Chapter 16

Test Your Might

(-¤-)

So going through Eterna Forest the second time went much quicker, relatively at least. It was a wild place full of odd twists and turns, tight paths and territorial pokemon. I had to go on foot several times to push past the brush and worm my way past tight trails. Over all the trip took me twelve fuckin hours. A huge improvement from my previous record of over two weeks, but the actual walking slowed me down immensely. I even had to camp out near the edge so I wasn't riding around in the pitch black.

Not that I thought Luke would lead me into anything dangerous, but being blind and on a piece of junk going 40 down a dirt path was just a little too much stupid for me.

And now I have to walk to places until I find me a good junk yard with spare parts. Stupid fuckin wingulls, its not my fault they decided to build their nest right in the middle of the path! At least I didn't run over any eggs, I'm not sure how I would have taken that.

I stared down at my half eaten sandwich listening to Jack grumpily munch on his potato chips. The restuarant that Miss Sundress had taken me to was quaint. A little mom and pop shop full of bright furniture and plenty of house plants, it felt homie and warm. And the food was really good! Of course I've been eating trainer bars and scrounged berries for the past few weeks, so any thing with butter on it was heavenly at the moment.

And this sandwich had a surprising amount butter on it.

I let Jack out when our food arrived because I always eat with him. It helps with the whole friendship thing. He wasn't too impressed with Miss Sundress across the table but he was at least keeping his hissing down to a minimum.

She seemed interested in him at least. Once he was out she had asked a little about him, you know the usual questions. How old is he, whats his name, whys he so mean. I gave her the usual answers in turn. A shrug, a "Jack" and another shrug.

I shouldn't even be here though, while people in this world seemed more freindly and caring, I knew better than to just trust strangers. This place had its fair share of bastards lurking in dark alleyways looking for an easy target. And the really good ones know how to fake a smile. The sandwich could be a trap, this whole building could be a trap. I wanted to leave right now, it was logical, I don't know this woman and I'm a small and supposedly defenseless little girl.

There was just one tiny problem.

I glanced back up to the woman who saw me eat shit down a hill. She was looking out of the large partially painted front window of the store, shimmering slate grey eyes lost in thought as they traced something just out of view. The morning sun, now shining just above the surrounding rooftops, caught her long flowing golden silk like hair. Diffusing into a soft glow that caressed the curve of her unblemished cheek. A small faint scar sat just above her eyebrow speaking of some unknown incident from long ago. Steam washed out of her mouth in thin wisps from the sip of coffee she had just taken, blazing like calm and quiet fire as it passed through the rays of light. A hand with polished finger nails gently gripped the mug, a single polished brass bracelet glittered on her slender wrist, its design simple, yet eye catching.

She is super pretty.

And I am very gay.

I locked my eyes back down on my sandwich, hoping she didn't notice the occasional glances I kept giving her. I know Jacks noticed by now, though if he cares he wasn't showing it. Like, I know I have no fucking chance with her because I'm literally a child right now. But, pretty lady. And she has a sundress on. A Fucking Sundress!

Stupid fucking 11 year old body, why did I pop up like this. Its so fucking annoying, GRAAAAAAAHHHH!

I'm glad I was good at hiding it at least, I'm sure she thought I was a bit odd and maybe a little bit of an idiot, but it was better than her knowing I was crushing hard. It was always awkward when kids had crushes on adults, and I would like this encounter to be as smooth as possible. For reasons.

Just eat your sandwich Alice, stop looking at the ethereal being of beauty in front of you and eat your goddamned sandwich.

"So, where are you from?" She asked, turning to me. I made some ungodly noise of surprise past the massive bite of bread, veggies and fried something or other. I choked down the half chewed mass in a slight embarrassed panic, beating my chest in an effort to help it settle. Jack silently watched me as I attempted to breath again, seemingly unimpressed if the continued munching of his chips was anything to judge by. Finally mouth cleared and tongue free I eloquently asked for a repeat of her query.

"Eh?"

