Chapter 18: Korrina vs Red: Sparks Fly!
(A/N: So life update, lots of people lost their jobs at my company recently, luckily I've been given an offer for a new role here, but it means I'll be in charge of even more stuff than before. So while technically it's a promotion, it also entails that I'll be busier than before. Covid-19 gave me a unique opportunity to write more than I have ever done, hopefully I'll still find opportunities in the meantime to write for y'all. Once again, chapter lengths will vary with where in the story I think the chapter should end up. I do try to make the chapters a fair length, but I don't want to drag out portions of the story if it isn't natural that way. Anywho, please enjoy!)
General
Korrina had a feisty look in her eyes as she sized up Red and Pika.
"You interrupted the good talk I was having with Gramps so I'm going to have you make it worth my while to rush all the down way here." Korrina said confidently with a hint of impatience.
"Well um … as much as I'd like to battle you Kor … errr, Lady Korrina. I actually came here to talk to you about something important in private. So if you could actually grant me some one on one private time with you that would be great." Red politely asked with hopeful eyes.
Originally he was pretty fired up by his first gym challenge in forever, but after the absolute obliteration of Korrina's gym trainer team, he felt worried that his chances of getting an audience with the gym leader had dropped significantly. Thus, he decided to go the more amiable route and be honest with his intentions from the start.
For some reason, Korrina looked a bit taken aback from Red's POV and if he wasn't mistaken, she had a bit of a red on her cheeks.
"Hmm, I guess she's a bit tired out from having to skate down here all of a sudden" was how Red reasoned away the red hue on her cheeks.
Korrina on the other hand looked extra flustered "Y-you wanted private time with me? Is that why you took the crazy challenge of fighting all my gym trainers with just your Pikachu?"
"Yeah of course, I really wanted to see you so I rushed through the challenge as fast as possible, I'm really sorry about that." Red said apologetically.
Meanwhile, Red's whole team collectively sighed while watching this exchange.
"So… this is how Red gets himself into these situations, I see…" White, one of the newer members of the team, commented to herself as she marveled at Red's subconscious skills.
Korrina was still having trouble with her words when she finally uttered out "Is that so… okay then fine if you think you're worthy of my time, let's see you prove it in battle."
With that, it looked like she had recovered her wits and she then commented "Also, you don't have to use just your Pikachu anymore, I won't be holding back anything so you shouldn't have to either."
Red nodded in agreement and commanded Pikachu to go first.
Pika lookedxcited for a real challenge and prepped himself in front of Red.
Meanwhile Korrina led off with a Machamp that looked fairly experienced.
Red silently noticed that the Machamp seemed to be relatively newly evolved based on the condition of the champions belt it had on.
With that in mind, he wanted to take advantage of the experience gap that Machamp might be having in his four arms as he might not be used to the two extra limbs.
"Pika, I want you to hit and run against Machamp's lower limbs using quick attack and then hit those limbs with iron tail!"
Pika immediately understood that Red had a deeper plan behind this and went forward to execute.
Of course, Korrina had heard this plan loud and clear and generally understood that Red was no pushover (not that the whole wiping of her team of gym trainers hadn't tipped her off already).
Machamp I want you to brace yourself for Pikachu's attacks with a bulk up!
Machamp immediately raised his attack and defense stats and braced for the first attack…
And then Pika proceeded to smack Machamp off his feet.
Turns out, Pika was way stronger physically than Machamp was ready for and despite having raised his stats, his balance was thrown off just enough by the momentum from the quick attack charged iron tail.
Pika then proceeded to go to town with a flurry of attacks and then finished him off with a thunderbolt.
"Wait a sec, not only did Machamp lose, did Red really just trust Pikachu to make his own decisions at that point? I've got to ask him about that later."Korrina thought this to herself as she recalled her Machamp.
She knew that Machamp was relatively recently evolved and wanted to get a feel for Pikachu's power with her own eyes.
"Alright, let's get a bit more serious come on out Lucario!"
An older and very experienced looking Lucario came out and gave a powerful roar.
"Oh boy, a Lucario?" Red had always had a soft spot for Lucario as he thought it was such a cool pokemon in terms of power and fighting style.
