"Ladies and gentlemen!" The voice of the announcer rang across the outdoor stadium, projected across the crowd with several loud speakers as acoustics on an open airstrip weren't ideal. "We know you're antsy with anticipation, so let's introduce our combatants!"
"In the east corner is the high-flying leader of Arryline Gym, Amelia!" As the crowd cheered, Amelia walked to her spot. She had dark skin with blue eyes, her brown hair tied into pigtails. She was wearing a sky blue bomber jacket and wore flight goggles, though they were up over her forehead at the time.
"And in the west corner, our challenger. Originally from Galar and a recent immigrant to Allanza, give it up for Moira!"
Moira walked onto the airstrip confidently as more cheering broke out, eventually standing in front of the Gym Leader herself.
The two shook hands. "Pleasure to meet you, Moira," she said. "You might've beaten Ricky, but his team was about raw power and defense. You won't be able to simply overpower my team, however. Gym battles here are practically air shows! So, are you ready?"
"Aye," she said, smirking. "Let's give 'em a show."
You got this, Moira, Oliver thought from the front row of seats. Joltik was enjoying the show from his usual perch atop Oliver's head while Scarlet held Ralts in her lap, Oliver holding a big bucket of popcorn in his lap.
The two competitors walked away from each other to their spots, spun around, and pulled out one of their Pokéballs. Moira noted that Amelia only had three Pokémon on her team, much like Ricky did.
"And… begin!"
"Go, Wooloo!" Moira shouted, tossing her Pokéball onto the field and letting out Wooloo, the spherical sheep attempting to look intimidating, but her idea of a war cry- namely, baa-ing loudly- just came across more cute than anything else, much to her chagrin.
Amelia wound up her own throw. "Go, Diglett!"
When the Pokéball burst open, out popped a Pokémon that Moira definitely recognized as Diglett, but rather than being burrowed into the ground and sticking its head out, instead Diglett's round head was sticking out the top of a small tornado, forming a greyish-blue cone of wind that ensured that Diglett's lower body remained obscured.
DIGLETT (Allanzan Form)
Whirlwind Pokémon
Flying
Due to the shallow bedrock in most areas of the Allanza Region, Diglett was unable to thrive as it does in other regions. Instead, the Pokémon has adapted to travel around in dust devils, and as such is most common in the arid, sandy eastern part of Allanza.
The airborne Diglett hovered across from Moira's Wooloo as both trainers gave their first command.
"Diglett, use Rapid Spin!"
Moira had barely opened her mouth to give Wooloo a command when Diglett, leaving a trail of dust in its wake, blew right up to Wooloo and the sheep found herself beset by hit after hit from the spinning vortex of wind.
"Defense Curl!" Moira shouted, and Wooloo curled herself into a ball, protecting against the onslaught.
"Don't let up!" Amelia shouted. "Use Quick Attack!"
Rather than letting the winds do all the work, this time, Diglett simply slammed Wooloo head-on, sending the sheep rolling backwards from the impact. Moira dodged just in time to avoid the rolling Pokémon that went crashing into the wall. She was right under Oliver's nose, in fact.
Thankfully, this put some distance between Wooloo and Diglett, giving both of them some breathing room.
If Wooloo keeps taking hits like that, Moira thought, then my plan of using Wild Charge won't work! The recoil damage will cripple her for the rest of the battle!
"Use Aerial Ace!"
"Defense Curl again!"
The fast, unseen claw of Diglett slashed at Wooloo's wooly barrier, slicing it up a bit but managing to avoid hitting Wooloo herself.
Moira swallowed, knowing this defense wouldn't hold out forever. If I don't try it, Wooloo might never get a chance in the first place. Taking a deep breath, she pointed at Diglett as it made another charge at Wooloo. "Use Wild Charge!"
Wooloo let loose what she seemed to think was a brave battle cry and her wool began to flash yellow, generating sparks as she barreled towards Diglett, a trail of crackling electricity left in her wake.
"Diglett! Dodge it!"
