Alexis had waved over to the other side of the swimming pool, where someone was standing, watching the Pokémon train. Eventually, she caught their eye and they left for a moment to fetch somebody. The person that returned was a large man that appeared to be dressed like a wrestler of some sort.
He had orange and blue wristbands, with bright blue trousers, highlighted with an orange belt and black patches around the thighs. He wore matching orange boots and an oddly revealing facemask that made Alexis question why he was even wearing it in the first place. He had spiky greying hair and a large bald patch. He also wore absolutely nothing to cover his torso.
"Have you come to challenge the great Crasher Wake?" The man called out theatrically from the opposite end of the swimming pool.
"Yes," Alexis called back, before having to repeat herself and shout even louder for him to even hear her.
"Then let us commence with the challenge!" The man announced, stepping closer to the water and pulling out a Pokéball, waiting for Alexis to take up her own position. "May fortune guide your strokes!"
"Right back at you," Alexis replied, a little taken aback by his loud demeanor. She walked up to the little area that she was meant to stay within and plucked off a Pokéball, too.
Espir wondered if she was planning on using Letos or Staravia first, considering she had a Pokéball prepared and wasn't asking one of the Pokémon already on show to get ready.
Crasher Wake raised his Pokéball high into the air and then, giving Alexis enough warning to do the same, he released the Pokémon within. The battle had begun.
Espir hated watching these battles, but this time he was more interested in seeing Shane's reactions to it all. Whether he had a strong stomach for the almost inevitable violence, or if he began to panic. Espir was morbidly curious, but also wanted to make sure his new friend would get through this ordeal better than he had in his first actual Pokémon battle. The easier ones he'd gone through didn't really count, in his opinion.
Espir watched Letos emerge from the red light and instinctively dive into the water, in his element. He then saw the Pokémon that Crasher Wake had released. A Gyarados. Espir was immediately less confident and, within moments, he saw Letos emerge from the water and land on one of the platforms above it.
Most of Letos' most effective moves were water-based, so Alexis had to think on how to approach fighting within a water-type gym. She had chosen Letos as he, too, was a water-type, which would have mitigated some of the potential damage he would receive. The issue was that he would also inflict less damage upon his opponents.
"Peck!" Alexis shouted. "Just try to peck him as much as you can, Letos!"
Letos nodded and went to work as Crasher Wake appeared to choose a similar approach.
"Bite that bird, Gyarados!" He called out to his Pokémon, which lowered its large head into the water and began speeding towards Letos as Letos darted across the platforms, each Pokémon hoping to get the jump on the other one.
By sheer luck alone, Letos slipped on the platform he was running across, falling over- right as the Gyarados darted out of the water to bite at him. As the Gyarados sailed ever so slightly above the prone bird, Letos peppered its underside with Peck after Peck, hoping to reduce its health quickly. Even Letos, with his large ego, could tell this would be a losing effort if he didn't play this intelligently.
Trying keep an eye on the Gyarados as it whipped around under the water, the tiniest hint of blood having dripped onto the platform, Letos hopped from platform to platform. He had to keep his wits about him, but he was currently in better shape than his opponent, which was all he could ask for. At some point, the Gyarados would have to attack; at that point, he would strike again.
This dance continued for some time, with the Gyarados trying to get the right angle on Letos to bite at the smaller Pokémon and end the round in one go, and with Letos pivoting and staying one move ahead of the larger Pokémon, in order to Peck at it if it dared attempt an attack. Gyarados, however, had to try attacking at some point. Both Crasher Wake and his large Pokémon were impatient and couldn't stand the lack of action for too long. It broke the surface of the water and managed to catch Letos with the edge of a bite, tearing through the smaller Pokémon- though Letos rammed its beak into the Gyarados' eyes as they both plummeted underwater. The thrashing from both of the Pokémon as they fought under the waves made it impossible to tell which one was ahead, or had the advantage, until, finally, the water settled. A deep red soaked through the pool from where they had been fighting and a Pokémon burst out of the waves victorious.