The battle began immediately, Korrina started with issuing orders to fire off aura sphere which was Lucario's signature move,
A strong aura sphere shot out and smacked tracked onto Pika as he tried to dodge. The solid hit threw Pika off guard and slightly rattled him.
Pika then replied with a thunderbolt which was barely dodged by Lucario's agility.
Red realized at this point that they'd have to get a lot more serious if the team was going to get any time alone with Korrina.
"Alright Pika, let's match Lucario, use agility too!" Red ordered.
Pika sped up to a blur and he regained his speed advantage on Lucario. He then proceeded to trade blows with Lucario's close combat attack with his own iron tail and quick attacks.
Eventually Lucario was worn down and Red finished him off with a powerful thunderbolt as Lucario could no longer dodge at his current stamina.
Korrina looked surprised that a not fully evolved pokemon like Pikachu could not only hold its own against her Lucario, but she took a deep breathe and looked even more excited than before to be fighting such a powerful opponent.
"Mianshao, let's finish him!"
A limber looking Mianshao was sent out and it immediately lead with a fake out that caught Pika off guard.
Pika flinched from the move and was suddenly met with a powerful high jump kick which critically hit him while his guard was down and knocked him out.
Red was mildly surprised that Korrina could take on Pika with just two pokemon, of which one of them didn't even attack Pika.
He made a mental note to compliment her on her pokemon later and also to have her look into powering up her gym trainers because she certainly was on a different level. It would be rude to compliment her midway through a battle when he was still winning as that would come off as ill-mannered in his opinion.
Red sent out Poli who looked raring to having a scrappy fight between fighting types.
Poli attacked first with a strong hydro pump that was aimed straight at Mianshao's chest.
Mianshao barely blocked with her arms but definitely took a severe hit.
Mianshao then replied with a rapid u-turn and thusly returned to Korrina.
As Mianshao was returning, Red noted that there was a healing effect on it and realized this was a Mianshao with regenerator.
He was thoroughly impressed with the adaptability and awareness she had displayed on the fly and was surprised when she sent out a Hawlucha.
"Oh boy, when I was thinking fighting pokemon, I didn't really expect a flying type matchup." Red mused quietly.
Again Poli sent out another hydro pump which surprisingly hit Hawlucha who wasn't told to dodge.
Hawlucha then proceeded to eat what looked suspiciously like a Liechi berry.
Hawlucha sped up with her unburden ability and unleashed a savage acrobatics attack on Poli.
Poli managed to tank the hit and then proceeded to grab Hawlucha by the wing give her a savage submission attack.
Hawlucha was finished off by this move and Korrina gave a soft sigh as she recognized there was still a gap in the power between the two pokemon.
Still she was happy that her combo had worked and Hawlucha had managed to land a super effective Liechi Berry boosted acrobatics, it was clear Poli wasn't in the best shape after that.
As the battle went on, an old man entered battle arena area from the same entrance that Korrina had used and proceeded to spectate the battle. He murmured to himself "So this is the Red that was causing trouble eh."
Red sent in Gyara who then promptly intimidated Hawlucha.
Hawlucha tried to launch another acrobatics but was immediately knocked out of the sky and slammed into the ground with a precisely timed Aqua Tail.
Korrina recalled Hawlucha and sent Mianshao out again.
Mianshao repeated her previous performance and used fake out again on Gyara.
The speed of the move made Gyara flinch and then a follow-up acrobatics.
Red noted that Korrina definitely enjoyed using conditional powerup combos like stat-up berries + acrobatics and adjusted accordingly.
He had Gyara hit Mianshao with multiple crunch attacks in quick succession until it was apparent that Mianshao's defense had been lowered.
Korrina realized too late what Red was aiming for and although Mianshao had been able to return a few brick breaks and acrobatics, it had become apparent that the damage wasn't racking up fast enough on Gyarados.
Gyara then finished the battle off with a waterfall that was just enough to knock out the defenseless Mianshao and without even needing a flinch, Gyara was victorious.
Korrina shouted across the field "that was a great strategy Red, I'm really impressed that you've gotten this far."
