May's first Battle opponent had a theme with his Pokémon, using a Doduo and a Zweilous, and both Pokémon had a real flair for combination attacks – one head doing something, like a Dragon Breath for Zweilous, and the other Pokémon using a complementary attack like Roar to blast the Dragon Breath out in an expansive shockwave.
What made it even more complex was when the two of them used moves from different Pokémon on the team, like Incinerate and Air Cutter, and each attack was an impressive piece of co-operation so May's team had to work hard to keep up.
"Keep Munchlax covered as well, Beautifly!" May called, as Beautifly launched another flight of his wax Order drones. "And fire a Thunderbolt broadside!"
Beautifly twitched his right legs, each one firing out a Thunderbolt in staggered sequence, and Doduo used her beaks to deflect the attacks away like swords. It wasn't enough to avoid some of them getting through, though, and the score reflected that.
"Tri Attack!" Arthur called. "Focused beam!"
Doduo jumped into the air, avoiding the attack coming her way, and both beaks opened wide. A glow lit up inside them, and Doduo used Tri Attack – with the heads facing towards one another, so that their beams combined into a single stronger one.
The combined beam flicked back and forth across Beautifly's Defend Order, and he had to focus more on defending for now rather than firing a broadside.
"And Hyper Incinerate!" Arthur added.
One head of Zweilous used Incinerate, while the other used Hyper Voice. The combination blasted out a wall of flame that headed for Beautifly.
Fortunately, fire was something they'd trained for.
"Break through!" May called, and Beautifly's Defend Order broke up into all the individiual drones making it up. They charged towards Zweilous, each one catching fire as it hit the firewall but also disrupting it a little bit, and Beautifly rolled through the gap he'd made already launching more Defend Order drones. "Damage control!"
Some of the drones flew back to do a Heal Order.
Then Munchlax coughed gently.
Zweilous looked back behind himself with one head, and Munchlax put his hands together.
Then a giant spectral Snorlax appeared behind him, and used Play Rough.
Repeatedly.
At one point this involved using Zweilous as a missile to hit Doduo, which was playing rough by any reasonable standard.
"Is it going to hurt May's score that that's not actually co-operation between her two Pokémon?" Misty asked. "In the attacks, I mean."
"Well, it's not actually required," Brock replied. "It's seen as helpful, but it's like a normal double battle – if it turns into two Single Battles then that's not actually a problem, it just means that the other side could exploit that too."
Zweilous picked himself out of the ground and used the Incinerate-Hyper Voice move again, and Munchlax gestured. The spectral Snorlax vanished, then reappeared using Ice Punch in front of Beautifly, and the flames hissed out of existence against the defensive shield.
"Or they could do that," Brock added. "That's co-operation – and so is this!"
Beautifly had been stacking up Attack Order drones during the lull – if lull was the right word to refer to the period of time Munchlax had been showing off his unique way of not bothering to walk over to someone before punching them – and at May's command they all went surging through a spectral Snorlax Thunderpunch before sleeting down on Doduo in three widely separated flights.
Misty leaned closer. "Did those turn into Vikavolt-shaped Attack Order drones?"
"Well, they are Bug type," Ash shrugged.
"Ah, it's nice to see the Marill again," Mr. Contesta said. "And I've still not quite figured out that Eevee, either…"
"Is it normal for you to be talking about this girl's Pokémon like she's an old friend?" Joy asked. "Doesn't that bring up bias concerns?"
"Well…" Contesta began, then looked at Mr. Sukizo. "She's got a point. Are we technically fans?"
"I think you'll find that we're every bit as objective as we need to be," Mr. Sukizo replied. "But there's nothing wrong with noticing up and coming Coordinators… we'd be failing our jobs if we didn't notice. It's just important to make sure that you view each individual Battle round as its own thing for scoring purposes."
Joy nodded.
"Plus, if anything it's a downside for her," Mr. Sukizo said. "We can end up seeing something as same-again when she does it for the second time, even though the previous time was last month!"
"Iron Tail spin!" May said. "Left – right – left, and down! Bounce!"
Marill did a balletic flip, plunged down at the floor, and bounced up at her current opponent – a Jumpluff, also in mid-air, who dodged to the side and flung a Seed Bomb at her.
Switching the weight of her tail on and off, Marill curved her own momentum away from Jumpluff's attack, then saw Eevee's Flash flicking on and off and turned her attention to the other half of the battle.
Eevee was dodging with fluid grace in and out of the attacks of a fine-looking Sawsbuck, who was in Autumn coat for the occasion, but what Eevee had noticed was that Sawsbuck's reddish-brown leaves were starting to glow.
"Down!" May warned, and Marill dropped.
Sawsbuck's Solarbeam flashed out a moment later, and Marill had just about been fast enough to avoid the worst of it. Then Eevee swished her tail, using a reverse Whirlwind to bring Marill over to her, and the two Pokémon shared a nod.
"Fairy bubble stream!" May called out.
