Willa thought she had everything wrapped up when she used that rage powder attack to drive Marion up the wall. But Marion struck back with some power of her own! It turns out that even in a blind rage, Marion is still Marion, and she's still going to want to fish more than anything! With her overpowering compulsion to fish driving the rage powder out of her system, Marion scored a brilliant counterattack and regained the momentum- will it be enough to win?
KedharS: Marion Rivers doesn't fish for Marion Rivers. Marion Rivers fishes because Marion Rivers IS Marion Rivers.
What is that: Yes absolutely.
Abandoned 001: Nice to see you again.
Hyphenman: Yep. That's what Marion is at her core, a girl who loves the sea and fishing! No rage powder can ever take that away from her.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 1205
"Yes! Marion's pulled ahead!" Ian cheered, pumping his fist into the air.
"That's great!" Donoma grinned. "She took out one of that girl's last two pokemon!"
"But it's not over yet," Ange said, her icy words a bucket of cold water over the positive ambiance of the audience. "Willa Pemberton still has one pokemon left… and that Slowbro is a monster."
"You defeated Bradham," Willa snarled, recalling her Parasect. "It offends me… that you think he's relevant to this! Pelletier can defeat you all on his own!"
"Is that what you think?" Marion asked, narrowing her eyes. She was smiling, but it felt a lot more intense than usual. Ever since she'd broken free of the rage powder, she'd been taking everything about this battle more seriously.
"It is!" Willa snarled. "Pelletier! Use surf!"
"Slowbro!" Pelletier roared, raising his hands. He began to spin, summoning a massive tidal wave up out of the river. Riding atop the wave, it came crashing towards the two pokemon.
"Now that her second pokemon's gone, she's going all out!" Giselle winced.
"That's a bold strategy… and she maxed out her Slowbro's special attack as well," Alden said, narrowing his eyes.
The original plan was for Pelletier to use stored power with his nasty plot boosts to wipe out any pokemon Marion had to use. But that plan was forced to change when Marion sent out a Poison/Dark type pokemon.
Now a different strategy was in the works. Take out the Overqwil first with Pelletier's massive special attack buff, then change goals and focus on whatever other pokemon she had left. With how powerful Pelletier was now, this was a surefire way to win!
…Or at least, it would have been, if not for one very important detail.
Willa was using Water type moves. Against Marion Rivers.
Marion wasn't about to let her pokemon get conquered by water. She conquered the water every day! That's how she knew what the vulnerabilities to moves like surf were.
If we can shut it down before it comes crashing down, then we've one! Marion recognized. There were several ways she could stop the tidal wave. The most direct one, of course, was…
"Bass!" She shouted to her Basculegion, firing up her harmonia. Bass's power surged and he swam towards Pelletier, moving so fast it was like he wasn't even paralyzed. It helped that Pelletier was so naturally slow, particularly with that cumbersome shell, not to mention the fact that Marion was supplementing Bass's speed with her harmonia.
"Basculegion!" Ghostly energy surged around Bass as he prepared his last respects move. But the only problem was, hitting the Slowbro required going through the tidal wave. But he was fine with that. Swimming up against powerful currents were what Basulegion were made to do.
He was accompanied by the souls of his fellow fish pokemon, and used them for power, pushing through the waves and slamming into Pelletier, knocking the spinning pokemon back.
"Slowbro!" Pelletier wailed as Willa stumbled, landing on her ass. She clutched her skull as her head started throbbing, blood spurting out of her nose.
"You think that's good enough?" Willa growled, digging into the pocket of her lab coat and taking out a bottle of pills. She grabbed a handful and swallowed them in a single gulp. For a second, Marion had flashbacks to something from her past- but it couldn't be… could it?
The effects on Willa were minimized. Her breathing returned to normal and she blotted away the blood with a handkerchief. Her eyes still flashed, but her attention was focused on her opponent. She looked tranquil, even as she was searing.
"Pelletier, are you alright?" She asked her Slowbro.
"Slow!" Pelletier nodded, bouncing back up onto his tail. It was astonishing that he could right himself in that situation, given the lack of feet.
Willa cracked a smile. "Excellent. Then aim an ice beam at that Overqwil, now!"
