Pre-chapter A/N; Since everyone is asking for one of these, here's a breakdown of the character names before we get into things
Broly - Kleavor
Quicksilver - Pidgeot (dead)
Kisame - Milotic
Igneel - Charizard
Kenpachi - Tyranitar
Ino - Gardevoir
Snorlax - Snorlax
Tsunade - Clefable
Gai - Hakomo-o
Magnezone - Magnezone
Hashirama - Trevenant (forgot to add him in last chapter, maybe that's a spoiler for chapters to come)
Special thanks to my pat-rons of patre-on, let's get into the chapter without further ado.
I was unsurprised by the way the Arcanine managed to land on its feet and still dodge Kenpachi's move in the next second. My psuedo-lengendary monster didn't waste any time in tearing the field apart with a second earthquake. Whatever advantage the Arcanine had was being swiftly dismantled with successive earthquakes. It proved its role as an elite pokemon by somehow manoeuvring through the tremors to hit Kenpachi with a flame charge. My ace acted like he hadn't even felt the move, and wrestled the Arcanine to the ground once more.
A point-blank shadow beam drove the Arcanine even deeper into the ground. To ensure he didn't get up, Kenpachi prepared a hyperbeam to end things but a massive flamethrower drove him off his quarry. When the flamethrower ended, I was unsurprised to see Kenpachi unharmed, but his armour had become red hot because of the attack. While he wasn't a steel type, his armour did share some of the weaknesses of steel type armour, so we had to end this fast before the heat would become too debilitating.
With things looking as they did, I pulled out a move very few people would expect. "Rip it apart" I screamed at Kenpachi and he added his voice to my roar as he rose his hand to the air and thrust it back to the ground with devastating power. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the view of the chaos I just unleashed.
Everything went still, and then a few rocks in the arena began to shake. The shakes grew more and more intense until the ground began to split apart. I watched realization appear on Blaine's face and the panic I could see in his expression almost made me laugh. The cracks in the ground began to build up slowly, and the cracks in Blaine's stoic facade built up faster.
Eventually, Blaine couldn't take it anymore and returned his pokemon to its ball while screaming at me for my recklessness. "You've doomed us both" He said while wrestling with his pokebelt. 'What a shame' I sighed while nodding at Kenpachi. The move that seemed to have been building up died out instantly and I smiled in victory. Psychological combat was really effective. I'd basically faked Blaine out by acting like Kenpachi was about to use Fissure, the most powerful ground type move out there. A move so powerful it was practically guaranteed to kill the pokemon on the receiving end. It took a while, but I managed to train Kenpachi to mimic the effects of the move's buildup with precise earth manipulation. It wouldn't have worked on a trainer as experienced as Blaine if not for the second element I'd added to the fake-out, Dark-type energy. He used his instinctive control of the dark type to create an aura of fear that reduced my opponents ability to reason. Those two things plus the element of surprise practically ensured that everyone would fall for it.
Blaine's expression when he grasped just how he'd been had was one for the history books. He shifted between anger, shame and finally amusement. His laughter rang across the arena and I joined him. His panic had truly been comedic.
"Nice one, Oak. Just the kind of thing old Samuel would have done. I won't be falling for that again though." He said as he released his next pokemon on the field. The Magmar that replaced the Arcanine was every bit as famous as its counterpart. Even if I knew that Magmar wasn't the final evolution of the species, I had a lot of respect for this one. It was built like a fucking tank and had scars running down its arms, chest and sides. These scars didn't detract from its appearance. Quite the opposite in fact. The scars made it an even more terrifying pokemon. Scars that showed this pokemon had been to war. Had fought the best and brightest and had prevailed. It had survived all challengers. All the horrors and rigours of war, with each one leaving its mark. Each scar told a tale.
My musings almost had me missing the first exchange of the battle. The Magmar took a deep breath and set the entire arena alight. THe heat from the volcano intensified to become even more uncomfortable. I'd come in beach shorts and a tank top, and I was boiling. It was so hot, I began to truly fear the chances of getting a heat stroke. I guess this is why Blaine was the second least challenged gym leader. I guess with what happened in Vermillion, he'd taken a step up that list.
I couldn't focus enough to give orders with aura so I spoke out loud. "Kenpachi, stop it. Whatever it takes." My ace took my orders to heart and charged up a hyperbeam that swept across the field, forcing the Magmar to dodge. THe heat settled a bit, and Kenpachi kept going, not allowing his opponent a second's breath. Boulders the size of me started flying around the field, trying to catch up to the Magmar.