Just in the nick of time, Diglett sprung into action and spun out of the way, sending Wooloo skidding to a halt.
"Ngh!" Moira grunted. She was hoping that Wild Charge would land, and wasn't sure if she'd get the chance again.
"All right, Diglett," Amelia said, "Use Aerial Ace!"
Diglett darted back in Wooloo's direction and made its approach again. Wooloo was still recovering from her missed attack, so she didn't respond in time when Moira told her to get out of the way. Diglett made contact again when a large jolt of electricity suddenly erupted from the wool, sending Diglett recoiling back.
"Wh-what?" Amelia said in surprise.
Back on the stands, Scarlet watched in confusion while Oliver seemed to realize what was happening.
"Oliver, what was that?" she asked.
"When Wooloo used Wild Charge, her wool got an insane buildup of static electricity," he explained. "Since the attack missed, the charge remained in her wool, and when Diglett used Aerial Ace, the electricity had somewhere to go."
Moira didn't understand why that had happened, but she wasn't complaining. Diglett was thrown off from the shock and she was taking advantage of that opening. "Wooloo, use Headbutt!"
Thanks to the close proximity of the two, Wooloo was quickly able to rear her head back and ram it into Diglett. With a crackle of electricity, combined with the satisfying sound of impact made when Wooloo's skull collided with Diglett, the poor Flying-type's tornado was sent careening backwards, with the Pokémon riding within down for the count.
Amelia withdrew her Pokémon with a grimace. Moira smiled a little.
One down, two tae go. Looks like her team's got a bunch of really fast but really fragile Pokémon on it. It's just a matter of figuring out their tricks.
Amelia threw her second Pokémon out. "Go, Gligar!"
Moira's self-assured smile turned into a frown as the purple, winged Pokémon emerged. Gligar was part Ground-type, so Wild Charge wouldn't be very helpful. She had been banking on an overwhelming offensive with Wild Charge putting a quick end to the battle. Clearly that wouldn't work.
"Wooloo, come back," she sighed.
"Gligar, use Swords Dance!" Amelia called out, and as Moira switched Wooloo out for Drizzile, Gligar began performing a series of quick maneuvers, drawing oohs and aahs from the spectators. Now Gligar's attack power had been increased temporarily due to the adrenaline, and Moira threw Drizzile out into the open.
Great, even though now my Pokémon is the one keeping his distance, I'm still on the defensive now…
"Gligar! Dig!"
"Drizzile, use Water Pulse!"
Drizzile fired off a ring of water that missed its target, landing with a splash just as Gligar burrowed through the decades-old pavement into the ground below. The field went silent as Moira scanned the ground frantically for any sign of movement. Gligar was powered up with Swords Dance and Drizzile wasn't the most resilient Pokémon ever. One hit could do serious damage.
She strained her ears, hoping to hear any sound that would give away Gligar's position.
*crack* *rumble*
Moira smirked. "Water Pulse! Aim right there!" she cried, pointing directly to Drizzile's left
Drizzile quickly fired off another shot of water at the ground where Moira was pointing. The water struck the ground and made a huge splash- right as Gligar shot out of the ground directly into the pulse's path, flinging the surprised Gligar into the air, too stunned to finish its attack, falling helplessly.
"And Water Gun!"
With one finger, Drizzle pointed and launched a concentrated stream of water at Gligar as it fell out of the sky, launching it across the field right in front of Amelia.
Moira chuckled triumphantly as Amelia recalled her second downed Pokémon… wait… why was she smiling?
"Good job so far," Amelia congratulated as she pulled out her third ball. "Let's see how well you deal with my ace in the hole! Go, Gliscor!"
Gligar's evolved form burst from the third Pokéball with a demented look in its eyes as it spread its wings wide. Moira stared it down, not flinching.
Same typing, same strategy. "Drizzile, Water Pulse again!"
As Drizzile began charging up water, Amelia thrust her hand out. "Gliscor! Thunder Fang!"
What?
