After a nice little break yesterday, we find ourselves faced with the conclusion of the battle! Who will manage to win? Will Elaina and Blake win, as expected? Or will Reiner and Julia be able to pull out the victory somehow, I wonder? It's going to be a tough fight for sure, so we'll have to see!
KedharS: KedharS kinda sus.
Rosealine gold: Thanks, put some decent work into it.
Aquahaze675: Kitty can be very evil in situations where there she doesn't have to risk hurting people. She's got a wicked side that her sweetness overshadows.
Thunder Fire: He meant that he hadn't gone in and explored it since he didn't have any tasks to accomplish there.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 334
Julia only had one pokemon left capable of putting up a fight, so her choice was clear.
"Houndoom!" Roden snarled, emerging from his pokeball with his fangs bared, glaring at the rock pokemon ahead of him. He raised his head and looked at the Braviary flying overhead.
Reiner's options were a little less clear. Blake and Elaina still had two pokemon left to use. Judging by what he'd observed of her battles, it was likely that she would save her Aerodactyl for her third slot. Blake, meanwhile, was using Rogen. He probably wouldn't use Weiss while Julia had his Houndoom out, but if they could wear Roden down enough, it was possible. What was important right now, though, was taking out Blake's rock type. Reiner did have Dana, but the Chewtle was new to his team and he hadn't gotten the opportunity to use her in a battle yet. He didn't want her to take her chances against Elaina and Blake.
So his best option at the moment was Invictus.
"Invictus, go!" Reiner shouted, tossing out his Metang's pokeball. The steel pokemon emerged, holding up their claws, floating over the battlefield and staring down the two pokemon across from it.
Unfortunately, Invictus is still vulnerable to ground moves, Reiner mentally scowled. But in the meantime, they have the stats to take out that Boldore!
Blake smiled. A steel type and a fire type? They were making this too easy!
"Rogen! Use magnitude!" Blake ordered.
"Boldore!" Rogen raised his claws and jammed them into the ground, the earth beginning to shake as he summoned up some tremors. This was going to be a particularly strong one!
"Roden!" Julia cried, worried about her pokemon's ability to withstand the ground attacks. "You have to-"
"Julia, have him jump!" Reiner shouted at her. Julia looked at him like he was crazy, and then realized what he was getting at.
"You heard him, Roden! Jump on top of Reiner's Metang!"
"Hound!" Roden nodded, leaping off the ground before the tremors struck. He landed on the steel pokemon's large body, the flat surface serving as a perfect platform.
"What the hell?!" Blake gasped, finding the tactic incredulous. He hadn't seen it coming.
"Invictus, use magnet rise!" Reiner ordered.
"Metang!" Invictus raised their arms, running a magnetic current through their steel body. This caused them to lift themselves even higher off the ground, completely nullifying all effects of magnitude.
"And now that we're in range, Roden, use flamethrower!"
Roden turned his attention on the flying Braviary, opening his mouth and firing off a blast of flames at the flying pokemon. But the flames were quickly diminished by the last dregs of the tailwind, and Raiver easily dodged the attack.
"Invictus, we need to improve our evasion to keep from being targeted by that Braviary's attacks," Reiner said. Invictus was part steel, which meant that a superpower hit would still really hurt. "Quick, use double team!"
"Metang." Invictus created several replicas of themselves in order to disorient the Braviary, making it so that the bird pokemon couldn't see which one was the real one.
Everyone stared in silence for a moment.
Elaina blinked, confused. Blake snickered, resisting the urge to burst out laughing. Julia slapped herself in the face in frustration.
"…Raiver, use superpower on the one with the mutt on it," Elaina ordered. Boosted by harmonia, Raiver's body coursed with energy and he flew straight towards the two pokemon.
"Are you a complete mornon?!" Julia exclaimed, whirling around to chew out Reiner.
"I forgot, okay?! I got caught up in the battle!" Reiner protested, turning his attention back to the approaching pokemon. "But it's fine! Invictus, use psychic!"
