A/N: So, I actually finished this yesterday but didn't upload... sorry.

This chapter and the next is basically just Pokemon Battle, and I'm not the best at describing such. I hope what I'm trying to describe comes across.

Chapter Twenty-One: Determining their Strength, Part 1

January 22nd, five days after the Poachers attacked and my family was ready. We stood opposite Lance on the family battle grounds.

Chloe had called the Clan together, all of them come to watch and see the strength of their newest member. They didn't know I was Lance's daughter, but they did know that I was off their blood and Lance had taken me under his wing. Of course, they weren't all interested in seeing me, some just wanted to see Lance battle in person. They weren't interested in the child that they knew little to nothing about.

Of course, even those who didn't know anything about me were a little bit interested in seeing how my dragons measured up against Lance. Especially since they knew that my Hydreigon was the first that any member of the clan had seen in person. They'd read reports, and seen pictures, but never seen one in person. Something that Lance had two Clan members working on correcting. Two researchers had gone to the only known nest of Hydreigon's known to see if they could make friends with any of them. I wished them luck since my Hydreigon was very mild mannered in comparison to the majority of the wild ones.

Some of the elders were being forced to watch because Lance was proving a point. He'd overheard a comment from the elders where they'd said something about me not deserving such rare Pokemon. Lance knew that I was going to put up a hell of a fight, and he wanted me to show them that my family had grown strong with my support and separating them from me would be one hell of a battle.

In preparation for the battle to come, I'd released my team and arranged them behind me. I wanted them to see the battles that was to take place, see the strength of the family. They also needed to see the strength of Lance's team, so they knew how much more training and practise they had ahead of them. I wasn't delusional, I knew that we couldn't beat Lance but we could give it a hell of a go.

Lucario was crouched on my left, Greninja mirroring me on my right. Vulpix was sitting in front of me; the rest of my team was arranged behind me, their imposing forms shadowing my own.

"Alright," the referee spoke, immediately silencing the audience. "This is a non-official battle between Lance Blackthorn and Jennifer Hart. The recording for this battle will not be released and used only for personal use of the participants. The battle will be seven vs. seven, substitutions will only be allowed on the Green Team. It will be until knocked out or yielded."

"Red Challenger, please release your Pokemon," the referee said, and there was the sound of fabric blowing through the air as it was waved in the direction of where Lance was stood.

In response, Lance threw his first Pokeball out, and with a dominating roar Gyarados appeared onto the field. With the battle beginning, I activated my Aura sight so I could take in the battle in its entirety. Gyarados was huge, larger than any other Pokemon I'd faced before.

"Green Challenger, release your Pokemon." the referee ordered, the sound of the flag being waved once more following his words.

In a typical battle, the referee wouldn't have spoken the words, simple using the non-verbal communication of the flag moving but I couldn't determine the colour of the flag he was using and they couldn't tell I knew which hand the correct flag was in. They'd changed the process because of my loss of sight, and Lance was contemplating making it universal so when they did televised battles they didn't have to pan to the referee when the Challengers emotional states were a little bit more interesting.

"Greninja," I instructed softly, letting him know that he was the first one up.

Gyarados was likely the strongest Pokemon they had faced, but I had faith in my water warrior. I'd spent the last five days testing my family's new limits, reminding them that they were strong alone just as they strong as a team.

Lance had told me he would be using his third strongest team – not his champion team or his Elite Level Team, but the one who bridged his gym team and his Elite Team. His Champion Dragonite was stood behind Lance, watching and analysing.

"The first battle is Gyarados vs. Greninja. Begin." The referee ordered.

"Double screen," I spoke softly, trusting Greninja's hearing.

In this battle I wasn't wearing a microphone so Lance wouldn't be able to hear what I was saying unless I shouted. But in time, I would stand in gyms and battle stadiums and wear a microphone so that those watching and recording would be able to hear what I was saying. Because of such, I'd come up with a handful of code phrases. Not all moves of course, just a few move combinations. Of course, my team also knew how to fight independent just as I had no doubt that Lance's team could as well.

