731. surreptitious: done secretly, often of something unseemly or unethical
Gold commanded Lapras to splash water to soak the storm of dry leaves, and the pokemon complied – with all the additional weight of water droplets, it became difficult for Exeggutor to manage, and the storm subsequently subsided. Lapras had various shallow cuts on her skin, and it really looked quite serious with the blood, but it really was probably nothing that wouldn't heal with a couple potions and days of rest.
Green really had become paranoid with pokemon injuries – and it wasn't a baseless fear, because it truly was difficult to identify which injuries were permanent. Although uncommon, it did happen, and Green never wanted to have a pokemon suffer permanent trauma after what Raticate'd gone through. Green glanced at the cameraman, who was currently surreptitiously sticking his camera in the barrier and shooting a close up of Lapras, and then mouthed "sorry." Gold blinked before smiling.
Lapras still seemed fine, and after wiping herself off, most of the shallow cuts stopped bleeding. Green let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and ordered Exeggutor to try to attack with psychic energy instead. If he tried another leaf storm, there'd be far less leaves and it'd be far less effective.
732. redeem: to turn in and receive something in exchange; to make up for
Exeggutor nodded with his three heads, and prepared to launch a psychic attack. Lapras shot an ice beam, and even though Lapras certainly wasn't fast, Exeggutor was a tree, and had even worse mobility. The ice beam hit Exeggutor right in one of his faces, and he shuddered from the cold, before trying to reorient himself and clumsily launching a blast of psychic energy.
The attack missed Lapras by a long shot, and Exeggutor immediately tried to redeem himself by launching another attack. Lapras wasn't about to wait for anybody, and she launched yet another ice beam. Exeggutor ducked, had his leafy "hair" frozen, and then launched another psychic attack.
733. immutable: unchangeable
Lapras strength seemed to be immutable, taking blow after blow without weakening. She shook off the last psychic attack and roared in frustration, tired of ice beams, and released a small scale blizzard.
Exeggutor passed out, his bark-like skin crusted with icy flakes. Green recalled Exeggutor, thinking who'd be the best choice to fight Latias – definitely not Arcanine, not Pidgeot… Machamp?
734. slovenly: careless about one's own appearance
Machamp appeared and gleefully sized up the situation. He was all for throwing chunks of concrete and Tyranitar had done a good job smashing up the arena; although Exeggutor didn't really specialize in physical strength, that was Machamp's specialty.
Machamp eagerly looked to Green for instructions to tear up the floor, but Green had other plans. He and Machamp had developed almost a kind of code, from all their training together for the thunder punch. Green punched the air, and shook his fist. A kind of bad pantomime, but easy to understand.
The boxer looked to the ceiling – the faint pink barrier aura rose in tall walls around the arena, but did not obstruct the pale blue lights of tiny lamps hanging from the ceiling. Machamp bounced on his calves, planning just how exactly he'd route the electricity to Lapras. Even if his form was perfect (not that he ever was slovenly), it was still impossible to jump twenty-five feet into the air without help.
735. spate: a large number or amount of something, especially in a brief time
Machamp glanced at Green, who gestured to the corners of the arena. The boxer deadpanned, but dodged as an ice beam shot his way, and sprinted to a corner. He shimmied up, bouncing from foot to foot on the translucent barrier (almost like climbing on air) and upon reaching the top, he leapt for the lamps without hesitation.
He swung on one of the tiny hanging lamps, and the wire frame supporting the lights groaned with Machamp's weight. Eventually, the wires ripped (Green grimaced as he made a quick sum of cost of repairs for the spate of damages; Lance was going to roast him by dragonite fire) and Machamp pushed off the wire frame and came hurtling down towards Lapras, pulling the wires with him.
736. transgression: a violation of law; the exceeding of proper boundaries
The wires could be heard shifting and rattling in the ceiling as Machamp pulled them out, and they eventually frayed as Machamp stretched them out to the max and Machamp connected the sparks with Lapras' body. There was a flash, and then silence. Machamp let go of the wires, which hung despondently. The cameraman's jaw was on the floor.
Gold looked about to shout that such an attack was a transgression, but Green smirked. He'd carefully studied rules before trying it out – there was nothing that explicitly said you couldn't use the surroundings to your advantage. Lapras had passed out, but Machamp had also taken a fair amount of damage from making such a huge leap. Machamp pulled himself out of Lapras' little pond, and hopped back to Green's side of the arena.
737. desecrate: to violate the religious quality of something
Seeing Green's confidence in the validity of the attack, Gold threw up his hands – who said Gold was unconventional? And Green was close to desecrating his nearly complete "one hundred battles, one hundred victories" streak. Gold hadn't been pushed this far since that last challenge with Silver, almost a year ago. Togetaro, Ampharo, and now Laparo were out – so that left Explotaro, Ambo, and Kazataro…
Gold released his Alakazam. Kazataro was the old man of the team, not only the smartest, but also the crankiest when pissed.
738. etiquette: the forms of behavior of polite society
Alakazam landed gracefully when released from his pokeball – he sized up the extent of destruction, and growled. He bowed to the Mr. Mime (a psychics' tradition of etiquette) and then raised his spoons for attack.
Green's brain side-tracked, and brought up thoughts of Mewtwo's spoon – Mewtwo's spoon could probably hold a hundred of Alakazam's puny ones. What was it with psychics and spoons? Why not forks, or more lethal, knives?
But anyway, Machamp was in a bind – he stood next to no chance against the much faster psychic type, and with type disadvantage, there was little he could do. Green cursed – if only regulations allowed him to recall pokemon! He would have switched out and saved Tyranitar, argh…
739. red tape: procedure or forms necessary for a task, especially excessively complicated steps as part of a bureaucratic process
Green'd already had enough to do with the red tape set by the Indigo League – filling out paperwork for the right to have special requirements for his challengers was already a pain, and writing up forms to change regulations would probably bring a ton of complaints… Well, it was overkill for weak trainers, but for trainers like Gold…
740. conscript: to draft compulsorily, especially into military service
Machamp could see the huge disadvantage, but he wasn't about to go down without a fight – he'd been conscripted to pokemon battling, but had come to love the challenge. Green racked his brain for ideas, but nothing critical came. He motioned for Machamp to just blast Alakazam's defensive barrier with rocks and concrete chunks to make things easier for Arcanine.
Alakazam snorted as Machamp heaved up a huge chunk of floor and tossed it at Alakazam. The psychic teleported to the side with ease, and sent a spiral of condensed psychic energy spinning into Machamp's stomach. The boxer swayed on his feet before toppling, unconscious. Green's palms began sweating. He and Gold each had two pokemon left, but Gold's Alakazam was still at full health. And there was that monstrous Typhlosion still…