how do you write amazing battles
read "The Game of Champions" by L. Lamora
like holy crap that is quality
681. neophyte: a beginner; an immature person who is learning
Green grew increasingly nervous as he thought about his chances against Gold. Gold, despite his idiot remarks, was no neophyte; Gold was top-level trainer material, with very strong pokemon. Their battle would be no easy one – it would be the real deal, going all out and employing all strategies.
682. avert: to turn away
He stopped his pokemon for a lunch break, and he jogged alone to the nearest convenience store to buy a water bottle and a sandwich. He ate the sandwich while walking back, and as he arrived at the main road leading up to the gym, he was a little startled to see Arabella right at the front door, preparing to walk in.
"Hey Arabella!"
The other man turned around to eye Green, before quickly lightening up in recognition. "Hey Green! How's it going?"
"Good enough, I guess. Did you hear about Gold and Janine?"
Arabella averted his eyes and rubbed his chin pensively. "Yep. He's a tough one, a whole different level from the newbies we normally got."
683. solicit: to ask for; to seek
"Mhm. Well, we are the toughest gym in Kanto, right? We have to solicit the best trainers for challengers – cause only they will actually offer a challenge." Green patted Arabella on the back before swinging the main doors wide open.
684. infamous: having a bad reputation
Green gathered his pokemon to check on their physical conditions. There were all far from being exhausted – and Green decided to challenge Arabella to a mock battle, two-on-two.
Top level trainers were known for teaching their pokemon moves outside their type in order to deal with super-effective attacks. It was extremely difficult to fully master these moves; crazy wannabes had been found to conduct infamous surgeries on their pokemon to implant electricity storing pouches. Green himself had spent a lot of time working with Machamp to master thunder-punch, and with Arcanine to perfect dragon pulse. Recently he'd been having a bit of trouble teaching Tyranitar how to use aerial ace, for type coverage against grass types, but overall Green had fairly good success with teaching difficult moves.
685. pore: to read or study carefully
Arabella had two normal types – Stantler and Tauros. He'd taught them high damage, high risk moves, which proved effective in taking out most pokemon. However, they wouldn't fare so well against a fighting-type, and Green was eager to see if Arabella had tried teaching them anything new in the past few days. He'd seen Arabella pore over a couple of his old TM's, and Green expected something big.
686. charade: an obvious pretense or deception
They moved to the gray battle platform (the high tech stuff, designed to absorb earthquake shocks), and on the count of three, released their pokemon. Since it wasn't an official battle, Green hadn't set up psychic barriers, but had put aside Exeggutor to watch for flying pieces of debris.
Green wasn't trying to be mean when he sent out Machamp. Arabella had to learn how to deal with super-effective moves if he didn't have any other strong pokemon besides Stantler and Tauros.
Arabella chose to send Stantler out first. They circled each other, Stantler's head down and antlers brandished, Machamp hopping from foot to foot. Machamp broke the standstill, dashing forward and dodging the antlers to quickly land a punch. Stantler moved in the direction of the punch, skipping awkwardly away to the corner of the ring, trying to minimize impact. However, the deer had already lost a fair amount of damage in the hit.
What happened next was probably one of the weirdest things Green had seen in his battling career. Stantler, not a very cute pokemon, began making swaying his hips and making doe eyes, in attempt to attract Machamp (seriously not cute, but it seemed to work on some pokemon). Now, both pokemon were male, so normally attraction, especially interspecies attraction would be impossible, but Machamp completely fell for the charade. Machamp's tensed up muscled relaxed, and the pokemon completely let down his guard.
687. ultimatum: a final demand or statement of terms
Green face palmed, wondering how Machamp could be attracted to a deer. He shouted at Machamp to back up and get a hold of himself, but the infatuated pokemon just stood and gazed at Stantler. Stantler stopped flirting and immediately began gathering silvery blue energy. Green didn't recognize the move at first, but as Stantler began charging, he realized Arabella's ultimatum: it was a zen headbutt.
Green shouted and called for Machamp to snap out of it, but the normally stoic pokemon was deaf in the name of gay interspecies love. The headbutt hit him square in the chest – the blunt antlers didn't impale (there were rules that pokemon couldn't aim for vitals with potentially lethal weapons), but probably would leave a couple nasty bruises. The blue energy coating the antlers dissipated into Machamp's skin, adding an extra push.
688. tantamount: equivalent in effect or value
A headbutt like that would be tantamount to bullet punches – adding in the psychic energy, it would have been a powerful blow. Machamp keeled over, knocked out. Green whistled and clapped, and traded Machamp for Arcanine.
Stantler staggered to the side, and collapsed from recoil. Arabella scratched his head, and recalled the deer, sending out Tauros.
689. rankle: to cause persistent irritation; to feel or express irritation or resentment
Tauros was pretty fast and had high attack – while Tauros was prepping for a charge, presumably a giga impact, Green had Arcanine bolt around the arena, building up speed. He then commanded Arcanine to rankle Tauros with bites and scratches, to break Tauros' focus. Tauros turned angrily, and settled for trying a normal headbutt. The bull charged straight into Arcanine's dragon pulse, and subsequently collapsed. Arcanine drew up to his regal height and proudly walked back to Green.
690. propitious: presenting favorable circumstances
Green and Arabella recalled their pokemon, and walked to the center of the arena for the customary handshake.
"Great job with Stantler! Well, I was surprised that Machamp was actually infatuated, but zen headbutt is a great choice."
"Uh, thanks. I actually didn't think it'd work out, and the timing really was propitious and a huge stroke of luck, but I guess it was ok. Stantler hasn't mastered it yet – he's still taking a huge amount of recoil, and we haven't figured out how to fix that."
"Yeah, but if you can figure that out you'll have a huge surprise factor." Green turned to Exeggutor to take down the psychic barrier so they could leave. "Well, you should go to the Pokecenter, I'm going to finish up training with the rest of my team; you can stay if you want but I don't recommend you send your pokemon into another battle just yet."
"Alright. I'll go practice in the forest?"
"Right. See you."