While the battle is going, it's clear that Julia has some tricks up her sleeve! But what's Elaina's condition? Can she really keep battling like this, and putting herself at risk? Is she going to be okay, or will they have to forfeit for medical reasons?
KedharS: She hasn't lost it just yet, don't worry.
Rosealine gold: Don't worry, already got some plans there.
Aquahaze675: Well, people have been judging Ayame a lot based on what they see, so she's in a pretty good position to realize that's bullcrap.
Tambry96: People beat Elaina all the time, they just happen to be moral victories.
Thunder Fire: We'll find out eventually.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 333
"Elaina! Elaina, are you okay?!"
Blake was calling out to her from off in the distance, but she couldn't see him. The only thing her blurry eyes could see was the girl standing over her, the mysterious Harmonia. Elaina's eyes widened and her vision sharpened into clarity, her body shaking.
"Elaina?"
"I'm fine," Elaina said, standing up. And strangely enough, she didn't feel like she was putting on a strong face. It had only been for a few brief moments, but losing consciousness had somehow made her feel totally rested. Her head was clear and she didn't feel any stress or fatigue weighing her down. It was like nothing was wrong with her.
"Are you sure?" Blake asked cautiously. He had been kneeling beside her, even though she couldn't ee him.
"Of course she's not okay!" Ayame snapped, Elaina glancing at her. "She just collapsed! Are you two both mental?! This isn't a fucking joke! We're ending the match here and taking her to the fucking infirmary, you fucking get me?!"
"I don't need your concern," Elaina snapped at her. Ayame's eye twitched.
"What's with that fucking bullshit?!" Ayame shouted, Elaina flinching. "Didn't you just get out of the hospital?! You got some great fucking love for shitty hospital food, is that it?! You seem to be in a pretty big rush to get back!"
"I said I'm fine!" Elaina growled, rising to her feet. The wind around her began to kick up as her anger surged.
"The hell you say!" Ayame replied, hitting Elaina over the head with a downward chop. "If you're doing so okay, then what the hell's with that, huh?!"
Ayame glowered indignantly at Elaina and then pointed at the fallen Noivern, startling the masked trainer.
"Noctre!" Elaina gasped, quickly recalling her pokemon.
Did Ayame… Blake's mouth fell open.
She just hit Elaina over the head… Julia was completely stunned.
That Elaina Bishop just got chewed out like a reckless child… Reiner would have found it laughable if it wasn't so shocking.
"Owiee…" Elaina rubbed her head. It still stung where Ayame had hit her.
"Umm, Elaina, maybe Ayame's right," Blake said, standing up as well. "It might not be a good idea to continue if you're really in such a bad condition…"
"The only reason my head hurts is because she just hit me!" Elaina protested. "I'm totally fine, really! I passed out a little, but my harmonia isn't bothering me at all!"
"'I passed out a little', are you fucking kidding me?!" Ayame reached out and grabbed Elaina's mask, trying to pry it off the girl's face. "Let's see you tell me that bullshit while looking me in the fucking eye, huh?"
"Hey! Don't touch my mask!" Elaina exclaimed, holding her mask tightly to her face with both hands while Ayame tried to pull it off.
"Ayame, stop!" Blake said, grabbing her arms. Ayame grumbled obscenities and let go of Elaina, storming away in a huff. She turned back to glare at Blake and Elaina, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly.
"Fine then, I don't care!" Ayame shouted. "You go get yourself hospitalized for all I care!"
Elaina readjusted her mask, which had been slightly pushed off-center due to Ayame's attempt to pry it off. She regained her focus and turned back to the battlefield.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Elaina apologized, her voice lacking in any real remorse. "We shall continue this battle."
Julia and Reiner glanced at each other, a little put off.
"No problem," Julia smirked, turning back to Elaina. "While you were taking your time, I had Luna use moonlight to recover her health, and now she's up to nearly complete strength!"
"Umbreon!" Luna agreed, nodding her head. She was a little shaky though, because the poison was still coursing through her veins. But that didn't stop her form glaring at Elaina.
"Maria, use venoshock on that Umbreon," Blake ordered.
"Luna, dodge with quick attack," Julia ordered. Luna quickly ran out of the way, the spray of poison from Maria's mouth landing on the ground harmlessly.
"Go, Raiver!" Elaina shouted, throwing out a pokeball and calling out her Braviary. The large bird pokemon summoned a gust of wind with the flap of his wings, and soared up into the sky, flying over the battlefield.
"Reiner, you and Scipio handle that Mareanie," Julia told her teammate. "Luna and I can handle that Braviary!"
"You got it," Reiner nodded, seeing how intense Julia's eyes were shining. Julia was completely focused on Elaina, and Reiner didn't mind her taking on the dangerous girl's pokemon, he was totally fine with fighting the must less deadly Blake. "Scipio! Use rock slide!"
