Lana has sent out a Shadow Pokemon! What will this mean for the battle? Will she be able to control her Corviknight?
KedharS: They always do.
Tambry96bj: It's definitely going to be a tough match! What will Lana do?
Aquahaze675: Their commentary is quite a sight to see, I like this banter.
Rus4408: What an odd thing to say.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 519
"Corviknight, use iron defense to start," Lana ordered.
"Cor!" Corviknight squawked, his feathers shimmering with a metallic sheen as his defense rose.
"Wow, that Corviknight is raising his defenses from the beginning?" Lila gasped. "A physical attacker like Ian's Crobat is going to have a hard time!"
"Not only that, but it's a Steel type," Akira reminded her. "That means Crobat won't be able to use any of its Poison type moves. And its Flying type moves won't have a lot of effect, either."
"That won't be a problem, will it, Sapphire?" Ian asked.
"Crobat!" Sapphire said, shaking her head.
"That's what I thought! Now, use tailwind!" Ian ordered.
"Cro!" Sapphire flapped her wings, causing a massive backstream of wind to billow behind her, heightening her team's speed again. She flew towards Corviknight, zigzagging through the sky so the bird pokemon would have trouble tracking her.
"Increase your speed with agility!" Ian ordered, Sapphire moving even faster as she circled around Corviknight, looking for an opportunity to strike.
"Corviknight, use steel wing!" Lana ordered. She wanted to test just how fast Crobat was in comparison to her Corviknight.
That right there was the crux of the problem, the thing that Lana was having the most difficulty with. She knew that Corviknight were fast, and powerful. The one that Elizabeth Skye had defeated her with when she fought the archaeologist in Galar had proven it, and inspired Lana to get one of her own. But that didn't mean she was experienced with fighting WITH one. Just the opposite, in fact. Lana had only gotten her Corviknight recently, and while it followed all of her orders to the letter, what she lacked was raw battle experience with it.
But she was set to change that right now.
"Corviknight!" Corviknight squawked ominously, turning to Sapphire and flying towards her, her wings taking on a silver glow as she moved to strike.
"You're way too slow!" Ian shouted. "Saph, dodge and use shadow ball!"
"Crobat!" Sapphire tilted in the air, dancing out of the way of Corviknight's charge, turning and facing the pokemon's back. She opened her mouth and created a sphere of ghostly energy that she fired at the flying pokemon.
The shadow ball hit Corviknight's steely back, but the bulky pokemon shrugged it off, turning 'round and flying towards Sapphire again, the shadow ball hardly injuring him at all.
"Huh, this is tough," Lila noted. "Neither one is doing much."
"Corviknight's moves are powerful, but with Crobat's speed, none of them are hitting," Akira noted. "And while Crobat can land hits on Corviknight, they aren't doing a lot of damage because Corviknight is too bulky."
"So doesn't that mean that Crobat is going to win?" Dakota asked. "After all, it might be a long, delayed battle, but she should be able to slowly whittle down the Corviknight's health and there's nothing the other pokemon can do if he can't land a hit, right?"
"It's not that simple," Akira said, shaking his head. "He can't land a hit right now, but that might not be the case in, say, an hour. Pokemon tire out. That Crobat may eventually run out of energy and not be able to move as fast, and with as much damage as she's already taken, a single hit could be enough. If she's only landing tiny chunks of damage, then she might not have enough strength to really weaken her opponent before that happens. It could go either way."
"Wow, this sounds like we're in for the long haul, then," Dakota said, stretching.
"Come on, guys! Do your best!" Lila shouted out to both of them.
"That evasion of yours is quite annoying," Lana scowled. But it was something she had prepared for, and so she'd gotten the appropriate TM to train her pokemon for this situation. "Corviknight, use aerial ace to hit that pesky bat!"
"Corvi!" Corviknight squawked, turning and shooting forward, flying straight towards Sapphire. He disappeared in a flash, before Sapphire could escape. Corviknight reappeared behind Sapphire and raised his wing, slashing into Sapphire's back and knocking her forward, Sapphire crying out in pain and spinning through the air.