It wasn't fast enough to even try dodging them all so it started destroying them all with fists covered in flame. They shattered on contact and I tried to come up with a strategy to take care of this problem. It was stronger than Kenpachi. When my ace made the mistake of allowing it to come in for close combat, it had sent his head ringing with a single punch. Since then, Kenpachi was careful to avoid letting the monster get that close.
Kenpachi had to use a rock throw to prevent the Magmar from charging straight at him. "Earthquake" I ordered when things started to look truly dire. Unlike the Arcanine, this one couldn't just waltz through the powerful ground type move. It had to huddle down and wait out the tremors. In that time, I had Kenpachi working on a completely different strategy.
The Magmar started its approach once the waves died down. I had Kenpachi fire off a hyper beam large as any I'd seen from him so far, and the Magmar had to use a protect to save itself from the brunt of the attack. The beam shattered the protect but couldn't make it to the pokemon itself. The Magmar continued, and Kenpachi threw everything and the kitchen sink at it to slow it down or ward it off. It all proved to be ineffective since nothing Kenpachi did stopped or even slowed down the approaching monster for very long.
When it got close enough, it started the melee with a haymaker that sailed past my ace as he leaned back. Kenpachi's tail rose up to wrap around the fire-type, but it dodged around it easily.
One haymaker smashed through my ace's instinctive protect and the next one was barely blocked by Kenpachi's crossed arms. His tail lashed out to do some damage but the fire type showed its skill by weaving through the attacks as he tried breaking through Kenpachi's defence. As powerful as I knew the pseudo-legendary to be, we couldn't keep this up for long. Every video Oak had shown me had me sure of that. The Arcanine was my opponent's ace, but it was the Magmar that Johto had come to fear. A fire type that just never stayed down. It was the ultimate shonen protagonist. Never stopping, never slowing down, never tiring. Unreal.
I racked my brain for a strategy to get out of this mess but I couldn't think of anything that would work and actually put my opponent down for the count. Nothing, until the maddest of mad ideas came to me.
I communicated with Kenpachi at the speed of thought. I couldn't say this one out loud. The risk that Blaine could figure out my plan with only a few hints was too high to take. Kenpachi swept a massive shadow beam across the field to force his opponent to retreat in order to dodge. And then, a white aura built around him with me shouting my next words to sell the ruse. "Giga Impact". The white around his body exploded in intensity as he went flying straight at his opponent. The Magmar's protect looked unassailable, but even that couldn't stand against the might of my pseudo-legendary.
Kenpachi's giga impact broke through the protect and crashed straight into the burly pokemon. They both went flying into the ground, the dust cloud around them hampered visibilty from both sides of the field.
It would have been an issue for me if I didn't have aura witchery on my side. Kenpachi was able to tell me that he was all tapped out, but his opponent still had some strength left. I scowled as I was forced to implement the second half of my plan.
I whipped out my pokeball and returned Kenpachi before replacing him with Hashirama immediately. The dust still hadn't settled down, Kenpachi had used some minor ground type manipulation to ensure that, so the black glow that surrounded Hashirama as he appeared wasn't noticed by anyone on the field. It took a few seconds for the dust to settle, and I had fun watching Blaine's confused expression as he noticed that I'd replaced my pseudo-legendary with a grass type pokemon.
"That pokemon has to have some tricks up its sleeves. Finish it quickly." Blaine instructed his Magmar and I could barely resist the urge to smile.
The Magmar bolted across the field too quickly for Hashirama to react and was about to let loose with a devastating fire punch when Blaine suddenly shouted, "Stop!". I looked on in confusion as the Magmar stopped right in front of my pokemon with an outstretched fist.
"Too easy. You're smarter than this. It's a trick. But what trick? Bide? No, not bide. It's a ghost type. Destiny bond?" Blaine rattled off assumptions and something on my face must have confirmed his deductions as he grinned in triumph.
"Destiny bond, huh? Nice one. Almost worked. Perhaps if you hadn't tricked me to forfeit my ace with an impressive fakeout, I might have underestimated you enough to fall for it. Retreat. You know what to do" His last words were to his pokemon and I watched with a small scowl as the monster avoided the trap I'd forfeited Kenpachi to set up. Fuck.