"Slowbro!" Pelletier opened his mouth and fired a massive blast of ice at the pufferfish pokemon, who was in a rather difficult position- Harry was isolated, outside of his preferred environment, the water. And try as he might to hop back to it, there was no chance he was going to get to safety.
"Basculegion!" And that's when Bass came to the rescue. Not willing to lose his momentum from his previous attack, he covered his body with water, swimming at top speed with the power of his aqua jet. He threw himself in front of the Overqwil and took the ice beam head on.
"No, Bass!" Marion shouted, feeling her extremities start to freeze. She knew why he'd done it, of course. They needed Harry and his haze if they wanted to defeat the Slowbro. But that didn't mean she had to be happy about her pokemon's fate.
Bass was covered in water; with an ice beam of that power level, it was no surprise that he was frozen solid in seconds.
"Wait, but… her Basculegion was paralyzed, wasn't he?" Giselle asked, confused. "Shouldn't… I dunno, I thought that if a pokemon was paralyzed they couldn't be frozen?"
"That's the case under normal circumstances," Alden said, nodding, even though he had no idea why a pokemon being paralyzed meant they couldn't become a pokesicle. But that was just the way it worked. "This is a little different than that. The power of the ice beam was so high, Bass was knocked out in one hit. What you're seeing is a pokemon frozen in unconsciousness."
Giselle winced. That didn't sound good.
"Now that the pesky one is done, let's move onto-" Willa turned towards Harry, but she gasped at what she saw. The Overqwil had inflated his body so much he was practically the size of a bouncy castle. At least to her eyes, anyway.
…We're too late. Damn. Willa winced. This was going to be a problem.
"Overqwil!" Harry rumbled, releasing a cloud of black smoke over the battlefield. The effects of the haze as it billowed across the river were instantaneous. All those boosts to Pelletier's special attack were rendered moot. He had returned to just being an ordinary (modified) Slowbro.
"Blow this smoke away!" Willa snarled.
"Slowbro!" Pelletier began to spin on his tail, acting like a fan to displace the haze. When the smoke cleared, a few things had changed. Harry had managed to make it back to the river, Bass' body had been recalled to his pokeball…
And a giant fish pokemon was coming right towards them.
"Another one?!" Willa gasped. How many pokemon did Marion have?! She could only take care of four herself with her hectic schedule!
"Waaaaassshiiii!" The giant fish roared, slamming into Pelletier and sending him wobbling backwards like a top knocked off its axis. Pelletier tried to right himself, but before he could, a blast of poison hit him in the face, courtesy of Harry.
"Meet Solo, my Wishiwashi," Marion introduced her newest arrival to Willa with a smile. "They're kind of a big deal, you see."
"I've never seen a pokemon like that before!" Chloe said, her jaw dropping behind her mask. Her eye bulged wide.
"Neither have I," Donoma said, shaking her head. "I suppose there are a lot of menacing and rare pokemon living in our ocean's seas."
"Ah, no, not quite," Marion said with a shake of her head, waggling her finger back and forth. "Solo's not like other fishy friends! Because this pokemon of mine isn't just ONE pokemon! It's a whole bunch of 'em, all working together!"
"What?! No way!" Alden's eyes widened. Upon closer inspection, Marion was right. They could all see it now. The giant blue fish wasn't actually a pokemon. Rather, that massive body was formed from dozens of much smaller fish all packed tightly together in the shape of a submarine.
"Wishiwashi are one of the species of pokemon that get along best with each other," Marion said proudly. "Even among the more pack-oriented pokemon it's very rare you'll find a pokemon so close with its compatriots that it would even do battle alongside of them at all times."
"Oh, like Falinks!" Giselle said, remembering one of her friend Ayame's favorite pokemon. "They all work together in a group of six!"
"It's exactly like that," Marion said, nodding. "If by 'group of six' you mean 'group of a couple hundred' and if by 'Falinks' you mean 'Wishiwashi'."
Giselle wasn't amused.