To Espir's surprise and admiration, Letos clambered atop one of the platforms, bleeding profusely, but conscious. The Gyarados was returned to its Pokéball, defeated in a surprising twist of fate.
Crasher Wake looked troubled for a split second, before returning to his performance.
"No matter!" He cried out, for the sake of the few onlookers in the stands. "Let's see how your Pokémon fare against my Quagsire!"
He released a burst of red, that revealed a Quagsire. Though it appeared a little oblong and oddly shaped, the kind-looking Pokémon still stood twice as tall as the Prinplup, who was already injured quite a bit. Espir hoped this was the time when Alexis would choose to protect her own Pokémon, instead of risking them in the battle, but she still kept Letos out. His platform was nearly entirely red with dripping blood, but he had to keep fighting- those were the rules.
It was a swift and brutal beatdown. Espir had hoped for Letos to put up more of a fight, but instead he just stood there, unable to truly move without releasing more blood over his platform. The Quagsire moved in quickly and used Slam to grab the injured Letos and batter him against the platform twice, leaving the bird broken and unconscious once again.
Alexis returned Letos to his Pokéball, as Espir eyed her irritably. That punishment had been entirely avoidable, but she'd kept him out. She took out the second Pokéball, and sent out Staravia onto the battlefield.
"Be quick, Staravia," Alexis advised. "Use Wing Attack and try to stay out of reach of the Slam attack."
The Staravia nodded as she began to circle in the air, waiting for the Quagsire to drop his guard. Every so often, she would dart down, only to pull back up at the last second. The two Pokémon were doing another waiting game, stalemate sort of fight- similar to the last round.
"Ice Beam," Crasher Wake commanded, getting bored of yet another slow fight.
Quagsire nodded and slapped his hands together sending ripple of ice out, shooting towards the bird Pokémon. Staravia took the brunt of the attack, but swooped down to strike at the Quagsire, who was more focused on attacking instead of defending in that moment.
They had both landed heavy hits on one another, as Staravia returned to the air and Quagsire nursed its injury. Once Quagsire had recovered from the impact, it went back to shooting out Ice Beam after Ice Beam in Staravia's direction, trying to knock the bird out of the air. Every time that the Quagsire focused a little too much on hitting Staravia, who was far quicker, she would punish him by landing another Wing Attack.
Gradually, Staravia wore the Quagsire down until he was putting up next to no resistance in the fight. It was already won, Quagsire simply hadn't fallen unconscious yet, as he swayed back and forth on the platform he stood upon.
With one last dive, the Staravia landed a Wing Attack and believed to have knocked out the Pokémon, but the Quagsire held on a little longer than expected- grabbing the Staravia and putting all its effort into one last Slam, as it, itself, fell unconscious. Staravia wasn't knocked unconscious, but she was hurt tremendously by the latter efforts of the fallen Quagsire.
Crasher Wake returned the Quagsire to its Pokéball and took out his final Pokémon.
"A final round comeback is always the most impressive and tantalizing to behold!" He shouted out, mainly to the spectators.
He then turned to the swimming pool and released his final Pokémon. A Floatzel.
The Floatzel had orange fur and two tails. It appeared to have light blue fins on its forearms and a buoyancy aid built into its main body.
"We've got this," Crasher Wake said to his final Pokémon. "Give them hell."
Faster than Staravia anticipated, the Floatzel darted under the water and back out again, before she could get back into the sky. Shooting from the water and into the air, like a streaking orange bullet, the Floatzel bared its teeth and bit into the Staravia with an Ice Fang attack, immediately knocking out the hurting bird Pokémon.
"Time to see what the new guy can do," Alexis muttered to herself, though Espir and Shane heard it and reacted in exactly the same amount of time. Espir looked appalled as Alexis withdrew Staravia and prompted Shane to head on out over the water, while Shane was already looking for an exit to the stadium.