"See?" Akira pointed out. "It's not that simple."
"Fair enough," Dakota agreed.
"Sapphire!" Ian shouted. Sapphire quickly regained her balance, but a shadow appeared over her head, Corviknight soaring above her and preparing to strike.
"Crobat!" Sapphire turned and spewed black haze out of her mouth, not only obscuring herself, but also reducing her speed for the reward of eliminating the defensive buff caused by Corviknight's iron defenses.
"Now, Sapphire, use confuse ray," Ian ordered. Corviknight, still choking through the haze, opened his eyes to see Sapphire flying above him. She opened her mouth, an orb of eerie light shaking back and forth in front of her, disorienting the large bird and causing it to become confused, not sure where his prey was.
This would have been fine for an ordinary pokemon… but Corviknight was far from ordinary. It was a Shadow Pokemon. And when a Shadow Pokemon became confused…
That was much different from ordinary confusion.
"CORVIKNIGHT!" Corviknight shrieked, falling back in the air and flapping around desperately, crying out in confusion and pain. Darkness shot out from his mouth, bathing the battlefield in shadows, to the shock and horror of the audience and announcers.
"No way!" Lila gasped, her face going pale as she saw shadows begin to radiate out of the flying pokemon, the air swirling around him in an ominous cloud.
"Crobat?!" Sapphire gasped in surprise, flapping her wings desperately to put some distance between herself and the giant bird that had now become much more intense.
"Corviknight!" Lana shouted, a stab of terror surging through her heart.
"Oh my god!" Lila cried, slumping over in her seat. She stared in horror at the sight before her eyes, the Corviknight going wild with fury. She had thought that it was just a large and intimidating pokemon, but she had no idea that it… that it was…
"A Shadow Pokemon," Dakota swallowed, fear drying her throat as she shivered. "It's another Shadow Pokemon…"
And this time, the Shadow Pokemon was going out of control.
"This isn't good," Akira scowled, stating the obvious, but still worried about what he was seeing. He clenched his hands and unclenched them, his palms getting sweaty as he felt himself start to get scared. Before, there had at least been a feeling of control around the Shadow Pokemon, they had been listening to their trainer's orders. But that didn't feel like the situation he was looking at right now, right now it looked like the Shadow Pokemon wasn't listening to its trainer at all. It was firing blasts of shadow into the air and flying around, shaking angrily, and no matter how intimidating the pokemon was normally, the real fear came from the fact that Akira wasn't sure if it could be contained at this point.
"Well now, that's interesting." The Phantom was watching the match unfold from the privacy of his box in the Eon Stadium, intrigued by what he was seeing. "I had thought that the process of shadowfying a pokemon that I had perfected had removed Hyper Mode from the Shadow Pokemon completely, but it seems that's not the case."
The smile on his face slipped away as he contemplated it.
"Well, it makes for quite a dangerous pokemon, but if it won't obey orders that will certainly be a problem. We'll have to refine the process." He turned to the Mechadoll standing at attention beside his seat. "Misato, continue recording, and use your observations to begin developing possible solutions to Hyper Mode."
"Affirmative," Misato agreed, setting her computational power towards the problem.
Meanwhile, in the stadium itself, Corviknight was quite quickly going out of control.
"Corviknight!" Lana shouted again, trying to call some sense into her pokemon, but the Shadow Pokemon wasn't listening. It was too disoriented, and every sound was an attack to his senses, every movement an enemy.
"COOOORRR!" Corviknight howled, flapping his wings and conjuring up a massive tornado of shadowy wind, ripping the sky apart and dragging Sapphire towards it.
"Sapphire, try to get away!" Ian shouted.
"Cro!" Sapphire wailed, struggling against the wind, but it was way too powerful of a move, and Sapphire was too weak to get the power to escape.
