A/N: Cheesy title I know :P And to make things easier, I'm going to keep the judges and announcers from the tv show. That's what took me so long to update, trying to make up a new contest announcer (Not so creative with names /) So in other words, Marian is the Sinnoh Announcer, Lillian is the Kanto Announcer, and Vivian is the Hoenn Announcer. So that probably means eventually I'll have to make up a new announcer for Johto. Hmmm, well that is if I put on in a Johto story. That also means I'll have to make up judges from Dawn's past... Oh well, I'll figure out something.
PS: The reason why it's soooo easy to do Haunter's personality is cause I based him off of me :P When I run into something I think could use a little comedy, I think, "Hmmm, what would I do in this situation if I could?" Then I make Haunter do it (I'm not as harsh as he is though, I make up some of those parts.) Lash and Brandon are both based a little off my brother, Brandon's strong will (Before the weird thing with Monferno) and Lash's hostility to be specific (Made him a Lickitung cause my brother loves to stick his tongue out at people, he was originally going to be a Machop, but don't look for that in the Deleted Chapters Story I'm eventually going to make, cause that would mean redoing the whole story with a Machop in it and changing the whole scene, etc etc.)
Ch. 15: A Shocking Performance
"Welcome one and all to the Floaroma Meadow Contest!"
The crowd roared its approval as Marian raised her hands to the audience. Dawning her usual bright yellow and sunset orange attire. She held the microphone firmly in one hand and spun around in a circle before ending in a bow.
"Today we have some amazing pokemon and coordinators going for the coveted Floaroma Ribbon! Featuring today's judges, Mr. Contesta, Mr. Sukizo, and Floaroma's own Nurse Joy!"
Mr. Contesta stood up in response to this, raising a hand to the audience before calling out, "I'm very glad to be here and hope to see some amazing performances!"
When he sat down, Sukizo took his place, standing up next to him and responding with, "Yes, remarkable!"
Nurse Joy simply stood up and shyly nodded towards the audience but it obviously pleased the crowd who stood up and applauded in support. Marian beamed at everyone as if she was the one who caused it and pumped her fist in the air shouting, "Now lets get busy!"
Bryce gulped, he was dressed in a tuxedo his mom had sent for him the previous night. His usual spiky unruly hair was still in place but his beret was absent. He took a deep breath and sat on the bench, toying with Lash's pokeball. He had never been more nervous about anything in his life. He looked up at the television screen that was placed in the dressing room so the coordinators could have the convenience of watching their competition perform. At the moment, a Machamp was juggling a series of toy pokeballs before catching them all in one hand and grinning at the crowd.
"Man, I don't know how I'm going to do this." He mumbled to himself before someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to find Haunter who opened his mouth, moving towards him as if he intended to swallow his head. Stormie smacked him in the back causing the phantom to tumble through Bryce, across the room, and into the distant wall.
"Sorry about him. Are you ok? You seem nervous."
"Yeah it's just-"
He stopped talking when he turned around and saw her. In her contest attire, she wore an elegant yet tomboyish sort of look. She wore a black undershirt that clung to her form with an open red vest that shined in the light. Her legs were completely covered with black baggy jeans and black tennis shoes. A red bandana was wrapped around the top of her head but the back was open to allow her hair out. Noticing his stares she grinned and winked at him.
"So I take it that you like my new look?"
He could only manage a nod, still openly staring before feeling a little self-conscious about how dressed out he was and started to straighten out his clothes before she grabbed him by the arms.
"Calm down, you'll be fine." She said with a small smile. She straightened out his bowtie and tried to smooth out his hair. When this didn't work, much to Bryce's amusement, she just settled with ruffling it. She sat down on the bench next to him.
"Like I said, relax, it'll be fine. Now lets watch the next coordinator."
Bryce blushed and nodded, turning towards the screen.
In the meadow, there was not a huge stadium like most contests. Instead to preserve the beauty of the flowers, the contest stadium was only temporary. A fold up stage that could be put in a truck was in front of three podiums and three rows of very large bleachers that could be taken apart. There was no roof, the sky making a suitable substitute and the flowers replaced the ground.