As soon as the words left her mouth, Gliscor darted forward so lightning-fast her eyes couldn't even keep up.
What?!
Gliscor's fangs embedded themselves in Drizzile, and in a reversal of the first matchup, it was now Gliscor who was delivering an electric shock to Drizzile, who was screaming.
"Something you oughta know," Amelia called from across the makeshift stadium. "If you try to rely solely on type advantages, you're gonna have a bad time!"
"Shake 'em off, Drizzile!" Moira cried frantically. Drizzile tried, frantically launching Water Guns at the hostile that was still biting down on him, but it was no use. With one final, definitive crackle, the electricity took its toll and Drizzile couldn't stand anymore, collapsing to the ground.
Moira recalled her first loss of the battle, her mind racing as she pondered her next move.
Nidorino? Nah, Ground beats Poison, Dig would make mincemeat of 'im. Wooloo will probably last the longest.
"Go! Wooloo!"
Despite Wooloo's ironclad defense, Gliscor was able to tear through it with just a couple of Aerial Aces, shearing Wooloo's natural armor and sending her to the ground as well.
Come on, think! Moira's mind practically began smoking. Her strongest Pokémon and her most resilient were both down and they hadn't even made a scratch on Gliscor.
"Go, Nidorino!"
Just as she predicted, Gliscor immediately went for a Dig. Unlike Drizzile, however, Nidorino didn't have the speed or reaction time to intercept it and was struck dead-on as Gliscor once again burst from the ground. As Gliscor flew back to its starting position, Moira noticed something.
The wing that struck Nidorino doesn't look right, like it's injured- Of course! It must have struck Nidorino's spines and now it's poisoned!
Moira brought out her last Pokémon, Tyrogue, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, he could hold out long enough for Gligar to be sufficiently weakened by the poison.
Unfortunately, after two uses of Protect, Tyrogue was unable to maintain the focus need to ward off Gligar's uses of Aerial Ace, and in one slash, the unevolved Fighting-type was down for the count.
"Amelia and her Gliscor have done it again! The winner is Amelia!"
The crowd went nuts as Gliscor took to the sky and began doing some tricky movements in the skies as celebration. However, Moira barely seemed to register what was going on around her. Her ears rang as she stood there, immobilized, her mind flashing back to… to…
As if on autopilot she withdrew the unconscious Tyrogue and sauntered off.
Oliver and Scarlet watched her with growing concern. "I know she can get emotional sometimes," Scarlet said, "but she's taking this one defeat way harder than I thought she would."
Oliver looked over at Ralts, remembering that she was an empath, and it looked like Ralts was way ahead of him. Her red horn was glowing as she stared directly at Moira. After a few seconds, Ralts looked back into Oliver's eyes (he assumed anyway, Ralts's hair obscured her eyes) and gestured her head towards her. The message was clear: Go after her.
Oliver quickly stood up to try and catch up to her, dropping his popcorn in the process, ignoring Scarlet's yelp of surprise. Moira looked absolutely devastated, and it looked like she needed help.
However, fighting through the crowd meant that Oliver was delayed quite a bit and there was no sign of Moira anywhere in the lobby of the Gym.
Okay… if I'd just suffered a catastrophic defeat, where would I be?
The answer came to him literally a second later and he felt embarrassed it took him so long to put it together.
Of course she'll be at the Pokémon Center.
Sure enough, slouching in one of the chairs in the waiting room was Moira, looking seven different flavors of upset as she waited for her Pokémon to be healed. The bangs of her hair were drooped over her face. She seemed lost in her own world, so much so that she didn't react when Oliver sat right next to her.
I hate seeing her like this, Oliver thought.
Cautiously, he cleared his throat, causing her to jump a bit.
"Ah… hey, Oliver…"
"Moira, what's wrong?" Oliver asked, before catching himself. "I mean, I know what's wrong, you, um, you lost." Seeing Moira's frown deepen he furiously backpedalled. "Sorry, I mean, it's really not that big a deal, I mean, she's a Gym Leader! Her team is supposed to be really strong, there's nothing wrong with losing to her."