Marill inhaled, and Eevee used Growth – getting visibly larger – before scooping Marill around out of the way of the Seed Bomb attack that Jumpluff threw her way.
That meant Sawsbuck could see her, though, and Eevee used her tail again – twining her fluffy tail into Marill's bouncy tail and flicking Marill all over the place as she got her attack ready, keeping her teammate safe from the Grass-type attacks that both other Pokémon aimed at her.
"And… Smokescreen!" May added.
Eevee's fur all poofed out at once, and smoke came with it – hiding both Pokémon.
A moment later, Marill flew out of the smoke with her body puffed up.
"Fairy Wind Bubble!" she called, and shot out a barrage of mist-filled water balls at Jumpluff. Each one glittered with the Fairy attack held inside the thin skein of water, and May's opponent pointed.
"Jumpluff, Cotton Spore!" he called. "Sawsbuck, Solarbeam!"
"Spotlight!" May replied.
Eevee blew the smokescreen away with a whoosh, revealing her again, and her whole body was lit up with Flash. Her ears were especially bright, though, and they swivelled to point at Sawsbuck – and the whole of Marill's attack reversed direction, barraging down on Sawsbuck instead while Jumpluff protected himself against an attack that wasn't actually coming.
"Wow," said an Azumarill, somewhere near Petalburg. "She really has been doing well with her trainer."
He looked at the Mew sitting next to them. "Can I try some of that popcorn?"
"Sure!" Mew agreed. "It's not a proper TV watching party without snacks! Or so I assume, I always try to have snacks."
As it happened, the battle round didn't line up so that May faced Drew in the finals.
She did face him in the Semi finals, though, and Drew's Flygon partnered up with a newly-caught Butterfree to go up against May's Arcanine and Squirtle.
"Hey, that Butterfree reminds me of my Butterfree," Ash said, as Drew's Butterfree fought Squirtle off – first by overwhelming his Hydro Pump with a Hydro Pump of Butterfree's own, then flinging a Thunder down at him to keep him off-balance.
Brock looked at him.
"Is that actually your Butterfree, Ash?" he asked. "You know what that Butterfree actually was, right?"
"I don't," Aten said. "I appreciate how we've got onto the part of this show which actually involves violence, but all these oblique references to things I was not involved with are getting on my nerves."
"Butterfree was Mew," Ash clarified. "She was pretending to be Butterfree, and then she pretended to be Primeape… it's the kind of thing she likes to do."
"I would say something about how that was ridiculous, but I think I am getting the hang of this," Aten mumbled.
"Mew kind of started the trend, but that's why a lot of my Pokémon – well, our Pokémon – know moves which people don't think they should," Ash said. "Though sometimes I don't really get why it's so hard. I mean, look at Arcanine."
They looked at Arcanine, who was darting around using Extremespeed – staying on the move and occasionally darting in to harrass Flygon, and doing her best to also keep some focus on Butterfree.
"I'm not sure I see the point," Aten said.
"Well, normally what you'd expect is that if there was one of them that could do an Ice move it was Squirtle," Ash began.
Misty started rubbing her temples. "Oh dear…"
"But it occurred to me that Flash Fire is about not actually being affected by heat," Ash went on. "And that includes things like berries, which don't catch fire if a Pokémon is carrying them and it has Flash Fire. We tested it!"
"That did happen, yes," Pikachu agreed.
"Triple kick!" May called.
Squirtle used Hydro Pump, and Arcanine jumped into the stream to use it to launch herself into the air. She hit Flygon three times in quick succession, producing not a Triple Kick but a Triple Axel, and Flygon went crash into the ground before shaking his wings out and struggling to take off again.
"Flamethrower Flygon, Butterfree!" Drew ordered. "Flygon, hold it in your slipstream as a heat reservoir!"
"Ice Beam, Squirtle!" May countered. "Arcanine, use ice chunks as ammunition and Extremespeed to knock them around!"
"And I guess that means Arcanine's learned Ice Shard as well," Max pointed out. "Kind of."
"In a lot of ways, I miss travelling with you, Ash," Misty said. "But in other ways, I'm quite happy to be a type specialist without feeling my type moving underneath me every time you get an idea…"
"Actually, could you help Froslass with something?" Ash requested. "She's using Ice moves and Fire moves and mixing them up, and she's got Heat Dry pretty well, but what's causing problems is combining Fire and Ice moves to make a Water attack. Which you'd think would be easy, but mixing Icy Wind and Fiery Wind isn't actually working out like it should."
Misty shook her head. "And there it goes again..."
As seemed to happen every time they were in the same place, Drew sought out May after the semi-final to offer his congratulations.
Or condolences, in some cases, but that didn't apply this time.
"I'm seriously impressed," he admitted. "When you said that Arcanine would have something ready for Flygon I took you seriously, but I didn't expect it to be that!"
May chuckled. "Yeah, Arcanine really put in the work to get that one working," she agreed. "Ash helped, too."