Greninja immediately started producing copies of himself, with those copies appearing to also produce copies until there was around twenty of himself on the field. Using Aura, I was always able to tell which one was the real one, and I had to trust the word of my family that Greninja's copies looked real. Each of the copies appeared to be using Smokescreen in order to reduce Gyarados' visibility of the field. In an attempt to stop him, Gyarados responded with whirlpool but Greninja used his speed to get out of the way and finished blocking the field from sight.

"Twister," Lance instructed calmly, not bothered by the fact that he had lost view of the majority of the field.

"Torrent, Hydro Pump." I instructed. As they were fighting a strong water type Pokemon, their Hydro Pump needed to pack more than a little bit of a punch. Torrent would increase the power of Greninja's water type moves for a little while, making a powerful attack even more so. Maybe just enough to do some damage to Gyarados' armoured body.

Gyarados started whipping up strong winds, pulling the smoke into the twister that was beginning to form. Before the twister could do more than destroy two of the doubles, a powerful Hydro Pump slammed into Gyarados and cut off his concentration.

"Smack poison." I followed up.

"Thunder wave. Brutal swing." Lance countered, having seen my lips moving but not being able to hear the orders like I could hear his orders.

Greninja got close to Gyarados and managed to land a powerful smack down moments before he was hit by the paralysing electricity of thunder wave.

"Bounce!" I ordered sharply knowing that the urgency of tone would convey into the need to move quickly.

The paralysing effect of thunder wave did slow Greninja down, and he was clipped by the powerful swing of Gyarados' tail but he managed to avoid the majority of the impact, and come down to land a relatively powerful hit to the back of Gyarados' head. Before pushing himself off the opposing Pokemon, he used Lick before pushing himself away from Gyarados and back to his own side of the field.

"Giga impact, icy wind." Lance was clearly rotating between using long and then short ranged attacks in order to keep the faster Pokemon on its toes.

"Quick smack." I instructed, trusting Greninja to dodge the giga impact and move through the icy wind.

"Bite!" Lance called when he saw that Greninja was getting closer without being impeded by the icy wind that Gyarados was kicking up.

"Close Evasion," I hadn't had the opportunity yet to teach Greninja the true close combat moves, but he knew how to fight when in close. Close evasion meant getting close to the Gyarados and then using his close moves like pound, bounce, lick, smack down, water pulse and aqua jet. This was going to be a chip and retreat approach. Once this test was over, Lucario and I would help him learn some fighting moves.

With my order, Greninja started dancing and jumping around Gyarados dodging the attacks that were being sent his way. All of the moves that Gyarados used were ones that could only go in one direction – coming from his mouth or tail. Of the moves that Lance had ordered, Thunder Wave was the only one that could travel in all directions but Greninja could avoid it by jumping high and attacking from above. As he was a water type, Gyarados couldn't use the electric type move often.

Their battle had become one of stamina – one that Gyarados was losing since he was also fighting against the poison that Greninja kept reinforcing in his system.

"Earthquake." Lance finally ordered when he noticed that Gyarados was starting to wane.

"Get to Gyarados' crown and hold on." I ordered swiftly.

Greninja wouldn't be able to stay high enough to avoid the devastating ground type move entirely and even if he did, he would be left exposed to a devastating attack from Gyarados. However, if he could get on Gyarados' back he wouldn't be hit by the earth type move and the crown of Gyrarados' head was where he was weakest.

Greninja landed on Gyarados' back and started hitting him with smack down, while the ground under them shuddered. Gyarados' stopped sustaining the ground type attack with a roar of pain and started trying to throw off Greninja who continued attacking and holding on. Even as Gyarados released a thunder wave which caused Greninja to cry out in pain.

