The battle between the Commander and the Phantom has only become more intense, and even though the Commander is currently taking the lead, it's still anyone's game. We'll have to see how this match will go, and who will wind up the victor!
KedharS: You're underestimating him too. Trust me, he isn't an idiot.
Tambry96bj: Hopefully she'll get some more good ones.
Aquahaze675: I'm just surprised someone else remembers what the shed shell is.
Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Beating Sylvia and Dokukage could be tricky for Ian, especially since Sylvia's only the Second Leader by a technicality and would probably rank higher.
Hakuba: Yup, still chugging along! Welcome back!
Rowlets and Oshawotts: Well, they are teenagers, still have some growing to do.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 591
"Go, Tracey!" Alden said, sending out his Cinderace.
"Cinder!" Tracey chirped, her ears flopping as she landed on the battlefield. But one whiff of the shadow sky and she began to cough, the dark energy filling her lungs.
"So that's your game, huh?" Valon murmured, his expression darkening. "You're planning to take advantage of Soul's hyper mode to begin setting up against him."
"That's the idea!" Alden grinned. "Tracey, agility!"
"Cinderace!" Tracey nodded, running forward at high speed, moving circles around the thrashing Spiritomb.
"Nice!" Darla grinned. "That's really smart! Spiritomb has been really slowed down due his natural low speed and paralysis, and even with that weird… what did he call it? Hyper mode? Yeah, even with that, and how violent his rampages are, the smart move is for the Commander to boost his pokemon's speed so that they can keep out of range and bombard it!"
"Yeah, it seems like the Spiritomb isn't listening to orders or thinking with his brain," Lila agreed. "Basically it's like he's just attacking randomly. So keeping smart seems like a good move for the Commander."
Excellent. With this, we can boost our speed and our attack to the max in order to have an all-out fight, Alden planned, his smile wide. It had been quite some time since he had let his pokemon go all-out against such a powerful foe! But even though that Spiritomb's enraged state and the Phantom's inability to recall it made for an easy opponent to set up on, the Commander wasn't so green as to assume that it would be an easy victory. Rather, if they wanted a hope of DEFEATING the Spiritomb right now, Tracey would NEED to boost her stats to the max. "Tracey, use agility one more time. Then, your speed should be high enough where you can begin mixing work ups with flame charges."
"Cinderace," Tracey nodded.
"SPIRITOMB!" Soul roared, releasing a blast of darkness from his mouth that nearly hit Tracey, but the swift bunny was able to make use of her excellent agility to dodge out of the way. She put some distance between herself and the immobilized pokemon, taking a moment to catch her breath.
"Cinderace!" Tracey held her hands up and made fists, a crimson aura flaring up around her as she kicked off the ground, boosting both her attack and special attack stats.
"This is putting the Commander in a really good position," Darla observed. "By having Cinderace raise all of her stats, she can baton pass them onto whichever pokemon he wants."
"Even his Lucario?!" Lila gasped, remembering how strong the Commander's most powerful pokemon was.
"That's right, Lila," Darla agreed. "Because the Phantom has lost control of that Spiritomb and now he can't even call it back, he's given the Commander the perfect opening to seize a decisive lead in this match!"
But the Phantom didn't look all the fazed. Irritated, certainly, but he in no way looked like someone who was backed into a corner with no way to pull out a victory.
"Spiritomb!" Soul turned towards Tracey and opened his mouth wide, the wild shadows whirling around him into a massive tornado. He sent the shadow storm raging across the battlefield towards the Cinderace, Tracey dodging to the side. But she quickly realized that even as fast as she was, the tornado was too big and too powerful for her to outrun completely, and she was quickly sucked into the raging tempest and battered on all sides by the shadows.
"Tracey!" Alden cried.
"You underestimated the power of a Shadow Pokemon," Valon smiled. "Your Cinderace relies on her Libero ability to change her typing to resist the opponent's moves in order to make up for her low defenses. But something like that won't work against Shadow Moves! After all, regardless of your typing, they're super-effective!"
"Tracey!" Alden cried again, his Cinderace flung out of the tempest. Tracey tucked and rolled, flames wrapping around her body as she used flame charge, bracing her fall and landing on her feet, turning and dashing towards Soul, not taking a minute of rest. Alden smiled, seeing that even after a hit like that, Tracey wasn't about to go down easy.
