When Dust opened his eyes, he found himself lying outside on top of a rather thick bush. 'Wait, I never got that cheap bastard to finish teaching Eevee shadow ball!'
He therefore spent the rest of the night training Eevee in the use of shadow ball. It was as Giratina had said. Shadow ball was really less about using aura to form shadows and more about using the nearby shadows to form a ball. Though that didn't mean there was no aura use involved.
He also met Tynamo. It was unbelievably large for a pokemon of its species, reaching in total 0.9 meters in length and 0.4 meters in height. It also knew moves no Tynamo should know how to use. Specifically, charge beam, spark, double edge, and discharge.
Just by eyeballing, it seemed to be around level 30, but that could very well be inaccurate, since he had no way to measure it at the moment. He quickly went to bed after chatting with her for a little while.
While he couldn't completely understand pokemon, the more he mastered aura, the more he could sort of feel what they were saying.
Apparently she had gotten lost and followed another person in the hole a few weeks before, then got trapped inside the cage. Giratina had felt she wasn't supposed to be there, but had no way to send her out since the gate was closed.
He woke up the next morning with enough time to get warmed up before going to the gym. The place was surprisingly crowded, but Dust remembered there was a tournament for those who had at least four badges the next day.
'Actually, I might take part in it if I win this badge. The prize was something good, I think. Well, even if it's only money, that would help. The sponsorship is only enough for me to buy the normal pokemon food from the pokemart. I travel alone, not to mention my lack of culinary skills'
A few people were waiting in the lobby for their turn at the gym, but since Dust arrived with only three minutes to spare, he immediately went into the challenger's room. He was only allowed to bring the three pokemon he would use onto the stage, so he left his other thr- two pokemon on the table inside. There were no worries about them being stolen anyway, since the place was locked down.
When he arrived on the floor, there were around 200 people in the stands. Dust didn't have stage fright per se, but that didn't mean he could just ignore the audience, so he gave a small shy wave as he walked on stage.
'Dammit, I wanted to look cool, now I look like an idiot!'
Lira was the name of the bug type gym leader, and she came out on stage in a dissimilar fashion to Dust, flying atop a Yanmega.
She was fairly young for a gym leader, only just turning 11 in poke years last month, but she was fairly tall, and her ability to ride on a Yanmega demonstrated her lack of weight.
For someone so spindly, she jumped off her pokemon eight feet in the air, then somersaulted to land on her feet in an impressive show of acrobatics. The Yanmega went to the field from there.
"Alright kiddo, send out your starter!"
Dust cringed, 'Kiddo? She's only 20 months older than me, and she's calling me kiddo? I'll murder her!' but released Eevee all the same.
"You should know all the rules, so there's no use dilly dallying any longer! Yanmega, use sonic boom!"
'What are with these expressions?! Is she an old man?' "Eevee, tank it and use sunny day!"
Three waves of pressurized air hit Eevee, but the twenty damage in total was nothing to worry about for a pokemon nearing level 40. She successfully sent an orange ball to the roof, which then expanded to cover it.
"Good, now use weather ball!"
"What? That fast? Yanmega, use Detect!"
"Perfect, when it dodges, use a quick attack into chip away!"
Yanmega did dodge the super effective move...right into Eevee's chip away. Eevee successfully hit three times back to back, driving Yanmega toward the ground. But Lira waa a gym leader and Yanmega a gym pokemon.
"Yanmega, use reversal, then hyper beam while Eevee's midair!"
"Eevee, double kick to dodge!"
Eevee was just barely too slow and took a reversal at third highest power: 100.
She took it right to the face, flying backward toward the wall, then a hyper beam came flying out of Yanmega's small mouth.
Eevee didn't manage to learn Soru yet, as her physical values were just too low. It would be a move that would only be learnable around level 50. However… "Eevee, use acrobatics to dodge then hit it!"
Acrobatics was a move unknown at that time to anyone, a new move so to speak, and as such, was not listed on the move scanner at the pokemon center. Lira tilted her head in confusion, watching as Eevee coated her tail in flying aura, then kicked off the air with it twice to hump out of the way of the hyper beam then right above Yanmega.
"No good, looks like a flying type move! Dodge it, sweetie!"
Dust's eye twitched again. However, he soon forgot about the weird expressions as Yanmega was hit right between the wings, too tired to dodge from the usage of a hyper beam.
