Callie and Rafe managed to defeat Mason! But that doesn't mean they're out of the woods yet. Callie is still in really bad shape, she bleeding all over the place! And there's still one more battle left to fight as well. Marion vs. Willa! This should be a very interesting battle, since we haven't really gotten many opportunities to see Marion fight. What sort of strategies will she use?
KedharS: And into the fire.
Tambry96bj: Well, Mason shouldn't be judged for his… "preferences" in my opinion.
Hyphenman: Yeah, Callie's in really rough shape. She needs to get some help, fast.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 1198
"Callie, are you alright?" Chloe was the one who first responded to Callie's condition, surprisingly enough. The two weren't friends; they barely knew each other, and had never really spoken. But Chloe was a compassionate person, and she saw how much damage Callie had sustained from that last battle; she really needed help.
"O-Oh…" Callie mumbled, staring hazily up at her. She was looking really pale.
"We need to get her medical care, now," Ian frowned. "Her stitches have opened up!"
This was a really big problem. It wasn't like they could just go to the hospital while Samarra was attacking everyone. But they definitely couldn't leave Callie in her current state, either. Ian bit his lip in frustration.
"If only Yellow was here," Alden frowned. "She could use her harmonia to heal Callie's wounds. But without her…"
"We don't have time to think about that right now," Donoma snapped. Even if she was kind of a bitch, she still wasn't heartless. "We need to get her some help, fast."
"Urgh…" Mason sat up, picking up his glasses from the grass and slipping them on. Everything hurt. He looked around in confusion, not sure what was going on. His memories were all a blur. But he saw his precious maid pokemon unconscious in the grass, and cried out. He recalled them to their pokeballs and looked to the others to see what was going on.
There was a long explanation headed his way, once they took care of Callie.
But while that was happening, there was one more battle still going on. The battle had started a while back, in fact; to follow it from the beginning, you'd have to go back in time a little ways.
Marion was fighting against Willa. And things were going pretty well.
"What do you think?" Marion chirped. "Donnie and Mary work really great together, don't they?" Her blue eyes were sparkling like the sea during a sunset.
"Dondozo!" Donnie bellowed, the water in the river surging up around him. The massive catfish was an imposing sight, dwarfing everything around him. But his partner in the double battle, Mary, was nowhere to be seen.
That's because the Tatsugiri was hiding in Donnie's mouth.
"What's with this power?" Willa scowled. Her pokemon were forced onto the defensive from the Dondozo's ferocious attacks. That was fine for Serturner, her Shuckle, but a very big problem for her Flemming, her Delibird, who wasn't very defensively-oriented.
"Aqua tail!" Marion cheered.
"DONDOZO!" Donnie raised his tail and swung it at Flemming, a massive surge of water rising up around it.
Willa bit her lip. Not good. She was hoping that she could use the Dondozo and Tatsugiri to test out her new products, but not like this. If Flemming tried to fling one of her concoctions, such as the potion that boosted EXP yield at the cost of offensive stats, then it would just be swept away by the Dondozo's overwhelming water attacks.
She needed to think of something more effective. Luckily, there were a great deal of potions that Flemming had to choose from. And she could rely on Serturner on the defensive as well.
"Serturner, use power split!" Willa ordered.
"Shuckle!" Serturner began to glow, and Donnie was glowing too. The light from the Dondozo arced out of the pokemon and into Serturner, whose light did the same.
"What move was that?" Marion asked, amazed. She wasn't used to fighting pokemon battles so there was a lot she didn't know.
Willa smirked. "Your Dondozo has incredible power, Marion. It-"
"I know, right?!" She exclaimed, cutting the other girl off. "Donnie is so cool! He's got mountains of power, he's just so awesome!"
Willa scowled. She didn't like being interrupted. "…Yes. Well, my point is, with all that incredible power, it's incredibly vulnerable to a pokemon like Serturner. You see, Shuckle have very LOW attacking strength; some of the lowest stats in attack and special attack among all pokemon. And what that means is when I use a move like power split, I take our attack and special attack stats… and I split them in half. I get half, and you get half."
A wicked grin spread across her face. "But I had no idea how much power that little fish really had…" Of course, she was using "little" to describe the giant Dondozo ironically.