Despite the pain, Greninja didn't let go and he road out the pain of the electricity until it past from him and he was able to continue with his attack. Except this time, instead of using Smack down or Pound, he chose to use water pulse. Finally, Guarados wavered and fell.

Before Gyarados slammed into the ground, Greninja jumped and landed on his side of the field, breathing deeply as he regulated the strength he had left.

"Gyarados is down, round one goes to Green Challenger." The Referee announced as Chloe cheered from the stands, the rest of the Clan clapping politely. It wasn't done to cheer for someone beating the Clan head. Of course, it wouldn't last long.

"Charizard to the sky," Lance released his pseudo-Dragon to the field.

"Greninja, come back." I instructed. Greninja was still battle capable but I'd rather pull him back for now then risk him getting hurt for no reason. I was allowed substitutions because I wasn't using Pokeballs unless a member of my team fainted, as long as I didn't use any treatments.

"Altaria, take wing."

"Alt!" she gave a loud cry of challenge and took to the skies while Greninja returned to his place at my right.

"You did really well, Greninja. Rest and watch now." I briefly touched his head with my good arm before focusing on the battle about to take place.

"Round two, begin."

"Outmanoeuvre and test," I instructed.

My family had been fighting Charizard's of different strengths for the last six months, and they had all gotten quite good at it. Vulpix and Hydreigon had the highest success rate due to their natures, but Altaria had done quite a good job as well. Altaria could deflect the heat away from her by controlling the winds around her body, and she had the best chance of outmanoeuvring her airborne opponents. Vulpix and Hydreigon could fight an airborne opponent, but it wasn't easy cause they were deprived of their ability to get close and use some of their strongest hits.

"Sunny day," Lance decided to set the field.

Altaria flew in close to Charizard to see which of the two distinct fighting styles that he preferred to use. Some focused on their power, while others focused on speed and overwhelming their opponents. One of the things that Altaria had proved to be absolutely fantastic at was going offensive or defensive, which made her very good at testing and pushing her opponents so that they would show their skills.

Charizard was able to out fly Altaria's first attack, but her second met his Dragon Claw head on with a Steel Wing. Instead of pushing and trying to meat Charizard strength-for-strength, she broke contact and swerved.

"Go fast," I instructed after a few more passes.

Now Altaria had an idea of his strength, she was going to test his speed. Altaria didn't know extreme speed, but she was still extraordinarily fast and swift. Swifter than most air-borne opponents that we'd faced before. Only Noivern had stood a chance against her in the last year – no matter how many we found and faced. She was more than just naturally fast; she'd learnt to manipulate wind using Tailwing and agility to make herself faster without putting strain on her body.

Altaria landed two hits with Steel Wing before Lance acted; he didn't know how long Altaria could hold that speed for but he did know that his Charizard couldn't match or dodge it.

"Fire Blitz!" Lance called.

"Don't stop," I encouraged, and I could feel the surprise from the room at large. They all knew that I really did care about my Pokemon, and I was asking Altaria to fly straight into a very damaging fire type move.

"ALT!" she called in affirmation, manipulating the winds around her body as she dived straight at the burning ball of flame that was Charizard. She cut through the flames, twisting her body at the last moment to land a devastating Breaking Swipe to his chest.

"Ice Beam!" I called as Charizard began falling from the sky.

"Flamethrower!" Lance encouraged.

Charizard managed to release his flamethrower before Altaria's Ice Beam hit him, but the force of the two elements colliding meant he couldn't get his wings under him before he hit the ground. Charizard didn't even seem to notice the impact with the ground and managed to maintain his flamethrower long enough to cancel out the ice beam.

Altaria used the smoke and mist that had been created to dive low and try and land a peck attack. Charizard managed to get to his feet, and to land mega punch at the same time Altaria caught him with the peck. Altaria came slightly worse off from that altercation but she got back into the air before Charizard. He packed a punch.

"Hurricane Fury, follow through." I came up with another move combination that I hopped wouldn't see Altaria taking another mega punch.

