"So where have you been? Haven't seen much of you since yesterday." Jamie asked Wes as she, Anto, and he went towards the Virbank gym. White was still helping out in Poké Star Studios since her mom was still on a break there came a lot of problems that White had to handle in her absence. It looked more and more like she would have to continue staying there, which was kind of a letdown for everyone and Anto.
"Checked out a band; it was OK. Guess heavy metal or Rock isn't my thing." The older teen from Orre spoke out.
"Wait a concert? Shouldn't that have only been like an hour or two?" Anto pointed out as he fiddled with an Ultra Ball that contained Super Nut. The reason why Anto had the Ultra Ball in the first place was because Wes still had a couple extra Ultra Balls he had picked up during Castelia City, and when he first tried to keep the heroic Ferrothorn in one, he realized that he never bought a new Poké Ball to keep him in.
"I also stayed around the beach. It was kinda nice to feel a cool breeze rather than the dessert air. Saw this weird brown haired guy though but he was painting the sunset. He reminded me of Head Band." Wes nonchalantly mentioned.
"How are they anyway? I haven't heard from either him or Summer for a while." Anto asked.
"Well I already told you about how I talked with Headband recently. As for the Nerd, I have literally no idea—hey wait a sec." Wes stopped as they all came in front of the gym. "I was here yesterday. This is the place where I went to that concert! … Wow I can't believe I didn't notice the gym sign."
"… Why are there so many people coming into the gym?" Jamie pointed out as they noticed more heavily dark clothed people with ear piercings, tattoos, and different colored hair started flooding in towards the gym.
"It looks like another concert." The Snagger mentioned before they noticed that there was someone coming out of the gym with bright orange hair.
"Oh! Anto! There you are!"
"Benga?" The mute asked the fiery teen came up to him and grabbed his arm and quickly pulled him towards the gym.
"Great you're here! Now let's get your battle with Roxie going!"
Wes picked up that name. "Duh! The gymleader and band leader are the same person. Yeesh I'm off my game."
A little later, Anto was surprised to see that the gym really did double as a concert like Wes had mentioned previously. He was lead down a different path that everyone else was heading.
Blasts of music came around him.
He felt the need to cover his ears, or at least one of them since Benga looked unhindered by the volume of sound bouncing around the room and was still pulling him by the arm. Anto looked up to see bright lights flashing across the battle field with a trio of people playing heavy and upbeat rock music. The crowds were jumping and cheering in tandem with the music as the lead guitarist, a female with silver hair with another punk-attire who was furiously weaving her fingers to the metal strings.
The band made the music tempo faster, signaling that the song was reaching its end, which did soon after in a spectacular fashion, making the crowd cheer wildly despite being so far away on both sides of the gym while Benga started to lead Anto towards a huge field.
"Rock on!" The gym leader finished as the crowd roared with excitement. "If you'll like that, then you'll love this! We got a special challenger today folks!" The audience was eating this all up. "And that's not all: guess what!? I've been told that I should use some of the best of my Pokémon against him! So he's in for one heck of a time!"
Wait wha? Anto quietly thought to himself. She was going to use her best team against him!?
"No need to thank me, Anto!" Benga spoke over the crowd and slapped Anto in the back with an excited smile.
YOU!
Anto glared at his new friend who was starting to cause him as much grief as his Pokémon were.
The mute felt Benga get behind him and start pushing him towards the main field. "Give Roxie a great battle! I'll be watching closely!"
Roxie pointed toward the opposite end of the field where all the spotlights raced to shine down on Anto nervously standing on the opposite end. "Introducing, Anto! The challenger!"
It sure was nice of the crowd to cheer for him though he could have done without seeing so many body piercings on one person in that crowd. The mute then noticed screens lighting up behind Roxie revealing that this was to be a six on six Pokémon battle. This was the longest gym fight he had yet.
"Ready!?" Roxie strung her guitar, letting its sound echo as she expertly followed that momentum by snatching a nearby Poké Ball and raising it into the air in one motion.
The energy in the gym was infectious. Anto felt his blood getting pumped as well as he took position in the battlefield and held on to an Ultra Ball.
"Let's start the show, Go Weezing!" She threw the sphere as a blue light appeared and revealed the two headed and levitating Poison type.
"Hey everybody! Is it time for my Ventriloquism act? Behold my puppet friend!" The main head of the Poison type closed his mouth as a completely different voice came out of the smaller head. "I keep telling you: I'm not actually your puppet! I'm you, you fool!"
In the other corner, Super Nut appeared and even though there was no wind, his cape still fluttered majestically somehow.
"And thus Super Nut makes his debut! … Why can't I hear myself monologue?!" Super Nut tried to cry out over the screaming fans and heavy music.