Moira didn't respond. Oliver's mind raced to figure out how to help her. After all, Moira would do the same for him. She had done the same for him.
"Look… it's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't like you crashed and burned. You didn't lose to her because you were a bad trainer, you were absolutely crushing her until she brought out her Gliscor from Hell."
Moira let out a chuckle, then wiped her nose on her sleeve.
"There's still plenty of time left for the Gym Challenge. There's still a month left until the tournament, you still have time to train a bit and challenge her again." Hesitantly, he put a hand on her shoulder, which seemed to calm her down a bit. "When I lost all those battles, you were there to get me out of my funk. Now it's my turn to help you."
Moira turned her head to look him in the eyes, with her own being watery and shiny. "Oliver… Ah-"
Before she could finish her thought, she was interrupted by the sound of the speaker.
Ding ding ding-ding ding!
Moira Taylor, your team has been fully recovered.
"Thanks," Moira said as she stood up. "You, uh… ye wanna train with me later?"
"Of course!" Oliver said cheerfully, glad Moira was at least feeling well enough to talk to him again. "We'll show that Gliscor what for."
Moira nodded once before sweeping her fallen hair out of her eyes and stood up to pick up her team. "There you are! Their injuries have been healed," the nurse said as she handed back her Pokéballs. "Just some advice, though," she added as Moira took them back. "After that fight, you might want to let them rest for a while. They might be healed, but you shouldn't push them too hard right away."
"Ah'll remember that. Thanks!"
"Anytime!" the nurse said, bowing. "We're always here to help."
Moira turned back to Oliver. Her eyes were still a little red but she was looking more and more like her old self. "C'mon, Oliver, let's grab Scarlet and grab some food."
"Good idea."
The two walked out to the front door of the Center, which automatically slid open.
...Revealing a certain blonde standing right there.
"Whoa! Amber!" Oliver reacted, surprised. "Sorry, are we in your way? We were just leaving!"
"Nah," Amber replied, seeming more preoccupied by something on her phone. "My team's in good shape, I wasn't on my way in."
"Then what do ye want, ye nyaff?" Moira groaned.
"Oh, this won't take long. See, I just happened to stumble on a very interesting video from a year or two ago."
She tapped the screen and flipped her phone around so the others could see. Oliver squinted in confusion. The video seemed to display a grassy sports field, a Pokémon stadium he would guess. "A Pokémon battle? Moira, what do you think-" he turned to ask her thoughts but Moira looked absolutely petrified.
"Uh… Moira?"
"Keep watching," Amber said, smirking. "The good part's coming up."
Oliver hesitantly kept watching, and indeed, it seemed to be a Pokémon battle, the two competitors being a Sobble and a Pokémon he didn't recognize. It looked like some sort of mix between a Bellossom and a Whimsicott.
It looks like a broadcast of some kind.
That was when the announcer in the video spoke up, his accent indicating that this fight was taking place in Galar.
"The challenger's Wooloo may have been defeated, but Gossifleur is no longer Dynamaxed, so her last Pokémon might have a chance to pull out a victory!"
The camera movements now gave Oliver a clearer view of the competitors. One of them, who he supposed was a Gym Leader, was built like a mountain with a distractingly boyish face, a massive farmer's hat over reddish-brown hair. The other trainer, dressed in a sports uniform with the same colors, was-
"Moira? Is that you?" Oliver asked, hesitantly. Moira seemed to be shaking in her boots.
"Keep watching," Amber prodded.
Oliver turned back to the screen and noted that Moira looked like she was all nerves. In the recording, Moira sent out her Sobble, her voice cracking as she sent her first companion out. Oliver bit his lip, knowing how this fight was going to end.
I'm not familiar with that Pokémon, but it's probably fully-evolved and definitely Grass-type. Sobble didn't stand a chance, did he.
Indeed, despite Sobble's efforts to use Water Gun, one Magical Leaf from Gossifleur was more than enough to put down the timid Water-type.