"Next up is Krystal Walker!"
The crowd cheered as a dark-haired girl walked upoun the stage. She wore black fingerless gloves with red jeans and a red t-shirt. As she waved to the crowd, the earpiece that was hidden behind her hair buzzed.
"Krystal, you read me?"
"Loud and clear KC," She said through her teeth. "Could you bother me about this later?"
"You know I can't, I don't know what you're doing up there anyway. Felix told us to watch the kid, not to perform in the contest."
"Relax, we'll get to him right after this round. Now Sparks, c'mon out!"
She tossed a pokeball into the arena. A capsule covered the spherical device and as it popped open, a barrage of thunder bolts shot into the air. A Pikachu erupted from the pokeball, front paws first as it spun through the air. It did a final front flip before landing on its lightning bolt shaped tail as the bolts landed in a rapid barrage all around Krystal and Sparks.
"What an amazing entrance! Krystal does an excellent job showing off her pokemon by showing off its electric type qualities! What will she do next?"
"Now Sparks, use Double Team!"
Sparks takes off running in circles, going so fast that there appears to be ten of him. His cheeks start to glow with the electricity stored in his body, brighter and brighter until the circle of Pikachu's is just a ring of dim light. As this happens the Sparks illusion soon starts to shift until the ring turns into a star. A sight which the audience and the judges all notice as they settle into a hushed awe.
"Now use Thunder Wave!"
Every part of the lit star started to shine blue as Sparks dashed to each corner at a supernatural speed. As this happened, every point of the star shot small orbs of tamed blue electricity into the center of the star. As they all met in the center, they all merged into one. The force of all of them coming from all sides caused it to slowly drift up into the air like a miniature blue model of the sun. At an angle the sun shone through it, covering the meadow in dim blue sunlight.
"Now wrap this up with Charge Beam!"
Sparks ran to the middle from the top point of the star, the shape still formed from the rapidly fading sparks that were still dancing around him. The pouches inside his cheeks focused all its power into a single point, his mouth as he opened wide and looked up. He shot a concentrated electric blast into the air at the Thunder Wave. The blast slammed into the blue ball causing it to shatter like glass into the five original Thunder Waves that rained into the ground in the star-shape that once surrounded Sparks, each one was crackling with the yellow electricity from the Charge Beam. Sparks smiled at the crowd shouting out a happy, 'Pika!'
The crowd went wild, standing up and wildly clapping their hands. Some stayed where they sat and settled with stomping their feet. The judges however just smiled at her, trying to keep their composure at the amazing appeal. Marian however seemed the most excited at all, her unoccupied hand on her cheek shouting into the microphone.
"What an shocking performance! A brilliant demonstration of the beauty of electricity! Krystal did a great job, using her star as a conductor, she created an electric sun that was rained out with a powerful Charge Beam! Now lets hear from our judges!"
"What a fantastic show of how our youth today can get together with their pokemon and come up with such an ingenious appeal!" Mr. Contesta exclaimed, beaming at the teenage girl.
"Yes remarkable!" Mr. Suziko said.
"It's wonderful to see such a well-taken care of Pikachu in this day and age. They did a wonderful job and Sparks looked happy doing it!" Nurse Joy clapped her hands together.
Marian turned to the audience after hearing all the feedback.
"Well there you have it ladies and gentleman! A great job you two, perfect reviews for that perfect performance! Now next up, is Bryce Wright!"
"C'mon Bryce!" Stormie cried as she pulled Bryce hard by his legs. He left claw marks where he previously sat. Slowly dragging the bench behind him, he clung to the seat as hard as he could. She dropped his legs for a minute to take a breath. She put her hands on her hips and scowled at him.
"It can't be that bad, it's not like you've never done a contest before. Your mom's a top coordinator!" She grabbed him by the legs again and redoubled her efforts, only succeeding in dragging the bench down after her. It was then Haunter decided to make an appearance. He noted Psy sitting on a bench nearby sound asleep and the two quarreling humans. With a chuckle he vanished into the wall once more. Meanwhile Bryce grunted as he held onto the seat he so desperately wanted to keep.
