OK, here's 'Year 8' in my Timeline, mainly made up of a huge battle scene, which I hope is good enough...
Enjoy!
Year 8
Laura and Alan journey to and re-challenge the Hoenn circuit. Laura wins the Grand Festival, while Alan again places second in the Ever Grande Conference.
After over a year of intense training, Dave goes round all the Kanto Gyms, training his Pokémon of the gyms type, and weak to that type in each one. He then re-challenges the Indigo Plateau Conference, rising through the stages with the newfound strength of his Pokémon, as well as himself. He eventually reaches the final, where he faces a difficult opponent…
"Now, use Thunderbolt!" I commanded, as the two behemoths on the battlefield tussled, grappling with each other. My Pokémon grunted, before executing its attack.
"Ele…vire!" It shouted, zapping its opponent, a huge Aggron. The giant steel-type was instantly shocked at close range by my Electivire's twin tails, breaking its grip. Electivire backflipped, landing away from its adversary.
The Aggron's trainer, a boy around the same age as me, dressed in a sharp black and purple suit with silver hair, issued the next move. "Earthquake, now!" he shouted. His Pokémon raised one foot, before stomping it to the ground, shaking the whole stadium.
I smiled, knowing ground-type attacks were my Pokémon's only weakness, but my Electivire could counter an Earthquake.
"Use your own Earthquake Electivire!" I yelled. Electivire raised its fists, before slamming its forearms to the ground. The shaking intensified, but as Electivire was hunched to the ground, the attack did very little. Aggron, on the other hand, had not expected its attack to be rebounded on it, and had trouble keeping it's footing. It eventually fell over, the full force of the double-Earthquake hitting it.
It was time to end this. "Cross Chop, let's go!" Electivire leapt at Aggron, its arms spread wide and its open palms glowing white. As it reached the target, which had just struggled to its feet, it brought the arms together and downward, in an X-shape. The attack smashed into the Aggron, which then collapsed on its back, completely exhausted.
The referee raised the green flag in my direction, "Aggron is unable to battle! Electivire wins the round!"
My opponent withdrew his Aggron, pausing for a moment, before selecting another Pokéball. He threw it forward, unleashing his fifth Pokémon onto the field. It was a large, brown Pokémon, with a round body, which was covered with obscure symbols. It also had a round head, which had pink eyes all the way around the edge. I audibly groaned. There wasn't a lot Electivire could do against a Claydol, only a couple of moves in its arsenal were effective, and one hadn't been mastered yet. I had to try though.
"Electivire, try an Ice Punch!" I called, praying it would work. I had been trying to teach Electivire Ice Punch, to counter its ground weakness, for months now, but it hadn't been able to fully master it yet.
Electivire focused for a moment, it's hand starting to glow blue-white, before leaping at Claydol, and swinging it's icy fist at it. It actually connected, Claydol being visibly weakened by the strong attack, but I wasn't going to pressure Electivire too much. I had to use other attacks, but only one other option presented itself.
In this time however, Claydol's trainer had issued a command, "Sandstorm, go!"
Claydol started spinning, getting faster and faster, as sand poured from its earthy body. The sand was whipped up into fierce storm, and I knew Electivire would start taking damage from it, as it had nowhere to take shelter on the plain, rocky field.
"Try to hit it with Giga Impact!" I shouted over the sandstorm, and saw an orange-purple glow in the sand. I saw it moving, before it faded. The sandstorm then subsided, and I saw my electric-type on the ground, with no energy to battle any further. There was a large hole next to it, so I guessed that the Claydol had used Earth Power while Electivire was disorientated in the sandstorm.
"Electivire is unable to battle, Claydol is the winner!" the referee announced raising the red flag in my rivals direction. I sighed. Now we were on level pegging. I recalled Electivire, and thought for a moment. Claydol was a ground-type, but also had the ability to levitate, meaning ground attacks couldn't hit it. But it was also part psychic-type, meaning there were other ways to hit it…
I threw my next Pokéball toward the field, summoning the Pokémon I had chosen, "Heads up! Yanmega!"
A huge, dark green dragonfly appeared above the battleground. It had wide wings, which were beating furiously, and a somewhat menacing appearance. But I knew this Pokémon, and it was one of my top battlers.