Red playfully retorted with "What do you mean gotten this far? I'm way ahead here last time I checked."
Korrina picked up the playful tone from Red and found it cute. Her personal feelings aside though, she put on a somewhat grim looking expression.
"Ya know Red, I can't remember the last time I had to seriously resort to using this, but if you're going to be a legitimate successor candidate, I think you'll have to experience this first hand."
Korrina reached for a pokeball, and to Red's surprise, another Lucario came out.
His first reaction was, "I didn't know trainers still ran two of the same pokemon these days. The last time I saw something like that was Lance back when he didn't realize there were more dragon pokemon out there than Dragonite."
Then, Korrina tapped on the bracelet on her shoulder and a now familiar scene played out as Lucario mega evolved.
"Normally, Mega Lucario is too uber strong for a regular gym challenge so I don't usually want my old partner Lucario to just beat down the spirits of future challengers. But I can tell that you're special Red so I'm going to give you my all." Korrina sounded more fired up than ever and her spirit was in sync with her Mega Lucario.
Mega Lucario proceeded to smash into Gyara's side with a blisteringly fast extremespeed.
Gyara fired back with a waterfall, but Mega Lucario shrugged it off and proceeded to knock the already worn down Gyara with a merciless dual chop.
"Sigh, no matter how many times I see mega evolution, I feel pretty awed by the results." Red was once again taken aback by how strong Mega Lucario felt.
He brought in Lax next and the battle continued with powerful earthquakes being trade with equally scary brick breaks.
Lax was taken down by the type advantage by managed to get a crucial paralyze down with a body slam he had launched at the cost of tanking a close combat.
At this point both trainers had used 4 pokemon up but Red knew that Korrina had only brought 5 pokemon to the battle based on what the display had said.
Internally even though he technically had two choices left, he didn't feel it was right to have an unfair advantage as a former champion and vowed to let the next battle decide it all.
He sent out Saur, his trusted starter pokemon and the battle proceeded in earnest.
Saur easily shrugged off all the moves Mega Lucario had in its repertoire and when he had closed in with a close combat, Red purposely allowed the hit to land before issuing the order for the strongest Frenzy Plant possible.
Saur obliged and absolutely devastated the slowed down and defense lowered (from multiple close combats) Mega Lucario, ending the battle.
Korrina made a small sigh and then collected herself with a strong smile and walked over to shake Red's hand.
After holding his hand, she blushed all over again as she realized that while that was an amazing battle that let her go all out for the first time in forever, the agreement for private time with Red was now going to come to fruition.
She paused for a bit, took a deep breathe, and then said "Okay Red, as I promised, let's have that private one on one time."
Red was about to respond with the affirmative when suddenly the old man walked over and shook Red's hand.
"Great show there Red, I think you and my little Korrina would be a great match so you have my approval as her mentor to have all the private time you want, if you know what I'm saying." The old man gave a small smirk as he said all this but clearly Red missed the point.
Korrina, on the other hand, definitely did not miss this point at all.
"Grandpa Gurkinn, I'm an adult now, I can make my own decisions please!" She was exasperated at this point and desperately wanted to get out of this situation ASAP.
She then paused and asked "wait Grandpa, how did you know his name? We were together the whole time and no one mentioned the challenger's name."
Gurkinn gave a coy smile and then said "Oh I have my ways of getting information Korrina, no need to worry. Just enjoy your private time."
With that, Korrina decided to give up on stopping her Grandpa's teasing and decided to just suck it up.
"Okay Red, let's go to my room so we can … uh have that privacy." She managed to utter out while avoiding directly looking at him so she could hide her increasingly red face.
"Alright, also I know I said I wanted private time, but would it be alright if I brought seven other girls for our private time?" Red shamelessly said.
(A/N: Oh boy, it's like 5am here, hope it was coherent enough for y'all. I liked Korrina from the anime but haven't read about her yet in the manga so I may adjust a bit if I ever get a chance to get that reference. Also Red is actually the most blessed (cursed?) MC ever when it comes to romantic misunderstandings. Enjoy the chapter, and let me know what you thought in the reviews as always. See ya in the next chapter!)