Sobble collapsed to the ground anticlimactically, and the Moira in the video was starting to shake much more violently. Before the announcer had even finished declaring the victor…
The Moira in the recording exploded.
"MOTHERF***ER YE CANNAE EVEN BEAT ONE F***IN GYM LEADER CAN YE, AFTER I SPENT ALL THAT F***IN TIME TRAINING YE BLEEDIN' F***ERS!"
Oliver watched in morbid fascination as Moira's breakdown devolved further and further, its contents expanding into every curse word he'd ever heard, along with a few words he… thought were swears?
The Gym Leader (who Oliver picked up was named Milo) just went stiff and backed away slowly from the foulmouthed adolescent in the midst of a mental breakdown.
That shout was the sound of a girl who had just been defeated for all the region to see and she was not taking it well.
Eventually the recording was cut off once the people at the studio evidently got over their shock and cut the live feed off, but the damage was done. Everyone had seen it. Moira had cussed out her team on live television.
But the worst part? Oliver might've laughed at the embarrassment himself if the girl in the video wasn't standing less than a foot away from him.
Oliver almost didn't want to turn his head to look at Moira, but he forced himself to, and Moira looked like her soul had decided to take a quick bathroom break and left her body. She was stiff as a board, pale, her breathing shallow, tears beginning to form in her eyes once again.
"The Angry Galarian Kid was a really big meme in Galar, but it's still around here," Amber said.
The implications began to settle in Oliver's mind. After a humiliating display like that, Moira probably couldn't show her face in public. She was probably jumping at the chance to move to another region, where she wouldn't be seen as the most pottymouthed sore loser in history.
Moira… I'm so sorry…
"Still," Amber continued, "you can't actually see her that well in the video, so it's hard to tell it's you at a glance. Sure would be a shame if someone were to put her next to another trainer who just got destroyed in another Gym battle and revealed they were the same."
Upon hearing this, Moira seemed to come to. "Ye… ye wouldn't…"
"Oh, but I would. My dad may not be as famous as Raleigh, but he still has plenty of fans all throughout the region who follow him. And a lot of them follow me too, for being related to him. That's a pretty big audience to see the Angry Galarian Kid exposed," she sneered, typing up a social media post, no doubt revealing that the Angry Galarian Kid was still at it, and she just failed once again. "And they'll be interested to know that you haven't actually improved as a Trainer since then."
"Please, I- I'm beggin' ye-" Moira pleaded, shaking.
"Maybe you should've thought of that before you slapped me and made a fool of me back in Rokkraw."
She clicked Share.
Without another word Amber pocketed her phone and, making a show of brushing dust off her jacket, walked away from the two stunned teens.
"Don't worry," she said without turning to face them. "Now you'll have an audience for the rest of the Gym Challenge. Unless you drop out, of course. Wouldn't blame you!"
As the blonde disappeared down the road, Moira let her tears start falling again. Oliver was at a complete loss as to what to do. Hesitantly, he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder again to ground her, but before he could, Moira bolted, running off at top speed, leaving Oliver in the dust.
Just as Moira passed out of sight as well, another set of footsteps approached him. Oliver turned and it was Scarlet, holding Ralts while Cassandra ran beside them.
"Oliver! I saw what Amber just posted! Where's Moira?"
"She just ran off!" Oliver said. "Down that way! We've got to catch up to her before she does anything stupid!"
"Doesn't she have her Pokémon with her?"
"Yeah, but the nurse said they still need some rest! I'm worried something bad will happen!"
Without another word, Oliver took off in the direction Moira went, Scarlet running behind, still carrying Ralts in her hands.
Guess who's back! I got my motivation to write back after I finished Sleeper Hit. Sorry it took so long. On top of that, I had to workshop my plans for Moira but I think I know where the story is going now.
Hopefully I can get back into a groove with posting new chapters. Expect me to alternate between this, Sleeper Hit side stories, and XIV stories.