"Corviknight!" With a flap of his wings, the enraged Shadow Pokemon sent the tornado of darkness tearing across the battlefield, ripping up the already torn ground and cutting through the sky, swallowing Sapphire before she could try to escape.
"Sapphire!" Ian shouted helplessly, his eyes widening in fear.
Across campus, someone else was watching the match and feeling even more fearful than the man who was fighting.
"T-turn it off," Kitty gasped, nearly falling from the Charmander House Common Room couch she and Julia were watching the match from. She had been able to put up with the Shadow Pokemon until now, and she thought she would be okay… but no, now that it had lost control like this, she could feel the malevolence oozing out even through the television screen. She didn't know how it was possible, but just the sight of that miasma was making her choke.
Julia quickly rushed to turn off the television, but Kitty wasn't the only one feeling sick to her stomach at what was going on. All the other harmonia users on campus were having a bout of nausea at the moment, unable to withstand the sight of a Shadow Pokemon going through Hyper Mode, even Elaina, who wasn't even watching, began to feel terrible, the influence of the shadows stretching all the way to her room.
And for some reason, Maddi was reacting the same way.
In the Commander's box, as Vic tried to maintain her composure, unwilling to shame her parents by allowing a Shadow Pokemon to overwhelm her, Keya had given up the ghost and was already puking in the trash can.
And Maddi was seriously considering joining him.
"Maddi, are you okay?" Maddi glanced up from where she was curled over her stomach to see Tommy, of all people, staring down at her with concern. She must really look like shit if that insensitive jerk was concerned over her.
"I feel like death," she muttered, reaching up and holding her hand over her right eye. It was throbbing with pain, and just seeing that Shadow Pokemon had been enough to make her feel nauseous. It… it wasn't possible. It shouldn't have been possible. She had been feeling perfectly normal during the match, she'd been feeling normal all morning, none of the supposed signs of harmonia, no headaches, or nosebleeds, or feeling strange voices or sensations.
But the moment that Corviknight had been sent out, all of that had changed. She could see the gruesome miasma oozing off of it, plain as day. She had nearly hurled, but had managed to keep her lunch down. Was… was that what it was like? When a harmonia user saw a Shadow Pokemon? It was horrible. But… but Maddi wasn't a harmonia user. Even so… she couldn't deny what she was seeing. Before her fight against the Phantom, Shadow Pokemon had looked the same as any other pokemon. That certainly wasn't the case now, though.
Even though she was keeping her eyes clenched tight, not looking towards the battlefield, she could still feel it, the raw, corrupting power of the shadows oozing towards her, threatening to swallow her whole, and it was only getting worse and worse as the Shadow Pokemon's Hybrid Mode was raging out of control, and-
Maddi couldn't hold it in anymore. She fell out of her seat, clenching her stomach, and began hurling her guts out all over the floor.
"Eww, gross!" Tommy groaned, leaping out of his seat and backing away from the growing puddle of vomit.
"Maddi…" Keya looked up at her with a look of sympathy. Vic was less sympathetic.
"What the hell?" Vic demanded, kneeling down next to the girl and rubbing her back. "Are you okay?! Don't throw up, or else I'm going to throw up, you got it?!"
"It's awful…" Maddi groaned.
"Yeah, it's gross and weird, that shadowy stuff coming out of it, what's the problem?" Tommy scowled. "It's nothing to get sick over, it's just a weird light show."
"It's not a-!" Vic scowled, glaring at Tommy before cutting herself off. "That's a Shadow Pokemon, you wouldn't understand."
"It's horrible…" Maddi continued to groan, not sure what else she could say. "It's pulsing and throbbing… that feeling… so much pain and darkness, I'm going to be sick to my stomach, ugh… sick to my stomach again…"
Vic paused, staring down at Maddi in shock.