My opponent obviously knew what I was planning, hence his command, "Use Light Screen!" At that, Claydol summoned a light green shield in front of it. This would negate any non-direct attacks I planned to use, which was a shame. Given the less-than-sturdy physical state of a Yanmega, direct attacks weren't really an option.
"Looks like we're going to have to power up! Ancient Power, go!" I shouted. Yanmega summoned a series of rocks from the ground, each of them surrounded by a blue aura, and held them in place in the air in front of it. It was now a matter of waiting, but that was fine. The longer Ancient Power was used, the more powerful Yanmega could become.
After a few minutes of the stalemate, the Light Screen in front of Claydol faded. Yanmega took this opportunity to attack. The rocks flew at Claydol. Normally, I knew, rock-type attacks wouldn't do much damage to a ground-type Pokémon, but I'd found a way of negating this. As the rocks were about to strike Claydol, they suddenly glowed red, and then hit the Pokémon. They had gone through a Tinted Lens, an ability Yanmega had that powered up moves if they would do less damage based on typing.
I could see that Claydol was feeling weak. I could somehow sense it was near the end of its battling ability. It was time to put it down.
"Psychic attack!" Its trainer called, and the Claydol's many eyes glowed blue. Yanmega was surrounded in the same colour aura, and then thrown about the stadium, against the walls, and down to the floor, before being buried in a hole by rocky debris. I flinched at this onslaught, and thought it might be down. Then I heard the buzzing of wings, and Yanmega burst upward from the crater it was buried in. It was damaged, visible wounds where it had been smashed around covered its body, but I knew just how to get it healed.
"Giga Drain!" I called, and Yanmega reared backward, shooting out a green beam that snaked toward Claydol, before wrapping around it. The beam then glowed red, as what little health that remained in the ground-type was sucked along it, entering and healing Yanmega. After a while, the beam disentangled, and was sucked back into my Pokémon. Claydol collapsed to the floor, out cold.
The judge raised the green flag in my direction again, announcing, "Claydol is unable to battle! Yanmega wins this round!"
My foe recalled his Claydol. He was now down to his last Pokémon, and I had a feeling that it would be his strongest. I was soon proved right, when a huge Metagross took the field. I was not bothered by the appearance of the massive steel-type. I would find my way around it.
"Yanmega! Use Bug Buzz to confuse it!" I ordered. Yanmega's wings started to beat faster and faster, the whine starting to build. At the same time the dragonfly's battle chant was also audible as it built up the strength of the attack.
"Yan-yan-yan-yan-yan-yan-MEGA!" it eventually screeched, as the noise of the attack drowned out every other sound in the stadium. It was like the sound of a million angry wasps, added to a few thousand hungry mosquitoes, and lots of just plain annoying houseflies. Being used to the attack, I was unfazed. However, everyone in the stands, the judge, and my opponent all had their hands over their ears. They also had their eyes shut, as the noise of the attack also made you feel like something was tickling your eyeballs.
I could see his Metagross becoming unnerved by the attack, before glowing blue. I wondered what it was doing, before I heard the noise of Bug Buzz dieing away. I realised that Metagross was using Psychic to slow down Yanmega's wingbeats, effectively disabling its Bug Buzz attack. I cursed my luck at this, as I'd have to resort to other attacks.
"Break free Yanmega! Then use Air Slash!" Yanmega managed to shake itself free from Metagross' Psychic hold. It then pulled its wings back, and flapped them forcefully a couple of times. Every time it did so, two blades of vacuumed air flew out towards Metagross, each one turning red just before impact. This caused small dents to appear in the Pokémon's metallic body. Tinted Lens was again taking effect to counteract the type disadvantage of the attack. This wasn't doing much damage, though it was all adding up. I could tell my rival had had enough.
"Meteor Mash! Let's go!" he ordered. His Metagross moved across the battlefield, the end of one of its forelegs glowing, with amazing speed I hadn't expected from the huge metal powerhouse. Before Yanmega could even dodge on its own, the attack connected, and my dragonfly was smashed into the wall, completely done with.
The red flag went up, "Yanmega is unable to battle! Metagross wins the round!"
I sighed, and returned Yanmega to its Pokéball. I wasn't angry with it for losing, it had taken down the Claydol, and weakened the Metagross. Now I just needed to get rid of that, and fortunately, I had just the Pokémon to do it.
I grabbed the last Pokéball from my belt, and hurled it into the stadium, again summoning the Pokémon that resided within. "Heads up! Houndoom!"