Marion cleared her throat and continued. "Solo is the head of this school," she explained. "He's right there in the center with all his friends around him to shield him. That's how Wishiwashi hunt, you see! Just like how Tatsugiri rely on the strength of Dondozo to protect them and lure in prey, Wishiwashi are forced to rely on each other to scare off predators due to how weak they are! Heck, even Tatsugiri can at least fight for themselves in theory, but a solo Wishiwashi? That's a pokemon with a base stat total of 175!"
"Yikes, that's… low," Alden winced.
"That's Magikarp levels of low," Chloe said, shaking her head incredulously.
Marion snorted. "Oh, please, you flatterer! Magikarp have a base stat total of 200, you know!"
This pokemon was weaker than Magikarp on its own. That was something that took a while to sink in for everyone.
"So… Sunkern levels?" Giselle tried cautiously.
Marion shook her head. "Lower."
It was beyond belief.
"So you're saying…?" Raizer didn't have a prayer of doing that much math, he was going to rely on Marion's explanation.
"If you're going by purely base stat totals, Wishiwashi is the weakest pokemon that could be!" Marion chirped. She skipped over to Solo and hugged the amalgam of fish, rubbing her cheek against them lovingly. "Cute little guys, they're always trying their best!"
And this was the pokemon Marion was using for her latest trump card? Morale took a sharp decline from that.
Regaining her sense of decorum for a second (a miracle in and of itself) Marion took a step back and cleared her throat.
"Oh! But that's just when one Wishiwashi is working alone," she clarified. A wicked gleam appeared in her eye as she tilted the brim of her hat down to cast a shadow over her tanned face. "Working in a school like this? Their base stat total… is 620."
Raizer stumbled back, shocked. His face went pale. It was odd, seeing him so caught off-guard.
"Are you serious?!" He sputtered. "But that's higher than Zera's!" Suddenly he felt an overwhelming urge to battle Marion. But he had to tap that down. Zera was still resting, and this battle was way too important to interrupt.
"Don't underestimate my fishy friends," Marion said, smirking at Willa. "They're tougher than you give them credit for."
Willa scowled, biting her lip. "How many pokemon do you even have?" She growled. "That's like your seventh one."
She felt very cheated. In most pokemon battles, it was common courtesy to fight with the same number of pokemon as your opponent. To make it a fair match. But not only had Marion breezed right past that, she had used more pokemon in this fight than a trainer was actually allowed to carry! Even if Willa was charitable and considered all of Marion's Tatsugiri as one pokemon, this was over the line! Five against four?!
"She's… not wrong," Alden admitted. "In a traditional pokemon battle, Marion's breaking a few major regulations."
"…I don't care for that sort of thing, though!" Marion said, her good cheer not disturbed in the slightest by Willa's accusations of foul play. "After all, I'm not a pokemon battler! I'm just a gal who loves the sea and dreams of romance! And when it comes down to it? Things like rules and restrictions… who needs 'em?"
She narrowed her eyes and tilted up the brim of her had. "You picked a fight with the sea, little missy, so don't act so surprised when the waves come crashing over your bow."
No one was going to call Marion on her decision. After all, this wasn't some namby-pamby tournament at school. This was a fight for survival, and as far as the other students were concerned, Marion could use as many pokemon as she damn well pleased.
"Fine then!" Willa snarled. "Send out as many pokemon as you want!"
"Aren't you paying attention?" Marion chortled. "I already sent out a couple hundred! Maybe you forgot! But we'll be happy to remind you! Solo, use beat up!"
"She's using beat up?" Chloe asked, surprised.
"Why? Is that a good move?" Giselle asked.
Chloe nodded. "My Sneasel knows it. It's a move that uses the power of your ally pokemon to launch a series of attacks. But with Marion…"
Marion had a whole bag of Dive Balls. How many pokemon did she actually have with her? Chloe swallowed with excitement. This could be the strongest beat up attack she'd ever get to see! Her inner analyst was watching in rapt excitement.
"Beat up works a little differently when Solo uses it," Marion said, as if she was anticipating Chloe's question. "Instead of getting one attack for every pokemon in my party… it's one attack for everyone Wishiwashi in the school!"
Willa went a little green around the gills hearing that.
"…And in case your little researcher brain is curious how many attacks we're talking about here," Marion continued, her eyes flashing with harmonia, "on last count the number of Wishiwashi in Solo's school numbered 251."
