Chapter 44: VS Aaron

I waltzed through the green doors like I owned the place. Strutting up to the challengers spot on the arena, I took the opportunity to look around. The room had been converted into a large meadow, trees lining the edge not unlike the arena in Eterna. The similarities unsettled me a bit, but I refocused. We're ready. Nobodies going to die here I thought.

A voice broke through my thoughts. "So, you're the newest challenger? The Nuzlocker we've been hearing so much about from Cynthia?" the voice asked. It belonged to the first member of the Elite Four, Aaron, who stood on the other end of the battlefield. He wore orange pants, and a black vest exposing his limber arms. He was a young man, and his hair was a forest green, one large clump standing straight up in a comical fashion. He smiled confidently. "I'm warning you now, there's no going back. Hope you and your team are ready."

"Anytime. Let's get this show on the road." I called, releasing Moka. The Crobat flew around the ring a few times before hovering behind me, showing off her speed.

"Not bad, not bad. Though you're not the first person to start out with a flying-type against me, and you won't be the last. Yanmega!" he cried, releasing the ancient bug pokemon. It was large, just as big as Moka, its exoskeleton colored dark green. Large, red, compound eyes stared our from its head above gnashing mandibles. Its clear wings beat at a fast pace in order to keep it afloat. "Alright, let's hit him with Ancientpower!" Aaron ordered.

"To slow Aaron. Moka, use Air Slash!" I countered. Before the large insect could even begin to move, Moka was on him, raining down a vicious barrage of Air Slash attacks that utterly destroyed it. Yanmega was out of the fight before it even knew what hit him.

Aaron whistled. "Now that's fast." he complimented, returning his Yanmega. "But you know, I've got other ways of dealing with those pesky fliers. Drapion!" he announced, sending out his next pokemon. Drapion was enormous, even bigger than the Yanmega. The scorpion-like pokemon was colored a deep purple, its sky-blue eyes locking onto Moka and it screeched a challenge, raising its spiked arms and flexing its poisonous tail.

"Hold on, I thought you were a bug-type trainer. Drapion isn't a bug-type!" I complained.

"Scorupi is." Aaron pointed out. "Besides, I'm an Elite Four member. We don't actually have to follow those rules. Hell, Flint had only two fire-types for a long time before enough people complained. Anyway, let's get back to the battle. Ice Fang!" he called.

Drapion surged forward, jaws already forming a slight coating of ice over them. Moka waited until the last possible second before flapping her wings hard and flying high up in the air, narrowly avoiding the frozen mandibles of Drapion. She swung around and tackled him from behind, causing a significant amount of damage. Drapion ate a Sitrus Berry it had hidden on it somewhere to restore some health before waiting patiently. Moka was feeling confident in her ability to outmaneuver the larger pokemon, so she dive-bombed him again.

This time, she wasn't as fast. Her attack landed, but Drapion managed to bite her with his ice-coated jaws. She tried to fly away, to get out of his grip, but Drapion bit down harder. Ice started to form across her body, and in no time at all she was encased, frozen solid.

I ran forward, a Full Restore already in hand. Aaron did the same, and we both healed our pokemon back up to full. "I didn't expect an Ice Fang from that thing." I complimented.

"Thanks. And your Crobat is impressive too. I've never seen one that can take two Ice Fangs and not faint." Aaron replied.

"Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let's end this. Air Slash!" I called. Moka launched the attack without hesitation, bashing Drapion brutally. It was all he could do to defend himself from the onslaught. Drapion quickly decided that he had had enough, lashing out with another Ice Fang. Moka saw it coming, however, and flew out of the way, gaining some speed before she wheeled around and nailed him from behind again, this time putting him down for the count.

That spelled the beginning of the end for Aaron. His Heracross and Vespiquen both fell swiftly to Air Slash attacks from Moka, and in order to give her a rest for future battles, I switched out for Cerberus, the fire-type pokemon easily roasting Aaron's Scizor to a crisp.

Aarons smile only faded slightly. "An excellent match. You've shown me that even though at I'm the top, I still can go even farther. More training for me!" He paused, wilting slightly. "Man, that wasn't right at all. Anyway, go on through. There's a break room where you can heal up with your items before the next battle." He gestured to the door behind him.

A short while later, my team and I were hanging out in the room Aaron had mentioned, taking a short break before moving on. We had decided beforehand that it would be best to pace ourselves and rest between battles, instead of trying to do the whole thing as fast as we could. I smiled warmly at Moka, scratching behind her ears as well as patting Cerberus on the back. "Awesome job guys, we did great. Moka, go a little faster with your Fly attacks from now on, I don't want you getting overconfident again. That Ice Fang could have been much worse."

She nodded and I moved on to Rose and Redwood, who were standing near each other. "Alright you two, are you ready for the next round?" I asked.

Rose smiled confidently. "A bunch of ground-types versus the two of us? This is gonna be fun."