"Armaldo!" Scipio raised his arms, chunks of rock ripping out of the battlefield. With a swipe of his claws, the large stones flew through the air and rolled at Maria in a wave of rocks and dirt that threatened to bury her.
"Maria! Dodge!" Maria tried to scurry out of the way, but she was way too slow compared to the heightened speed of Scipio boosted with rock polish. The rocks hit her from behind and knocked her off the ground, Maria finding herself being swept away by the attack. The rubble pulled to a stop in front of Blake and Maria's head popped out, her eyes swirling dizzily. She threw up a wad of poison and passed out.
"Sorry, Maria," Blake apologized. He had meant for Maria to be a set-up pokemon, so he wasn't surprised she'd been knocked out. After taking the hurricane explosion, all a strong pokemon had needed to do was look t her. He returned her to her pokeball, and prepared a pokemon that was a little tougher to beat.
"Rogen, go," Blake said. He threw his pokeball into the air, and his Boldore emerged. The rocky pokemon raised his pincers and struck them on the ground, facing down the other rock pokemon. Blake had sent his second defensive pokemon out; Reiner suspected he was making his pokemon selections based on what would best withstand his partner's wind assaults.
"Luna!" Julia shouted. "If that pokemon is going to do nothing but stay in the air all day, then wipe her out with a hurricane!"
"Umbreon!" Luna's eyes began glowing white, and she used the power she'd stolen from Noctre to send the wind swirling up around her. She prepared a massive hurricane that swept up the snow in a tornado of wet, roaring wind. With a roar, she sent the large spout of wind and snow surging across the battlefield, tearing the sky to shreds as the windstorm dragged Raiver closer to it.
"We already showed you that won't work!" Elaina snarled, her eyes flashing. She kicked her harmonia up, Raiver's strength surging. The massive bird's muscles began to flex, and he dive-bombed straight into the wind, much to Julia and Reiner's shock.
"Brave bird!" Elaina shouted, wind and crimson energy swirling around Raiver's body, the hurricane shaking from the distortions in air pressure. Raiver broke out of the hurricane, the wind blasting out around him and tearing the clouds apart.
Raiver flew straight towards Luna, his body glowing a bright red. He hit Luna with the full force of his brave bird attack, the dark pokemon letting out a cry in pain as she was launched through the air, crashing onto the ground.
"Luna!" Julia cried, her poisoned pokemon trying to pick herself up. Luna trembled, badly injured from the attack, the poison still eating her away, only getting more painful with time. Elaina knew that feeling all too well.
The recoil hurt a bit, Elaina noted. But that was fine. She was feeling her harmonia start to hurt again, and was trying desperately to keep the feedback under control, while trying to increase her Raiver's strength so that he would be able to defeat Julia's pokemon with ease. Before, it had been a simple matter of dispatching the girl. But it seemed she'd learned a thing or two.
Julia could see that things were going poorly for Luna. She had managed to take out Elaina's Noivern, and Reiner had knocked out Maria, so they were technically winning this battle. But Elaina could wipe out multiple pokemon with little effort. As long as she was a factor, it didn't matter how good a lead they had, harmonia could completely overturn it.
Julia stared at Elaina, and it made her feel sick. This power… this was what Kitty had? Fighting like this, putting her own body at risk, letting her pokemon's injuries eat away at her… Julia couldn't imagine what that was like. And she certainly didn't want to imagine Kitty finding herself in the same state as Elaina, beaten down and half-crazed.
I wanted to fight Elaina to see if there was some way I could get to connect with Kitty better, some sort of secret I could glean from fighting a harmonia user… but right now, I'm feeling nothing but shivering fear and terror. Is this… is this what it's like to really be around harmonia? …No… there has to be something I can get from this, some way to connect to her!
"Luna!" Julia cried out. "Toxic!"
Luna opened her mouth and fired an orb of toxic venon at the bird pokemon flapping above her. Luna was on her last legs, but if she could infect even one more of Elaina's pokemon with a deadly poison, then Luna would have done an excellent job. She had hoped to get to all three, but that wasn't practical. Luna wouldn't last another hit.
"Raiver! Don't let her poison you!" Elaina shouted.
With a flap of his wings, Raiver created a powerful gust of wind that blew the compressed poison away, the venom raining down on Luna harmlessly as she was already poisoned. Raiver took the opportunity to charge straight towards Luna while the wind pushed her back, holding his wings out and raising his claws up.
"Raiver, use superpower!" Elaina shouted, energy surging through her pokemon's body as she sent his power sky-high with her harmonia. Raiver felt his strength maximize, and he prepared to batter the dark pokemon with the most destructive move he had to inflict on her.
He's coming in close so we have a chance to poison, Julia's mind raced. Or…!
"Luna! Time for that move!"