Soul was much less enthusiastic. Seeing that his prey hadn't been finished by the shadow storm, that only made him more angry and violent. He sent his shadows down into the ground, covering the black field with a nearly-invisible layer of darkness, exploding in blades of shadow around Tracey.
"Cinderace!" As the ground beneath her exploded, Tracey bounced up into the air on her powerful legs, dodging the blades.
"Spiritomb!" Soul wasn't lost, though. He tilted his head up, and roared with a mad fervor, the winds in the sky burning even higher, swirling even faster. He conjured another tornado, sending the pillar of destructive shadows whirling towards Tracey.
"These shadows are quite something, aren't they, Tracey?" Alden called. "Use sunny day!"
"Cinderace!" Tracey held her hands up, her body glowing orange. She released a blast of light up into the air, piercing through the shadows and lighting up the sky, the black fog withering away in the face of the intense sunlight.
"Yeah! Awesome!" Sango cheered, Silver's appearance changing to reflect the turn in the weather. "That's much better!"
Without the winds of the shadow sky to aid it, the tornado had shrunk in size significantly, but it was still a massive threat to the airborne Cinderace, sucking her in and battering her more.
"Hang on, Tracey!" Alden shouted. "Use work up again!"
"Cinderace!" Tracey shouted over the shadows, bracing herself and boosting her attacking stats. When the tornado flung her aside again this time, though, she wasn't able to land on her feet. She crashed hard, grunting in pain, barely managing to pick herself up in time to see Soul fire a blast of shadowy lightning in her direction. She rolled to the side, panting, quickly catching her breath and putting some distance between herself and the Shadow Pokemon.
"I thought this would be easy since that Spiritomb went mad," Lila said, her voice shaky. "But the Commander's still having a hard time…"
"Those moves are powerful," Darla agreed. "And Cinderace is on the defensive since the Commander is trying to boost her stats instead of battling the Spiritomb directly."
"SPIRITOMB!" Soul created another tornado, the shadows swirling around his body as he thrashed around his keystone. But it was fine. Soul was slow, meaning Tracey had time to gather herself and prepare for another attack of her own.
"Tracey! Pyro ball!" Alden ordered.
"Cin!" Tracey created a fireball in front of her foot, and began juggling it from one knee to the next, building it up in size until it was as big as a soccer ball. Kneeing it up she dropped it down and pulled her foot back, kicking with all her might at the Spiritomb as the Shadow Pokemon continued to build up a tornado.
"Spirit-!" The fireball hit Soul in the face, lighting him ablaze, Soul wailing in pain as a big hole was punched through his spectral body. He quickly reformed himself, enraged, and increased the power of the shadows building around him, releasing it in a raging tornado traveling right towards Tracey.
But this one was narrow enough to dodge.
"Flame charge!" Alden ordered, a smile crossing his face as Tracey grinned in turn, her legs lighting up as she shot to the side, skidding along the edge of the battlefield as she easily dodged the tornado, preparing another pyro ball.
Tracey pulled back her leg, kicking the fireball as hard as she could. This time she didn't just hit the Spiritomb's soul body, the pyro ball hit the keystone itself, sending it flying, and dragging soul along with it.
"SPIRITOMB?!" Soul howled, thrashing around as he rolled across the battlefield. But Tracey wasn't about to let him catch his breath. It was time to make use of the massive speed advantage she had over the ghost! She shot forward, running so fast that she was a flaming blur, and leapt into the air, increasing the size of the flames burning around her.
"Cinderace!" Tracey spun, extending her leg in an axe-drop, a massive bonfire of flames leaping up around her foot as she brought it down right on the connecting point between Soul's spectral body and the odd keystone.
"SPIRITOMB!" Soul roared. But that attack wasn't enough to take him down. Shadows erupted from the ground in an explosion of dark energy, Tracey knocked back by the shockwave. She winced from the pain of the attack but it wasn't nearly enough to hold her back.
"Work up again, Tracey," Alden ordered, Tracey nodding her head and boosting her attack and special attack again as she pumped herself up, ready to take that Spiritomb down for good.