My hellhound materialised on the field of play, delighted at being able to battle. "DOOOOOOOOOOOM!" it howled, wagging its pointed tail with joy.
I wasn't going to waste any time, I had to put this Metagross away. "Dark Pulse now!" I commanded. Houndoom howled again, at the same time a black aura spread out from around it. I had grown used to the effect of the attack, much like Bug Buzz, but it was still unnerving, knowing what was going to happen to everyone else.
When I first ordered Houndoom to use Dark Pulse, I was overcome with almost every form of negative emotion. Anger with myself for being weak, Envy at Alan for stealing Laura from me, Grief for not doing anything… the list went on. I felt like I wanted to die, I felt so low. Then Houndoom snapped me out of it by licking my face. Despite being a dark-type, my Houndoom was kind, affectionate soul, not the snarling, vicious beast that so many are depicted as.
I could see my foe, his Metagross, and everyone one else in the stadium recoil as the dark emotions filled their souls. I decided to attack while my opponents were distracted.
"Flamethrower, Houndoom!" I ordered, as the black aura died away. Houndoom now fired a stream of fire from its mouth its foe. The flames closed in, before suddenly being diverted by a Psychic attack from a now-recovered Metagross. I saw my rival smirk at this. While his steel-type couldn't affect Houndoom directly with its psychic powers, it could affect a lot of projectile attacks.
"Metagross, Earthquake!" my adversary instructed to his Pokémon. Metagross lifted one of its forelegs high above the ground, before smashing it down. As the floor began to shake, I could see Houndoom beginning to stumble. I had to do something before it took the full brunt of the powerful ground attack.
I issued a very strange-sounding order, "Houndoom, charge up and jump!" I could see heads turning in the audience, as people tried to work out what that meant. Houndoom started running, jumping over the shockwaves sent by Metagross' Earthquake attack. As it did so, its horns glowed white. This would look odd to someone who had not trained a Houndoom to overcome its type disadvantages. I had to get my Pokémon close to that Metagross so it could attack it without being interrupted. This was the only way.
"Now Houndoom, somersault!" I shouted. My dark-type lined itself up with Metagross, and then jumped, spinning forward. When it was upside-down in the air, spinning again, I finished my manoeuvre. "Use SolarBeam!"
It happened just right. A white beam left Houndoom's mouth, the light energy having been collected in its horns. The force of the SolarBeam pushed Houndoom forward, and it finished its somersault, landing on top of Metagross. I heard the whole stadium take a collective gasp, as I issued my final order.
"Go Houndoom! Max Power Flamethrower!" I called to my Pokémon. Houndoom took a deep breath, before unleashing a mass of hellfire down onto Metagross. It was so forceful, the entirety of Metagross' being was turned into a giant fireball.
When the smoke cleared, a charred and scorched Metagross lay prone on the floor, its limbs spread out in every direction, with a clearly happy Houndoom sat atop it. The referee raised the green flag in my direction, declaring to the stadium, "Metagross is unable to battle! Houndoom wins! This means that the winner of this match, and the Indigo Plateau, Indigo League Conference, is Dave of Pallet Town!"
I collapsed to my knees, exhausted, tears of joy running down my face. I'd done it. I'd finally won. My last thoughts were of the cheers of the crowd, the howl of triumph from Houndoom, what my family would think about this, what Laura would make of this, and how close the floor was getting…
Dave wins the Indigo Plateau Conference, beating his final opponent, Steven Stone of Hoenn, Pokémon Master. Dave meets Steven after the match, and the two become friends, with Steven offering to help Dave train if he wants.
Dave collects the Pokébox from Professor Oak, ready for another period of tough training, this time on Mount Coronet. While in Pallet Town, he hears again of the young trainer Ash Ketchum, who recently placed in the top 8 in the Silver Conference, and is currently travelling through Hoenn with friends.
Laura and Alan hear about Dave's win, and attempt to reach him in Pallet Town, but he leaves before they arrive. They decide to travel to Johto, to compete in the contests and re-challenge the League there respectively.
Yes! At last, a win for Dave! I hope this battle was good enough for everyone. I'm still new to this writing business, but if there's one thing I know it's Pokémon battles. The next chapter will be the last of this prequel story, and should be up tomorrow. Stay Tuned!
Dave