"Are...you...crazy?" He asked between each tug. "I can't...possibly...do anything like that!"
"Well...it's true...that you don't...have superior...skills. But you have to try!"
With the final cry, Haunter appeared in front of Bryce and gave him a big affectionate lick on the face. Bryce shouted out and out of instinct, reached up to wipe the ghostly saliva off of his face. While doing so, he relinquished the power he had over the bench and went flying over Stormie's head and onto the stage outside while Haunter pointed and laughed. Stormie looked back and forth between Haunter and Bryce before rubbing the back of her neck.
"Maybe I pulled too hard..."
"Hehehe, Felix never told us the kid could fly." KC joked as Bryce made his appearance on stage. "Maybe there is something to him after all."
Krystal smacked him in the back of his head, though it didn't get much of a reaction out of him. They were a fair distance away in the Floroama Pokemon Center, both looking down at a screen that received footage from Krystal's hidden camera. KC couldn't risk being recognized and with the place pretty much vacant since Nurse Joy was a judge, it was the perfect place.
"Maybe if you spent more time doing your job instead of making stupid jokes, we'd be in better shape." Krystal said with a snort.
"Well still, I don't see anything spectacular about this kid. What does M want with him?"
"Think blockhead! This kid is Lucas and Dawn's son. He has to be something special."
"Well it's not like they overthrew down Cyrus now did they?"
"They came pretty damn close, and that's all that matters. If he's as special as his parents, we'll need him to join us, especially if what we believe Team Galactic has planned is true, so shut up and watch."
Bryce grunted as he stood up, suddenly realizing there was hundreds of people staring at him in the bleachers and on camera. He stopped in his tracks and stared back for a full minute before Marian intervened, clapping hastily as though she was trying to make up for the bumbling entrance and reluctantly, everyone else followed. Bryce let out a sigh of relief.
"Ok, can't be that hard, all I have to do is throw out a pokeball, have Grotle do a few moves then return her, seems easy enough."
With that in mind he threw out Grotle's pokeball while calling out,
"Grotle, it's time!"
With a pop the pokeball opened and let out the foliaged tortoise who landed with a thud on the stage, stomping a heavy foot when she was out. Marian could tell this was Bryce's first time so as soon as Grotle came out she started to gush over the entrance.
"What a powerful looking pokemon! The heavy thud it provided just shows how much weight that Grotle throws into its attacks and the shine of its, eh, bushes shows how well its coordinator takes care of it. This just makes me wonder what these two have in store for us next!"
Bryce swallowed and took a breath before shouting out and pointing in the crowd like he did out of instinct in a battle, "Alright Grotle, Razor Leaf!"
Grotle nodded, her bushes rustling as she tilted her back at an angle towards the crowd as a Razor Leaf shot out at them. For a moment, the audience waited for something unexpected to happen like it usually did with professional coordinators. But as the attack came closer and closer, they soon realized this was a mistake and abandoned their spots to avoid the sharp leaves. "Mad Grotle!" Somebody called out, Bryce however was oblivious to this, thinking he was doing a good job so far and decided to try combinations.
"Ok now Grotle, Tackle then Bite!"
Grotle ran as fast as she could towards her "opponent" which happened to be Mr. Contesta's judging podium and rammed into it, causing a huge hole to appear in it, just large enough for her to run through the other side where Mr. Contesta was and bite him on the leg.
"Yah! Call him off!" He shouted as he shook his leg to try and rid himself of the heavy grass type. Bryce finally realized what he was doing and raised her pokeball to return her in a red beam of light. There was silence, no applause, no commentary from Marian, and only frowns came from the judge until Mr. Suziko stood up and said,
"Remarkably frightening."
Krystal glowered where she sat, her partner, the boy who was always trying to act so cool around her, the Copycat Bandit himself, was on the ground laughing out loud. He was holding his ribs as though they were about to crack in two and his hat fell off to the side.
"Hahaha!" He guffawed between peals of laughter. "He attacked the audience!"
