Now that our group is in Pyrite Town, they've been challenged to a pokemon battle right out of the gate! And the one to take up the challenge is Willa! We don't know much about her, but I wonder just how she battles her pokemon? It's going to be rather interesting and unique, I promise you that much!

KedharS: Willa's battle will definitely interesting, at least how she approaches it.

Tambry96bj: I hope Willa meets your expectations, her style of battling is definitely… "unique".

Thunder Fire: Man does know how to motivate his students.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 872

"Flemming, Serturner," Willa declared, sending out her two pokemon.

Ange was taken aback by her selection choice.

Both pokemon were single-stage, which was an oddity in itself. One of her pokemon a Delibird, and the other was a Shuckle.

The Shuckle in particular was odd, because it was a bright blue.

"What's with those odd names?" Riosha seemed as perplexed by Willa's decision as Ange was. "Whatever, doesn't matter! Those pokemon of yours look weak as hell! Here's what a real pokemon looks like! Dodrio! Hypno! Go!"

Riosha's two pokemon were a Dodrio and a Hypno, and they both looked mean. A lot more intimidating than what Willa had chosen.

Ange scowled. She didn't even bother to give her pokemon nicknames…

To Ange, and many trainers, nicknaming a pokemon was a matter of course. It was a way to build a strong bond with a pokemon and connect to them, something that bridged the gap between humans and pokemon by letting the pokemon partner know that their trainer saw them as more than just a tool or a pet.

At the same time, however, some trainers had reasons for not nicknaming their pokemon. Whether out of a lack of trust in their aesthetic naming sense, or because they felt like they could better connect to the pokemon by referring to them by their real names, there were many reasons.

But it was clear that Riosha's reason for not nicknaming her pokemon wasn't something so understandable.

She didn't care about them beyond their talent for winning, it was as simple as that.

Seeing people treat their pokemon with such little regard made Ange want to vomit. It was bad enough to be working with the Phantom who only saw his pokemon as tools, but the fact that everyone in Orre was like that…

Ange was thoroughly disgusted.

Willa, on the other hand, was unfazed by the lady's treatment of her pokemon. It was like she didn't have a care in the world. Her eyes glimmered with a hollow light, tired as they were, and the smirk on her face was unnerving.

She coughed.

"Let's get started then?" She yawned.

"Dodrio! Drill peck that Shuckle!" Riosha shouted immediately. "And Hypno, use your hypnosis attack on the Delibird!"

With a squawk, her Dodrio dashed forward, pointing his beaks at the small pokemon. The air around them began to spin like a trio of drills, ready to pierce the Shuckle's hard shell. At the same time, her Hypno lumbered forward, raising his hand. A coin dangled from it, swishing back and forth to hypnotize the Delibird.

"Serturner, use safeguard," Willa ordered.

"Shuckle!" Her Shuckle, ignorant of the charging Dodrio, shrank back into his blue shell. A blue field of energy appeared around his body, stretching over to his partner as well, fully immunizing Flemming from the effects of the Hypno's hypnosis.

"Tch!" Riosha clicked her tongue in frustration. She'd been counting on putting one of the girl's pokemon to sleep so she could easily take out the other in a two on one. Shuckle were infamously defensive, and her best bed would be to barrage it from multiple sides.

"Drio!" Her Dodrio struck with his mighty beaks, sending Serturner flying through the air. He hit the ground and bounced, rolling to a stop, but his tentacles quickly poked out of their holes along with his head, revealing him to be completely uninjured.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Willa said, though looking altogether disinterested in what had just occurred, "but you won't be able to put us to sleep so easily." She let out another yawn. "You see, my pokemon assist me in my research, so they're quite prepared to face all manner of status conditions as a result of my trials… Serturner's safeguard is an excellent remedy to ameliorate any potential discomfort that they might face."

Ange's face darkened. As she expected. Willa tested her concoctions on her own pokemon. Making pokemon suffer for the furtherance of humans, it was revolting. What little brightness she'd seen from the girl was gone now, now there was only contempt.

"Hmph, whatever!" Riosha scowled. "Hypno, use your psychic attack!"

"No, Hypno, don't use your psychic attack," Willa scoffed. "Flemming, use fling."

