Chapter 26: The Tower Part Two
(A/N: When y'all get a chance, check out Ayame Nakiri on Youtube, you can thank me later. Thanksgiving is coming up which only makes my work even more busy so let's hope it doesn't mess with my writing too much. Got some good ol' 1-7am shifts to handle at work and all. Also, I've been thinking of eventually picking up the pokemon 2019 anime as it looked pretty promising from the few episodes I've caught when they were airing.)
Platina
I looked over to Lopunny and asked her if she understood what the rules for this challenge were.
Thankfully, Lopunny seemed to mostly understand what was going on so I started thinking about how we were going to tackle this challenge.
The overseer informed me that there was five minutes for preparation before I was expected to start attempting the trial.
"How generous…" I thought sarcastically
Knowing that there was no time to waste, I surveyed the trial area once more.
Lopunny and I were standing on a bunch of cushiony mats that after some testing from my foot, felt decidedly soft.
Beyond that area, the trial tiles spanned 20 tiles long and 11 wide per half of the field, with the middle area being an artificial ravine, and Snorlaxes allegedly being at the bottom of the pit. At the end of the tiles I could see that the same cushiony mats from the starting area. The trainers were only on Lopunny's side which would make sense, there wasn't much sense in having the trainers duke it out on the left (my) side of the field.
"I wonder why they bothered to bring up a bunch of Snorlaxes for the safety mechanism instead of just using these mats/trampolines." I thought idly to myself before refocusing again.
It would seem that since there isn't a clear time limit we'll have to assume that we are moreso limited by the number of attempts of the trial we've made than the time.
So with that in mind, the focus should be on diligently finding a way to the end.
That's when the idea of testing the tiles came to mind. If I just barely touched the tiles with my foot, the rules of the trial mentioned that they drop after a second.
Wouldn't that be enough time for me to avoid the dropping tiles? Then I could sus out which path to take and then let Lopunny know it.
With that in mind I had a clear idea of an initial strategy, I quickly conveyed it to Lopunny who nodded in agreement.
I was grateful that Lopunny was quick on the uptake, I wonder who raised her (heh).
After conveying the plan, I noticed that the overseer had a faint smirk on their face after hearing my plan.
Strange… I could have misinterpreted their expression but there might be more to this trial than I expected.
Still, there was nothing I could do about it except move forward and take the challenges as they came.
As I approached the first row, I noticed that 9 out of 11 of the tiles shifted slightly.
Hm… so that's what the hints look like in this challenge huh, looks like they're going to start us out on an easier note.
I stepped onto the 2nd tile from the left and noticed that a LED strip outlining the side of the tile lit up with a green light.
I told Lopunny to hop onto the corresponding tile on her side and sure enough, it lit up with the same green color.
Clearly they wouldn't outfit these tiles with lights unless they meant something, so I made sure to keep it in mind.
Looking over at Lopunny's side, I could see a trainer in the second row a few tiles to the right of the second column.
That meant that I probably had to go towards the right on the second row to find the correct path.
I tested the tile in front of me with my right foot after that thought and… the tile turned red and opened up like a trapdoor, while suddenly all of the tiles turned red.
On Lopunny's end, the same seemed to have happened as well.
Boo Booooo! A buzzer sound resonated through the trial room and the overseer walked over.
"Looks like you failed this attempt, I think this would be a good time to let you know that when the trainer touches a tile with any part of their body, that amounts to committing to the tile, which locks your partner pokemon to commit to that tile. In this case, since you didn't fall down with it then you can just reset at the beginning but it will still count as a trial attempt." The overseer said in a serious business-like manner.
Hmmm… so this is going to be a lot more annoying than I thought initially.
Even if me or Lopunny don't fall down, we could still commit to a wrong move is what she's saying?
Great.
It became clear that we're allowed to take diagonal paths during the trial so that was some information learned.
I let Lopunny know that we would try again but this time we'll take the diagonally right tile for the second tile.
We both walked onto the correct tiles while I started thinking about what to do differently this time.
Both tiles had lit up green this time which was good news, but there wasn't any guarantee that we could just go straight in a horizontal direction.
So… how can we do this without wasting attempts. Especially without knowing how many attempts we get, it would be really hard to try to experiment too freely without accidentally failing the trial.
It seemed to be too strict of a policy to forbid any testing but I couldn't think of any method when the tiles would commit the second the trainer touched them…
For now, all I could do is try to look for general trends.
I went to the tile to the right of the one I was standing on and it seemed to be fine, Lopunny followed suit after observing me and eventually after some going to the right 5 tiles in a row, it would seem that it the trainers were probably hints for what rows were fine to walk horizontally on.
The trial trainer was two tiles away from Lopunny at this point and they sent out their Golem.
Its pokeball landed on the tile right before Lopunny and surprisingly the tile held firmly when Golem materialized.
… I could have sworn that the tile took a bit to light up when the pokeball landed on it… could it be?
As that thought raced past my mind, Golem opened up the battle with a Reflect move.
Seems like this trainer thought my Lopunny couldn't handle a rock type with high defenses.
Too bad for them that Lopunny was well-trained for opponents like this and Lopunny read my mind and sent out a brick break attack that completely wrecked the Golem. Golem looked down for the count from the shock of having its defenses breached so quickly, and I had Lopunny finish him off with a double kick attack.
After defeating the trainer, he walked off the platform one tile behind him and... fell down into the pit of Snorlaxes.
LOL was the first thing that came to mind but the important information that this gave me was that the trainers were likely the final tile before going horizontally was a bad idea.