The Magmar jumped a few feet back and I could feel the temperature of the arena climb even higher. The Magmar stretched out its hands towards the lava and it started getting even brighter. I panicked as the plan was obvious to see. Hashirama sent multiple vines at the fire type, but the heat around its body was enough to dehydrate and burn the vines to cinders before they could even touch it.
There were three ways to defeat destiny bond: allow a different pokemon knockout your opponent, exhaust it till it could no longer keep up the connection or allow environmental factors to defeat your opponent on your behalf. It was clear that Blaine would be going with the third option here.
Hashirama's aura told me everything I needed to know. Blaine's plan was working. Quite effectively, at that. I'd never trained any of my pokemon in extreme weather conditions so this didn't surprise me a bit. It was one of the shortcomings that Oak had been quick to point out but uninterested in fixing. According to him, I could only ever optimise for a limited number of things. Training my pokemon to survive conditions they were very unlikely to run into would be a waste of time when they still had multiple basics to run through.
I curse the old bastard in my head as I tried to come up with a way out of this conundrum.
There seemed to be very little I could do at this point. "Solar beam" I commanded reluctantly. If I couldn't stop this madness, then I'd just ensure Hashirama went out with a bang befitting his status.
Harnessing the heat and the sunny day above him, Hashirama fired off a solar beam as wide as he was tall straight at his opponent.
That insufferable protect appeared again, looking as indestructible as ever. The solar beam washed across it, but couldn't break through. It was no giga impact.
Multiple shadow balls whipped out from my ghost's vines and went flying at the fire-type. The protect still kept it safe from my ghost's attacks. We tried everything. Wood hammer, shadow claw, shadow sneak, all of them were useless. At the end of the day, Hashirama fell to the environment's assault and I returned him with a grim smile.
I only had three pokemon left and we were still only on his second pokemon. The good news was that the other pokemon on his team would be nowhere near this level. I could only imagine how difficult Blaine's eight badge challenge would be. Four pokemon from his original team and two from his six-badge level. Unreal.
My next choice, Snorlax, appeared on the field with a relaxed atmosphere. Months on the ranch had done him much good. He'd seen the least physical growth, but his mental growth was the most noticeable. He hadn't lost his love for battling at all, but he'd stopped letting it dictate his actions so much.
He got in a fighting stance once he noticed the opponent across from him. "Let's go, Blaine" I said with a smirk. If anyone was going to take out this monster, it would be Snorlax. The magmar rushed at Snorlax with a punch that my normal type didn't even bother reacting to. He just let loose a trio of punches. The Magmar dodged them all, but ended up taking a haymaker to the face as he came in for another attack. Gai had trained Snorlax well.
The Magmar flew off in the distance, but wasn't down for more than a few seconds before it came rushing at Snorlax again. The same exchange repeated itself. This time, the Magmar lasted for almost a minute before a punch sent it spinning away.
Blaine was just content to watch the exchanges, and it took me a painfully long time to realise what was happening. The Magmar was adapting to Snorlax. The exchanges started getting longer and the fire-type started succeeding in getting more and more hits in. It would have been impressive to watch if it wasn't my pokemon that was being figured out and taken apart in real time.
"Hyper beam" I snarled. The next time the Magmar came in for an exchange, it found itself blasted away by a hyper beam that barely qualified as one. Snorlax used the reprieve to gather the required energy and use rain dance.
I saw the shock on Blaine's face as the clouds gathered and overcame the sunny day before unleashing a downpour on the field. His fire type brawler looked saddened by the sudden reversal of weather conditions. The rain wasn't enough to completely cool down the field, but it was enough to stop me feeling like I was being boiled alive.
This time, Snorlax went on the offensive. He gathered the weather beneath him in a surf and covered the distance between he and his opponent in a blink. From there, the rest was history. The fire type fell to a concentrated combination of attacks. It got a few hits in, but with Snorlax refusing to allow it to disengage, it had no chance and was knocked into Morpheus' realm after a few minutes.
I breathed a sigh of relief as Blaine returned the pokemon to its ball. If I never had to see another Magmar again, it would be too soon.