"Hey, what the hell?" She demanded, tilting Maddi's head up and pulling her bangs aside, searching Maddi's heterochromatic eyes for answers. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be looking for, but what Maddi had just said… even though the aura was now visible since the Shadow Pokemon had entered Hybrid Mode, it shouldn't mean that anyone should be feeling anything like she was. Tommy didn't seem to see anything more than an aura, and neither did anyone else, except her and Keya, and they both had harmonia…
But Vic had never sensed anything from Maddi. She had no idea why Maddi was feeling miserable, even as miserable as she was. Her eyes widened as she saw Maddi's bleary eyes. Could it be?
Was it possible?
The winds died down and Sapphire was flung to the ground, lying unconscious. Ian sighed, and recalled her before the wild pokemon could do anymore damage.
"Um, Crobat… is unable to battle…" Lila said quietly, not sure what to do. Should she… should she call the authorities? Report to the teachers? When a pokemon lost control like this, it was a sign to stop the tournament, right?
She glanced at Lana. Lana had a shocked look on her face, staring numbly up at her Corviknight as it thrashed wildly in the skies above.
No, this had gotten way out of control, she was going to put a stop to this.
"Ahem," Lila cleared her throat, calling as much attention to herself as she could with the situation being what it was. "Because it's clear that Lana cannot control her Corviknight, and seeing as the pokemon is currently going out of control, I will be ending the match-"
"There's no need for that," Ian said, shaking his head and giving Lila a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, we can handle it ourselves. A pokemon like that shouldn't be that big of a deal."
"What?! Are you crazy?!" Lila exclaimed. "You can't just-!"
"Iron, go!" Ian called out, throwing his pokeball out. His Aggron landed on the ground with a heavy slam the shook the stadium, tilting back his head and letting out a deafening roar.
"AGGRON!" Iron lumbered in the direction of the airborne Corviknight, ready to take the bird pokemon down.
"…Well, I guess we're just going to go with this?" Lila asked, no longer sure what she should do now. Part of her still wanted to contact campus safety to make sure there wouldn't be any injuries, but right now there were two pokemon getting involved.
She was just an announcer! It wasn't her job to make judgment calls like this, she was just supposed to be energetic and peppy as she commented on the fighting! Why did she have to be so responsible, huh? This tournament was quickly becoming more trouble than it was worth.
"Iron, use metal sound!" Ian shouted.
"AGGRON!" Iron tilted back his head and let out a mighty roar, a sonic blast that sounded like scraping metal echoing across the battlefield.
"This is definitely not what I had in mind!" Lila wailed.
"What's the point of having Aggron use metal sound, other than to hurt us?!" Dakota demanded, knowing that Aggron was a physical attacker.
"Well, it's certainly hurting the Corviknight, too," Akira shouted over the echoing clang of metal. "…No, wait, it's just making it mad."
"Corviknight!" Corviknight roared, flailing in the air. The grinding sounds were disorienting him even further, but they let him narrow in on a new target. His eyes searched wildly until they landed on the massive Aggron, and he was off!
Corviknight flapped his powerful wings and flew straight for Iron, generating massive tornados to rip the bulky pokemon apart.
"Iron! Brace yourself!" Ian ordered. Iron hunkered down and prepared for the winds to strike, his body taking on a metallic sheen as he raised his defenses.
The shadow storm struck Iron, the painful winds battering his powerful defenses.
"Look!" Dakota called, her face brightening. "Even with the pain of the shadow storm, it's not pushing Aggron back!"
"Aggron are incredibly heavy," Akira explained. "No way those winds are going to move him. You of all people should know that."
Dakota laughed sheepishly, having been the person to report on the "Aggron Incident" last year.
"Now, Iron! Thunderbolt!"
THAT caught Akira's attention.
"Aggron!" Iron bellowed, electricity crackling across his metal armor. He held his hands up and lowered his head, the electricity gathering in his horns and he released in a power bolt of lightning that struck Corviknight, electrocuting the massive Shadow Pokemon.
"COOOOOOR!" Corviknight howled, the electricity badly zapping him.
