Dokukage had a winning strategy going, having defeated three of Keahi's pokemon and only having lost one himself. But now his team is weakened, his baton pass chain has been broken, and worst of all, he's inadvertently triggered Kanaloa's Defiant ability! With such a massive boost to attack, will Dokukage be able to work out a new strategy to defeat him? Will he be able to set up a baton pass chain in the face of such a dangerous enemy? Or will Keahi finally launch his counterattack here?

KedharS: Sometimes it feels like Dokukage spends his whole life in a bad place.

Hyphenman: Yeah, Dokukage might have more pokemon, but all of his pokemon are pretty severely weakened, which isn't very good.

Tambry96bj: He'll have to use some quick thinking, or maybe bullshit again. Who really knows at this point?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1158

Well, fuck.

That was all Dokukage could think about his current situation.

The reason he'd had Venomark hit Keahi's Empoleon with bulldoze was to lower the pokemon's speed, so he could overwhelm it with Venomark's own blindingly-fast attacks. But that seemed to have blown up nicely in his face.

Now he was in a rough position. That attack boost was nothing to scoff at, and given the state of his opponent, he would need a lot more preparation to take that Empoleon down.

He didn't like it, but his next course of action was clear.

"Venomark, get back and use iron defense," he ordered. He needed to take advantage of Venomark's speed to keep ahead of the Empoleon. Venomark scuttled back and hardened her scales, increasing her defense as Kanaloa waddled forward. Thanks to Speed Boost, the Scolipede had another passive buff to give her an advantage.

"If you think your speed will let you outpace us, you're sorely mistaken," Keahi promised. "Kanaloa, use aqua jet!"

"Empoleon!" Kanaloa covered his body with water and shot forward like a bullet, slamming into Venomark.

"Scoooool!" Venomark shouted, wincing at the force of the metal body slamming into her. But thanks to her own iron scales, it didn't do as much damage as it could have.

Dokukage knew it was only a matter of time, however. He didn't like what he was going to do next, but if he wanted to take down that monster of an Empoleon, it was going to take a few more sacrifices than this.

"Venomark, use baton pass," he ordered. With a few boosts to speed and the buff from iron defense, Venomark had a decent amount to give from only a few minutes of fighting.

Keahi laughed as Dokukage called her back. "Switching out again? You just can't find a pokemon that can work, can you, Dokukage?"

Dokukage didn't dignify that with an answer. "Kagemusha, come back out!"

"Golisopod!" Kagemusha roared, landing on the ground and raising his claws. He glanced at his trainer briefly before turning his attention to his opponent. If Dokukage sent him out in this situation, there could only be one reason for it.

Dokukage closed his eyes in silent apology. "Kagemusha, use brick break!"

"Golisopod!" Kagemusha swung his claw at Kanaloa, striking the avian pokemon. With the speed boost he received from Venomark and the reduction to Kanaloa's speed, the Empoleon couldn't get out of the way in time. He let out a squawk of pain and fell backwards, as Kagemusha continued the assault.

"Kanaloa, use shadow break," Keahi ordered. Shadows covered the Empoleon's wings and body and he charged forward.

"Kagemusha, strike with sucker punch!" Kagemusha's sucker punch had already been prepared, because Dokukage knew that Keahi wouldn't waste time with status moves, not in this situation. He'd been expecting another aqua jet, but this was fine too. Kagemusha swung his claw and caught the Empoleon in the jaw, but his strength wasn't enough to overwhelm the powerful charge of the buffed Steel type pokemon, who tackled him head-on and knocked him backwards.

"Gol-!" Kagemusha coughed out, rolling through the grass. He was too weak to use a substitute to protect himself, and even with the defense buff he received from Venomark, he couldn't take much more of Kanaloa's powerful attacks.

"Now, Kanaloa, finish him off!" Keahi shouted. "Shadow chill!"

"Empoleon!" Kanaloa spread his wings, and a wave of freezing shadows wafted across the battlefield. The shadows rolled right into Kagemusha, hitting the Golisopod before he could respond. He was frozen in an instant, collapsing unconscious on the ground.

"And there you have it," Keahi crowed. "Another one of those pesky bugs defeated!"