"Ooo that's clever! A grass type, but it's also a steel type! You sneaky little… but it's time to GET THIS BATTLE ON!" With those words, Roxie's band started playing another musical number, prompting the crowd to cheer loudly.
However, a while back in the crowd, a familiar girl with moderately long black hair and amethyst eyes tried to get past towards the main field. "Oh! I can't believe I got lost in a gym of all places! And why are there so many people here?" Tiana cried before noticing the loud, ear beating music coming to halt and then hearing the gym leader, who was also in the band, address her current challenger.
"Huh? Him!?" She put a hand near her mouth as she recognized that boy she bothered yesterday. He was taking a gym challenge?
Much to her surprise, and along with many people, the Pokémon the challenger had was wearing a tied up blanket cape that was strangely fluttering in the wind. She was honestly kind of surprised at how… odd his Pokémon was.
The challengers acted first in the fight, letting lose giant rocks that scattered and levitated across the field. This signaled that Anto and Super Nut had just used Stealth Rocks. Roxie seemed shock but then smile quickly after. Weezing followed suit by unexpectedly firing a Flamethrower attack on the steel and grass type, but Super Nut quickly used Protect to block the flames. Quickly Super Nut shot out one of his clamps by using Power Whip, but Roxie ordered Weezing to dodge the attack—making Anto smile.
Trainers always yell to dodge an attack from their opponent, but Anto was expecting it from the start.
The Power Whip continued past Weezing to a flying rock behind them.
"Keep them guessing!"
Ferrothorn started to slingshot round the arenas, jumping across each rock quickly by whipping and shooting himself around. Weezing frantically looked around, whenever they would catch sight of Ferrothorn he was already swinging to the next rock randomly floating around. The crowd cooed in excitement. They had never seen a trainer used Stealth Rocks like this before and Roxie and her band were also both impressed and excited.
But there was no way that she was letting the challenger steal the show from her! She commanded along with the music to order Weezing to use a wide spread flame thrower. The flying poison type stared spinning around wildly, encompassing a large area of fire. However, Anto smiled. That technically meant that Weezing was staying in one spot.
To everyone out side, they all saw Ferrothorn jump to the highest floating rock available and shoot out one vine to the ceiling. Once on the ceiling, he shoot out two of his clamps to two rocks that just so happened to line up to where Weezing was in his area of fire.
"Uh oh!" Roxie panicked as Super Nut shot with bullet speed right for Weezing and quickly ordered her to use Self Destruct. Along with the Fire, Weezing glowed brightly before unleashing a devastating boom which made the entire audience silent as they watched the dust cloud spread across the arena.
"… What happened?" Jamie asked as she looked to Wes who only continued to stare at the field.
Benga was looking on as well but then he smiled.
From the smoke, something quickly shot out and rolled along the ground in a giant green force field—The Protect move. As the force field faded, Super Nut rolled along the ground and jumped up, before landing on to the field with his cape fluttering.
"Another "Explosive Victory" for SSSUUUPPPER NUT!" He declared.
The crowd cheered wildly as the screens around them showed that the first knockout went to the challenger.
"Oh wow! The civilians are actually cheering for me! But it's only a matter of time before my archnemesis turns the public against me!" The super hero dramtically spoke out before looking plainly back at Anto and shouting,"… Danger Damoiseau!? Do I have an Archnemesis yet?"
"What? No!"
"… We should get one!" And that was Anto's cue to recall his newest member back into his Ultra Ball. He didn't notice that in the crowd, there was a girl giggling at his Pokémon.
"Haha! Alright! Now I know you're the real deal!" Roxie spoke out as she started to play another song. "Now it's time to really kick it up a notch!"
Anto nodded before throwing out a Great Ball, making Ohko come out into the field with his cloak.
"Righteous!" Roxie declared before throwing out her next Pokémon: a Gengar.
Anto sweatdropped at the appearance of the ghost type but thankfully the Rocks surrounding them reformed and all attacked the ghost type from all sides.
Roxie smiled as out from the shadows, Gengar popped up with his tongue sticking out towards Ohko. He didn't even look slightly damaged, letting the mute realize that he must have phased into the ground or something to avoid the crushing rocks.
The one armed Sawk pointed back to Gengar."Whoa! That's the second biggest tongue I've seen in my life yo!"
Being completely unaware of that, Roxie started her Gengar off with a Shadow Ball attack. The ghost poison type threw them all one after another, but Ohko started running around the corner to avoid most of the spheres. Ohko thought he would try to fight back and quickly formed his variation of Focus Blast in his palm before jumping over a Shadow Ball and throwing the condensed sphere at one of the attacks. However, Focus Blast phased through both the Shadow Ball and Gengar.