"Metang!" Invictus raised their claws, their body shining with blue light. An aura of blue wrapped around Raiver, and his body was frozen in midair.
"Raiver!" Elaina cried out, feeling the pressure holding her body down just like the psychic attack was restraining her Braviary. She felt immobilized like her pokemon was, and felt the mental assault on her pokemon as well. Her head started to hurt, and not in the usual way from her harmonia. It was like there was someone grabbing it, squeezing it…
"Aaargh!" Elaina cried, holding her head.
"Elaina, remember, just breathe easy," Blake said. "Keep calm and-"
"I know!" Elaina snapped, raising her head and turning to glare at Blake, though her mask diminished the effects significantly. She took a deep breath and calmed herself down, focusing on trying to limit the output of her harmonia. The energy surging through her finally was quelled, and she let out a deep breath, sighing.
Elaina stumbled back and nearly lost her balance, but the burden was lifted. As for Raiver, though, she could still feel her pokemon's agony, even if the effects on her body weren't as catastrophic as they had been before.
"Alright, Roden! Now's our chance!" Julia crowed. "He's completely immobilized, so let's take him down with the strongest flamethrower we've got!"
"Houndoom!" Roden howled, opening his mouth, deep scarlet flames welling up within his jaws. He spat of massive blast of fire at the immobilized bird, the blazing stream heating up the sky.
"Rogen! Use stone edge, we've got to stop them!" Blake shouted.
"Boldore!" Rogen raised his pincers and long chunks of rock lifted up into the air, flying at the two pokemon.
"Metang!" Invictus cried out, the stones striking their body. They didn't do a lot of damage, but they were enough to break the steel type's concentration, the psychic attack dying down and giving Raiver enough room to maneuver out of the way. Or in this case, plummet to the ground.
Roden was clever though. He tilted his head down and redirected the blast, this time hitting Raiver directly as the bird pokemon fell. Elaina cried out in pain as she felt the flames lick up her arms and legs and engulf her torso, knowing the burns her pokemon was experiencing were even worse.
Rogen continued his barrage of stone edges, and Reiner needed to put a stop to it.
"Invictus, iron defense!"
Invictus's body began glowing a whitish-silver, their already steel-hard frame getting even more dense and resilient. The stones broke on impact and the result was like throwing pebbles against sheet metal, allowing the pokemon a chance to get their bearings back as they used their body to shield Roden.
"Braviary!" Raiver hit the ground and let out a wail in pain, bad burns singing the feathers on his wings and body. He managed to pick himself up, but his body was a mass of burns and bruises. With his diminished strength from the superpower attack and Elaina's sputtering harmonia…
Well, he could certainly keep fighting, but for how much longer was anyone's guess.
Elaina winced, understanding what her pokemon was going through. She had intentionally weakened the connection to suit herself, but… that meant Raiver was losing strength.
"So what are you going to do?" Harmonia whispered into her ear, the ghostly specter taunting Elaina further.
Elaina already knew what she was going to do, of course.
Her harmonia flared back up and she sent a wave of energy into her pokemon. Raiver felt strength flow through his muscles, and he was able to withstand the agony of his wounds a little better. Flapping his wings, he found it was difficult to fly, but not impossible. He endured the pain and took to the air again, kicking up a gust of wind behind him.
On Elaina's side of things, the effects were a little worse. She could feel the familiar rush of harmonia kicking in, Raiver's soaring power reflecting on her own body, but with it came the burning agony of his wounds. The pain she was going through, though, that was nothing compared to the pain of her pokemon. So she would endure it. And they would win!
"Air slash!" Elaina shouted. With a flap of Raiver's wings, a ripping blade of wind tore through the sky, slicing straight for Roden. The blade hit the dog pokemon and drew a yelp from him, knocking him off of Invictus and sending him crashing into the ground.
