"The gym battle between Ash the challenger and Maylene the gym leader is about to begin with forth degree difficulty. Each side will use three Pokémon until all of one side are knocked out. Only the challenger may substitute Pokémon. Kaishi!" Trainer and gym leader threw out their Pokeballs, releasing their Pokémon.
"Machoke, come on out!"
"Staravia, I choose you!" Out came their respective Pokémon. Unlike his previous appearance last week, Staravia seemed to be more bulkier than normal and even the curl on the top of his head was tinted somewhat red. "Use Aerial Ace!" With the boosted speed from the carbs he ate, he blitzed towards the unsuspecting fighting type. Maylene countered with a silent karate chop, which Machoke detected and did the same, slamming his flat hand against the bird, stopping him dead in his tracks. The force was so great, the two created a shockwave from the impacting encounter. Both were growling as they both tried pushing against each other. Ash noticed that she used what he's also used before, and smiled. "Fall back!" Ash ordered. Staravia flapped his wings hard to gain some distance. "Aerial Ace, once more!" Doing a back loop before flying forward, Staravia once again was covered by white streaks of energy.
"Counter with Strength!" The gym leader instructed, throwing out her left fist. Machoke copied the movement to once again stop the flying type's movement with his sheer strength, causing another shockwave. Ash snapped his fingers so that Staravia pushed on through with quick attack, escaping the range of Machoke. With another finger snap, Staravia delivered one more quick attack, slamming right into his head. From the collective damage Machoke received from directly countering two aerial aces and being hit with a quick attack on the cranium, it was too much for the Superpower Pokémon as he fell on his front, knocked out.
"Machoke is unable to battle. The winner is Staravia!"
"Way to go!" Ash complimented his bird Pokémon. It was then that he noticed something about Staravia and frowned. Despite having used superior typed moves, ramming into the arms of that fighting type seems to have took a lot out of the bird, based from the panting and crookedness of his cowl. "You doing okay?" He asked his Pokémon. With a shake of his head, Staravia spread his wings and chirped his name proudly, not ready to back down.
"That's the spirit, Staravia!" Dawn cheered. Her applause was followed and enhanced by the support of her two Pokémon.
"Wow, you worked hard there. You deserve a long rest." Maylene said to her returned Pokémon before gazing at Ash. "And as for you, it seems that this week's training really paid off."
"I know. Of the gym leaders so far, you're the most impressive I've seen yet." Ash complimented back.
"Alright then Meditite, you're up next!" From the second Pokeball came out the fighting/psychic type from the first match. "Fake out!" Like before, even with the enhanced speed, Staravia was unable to avoid another slap to the face. Ash was ready though.
"Quick Attack!" With a burst of speed, the bird bashed his body into his foe, gaining some distance. Meditite hummed a bit annoyed from this.
"Get in close with Drain Punch!" Surrounding its fist in spiraling green energy, Meditite lunged forward.
"Counter with Aerial Ace!" Zooming with white streaks, the two Pokémon collided which resulted in an explosion. The two fell to the ground, but Meditite landed well on its feet while Staravia crashed, defeated.
"Staravia is unable to battle! The winner is Meditite!"
"Well done, Meditite!" Maylene praised.
"Staravia, return." Ash said as he withdrew his flying type. "You did good. Rest up now." Taking out his dusk ball, he shouted, "Duskull, I choose you!" From it came out in a flash of black light his ghost type Pokémon, whom gave a faint laugh from coming out. Maylene growled from this.
"Meditite, use Confusion!" Maylene ordered. With its eyes glowing purple, Duskull gained a purple outline and was launched back into the dirt, trying to cause some damage, but wasn't able to deal too much. While a little wobbly with his hovering, the Requiem Pokémon recovered well.
"Use Astonish!" From his eyes, two shockwave traveled through the air and rammed into the fighting/psychic type, causing it pain. "Now continue with Shadow Sneak!" Duskull's shadow loomed forward, snaking across the ground and sprung up to bash into Meditite, dealing even more damage. Unable to survive the ghostly onslaught, Meditite fainted.
"Meditite is unable to battle. The winner is Duskull!" Colby announced.
"Congrats on your first win, Duskull!" Ash applauded as the ghost type floated to Ash, hugging him while laughing.