Dokukage recalled Kagemusha without a word. It made him sick to his stomach, having to sacrifice Kagemusha just to get some good hits in on the Empoleon. But he didn't have a choice. Kagemusha was already weakened, and wouldn't have much of a chance against any of Keahi's remaining pokemon. While his other pokemon were also in fairly bad shape, Kagemusha couldn't use baton pass, either.

It was a harsh decision made out of necessity. Ame, Kagerou, Venomark, and Muramasa could all continue the baton pass chain, but Kagemusha would end it. And he didn't have the strength left to hold up the end of the chain. Dokukage could understand from that last exchange with Kanaloa that the battle had reached a critical point. The remaining pokemon on his team would have to work together for the singular purpose of forging a strong enough chain to overcome Keahi's remaining pokemon. And as much as he hated to do it, Kagemusha's role in that was to weaken Kanaloa as much as possible.

"Kagerou, go," he said, sending his Accelgor back out. While Kagerou didn't have Speed Boost, his natural speed more than made up for it.

"So you're starting with that one again, huh?" Keahi scowled, narrowing his eyes.

"That's right," Dokukage nodded. "Kagerou, use double team!"

"Accelgor!" Kagerou made a swarm of clones. Now that Kaho was gone, and he could dodge again, he planned to make full use of his evasion.

"Empoleon!" But Kanaloa was having none of it. With a howl, he sent a wave of icy shadows across the battlefield, smashing through copies left and right.

"Kagerou, use agility to dodge," Dokukage ordered. His Accelgor moved at top speed, easily evading the freezing blast, and taking Kanaloa from behind. "Now, use hidden power!"

"Accelgor!" Light gathered around Kagerou's body, and formed into several orbs on the ends of his ribbons. They were glowing gold and crackling with electricity. He flung them at Kanaloa, hitting him in the back.

"EMPOLEON!" The pokemon roared in pain, feeling the electricity shock him.

"This is the hidden power of Kagerou, an Electric type attack," Dokukage said. "The perfect weapon to use against a Water type like you. And that's not all! Kagerou, use mud shot!"

"Accelgor!" Kagerou followed his electric attack with a blast of mud that caught Kanaloa in the eyes as the pokemon turned around. The mud clung to his flippers and slowed him down, which only enraged the Empoleon more.

"You must not learn well," Keahi smirked. "Because of Kanaloa's Defiant ability, every time you reduce one of his stats, his attacking strength gets even higher!"

"That's true," Dokukage admitted. "But that won't mean anything if you can't hit!"

Keahi scowled.

"Your Empoleon has two types of attacks. The close-range Shadow Moves like shadow break that take advantage of his high attack stat, and the long-range, widespread moves like surf and shadow chill, which use special attack. Defiant only helps the former, not the latter." He resisted the urge to smirk behind his mask. "And unfortunately, one of those types of moves has a far better likelihood of hitting Kagerou than the other."

Keahi knew Dokukage was correct. That Accelgor was too damn fast to hit under regular circumstances. He'd faced exactly this issue back in his very first match against Dokukage. If Kanaloa could get one more good hit in, then the bug would fall. He only had a few slivers of health left. But getting that hit was almost impossible.

"Kanaloa, use shadow sky," Keahi ordered. The overwhelming cloud of darkness would wear down any pokemon that wasn't a Shadow Pokemon. But before the clouds could really start spreading Dokukage was already acting.

"Kagerou, use rain dance," he ordered. Above their heads, rainclouds began to form, a rarity in the Orre Region, and the sky opened up to release a downpour onto the battlefield, smothering the fog of shadows.

"What is this?" Keahi asked, looking around in disbelief.

"Rain dance," Dokukage said. "Surely with your Empoleon you must know about the benefits of rain for Water type pokemon."

"Oh, I know all too well," Keahi said. "I just never would have imagined that you'd weaken your own position by giving us the advantage of rain! With this, our Water type moves will be even more powerful!"

There was still one way for Kanaloa to get the drop on Kagerou. Aqua jet. The priority move could give his Empoleon the speed to rival the Accelgor, even with his mobility as hindered as it was by Dokukage's tricks.

"Aqua jet!" Keahi ordered. Kanaloa covered his body with water, the veil growing even larger from the downpour as he ran towards Kagerou.