"I asked where are you from?" She said again, now with a smile of amusement tugging at her mouth. "You can't be from Eterna City if you needed directions back."

"Dellitown." There was no harm in telling her that, hell I was being paid to tell people that. Speaking of which, I should be getting my sponsor check soon.

She quirked her brow at that, "Thats the old town just north of Eterna Forest, correct?" Interesting that she knew of it, I figured most people would have forgotten the old tourist trap by now.

"Yeah, I set out on my journey a few weeks back."

"Kind of an early start don't you think?" She has a point, most kids start their journeys right at the beginning of league season, it keeps them funded through battle and their skills sharp through competition. I still have a month before that starts.

"I was hoping to get a head start on training and building a team. That way I can steamroll the first couple of gyms I go to." I wasn't aiming for the champions throne by the way, the gyms just provided an excellent source of battling experience, and they gave you prize money for winning. Also fighting in the conference sounded like a blast.

"Surely you could do that back at Dellitown. Eterna forest has a wide variety of pokemon to choose from." She gave Jack a pointed look. He in turn hissed at her, but I just absent mindedly shoved another chip in his mouth to shut him up. My fingers instinctively jerked away before he could get them as he snapped at me. I gave neither of these actions any thought, having gotten used to Jacks behavior over the past few months. He grumbled in his high pitched mousey voice and went back to chewing.

"Yeah, but it doesn't have everything." It did have a decent amount of options, but the few that interested me were very rare in that area and my luck is certainly not cut out for finding them. "Besides, I wanna go out and see the world, I'll never learn the important stuff if I just stay in one spot."

"That reminds me of an old saying," she mentioned as she looked down at her coffee. "A soilder is made in the training grounds, but warriors are only born on the battlefield." She paused for a moment letting the quiet settle around us before breaking it again.

"Would you like to have a battle?"

Ok, now that was a surprise. I didn't take her for the battling type, she looked more like the 'has a skitty at home named fuffles' type. Jack perked up a bit, an ear now turned to my new challenger.

"What kind of battle?" A standard question, with so many trainers out there with so many types of styles there was always some question as to the basics of a battle. 1 on 1, 3 on 3, double battles, that kind of stuff.

"Your full team against one of mine, one on one each round." She let a confident smirk graced her lips.

My eyebrows flew up at that, Jack simply cocked his head seemingly intrested. My initial thought was that she was just super cocky, but her eyes spoke of something else. The slate grey jewels burned with a hidden intensity like searing rock, belieing her calm exterior. This wasn't arrogance, this was confidence.

Her request made me nervous. On one hand I could really use the experience against a skilled opponent, and judging by her confidence, she was very skilled. On the other hand, if she was that sure that her one could take my whole team, without even knowing that I only have four, then it might just wipe the floor with me and I'd get no real experience in. I don't want to send my team to a slaughter for literally no reason.

"Sorry, but-"

"I'll give you a thousand dollars if you win."

"Bring it the fuck on!" I slapped a hand down on the table. A thousand bucks is worth an ass kicking!

We finished our meals with gusto after that, except Jack, who chewed with the same annoyed look he always had. My sandwich, once savored, was devoured in a rush as my new strategies buzzed in my head. I wasn't sure what we were up against.

But we were gonna fuck it up.

(-¤-)

We were at one of the random designated battlefields in the city limits. It was basically a glorified park with a bunch of league standard battlefields drawn in chalk on large dirt patches. Some small and others fairly large, Sundress led me to one of the larger ones. Certain moves weren't allowed in city limits in an effort to keep property damage to a minimum, but my guys couldn't sling hyper beams or summon earthquakes quite yet, so it was a moot point. More over, it meant that she would be limited if hers could, if only a bit

"Ready?" That smirk showed up yet again on her face.

"After you." Etiquette dictates that the challenger sends out their pokemon first. There were a few unofficial rules like that, some of which I'm still learning.

"Cryogonal, blow like the blizzard winds!" With a quick flurrish and a cheesy catchphrase she released her pokemon.

