Blake thought he had the match in the bag, but little did he know, fighting against Elaina would be more than just overpowering her harmonia! Elaina has come up with quite the strategy for overcoming his baton pass plan, and now Blake finds himself struggling against a whirlwind that threatens to destroy all of his hard work! Remember to review!
The Pokemon Academy Best Girl 2 Finals have come to a close. And how do the results look? …Sadly, not too good. With only four votes, it wasn't a very exciting turnout. So how did things shake out? Well, there's definitely a clear winner. And the results are…
Sylvia: 2 votes
Marion: 1 vote
Sango: 1 vote
So, Sylvia is the second Pokemon Academy Best Girl, with only two votes. It doesn't quite seem fair, but I won't dispute the results! Hopefully next time, we'll get a bigger turnout than this! But right now, this is the best we can do! See you all next year, and congratulations to our winner, and all our competitors!
KedharS: It sadly appears that way.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 720
Blake could tell that his time was limited. Ruru didn't know any moves that would allow her to resist the oncoming whirlwind, so he made the best move he had available right now, trying to take advantage of Ruru's existing buffs and prepare her for the next time he would use her.
"Ruru!" He called over the wind, "use leech life!"
"Galvantula!" Ruru ran forwards, unencumbered by the trick room. Normally, she should be moving much slower than the Braviary due to the strange room's mystifying effects, but it took time to conjure a whirlwind capable of blowing a pokemon back to their pokeball and that meant there was an opening for her to strike. Leaping into the air, she opened her jaws wide and bit down on Raiver's wing, the pokemon squawking in pain.
"Braaav!" Raiver shouted, flapping to knock the pokemon off. Elaina clutched her shoulder and seethed. The attack stung, but no more than any normal bite from a bug pokemon, and certainly not enough to disorient the harmonia-boosted Braviary.
"Ignore it, Raiver!" She hissed. "Ignore it and blow her away."
Raiver nodded, and unleashed the whirlwind he had been building up, sweeping Ruru up and flinging her back towards Blake.
Blake didn't mind when he was forced to recall Ruru to her pokeball. Sure, it was a serious loss, losing out on all those buffs that Weiss had stacked up, but that was never the main part of his strategy. More importantly than that, Elaina's urgent whirlwind attempt to disrupt his plans had opened another avenue of attack entirely, one he looked forward to having taken advantage of. By giving Ruru the opening to land a blow with her leech life, Raiver had allowed her to drain away a decent portion of his health. After all, Ruru had received an attack buff from Weiss, which meant that move had done some real damage.
Ayame was on the same page as him, and felt her tension relax a hair. The improvement to Ruru's condition wasn't massive, of course, because the damage inflicted wasn't as major as they would have liked. But it was enough to mitigate most of the health she'd lost in her battle against Doria, and that meant Blake had a nearly fully-healed pokemon back in the picture, along with Uni; it made her feel a little more confident.
"It's okay, Blake, shake it off! This isn't a problem!" She called, and Blake brightened to hear her cheering him on.
"You heard her, Elaina, this isn't a problem at all!" Blake grinned. "In fact, now it's starting to get interesting! You, using that whirlwind to disrupt my plans? It was a great move. Like when you used your Oricorio's Dancer ability to copy Weiss's swords dance! That was really smart, and a strong opponent really makes me excited to have a good battle!"
Cynthia's cheer of agreement echoed from the crowd.
Elaina felt her face get hot. To say that she wasn't the kind of person who received compliments would be an insult to understatements everywhere. But she didn't let the waver in her heart sway her for a moment, focusing her harmonia and directing it into Raiver.
"I won't be swayed by your false words," she scoffed, holding her hand out and swinging it away, disinterested in hearing anything else from him. "Enough of this, it's time for battle! Send out your pokemon, Blake!"
"I'm happy to," Blake said, cracking a smile. He felt pain in his chest, but he couldn't let that show. He needed to project an air of confidence for Elaina, to reassure her that everything was alright, and that she didn't have to worry about anything. "Maria, go!"
Blake sent Maria out, the small pokemon landing on the ground with a cackle. She turned towards Blake, pretending to stab one of her tentacles at him, but he just raised his eyebrow at her, and she sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Marea…" She scoffed, turning back to the Braviary. A wicked smile spread across her face. "Mareanie!" And like a flash, she shot forward, scuttling on her slender, sludgy body.