"Delibird!" Flemming chirped, nodding to his trainer. He reached into his bag and began digging around in it as his opponent prepared a psychic blast. Before the Hypno could do anything, however, Flemming pulled out… a bottle.

Ange was taken aback. Willa had given her Delibird a bottle? Then she noted the strange goopy substance inside, and immediately realized what the scientist was planning.

"Delibird!" Flemming flung the bottle at the Hypno, and it broke apart as it struck the pokemon. The pink concoction sealed inside of it sank into the Hypno's golden fur, startling the pokemon.

"Hyp… Hypno?!" The Hypno began scraping at the substance, but it wouldn't come out.

"Eww! Gross! What the hell is that?!" Riosha cried in disgust.

"It's a very potent mixture of natural herbs and berries, with a few additives as well," Willa explained. "I designed it as a special ointment to improve a pokemon's overall experience yield, but I found that it came with several problematic side-effects. While it DOES increase the amount of experience a pokemon gains from a battle, it comes at the cost of severely lowering their offensive stats so long as it remains in contact with their skin."

"What?!" Riosha asked, shocked.

"To put it simply, that Hypno of yours? Right now, it's physical and special attack stats have been reduced as low as they can possibly go," Willa clarified. "My drugs are quite potent, after all, and fast-acting. As long as that stuff's in his skin, he won't be able to do much of anything, attack-wise." She yawned. "That one I'm still working the kinks out of…"

"Fuck!" Riosha cursed. "Hypno, scrape that gunk off right now!"

"Hypno!" Her Hypno wailed. It was clear that he WAS trying, but the stuff just wouldn't come off! It was clinging to him like tar!

"Ah, yes, that's the adhesive compound," Willa explained. "I synthesized it through a mixture of gummy candy and Swalot slime. Swalot come with the natural ability of Sticky Hold, their touch can be quite… difficult to break, as it were." She smiled sweetly. "After all, a topical ointment to boost experience yield in battle would be of little help if it just rubbed right off! No, that should last for another two and a half hours, at least, if my testing is at all representative. …But that's why we're here, right?"

"You… you just sprayed my pokemon with that stuff?!" Riosha couldn't believe what she was hearing. This girl, that gunk…

I told you, didn't I?" Willa asked, a wicked smile spreading across her face. "That I would be having you and your pokemon help me out with this little experiment. Discovery requires experimentation, after all! I can't just trust my current findings. How will this substance interact with a Hypno? I'm quite curious!"

She reached into her lab coat and withdrew a notebook and pen, already recording the data as she studied the struggling pokemon.

Seeing the manic look on Willa's face was finally enough to clue Riosha in that she wasn't just dealing with some little girl.

"H-Hypno!" She cried. "Forget about that stuff for now! Focus on supporting Dodrio! Use, um… use your psychic attack! And Dodrio, use your agility! But stay as far away from the stuff that Delibird throws as possible!" Riosha had already had one pokemon crippled by that Delibird's goods, she wasn't about to risk a second one.

Willa blinked, surprised. "Oh! You figured it out, did you? Yes, exactly, why would I only be testing one potion on the likes of you? Flemming? Use recycle to find another concoction to try."

"Delibird!" Flemming nodded, waddling forward and retrieving the broken pieces of bottle from the ground. He slipped it into his sack and quickly withdrew another one. But the mixture this time was a sickly greenish-yellow in color.

"Wait, that girl…" Kiana gasped. "She isn't seriously planning to…"

"Yes, she is," Valon said, smiling with something that almost resembled pride. "Willa has quite a demented mind, you see. For her, pokemon battles are tools to experiment with her potions and concoctions, and nothing more. That's why she has those two pokemon."

He pointed to Shuckle. "In many parts of the world, Shuckle secret berries into their shells in order to have them decompose and ferment into a special type of gooey drink. She's used that pokemon of hers as a testing flask on more than one occasion. And as for her Delibird, well… I think you can see just as clearly as I can how useful a pokemon like that can be when it comes to transporting and dispensing her creations, no?"

Kiana shivered. The way he described it was unnerving. And the girl in question… she'd seemed harmless at first, maybe a little tired, but honestly a cutie.

Now, though, there was an intimidation to her that Kiana found… well, intimidating.

She remembered on the bus when Willa had offered her an energy drink for the trip. She'd looked so innocent and eager Kiana had almost said yes.