"Roden!" Julia cried, but Roden wasn't going to let something like that get the better of him. He was already on his feet, and firing off a blast of flames at Raiver.
"Simple!" Elaina snarled, Raiver disappearing into a blur. He was using aerial ace!
Raiver reappeared behind Roden, ready to slash into the hound with his claws. But just as he began to rip into him, Roden completely disappeared, fading away into darkness!
"Feint attack!" Blake gasped, realizing what was happening.
"Reiner!" Julia shouted.
"You got it, Invictus, use psychic again!"
Raiver, close to the ground, found himself stuck there, once more frozen in place by the Metang's psychic powers. Unable to escape, Roden emerged from the darkness of Raiver's shadow and leapt up, digging his claws into the injured pokemon's belly and biting down hard, beginning to tear at the bird pokemon.
"Raiver!" Elaina groaned, clutching her stomach as she felt the Houndoom's fangs burying into her guts. And then they stared to burn.
"Rrrgh! Rogen! Use…"
But there wasn't much Blake could think to do right now. Roden was clinging onto the immobilized bird pokemon so tightly that any moves he made would no doubt hit the both of them. Rogen didn't have the pinpoint targeting to only knock off the Houndoom, he would certainly-
"BLAKE!" Elaina shouted, startling Blake and causing him to look her way, his eyes buggy.
"Do it," she snarled, digging her fingers into her coat.
"But-"
"Raiver can't get away right now… if we'll faint either way, then take her down with us, do you understand?!" She shouted at him, the pain growing worse. "Or do you want this agony to be for nothing?! Attack!"
What the hell is this girl talking about?! Ayame couldn't believe what she was hearing. Blake… she should know better than to force Blake to do something like that! Just one look at his pale face should be enough to see how much turmoil the thought of hurting her himself was putting him through… how could she ask him to do something like that?
Blake grit his teeth and clenched his hand into a fist. He didn't want to, but…
"Rogen, use stone edge," he ordered, immediately regretting his decision.
"What?!" Julia gasped, stunned. She hadn't expected Blake to make that choice, not… not in this situation. She was counting on her close attack to render Rogen unable to fight, but indeed not. The rock pokemon was already moving to attack, raising his claws and tearing up huge chunks of rock to barrage the two struggling pokemon with.
"Invictus!" Reiner was the first one to respond, calling out to his Metang. "Stop that Boldore with your bullet punch!"
The psychic aura around Invictus dropped and they turned their body around, shooting at Boldore like a bullet with their claws raised. They struck the rock pokemon in the face with a barrage of high speed punches, knocking Rogen backwards, the stones from his attack falling out of the air before they could be fired.
"Bold!" Rogen gasped, surprised.
Raiver was no longer restrained by the psychic attack, and wasted no time at all trying to break free. His muscles flexing, he kicked Roden aside with his legs and flapped his wings desperately, trying as hard as he could to push through the pain and take to the sky with the help of harmonia.
But he wasn't able to get far.
"Roden! Flamethrower!" Julia shouted, another blast of flames erupting from Roden's maw and engulfing the fleeing pokemon, lighting it ablaze and giving Elaina another taste of the searing flames of the powerful fire type.
"Aaaargh!" Elaina shouted, agony wracking her body as she cursed the Houndoom and the Metang for interfering. Feeling the last embers of her connection to Raiver sputtering away she recalled the unconscious pokemon, the phantom pain of her Braviary's burns soon disappearing.
"Damn it all…" Elaina panted, feeling exhausted, the memory of the heat causing her to strip her coat off, she couldn't believe how much she was sweating. Even the cold winter air wasn't comparable to the pain she was enduring.
Elaina ripped her next pokeball from her belt and flung it into the sky, her voice growing hoarse from her screaming.
"Ayer!"