Krystal let out an impatient sigh before pulling him off the ground by his ear which immediately ended the outburst.
"I know, I just saw it too." She said between her teeth as Bryce made a hasty retreat from the stage onscreen.
"So that's the kid who's supposed to save us from Team Galactic?"
"Well from what Felix said I expected a lot more!"
"Whatever, all I know is I was right, so pay up."
Krystal grumbled as she reached into her pocket and pulled out 100 Pokes and slapped it into his outstretched palm.
'Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Haunt!' laughed Haunter as he tumbled through the air with laughter. As Bryce entered the dressing room, every coordinator looked at him and most of them laughed out loud while some looked in fear at Grotle's pokeball. Bryce had his head bowed in humiliation as everyone spared no mercy at his expense.
"Hey cut it out! It's his first contest!" A voice suddenly cried out as a someone stood next to him and helped him to a bench. This barely helped at all, but Bryce was thankful that someone stood up for him and found the person was Stormie. He tore off his bow tie and buried his face in his hands. His cheeks were tinted red from both embarrassment and the fact that Stormie's hand was patting his back in an attempt of consolation.
"Don't take beat yourself up, everyone's first contest is hard."
Bryce looked up with a raised eyebrow and a doubtful expression.
"So you attacked the judges and sent the crowd into mass terror during your first contest?"
"Ok, maybe not that hard."
He groaned at the words and buried his face into his hands once more, most of the coordinators had gotten over the appeal already except for the frightened ones who still kept an eye on Grotle's pokeball. Stormie heard a few muffled words come from Bryce's hands and pulled Bryce up by his hair. He winced before she let go and repeated,
"I'm not even a coordinator like my mom, I'm a pokemon trainer. I don't worry about how my moves look, I just think of what my opponent's weak against, figure out a strategy, then find the best way to pull them off."
"Well is a contest really that different?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Stormie shifted in her seat a bit, crossing her legs and developing a thoughtful expression on her face. She sat for a minute before speaking.
"Well, like you say, in contests we worry about how our moves look, but we also have to figure out the best ways to pull them off while trying to find the best way to show our pokemon off at the same time. Either way you look at it, battling or contests, they're both different ways of showing off how our pokemon shine."
Bryce blinked, looking at her for a moment before shrugging.
"Well I guess, but I'm still not willing to try that again, I'm surprised I haven't been banned..."
Stormie snorted before rubbing her nose in an attempt to cover it up as a sneeze.
"Well in any case, I can tell we're not rivals." She said before looking up at the screen. She shot out of her seat, put a protesting Abra into his lap, and zoomed out of the room before Bryce could even ask what happened. He blinked and looked at after her before Haunter floated in front of him, pointing and laughing.
With a mumble, he ignored him and started chasing after Psy who started teleporting all over the room after Stormie left.
"Now making her Sinnoh Debut, Stormie Matthews!"
Stormie ran out, grabbing her knees and breathing hard. Marian blinked at her and smiled at the crowd before cupping her hand over the mike and whispering to Stormie, "You ok?" Stormie hastily nodded before standing up and grabbing a pokeball from the inside of her jacket. She quickly snapped a capsule around it before tossing it in front of her.
"Now's your time Combusken!"
As the pokeball opened it seemed to burst into flames as crackling embers shot up into the air and rained down around the fowl who did her signature front flip in front of her trainer and landed on her feet giving a thumbs up to the audience. Without waiting for Marian to get a word in, Stormie immediately started her appeal.
"Now Combusken, Sand Attack then Fire Spin!"
Combusken stuck her leg out and spun in a circle kicking up a large amount of sand. Then before all of them could fall to the ground, she looked up and opened her beak. Spiraling, a flame shot out and started to fan out as it got went higher, engulfing all the sand in a controlled inferno. The sudden heat increase caused the sand surrounding her to turn into a column of glass fell when she finished her attack. The inside was hollow so the pokemon was virtually unharmed. She suddenly came flying from the inside of the glass tube she created and landed behind it where the audience couldn't see her.
"Now Focus Energy!"
