THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWS/FAVORITES/FOLLOWS those make my day 3
So sports kick in and its like wow I am so doomed this isn't even funny
What is life
IM SO SORRY ITS BEEN LIKE A WEEK SINCE MY LAST UPDATE AAAAAH
IM SO SORRY
921. averse: opposed; reluctant; repelled
The air suddenly became deafeningly silent with the heavy tension. The message was clear – Red had accepted the challenge. Gold stood up slowly, and the others all followed Red out the cave. They marched on in apprehensive silence, following a well-trodden path that was fairly clear of snow and shrubbery.
After maybe ten minutes of walking, they arrived at a circular clearing dotted with several tree stumps. On one side, there was a tremendously steep cliff face that formed almost a third of the area's perimeter – the rest of the ring was bordered by tall trees.
Red and Gold walked to opposite sides of the clearing – Green stayed on Red's side, and Leaf and Silver stayed on the borderlines. Green released Exeggutor and Leaf sent out a xatu, and they quickly set about constructing a barrier. As the translucent pink dome enclosed the area, Red and Gold got into throwing position.
Red was definitely feeling under the weather, shivering a lot more obviously than usual. Red was usually stolidly averse to showing any signs of shivering, and it was a little nerve wrecking to see him so shaky. Green glanced nervously at Red every time Red coughed or even hiccupped.
922. hodgepodge: mixture; combination
Red held up his left hand, counting down slowly with his fingers. Green hurriedly walked to the very edge of the barrier, and sat tensely on a large stump with Umbreon on his lap. He sat down just in time to see Red count down the last two seconds.
Two. Red shifted his weight to his right leg, leaning back.
One.
Red chucked his pokeball as high as he could, and at the peak of its trajectory, the delayed release trigger clicked, and then the familiar red release light flashed. Aerodactyl.
Gold furrowed his eyebrows and released Togekiss low to the ground, thinking to set some initial distance between the pokemon and to give Togekiss a chance to adapt to the new surroundings. He realized too late his mistake; in a hodgepodge of nervous energy and lack of good planning, he'd given his pokemon a disadvantage from the very start.
923. anterior: placed before or in front; earlier
Aerodactyl immediately caught sight of Togekiss cruising low to the ground, and Red pointed down. Gold cursed under his breath.
Aerodactyl were known for their speed – Green had raced Pidgeot and Aerodactyl, and Aerodactyl had actually outpaced the bird. Togekiss were not bred for speedy flight – they were not exactly the most aerodynamic flying pokemon, with their plump bodies and wings.
"To'taro, move! Holy shit move, MOVE!"
The fossil pokemon (still a scientific wonder – revival simply through surviving DNA of an anterior epoch!) came crashing down out of the sky, and although the slower, white avian pokemon tried to swerve to the side, Aerodactyl also changed his drop path and headbutted Togekiss so hard that the two pokemon crashed into the snow. Aerodactyl's rock-solid snout made the attack very close to the typical moves used with sharpened stones' edges. Togekiss was half buried, having taken serious damage. Aerodactyl quickly got back up in the air and circled to the top of the barrier-dome.
924. sedentary: sitting down most of the time
Green winced as he saw Togekiss crash into the snow. Even if Aerodactyl wasn't a particularly heavy pokemon, that attack had definitely inflicted some serious damage. He watched for movement, and saw none, but Gold refused to recall his pokemon just yet. Gold simply stared, his eyebrows set and his lips pressed in a determined smile.
True enough, the lump of white feathers stirred, and Togekiss hopped out of the pit in the snow. And if Green thought he had seen the pokemon pissed, he had just seen the tip of the iceberg.
Togekiss was enraged. The pokemon defied all typical behavioral observations of the togepi family – Green had never seen a jubilee pokemon that pissed. The togepi family tended to be happy, sedentary pokemon that were rarely seen; some cultures claimed that their presence ensured good fortune and happiness. Gold's Togekiss was no such creature of joy – Togekiss growled loudly before trying to stretch out his wings and get back into flight.
925. mammoth: very large; of clumsy or unwieldy size
However, the damage had been too great – the extent was unknown, but judging by the awkward wing angle, Green could say that the left humerus had probably popped out of its place in the fragile scapula: the avian dislocated shoulder. Flight would be impossible.
