721. till: to prepare the soil for planting
Togekiss' mobility was greatly reduced once unable to fly, and Gyarados landed a heavy blow, whacking his tail and knocking Togekiss into the barrier of the arena. Green grimaced a little at the resounding slap, but Gold gave his pokemon a thumbs up before recalling him. Green raised an eyebrow, and called for Gyarados to return to the farther side of the arena to put a safe distance between whatever pokemon Gold released next.
Gold sent out Ampharos next. Ampharos dropped to a defensive stance immediately, before seeing Green and waving. Green waved hesitantly – had he even seen a wild ampharos before? Maybe a mareep, or flaafy… Flaafy? Like, Gramps' flaafy, the one on the ranch that he and Red… Ok, some interrogation was in Gold's future…
Gyarados seemed confused, but waited for the awkward pleasantries to be exchanged before preparing for attack. Green immediately knew this would be a touch match-up, and by gym battle customs, Green wasn't allowed to switch out Gyarados (stupid rule) unless the massive serpent fainted. Any electric attack on Gyarados was near certain KO – like tilling soil in a garden with a chainsaw (Daisy, oh silly Daisy almost murdered his precious flowers).
722. abeyance: a suspension of activity
Green's only hope of Gyarados not passing out in vain was in Gyarados' speed. Ampharos had high special attack statistics, but was really slow – Green could try landing a quick hit and hope that Gyarados could dodge whatever dreadful attack came up afterwards.
"Gyarados! Ice fang!"
Gyarados lunged forward about halfway across the arena before suddenly held in abeyance. The serpent dropped clumsily onto the ground, convulsing and twitching. Green recognized the strange movements – paralysis? When did that happen? It couldn't have been Ampharos, the sheep was still charging up its thunderbolt – holy crap-
"Move move move! Gyarados!" Green panicked, but the serpent was still shaking, unable to even roll over to the side.
723. stationary: not moving
Ampharos let out a massive blast of electricity, and Gyarados shuddered before finally becoming stationary and falling unconscious. Green rubbed his temples as he recalled Gyarados. When had Gyarados been paralyzed? Did Ampharos have some kind of secret long distance thunder wave?
Green let out Tyranitar. A good strong earthquake would knock Ampharos out. But that paralysis?
724. tepid: moderately warm; lacking force or enthusiasm
Green carefully watched Tyranitar's movements as he prepared to wreak havoc in the arena, analyzing for potential paralysis. Seeing none, he belatedly realized that it was Togekiss that had paralyzed Gyarados, and that Ampharos was not capable of performing magical paralysis.
Green glanced at the Mr. Mime monitoring the barrier, and the psychic looked mildly nervous – this would be the first major attack in a series of otherwise tepid ones, and serious damage to the building could be caused if the psychic didn't do a proper job. While the moves so far hadn't been arena destroying, this was a different matter. The psychic really did look jittery, his ears quivering.
725. rigor: strictness or severity
Ampharos, on the other hand, looked fairly confident in lasting such an attack, and instead was posing dramatically, eyes closed in a very Gold-esque style.
Tyranitar was not fast, but Ampharos was among the slowest of all pokemon, so when Tyranitar leaped a little into the air and rammed a fist imbued with an aura sphere into the ground, Ampharos had nowhere to run as the arena floor literally rippled before tearing and breaking apart. Ah, repair costs… Tyranitar never held back in battles, fighting with a rigor that was both laudable but worrisome when it came to managing repairs… At least the Mr. Mime looked fine…
726. whet: to sharpen; to make keen
Tyranitar had practiced a ton to control the size of the impact, and Green and Gold were hardly affected by the earthquake – a little weak kneed, but nothing serious. Ampharos, on the other hand, had been whacked square in the side by a treacherous chunk of concrete arena floor that had turned up and smashed him in the side. The electric type should have been close to passing out right then, but the narrow escape only seemed to whet his and Gold's excitement. He was still making the ridiculous pose, although shaking a little bit.
Tyranitar was extracting his claws from the ground, unguarded due to his confidence in his earlier attack, when Ampharos suddenly opened his eyes and roared. The yellow pokemon leapt forward with the last of its strength, and then crashed down, releasing a focus blast.
727. recrimination: to reply to one charge with a countercharge
Ampharos passed out from the effort, but Tyranitar was left with a huge amount of damage. Green deadpanned. "Gold! What is it with you and teaching your pokemon fighting type moves?"
Gold laughed and responded with his own recrimination. "How about you and earthquakes? Doesn't your machamp know how to dish out earthquakes too? Your exeggutor used to know it also!"
So Gold had studied up on Green's pokemon. So what if Green liked earthquakes? It was a reliable and pretty ground-breaking move, ha ha, perfect for flashy battles. The cameraman looked exhilarated too.
728. evasive: intending to avoid; misleading
Green chose not to respond out loud to Gold's comment and instead called for Tyranitar to back off to watch Gold's next pokemon be released.
Gold's next pokemon was Lapras, who looked quite displeased to be on such rocky terrain. Although Green's pokemon were all loyal fighters, Gold's seemed to be more of the sassy type – and Lapras seemed to fit the stereotype, as she indiscriminately drenched one of the pitfalls on her side of the arena with a massive hydropump, creating a tiny pool. At about eight feet, one wouldn't think she'd be able to release so much the water.
Although Lapras now looked quite like a sitting target, Green and Tyranitar knew better – Lapras didn't need speed – they were pokemon with incredible stamina, and with the right training, they were capable of lasting many, many attacks without complaint. Although some grew evasive when confronted about their supposedly cruel training techniques to improve their Lapras' stamina, most knew that Lapras, in pokemon battling, were meant to take big hits.
729. scope: the range or extent of something
Tyranitar didn't have the energy for a second earthquake, so Green called for a direct aura sphere. Although Tyranitar didn't naturally have fabulous special attack stats, Green had made sure to cover the whole scope in his training – Tyranitar's aura sphere wasn't going to be easily shaken off.
Lapras wasn't waiting for anybody, and responded to Tyranitar's aura sphere with another hydropump. The water was released in a far smaller jet, which led to much higher pressure and concentrated power. The stream of water overpowered the aura sphere, and Tyranitar was knocked out.
730. sacred: worthy of worship; made holy
Green wiped sweat from his forehead and recalled Tyranitar. It'd been a long time since he'd had such a difficult battle – he'd almost forgotten how taxing and nerve-wrecking it could get. He sent out Exeggutor, and the pokemon chattered excitedly. Exeggutor didn't usually get to battle (Green made him set up barriers since normally he didn't hire psychics – it wasn't like he didn't trust them, but he felt that barriers were sacred, since they represented the difference between tournaments and fair battles and skirmishes with robbers), but Exeggutor's adeptness in controlling special attacks had only increased with constant work on barriers.
Exeggutor shook his leafy head and created a pile of leaves. As Lapras opened her mouth, natural refrigerants pulsing in preparation to release an ice beam, Exeggutor hurriedly swept up his leaves with psychic energy and created a veritable whirlwind. He launched the swirling storm of leaves at Lapras, who vainly tried to freeze it all, succeeding in only stopping a few leaves.