Combusken nodded and put her hands together, taking shallow breaths as she concentrated. Marian used the small break in the chain of events as an opportunity to continue her commentary.
"And Combusken shows off both its fire and fighting abilities to create a huge column of glass that is competing with the stage's size itself! Now Stormie has decided to use Focus Energy as her next move! But what can a move that makes the user find its opponent's weak point have to do with this appeal?"
Combusken's eyes snapped open, she had apparently found what she was looking for and this didn't go unnoticed by Stormie.
"Double Kick then Ember!"
Combusken leaped up in front of the column until she was roughly around the middle and kicked it hard, flying backwards from the impact. This assault left a crack in the glass, she immediately flew forward again and kicked the glass hard causing the crack to spread throughout the fragile sheet glass and shatter into pieces. Combusken landed in front of Stormie and opened her beak wide, a barrage of fireballs emerged, slamming into most of the glass shards and making them shatter even further until they were nothing more than sparkling dust that rained down onto the wooden stage. Combusken ran a claw across her beak and gave a thumbs up to the crowd.
"Gah it's about time! I see why Nurse Joy was so quick to get rid of these two!"
He was holding Psy by the tail at the moment, while he was teleporting it was the only thing he could come in contact with, but this wasn't so for long. In a blue flash the Abra went to the other side of the room while Haunter was pulling on his spiky hair. The rest of the coordinators were all backed against the wall with mixed emotions of amusement, confusion, and wariness. Combusken strode into the room long before Stormie and closed her eyes for a moment before leaping to the side and snaring the Abra, and before it could move, Haunter looked it hard in the eyes until it sat still.
"Showoffs." Bryce muttered. "So how'd you do?"
"What you didn't see our appeal?"
"Hello-o!" He said motioning towards Haunter and Psy who were both on the other side of the bench.
Holding her mouth to cover a snicker, Stormie scooped up the Abra who slumped into her arms as though her presence removed Mean Eye's effect.
"Well I'd say we did a pretty good job, I mean we should, we have been working hard."
"Pssh, well I doubt you could've done better than that Pikachu girl."
"Watch it, I don't need a Focus Energy to tell where your weak points are."
As Bryce instinctively covered his crotch, Marian's voice came on the screen.
"And now, here are the next eight coordinators moving on to the next round!"
Stormie's attention immediately went to the screen. As the pictures went up one by one she squeezed Psy harder and harder until he started to squirm in the preteen's arms. Finally, her face showed up as the fifth contestant and she released her death grip on the Abra.
"Yes! I made it!" She cried out beaming at the screen.
"I wouldn't celebrate if I were you, look who's in first place so far."
Stormie did exactly that and immediately squeezed the Psychic pokemon harder than before, causing him to teleport into Bryce's arms, much to his surprise.
"Krystal the Pikachu girl?" She asked in disbelief, there was no possibly way she could defeat a trainer like that, she had insanely powerful moves, amazing combinations, and if that wasn't enough, she looked good doing it.
"How can I possibly compete with that?"
There was a tap on her shoulder and Haunter met her eyes, chuckling devilishly while casually tossing himself a bomb with one hand. Stormie sighed, licked a finger and grabbed the wick, extinguishing the flame. Looking a bit dejected Haunter swallowed the useless bomb.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine, I mean you're moving on to the next round so that has to mean something right?"
Stormie just sort of shrugged and stood up, returning Haunter to his pokeball and attached it to the inside of her jacket. Bryce watched her go before turning to Psy.
"Is she always like this?"
"Please welcome the contestants moving on to the second round!"
The stands echoed with the applause of the excitable crowd who sat in front of the said contestants before Marian moved on.
"In this round the coordinator will choose one pokemon to battle with. Each coordinator will be paired off to battle each other. When the coordinator's pokemon is KO'ed, their points go down to zero, or whoever has the lowest points when time runs out loses and their competitor will move on to the next round! Now lets see who will be battling each other in Round 2!"
As she said this, she waved her arm towards the immense screen that was above the stage. All of the pictures started to scramble around until a ding was heard. Four of the pictures went to the top of the screen and the other four to the bottom, every pair was connected by a line and to Stormie's relief, hers wasn't connected to Krystal's.