It was an angry face.

Thats... ok then. It was a cryogonal, basically a big ass living snowflake, with a frowny face. Its made of ice, its round and its kinda pointy. I was expecting alot of different things that might pop out of that ball. But a pissed off christmas emoji was not one of them.

"What, is that." I actually don't know alot about this species other than its cleary an ice type. I dug out my pokedex, flipped it open and let it do its job. It spoke in a kinda nasally nerd voice in halting sentences with a robotic filter over it, I wonder if the voice is synthesized or if someone records all these sound clips.

"Cryogonal. The crystallizing pokemon. Cryogonal are born in snow clouds. They use chains made of ice crystals to capture their prey." That things a carnivore? Thats fucked dude, the sky makes meateaters here. The holiday season must be terrifying.

Alright then, its not steel or poison type so Dust Up should work.

I released karen from her painted ball, the teams only other girl took stock of the situation and promptly decided that it was beneath her. So nothing new.

The ball in my hand was painted like a rose blossom now, lots of petals and a little star of green on the bottom for where the stem would be. Both her and Mark had gotten their pokeballs done up during training.

"An interesting choice!" My opponent called out, "Lets see if it was the right one."

I ignored her and called out my first order. "Powder pour." It was a simple move, just start making poison powder and don't stop. The goal was to make as much of the toxic substance as possible.

Karen gave me the stink eye before finally relenting and releasing a constant spray of the purple spores from her mass of fluff. With no direction given the powder just lazily floated to the hard packed dirt below.

"Buzz Blade." Looks like Sundress is making her move now. The ice type started spinning in the air like a record, faster and faster before its edges suddenly took on a bright glow.

It shot forward like a thrown shuriken, cleaving through the air with a threatening whiring screech.

"Dodge it!" Her big leaf like ears flapped in an effort to get away. She had proved to be suprisingly nimble during training despite her lack of limbs, and thats what saved her from a direct hit this time.

Instead it snipped off a small chunk of cotton as it glanced her.

Karen had some anger issues, not like Jack mind you, but she preferred things to go her way. Getting muddy, dirty or scuffed up had proven to be decidedly not 'her way.' But I had had never actually seen her damage her fluff before. And judging by the look of shocked disbelief in her eyes as she watched the almost lighter than air fuzz drift away, I don't think she had either.

Something snapped in my little cotton swab today, here's hoping shes actually good at using that fury.

A high pitched ragged shrieking noise unlike anything I had ever heard before came out from her mouth. Cryogonal had circled around now and was coming for another pass and was met with a rage fueled fairy wind strong enough to blow it off course.

"Cotton spore!" She shook, the fluff around her growing and detaching in uneven clumps. The white puffs flew at cryogonal with hatred and speed, but the flying dinner plate proved to be quick, and easily dodged out of the way.

Cotton spore was a debuff technique. The puffs would cling to the target with supernatural grip and create an incredible amount of air resistance. The pokemon would slow down while fighting the drag, it worked particularly well on water types in the water. Hopefully we can slow this thing down and score some real hits.

This continued for another few rounds, they would take a pass at Karen, who would either blast it off course with fairy wind, or barely dodge out of the way. Losing more bits of fluff each time. And the damned thing was just too fast, she hadn't managed a single hit with cotton spore. Sundress hadn't given anymore orders, seemingly content to watch this odd game go on. But that was fine, Karen wasn't supposed to beat this thing, she wasn't even out here to damage it.

The poison was starting to build up on the ground now. The field was slowly turning a deep noxious purple, covering any chalk outlines or bare dirt that dared peek through. Little clouds of fuzz started littering the field and letting little bits of purple cling to them as Karen furiously sprayed it after her opponent. Who had yet to be poisoned, it expertly dodged away from the powder as it ripped through the air like a rabid buzz saw.

And then it scored a lucky hit. Karen was determined to take this thing down but her refusal to do any defensive training proved to be her downfall. She had exhausted herself, and the poison had started to just come to a trickle, when the living blade directly struck her. She was thrown into the ground without mercy, her crash landing kicking up an impressive cloud of noxius purple spores.