"So fast!" Cynthia gasped.
"Her speed is only base 45," Ayame informed, cracking a smile. "She may have taken a few hits already, but she's certainly more than capable of outspeeding that Braviary. After all-"
"Yes!" Kate interrupted her loudly, practically shoving herself into Cynthia's face. "You see, Mareanie, like many Poison type pokemon, are very slow! They spend their time fastened to the seafloor, after all, feeding on Corsola that happen to come their way. Because of this, they haven't really developed a need to travel quickly on land OR on water, as they prefer to set traps for their prey. This is also why they haven't developed arms or legs or fins or any other method of propulsion, preferring instead to use their sticky undersides to cling to the rocky floors of the Alolan oceans, slowly crawling into a place to wait. When they've found a good place to hunt their prey a Mareanie could spend years rooted to that spot, just waiting for-"
"NOBODY CARES!" Cynthia said, shoving the poison fanatic off of her. She turned her attention back to Blake's match. "Come on, Maria! Go give it to her!"
"Yeah, that's it!" Kate said, standing up and joining in the cheer. "Show that bird what happens when it messes with Poison types!"
Blake was almost tempted to change tactics just to spite the annoying girl, almost. But he didn't let his judgment waver. "Maria, hit him with your toxic attack!" He ordered. Noctre had been able to give Maria quite a run for her money in her last fight against one of Elaina's pokemon, but that was back when she'd had the benefit of speed on her side. Now, in the trick room, this was Maria's terrain, and she would hopefully be able to do quite a good job of weakening Elaina's team.
"Mar!" Maria opened her mouth and took a deep breath, regurgitating an orb of toxic sludge that she spat at the soaring Braviary.
Elaina wasn't going to let speed get the better of her, though. "Air slash!" She ordered. Raiver was grateful for his distance, flapping his powerful wings to pull himself just far enough, that an air slash cut through the orb of poison, spraying it harmlessly on the ground. Then he flew further up into the sky, circling near the top of the dome.
Out of reach of any further toxic attacks.
"Hey, that's no fair!" Kate griped, shaking her fist angrily. "Get back down and fight!"
Blake ignored Kate's shouts of anger, focusing his attention on the battle. Raiver and Elaina might think that the Braviary was out of range of Maria's toxins, but that didn't mean that she was out of ways that she could attack.
"Maria!" He shouted. "Use double team!"
"Mar!" Maria nodded. She swayed from side to side, creating multiple copies of herself that filled the ground below.
"Nice! Now, poison sting!" Blake ordered. The Mareanie spread out their tentacles, the barbs lining them springing out and sharpening, oozing toxins. With a wave, the horde of pokemon flung a barrage of poisonous needles up towards Raiver like a rain from below.
Elaina clicked her tongue. This was not the sort of situation she liked to be in. Raiver didn't have the speed to do much more than get hit. So she cried out for her pokemon and braced her harmonia, directing it towards Raiver's defensive capabilities, pumping his defense stat as high as it could get as the bird pokemon folded his wings and dived, trying to become as small a target as possible.
Unfortunately, it did not have the intended effect. Even was Raiver bombed downwards narrowly, Elaina could still feel the pinpricks of pain blossoming across her face, but the pain was quickly replaced with a feeling of numbness that made her wince.
She knew what that meant. It was the first stages of the poison. What came next would be-
Elaina screamed again. She had been using her harmonia far too much at this point. Her skull was pounding away at her like someone was smashing her face into a brick wall, and every attack, even the most minor one, was like running sandpaper across a flayed flesh. It was like her body was on fire at all times, she couldn't stand it.
But she endured. Pushing her pain aside, she connected with Raiver and ordered him to ignore the poison. Raiver spread his wings and pulled out of his dive, soaring over the Mareanie. Even though the small pokemon was almost twice as fast, Raiver was in the perfect position to launch a devastating wind attack, and that was exactly what Elaina had in mind.
"Hurricane!" Elaina shouted, and with a flap of his wings, Raiver conjured yet another tornado. This one swept through the sea of Mareanie, swallowing them up and bashing them on all sides, shattering copy after copy as it approached the real thing.