Soul struggled to pick himself up from the ground, not having the sense of mind in his crazed state to really regain his bearings. Instead, he just sent more blasts of shadow out from around him like a wild pokemon swinging angrily at everyone who came close to it while it was injured. The shadowy aura raged even more as it got angrier and angrier, until finally one explosive blast managed to knock Soul upright again, and then he struck.
Soul's head shifted and twisted, lunging at Tracey with more shadowy tendrils, creating waves of wind to try and blow her away. But Tracey was in her element now, and her speed allowed her to easily keep her distance as she worked herself up again, boosting her attack and special attack even more.
"Oh, man," Lila said, squirming in her seat. This was really tense. "Cinderace is doing a great job at keeping out of that raging Shadow Pokemon's way, but if Spiritomb gets a good hit in, then that could be really bad for her…"
"Yeah, but at the same time, she's been steadily boosting her stats, don't forget," Darla replied. "Her speed is already at the max, and her attack and special attack have been boosted by four stages. A few more work ups, and she'll be absolutely at her best."
"Work up two more times, Tracey!" Alden called. Tracey nodded her head, boosting her attack and special attack again. But as she used the final work up, it required to be just a little too still for just a little too long, and Soul was able to hit her with a blast of shadows from beneath her feet.
"Cinderace…" Tracey wiped the sweat from her forehead with one hand and clenched her side with the other, blood seeping out. That last blow had been a critical hit. But right now, it was absolutely worth it. Her stats were as high as they could go, and it was time for the counterattack to start for real!
Tracey created another pyro ball. Only it was much, much bigger than the one before. If her usual pyro ball was a soccer ball, this one was more like a beach ball, no, make that one of those big squishy balls that they use in gyms for yoga. When it grew bigger than Tracey herself, everyone was gasping in surprise.
"Oh man, Darla, look at how big that thing is!" Lila gushed, grabbing Darla by the arm and shaking her, marveling at the move.
"Yeah, I can see it, Lila," Darla dryly replied, no less amazed but keeping her composure in comparison to her friend.
But Tracey never kicked the massive fireball, even as the shadows around Soul began to rage again, forming an even larger tornado, one to rival the size of the previous ones when the sky was filled with shadows to feed off of. That was because… she was shrinking it.
"That's right, Tracey," Alden grinned. "Let's get it just the right size to work with, sound good?"
"Wait, why's it getting smaller?" Lila asked, confused.
"I think… she's compressing it," Darla realized. "She's taking the destructive power of that massive fireball and packing it tightly together into one the size of a normal fireball. But it's going to be just as powerful as the huge fireball was!"
"Spiritomb!" Tracey might have been miles faster than Soul, but the fact that she was compressing her massive attack into a single fireball meant that she was moving a lot slower. So the Spiritomb was able to unleash his attack first, the massive tornado rampaging towards Tracey with enough destructive power to send her flying out of the stadium and large enough to nearly engulf the entire battlefield in shadows.
Tracey smiled in response.
"Cinderace!" Tracey dropped the white-hot ball of flame, pulling her leg back. She swung forward and kicked the pyro ball with all her might, the orb flying forward like a cannon volley, punching through the tornado and hitting Soul directly. The destructive power of the fire move burned the shadows away, and when it hit Soul it exploded in a massive blast of flames that nearly broke the keystone to pieces, Soul flying backwards and bouncing off of the ground, his shadow aura writhing as he roared in agony before finally shrinking back into the stone as he lost consciousness.
"Spiritomb is unable to battle!" Lila judged. "Cinderace is the winner!"
"Now, the Phantom only has three pokemon left!" Darla said. "He's been pushed into quite the corner!"
But if the Phantom was worried, it still wasn't showing. He recalled Soul to his pokeball, and took out his next pokeball, ready to keep going.
"Launcher, come back out," he said, sending his Dragapult back out. Launcher cried out in pain as the stealth rocks pierced him, looking around in a rage at the fact that the shadow sky was gone.
"He's sent his Dragapult out again!" Lila said.
"Yeah, unfortunately," Darla agreed, her face souring. She was in a bit of a conundrum. She hated that the Phantom was using a Dragon type Shadow Pokemon, but she also wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea of the Commander taking him down, either.
"Your Dragapult? We can handle that, can't we, Tracey?" Alden grinned.
