already guessed this but hearing Copper say it gave it so much more weight. There had only been one person in his life, his father, so he felt so hopeless that he couldn't comfort Copper because he had no way of understanding how she felt.
"We can't save him now." Steel said, "But we can save others."
Copper looked up at him and breathed deeply. She looked miserable but she held herself with purpose instead of wishing she wasn't there. "What Pokémon do you have left?"
"Lancer and Antheia, I met Blair."
"What!? Where's he now?"
"Unconscious. We've taken out the generals so now it's time to scatter the army."
Copper turned to her battling Pokémon, "Blast them back! Don't let them regroup until they're retreating!" she commanded. Steel threw out Antheia and repeated the instruction.
Their Pokémon simultaneously erupted with power and the sudden outburst blew several lots of Zephyrs away. Steel entrusted Antheia to Copper and leapt onto Lancer's back to scatter the army from above.
Ice encrusted the battlefield from the Mahogany Pokémon and frozen birds were everywhere but the sheer number of Zephyrs was what kept the battle raging.
He unleashed twineedles onto the ground near the army and they jumped back in shock but it wasn't everybody. They were using the guns to chip away at the weakening wall and despite Steel's efforts and the projectiles raining down they were being successful. Cracks webbed the wall the stone had disappeared in many places, leaving only ice.
Lancer tried to target the shooters but many blows break stone. Ice shattered and a triumphant cry came out from the Zephyr side. From such a height he could see the Mahogany side too and he saw Gerardo and the Pokémon firing ice at the soldiers.
"Get down there!" Steel cried to Lancer and they dived down to help the people there.
Happy new year! Blwyddyn newydd dda! Now time for the awkward period where everyone's writing 2014 2015 :D
The next chapter will be the finale of the Mahogany battle and then it's the ice path and Blackthorn City.
I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all the great people who read and support this fic and I also want to point out that I'm British so I spell some thing differently :P
Hope you enjoyed and please review to tell me how to improve :D