"Am I the only one getting really sick of this attack?!" Sango griped over the muffled howls from inside the dome. She knew that because of the trick room the wind was safely contained, but it sure felt like it was slapping her in the face right now.
"Could be worse," Claire called back to her, bouncing her hair. "At least we're not inside!"
Sango took that as a very cold comfort.
"Blake will be fine," Dokukage assured them. "Blake's Mareanie has prepared for this, just as she did before."
"Maria, substitute!" Blake ordered. As more of the clones were snuffed out, the real Maria replaced herself with a stuffed copy, which was flung against the trick room and quickly dispersed, replaced with the real thing. Maria landed on the ground, panting, having withstood the attack at the meager cost of only a bit of her health.
"Nice!" Cynthia cheered. "It doesn't matter how strong Elaina's harmonia attacks are, not if they never hit the target!"
"Precisely," Dokukage said, nodding. "I applied a similar principle in my fight with Keahi Revanche's pokemon. Shadow Moves might be devastating, but they have to connect, first. With a fast enough pokemon, one can be safe from ever having to take a hit from a pokemon in battle."
"But substitute isn't unbeatable," Callie informed everyone, letting the wind out of their sails. She had a tense look in her eye. "Every time a pokemon saves itself from harm like that, it loses a percentage of its health."
"She's right," Ayame agreed. "Take a look at Maria." She pointed at the small blue pokemon, who looked a little more ragged than she had when the hurricane had struck.
"It's better than taking a massive hit," Dokukage admitted. "But it isn't a perfect defense, I'm afraid. However-"
"There's something else to worry about, too," Kate said, rudely interrupting the ninja before he had a chance to finish his thought. "Because Blake wasn't able to do as much damage earlier as he could have done when he poisoned that Braviary."
"Huh? He did poison it, though," Kitty said.
Kate glanced at the small girl and snorted, rolling her eyes. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and said in one of her bitchiest voices yet, "oh, please, you call that poison? Listen cat girl, there's poison, and then there's poison. And I know poison. And believe me, what just happened there was not poison."
Kitty wondered if maybe Kate had gotten some brain damage when Cynthia pushed her off.
"Kate, it would be best for you to explain things with a little more etiquette, is it?" Alcea asked, walking up to them with a calm smile on her face.
Kate flushed in embarrassment, and cleared her throat. "Yes, milady, you're right," she agreed. "As I was saying, there are two types of poison. Regular poisoning, like what happens with most poison attacks, is the kind that most people are common with. But there is a much more serious type of poison, that is created through the use of the move toxic, along with some other moves. When a pokemon is infected with that, it's referred to as being badly poisoned. Regular poison only wears down a pokemon's health gradually, a little bit at a time. But when a pokemon is badly poisoned, the infection spreads at an exponential rate, causing the pokemon to lose strength much faster."
"And Elaina's Braviary was only struck by poison stings," Sango remembered. "He managed to avoid Maria's toxic attack."
Kate shrugged her shoulders. "It was a smart play on Elaina's part, allowing her pokemon to get hit by the poison sting. I don't know how long she could have held out dodging toxics."
"Yeah, I'll say," Nikita marveled, adjusting her glasses. "So Elaina kept her Braviary from taking a big poisoning by taking a small poisoning instead!"
"I don't know why Blake would even use poison sting in the first place, then," Julia scowled. "It would have been better to keep using toxic."
"Most of the time, that's usually the case," Kate nodded in agreement. "You use toxic, and don't aim for poisoning the normal way. But there are some situations where that doesn't matter."
That made Cynthia curious. Now that she knew for sure that badly poisoned was so much stronger than regular poison, she couldn't think of any reason to rely on ordinary poison at all. "What do you mean?" She asked.
"It's a very narrow situation, but it might be this exact one," Kate said, nodding to the battlefield. "When you need to poison a pokemon no matter what, and it doesn't matter what kind of poison you get them with."
"And that is exactly what Blake is aiming for," Dokukage informed them. "Just watch. That is precisely the tactic he developed when training with me."
"Maria, venoshock!" Blake ordered. Maria opened her mouth and spat a wave of venom at the Braviary. Raiver flapped his wings and managed to dodge to the side, just barely turning out of the way of the poisonous assault.