Another thing that the battle taught me though was that these plates might be based off trainers/pokemon stepping on them…
I had Lopunny take a step forward from the spot that the trainer was originally standing on.
Sure enough, the 3rd row tile in front of me lit up with a green hue.
That confirmed that both pokemon and trainers would trigger the commitment rule… so how about objects?
I pulled out an empty luxury ball and bounced it off the tile to the left of the tile I was standing on and the tile suddenly opened up… but no light turned on.
So it would seem that the tiles would open up if they were incorrect but the lights were based off of weight.
I turned to look at the overseer and she just nodded slightly with a small smile on her face.
Looks like she's acknowledging that this is the trick to this puzzle… perfect, the mega stone is as good as mine then.
I proceeded to roll luxury balls different directions to test out the routes and soon found myself on row six where the next trainer was waiting.
The luxury ball trick worked and I was able to basically confirm that the row with the trainer was all clear until the trainer when the tile behind the trainer's relative position on Lopunny's side opened up upon contact with the ball.
This trainer sent out a Gengar, and I started to suspect that the trial was just as much about testing Lopunny's natural typing weaknesses as it was about testing our problem solving skills.
Gengar opened up with a thunder wave move but unlucky for him, Lopunny's limber ability completely nullified this attempt.
In his shock, I had Lopunny counterattack with a flurry of Ice Punches, which devastated his low defense stat and we made short work of him soon after dodging a futile last-ditch sludge bomb attack.
I proceeded to test out the tiles and soon found myself on row 13 where the next trainer was waiting.
This trainer had a Lucario which made me think that Lucario must have been the trendy pokemon due to Korrina/Gurkinn as Lucario was normally quite the rare sight to see even back in its home region of Sinnoh.
The battle was harder than the previous ones because even though Lopunny had brick break and double kick in her arsenal, there was no bonus damage for breaking reflect this time and this was more of a straight up battle.
I had Lopunny hop to some of the previous tiles that we had revealed and attack with guerrilla tactics that took advantage of her agility advantage.
We were pressured by a few aura spheres but with properly timed usage of the move substitute we were able to hold off the attacks and eventually defeat Lucario.
It became apparent to me that these trial trainers had prepared beforehand because Lucario was acutely aware of where to avoid during the heat of battle while Lopunny had to sometimes double check to make sure that the tile she was about to use was a green one.
Still, I was proud that Lopunny was able to hold her own against a Lucario despite the circumstances.
I was acutely aware that we would be pressured on the final battle with the trainer on row 21 (the final one) because Lopunny had already used substitute and handled a close battle with Lucario too.
With this in mind, I looked to proceed forward to reach row 21 when… the luxury ball tactic suddenly failed.
It wasn't like the ball had just dropped from the tile next to the trainer we had just defeated. The daunting part was that… every tile was failing!
All I could see were the Snorlaxes in the rift between my set of tiles and Lopunny's to my right while every tile in front of me was seemingly failing.
I tried throwing my luxury ball 8 meters in front of me where row 21 was, and finally the ball bounced off a solid tile.
The issue was, how was I going to make a jump that large?
I had tested most of the tiles in the rows between row 13 and 21 and as the luxury ball's black and gold color scheme spun past the tiles, they would all obediently open up afterward as if to welcome me to give up on this trial.
I briefly panicked as I was at a loss for what to do. There's no way they would make a trial that couldn't be passed.
Therefore, there had to be a trick to this, I reasoned to myself to keep myself calm.
Lopunny's personalized trial was at its highest difficulty so I assumed the answer wasn't going to be simple going in but only a pokelympic jumper could make an eight meter jump…
I looked around for clues until my eyes suddenly rested on Lopunny jumping in place to keep herself active as she awaited my next order.
I was suddenly hit with a stroke of inspiration. Wait, there was nothing saying that we had to finish at the same time, just that we both had to cross the finish line… furthermore it didn't matter what side we finished on.
My idea was a longshot but… this trial was all about testing the bonds between us so this must be the answer.
I looked over at Lopunny and told her to get a running start and jump to the finish line of the trial.
Lopunny gave me a questioning look but then I pointed to the mega keystone and Lopunnite and suddenly Lopunny understood my intentions.
Lopunny took a few steps back and made a magnificent leap that easily cleared the 8m gap. Lopunny actually jumped above the trainer's head on row 21 as he had an awestruck look on his face.
Lopunny then took the mega keystone and Lopunnite and hopped towards my spot on the tiles which is exactly what I wanted her to do.
Gleefully, I put on the mega bracelet and had Lopunny wear the Lopunnite around her neck.
I could feel the energy emanating from the bands and I tapped the mega bracelet's keystone as if compelled by its aura.
Lopunny mega evolved soon after and became the much more powerful "Mega Lopunny".
Of course, at this point Lopunny had no idea what we were going to do but the fact that we had gotten this far wordlessly was already a point of pride for me.
The trial really did do a good job of testing our bonds, I was impressed by how well tailored it was to the strengths and weaknesses of Lopunny.
With that, I decided to test those bonds one final time, I told Lopunny to kick me towards the finish line.
(A/N: And with that, we're basically at the end of Platina's trial. Will she succeed with this gambit? Find out next chapter! Also a quick thank you to my fans who stood up for me when I got flamed in reviews last week. I appreciate all types of reviews including the flaming ones but it definitely makes me happy to see y'all stand up for me in the reviews. Anywho, y'all stay safe out there, and I hope you're staying covid free!)