Of course, the next pokemon Blaine sent out had to be a Magmar. I sighed at the thought of the long day I had in front of me. This Magmar was nowhere near as strong as the first one and it proved that when it failed to stand up to Snorlax's first earthquake. It tripped and was tossed around by the powerful tremors before being knocked out with a single hyperbeam. I turned to Blaine with a smile and noted a look of pure interest on his face. I guess he couldn't actually appreciate how strong my pokemon were when faced with those monsters of his. It didn't matter whether they weren't yet at the true elite-level, since they were so far on the journey across that chasm that Blaine's six-badge pokemon just couldn't compare.
Snorlax highlighed the gap once more, when Blaine sent out a massive Typhlosion on the field. It's very presence took the temperature up a few notches, but all it took to bring it back down to the cool that I'd begun to appreciate was a clenching of Snorlax's fist. Kisame was better with the move, true, but that didn't mean Snorlax couldn't throw down with the best water types when it came to sheer power. His species were feared for a reason. The perfect normal types by all accounts. After all, what made the normal type so great in the first place? Their ability to essentially use all the other types. Nowhere near as good as those pokemon with actual typings, but much better than any pokemon without the type or matching egg-group had any right to.
"Firestorm" Blaine commanded and the Typlosion exploded in a ball of flame, before rolling across the field straight at Snorlax with deadly accuracy. I had no need to give any orders here since Snorlax knew exactly what to do. He centred himself and lowered his centre of gravity. The fire type rolled, creating enough heat that he was evaporating the water he rolled over and moving faster than the fastest supercars from my old world. All of it mattered little as Snorlax concentrated and fucking caught it in his bare hands.
The fire-type kept struggling against Snorlax's grip, trying to move or gain some traction, but it was all for nothing. Snorlax stayed solid, apart from skidding back by a few inches from the first impact.
Snorlax showed that prodigious strength of his when he then lifted the Typlosion off ground and tossed it straight out of the ring. Blaine was barely able to return it before it actually fell into the lava. That wouldn't have killed it, but it would have done a whole lot of damage. Most fire types couldn't just casually chill in volcanos like Moltres and the Magby-line.
Blaine sighed before sending out his next choice, a Chandelure. It took me a few seconds to get over my shock. A ghost/fire type. This one had to be a new addition to his team. Not saying I knew everything there was to know about the man, but I'd seen virtually all his battles, both those available to the general public, and the one's Oak got from his personal body-camera. The professor had this weird obssession with documenting everything so I had a boatload of information.
"Shadow barrage", my opponent said with a smile. I noticed the shadows in the arena get darker and deeper, before they consumed Snorlax entirely. I couldn't see anything on the field, and even my feeling of Snorlax's aura was muted. For the first time in a professional battle, I was truly blind to what was going on. I did my best to fight the panic that threatened to rear it's ugly head and make me start giving out random orders and just trusted my pokemon to do what he did best. Snorlax was a fighter. A terrifyingly powerful fighter by all metrics. Even Kenpachi was only stronger than him by virtue of sheer durability.
It took five minutes for the darkness to clear up, and when it did, I found Snorlax stood above the knocked out Chandelure, breathing heavily and looking incredibly banged up. The darkness had been so complete and total that there was no way for me to even tell who'd been winning the battle. Blaine returned his pokemon, and I followed suit. There was no need to continue with Snorlax and risk him getting more injured and something going wrong. Career-ending wounds were rare among pokemon, but they still happened every once in a while.
My next choice was perhaps what everyone would have expected me to lead with considering the gym I faced and the reputation of the leader. Kisame appeared on the field with a grace and calm that was quite at odds with the rest of my team. I'd always be the first to admit that my team was made up of terrifying brutes. Pure power and strength. Kisame was quite different from the rest in that regard. Even Ino couldn't quite match up with the effortless grace that the pokemon practically made to counter Gyrados brought to bear with only her appearance.
"A water type, huh. Thought you'd be a bit different from the rest. Please forgive me for this, but I must vary the custom for this match of ours. My six-badge pokemon are clearly no match for yours. A gym challenge is meant to present a challenge and if we continue like this, there'd be no challenge. Good luck, Oak" Blaine said while stroking his beard. He was using another member of that monster team of his?
A/N; Another continuation of the gym battle. Let's see how long this can keep going on for. Thanks for reading. We just started chapter 40 on the pa-atreon page (That's seven chapters ahead). Feel free to join me there if you feel like supporting my work. Same username as up here. The link's on my profile.
By the way, Merry Christmas for those who care, chag Hanukkah sameach for those who care about that, and happy weekend for those who don't care much about either.