I waited for the cloud to settle only to find her completely unconscious, complete with swirling eyes. I recalled her and gave her ball a bit of praise for a job well done, unsure if she could even hear me. She had done her part perfectly, and even scored a few hits in as a bonus. Though I wasn't sure how much good it did, seeing as it seemed to be unhurt.

I let out Luke, my venomous bat took to the air, his wings kicking up the dust below him. His previous confusion having cleared up some time ago, something about the inside of a pokeball allowed pokemon to recover from confusion and other mind altering attacks much faster than just being out did. He was a little scuffed up still from his rough landing but he was more than healthy enough for a fight. I wasted no time and spoke a single order with confidence.

"Dust up."

He didn't even hesitate to slam a whirlwind into the toxin soaked ground with a giant grin. I drew my shirt in front of my mouth as the battle field turned into a large purple storm front. There was a beat before the wind picked up and all the dust got sucked back to my side of the field. It formed a large spinning ball, the deep purple orb completely obscuring the golbat inside.

Dust up was simpler than it looked, two of my pokemon were immune to poison powder. Karen being a grass type and being unaffected by the three powder moves of her type, and Luke being immune to all poisons due to his typing. First Karen makes a huge amount of it and throws it everywhere without the intent of poisoning the target. Second, Luke uses whirlwind to create a shield of poison and wind around himself.

It won't deflect alot attacks but the orb is big enough to fly around in and completely opaque, making hitting Luke with a ranged attack pretty much impossible. The poison discourages the opponent from using melee attacks lest they get poisoned. It wasn't perfect, certain aoe attacks could still hit him but it was good enough for now.

Plus it looked super fucking cool.

I got the idea from a similar tactic in the journal. A drowsee with insomnia would uses psychic and create a wall of sleep powder from another pokemon. And then either blast the pokemon from a distance or use dream eater after they passed through the shield and went to sleep. Same concept, different angle.

My opponent gave her second order of the battle. "Get back and use icy wind." The over grown snowflake stopped spinning as it returned to the opposite side of the field and released a blast of sparkling artic air from its mouth.

Dust Up held against the ice type move pretty well, the icy wind being over powered by the typhoon of flying type energy. Though I did spot a few bits of frosted ice in the purple, yeah I'm gonna have to stop that shit real quick.

"Swift, keep it moving!" I didn't need to shout, his super sensitive ears would pick up on me just fine even over the roar of the wind.

It's also what let him aim so well in there.

Bright shining stars blasted out of the sphere of nasty, sailing for their target with perfect accuracy. The ice type shot up in the air in an effort to dodge, but the stars changed course in response. The energetic homing missiles following it as they soared.

Swift was an interesting attack that would lock on to another pokemons life energy and use that to steer, like a heat seeking missle. Unless blocked or countered swift wouldn't miss. The trade off is that the stars aren't actually very stable or fast, a decent gust attack would detonate them. Fast enough pokemon could simply outrun them until they either destabilize or collide with something else. It also needed some form of line of sight.

That last problem was completely subverted with Lukes natural echolocation. He could keep track of the enemy and his own location in the pitch black inside of Dust Up. Unfortunately it seemed that I wasn't the only one here that knew how swift worked.

"Counter it with another Icy Wind" it spit out another frozen zephyr in the path of the stars, causing their normal type energy to violently unravel. "Now blast the sphere with ice beam."

"Counter with swift" a ball of ice type energy sprang up in front of the snow flake before blasting cold squealing lightning forward. At the same time another barrage of stars sprang forth from the controlled biohazard. The attacks collided in the middle, exploding in an oddly beautiful display of light and smoke.

Both pokemon held their ground, blasting away and trying to over power the other. The ice type was well trained however, and was steadily pushing the stars further in. I grit my teeth, I wasn't sure exactly what the ice beam would do to the shield but after seeing what the icy wind did I wasn't sure I should risk just letting it hit it, if it froze up it would be useless. He can't just sit there any more, I need him to move.