As Reiner predicted, Elaina's final pokemon was her Aerodactyl. The ancient pokemon emerged with a roar, flapping his wings and creating a powerful gust of wind. Reiner felt a smile come to his face, this was what he expected. The Aerodactyl was just like Rogen, it had access to powerful earthquakes and rock moves, but those were things that Invictus would have no problem with. The magnet rise would last for a little more, and in that time, he had plans of his own. Rogen had taken some serious hits, and while his defenses were so high that even the bullet punch had barely done much, he was vulnerable in other ways. He would ignore the Aerodactyl for now, and focus on forcing out Blake's last pokemon.
"Invictus, use flash cannon on Rogen!" Reiner ordered.
"Flash cannon?" Blake gasped, surprised.
"Your Scizor loves it so much, we thought it might be fun to try out," Reiner smirked.
Invictus's nose began glowing with white light, and they fired a compressed laser that hit Rogen directly, blasting through his heightened defenses and striking at his significantly lower special defenses instead with a powerful super-effective hit.
"Boldore…" Rogen groaned, falling over and losing consciousness. Blake recalled the rock pokemon.
"You took your eyes off us, big mistake," Elaina scoffed. "Ayer!"
Sending a silent command through their heightened connection with harmonia, Ayer flew towards the floating Invictus, though Reiner didn't see it as all that much of a problem. Whether a ground or rock move, he could handle it easily.
"Reiner you idiot! You need to dodge!" Julia exclaimed, already calling for Roden to try and burn the opposing pokemon with flamethrowers, though Ayer easily avoided them, his wide jaws opening up as he approached the steel type.
Ayer bit down hard on Invictus, but a regular bite wouldn't do much against the iron defense Reiner had strengthened them with. He was already preparing to order a psychic attack.
Then Ayer's jaws began to burn. Flames lit up from around his fangs, and his bite attack turned into a powerful fire fang, that caused Invictus to let out a cry of pain this time. The fire attack burned them, and they tried to shake free, unable to concentrate enough to use a psychic attack.
"Invictus!" Reiner shouted. He hadn't expected that.
"You didn't see the semi-finals of the Fall Festival Tournament," Julia bitterly told him. "She used her Aerodactyl's fire fang to take out Sylvia's Rotom."
"Damn it!" Reiner cursed. "Invictus, use psychic!"
A blue light began glowing around Invictus, but as it did, Ayer tightened his jaws and bit down harder, the painful attack dealing more damage to Invictus in response.
"Roden, try to knock him off with your flamethrower," Julia shouted as Invictus tried to strike desperately at Ayer with a barrage of metal claws, which required much less concentration. The attacks were doing damage to the rock pokemon, but the strength of Elaina's harmonia was preventing them from being noted. And Invictus was losing health much faster than Ayer was.
As the stream of fire approached Ayer, the pokemon turned his head and flung Invictus into the flames, much to Julia's horror.
"You're not the only one who can use that Metang as a shield," Elaina boasted, the last slivers of Invictus's health draining away by Julia's own Houndoom. Reiner recalled his unconscious pokemon regretfully, wondering what his last pokemon should be.
"You-!" Julia growled, enraged. "Roden! Burn him away with your flamethrower!"
Roden opened his mouth and fired a blast of flames at Ayer, who flew out of the way.
"Julia! Watch out!"
Julia's eyes shot to Roden in response to Reiner's shout, just in time to send out an order. "Roden! Look out!"
Roden turned and saw a wave of water heading straight for him, a red figure in the center of it. Cory struck Roden directly with a powerful aqua jet, knocking the fire type pokemon backwards. Roden skidded across the ground and let out a whimper of pain, the aqua jet attack badly injuring him.
"Craw…!" Cory stood over Roden, raising his pincers up and gnashing them together, looming menacingly towards the prone Houndoom.
Roden leapt to his feet and dodged Cory's crabhammer, Julia starting to worry. Cory had recently evolved, and she hadn't fought against the pokemon in his new form. And with that Aerodactyl overhead as well…
As if on cue, Ayer flapped his wings and tore chunks of rock out of the ground, sending a harmonia-boosted rock slide towards Roden, and Cory, by extension.