"Here are our next two contestants!"
As she said this, the first two coordinators on the screen's pictures were blown up to feel the screen. Each going to the opposite end of the screen with a wheel filled with yellow underneath them. Krystal was on the right, and on the left was the boy who just barely made it with his juggling Machamp. He was a teenager, maybe about thirteen with greasy black hair that was managed by tying it back into a ponytail. His jacket was raggedy and his pants had patches in them, but whether this was how he dressed up for a contest or not was beyond him.
"To the left we have Vince from Pastoria City! To the right we have Stormie all the way from the Hoenn region. You may release your pokemon!"
Stormie took out a pokeball from her jacket and threw it in front of her.
"It's your time Haunter!"
The pokeball burst open, emitting a black fog that spewed out, hiding the ghost pokemon's entrance before he popped up in front of a camera, laughing his spooky laugh. His face was blown up on the second screen that was provided for people who sat in the back, making most everyone jump.
Vince dug around in his pockets for a little while before pulling out a dirty pokeball and throwing it out.
"Go Croagunk, I guess..."
A small toad pokemon appeared, slouched over in a midst of purple smoke. He made no attempt to make any kind of dazzling appearance. The orange pouches that were his cheeks would inflate with every breath he took as he uttered a soft, 'Croa...Croa...Croa...'
"Whoa! What kind of pokemon is that?"
Bryce was now sitting in the stands, a sleeping Psy sitting in his lap. There was no point in remaining in the dressing rooms since he was no longer in the contest and apparently, as long as Stormie was in sight, the Abra was ok. Bryce pulled out his pokedex and scanned the toad.
Croagunk, the Toxic Mouth Pokemon. It tries to catch foes off guard to jab them with its toxic fingers. By inflating its poison sacs, it makes an eerie blubbering sound for intimidation.
"Is it just me, or does Croagunk look an awful lot like its trainer?"
"Now lets get busy!" Marian shouted after the pokemon had been released. As she said this the timer started to count down from five minutes. (Here's where I stop Marian's commentary for a while, it'll be sort of irritating to have to type exactly what I just described between every move)
"Croagunk, uh... use Poison Sting."
The crouching toad opened his mouth, taking a huge breath as his cheek sacs inflated. With a 'Croagunk!', he exhaled hard, expelling hundreds of purple needles towards Haunter who just grinned before opening his mouth wide and swallowed them. After sloshing the needles in his mouth around for a bit, he spat them out one by one in a pile on the ground. With the poison drained, they were nothing more than plain white needles. The display caused Vince's points to go down until a quarter of his wheel was white.
"Ok, uh, lets use Brick Break."
Croagunk leaped into the air with his powerful toad legs, high above the stage, his black and orange hand glowing with a bright white light. With his hand flat and the side of it aiming at Haunter, he came flying down towards his head. Haunter once again just sat there, polishing his claws against his body before inspecting them, unimpressed. The Fighting type soon came flying down, the air whistling around him due to the speed of the fall but the attack went right through it and hit the floorboards, cracking three of them in half. As he tried to yank it out, he found his hand was caught between the broken wood. The amphibian frantically tried to pull his arm out, but he was at the mercy of his opponent who finally decided it was time to launch an attack.
"Haunter, use Lick!"
Haunter drifted lazily towards the struggling toad and grinned at him before opening his mouth. He let out his tongue and rapidly ran it upwards under Croagunk's chin, raising his chin into the air. Croagunk immediately stilled, his body still managed to twitch every now and again but his efforts to pull his arm out of the boards ended while the ghost drifted back, his eyes already flashing with black before he even heard Stormie shout,
"Now Night Shade!"
Jagged black and violet beams shot out of Haunter's eyes, slamming into the Croagunk's exposed chin. 'Crooooooa!' He cried out as he went flying through the air, his eyes were clenched shut in pain but his teeth were still exposed, his smile now more like a grimace.
"Uh, Poison Sting?"