She went pale at the thought. She didn't want to imagine what would have happened if she'd tried something offered by this girl.

Riosha was rather scared of Willa herself. But she was still thinking. "Hypno, use your psychic attack to smash that bottle!" She ordered.

"Oh, another smart strategy," Willa said, genuinely impressed. "But I'm sorry to say, that probably won't work."

"Hypno!" Riosha's Hypno didn't listen, and raised his pendulum. He concentrated all of his psychic powers right at the bottle to try and break it to pieces.

He accomplished maybe getting a tiny hairline crack on the surface. It was almost impossible to tell, though.

Willa shrugged. "See? I told you. Your Hypno had his special attacking stat reduced as low as it could possibly go. He'd be lucky to be able to lift a rock with his psychic powers, let alone break one of my bottles. Now then, we don't want to risk mixing two concoctions at the same time, so Flemming, let's turn our attention back to that Delibird."

Riosha was completely taken aback. This… This was supposed to be a pokemon battle, wasn't it?! But this girl, she wasn't acting at all like she was trying to battle their pokemon, she was only paying attention to her potions. What was the matter with this shrimp?! She was crazy!

"Dodrio!" Riosha cried. "Keep at a distance and use your tri-attack to try and take out that Delibird! Don't let it get any of that stuff on you, got it?"

"Dodrio!" Her Dodrio nodded with all three heads. He opened his beaks, and three orbs of light appeared, one in each. One orb began glowing blue, the other red, and the third yellow, and energy crackled between them as they fired the triangular blast at Flemming.

But Flemming was perfectly safe, Willa had already seen to that.

"Serturner, block the tri-attack with your protect," she ordered. With a nod her Shuckle scuttled forward, planting himself in front of the tri-attack, and created a large blue shield around his body that deflect the blast, keeping both pokemon safe.

"Shit!" Riosha cursed.

"Any good experiment needs to account for potential harms," Willa explained. "In the event of an accident, my lab is designed to keep me safe from potential hazardous chemicals, just as Serturner has trained to keep myself and my pokemon safe from potential hazardous attacks. As long as Serturner is here, you can't hurt Flemming. But Serturner can do much more than that, right?"

"Shuckle!" Serturner said, scuttling forward slowly. He wasn't fast enough to keep up with the Dodrio, however, and the pokemon quickly moved back.

Riosha was concerned. She wanted to go around the Shuckle and attack the Delibird directly, but if she did that then it would put her pokemon at risk of being exposed to that strange substance again, and she didn't want that. But if she tried to attack from a distance, then the Shuckle would just protect it.

She decided that the best course of action was to make use of the weakened pokemon that couldn't fight anymore. "Hypno!" Riosha shouted. "Since you're so weak and useless, I want you to charge the Delibird and distract it! Try and smash that bottle if you can, go!"

"H-Hypno!" Hypno agreed, lumbering forward.

Willa scoffed. "No, no, we can't have that! That will get in the way of my research!" She scrawled something down in her notebook. "But it looks like your Hypno is still moving about as fast as before, even after exposure… so the ointment doesn't affect a pokemon's speed, then? Great! Just what I wanted to know! Now then… Flemming, use ice beam!"

Flemming swapped the potion in his hand for another in his bag, this time the substance was as blue as ice. And this time, he drank it himself.

Flemming's eyes flashed blue and he opened his beak, firing a beam of icy energy that struck the Hypno directly, freezing his legs to the ground.

"What?!" Riosha gasped.

"I don't just make useful tools against pokemon, you know," Willa scowled. "Who do you think I am? I create stimulants! Like a potion to improve the freezing power of my pokemon's ice attacks, to the point where the target is frozen automatically!"

Now that the Hypno was incapacitated, Flemming could retrieve the sickly yellow concoction and turned his attention back to Dodrio.

Riosha was still trying to process that her Hypno had been stopped so easily. It wasn't just that he had been knocked out, even, the girl's Delibird had frozen him, while keeping him conscious and even still mostly moving.

She'd just prevented him from interfering.

"Now, Serturner, use your sludge bomb," Willa ordered.

"Shuckle!" Serturner nodded, retreating into his shell. He stuck his head back out again with his cheeks inflated, and spat a blast of golden sludge at the Dodrio.