Willa had expected the pokemon to be strong. But when Serturner split his power with Donnie, the harmonia she got from Samarra had showed her just HOW strong. She couldn't believe an ordinary pokemon could have such a massive attack stat, without even using a single buffing move! She was curious.
I suppose she's also enhancing her pokemon's abilities with harmonia… and she certainly has more experience with it than I do…
Willa felt her instincts as a researcher acting up again. Ever since she'd learned about harmonia, she'd been curious about it; as someone who designed drugs and potions to enhance the abilities of pokemon, the natural buff that harmonia granted was something very intriguing. If only she could find some drug that could replicate that process! …But for now, she'd have to rely on Samarra's abilities instead.
"Tell me, what's your secret?" Willa asked. "Are you using some sort of special drug to enhance your pokemon's ability?" That was the only thing that made sense. This had been a double battle, but Marion was handily fighting off both pokemon with just her Dondozo; her Tatsugiri hadn't done anything since she crawled into the giant catfish's mouth.
"What? Oh, no, it's nothing like that!" Marion laughed, waving her hand dismissively. "No, see, the thing about Donnia and Mary, they're the perfect tag team! And it's all thanks to Mary!"
Now that was curious. Willa raised her eyebrow. So Marion was attributing the success of her pokemon to the ability of her Tatsugiri, and not the strength of her Dondozo?
"Oh, don't get me wrong!" Marion gasped. "Donnie's a real powerhouse himself, naturally. But Mary has a special ability called Commander."
"Commander?" Willa asked. She was always looking for new pokemon to research on. If that Tatsugiri was responsible for the massive buff in power she was sensing, perhaps it was something worth capturing herself.
"Commander is a special ability that Tatsugiri develop in the wild," Marion explained. She could talk fish facts for hours! "You see, Tatsugiri are perhaps the weakest Dragon type pokemon out there. They're incredibly weak! So weak, they make for delicious prey!"
Willa winced. She might do experiments on pokemon, but the nonchalant way Marion described eating pokemon was still a little… uigh.
"Of course, they're also incredibly clever," Marion continued. "And that's the reason that they've been able to survive for so long! Because even though they should be at the bottom of the food chain, they have a symbiotic relationship with another pokemon, Dondozo! Show her, Donnie!"
"Don," Donnie nodded, and opened his giant mouth wide. Willa looked inside and squinted, surprised by what she saw.
Mary, the orange Tatsugiri, was nestled away on Donnie's tongue. While she was sitting there, however, it was like she had fused with him; tiny tendrils traveled out of the little white sack beneath her body, and leeched into the fish's tongue.
"Dondozo have a lot of power," Marion explained. "But unfortunately due to their bulky bodies and low intelligence, they aren't very good predators themselves. If it weren't for their symbiotic relationship, both species would be extinct by now!"
Willa started to understand where Marion was going with this.
"Because Dondozo don't have the intelligence to hunt enough prey to suit their appetites, they need to team up with the more intelligent Tatsugiri!" Marion was overflowing with excitement as she described the relationship between the two pokemon. "And Tatsugiri of course take advantage of Dondozo's power to make hunting easier for them, as well! You see, Tatsugiri look nice and tasty; like sushi! And the scent they give off is alluring as well. So they'll play dead, floating in the water for a bird pokemon to come down and snatch 'em up! But when they try… CHOMP! Dondozo bite down on the bird and swallow 'em whole, splitting the remains with the Tatsugiri! It's a perfect symbiotic relationship that takes advantage of both pokemon's strengths!"
"I see, and that's why your pokemon are so powerful, then?" Willa scowled. "It seems challenging you to a double battle was a critical mistake on my part."
Willa fought in double battles so she could rely on Serturner to keep Flemming safe while the Delibird administered the concoctions she'd designed. But apparently, that wasn't something she could rely on in this case.
"How vexing…"
"That's right!" Marion smiled. "Double battles are where Donnie and Mary shine the brightest! Because using Commander, as long as Mary is inside Donnie's mouth and behaving in symbiosis with him, all of Donnie's stats are boosted by two stages!"
"Whoa, seriously?" While Donoma had been watching the battle with Callie and Rafe, she had also been close enough to this fight to hear what Marion was saying, and found herself intrigued. Giselle and Chloe were also surprised at what they heard.