"Wha?" Ohko asked before he got hit by a Shadow Ball.
"Snap Right! I didn't remind him! Ohko! Fighting Type moves don't work on Ghost Types! You have to rely on energy or elemental moves like your Dual Chop attack! Just keep trying to avoid for now, I'll figure something out!"
Ohko got back up and locked sights with Gengar who seemed to be laughing it up. Anto had this strange feeling that Ohko wasn't completely listening to him before he noticed that he placed his hand towards one of the burned areas that Wheezing spewed Flamethrower on. The Sawk looked at his hand and put his palm on the heat of the surface that was cooling off but still fairly warm.
The blue fighting type seemed strangely attentive to absolutely nothing.
Then Gengar started firing more Shadow Balls. Ohko dodged the attacks and started running towards Gengar and then he ignited his fist with Dragonic energy. His eyes briefly darted to the attack before he jumped up and punched the ground where Gengar just phased into. The ground shook hard from the force the fighting type, and allowing some people to notice that the Sawk only had one arm. Ohko looked at his Fist, which was still covered in dragon energy and he stared at it as if he was deep at thought.
Gengar popped up from the shadows, launching another volley of Shadow Ball this time in tandem with some Sludge Wave attacks. Anto tried to warn Ohko, but the one armed Sawk dodged the attacks easily. The mute wondered what was going but Ohko seemed to be suddenly playing with his Dual Chop move, igniting his fist over and over again with dragonic energy. Not to mention he was still trying to think of a way for Ohko to get close enough to hit Gengar without her phasing into the ground or speeding away. Though, he had this feeling Ohko seemed to realize that quicker than he did.
From the sides, Benga looked on with interest. "Huh? Well I'll be a Primeape's Uncle…"
Ohko formed another Focus Blast in his palm, prompting Gengar to laugh and prepare another Shadow Ball. Yet Ohko crushed the energy orb into a denser form again, but this time something was different. The bright blue color of the attack suddenly changed into red.
The One armed Sawk side stepped the Shadow Ball, spun around, and lifted his leg high into the air before stepping down hard. Following a base ball pitcher's stance, he threw the 'Red' Focus Blast right towards Gengar. Roxie knew something was up and quickly told her Gengar to fly high. The Gengar did so, but after getting away the orb burst into flames!
That shocked everyone, including Anto. Speaking off, the mute trainer quickly looked towards Ohko who had his fist literally on fire but he had a smile on his face.
"Yo it worked! … But what's burning?" He scratched his head, making the fire lit up on his head.
Did Ohko just figure out how to use an elemental move? … And was he really not paying attention? How could a Pokémon be that smart and that dumb at the same time!?
"Ohko, you're on fire!"
"Oh, thanks boss!"
"No! You're literally on fire!"
"What's that liter word mean?"
"For the love of Arceus! Look at yourself!"
Ohko did and proceeded stop, duck, and roll and scream… in the complete opposite order. The heat rising from the blush appearing on his checks did not help the poor, embarrassed boy.
Roxie thought she would help out the guy and played the music up a little more before making Gengar attack again.
Ohko, finally not on fire, noticed the Gengar and put a smile back on his face. This time he ignited another fire laced Focus Blast and threw it right towards the Shadow Ball. This time, the two attacks collided and caused an explosion. Gengar and Roxie covered themselves, but out of the dust Ohko came out with his right leg set ablaze in orange flames going straight for an Axe Kick, but Gengar moved quickly back, readying one of her own Shadow Ball and then firing it right as Ohko was about to land. Unfortunately it was a direct hit and Ohko coiled back until he got knocked out on conscious.
"Not bad Ohko, we'll work more on that elemental Focus Blast later. Let's go Kryx!" Anto threw out the Premier Ball and in a bright red flash, the Elegym waved out.
"Ooh! Another Ghost to dissect!"
"Wait wha?" Roxie's Gegnar asked.
Roxie kicked it off by telling Gegnar to launch another Shadow Ball. However, Kryx quickly Teleported away from the path of the attack and right behind Gengar! Before she could move, Kryx touched Gengar and teleported back into the sky taking the ghost type with her. Gengar charged another Shadow Ball and backed away from Kryx.
However, to the ghost type's surprise, Kryx was not moving and just smiling at her. She wondered what—
Then she got hit by the Shadow Ball she launched earlier. Kryx had quickly teleported towards Gengar, picked her up and put her right between her attack and the original target! Kryx capitalized on the direct hit and used Psychic to slam the ghost and poison type into the ground and knock her out cold.