Altaria dodged the dragon breath sent her way and began manipulating the winds enough that the edge of the pull ruffled my hair and close.

"Heat Wave! Prepare to defend yourself." Lance called, feeling the wind pulling at him and seeing the effect it was having across the field.

As the Hurricane was pushed towards Charizard he released a wave of heat – stronger than normal due to the still active Sunny Day – in the hopes of slowing Altaria down and giving her a burn, but we had been practising her hurricane in order to shield Altaria from fire type attacks just as tailwing was used in the same way. Charizard tried to outfly the massive hurricane, but was pulled in by the strong winds. When she let the winds go, Altaria began singing a haunting beautiful song which had Charizard shaking his head -dazed.

"Charizard, Scale Shot, stop her singing!" Lance called, but it was too late. Charizard started falling to the ground, snoring. Altaria took her chance and began attacking his prone body with Fury Attack.

Since Charizard didn't wake up, by the time he hit the ground, Lance recalled him before he could take any more damage.

"Putting him to sleep was a good move. Charizard is the only one of my team who doesn't know Sleep Talk." Lance complimented after the referee called the results.

"Altaria, come back." I decided. She could continue and fight Lance's next Pokemon because she'd only taken one hit, but I wanted everyone to have a chance to prove themselves.

Considering that Sunny Day was still active, I decided to send out Vulpix to face the Garchomp Lance released next.

"Don't let him close." I gave my first order as a warning. I knew that Vulpix wasn't strong enough to take more than three direct hits from Garchomp, and he wouldn't be strong enough until he evolved. If they had any chance of doing injury to Garchomp, they were going to have to fight smart and fight fast. "Will-o-wisp."

From his tail, Vulpix sent twenty small balls of red fire at Garchomp.

"Dig," Lance ordered calmly, causing his massive dragon to disappear under the soil with impressive speed. "Charge."

"Detect,"

Vulpix's ears twitched as he focused on not only the ability, which would allow him to sense a move just before it hit so he could dodge and retaliate, but also his hearing and the vibrations under his feet so he had even more time to prepare before Garchomp emerged.

Moments before Garchomp burst from the ground with his claw's glowing with energy from dragon claw, Vulpix jumped up and started generating swift. The moment Garchomp was visible, he released the stars.

"Bulldoze," Lance called to his Pokemon who was trying to withstand the onslaught of stars.

"Flame charge," I decided to order instead of asking Vulpix to dodge as I was sure Lance and Garchomp expected to happen next.

Vulpix coated himself in flames and met Garchomp head on. The two Pokemon pushed against each other for a long moment, before Garchomp's physical power managed to overpower Vulpix and send him flying. Vulpix was a little bruised, but he wasn't really injured. Being throwing back was no worse than if he'd been playing toss-and-catch with Hydreigon and Lucario.

"Confuse advantage," I called before Vulpix landed.

"Look away!" Lance called, but it was too late.

When Vulpix landed, his eyes glowed with the characteristic activation of confuse ray.

Taking advantage of the few seconds that it took a trained Pokemon like Garchomp to shake of confuse ray, Vulpix used his blue flamed ember.

"Rock slide, shadow claw." Lance called.

Garchomp managed to lift rocks up despite the embers pattering his armoured scales. He launched the rocks at Vulpix, who cut his fire and manged to dodge the first rock. But the throwing of the second rock caused him to flinch and he was hit before he could try and dodge.

"Vulpix!" I called in worry. With a two times weakness against rock type moves, a direct hit like that could do a lot of damage when he wasn't using Endure or Protect.

Vulpix managed to pull himself to his feet, his body heating up and embers falling from his coat. He was using his internal fire to strengthen himself.

"Alright, Double Speed. Will-o-wisp." I accepted Vulpix's decision. Using multiple moves in conjunction with each other was difficult, but not impossible. While he was channelling his inner-flame so strongly was the best time for Vulpix to do it.