"Well I supposed that explains the power buff," Willa scowled. "But it won't matter now. Serturner has taken away a massive chunk of your attacking potential with power split, and now Flemming will take away the rest! Use fling!"
"Delibird!" Flemming flung one of the potions out of his bag, the bottle flying through the air towards Donnie. With such a large target there was no way the attack could miss.
"Mary, use water gun!" Marion shouted.
From the crack of Donnie's mouth, Mary opened her own mouth and fired a burst of water at high speed, hitting the bottle directly. It wasn't strong enough to shatter the glass and spill the contents, but it was enough to deflect it away from Donnie, causing it to land harmlessly in the grass.
"What?!" Willa gasped.
"Don't act so surprised," Marion smirked. "Donnie might be the main powerhouse here, but you forget, this is a double battle! Mary can attack herself, you know! And that's not all… don't think that drop in power will last long, either! Donnie, time to order up!"
"Dondozo!" Donnie charged at Serturner and slammed into the Shuckle, sending the pokemon rolling backwards. Due to Serturner's high defense he didn't take much damage, but Willa gasped in shock at what she saw.
"His attack stat is… rising?" She asked, confused.
"That's right!" Marion chirped. "Order up is Donnie's special move! Not only is a brutal one, but it boosts his stats! Thanks to Mary sharing some strength with him, when Donnie orders up, he absorbs nutrients to get a massive attack buff!"
"I see!" Willa's eyes lit up. "It must be because those white throat sacks of theirs carry special neurotransmitters that allow them to directly share nutrients between the two of them! Tatsugiri don't have to even eat food for themselves; by latching onto the Dondozo, they can absorb nutrients from the pokemon's system naturally, while at the same time sharing a little of their own power back whenever Dondozo gives the signal with that move!"
"Yeah! That's exactly it!" Marion gushed. She was so happy she finally had someone she could talk about such cool stuff with!
"This isn't important to the battle," Samarra growled, forcing Willa back on task. Willa sighed. While she could spend all day speculating about how she could make use of the chemicals in a Tatsugiri's throat sack for her own experiments, her friend was right. They were fighting right now, and that sort of thinking would have to be saved for later.
"So every time you use that move, your attack stat will increase," Willa frowned. "Well unfortunately for you, I've got some advantages of my own!"
Marion was curious what Willa meant by that. "Oh? Do tell!"
"Flemming, use THAT potion," Willa ordered.
"Delibird!" Flemming nodded. He flapped his wings to get away from the massive Dondozo, and dug around in his bag for another concoction. While he was doing that, Serturner scuttled in front of him and took a defensive stance, ready to fight off the Dondozo should the need arise.
"Serturner, while Flemming is getting prepared, use your stone edge," Willa said. With the massive boost to attack that Serturner had received from the power split, even he should be able to do some damage with his moves!
"Shuckle," Serturner nodded. He lifted several large boulders out of the river bank, the sharp stones hovering in the air for a second before turning and flying towards Donnie.
"Donnie, watch out!" Marion cried. Donnie braced himself against the incoming stones as they shattered against his scales and Marion winced, feeling the sharp rocks penetrating her own skin thanks to her harmonia. But she trusted Donnie; he'd been through way worse than this before!
Willa wasn't done there, though. While Serturner was assaulting Donnie with rocks, Flemming was busy taking out a vial with a strange green substance inside it; he uncorked the lid and tilted back his beak, downing the whole thing.
The second he did, the changes became apparent. Flemming nearly doubled in size momentarily, his entire body bulging with veins. He had a fierce look in his eye.
"DELIBIRD!" He roared in a deepthroated voice, flexing his muscles. He looked like a bizarre mix between a bird and a body builder.
"Whoa, what just happened?" Chloe asked, shocked.
"I think it's whatever was in that vial," Raizer guessed.
"This is one of our special combat drugs," Willa said, smiling proudly at her pokemon. "Flemming's attack stat was just pumped up to the maximum, by six whole stages!"
"Six stages? Yikes! That's really powerful!" Alden said, stunned. He had no idea there was a potion like that out there.
"Of course, something like that isn't without its drawbacks," Willa sighed. "When the potion is consumed, the pokemon consuming it enters a mindless rage and won't even follow orders. I call it the berserk potion."