"Of course you'd use that," Dokukage said. He really, really hoped that this next move would work out. "Kagerou, quick attack!"

"Accel," Kagerou nodded, using a priority move of his own to keep out of reach of the Empoleon. Dokukage's heart was pounding in his chest as he watched his pokemon try to escape. This was risky, so risky, if his plan failed then this match would be over.

"Now Kagerou, time for our secret weapon!" Dokukage shouted when his Accelgor was a suitable distance away from Kanaloa. "Power swap!"

"Power swap?!" Keahi sputtered. He'd never heard of that move before. "Kanaloa, protect yourself, now!"

Kanaloa skidded to a stop and raised his wings in defense, prepared for whatever Kagerou would fire at him. But Kagerou wasn't attacking. Instead, his body was glowing. Then Kanaloa's body began to glow as well.

"Empoleon?!" Kanaloa squawked in confusion, looking down at his glowing feathers. Then a light erupted from his chest, flying across the battlefield towards Kagerou as a light emerged from the Accelgor as well. The two lights struck the other pokemon, and Kanaloa immediately felt his strength begin to plummet.

"What's going on?!" Keahi demanded. "Why did my pokemon suddenly become weaker!?" He didn't need Samarra's harmonia to see that Kanaloa's attacking strength had drastically decreased, even lower than it had started. The Empoleon was panting, glaring at the Accelgor whose body was swelling with power.

"It's power swap," Dokukage said. He felt sweat on his brow, but didn't wipe it. Now that the move had been successfully executed, he felt relieved. He could start breathing again! "It's one of Kagerou's special moves, saved for a special occasion. When the move is used… it swaps the target's attack and special attack stats with the user!"

Keahi gasped. He knew what that meant. "No! You can't!" He whined pathetically, unable to believe that a move like that could exist.

"I can. And I did," Dokukage said. "You can keep your reduced speed, but we'll be taking all those attack buffs!"

And the best part of it was that since the power swap wasn't actually a direct stat reduction, it didn't trigger Defiant, no matter how enraged that Empoleon got.

"So that's why you triggered Defiant again…" Keahi spat. "That's why you sent your Accelgor out to fight me!"

Dokukage nodded. "When I realized your Empoleon's ability was Defiant, I knew that we would need to use power swap." He had hoped that they could trigger Defiant a third time, actually, but that aqua jet had been too close for comfort. No sense in taking that much risk, greed would be pointless if he got careless. He was still cautious by nature, after all.

"Of course, I couldn't just switch back to Kagerou immediately after I'd already called him back once," Dokukage continued. "Otherwise you might suspect something was up. So I regretfully had to let Kagemusha make a sacrifice for the good of the team, to fool you into thinking that I was playing defensively and out of ideas. But it worked out in the end. You didn't even see it coming."

Yeah, sure, Dokukage made it sound like everything had gone according to plan, but Kagerou had been dancing with death far too often in that fight for him to breathe comfortably. He had nearly crapped himself in fear!

"Dokukage!" Keahi roared in outrage, practically entering Hyper Mode himself. He couldn't believe that someone as intelligent as him kept getting outsmarted by that fucking ninja.

"Don't worry, we'll make good use of all those attack buffs," Dokukage promised. With Defiant having triggered twice, it was the equivalent of Kagerou having used two swords dances. And he had the perfect pokemon in mind to make use of them. "Kagerou, baton pass!"

"Accel!" Kagerou returned to his pokeball immediately Dokukage sent Venomark back out. With a boost to speed and a colossal attack stat, The Scolipede was ready to wreak havoc.

"Kanaloa!" Keahi shouted. His Empoleon's attack stat may have been shot, but he still had the benefit of receiving Kagerou's quite healthy special attack. And with all this rain, he could prepare a move that Venomark would regret. "Use hydro pump!"

"EMPOLEON!" Kanaloa opened his mouth wide, gathering up rain water from all around him and preparing a massive hydro pump.

"That won't work. We're faster than you," Dokukage reminded him. "And there's something you've forgotten."

"What's that?" Keahi spat.

"During this battle, Higurashi spent a great deal of time digging under the ground, remember? He created a whole network of tunnels," Dokukage said, pointing at the grass. "And they were VERY close to the surface. And not only that, with this downpour, the ground has been given a healthy flooding, making it closer to mud than dirt, I'd say."