It looked like Gengar couldn't take on the super effective blows from both Kryx and herself. Roxie smiled at how all of the challenger's Pokémon so far were so unpredictable! She was really enjoying herself as the other members in her band were actually pumped to see what would come next.
Roxie then threw out her anti Psychic Pokémon, a Drapion. These things were ruthless, vicious, and when the Stealth Rocks came crashing into the Poison type, He shrugged it off and roared mightily towards the challenger's little psychic lacing his claws with dark energy…
"Kryx, Miracle Eye."
The psychic's eyes lit up like Christmas light and then she used a heavy Psychic blast on the Dark type… and it worked. The blast was strong enough to one shot the Drapion apparently because he let down his guard and it was a critical.
"... Mediocre." Wes noted as everyone awed at how easily that Pokémon went down.
Three Pokémon down compared to Anto's one Pokémon down. Things looked to be in favor of the challenger, but Roxie, even after that underwhelming round seemed to be really enjoying herself. She then let loose her fourth Pokémon, Toxicroak who when appeared destroyed all rocks flying towards it with repeated punches.
Then he took… a rather fabulous and manly pose that looked strangely familiar... especially with that hand near his face.
It was a quad weakness, but something told him this wouldn't be an easy fight. Kryx quickly tried to gather Psychic energy—
"ZA WARUDO!"
Somehow Toxicroak closed in the distance between Kryx and himself and punched her with Sucker Punch. Granted the move was a priority move, but even that type of speed was insane. However, even after the follow up punch, Toxicraok unleashed a flurry of them in combination.
"Muda muda muda mudamudamuda!" He cried after each punch before punching Kryx into the ground and knocking her out cold.
"You thought you would win, but it was I! Toxicroak!" The fighting and poison type spoke out as he took on a very manly and fabulous pose with his hand on his face.
[SFX: Menacing!]
Anto quickly looked around. "What was that?" For some reason he could have sworn he heard the sound of an atmosphere. He shook his head. The Toxicroak looked really powerful—he didn't quite know why—and the sad part was that Ohko and Kryx were both knocked out, and he didn't want to use Lily or Takezo because they both had a disadvantage against this guy. As for Sentinel, that Sucker Punch combo would eat him alive, so there was only one other course of action.
Super Nut descended back into the field.
"Ha! Another pitiful challenger believes he can defeat me?! Toxicroak!?" The bipedal frog posed dramatically and in such a way didn't look possible for the humanoid bone structure to bend.
"This menacing Aura! A wild Archnemesis appears! You shall not win villain for today, Super Nut shall prevail!" Super Nut shouted out.
Roxie commanded Toxicroak to use Drain Punch and punched Super Nut some distance away. His fist hurt, but he was able to heal some of it because of the drain part of the ability and of how super effective it was.
"You cannot hope to stand against me! Toxic… NANI?!(What!?)" Toxicroak noticed that there were vines solely popping around his body and wrapping themselves all over his body. Some leaves on the vine bloomed and he felt himself becoming weaker. He looked across to Ferrothorn and saw that his initial punch was healing up!
Everyone recognized that it was a Leech Seed move! The longer Toxicroak was out, the more his energy would drain.
Ferrothorn stood back tall—as he could possibly since he was close to the ground in the first place. "It appears we are now at an impasse! Will your fierce punches knock me out? Or will my steel break your fists before you get to me?"
He spoke as his cape suddenly shot up heroically.
[SFX: Epic Stare Down!]
"No seriously, what is that?" Anto looked around as if something was causing him to feel actions as atmosphere.
"Oh? Interesting lowly challenger, you seek to test the might of me? Toxicroak!? Prepare yourself! MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!" The fighting poison type declared before furiously using drain punch to sap Super Nut's energy while the Toxicroak had his energy being stolen right back from the Leech Seed while hurting his fists each time he punched Ferrothorn's tick and steel spike skin.
The crowds were chanting hard as they watched the test of endurance between the two Pokémon.
Meanwhile, in one of the crowds, two people appeared from one of the side line entrance and looked around.
"There she is!" A male with black hair wearing a blue and white stripped polo wearing red cargo pants and white sneakers pointed towards Tiana sitting in the crowd and watching the battle. The girl next to him made her way, but the male stopped her.
"Trinity, you should probably wait until after the battle."
"What? Victor why!?" The older sister of the girl asked as the male pointed back to the fight.
Victor pointed over to battle where Super Nut was taking all of Toxicroak's blows. "I umm… I want to see that battle."
In one final throw, Toxicroak punched Super Nut as hard as he could, showing a shock wave as he made contact with Ferrothorn's skin.
Everyone stayed silent as they watched the two Pokémon unmoving…
Suddenly, the Ferrothorn shot out two of his Power Whips to two of the Stealth Rock boulders and pulled them in right towards the both of them.