"Craw?!" Cory jumped out of the way to avoid the wave of rocks, Roden running away as well to avoid the attacks himself.
"Elaina!" Blake cried.
"Sorry, I… I just…"
Elaina's head was throbbing and it was feeling nice to give into harmonia again. But hearing Blake's words, she let herself reduce her powers, taking a deep breath.
Reiner was frantically choosing his next pokemon. There was only one choice he really had.
"Orion!" Reiner said, sending out his Electrike. It was vulnerable to ground moves, REALLY vulnerable to ground moves, but it still had a type advantage over both of his opponents' pokemon, and there was something he wanted to test out.
"Orion, use thunder wave on that Aerodactyl!" Reiner immediately ordered.
Orion landed on the ground and shot forward, his tiny paws running over the roughly overturned dirt as electricity charged through his fur.
"Ayer, take those pokemon down with earthquake!" Elaina snarled. Energy surged through Ayer's body and her harmonia flared back up in spite of herself. She struggled to keep it down, trying to minimize the damage. Ayer sent a shockwave down into the ground, the stadium beginning to shake, tearing itself apart with deep fissures, the existing damage from the stone edge and rock slide attacks of the previous pokemon helping this along.
Roden and Cory ran in opposite directions, Roden struggling to endure as the attack prepared to deal him massive chunks of damage. In the meantime, though, Orion was able to leap from the ground before the tremors hit, and sent a current of electricity out that paralyzed Ayer, stunning the pokemon temporarily and causing the shaking to cease before it really got going.
"Ayer…" Elaina felt like her body was being weighed down. Similarly to before with the psychic, she found it difficult to move. But in this case, though, it was like her muscles were trembling and her body had gone numb. It was all Ayer could do to remain in the air himself.
Orion opened his mouth and bit down on Ayer's throat as he collided with the airborne pokemon, releasing a powerful thunder fang attack that DID manage to do the trick this time, Ayer no longer able to force himself aloft through sheer effort now that he was being directly attacked, the Aerodactyl plummeting out of the air.
"Cory!" Blake shouted, Cory lumbering forward with another aqua jet. He shot towards the falling pokemon wreathed in a torrential veil, raising his claws to knock the Electrike off.
"Now, discharge!" Reiner ordered.
The electricity spread from Orion's fangs to covering his entire body, and he let out a powerful shockwave that engulfed not only Ayer, but hit the approaching Crawdaunt as well, the current striking the water around him and electrocuting the pokemon as Roden watched on, panting, still trying to recover from the earthquake.
Ayer hit the ground and let out a roar of pain, his body crumpling. Orion rolled off of him and rose to his feet, dusting himself off.
…And a thick tail struck him in the side, knocking him backwards with a powerful swipe.
"Elee!" Orion whimpered, rolling across the ground and scraping his fur. Ayer pulled himself up slowly, his body still crackling with electricity. It felt like it was so hard for him to move, like his body was being pinned down by invisible weights and his muscles weren't listening to him.
"Can't… move…" Elaina gasped out, her body shaking with the effects of paralysis. "I… we…"
"Elaina," Blake warned, turning his attention to Cory, who was injured, but definitely not out of the fight. He was slowly pulling himself back up onto his legs, water beginning to wrap around him again as he turned his attention to Orion.
"I'm fine," Elaina spat, blood pooling on her upper lip as her head began to throb. "I haven't… I haven't lost myself to it… not… not yet… AYER!"
Searing pain throbbed through her head as Harmonia whispered into her ears, drowning out her thoughts. She could feel it, it was so easy… the battle was almost over, just a little bit more of her power and-
"It won't take much," Harmonia purred. "Is this who you want to be, Elaina?"
The image of herself appeared before her eyes again, once more taking on the form of her masked self, no longer the sweet-smiling girl but now the dangerous trainer.