"Go go, Duskull go! No fighting type can beat you so!" Dawn cheered with a thought out rhyme. Kirlia and Lopunny danced along with her rhyming. Returning her Pokémon, Maylene said,
"Meditite, thanks for your hard work." Getting ramped up, the gym leader is getting really excited now. "By no means is this the end, my friend! Now you get to see my ace! Lucario, you're up next!" From her last Pokeball was the famous Pokémon, Lucario, a bipedal blue and black jackal with spikes on the back of his paws and middle of the chest. It stood in its toes and had a total of four appendages, two on each side of its head. He growled, ready for the challenge. Ash's eyes widened and felt his blood both boil and turn ice cold at the same time.
"Lucario." He whispered to himself, stuck in awe to see such an amazing Pokémon in person.
"Now, use Metal Claw!" Maylene commanded while swiping her hand which was raked. The spikes on the back of the blue jackal's paws glowed and morphed into claws and sprung forward and slashed at the ghost type, dealing a good amount of damage. The ghostly cry of the Pokemon snapped Ash out of his stupor and pleaded,
"Counter with Shadow Sneak!" The shadow below the Requiem Pokémon tried sneaking around and attack Lucario from behind, but the appendages sprung up to alert the Aura Pokémon, swiping away at the shadow to negate its attack.
"What?!" Ash cried out bewildered.
"Now, finish this with Metal Claw!" Keeping his spikes in the shape of claws, Lucario used the paw nearest to Duskull to latch onto the eye sockets of the ghost type, whom protested from the notion in fright, but was unable to stop being brought above the jackal's head and smashed down into the ground hard. Duskull wheezed out his name, defeated.
"Duskull is unable to battle! The winner is Lucario!"
"Thanks Duskull. You've earned a good rest... for doing your best." Ash thanked his Pokémon while chuckling at his rhyme. Then he inspected the Aura Pokémon. ("This Pokémon is dangerous. I'd actually be rather fighting a machamp or a blaziken. At least I have a counter for both. But Lucario are one of the toughest Pokémon of the Sinnoh region. He may not be able to take a lot of hits, but Torterra's too slow.") Nodding to himself, Ash threw out a Net Ball.
"Floatzel, I choose you!" From the ball came his Sea Weasel Pokémon.
"Floatzel, Floatzel, good and set! Use your famous aqua jet!" Dawn cheered along with her Pokémon. Floatzel gave the cheering squad a thumbs up with a grin.
"Use Agility!" Ash ordered. Running around the arena, the water type picked up speed as he went from fast to supernaturally fast as he blitzed around the jackal, creating multiple after images of the Sea Weasel. Lucario was struggling to visually keep up with the water type.
"Lucario, sense him out!" Maylene commanded. Closing his eyes, the appendages floated upward as he sensed out the speedy Sea Weasel.
"Use Aqua Jet!" Right up front, a rocket of water was heading towards him. Thrusting her left arm out, Lucario was able to replicate to counter with Force Palm. The two physical attacks connected identical to the attacks of Karate Chop and Aerial Ace, resulting in a shockwave that was so strong it was felt by everyone, shielding themselves from the concussive blast. It even caused the jackal to be pushed back with his feet skidding across the ground. When they stopped, Lucario grinned as energy started to glow from his paw and then unexpectedly created an explosion, knocking Floatzel back.
"What?!" Ash yelped. Bringing her arms down like she was carrying a staff, Lucario obeyed as he formed a bone made with bright blue energy and charged at the water type. "Dodge!" Managing to recover quickly, Floatzel was able to use his enhanced speed to effortlessly weave around each swing. However, it couldn't be kept up forever when managed to trip up the Sea Weasel and got the smaller Pokémon to fall onto his back with a grunt. The blue jackal was about to deliver a strike when Ash commanded, "Use your tail!" Using his two tails to grab onto his foe's right leg, he twisted around to uproot the Aura Pokémon's footing, causing Lucario to yelp with surprise as the energy bone sunk into the ground next to Floatzel's chest. Ash jumped, which was the silent command of Aqua Jet as Floatzel surrounded himself with water and lunged right into Lucario's stomach below the chest spike, dealing major damage based from his pained growl and expression. He was sent flying towards Maylene, bouncing on and off the ground until he stopped right at her feet.
"Lucario! Are you okay?" She asked her Pokémon in concern. The Aura Pokémon was able to pick himself up, and gave a pained grin before turning back to the water type.
"Swift!" Jumping up into the air, his tail started to glow as Floatzel whipped golden stars towards Lucario.
"Counter with Bon Rush!" Producing another energy bone, he twirled it around with enough speed to block all the stars. Maylene threw her left arm out, telling Lucario to finally use Drain Punch as he leapt up in the air with a fist glowing with spiraling green energy. Even with his superior speed, Floatzel lost all his momentum, and thus was hit square in the chest from the attack. The water type cried out in pain as he was punched into the ground.