The two boulders slammed both Pokémon together and caused Toxicroak to fall. The crowd cheered wildly.
"Awesome! I defeated my… ne…mesis…" Super Nut spoke out before he fainted as well.
The two combatants returned their Pokémon. Now it was two versus three in favor of the challenger.
The trainer smiled before launching out Lily into the field while Roxie brought out her Scolipede. Suddenly, Scolipede moved so fast, that he avoided the boulders from crushing him then right away using Mega Horn towards his opponent. Quickly Anto and Lily responded by having the grass type lift herself up in the air with her Magical Leaf.
However, Anto was noticing that Scolipede was moving even faster than before. This time Roxie commanded Scolipede to start using the flying Stealth Rock Boulders to jump across and hit Lily with a Poison Tail For a while, Lily dodged it, but Scolipede was getting faster and faster.
Quickly Anto told Lily to use Flash and blind the Scolipede, as everyone opened their eyes, they saw a large amount of grass clones scattered all over the place. And then they started dancing! It seemed Lily was a fan of music because now she was dancing along with Roxie's band and the crowd thought she was cute and fun for doing that. Roxie enjoyed that her opponent's Pokémon were enjoying her music, but she also knew she couldn't let him set up like that and quickly ordered Scolipede to attack all the Clones as quickly as possible.
Anto was surprised at how fast Scolipede was getting all to the clones despite how being wide spread across the field and levitating boulders they were. Then it hit him! The Scolipede had Speed Boost!
All remaining leaf clones stopped dancing and faced towards the Soclipeded and then they all started glowing brightly until they blinded the field again with another huge Flash attack.
Scolipede felt his eyes burns and shook his head before he was blasted by an empowered Energy Ball and flew into a giant leaf fist that grabbed a hold of Scolipede and raised him high before throwing him into the ground like a rock.
However, Roxie noticed when that giant hand was formed Lily had revealed herself on one of the Stealth Rocks floating around. Roxie told Scolipede that their opponent revealed themselves and quickly while being thrown mid air, Scoliepde rolled itself into a huge ball and bounced off the ground towards another rock and bounced off again, hitting Lily off her rock. Anto panicked but before he could tell Lily to catch herself, Scolipede quickly unrolled and landed on another rock and dashed with a Poison Tail lit up then smashed Lily mid air into the ground, knocking her hard from the momentum and the super effective attack.
The crowd cheered wildly. The challenger was good, but Roxie had tied it up; it was now two on two! The final stretch was coming! Roxie recalled Scolipede in favor of one of her toughest Pokémon, Garbodor. At his appearance all of Roxie's hardcore fans cheered wildly.
The boulders all quickly raced to crush Garbordor, but he quickly extended his arms and smacked away the incoming rocks.
"Oh sure, when I use Stealth Rocks, it barely works…" Anto thought back.
This Pokémon was her ace, and Anto knew that her remaining two Pokémon would be hard to defeat, but who cares about that? The music was pumping his blood, he was laser focused, his heart was beating a mile a second, and he was having fun with everyone else! He took out the Dusk Ball and threw out Sentinel.
"What's that smell?" The ghost dragon asked.
"You don't even have an olfactory sense anymore!"
"Oh right—wait. How did I sniff you out in Driftviel? Oh wait no; I forgot Kryx planted a tracking device on you."
"What was that?"
The crowd cooed in awe at such a rare and strange looking Pokémon, but Roxie smiled at the chance of seeing a rare Pokémon. She greeted it on with Garbodor's Gunk Shot. Anto shook his head and countered the attack with Phantom Force, which made Sneitnel disappear into thin air. Garbador looked around, but then Sentinel appeared right in front of him with his mouth filled with ice…
Then unleashed the Frost Breath attack near point blank range.
Sentinel jumped on the frozen ice chunk near Garbdor's face, and kicked off, making the Poison type fall over and break the ice as he fell into the ground.
Garbdor looked more ticked that injured and fired another Gunk Shot. Sentinel saw this and slipped back into Phantom Force to avoid the blow. Roxie just smiled as she played a sudden of key tune. Anto wondered why she did that so suddenly, but then Sentinel came out from behind Garbodor, igniting his Shadow Claws and rending the back of the Poison type. Garbodor flinched, before he smiled and before unleashing a noxious fume/Toxic Gas as soon as Sentinel made contact. Sentinel backed off, coughing violently with violet hues over him.
He was Poisoned!
But then Anto realized that Roxie could command her Pokémon with her music notes instead of commands!
Roxie pointed dramatically while playing a strange up beat song. Garbodor pointed his hands at the coughing Sentinel and hit him with green goop that shot out of his fingers—Venoshock as Roxie called out. The goop hit and Sentinel was shocked heavily by the attack and sent flying back.