Elaina's harmonia surged like a bonfire as she felt her control slip away, no longer able to separate herself from Ayer. That rush was back, that feeling of power burgeoning in her body as the ground around them began to shake. Because she WANTED it to shake! It was amazing, to feel the power in her veins that let her tear the earth itself apart!
Ayer and Elaina let out a roar of triumph as they lost themselves to the power, releasing an earthquake that, to the trainers battling, felt like it would be capable of tearing the entire island apart.
Orion hadn't taken any damage this battle, not really. But the tremors slammed into him hard enough to knock him off the ground, rocks ripping free and falling over, buffeting the electric pokemon as he struggled to right himself. The earthquake attack wasn't just the ground, the wind itself was humming with power as the battlefield slammed into him instead of the other way around, chunks of stadium battering his body as though he were caught up in a tornado.
Roden didn't fare much better. Already on his last legs, the fire pokemon let out one final blast of power from his jaws, desperate to hit the paralyzed pokemon. But the flames never hit, but a chunk of stadium shot up, forced out of place by the grinding of fissures against fissures, blocking the attack. Another wave of dirt slammed into Roden's side and knocked him to the ground, rocks and debris cracking apart and half-burying him as it felt like the ground itself was swallowing the unconscious pokemon.
Even Cory, supposedly Ayer's teammate, wasn't spared from the assault. Still not fully adapted to his new, bulkier form, Cory tried desperately to escape the center of the earthquake, even using aqua jet to increase his speed. But he couldn't run on nothing, and when the ground tore away from him and he realized that he was flying through the air, knocked up by an upthrust chunk of rubble, he struggled to maintain his balance as a large stone slammed into him and knocked him to the ground.
The people themselves weren't facing the direct damage of the earthquake, but they were certainly not immune to it, either. Grateful for the blanket of snow on the ground, Reiner was knocked off of his feet and into a snowbank, where he was thankfully safe. Julia, who had been staring worriedly at Roden and was trying to run towards him, had her attempts foiled when she was flung back into the snow beside Reiner as well, which probably saved her from severe injury if she had actually entered the danger zone that was the battlefield at the moment.
Elaina was unharmed by the earthquake; after all, her own power wouldn't hurt her! But her ally was a different story. But Blake had already fled the battlefield, and flung himself into Ayame, pushing her down into the snow to protect her from any wayward debris that might hurt her.
"Elaina!" Blake shouted, raising his head and turning to her. "Stop it! You're losing it again!"
Huh? Is that Blake? Elaina thought she could hear something, some voice tickling at the edge of her ears, but she couldn't quite make it out over the roaring winds and the rumbling earth. She turned and looked ahead at the carnage. Oh… right… I need… need to stop this, need to… can't… can't hurt anyone, Blake… Blake doesn't want me to hurt others, wants me to control myself, I have to-
But when she tried to shut it down, her head began burning with pain. She pictured Blake as best she could, his smiling face, his voice, his kind words telling her that she didn't need to lose herself to this power, that she was better than this.
She was better than this… right?
But if she was… then why couldn't she control herself? Why did she keep losing herself to this power of hers? Why was… why was that damned specter haunting her, keeping her from controlling these powers of hers? What could she-
"Aaaaargh!" Elaina shouted, a surge of pain shooting through her skull as a powerful thud resounded on the back of her head. Her harmonia exploded violently for a brief instant and then sputtered away, Elaina stumbling forward and flopping face-down, her connection severed.
Unable to keep up his strength without the aid of Elaina's harmonia, Ayer succumbed to paralysis, his attack dying down and the tremors ceasing, dirt and debris flopping down onto the wreckage of the stadium.
"That was close…" Ayame said, dusting off her knuckles as she stood over Elaina, sighing in relief.
Elaina lost herself again, unfortunately. Luckily, Ayame was there to pick up the slack and help her get control! …Kind of. But what will the aftermath of this little outburst look like, I wonder?