It took a second for that to sink in.
"WISHIIIIII!" Solo roared, swimming through the sky. They weren't being carried by spectral energy like Basculegion. They were floating through their own jumping power, combined together in a single mass. And then that mass broke up.
It was like a very bizarre tidal wave. The school of Wishiwashi formed a wall that dropped down upon Pelletier, covering the pokemon like a blanket. A blanket of blows. They slammed into the Slowbro like a thousand baseballs, barraging him from all sides. When the attack finally ceased, the school of fish retracted, reforming their initial imposing façade.
Pelletier's shell was resting on the ground. The Slowbro had withdrawn inside of it and hardened the surface with an iron defense. But even then, the effect of the attack had made noticeable dents across it.
Marion's eyes snapped to Willa to see if she was okay. What she saw made her eyes bug out in shock. Willa seemed perfectly fine! It was like she was unfazed by the attack entirely!
"That… that should have caused some serious damage, right?" Chloe asked. She knew it was bad to wish pain on another person, but she was desperate! That's how harmonia worked, after all, it made the trainer experience the same pain as the pokemon!
Donoma was less considerate.
"How the fuck is that bitch still standing?!" She exclaimed. Then she realized she'd dropped her disguise and her hand quickly shot up to cover her mouth. But Ian was far too distracted by the battle to notice her slip of the tongue.
"Hah…" Willa panted, wiping the sweat off her forehead. She dug into her lab coat again and fished out her bottle of pills. "That… you bitch… ahrgh…"
"You… those are…" Marion saw her swallow another mouthful, and her condition improved once again. There was no mistaking it this time.
She'd seen that drug before.
"Those pills!" She shouted. "Where did you get those?! How do you have them?!" That wasn't something an ordinary person could get their hands on!
Willa glared at Marion like her question was an insult. "Where do you think I got them, you fishing fool?" She growled. "I'm a pharmacist. I made these."
Marion's jaw dropped.
She wasn't the only one who was confused. No one else really understood the context of what they were seeing, or recognized the pills Willa was munching down like candy.
But none of them had been to Anja Karzat.
"You… made those?" She shook her head. "That's… why? How? I don't understand!"
"These suppression pills were special-ordered," Willa said, holding up the bottle for Marion to see. "An acquaintance asked me to make them. Even gave me the recipe. Said they were used to suppress the side-effects of harmonia."
She took out another pill and swallowed it for good measure before returning the bottle to her lab coat.
"I never thought I'd have to rely on it myself though," she groused, shaking her head. "But it seems I do good work."
Marion scowled. With those pills, if they were what Willa said they were, things were about to get a lot more complicated. Those drugs did more than just suppress harmonia's nasty side effects, they helped the user build up stamina and control when using their powers as well.
She'd spent years in Anja Karzat honing her natural abilities, using those pills when the side effects grew too severe. They weren't something to be tossed about all willy-nilly! How many of them had Willa even swallowed?! It seemed that the girl's boldness with testing her drugs applied even to herself, which was a scary thought indeed.
"This battle isn't over yet," Willa growled. Her Slowbro had taken some damage from that tidal wave of beat up attacks, but he wasn't done. Not by a long shot. Marion could see how much power Willa had amassed.
"You're right, it isn't," she agreed. She turned to her fishy friends, and focused her harmonia to give them a boost.
She winced at the headache that no-doubt Willa wasn't bothered by in the slightest. Harmonia had always given Marion an edge in the few times she'd actually deigned to enter pokemon battles. Now she was fighting against someone who could do that, too.
And with Samarra's assistance, hell, Willa might even be better at it. That was a thought that sobered up Marion to the point where she couldn't risk thinking about fishing in her present situation.
Yikes! Marion's been on a roll, and has a bunch of fishy friends she can rely on to boot! But will that be enough to win? She's still facing Willa, who has an incredibly powerful Slowbro, and even if it is a two-on-one match, Willa's use of medication is really giving her the edge! Marion's slogged her way through the girl's drugged-up pokemon, but now Willa's taking drugs herself now to improve her abilities! Will Marion's good old, wholesome love of fishing be enough to overpower her?