"Shane, you need to do it," Espir said, regretfully. He darted across to keep Shane close to the battle arena. "It's horrid, but you need to."
"I don't want to fight, though," Shane protested.
"I know, but it's the way these things are done here. I'm sorry, buddy."
Shane stopped trying to push through Espir and, instead, slowly turned to face the amused Floatzel, waiting in the center of the arena for their next challenge.
"It's on you," Espir encouraged Shane, hoping that he would at least be able to hold his own in order to avoid a significantly traumatic injury. Either that, or he would be so swiftly defeated that it wouldn't matter too much that he was sent out.
The Floatzel showed no mercy, but also took its time with dismantling Shane's defenses. It didn't recognize the type of Pokémon that he was and wanted to show off, knowing that he was scared and unwilling to fight back.
Espir watched on, worried, seeing his new friend take a brutal beating as the Floatzel used every move in its arsenal to torment the new Pokémon. Then, as Espir watched, he noticed something about Shane's demeanor shift and change. The Pokémon had snapped. His fight or flight had kicked in and Shane was darted, once again, for the exit.
Espir moved to stop him from leaving, but Shane saw Espir in front of him and the fight aspect of his defenses started up, with Shane beginning to fight Espir, now- even as the others looked on.
Instinctively, Shane hit out at Espir with a Shadow Sneak, catching Espir off-guard as he didn't want to fight Shane. Shane was already looking close to falling unconscious after the swift beating Floatzel had given him, so Espir knew he could end it quickly if he needed to, he just didn't want to unless it was the final option, all other alternatives exhausted.
Unfortunately, no other alternatives were raised, as everyone- including Alexis- stood and watched the two Ghost Pokémon square each other up.
"I'm sorry," Espir said after finally making his decision, and he used a Shadow Sneak, too, smacking the head of Shane so hard that it bounced off of the ground, unconscious. Espir only hoped it was a quick enough impact that Shane didn't feel much pain from it- now, or when he woke up from it after the Pokécenter.
Espir then turned his sights to the Floatzel, but Crasher Wake was waving his arms, trying to get Alexis' full attention.
"You must keep better control of your Pokémon," he said, less projected towards the crowd and more to her. "That entire bout, between your own two Pokémon, unfortunately disqualifies you from this challenge. Please, vacate the gym and try again soon!" Crasher Wake then turned back to the stands. "Another challenger- defeated!" He roared, to the smattering of applause that was even possible with a crowd of that size.
Embarrassed and confused at how it had all gone so downhill, so quickly, Alexis rushed out of the gym, quickly followed by Espir, so that she could heal up her Pokémon and find somewhere to stay for the night. She placed Shane within a Pokéball, to keep him safe, too. Espir hoped he wouldn't freak out too much once he woke up, as Espir had done within his own Pokéball version of his own personal hell.
Espir could understand wanting to try out a new Pokémon, to see what Shane was capable of. What he could neither understand, nor condone, was throwing that Pokémon in at the literal deep end against a gym leader's most powerful Pokémon.
Alexis had rushed into the battle without a plan and had gotten almost all of her Pokémon unnecessarily knocked out and herself disqualified for the evening. Espir was partly disappointed in how she had handled herself and her team, and partly angry at how she'd handled it. He had hoped, with the positivity, that she was turning over a new leaf with how she treated her Pokémon in battle scenarios, but she hadn't learned a thing, it seemed. He needed to figure out how to communicate with her, and fast, as she was on a one-track course to getting one of them killed.
Espir then realized he'd had these thoughts after every single gym battle they'd had. He watched the pokéballs flash as the Pokémon inside each healed up once again. How many times had he been sitting in the waiting room of a Pokécenter, watching his team heal up after a fight? Espir looked at Alexis, daring to sit with a worried look on her face. He decided right then and there. It had been one too many times.