Luna's eyes widened and she nodded, understanding her trainer's instructions. Her eyes flashed black and the blue rings on her fur began glowing bright. Dark power danced through her and she leapt at Raiver, the two pokemon colliding in an explosive blast of power.
"What?!" Elaina exclaimed, shielding her face from the bright light. She coughed out pain and grabbed her chest, stumbling back as she felt Raiver take a massive hit of damage from that attack, his defenses barely worth anything. "What… what was that…?"
"Brav…" Raiver was knocked out of the sky and crashed onto the ground, rolling several times as he tried to stave off most of the damage. Luna was knocked backwards as well, hitting the snow. She was unconscious.
"Braviary…" Raiver coughed out, picking himself up. He was badly injured, and weakened as a result of his superpower, but was still capable of fighting. He flapped his wings a few times to make sure they weren't broken and flew into the air again, Elaina's harmonia staving off the searing pain going through him.
"Julia, what the hell was that?" Reiner asked, taking his eyes off of Scipio and Rogen for a brief instant.
"Foul play," Julia said, recalling Luna to her pokeball. "I figured that if harmonia strengthened her pokemon so much, then I could turn that power against her with foul play, to copy her Braviary's power and turn it back on him. Looks like I succeeded."
"You keep using my own strength against me," Elaina spat, glaring at Julia from behind her mask. "And you think you can win that way?"
Julia smirked, shrugging her shoulders. "Next time you fire off big flashy moves like that, be careful about what your opponent might do with them!"
Elaina fumed, her harmonia surging back up. Forget control, she wanted to-
"Elaina!"
Elaina flinched at Blake's words. She turned and glanced at him. He was giving her a hard look. Elaina swallowed.
"Elaina, you're trying to do too much yourself," Blake warned her gently. "We're a team, remember. It's okay if you let me handle some of it too. Or even better, we can try working together to take them down, what do you think?"
Elaina wanted to, but right now she was seeing red. But that was bad. She needed to calm down, and fast, otherwise she might lose it again. Teamwork. That was something new. Today had a lot of new experiences it seemed. Waking up to that damned ghost that was haunting her. Getting hit over the head and chewed out by Blake's girlfriend, something that should have enraged her but for some reason actually made her feel a little warm inside at the thought of it, and now this, being told that they had to fight as a team, and that she could rely on Blake? It was all so odd.
But to see it fulfilled, she would need to keep calm and maintain her cool, and not let her harmonia get the best of her again, whatever that ghost said.
Don't do that. Don't let go. Keep it in control, keep it in check, keep everything stable, she ordered herself, picturing Blake in her mind and keeping her harmonia from going wild again. Seeing that Elaina was keeping herself balanced, Blake knew he had to handle the others himself.
"Rogen, use magnitude!"
Rogen had been heightening his defenses with iron defense while waiting for Scipio to make a move, but now was ready to fire back. He raised his claws and drove them into the ground, sending out powerful tremors that shook the battlefield.
Rogen's magnitude was powerful, and because he didn't need to worry about hitting Elaina's Braviary while it was in the air, he was able to put all his power behind it.
"Should have figured," Reiner scowled. "Scipio, use water pulse!"
Scipio held his claws up, water swirling in front of them and forming into an orb. As the ground beneath him shoot, he clenched the water orb and sent a shockwave across the battlefield that slammed into Rogen, knocking him backwards as Scipio also fell over, injured.
"Perfect timing!" Julia said. "Wolfie, come out and use dark pulse!"
Julia's Poochyena emerged from her pokeball and opened her mouth, firing a compressed blast of darkness at Rogen. The dark move hit the rock pokemon as he tried to stand, injuring him. Rogen had toughened up his physical defenses, but both of these pokemon were using special moves.
The shaking had ceased and that gave Scipio the opportunity to stand. Due to his bug typing he wasn't too badly hurt by the magnitude, but it had still thrown him for a loop. The problem was, most of his moves were physical, and those were less likely to score much damage against the defensively buffed Rogen.
Blake was in a rather difficult place himself. Scipio and Wolfie were both faster than Rogen, which meant that he couldn't be sure that Rogen could score hits without the chance of them dodging. It didn't help that it was currently more of a two-on-one sort of match, either.
"Now, Raiver! Use tailwind!"
Elaina's voice caught Blake off-guard. Suddenly, a powerful gust of wind began blowing from behind him, hitting Scipio and Wolfie in the face, and slowing their advance. Raiver was flying behind Blake and Elaina, blowing a powerful gust of wind that doubled the speed of not only himself, but Rogen's speed as well.
"I don't have things fully in check right now," Elaina admitted, "but this should be acceptable, no? This way, I won't have a chance to lose control, since I'm only using non-damaging moves."
Blake smiled gratefully at her and nodded his head in agreement.
"Thanks a bunch, Elaina! Rogen and I can make great use of this, so you two just get your energy back up!"