"Toxic Front! Follow up with Air Cutter."

The barrage of stars stopped letting the ice beam hit, and froze a decent chunk of the cloud into chunks of ice to heavy for the wind to lift. They fell to the ground with a mighty crunch. The spherical storm suddenly *shifted* turning from a ball to a disk as it slowy moved forward at first. Several blades of wind suddenly blasted forth from several new locations, each providing a different angle for the cryogonal to dodge. It had to cut off its attack to do so though, looks like it can't move and use ice beam, thats good to know. The blades sent up held a deep tinge of purple, poison powder carried from the cloud.

Toxic front was just an order to change Dust Ups shape and chase down the enemy with it. Unfortunately its slow as fuck, but it does force our foe to move around. So thats neat.

Luke managed to finally score a direct hit, a line of purple powder coated its face, though it seem to tank the attack rather well. That was fine, it was on a timer now, and the more posion we can get into him the shorter that countdown gets.

This continued for a hot minute, Luke would blast at the cryogonal and occasionally score another hit whike slowly moving the toxins after it, though it still wasn't slowing down. How tough was this thing?

"Ice age"

Oh that sounds real good, can't wait to see what kinda shit storm fucking Ice age is.

The thing launched straight up, spinning again faster and faster. Glowing with the tell tale light of ice type energy, brighter and brighter and brighter still. What in the fuck is it doing!?

Oh shit, I can see my breath right now.

"PROTECT!" ripped from my throat before it could start moving, and shit dude did it fucking move.

It shot down like a rabid comet, the air around it screaming through the bone deep chill it radiated out like a cold sun. There was an impact that shook the few trees in the vicinity and the toxic storm cloud that I had sacrificed Karen for was suddenly gone. Either blown away from the force of the impact or frozen in place by the massive ice pillars that sprouted from the now frozen over battlefield. I had to cover my face with my jacket to avoid the biting winds that ripped away at our surroundings.

Well fuck me, that was really goddamn cool. Bad for me though.

There was a brief moment of calm as I took in the beautiful purple tinted ice that now invaded my view. A dark blue figure flashed out from in between the newborn pillars with rapid speed, being followed by a spinning glowing and razor sharp disk.

Holy crap, Protect worked! Fuck yeah man, I am so good at this shit! Ok ok ok, head in the game, got a snowflake to beat up.

Lets see, new battlefield dynamics, lots of ice and cover, no more poison powder, which sucks, and that thing is apparently a power house. But I could see it was slowing down now, the poison in its body was finally doing something, so theres that at least. Luke still has the best shot at outlasting him, so long as he doesn't take a direct hit from an ice beam.

He displayed some impressive agility and dexterity as he weaved around the new terrain, barrel rolling around pillars snapping in and out of tight spaces and keeping the ice type guessing as to where he would go next. As much as people dismiss the zubat line due to how common they are, they are undeniably some of the best flyers when it comes to tight quarters. Part of evolving to hunt in cave systems and such.

The cryogonal on the other hand seemed more than content to just cleave through any obstacles it encountered. It was awful at turning however and Luke had duped him on more than one occasion turning on a dime to head the other direction.

As I watched though Lukes flying grew more and more erratic, and he was starting to take turns and dives that were putting him closer and closer to cryogonal. Something was tripping him up, but what? My eyes scanned the field, hoping to spot something, it wasn't until I shifted my weight to the side that I noticed something odd.

Certain spots of the air shimmered like glass.

Fucking Reflect?! It knows fucking Reflect!? Of course, Luke was dodging them and trying to out run Cryogonal at the same time, the longer this chase goes on the more Reflects will be put up. The only reason that he hasn't slammed into one yet was probably because of his echolocation. We need to trip them up, something to make them stop manipulating the field. Or, make them stop thinking all together!

"Super sonic!"