"Floatzel!" Ash cried out.
"Now, finish this with a double Drain Punch!" Lucario took an offensive stance, both of his paws glowing green again as he was charging power.
"Floatzel, you've got to get up!" Ash pleaded.
"Come on Floatzel!" Dawn and her Pokémon encouraged as loud as they could. Although with great struggle, he did managed to get on his feet, panting greatly and sporting a big bruise on his chest.
"It's too late now! Go!" The gym leader commanded, and Lucario obeyed as he charged forward, ready to end this.
"Dodge with Agility!" Thanks to his already amped up speed, this could be carried out by the fact that when he punched the water type, the attacks phased right through him before it phased away.
"What?!" Maylene gasped. Sensing him out, Lucario looked up at the Sea Weasel grinning while he clung to a ceiling beam.
"Now use Crunch!" Jumping down with all his might, he jaws clamped down on one of the appendages on Lucario's head, causing him to howl from the intense pain as he was dragged down onto his back.
"Counter with Force Palm!" Maylene pleaded. In desperation, the Aura Pokémon clamped both hands on the sides of Floatzel's head, whom only had enough time to appear freaked out before his head was encapsulated with point blank explosions. Staggering back, the Sea Weasel Pokémon was discombobulated, the sides of his head seriously damaged. In Floatzel's perspective, everything was fuzzy while there was a painful ring in his ears, momentarily deafened, and he had a splitting headache. Ash was shocked. He didn't think his Floatzel would receive this much head trauma from this gym leader.
"Floatzel." Dawn whispered, not sure what to make of this aside from it not being good. Her Pokémon were visibly worried. Even Spike in her bag looked distressed from the sight as he withdrew into the bag he was always lying in. On the ground, Lucario was able to stand back up onto his feet, feeling the bite marks on his right head appendage, but then looked surprised by how much he hurt his challenge upon seeing him.
"Did we..." Maylene was stunned. She didn't mean to hurt him that badly. Floatzel tried to walk, but he stumbled onto his knees and arms, groaning with agony. Blood was dripping from his nose.
"Floatzel!" Ash cried out, fearful for his Pokémon.
"We need to get him to the Pokémon Center now! Lucario, carry him!" Obliging, he picked up the heavily injured water type and headed out, with Ash, Dawn and any Pokémon out following. Once they reached it, Maylene called to the nurse,
"We need help! This floatzel is really hurt!" Seeing the state that the Sea Weasel Pokémon was in, she gasped. Turning to her Blissey, she instructed,
"Get me both the acetaminophen and sitrus berries! we need to get this Pokémon to the ER!" And with that, Floatzel was taken behind a couple of doors, undergoing close inspection.
"Lucario, return." Maylene said, giving her Pokémon a break. Dawn did the same with hers. Maylene turned to Ash, tears grew from her eyes as she fell to her hands and knees, crying,
"Please forgive me for hurting your Pokémon! I swear I didn't mean to do this!" Ash was at the moment not there in his head though. One of his Pokémon got seriously hurt to the extent they needed to go to the Pokémon Center during a gym challenge. Was this a fault on his part or... his attention was eventually brought out again as the gym leader's sobbing kept getting louder. Realizing what was probably happening, he stood down and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"It's... it's okay. These things happen sometimes." Maylene likely didn't hear him since she gave no sign that she was listening. After a couple of hours of waiting for any news, the nurse eventually stepped out and approached the three teenagers, needing answers.
"The results are in." She said.
A/N: Hoo boy, that went downhill fast. What do you think of the fact Floatzel was hospitalized? Critical hits can be dangerous.
Other than that, whoa, the idea of you guys wanting me to do Unova and Alola along with Kalos is really encouraging. I wasn't planning on doing an Aloan version because I had a PM discussion with one of my reviewers about why I lost interest in the general franchise with the Sun and Moon installments and onward, but perhaps I can push my feelings aside since it could be more fun than I'm thinking it will be. And I am interested in doing Unova as well, but I wasn't sure about how to put my own philosophical beliefs in it since Black and White is very grey in an ironic sense. You know, flame wars and such which I don't want to be a part of. But, I am seeing the appeal of the challenges. I'll think about doing Unova and Alola for the time being. Oh, and Imballinst, to answer your question, there are no IVs in this story when I looked up what they were, since that's a random number generator thing of a game mechanic, and thus doesn't fit into this. Leave your reviews down below.