Vince was obviously confused but Croagunk obliged anyway. He bent his arms and legs so they were facing behind him so rather than slamming into the wall, he clung to it. He inhaled once again, taking a deep breath as his pouches filled up with the poison needles. He was so busy with this task that he barely noticed the cry of "Sucker Punch!" before Haunter appeared out of nowhere next to him. With a ghastly chuckle, his shadowy fist hit him hard on the top of the head. The fighting type went flying into the ground with a loud crack, he had broken a few more floorboards.
'Croa...'
His mouth opened a little, letting a couple of his Poison Stings fall out of his mouth. All the judges frowned and pressed a button, displaying a large X on each of their podiums to represent that they all agreed the pokemon was out for the count.
"Now here are our finalists for the Floaroma Town ribbon! To the right we have Krystal from... Uh,"
Marian cupped a hand over her mic and leaned over to Krystal.
"Where are you from?"
"That's classified."
Looking a bit flustered from the icy comment, Marian continued her commentary after a glance at Krystal.
"Well to the right we have Krystal, who chooses to keep her hometown confidential, and to the left we have Stormie from Hoenn! One of these two will be one ribbon closer to the Sinnoh Grand Festival that will be held this Summer, while the other will dwell in the dwindling depths of defeat."
At this comment Stormie clenched her fists, she took shallow breaths but her eyes were fierce. She was determined to win this ribbon and after getting this far and she wasn't going to let Pikachu Girl get in her way. As soon as Marian gave the word, she hurled out Haunter's pokeball which let out the same smoke as it did before. Haunter didn't care who this girl was, he just knew he'd take her down like he did the Croagunk, and the Zubat. Cracking his knuckles he dove at the canid pokemon she had just released, hands outstretched.
"Aura Sphere, then Bone Rush!"
The pokemon waved its paws around its body and put them together, a sphere of blue energy forming between them. But rather than aiming it at Haunter like he suspected, it aimed it at the ground and fired. The force of the blow causing him to fly into the air. When he was over Haunter, he put his paws together then drew them apart revealing a bone shaped object which he swung at the ghost. It slammed into his back and with wide eyes he went flying through the boards, too surprised to phase through he made a gaping hole in the wood.
Haunter crawled through the hole groaning while one hand grasped his aching head. Shaking his head as if in a daze, one of his rare frowns appeared on his face as he glowered at the Lucario who still held his weapon. One paw was out, open-palmed, while the other was held straight out behind him with the Aura Bone softly pulsing. As Haunter rose into the air, an expression slowly appeared on his face that he rarely ever expressed.
Bryce's eyes widened. What kind of pokemon could this be to send Haunter flying through the floor and make him frown. He pulled out his pokedex and scanned the canine.
Lucario the Aura Pokemon. It has the ability to sense the auras of all things. By catching the aura emanating from others, it can read their thoughts and movements.
What is this?
Psy stirred from his sleep in the male human's arms. His mother wasn't around so he had allowed him to be the primary caretaker for now. He shifted in his arms as he became more aware of the spike of energy. It was hard to tell exactly what it was because his telekinetic abilities were still in their premature stage, but he could pinpoint where it was coming from. Looking towards the stage he spotted his friend Haunter and his opponent. Though there was a large wave of energy coming from the other pokemon, it was not the spike, it had simply caused it. After looking around, probing with his mind, he found it. With a soft, 'Braaaaaa." he teleported in a flash to the outside of the meadow.
A jagged pink triangle met his eyes as reached his destination. As he reached out to touch it, an amazing surge of energy filled his body. He felt confident he could take it back to his mother's friend and show it off. He concentrated hard on his body and the rectangular object and teleported back into the boy's lap. The boy had been so intent on the match he didn't even notice that Psy had been missing. Psy turned the object around in his small hands, on one side were the unintelligible markings of the Human Glyph, while the other side had a shape that ran off the hard pink object.
He noticed that if it was any other time, he would have teleported the rock along with the object, but while holding the plate, he was able to hone his Psychic abilities and bring only the plate. He decided that maybe he'd hold onto it just a bit longer before showing it to mother.