As Vulpix ran forward in a criss-cross formation, duplicates started appearing of himself each of them surrounded by a flame coat and blue balls of flames.

"Sand Tomb, protect yourself!" Lance called urgently seeing the danger that his Pokemon was in. He knew how hot Vulpix's flames burned and with the flame coat getting stronger as Vulpix got closer he knew Garchomp would take a lot of damage if they connected.

Garchomp managed to get the sand tomb up around himself, but it wasn't thick enough to stop Vulpix. With his coat of flames, he slammed through the wall and straight into Garchomp's chest. The Will-o-wisp followed Vulpix's impact and landed on Garchomp's arms, legs and one to the face.

"Garchomp is unable to battle." The referee announced, but Lance had already called his Pokemon back.

"Vulpix's you've done enough. I'm forfeiting you." I called loud enough for everyone to hear. I made the decision to forfeit him instead of substitute him because he was exhausted from that last attack and he'd taken a lot of damage from Rock Throw.

"Vul, Vulpix," Vulpix slumped to the ground on the battle field, not having the strength to get back to me but to stubborn to fall unconscious.

"I'll get him," Lucario blurred from my side, picked up Vulpix and returned to him to me.

"Here," I gave Vulpix a Sitrus Berry to help him recover while Lucario used a little Helping Hand so Vulpix wouldn't be in pain while he watched the rest of the fights.

Lance put his hand up to stop the referee ordering them to send out their next Pokemon.

"Are you releasing your team in a particular order?" Lance questioned.

"Why?"

"Because if you're holding back your strongest, I think I'm going to have to use a different team." Lance explained.

"I don't have a strongest order," I explained. "But I suppose you could say that using your Elite Team might be a good idea."

"I thought it might be. Wouldn't be a test if you're stomping through my team." Lance was definitely smiling across the battle field at me. "Considering the way that you defeated my first three Pokemon, I'd estimate your team to be at least Gym Leader Level. Let's see how they do against an Elite Level Pokemon."

When she went out on her journey, she would have to start over with a new team because League Rules prevented an established team who had been proven to be so strong from doing the run although she would be able to carry these seven with her and use them during the Indigo Conference – one of the advantages of showing responsibility with training and raising a Pokemon, and having a finically strong sponsor like the Blackthorn clan.

"Haxorus, you're up." Lance directed.

"Well, Noivern, I think that means it's your turn." I decided. The only Pokemon on my team who could handle tusks as strong as Haxorus was Lucario and Hydreigon, but I was keeping the two of them back. Noivern wasn't strong enough to handle the tusks, but he was skilled enough to dive in and get out before taking hits.

"Dual Chops," Lance instructed.

"Distance," I ordered immediately.

One of the greatest weaknesses of Haxorus was that they learnt little to no distance attacks. Rock tomb, rock slide, hyper beam and swift were TM's that they could learn to fight at a distance, and I assumed that Lance had helped Haxorus learnt a couple of them. Of course, there was a chance Lance had taken up my training method and assumed Haxorus could learn things without the aid of TMs. Lance would have focused on teaching his Pokemon to counter his own weaknesses instead of giving him TMs, which means I needed to plan carefully.

Following my order, Noivern flew high and stayed well out of reach of Haxorus. Once he'd gotten high, he released corrosive gust because the acidic cloud would have a good chance of damaging Haxorus despite his armoured body and gust would help push the corrosive gas towards and around Haxorus.

"Knock him out of the sky," Lance directed, even as Haxorus moaned slightly in pain.

Haxorus immediately started picking rocks out of the ground and attempting to snipe Noivern, who deftly dodged the rocks by using superior flying skills and double team to confuse.

"Shatter, Hurricane," I ordered.

Noivern shattered the next two rocks with directed sound waves which weren't quite supersonic. With the smaller rocks falling to the ground, and another larger rock being sent his way, Noivern used Hurricane and sent all the rocks and their shattered components back.