"Boldore!" Rogen called out in agreement.
Even with his speed doubled, Rogen could only match the boosted Armaldo's speed, and the naturally swift Poochyena. But that was enough for a start.
"Use rock polish! Then, use rock slide!" Blake ordered. Rogen began scraping away at his rough surface, increasing his speed even more. He dug his claws into the ground and shot forward, the wind behind him giving him a boost while his smooth surface let him glide through the air with minimal resistance as he charged at the two pokemon ahead of him.
Rogen dug his claw deeper into the ground and ripped it up, sending shockwaves through the battlefield that blasted a wave of rock and dirt at the two pokemon in front of him.
"Use your own rock slide!" Reiner countered. Scipio raised his claws and blocked Rogen's wave of rock with a wall of his own, the two attacks striking each other and falling back towards their users. Both Rogen and Scipio dodged out of the way, and even Wolfie was swift enough to avoid the attack.
Wolfie doesn't have the strength to fight on the same level as these two, Julia understood, regretting that her team wasn't as balanced as it could have been. But at the moment, we'll have to make the best of it, it's not like I'm sending any of the others out to handle this, and I need to save Roden for when I really need him!
The dust and debris settled down, leaving the battlefield covered in rubble. But much to Reiner's surprise, Rogen was nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell? Where'd he go?" Reiner demanded, the only foe he could see being Raiver, who was flying overhead and looking down at them with a watchful eye, ready to strike.
"Raiver!" Elaina called out, Scipio and Wolfie's heads shooting up in shock as they braced themselves for what the powerful bird pokemon would do.
But he didn't do anything.
Elaina cracked a smile behind her mask, and Blake grinned as well.
The ground beneath Scipio's feet opened up, and he found his footing was shifting.
"Scipio!" Reiner cried, realizing he had been distracted. The Braviary was acting as a decoy!
Rogen emerged from the hole he had dug in the ground and raised his claws, stabbing into Scipio's sides with a powerful attack. Scipio stumbled back as a wave of rock slammed into him, Rogen fully coming out of the hole. The rock pokemon raised his claws and a large stone floated up in front of him.
"Rock blast," Blake ordered. Rogen fired off a large rock at the ancient pokemon, the attack flying at him like a cannon.
"Metal claw!" Reiner cried out. Scipio's claws began shining and he lunged forced, shattering the rock with a single strike, his claws harder than iron.
As soon as the first rock was crushed into dust, however, a second took its place, followed by a third. Scipio advanced step by step, breaking through each of them.
"Wolfie, use dark pulse on Rogen, quick!" Julia ordered. Wolfie opened her mouth and prepared another dark pulse, her small paws hitting the ground fast as she ran towards the bigger pokemon to score a more damaging hit. The blast of darkness hit Rogen in the leg and knocked him off-balance, his special defense nowhere near as good as his physical defense. His barrage of rocks ending, that gave Scipio the perfect opportunity.
Scipio charged forward and raised his claws, striking against Rogen's hardened surface with a powerful metal claw attack. Even with his defensive abilities heightened, Rogen still took a lot of damage from the powerful metal claw, and found his health rapidly decreasing.
"Rogen, iron defense!" Blake ordered, forcing Rogen to harden himself even further in an attempt to protect him from Scipio's assault. Rogen's body began shining, and Scipio's claws stopped cutting as deeply into the pokemon's rocky skin. Rogen pushed forward, and Scipio was thrown off-balance by the heavy pokemon's heavy slam attack, making sure to keep a better distance so he wouldn't get hurt. Rogen had taken some serious hits, but he wasn't down yet.
"Braviary!" A loud screech and the flutter of red feathers was all Scipio heard before a massive figure appeared in front of him, slamming into him at high speed and knocking him backwards, Scipio stumbling from the swift attack. Raiver's aerial ace hadn't done much damage, barely scratching his hardened shell.
But it was enough to give Blake and Rogen the opening. Elaina nodded to Blake.
"Rogen, stone edge!"
Massive stones ripped out of the ground and slammed into the unbalanced Armaldo, Scipio crying out in pain as the stones pierced his armor and dug deep into his body.
"Arrrmm!" Scipio grunted, struggling to stay standing, but more rocks came quickly, crushing him even more. The force of the attack knocked him off of his feet this time, causing him to knock into Wolfie. A wave of rocks roared up in a massive rock slide on the heels of the stone edge, burying both pokemon in a pile of rocks and debris.
"Scipio!" Reiner shouted.
"Wolfie!" Julia cried.
Both of their pokemon had been knocked unconscious. In a series of moves, Blake and Elaina completely overturned Reiner and Julia's advantage, and now they were the ones in the lead of the battle!
So with Julia only having one pokemon left and Reiner having lost his ace, can they manage to pull out the win here? Or did they have a strong start with nothing to follow? We'll have to find out!