Blake was fine with that, though, because it gave him the chance to do what he intended. "Maria, now's the time!"
"Mareanie!" Maria nodded in agreement. She began to glow a soft blue light, and the wounds covering her body slowly healed, her health getting restored.
"She's using recover!" Cynthia cheered.
"Her condition is improving," Ayame agreed with a nod. "That's perfect for this situation! Way to go, Blake! Maria!"
"Mareanie's recover ability pairs perfectly with her ability to poison other pokemon!" Kate said, beaming from ear to ear. "I think that makes for the perfect situation!"
"And it will allow her to continue using her substitute ability," Dokukage agreed, nodding his head. "Which means that Blake's Mareanie is quite powerful in this battle, due to the speed boost she gains from trick room."
"That's amazing!" Sango said, brightening.
"I see, so that's your game," Elaina growled. "You're planning to use your pokemon's speed to hide behind substitutes and slowly recover your health, while wearing Raiver down with poison? I see. Well, I'm sorry to inform you but that isn't going to work!"
"Well, I can't wait to see what brilliant strategy you come up with to beat it," Blake said, cracking a smile, daring her to try her best.
Elaina was more than willing to show him. She focused her harmonia, gathering it up and directing it at Raiver. Go! Show that Mareanie that a little poison won't be nearly enough to get the better of either one of us! She silently commanded.
Raiver flapped his wings and lowered his head, charging at Maria as she recovered her health. He spread his wings wide.
Blake wasn't sure what move Elaina was going to use next. Probably a physical move, if she was bothering to have her Braviary get that close. He debated on having Maria hide behind a substitute again, but instead decided to have her dodge normally and counterattack.
"Maria, dodge his attack and use venoshock," Blake ordered.
"You won't dodge. Aerial ace!" Elaina bellowed. Maria leapt to the side, avoiding Raiver's swipe, and opened her mouth. As the bird pokemon turned, she spat a wave of venom at him, the poisonous gunk striking the Braviary directly and making him cry out in pain.
But Elaina withstood the agony from the attack, and focused her energy towards her pokemon, boosting Raiver's attack stat as high as she could get it.
Raiver disappeared, and reappeared behind Maria. He opened his talons and dug into Maria's back, cutting massive gashes into her body.
Maria howled in pain.
"And now that you've gotten hold of her, don't let her go! Use sky drop!" Elaina ordered. Raiver flapped his wings and flew up towards the ceiling of the trick room, ready to smash Maria back down into the ground.
As Raiver dive-bombed the small pokemon, ready to slam her into the ground, Maria disappeared at the last second, transforming into a small stuffed doll that bounced off the tiled floor. She quickly reappeared, only slightly injured, turned, and spat a blast of venom at the flying Braviary, hitting him directly before he could get away.
"BRAAAAAAV!" Raiver howled, the poison surging through him. Elaina withstood the pain, even as her skull was searing, her head pounding with agony.
"Not… yet…" she grunted, stepping forward, and raised her hand. Raiver picked himself up off the ground, panting, ignoring the poison throbbing through his veins. He flapped his wings and flew towards Maria, keeping low to the ground. The Mareanie was startled, not expecting the pokemon to still be coming. She set up another substitute.
"Dual wingbeat!" Elaina ordered. Raiver spread his wings, harmonia coursing through him. He flexed his muscles, and for a second it looked like his wings had actually grown in size. With a grunt and a lunge, he surged forward, and slammed into Maria's dummy.
The first wing's strike hit the dummy, banishing it into a puff of smoke. The second wing hit Maria in the throat as she reappeared, caught completely off-guard, and flung her back through the air. Maria let out a choked gasp and hit the ground hard, bouncing off the hard tile.
"Maria!" Blake cried.
"Another weakness of substitutes," Dokukage said, resisting the urge to frown. "They can only withstand so many consecutive blows before they crumble. Attacks that are defined by rapid strikes have a chance of breaking through them, and continuing to strike down the user, as well."
"That's really not good," Cynthia said, frowning.
Ayame looked at Maria. The small pokemon wasn't moving, and Raiver was circling, coming in for another attack.
"Come on, Maria!" Ayame shouted. She didn't want things to end like this.
Come on, Maria, you can do it! You'll be fine!