Luke snapped around and let loose the horrid squeal of super sonic, the almost sound being distorted by the ice and psychic barriers all around him. The ice type took it head on, either unaware of Lukes attack or confident it could withstand it.

It could not.

The blade wobbled as it rapidly started to tumble through the air trying to right itself but failing. It crashed into and through an ice pillar with impressive power despite being in a confused state

Super Sonic was a nasty thing. Lots of moves can induce a 'confused' state, but the actual method and effects can vary greatly depending on the technique. Super Sonic induces an acute sensory overload in the target. Suddenly sounds, colors, smells, even touch is cranked up to 12 and is just far to much for the mind to process, and they all become unignorable. This makes the pokemon often unable to follow orders or properly function, they can even become enraged and attack anything that they percive to be annoying them.

And it was pretty fuckin annoyed.

Frosted winds and multicolored lasers blasted out as it razed the field in its addled tantrum. The impressive display of power had my instincts screaming at me to take cover, that the thing in front of me was a monstrous beast that could kill me with just a stray attack. I settled for just bouncing on my feet as I watched Luke desperately dodge the wild beams and hatefuls winds.

Ok, this was a bad idea. It's pissed and disoriented, which usually is a good thing to do to your opponents. Except when they can hurl fucking lasers, then its a very bad thing.

Oops.

Luke had proved to be a expert flyer in the pillars during the chase, but his skills just weren't good enough to dodge the light show that cryogonal was putting on. A stray beam of white hot energy caught him by the wing and threw him into a violent spin downwards. I recalled him before he hit the ground, taking a Hyper Beam to the wing at his stage of development was gonna put him out of commission for the next couple of days. And I wasn't gonna make him struggle to fight that thing while grounded, that would just be cruel.

I let the light show die down for the next minute before selecting my next pokemon. If Sundress had any objections to that, I didn't hear them, or see them for that matter. The ice blocked my view of her and the field was big enough that the blockage was enough to stop her voice as well. I was fighting blind, but so was she.

Upside, the Reflects were gone now, either overloaded by its ridiculous fit or dismissed when it was first confused

Cryogonal, still in a slightly dazed state, floated up to the middle of the field. It wobbled slightly as the confusion wore off and I could see that all its activity had agitated the poison even further. It wasn't in the red yet but it was inching closer and closer.

Half my team was down, but thats fine. Karen and Luke were good at support and strategic work with their mobility, move pools, and typing. They had done a wonderful job of incapacitating this thing, without their help this thing might have wiped out the rest of the team in a few minutes.

Now its time for the heavy hitters.

(-¤-)

Alice Thorn

May 2

Team

Jack

Buneary

Moves: Pound, Foresight, Frustration, Sweetkiss, Defense Curl, Baby Doll Eyes, Quick Attack, Jumpkick, Shadow Ball, Low Kick, Swagger, Protect,

Ability Limber

Luke

Golbat

Moves: Absorb, Super sonic, Astonish, Bite, Whirlwind, Wing attack, Confuse ray, Air Cutter, Swift, Protect

Ability Inner focus

Karen

Cottonee

Moves: Abosrb, Fairy Wind, Growth, Leech Seed, Stun Spore, Mega Drain, Poison Powder, Protect, Swift, Razor Leaf, Cotton Spore,

Ability Infiltrator

Mark

Scraggy

Moves: Leer, Headbutt, Sand Attack, Feint Attack, Swagger, Low Kick, Dragon Dance, Protect, Endure, Facade, Pay Back,

Ability Moxie

3340¥

In Box

N/A

I know Cynthia doesn't have a Cryogonal in canon, but shes a champion so she totally has to have a ridiculous amount of pokemon tucked away somewhere, and no carry limit! Or its at least maxed out. Also when I first pictured this fight Cryogonal was the pokemon my brain picked and I liked the idea of it zipping around like a buzz saw so much that it stuck. So yeah, thats why she's got a snowflake on her team here

Also, holy shit this got long, I had to break it into two parts

Tell me your favorite part in the reviews!