Crap, Anto completely forgot his Pokémon could totally get poisoned in a poison type gym—curse you hindsight. He definitely should have bought some Pecha Berries.
Sentinel shoot back up. He looked injured and getting weaker as the poison took effect.
Then his ghost fire flared mightily, causing everyone to be shocked. Sentinel's Ghost version of Blaze kicked in, pointed his hand towards Garbodor.
"Breath of Unlife!" Anto yelled out the Dual Move of Shadow Ball and Dragon Breath, unleashing a powerful torrent of dragonic and ghost energy that blasted Garbador head on with vicious force.
The attack died down and Sentinel fell to his knees from the poison. Anto looked to Garbodor, the damage was obvious, but the Pokémon was still standing. Gabodor roared out his name before charging another Gunk Shot.
"…! Specter Step!" Anto called out the Dual Move of Shadow Sneak and Phantom Force. To everyone's surprise, Sentinel basically teleported right behind Garbodor with Leviathan Rend, the Fusion Move of Shadow and Dragon Claw.
With a mighty swipe, Sentinel struck the same spot awhile ago, causing Garbodor to visibly wince in pain from the stronger attack towards his weakened spot.
Garbodor moved, trying to hit Sentinel with another Venoshock. The Ghost dragon disappeared and used his teleporting move to appear right above and launch a heavily empowered Shadow Ball right above the Garbodor.
Despite the explosion, Garbodor stood up, looking weaker and weaker, just like Sentinel.
"Sentinel, can you really take more?" Anto asked, gripping his Dusk Ball and getting ready to call back his friend.
"Please… just a little more Anti!" Sentinel gasped from his drained energy.
"You're exerting so much force, remember, Kryx's only slowed your decay, she didn't fully heal it!" Anto bitterly thought.
"It doesn't hurt anymore Anti, but I can do this. I can still get you to the league."
"Sentinel…"
The dragon skeleton ignited his claws one more time. "I owe you that much and more! HA!" The Dragon cried as he came up rushed one more time towards Garbodor. The mighty poison type shot another Venoshock at the charging and unsuspecting Sentinel since he moved and aimed the attack at the last second.
Sentinel felt pain, but he gritted his fangs and powered through the blast and unleashed a devastating Leviathan Rend before sliding away from his momentum.
The arena was silent again.
Thud!
Sentinel… dropped to his knees, but still stayed strong.
As for their opponent, Garbodor fell down on the ground face first.
"Good Job Sentinel." Anto quickly spoke out as he returned his Pokémon.
With how weak Sentinel was, there was only one Pokémon left on each side.
Roxie unleashed a held breath. She looked like she was sweating, but she looked lively and energetic, and even more pumped before.
"This is it everyone! The final round! Are you as pumped as I am!?"
Everyone roared in agreement.
Roxie pointed to Anto, all spotlights shined on him as she did so. "Challenger, show me your soul! Show me you're drive! Let it rip!"
The mute obliged, he fished for his belt and shot out a Poké Ball into the air with his left thumb, before grabbing it in the air with his right hand as it extended into palm size.
"The Battlefield Calls! Rise up, Takezo!" Anto shouted as his last Pokémon came out, a Patrat.
Suddenly the crowds died out quicker as they stared at the choice of Pokémon from the challenger. Patrats were usually used by youngsters and newbie trainers with how common they were. That was a bit of a letdown.
"A Patrat?" Victor asked as he stood with Trinity in watching the battle. "That's a weird last Pokémon."
Trinity stared at the small little Pokémon for a second and then felt her mind wander. She quickly shook her head. "Whoa."
"What?"
"… That Pokémon…" Trinity trialed off as she glued her eyes towards the normal type.
However, Roxie strummed her guitar.
"Oh come on now guys!" She yelled out to the crowd. "After all the challenger did to pump us up, you really think he's going to give us a disappointing finale!? Well then… it's time to restore their faith, Rock the Stage, Scolipede!"
She threw out her Pokémon commanding him to avoid the Stealth rocks a second time before ordering a Steam Roller attack. Takezo stood his ground at the speed of the Pokémon and placed a hand on his blade. As Scolipede came closer, Takezo's eyes blazed blue with Detect and he slashed right at Scolipede, causing the Pokémon to fly off and land on the ground from the strike.
Everyone stared in shock except Wes, Benga, and Jamie. The most common Pokémon in Unova; no one had ever seen a Patrat in that level before.
"His Patrat… uses a sword?" Tiana in the crowd looked on with awe. His Pokémon were so weird… yet they were so capable…
Roxie started playing a song again, signaling her band to follow. This time, a really fast song was playing.