"Cinderace!" Tracey nodded, smirking. With her stat boosts what they were, this would be a simple task.
Alden smiled as well. Not only was Tracey more powerful than she had ever been before, but without the shadow sky, Launcher couldn't use his usual tactics of hiding himself in the darkness and sniping down his opponents. But it was important to keep his edge. Luckily, Tracey would be able to easily get the first move in, even if she didn't have many moves that were effective against a Dragon/Ghost type. With her boosts, it would be enough. But first…
"Tracey, use taunt," he ordered. He had to prevent that Dragapult from using any of his status moves to throw things off. Then he could get down to the real fight!
Valon smirked.
"Now who's underestimating me?" He called out as Launcher roared in anger, flying towards Tracey and preparing to attack. "I wasn't about to use some status move like shadow sky! No, I had a much different plan in mind! Launcher, use dragon tail!"
"Dragapult!" Launcher pulled his tail back and swung it as fast as he could at Tracey.
"Oh man!" Darla gasped. "That's one plan!"
"What? What does it do?" Lila asked. As a Fairy type specialist, her pokemon didn't exactly have much experience being on the receiving end of Dragon type moves.
"Dragon tail is a move that forces a pokemon to switch back to its pokeball," Darla explained. "Like roar, or whirlwind. It forces them back… and of course, that removes all stat changes."
Lila gasped, her face going pale. Her head whipped around to stare at the Dragapult as his tail swung at Tracey. "Oh, no!"
Alden had the same line of thought. So he had miscalculated what the Phantom was going to try, since the man seemed to be obsessed with those Shadow Moves, fine. But he was a quick thinker and Tracey was a quick everything, and he still had the perfect countermeasure ready to go. "Tracey, baton pass, quick!"
Tracey leapt back into her pokeball before the tail could hit her, Launcher's tail swinging and hitting the pokemon she was replaced with.
But Launcher's tail was repulsed, much to his surprise.
"Mimikyu!" The small pokemon chirped, staring up at Launcher from behind her disguise.
"It's his Mimikyu!" Lila sighed, a mixture of relief and adoration for the cute fairy.
"Nice thinking," Darla had to begrudgingly admit. While she loathed the exchange between Fairy and Dragon types, she wanted the Phantom to lose, and using a Mimikyu to counter his dragon tail was a perfect method of that.
Plus, Mimi had inherited all of Tracey's status boosts. Oh, this was going to be good.
"Mimi! Play rough!" Alden ordered.
"Mimikyu!" Mimi began glowing pink, and a burst of shadow from beneath her disguise launched her into the air at high speed, preparing to strike Launcher. Raising the stick of her disguise, she swung in a barrage of strikes at the Dragon type, Launcher crying out in pain as the move struck him.
"Launcher!" Valon shouted. He hadn't expected the fairy at this juncture, but it wasn't a problem. Launcher could still fight back. Normally, a move of that power would be critical… but just as the Commander had prepared a countermeasure for his own strategy of using shadow hold, the Phantom had prepared a countermeasure too.
Launcher bit into the red berry with blue fringes, and began to glow pink. The damage from Mimi's blows were lessened, to the pokemon's surprise. She hadn't been planning on the Dragapult to not even flinch at the attack, and a blast of shadow fire hit her in the face while she was still startled.
Well, the face of her disguise, anyway, the burned Pikachu head tilting over as she leapt back, preparing more fairy energy to launch a second volley.
"What was that just now?!" Lila demanded indignantly, forgetting her persona for a moment. "That play rough attack had six attack boosts! Even if that Dragapult is a Shadow Pokemon, Mimikyu should have pounded him into next week!"
"Calm down, Lila," Darla soothed her. "That right there was the effect of a roseli berry. It's a special type of berry that drastically reduces the use of super-effective Fairy type moves when they hit."
"But… but that's not fair!" Lila wailed.
"I knew you would probably save Mimikyu to counter my Launcher," Valon called over to the Commander. "After all, he's the pokemon you've seen me use maybe the least, so you'd want the type advantage when dealing with an unknown opponent. But unfortunately for you, I needed to account for that disguise granting you a free hit, and now I have."
Alden smiled. "Think that'll be enough to save you with all these buffs? I'm looking forward to it! Come on, Mimi! Let's go, play rough again!"