"Dig, surprise," Lance ordered. Haxorus fought against the battering winds and small rocks pelting his heavily armoured body in order to get into the ground and out of harm's way.

"Mole hunting," I stated, naming the move combination that they had practised against Vulpix and Deino/Zweilous. It had been designed to teach Vulpix and Deino how to dodge attacks as they came out from under the ground, while also giving Noivern practise fighting such hidden opponents.

Haxorus burst from the ground, a hydro-beam already powered up. Noivern immediately veered right to get out of the way of the beam and dive down to hit him with Dragon Breath which his opponent was unable to dodge because Haxorus was suffering the paralysing payback of using such a powerful move. Noivern took the opening and rammed into Haxorus injured form with steel wing and then turned and caught him with a dragon claw before getting out of close rang.

"Dragon Pulse," Lance directed as Haxorus pulled himself to his feet. The corrosive gas had done some damage to his body and weakened him as it pumped through his blood.

"Supersonic," I directed, hoping the shockwaves would be enough to disrupt the dragon pulse.

Indeed, the high-pitched screeching had Haxorus throwing back his head and roaring in pain, causing the dragon pulse to go off-course and Noiven was only clipped by the energy.

"Haxorus, fight through it!" Lance bellowed deep to be heard over the screech and his own Pokemon's cry of pain. "Bulldoze!"

Noivern didn't give him a chance, he delivered a power dual dragon claw. The thing about pure dragons, they were week against dragon type attacks.

"Haxorus is unable to battle. Red trainer, release your next Pokemon." the referee announced.

"Noivern, let's allow someone else to take a turn," I called up to my trickster. I knew well that he was more than ready to continue onto battle but Lucario, Empoleon and Hydreigon wanted to prove themselves as well.

"Kingdra," Lance chose his next team.

"Empoleon, your turn." I decided.

Empoleon laughed with a deep rumble as she jumped down to face Kingdra. Of all my family, Empoleon had the biggest emotional changes upon evolving. She had always been determined, but now she had reached her final evolution she was a big fan of fighting. She loved to be in combat, especially if she was facing someone stronger or more experienced than her: which was why her opponents in the dual battles were typically Lucario, Zweilous or Noivern who she'd really struggled to face against in the last two days of training.

"Spirited," Lance commented in amusement.

"Excited," I agreed.

"Begin." The referee instructed.

"Twister," Lance snapped, quick starting the battle and not letting me plan an opening strategy.

Kingdra was a fierce little monster who packed a very powerful punch. Empoleon's only chance at winning the battle was getting in close, and overwhelming Kingdra. Lance knew that, which was why he was going to stick to powerful distance attacks.

"Disrupt," I instructed, as two twisters formed and began heading towards Empoleon. In response, Empoleon ran towards the twister while using Drill Peck which rotated her body really fast. With two twisters pulling at the winds, Empoleon's rotating body allowed her to cut through those winds and to the safe point where Kingdra was stood.

"Yawn," Lance instructed calmly.

"Hydro pump," I called in the hopes of disrupting the move before it could take effect. Empoleon could still fight while asleep, but I would rather not rely on random chance and lottery.

Empoleon's burst of water made it half way across the distance separating them before yawn began taking effect and her concentration started failing. Empoleon tried fighting the sleep but, in the end, she was overwhelmed.

"Dragon pulse,"

"Sleep talk," I instructed.

We were fortunate with the lottery of moves, because Empoleon met Kingdra's dragon pulse head on with drill peck.

Dust was kicked up in a minor explosion from where they connected. Kingdra hopped away from the collision in a worse condition then Empoleon who was bruised, but awake.

"Capitalise." I ordered Empoleon who shook off the after effects of being forced asleep. She did as I instructed and launched herself at Kingdra with drill peck once more since her water type moves wouldn't do a lot of damage to a water type Pokemon and swift wouldn't be enough to take him out.

"Kingdra is unable to battle," the referee announced after Kingdra tried to get up following the attack only to fail and collapse.