Scolipede got up, smiling as he readied himself launch himself at Takezo again. The Patrat lifted his arms, and glowing swords appeared dancing around him. He was using Swords Dance. Scolipede readied himself, before launching himself at faster speeds than before. Takezo used Detect, but then quickly jumped away as he noticed the burst of speed was far more than he saw. Anto quickly told the normal type to get towards the rocks and soon Takezo jumped across the floating earth with Scolipede closely behind him.
Anto glanced around and then noticed something among the air: a rather large Stealth Rock. As it floated around, the mute had an idea. Getting his orders, Takezo jumped to the largest rock in the area and waited. Scolipede made the jump and landed on the large floating boulder with Takezo.
The challenger smiled. "Now Takezo!"
The samurai quickly ran as fast as he could towards the edge of the rock, with Scolipede quickly after the normal type as to not let him escape. However, when right near the edge, Takezo hurriedly stabbed his wooden blade into the rock and held tightly as his body flew up from the pull!
Scolipede and Roxie wondered why Takezo did that until they started noticing that the boulder was tilting over! The two Pokémon were at the edge and the boulder was starting to flip over on their side! Scolipede realized their plan was to let him fall off on accident and quickly he turned around and started running on the opposite direction.
"Bingo."
Benga laughed while Wes whistled.
"She definitely fell for that."
Takezo saw that and quickly kicked off towards a smaller rock before watching with an amused smile.
What Scolipede didn't realize was that by kicking off with his speed, he was making the Boulder tip over faster, as to not get caught, Scolipede ran even faster thanks to his speed boost. However that proved to be a problem when the faster he ran, the more the boulder started to spin underneath him! He ran and he ran but then he noticed that the boulder beneath him was spinning—oh Arceus, he was log rolling on a flying boulder wasn't he!? Now he had to keep moving on the rock and if he stopped he would be thrown off by the fast spinning rock that he was creating!
"What!?" Roxie cried out as she saw her fastest Pokémon's speed use against him as he had to keep running on the spinning boulder or be thrown off it if he paused for even a second!
"If you're going to ask how I did that, I need to answer you that I make it up as I go along." Anto connected to Roxie who seemed slightly surprised to hear a voice in her head. "But I'm getting that badge! I have a league to get into now more than ever! Takezo, Blade Storm!"
Takezo charged golden thunder blades and threw them high over the trapped Scolipede. He jumped up high then brought all the golden, electric swords together to form a Katana around his wooden blade. Then Takezo descended down upon Scolipede like a strike from the heavens with a powerful thundering boom!
The bolt of electricity struck the ground and Takezo slashed the air, traces of electricity flying off his blade before he slowly sheathed his wooden blade. When he fully completed, Scolipede's unconscious body fell into the floor.
The screens all lighted up with the winner of this battle: Anto!
The crowds cheered, screaming that was the coolest Patrat they had all ever seen.
Roxie ended her music and she and her band ran up to Anto, with Benga jumping in right after them.
"Well done Anto!" Roxie spoke as she visibly gasped for breath with her band. She was pretty tired from both battling and playing fast songs for a six on six battle. OK she now learned not to play when it is a six on six battle, she got way too tired fast. "Honestly, I really wanted to win… but I'm glad we had that battle! It was the most fun I've had in a while!"
Anto noticed the boulders flying around were starting to turn into dust with the battle over.
The pain on his back revealed that Benga had just slapped him for congratulations. "That battle was amazing Anto! I knew I sense you had a strong spirit!"
"I guess I have to thank you after all Benga. I'm going to have to do a lot more training if I can barely beat the best of a gym leader."
"Oh so you were right on him being a psychic." Roxie looked to Benga. "Still, talking with your mind is weird. I prefer the old vocal chords. But anyway! I present to you, the Toxic Badge! You've definitely earned it for one heck of a fight!"
Anto caught the badge. Six down, two to go!
"Way to go mute!" Anto turned and saw Wes and Jamie come up.
Benga looked over to Wes. "Ah ha! Another strong trainer! Battle me!"
"No."
"OK then." Benga relaxed as Wes answered nonchalantly.
Anto looked incredulously between Wes and Benga. "Hold up a sec—that's all it took!?" He was very stressed if it really was that easy to stop him from being so involved.
"What? I can't force people to fight if they don't want to. That would be rude." Benga spoke out plainly.
"But… But…" Anto was at a loss for words, which should be his normal state since he is mute.
Roxie turned to the crowds. "Let's give a hand to our winner!"
The crowd cheered loudly for the boy, making him forget his troubles.