After feebly flapping his wing a couple more times, Togekiss resigned to crouching down and arching his head up to watch Aerodactyl. He glanced at Gold, who was enthusiastically giving him a thumbs up and a signal for the next move. Rolling his eyes, Togekiss began to focus energy and wait for the right moment.
Aerodactyl and Red had been watching warily to check if Togekiss was still fit for battle, and seeing that both the pokemon and his trainer were still eager to fight, Aerodactyl wasted no time preparing for another headbutt. Aerodactyl had honed his nose diving skills and he'd knocked mammoths of predatory birds out of the sky – he was surprised Togekiss was still conscious.
926. evanescent: fading from sight; transient
Green was startled out of the battle mode when he heard faint choking sounds from Red, who was doubled over and coughing into his hand. He leapt up from the stump and pounded on the barrier to catch Red's attention, and Exeggutor looked over, wondering whether to open the barrier or not.
Red calmed his breathing and looked around at Green. He gave a thumbs-up, and Green stepped warily away from the evanescent barrier and sat down.
927. postulate: to assume as true, especially as a precondition in a chain of reasoning
Aerodactyl was circling nervously in the air, waiting for a signal. Togekiss was still squatted on the snow, an easy target. Red stifled a cough and made a small chop in the air, and Aerodactyl dived down for a simple wing attack to knock out Togekiss – anything more powerful would be a cruel overkill.
Red seemed fairly confident, but Green was not so sure about an easy knock-out; he'd seen a ton of last second powerful attacks from Gold's pokemon. Green watched nervously as the fossil pokemon swooped downwards – he postulated that Togekiss was far fitter than he appeared, and that the white avian pokemon was still capable of dealing a huge blow.
Aerodactyl was just a few feet above the ground, poised to land the last blow, when Togekiss suddenly reared up and launched a focus blast at Aerodactyl. The blast hit Aerodactyl squarely on the stomach, and the fossil pokemon was knocked way off to the side. Togekiss subsequently passed out from the exertion, and Gold recalled the fainted pokemon.
928. pariah: a social outcast
Aerodactyl shook the snow off his wings, and shakily ran to take off and spiral up to the skies yet again. Although the blast had done a fair amount of damage, Aerodactyl was still quite a ways from fainting.
Next out from Gold's side was Ambipom, who appeared gleefully intrigued by the snow. The monkey bounced back and forth lightly, waving its curiously hand-like tails back and forth. DNA sequencing had led to radical hypotheses about mutated Mankeys becoming local pariahs, which had then migrated away to breed and create a whole new pokemon species.
Ambipom looked hardly daunted by the easily one hundred foot distance separating him from Aerodactyl – instead of fretting about ways to get to the opponent, the monkey decided to sculpt a snowman and wait for the other to make the first move.
929. shoddy: inferior or cheap
Green knew that Gold's training techniques were far from shoddy, but he couldn't help but snort as Ambipom got to work adding eyes to his snowman's face. The monkey was seriously just walking over to the cliff face to pick up pebbles, and completely ignoring the battle. Red was deadpanning, and Aerodactyl was slowly gliding in circles.
930. pernicious: very harmful or destructive
At last, Red broke the standstill by having Aerodactyl pound away at the cliff face, causing fairly large rocks to fall down around Ambipom. After knocking out several chunks, Aerodactyl took the opportunity to get some rest in the crevice he'd created.
Rock slides were fairly pernicious moves that could seriously injure some pokemon, but Ambipom easily dodged the falling boulders and instead took the opportunity to clamber up the steep cliff face.
The agile pokemon scaled the one hundred feet in no more than fifteen seconds; Aerodactyl squawked in surprise and struggled to get back in flight, but Ambipom punched the fossil pokemon's head, and the ancient pokemon fell headfirst from several hundred feet above the ground. The monkey had hit just the right place to knock Aerodactyl unconscious, and Red recalled the falling dinosaur in a flash of red light.
Green let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Somebody had actually knocked out one of Red's pokemon. But now, the monkey was essentially trapped on the side of a cliff – climbing down was a whole different game from climbing up.
Who would Red choose next?