It flew to the ground, knocked out as the three STAB chip aways had already knocked it to a mere 12% of its HP, then the super effective move crushed it, nearly breaking through its exoskeleton.
"I've never heard of an Eevee with a flying type move before! Good job with that kiddo! But can you handle the next match?"
She released a Vespiquen. 'Ah. That's gonna be a bit of trouble.'
"Vespiquen, use a signal beam, then follow with an attack order!"
"Eevee, mud slap to block the signal beam then weather ball the attack order!"
The exchanges began anew, as both of Vespiquen's actions were rendered useless. Or so Dust thought. The signal beam broke through the mud slap Eevee threw out, and hit the fox, though the latter did destroy quite a few of the bee shaped aura constructs created by Vespiquen.
Eevee went flying back from the signal beam's explosion, and Lira giggled. Dust had been slightly unnerved by the crowd's earlier loud cheers, and forgot that signal beam had a much higher power than mud slap, even if just for a moment.
"Eevee, trump card!"
A small number of green rectangles shot from Eevee's tail, but Vespiquen just tossed them aside.
"Again."
"Vespiquen, use defend order!"
A few more aura projections blocked the next, slightly stronger shot.
"That was a mistake. Another!"
"I don't see the point of this. Just use another signal beam!"
The two went back and forth, the cards a slight orange tint taking over the previous green. Trump card was another move unknown to the current pokemon world, as only humans can help their pokemon train it.
Both attacks cancelled each other out. Eevee was really looking worn down at this point, only able to move through her own willpower.
'I feel like I've somehow turned her sweet innocence into battle mania...nah.' "Trump card, again!"
"Tch, bug buzz!"
The power of Eevee's adaptability ability showed off once more with its 2x stab damage, overpowering bugg buzz. The cards each shot toward Vespiquen, her defense order just barely holding against the onslaught.
"Eevee, finish it this time! One last trump card!"
"I'm tired of this now kiddo, destroy order!" 'Destroy order? That isn't an attack from the game though.'
Each of the aura projections from Vespiquen began to swell as they slowly fell toward Eevee, who was barely even standing after shooting her final trump card. When they hit the card, they exploded, doing both bug and fire type damage.
The gym leader smirked, believing it was all over, but the 52nd card shot out, completely undeterred by the attack with a mere 225 power counting STAB, as the trump card was at a power of 380, once again because of the astounding power of adaptability!
This move had almost twice the move power of the combo attack of Spiritomb of Krabby in the ancient church! Though it was much weaker considering Eevee's fairly low special attack stat.
Vespiquen actually managed to stay awake despite it, some of the power taken off by the destroy order, but her defense order was destroyed in its entirety and around 3/4 of her HP were gone.
The stunned gym leader just gaped, as did many of the people watching. This was a gym battle for the fourth badge. It was much more difficult to get a badge than is shown in the anime, only around 100 people of the 20,000 participants per year getting the required eight.
Many of the people had never seen the Vespiquen defeated at all, thinking her defense order made her invincible, but this was not the case at all. The few hundred there weren't expecting the challenger to actually win, even if Yanmega was beaten, because this Vespiquen was impossibly overpowered to them.
But Dust smirked. "Eevee. One more swift?"
She nodded, a star forming on her tail, but as she spun to shoot them, they dissipated and fell down, passed out from the exhaustion.
Many sighed a soft breath of relief as a few had placed bets, while a small number groaned, as their bets weren't successful. An even smaller number recalled that this was only Dust's first pokemon who had fallen, the gym leader included.
She spoke. "Next, choose your bug type pokemon."
The young challenger smirked as he released Skorupi. He had already done quite a bit of one on one training with the scorpion, and the two were finally ready for a gym battle.
He was the second lowest leveled pokemon in Dust's team, but the third strongest, just behind Kingler and Eevee despite his age.
Both trainers waited a moment, considering their strategies, before Dust led off with the first move. "Skorupi, use whirlwind!"
"Again, how does it know that move? Use silver wind to block, Vespiquen!"
"Perfect, now use a rock tomb!"
"In that case, block with a power gem!"
'Crap, I forgot Vespiquen could learn that.'