"Who cares?!" Keahi growled. Dokukage's meaningless stalls for time didn't matter. "Kanaloa, fire it now!"

"Empoleon!" Kanaloa fired blast of water that was even wider than him, and it was growing bigger and bigger from the rain.

"The reason you should care," Dokukage said, his voice calm in spite of how much he was shitting himself staring at the size of that hydro pump, "is because that means the ground we're standing on is very unstable. Venomark, use earthquake!"

"Scolipede!" Venomark roared. She didn't try to dodge the attack. Instead, she raised and lowered her segmented body, smashing it into the ground, causing the earth to tremble. And then it happened. The field, already weakened from the countless tunnels dug beneah it and soaked from the water, began to sink.

"Empoleon?!" Kanaloa squawked, feeling the ground give out beneath his feet. As the field gave in he lost his footing, jerking his head up and causing the hydro pump to veer off-course, firing off into the sky and missing Venomark by a mile. As the ground continued to shake and sink, he found himself buried up to his beak in mud and grass, leaving him completely helpless to the Scolipede.

"Kanaloa, dig yourself out of there, now!" Keahi ordered. But it was impossible for the Empoleon to get a good grip. His metal wings just slipped off the mud.

"Venomark, finish him off," Dokukage ordered. "Use earthquake one more time!"

"Scolipede!" Venomark made the ground tremble again, the powerful tremors amplified by the fact that Kanaloa was buried alive. With all the power the Scolipede had inherited from Kagerou, and with how much he'd already been weakened by the attacks of Kagerou and Kagemusha, the Empoleon didn't have a prayer of withstanding the assault.

"Empoleon!" With one final squawk Kanaloa succumbed, his body shaking and aching until he lost consciousness.

Keahi suppressed a scream of rage with Samarra's assistance.

"And that's that," Dokukage said, wiping away the sweat on his forehead while pretending he was clearing the rain from his eyes. "That was a close one."

I really, really hope I don't have to do that again… Dokukage begged internally. Facing down a Defiant-boosted Shadow Pokemon had shaved too many years off his life. He glanced across thebattlefield at Keahi, who was… surprisingly calm.

Dokukage expected that Keahi would be foaming at the mouth after something so humiliating had happened to the pokemon he'd been touting. Keahi only had two pokemon remaining, after all, while Dokukage had four. But he seemed to be taking the situation rather well.

…

Perhaps too well.

Dokukage narrowed his eyes. He was nothing if not observant, and that's how he knew that the smile Keahi was wearing didn't belong to him.

"Hello there," the body that was Keahi's spoke to him. "Pleasure to meet you again. You're Dokukage, correct?"

"…You must be Samarra," Dokukage said.

Samarra nodded with Keahi's head. "That's right. We've met before, albeit only briefly. Keahi's having a bit of a temper tantrum right now, so I put him in a time-out to cool off. In the meantime, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to have a chat."

"I don't think there's a lot that we need to say to each other," Dokukage tersely replied. Internally, he was screaming.

Aaargh! This is so fucking creepy! That's Keahi talking, but it isn't! He's possessed like in a horror movie! Why do I have to deal with shit like this?! Why?! This is so fucking scary! I came to the Pokemon Academy to broaden my horizons and find my friends, not to face off against a creepy weirdo like this lady!

It was only due to Dokukage's incredible training at keeping his cool that he was able to keep Samarra from finding out how terrified he was.

"I must say, it's a shame that I couldn't become your friend back at my cell," Samarra sighed. "If I knew you were such a talented strategist I would have prioritized you above all the others. But it's fine now. Once Keahi defeats you, then you'll become my friend."

She smiled. It was an innocent smile, like one that would be worn by a child who was genuinely eager about the prospect of making a new friend.

Seeing Keahi's face twist into such a smile made Dokukage freak out even more.

Yikes, Dokukage can't catch a break. Even if he can defeat Keahi, he's still on the receiving end of torment from Samarra now! All he needs to do is take down two more pokemon. He's only lost two himself, and he's managed to stack some good buffs onto Venomark. Will that be enough to ensure his victory? Or does Keahi have something else up his sleeve? We'll have to find out!