"Ah, the mysterious Ash," said another Coordinator – May thought her name was Solidad. "I've heard about him from all sorts of places. Some of it doesn't seem real, though."
"Yeah, most of it's true," Drew assured her. "Probably including the bits I haven't heard of."
Solidad chuckled. "Even the one about him being an Absol in disguise?"
May considered. "I don't think that one's true today," she said. "I could have missed something, though."
That made Solidad look a bit confused. "...right," she decided. "Anyway, I see we're to face off in the finals, May – and, in case it wasn't obvious, good luck."
"This is kind of a strange final," Brock noted. "I actually know both of the people involved."
"Oh, yeah, I think you mentioned Solidad was from Pewter," Ash replied. "She seems to be pretty good so far… it's definitely going to be a big challenge for May."
Out on the field, May and Solidad exchanged respectful nods, then May sent out Combusken and Skitty while Solidad sent out Slowbro and Pidgeot.
"Oh, it's a pity I don't have Pidgey with me today," Ash said. "She could say what she thinks about how Solidad's Pidgeot is doing."
"Ash has a Pidgey?" Misty asked, honestly astonished. "I wouldn't have expected that…"
"Yeah, he caught a Pidgeotto," Brock explained. "Then she evolved into Pidgey."
Misty blinked.
"She's got a Mega Stone, so she can go all the way up to Mega Pidgeot!" Ash supplied.
"I think this is the bit where Mama Misty has to remember her deep breathing techniques," Togetic said, trying not to giggle.
Out on the battlefield, Slowbro and Pidgeot were giving Combusken a great deal of trouble. While Combusken was flying through the air and clashing with Pidgeot, lashing out with Blaze Kick or sending a swirl of smoke and flame after the Flying-type, Pidgeot was able to dodge or block or even use Feather Dance to soak up the attack's heat with feathers – only to beat his wings and launch them back down as a flurry of flaming weapons.
At the same time, Slowbro was using Water Pulse. Her attacks didn't reach high enough to hit the two battling birds, not by themselves, but Pidgeot was able to rapidly disengage and swoop up to Gust the liquid from a Water Pulse right up at Combusken.
"Grass!" May called to Skitty, who used Shock Wave and Grassified it. A whipcord blaze of sunlight flashed out towards Slowbro, tracing a loop-the-loop through the air before hitting the Water-type – but while that earned her some points, the concentrated attack on Combusken was costing her team and the Fire-type was now having to focus almost entirely on defending.
"I guess she's heard about my style…" May frowned, thinking, then snapped her fingers. "Right – Combusken, down here and pick Skitty up!"
Combusken dropped out of the sky and slammed into the grass, using Blaze Kick to damp out his landing, and snagged Skitty before taking off again. Skitty's tailpaw glowed, and when Pidgeot used Aerial Ace he found a Rock-type Shock Wave coming his way.
"Double Team and Feather Dance!" Solidad said. "Slowbro, Psychic!"
"Now!" May ordered.
Skitty used Me First.
Consequently, Pidgeot found himself being hit by a Psychic that had been converted to Rock-type. It hit him like a sledgehammer, knocking him backwards and interrupting his Double Team, but then the actual Psychic attack hit and threw Combusken into a spin.
Recovering, Pidgeot's wings beat the air and used Hurricane – though he found himself immediately dealing with an Ice-typed Hurricane, courtesy of Skitty again – and Combusken hit the ground with an impact that raised a cloud of dust.
May's points went down, some of them straight away but with more waiting in case Combusken or Skitty or both had been knocked out, and May winced.
"Fire Spin!" she called. "Skitty, make it into Thunder Spin!"
A plume of mingled flame and lightning blazed into the air, coiling like a live thing, and surged out towards both Pidgeot and Slowbro.
Then Blaziken threw Skitty directly at Pidgeot, which was a surprise for all concerned except possibly for Blaziken.
"...well," Mr. Contesta said, eventually. "That was remarkable."
"Ahem," Mr. Sukizo said, offended.
"What other word can you use for it?" Contesta asked. "We just found out what a Rock-type Hurricane looks like, among others. And the answer is painful."
"Looked nice, though!" Joy said. "All those crystals!"
"Very well done indeed, May," Solidad told her, after the ceremony. "I'm impressed… and glad you're not as bad as some of my friends say."
May blinked. "Huh?"
"She knows Harley," Drew clarified.
"He can be… a little troublesome," Solidad admitted, looking sad. "And I don't know why he took so poorly to you, but I'm not going to defend what he did. Hopefully he'll learn his lesson."
"I hope so too," May agreed. "He's a good Coordinator, just… he doesn't seem to be able to be a good person sometimes."
She smiled. "And thanks for your help in evolving Blaziken!"
"I'm sure Pidgeot and Slowbro will be glad for your thanks," Solidad said. "Once Pidgeot wakes up… and Slowbro notices."
AN:
And the Battle Rounds.