"Mimikyu!" Mimi lunged forward, preparing to attack.
"You're fast, sure," Valon admitted. "But we can do fast ourselves! Launcher, sucker punch!"
Mimi raised her stick, preparing to swing it at the dragon, but before she had the chance she was blindsided by the Dragapult shooting towards her like a jet, hitting her in the face, her real face this time, with a punch from his clawed fist.
Mimi was knocked back, managing to only graze Launcher with a swing of her club. But even that attack was quite powerful, the Dragapult letting out a wail of pain as it grazed his cheek. With six attack boosts and no shield to worry about, Mimi was quite the potent threat.
"Sucker punch, gotta admit, we didn't see that one coming," Alden agreed. "But if it's a battle of speed you want, we can play that game ourselves! Mimi, shadow sneak!"
"Mimikyu!" Mimi agreed, sinking into the shadows and surging at the Dragapult, leaping out and hitting him in the gut with another blow.
"DRAGAPULT!" Launcher roared in pain, swinging his tail and knocking Mimi back. Shadows burst out of Launcher and he flew towards Mimi at high speed, narrowing his eyes and lowering his head as he prepared to attack.
"A direct charge this time? Mimi, prepare for anything," Alden warned. There was no way it was going to be that simple. "Be ready to dodge and hit with play rough if needed!"
"Mi!" Mimi chirped, raising her stick and preparing to attack.
Launcher flew closer and closer. He might not have six speed boosts stacked up, but a Dragapult's natural speed was 142, which already put him in a pretty big class of his own. He was flying as fast as a jet engine.
"Now, u-turn!" Valon ordered. Mimi swung her club to unleash another play rough attack, but like before it was only a glancing blow. When the first strike hit Launcher's face, the pokemon flew back to his pokeball as Mimi was knocked back by the force of the blow, rolling across the battlefield.
"Excellently done, Launcher!" Valon said, immediately switching to his next pokemon. "Now… Shade, go!"
"Gengar!" Shade emerged from his pokeball, cackling, raising his hands and preparing to attack Mimi, who was still picking herself up from the ground.
"Clear smog!" Valon ordered, Shade compressing fog together into his hands and flinging shadows at the Mimikyu, the smoke gathering around Mimi and causing her to cough.
"No way!" Kate gasped, her legs dropping as she sat upright in surprise, her jaw dropping. "That's… why, that's brilliant!"
"What? What is it?" Blake asked, looking over his shoulder, more than a little surprised himself that Kate was actually interested in the battle.
"Clear smog is a special Poison type move," Kate explained. "A pokemon who inhales the toxic smoke… they become afflicted with a sickness that reduces all their status changes to zero!"
"All that time your Cinderace spent pumping your Mimikyu up with those status boosts she passed on, all that damage she took from Spiritomb thinking it would be worth it for the advantage that those status boosts would give her in battle, that was all for nothing," the Phantom said, smiling gleefully, his eyes shining. "Now… now that Mimikyu of yours is as weak as it would normally be!"
"Mi… Mimi!" Mimi wailed, bursting out of the smoke, coughing.
"Oh no!" Lila cried. "Mimikyu, no! Don't!"
"Mimi, watch out!" Alden shouted.
"Don't worry though, she won't have time to realize how much power she lost," Valon assured him. "Shade, use sludge wave!"
"GENGAR!" Shade raised his hands, a wave of corrosive poison washing across the battlefield and swallowing Mimi, the weak Fairy type coughing and wheezing as the poison seeped into her, thrashing around before finally losing consciousness.
"…Well, well, well, it looks like even pokemon that can't be comprehended can still be poisoned," Valon snarled, his voice carrying a tinge of menace.
"Mi… Mimikyu is unable to battle," Lila softly whispered, trying not to cry.
"Gengar is the winner," Darla said, picking up the slack.
"Sorry, Mimi," Alden apologized, recalling Mimi to her pokeball. "You put up a good fight, and you did a lot of damage to that Dragapult. I'm the one who didn't expect that clear fog to come around. But you definitely did your best. Rest up."
The Phantom has begun to fight back! While he's still behind on pokemon, he's done some serious damage to a good chunk of the Commander's team. The question is, will it be enough to capitalize on, or will the Commander be able to keep his advantage? The battle's really starting to heat up!