Ange's expression darkened. This was why she loathed Willa. The trainer thought nothing of experimenting on her pokemon, she used them as tools to further her own research. What a disgusting habit. She was going to be sick.
How could Marion stand fighting against a trainer like that?
"So… you even use your own pokemon as subjects for your experiments?" Marion asked, frowning.
Willa shrugged. "What else should I do?" She asked. "The goal of my research is to create potions to help all pokemon, and people as well. To that end, I need to make whatever progress I can. Discovery requires experimentation, after all. You can't get everything right the first time."
Marion didn't know a lot about science, at least not that kind of science. So she couldn't really say anything back.
"What if… your pokemon get hurt?" She asked quietly. She was no stranger to harming pokemon, in spite of her beliefs as a conservationist. Pokemon eating pokemon, people eating pokemon, that was part of the world. She said as much to Sango way back during the Pokemon Ranger Probationary License Exam; if you wanted to help ALL pokemon then you'd end up helping none.
What matters is making sure you're respectful to the pokemon who you unfortunately need to sacrifice for the sake of others. That was the creed that Marion, as a fishing expert, lived by.
Did Willa do the same?
"My pokemon do get hurt on occasion," Willa admitted. "Sometimes, no matter what precautions I take, it isn't enough, and I can't accommodate for all the variables. But I try to do whatever I can to minimize those occurrences, for the sake of my pokemon and my research."
Marion nodded. She could understand that.
"Well, I know a lot of people would probably disagree with you, but me, personally, I can understand where you're coming from," she said. "So I won't hold it against you. It looks like we'll be able to get along fine after all!"
"Of course we will," Willa said, her smile taking on a menacing tint. "Once I defeat you, then we're going to become best friends. Flemming, use drill peck!"
Flemming's satchel of drugs was abandoned; he would have no further use for them now that he didn't have the clarity of thought to distribute them anymore. That water gun had been enough of a tip-off that Willa would have to few this fight less as an experiment, and more as an actual pokemon battle to win.
Well, at least she'd be getting some much-needed feedback on the feasibility of the berserk potion, so that was a plus.
"Delibird!" Flemming flapped his wings and charged at Donnie, the air around his beak spinning like a drill. He struck the Dondozo directly in the face and Marion howled with pain, clutching her nose and stumbling backwards.
"DONDOZO!" Donnie roared, thrashing about in the water.
"Even with the boost to his defenses, it wasn't enough," Chloe winced. "In the water he's a sitting duck like that with all his bulk!"
"Mary!" Marion shouted. "You know what you need to do next!"
She was smiling in spite of the pain.
"Baton pass!"
Willa gasped, taken aback by that.
"Baton pass?! Why?" Alden asked, confused. He thought that the team-up between Donnie and Mary was perfect; in fact, he was going to recommend it to the double-battle-enthusiast Vic. So why was Marion changing tactics now? Just because of that one hit?
"Tatsugiri!" Mary separated herself from Donnie's tongue and returned to her Dive Ball. Marion smiled as she reached for another one.
Willa noted the mischievous look on her face.
"Come back, Mary… and come out, Marie!" Marion declared, sending out her next pokemon.
"Tatsugiri!" The small pokemon emerged, flopping into the water.
It took a second for everyone to process that.
"Another one?!" Giselle gasped.
"So she has two…?" Raizer didn't really understand what he was seeing. Marion had sent out another Tatsugiri, but this one looked different from the one she'd just called back. Unlike the splotchy orange pattern of the previous Tatsugiri, this one was a pinkish-red color, with white markings on her fins. She was also glaring, unlike Mary's bright and shining eyes.
"Marie, you know what to do!" Marion called to her Tatsugiri, who flung herself up into Donnie's mouth, and entered symbiosis with him again.
"Dondozo!" Donnie roared as his stats surged once more, enhanced by the boost from Marie's Commander ability.
"Now you'll get the chance to see what Dondozo and Tatsugiri are capable of," Marion promised, her eyes shining with excitement.
Well, that's certainly something! Marion doesn't just have one Tatsugiri to team up with her Dondozo, she has two! And what do you want to bet that she has a third one waiting in the wings, one that's yellow in color? I suppose we'll have to see. But indeed, this is going to be a rather interesting fight, we don't see Marion battle very often, that's for sure!