The four moves each blocked each other, but Vespiquen's higher level and special attack stat allowed her to damage Skorupi with a super effective move. Vespiquen was tired and fairly heavily damaged now, but she still had enough power for a few more moves.
"Aerial ace, honey!"
'What a bad pun!' "Block with a tri attack, then Venoshock when she tries to dodge the fire."
Lira was grinding her teeth at the string of attacks, each of which could be disastrous for her queen bee, but Vespiquen was already quite close due to aerial ace.
"Defend order if you can, if not, try to tank it." She growled.
The aerial acing bee hit Skorupi's ice pincer, causing super effective damage on that front and blocking aerial ace. Next came the electricity, dealing even more super effective damage. Finally was the tail, wrapped in fire.
Vespiquen attempted to dodge, but Skorupi changed at the last second to a venoshock, which covered Vespiquen in the poison. While she wasn't poisoned, so the move had a medium power, it was enough for Vespiquen to finally fall.
"Vespiquen, destiny bond!"
And with a shadowy rope line, the two bug types were both down. Lira returned her Vespiquen, speaking sweetly in a...Texan accent(?) as the crowd looked down in anticipation for her next pokemon.
"Send in your last one, and I'll do mine. You're up, Kricketune, do me proud sweetie!"
'Kricketune? This oughta be easy.' "You're up, Kingler!"
Everyone in the stadium sighed at the much more vanilla match, but both trainers were aware these were their aces.
"Kricketune, we're starting strong! Use perish song!"
"Call an ambulance! But not for me! Kingler, use ancient power!"
While Kricketune was busy sawing away on his violin arm, Kingler slammed the ground with a pincer, sending a few rocks and golden orbs flying.
Kricketune quickly stopped to use protect, but that prevented perish song from being completed.
"Kricketune, get some distance and then pick up where you left off." Dust's heart skipped a beat as he heard her words. Only the most advanced users of perish song could just pick up where they left off.
"Crap, Kingler, Octozooka!"
Kricketune only had around two seconds to play his song before he was nailed in the face with a big ink bomb.
Ink covered his face, making him unable to see. Naturally, Dust took advantage of this.
"Hammer arm, Kingler, and make it a good one!"
"Don't let it, use protect!"
'Mistake. A rookie one, really. She should have called for a block, instead of hoping for protect to work twice in a...fuck!'
Protect actually worked again, as Kingler's powerful hammer arm was successfully blocked. Dust was unhappy with this development, but it wasn't the end.
"Then use hydro pump, Kingler."
Kricketune had no way to avoid it, as protect had just worn off.
"X-scissor to block it, then finish perish song!"
This time, it seemed luck had run out. For the gym leader. Kricketune blocked the damage he would have taken to the front, but Kingler's special attack stat was just too high. The poor red bug was thrown from his feet as he hit the wall, his knifelike arms mangled and the carapace on his back dented. He stood back up, but Lira shook her head, growled, and returned him.
"Good fight. Kricketune needs an ambulance now. You were right. Have the badge. Now please move so I can heal my partner, would you?"
Dust winced while returning Kingler, took the badge, whispered a sorry, and walked back to the challenger's room. Everyone watching just kind of mumbled a bit, nobody really clapping, and looked down as the gym leader exited the building.
Dust took all of his stuff with him and shook his head. 'Well, she was eccentric, but I didn't actually mean to hurt her pokemon. At least I have my fourth badge now. Fuchsia comes next.'
After that, he made his way to the pokemon center. A few people gave him the stink-eye, but nobody said anything to him. That is, except Nurse Joy. When he got back to the pokemon center, the pink-haired beauty turned into a demon, her scolding coming very close to assault.
Meanwhile, Dust was cursing his fate when it came to Nurse Joys yelling at him. "Look, I'm sorry, but it really wasn't all my fault! She's a gym leader, you know? I expected her ace to be able to take one hydro pump. Nurse Joy facepalmed.
"That wasn't her ace! That's her newest pokemon. She caught it in Sinnoh last year on vacation. Most people have their starters for their aces, so she uses her second strongest, then her strongest, then her weakest."
Dust's jaw dropped. "Wh-what ever happened to save the best for last? Or end with a bang? Ugh, okay. Can I please just register for the tournament tomorrow, then go to bed? It's been a long day."
"Sir, it's 11 am."
"FUCK!"