Back in the crowd, Tiana found herself cheering loudly for the boy even though he didn't know his name or anything about him. His battle was amazing, but more than that his Pokémon! They were… he made the people like them!
Tiana felt something wrong and quickly scanned the area. She looked over to see her sister and Victor coming up towards her. She was not meeting with her sister just yet! Quickly Tiana slipped into the crowd, hopping that she wouldn't get caught just yet.
Roxie led the band and the other guests out a different exit. "That was one epic battle, but we've still got a concert to finish up. It may not be as exciting, but we're almost done anyway. I'm not allowed to this, but I'm going to be rooting for you Anto!" Roxie spoke out as she slapped Anto's back much harder than he predicted.
"Thanks. But I gotta heal everyone else. So I'll stop be the Pokémon Center really quick." Anto and Benga waved goodbye as Roxie went back into her gym/concert.
"You know after that, I'm kind of hungry. How about we go to The Snorlax Buffet and wait for you there?" Jamie offered.
Anto just nodded before leaving himself. There was only one buffet in this town so it wasn't that hard to find where they would go.
"Ooh I'm coming along!" Benga declared.
"Who are you again?" Wes asked.
"Benga!"
"Wes. Jamie." The Orre boy pointed to himself before he pointed with his thumb on the girl beside him to introduce themselves to one of the many colorful cast of people Anto attracts.
"Nice to meet you miss!" Benga greeted and shook hands with Jamie.
"Nice to meet… how did you know I was a girl!?" Jamie realized with horror.
Benga looked confused and titled his head at the panicked question. "Huh? But it was obvious."
The Orre Thief felt something at the back of his head and placed an arm to rub it. "Man I am really off today." Wes muttered as he felt like something wasn't quite right about today while he ignored Jamie asking how it was so obvious to Benga about her supposedly hidden gender.
Meanwhile, Anto was making his way towards the Center when he felt himself get blindsided by someone and got tackled over.
"Ow really!? Can my luck get any worse—" Anto paused when he realized that he didn't get tackled by accident or by some random object, he got tackled by that same beautiful girl with the gorgeous amethyst eyes he met yesterday. And she was really, really close…
Oh Arceus!
"W-Wah! I-I'm sorry I didn't see you!" The girl cried as she got off the boy with her face as red as Anto's for that mishap.
"I-It's fine, I've had worse incidents…" Anto projected as his mind went back to him accidentally kissing White—gah!
The girl turned to him with shock. "W-Wait did you just use telepathy?"
"Y-yeah. It's complicated, but I can't really talk otherwise." Anto stood back up, dusted himself, and then offered a hand up to the girl to help her up. He was kind of nervous around her especially since he didn't know who she was.
"TIANA!" A loud and angry voice called out from nearby.
The amethyst eyed girl snapped her neck towards the shout. "Shoot!" She cursed before looking to Anto and grabbing his hand. "Please come with me!"
"Wait wha—!?" The mute was interrupted as he was suddenly jerked away and pulled by the girl who made them both run away. "H-Hey! What's going on!?"
"I need to get away from her!" Tiana shot a look back before Anto followed her look. Then he saw an older and scarier looking girl chasing madly after them.
"YOU!" She pointed with bloodlust towards Anto. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT ISN'T IT!? DIE!"
"Wait what!? Where did that come from!?" The confused male trainer mentally spoke out before he saw her screams get louder and she started running faster. "OK, now I see your point!"
The teenage boy was scared for his life and quickly shot past Tiana, grabbing her hand subconsciously as he led the run since he was the one most experienced in that department.
However, it just looked like Anto was going to miss out on that buffet.
{Author Notes}
You know what the greatest sin of this fic is? 35 chapters in and only now I'm making a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure reference. I feel dirty for such sacrilege. (Also, I have finally returned to have my gym battles return at the fives! See this sixth badge is in 35 with only the fourth and fifth badge are no longer in zeroes and fives so far.)
This was my first six on six battle. How was it? Be honest, I'm still working on it and this might be a preview of things to come.
Also, I have to thank MangolimePie for letting me borrow his characters, Trinity, Victor, and Tiana to appear hear in Bizarre Misadventures. I have some fun ideas with them in mind. (They are from Flames of Revolution)
But seriously, poor Anto. I was hungry when I finished the first rough draft of the ending, so missing out on a buffet hurts me on a mental and physical and emotional level like the likes never seen before.
You know what also hurts me? Last Chapter, I had no actual reviews. (Cue Sad Music from the world's smallest Violin) I got PM's from some of my readers, and surprisingly a lot more Favorites and Follows last chapter, but no reviews. I'm thankful for that, but I don't know why no one spoke about last chapter.
Next time on Bizarre Misadventures, we meet a lot of familiar faces.