"Not gonna happen! Dodrio, dodge!" Riosha ordered. She needed to buy herself some time, but she wasn't sure what for. This girl was far stronger than she'd expected, and she wasn't sure how she was going to win.

But she needed to win. She didn't have the money to hold up her end of the bargain! In the Orre Region, strength and victory were everything, and unfortunately, she wasn't strong enough. She'd fought against it as best she could, but…

"Weakness is a sin."

Those were the words of Orre.

Weakness is a sin. The worst sin of them all. If you're strong, you would win. If you're weak, you would lose.

And those who lost meant nothing.

No! I'm not going to lose! Riosha resolved herself. She's just a child who spends her days cooped up in a lab! She had no idea what it's like, fighting on the streets, scraping by just to survive! I'm the one who deserves to win!

But to Riosha's shock, as the Shuckle continued spitting out sludge bombs and her Dodrio kept running around trying to dodge them…

Her pokemon was starting to slow down. And before long, he was moving so slowly he was barely even running at all.

"Dodrio, what are you doing?!" Riosha shouted. "You've got to run!"

"Oh, he knows," Willa said. "But he can't run."

"Wh-Why not?" Riosha asked, afraid of what the answer might be.

"Your Dodrio can't run, because of where he's been running already," Willa said, pointing at the ground. "Do you think I was just spraying out sludge bombs to hit your pokemon? No, I was doing it because Serturner and I needed to flood the battlefield."

And indeed, that's what happened. Serturner had sprayed nearly the entire plaza ground with the yellow sludge, which had congealed in large puddles around Dodrio's feet.

"Dodrio are Flying type pokemon, it's true, but they lack wings," Willa said. "The only reason they can jump so high is if they have a running start. But now, there's nowhere to run."

"Urggh…" Riosha ground her teeth together in frustration.

"Oh, and don't think that you'll be able to get away with just a light poisoning if you try to run through that muck," Willa warned. "You see, that may have been a sludge bomb attack, but it was a bit… different from the normal fare."

"What are you talking about?!" Riosha demanded.

"For the last few weeks, I've been brewing a special concoction within my Shuckle," Willa explained with a dark smile. "Did you know that when Cheri Berries sour and ferment, rather than curing paralysis, they can be used to induce it? I've been cultivating a potent mixture of a powerful paralytic agent, and Serturner just sprayed it all over the blacktop! Get a drop of that on you, and there's not going to be any running for a while, I'll tell you that much."

Riosha froze. She could see the writing on the wall.

"…Of course, Serturner is immune to the effects," Willa continued, "which is why he can wiggle on through just like that."

"Shuckle!" Serturner nodded, slithering through the slime and approaching the Dodrio.

"Now, Serturner, we need to secure our next test subject nice and properly," Willa ordered. "Use wrap to keep him from moving too much."

With Serturner's body covered in the paralytic, the Dodrio couldn't fight back without getting paralyzed. There was nothing he could do but let the pokemon's tentacles stretch out of his shell and grab him. They constrictect around his body and held him in place, immobile.

"Perfectly done as usual, Serturner," Willa cheered, clapping for her Shuckle. "Now, Flemming, if you would? Let's target the middle head, first."

"Delibird!" Flemming nodded in agreement, winding up and flinging the potion at the Dodrio. It broke upon contact with the bird pokemon's head, dousing it in the sticky green liquid.

"Dodrio?!" The Dodrio squawked, squirming about as best as it could.

"That's another brew of mine, it can boost a pokemon's hearing, but at the cost of temporary blindness," Willa explained. "I've always wondered what would happen to a Dodrio if one of its heads went blind."

Willa licked her lips. "That's the first head… I wonder, what other substances should we try on the next two, Flemming?"

"Delibird?" Flemming glanced back at his trainer and shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, you're right, of course," Willa agreed, turning the page of her notebook and clicking her pen. "Let's observe what the effects of the blindness are first, then we can choose. After all… discovery… requires experimentation."

Yikes. And for a second, it looked like there would be someone working with the Phantom who wasn't bonkers-crazy. Heck, Willa could give the Phantom himself a run for his money when it comes to insidiousness and maltreatment of pokemon, it looks like. But is it really any worse than how normal trainers battle their pokemon?