"He taught special moves to his Aggron?!" Akira sputtered, unable to believe that he would do something so not optimal. Aggron had abysmal special attacking power, why would anyone teach it an electric move.
"Coverage is coverage," Ian smiled. "And with metal sound… Iron, again!"
"Aggron!" Iron pumped another wave of electricity out, running a painful current through Corviknight as he crashed to the ground.
"Cor…" Corviknight wasn't down long, though. It picked itself up, and it was angry! He opened his mouth and let out a loud shriek, flapping his wings and taking to the sky again, only to find a wave of rock dropping on him, pinning him down once again.
"Whoa, even though it's a Shadow Pokemon, Ian and his Aggron are tearing it apart!" Lila gasped incredulously. Corviknight wasn't taking a lot of damage, but it was still being overwhelmed, unable to really make a fight in return.
"Corviknight!" Corviknight opened his mouth and spat a blast of shadowy flame at Iron, hitting the bulky pokemon head-on. Iron roared in pain, irritated that not even the rock tomb had been enough to take the large bird down.
"Lana!" Ian shouted, snapping Lana out of her daze.
"Wh-what?" Lana asked, turning back to him.
"Is this what you want?" Ian asked. "I know you want to win, but do you want to win so badly that-"
"I don't want this!" Lana interrupted him. "But… it doesn't matter! Look!"
Lana raised her Corviknight's pokeball and pressed the button, a beam of red light shooting out and engulfing the Corviknight. But the bird shook his head, flapping his wings and smashing through the rocks, refusing the order to be returned.
"He won't come back!" Lana cried. "I can't control him! Right now…"
"I see. Then Iron, we'll have to take it down for good!" Ian nodded to his partner.
"AGGRON!" Iron roared, nodding in agreement. He raised his hands, tearing more stones up out of the ground and flinging them at Corviknight, who tried to dodge them all. But even when trying to dodge, he was more focused on attacking, and his focus on Iron caused him to lose concentration and get hit by the rock slide again, Corviknight groaning in pain as he spat out more shadow flames.
"The pokemon is taking damage, but it's not going down!" Lila cried.
"Corviknight!" Corviknight roared, firing more flames out that engulfed Iron. Iron groaned out another wail of pain, stumbling through the flames, his metallic armor badly burned. But the fire in his eyes was burning even brighter.
"Iron! Just a little bit more!" Ian cried. "Metal sound!"
As Iron continued to burn, he let out another deafening shriek, even as Corviknight continued to burn him with flames, taking to the sky once more.
"Now, finish it with one more thunderbolt!" Ian shouted. Iron released another powerful bolt of lightning that fried the Shadow Pokemon, Corviknight letting out one last pitiful screech of pain as he plummeted out of the sky and hit the ground.
Iron panted, injured but ready to keep fighting. The Corviknight finally unconscious, the shaking Lana returned him to his pokeball, clenching it with white knuckles as she stared at the ball in horror, not sure if she would ever use the pokemon again.
"Corviknight is unable to battle!" Lila shouted, unable to keep the relief out of her voice. "The match is over! Ian is the winner and will advance to the next round!"
"Shadow Pokemon… aren't that hard to deal with…" Ian panted, wiping the sweat off of his forehead. The battle itself hadn't been physically exhausting, and yet he still felt like he was winded. It had been an intense last few minutes. "As long as… they're just attacking like wild beasts without any thought behind their actions…"
The Phantom concurred. In Hybrid Mode, Shadow Pokemon were powerful and destructive, and capable of massive damage. But they were wild, untamed, unable to be kept compliant to their trainer's orders, and that meant that a smart trainer could defeat them without too much effort, which wasn't something he wanted from a tool.
Back to the drawing board, it seems, Valon mused, studying the after-effects of the match.
So Ian moved onto the next round! And what about Lana? How will this affect her? What will this mean for the announcers? Will Lila do anything about future Shadow Pokemon matches, like she was tempted to here?