Keya's been off to a great start, relying on his harmonia to boost up the wild pokemon and go toe to toe with Cynthia and her party! And he's certainly demonstrated his own skills as a trainer, by helping his wild pokemon overcome their natural instincts. From that, we can see where his ability shines. Will Cynthia be able to beat him with her own team? Or will she lose to wild pokemon? She's got Tristan, at least, so she's definitely showing her growth!
Arbiter8991: Yep, and don't forget that Cynthia really shines the best when she's battling people, so she can show Keya just who he's dealing with.
KedharS: Yep, his powers are very interesting and he's making use of them well. After being useless for all of Orre he finally gets his chance to shine!
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 1256
"Alright, Fearow!" Keya shouted, his eyes flashing. "Go! Use double team!"
"Fearow!" The Fearow squawked. He zigzagged side to side as he flew towards Tristan, and soon the sky was filled with dozens of flapping feathered wings.
Cynthia cracked a grin. "Well, no one said it would be easy!" She said, scanning the sky for any signs of which one was the real one.
"Breloom!" Tristan puffed up his cheeks and launched a massive barrage of seeds into the air. They exploded into fireworks as the seed bomb attack struck, but none of the blasts hit the real Fearow, who had once again circled around him and gone in for a drill peck.
"Tristan, hit the dirt!" Cynthia shouted. She didn't give the order for mach punch this time. Instead, Tristan slammed himself down into the ground as the Fearow struck, springing up into the air like a Dodrio again and drilling down on him. This gave him plenty of time to react.
"Breloom!" Tristan smacked his tail against the ground and used the force of the appendage to roll himself over at the last second, allowing him to dodge Fearow's strike. The bird pokemon's beak buried itself into the dirt, which provided an excellent opening.
"Nice! Now, force palm!" Cynthia ordered.
"Beloom!" Tristan raised his claw and swung it at the Fearow, but the bird was too quick, pulling his beak free and slipping away before he could strike.
"You should have tried mach punch," Keya said. "That would have given you the speed you needed! Now, aerial ace!"
Cynthia's eyes widened in shock. Before now, the Fearow's primary means of attack had been striking with drill peck. But now he had picked up speed. He flew towards Tristan so fast he disappeared, reappearing behind the Breloom once more and striking with his long beak. But this time he was too fast to dodge. His beak drove into Tristan's back and it began to spin like a drill, causing massive damage to the pokemon's vitals.
"Tristan!" Cynthia cried. Her Breloom stumbled, trying to stay on his feet, but eventually he collapsed, unable to keep going. The damage from those moves was too severe.
"Fearow don't rely on moves like aerial ace when hunting in the wild," Keya said. "They might learn the move naturally, but they prefer to hunt their prey without exhausting themselves too much by moving at such speeds. But with a little bit of encouragement, that can be overcome."
He smiled.
"Sorry about Tristan. Those Flying type moves really hurt."
"Nah, it's fine," Cynthia shrugged, recalling Tristan back to his pokeball. "Besides, this is just a casual thing, don't worry. I've got a lot of pokemon who still want in on this! Right, Elise?!"
"Swellow!" Elise emerged from her pokeball, taking to the sky and circling around the Fearow, glaring eagerly.
Maddi grinned a little. Perfect! She thought. This was exactly what they needed. An aerial dogfight. Now the only thing they had to worry about was whether or not Elise would be able to match up against the Fearow or not.
But Cynthia knew there was nothing to worry about.
"Go, Elise!" She shouted. "Aerial ace!"
"Counter it with your aerial ace!" Keya ordered.
The two pokemon picked up speed, flying in circles around each other as they reached the point where they were little more than blurs. Then the two blurs collided in the air, striking with their beaks, talons, even their wings themselves.
The resulting victor from the exchange was obvious.
"Aargh!" Keya cried, stumbling back and holding his shoulder. Elise had driven her beak right into the gap where Fearow's wing connected to his body. The bird fell from the sky and crashed into the grass, badly injured.
"Whoa, nice," Maddi complimented. "Your Swellow was so fast!"
"Elise is speedy alright," Cynthia nodded as her pokemon came home to roost. "But that's not the reason she beat that Fearow!"
Maddi glanced at the Fearow who was currently trying to get back up. His body was shaking like he had nerve damage and Maddi immediately realized what was going on. She gasped.
"Effect spore!" She said.
"That's right!" Cynthia chortled. "That last aerial ace, the one that knocked Tristan out? His last gift was to release a nice batch of paralyzing spores that caused Fearow's muscles to seize up! And with his body in that condition he wasn't able to put up a proper competition against Elise, and she outflew him easily! So what do you think of that, Keya? Not something you see very often in the wild, huh?
Cynthia was grinning like a fool, it had gone just as she wanted. Her Swellow was fast, fast enough to beat the Fearow even, probably. But she'd relied on teamwork between her two pokemon to prove a point. A Swellow and a Breloom would never work together under normal circumstances when hunting in the wild, but these two did.
She countered Keya's wild instincts with some good, old-fashioned teamwork!
Then she looked at the Fearow, struggling to rise, and it gave her pause. Was this really the right thing to do? For the first time in the fight, or in any fight at all, for that matter, Cynthia began to question if she should keep going.
I was treating it like a normal pokemon battle, but…
Her thoughts of concern were nipped in the bud, because the Fearow wasn't finished yet. With an aggressive squawk he took to the air, glaring murder at Elise.
"Sorry, but that's the thing about wild pokemon," Keya apologized. "They go a little wild when they feel their territory is being threatened."
Cynthia frowned. She was fine with keeping the fight going, but there was something else she was concerned with. "Elise, just focus on dodging right now, okay? Use double team!"
"Swellow," Elise nodded, creating several copies of herself in the air. The duplicate Swellows kept their balance and kept themselves at a distance, allowing them to easily maneuver around the Fearow as the paralyzed pokemon tried to strike. This gave Cynthia the opportunity to engage with a slightly-confused Keya.
"Keya, I want you to confirm something for me," Cynthia said to him. The other boy raised his eyebrow curiously.
"Oh?"
"I was okay with fighting you, because I figured it was just like another fight," Cynthia said. "But I'm not sure anymore."
"Why's that?" Keya asked.
Cynthia glanced at the angry, injured Fearow, and winced. "Well, I mean… these are wild pokemon, aren't they?"
Keya shrugged. "And?"
"Well, I mean… it's not like a pokemon battle at school!" She protested. "You can't just take your pokemon to the Pokemon Center when I hurt them, these are wild pokemon, right? So like… if I knock them out, then they'll be in real trouble…" Cynthia had been irritated that Keya had let the Trapinch get away, and counted that as a "loss". But now that she was seeing the big picture, she understood why he did that, and she didn't hold it against him anymore.
If anything, she felt bad for pushing things THAT far.
Maddi gasped. She hadn't even thought of that. But now it was all she could think of, and the same went for Cynthia.
Cynthia was concerned that if the Fearow kept fighting, then she'd injure it badly enough to where another pokemon attacked it.
"Keya… you aren't… forcing wild pokemon to fight, are you?" Maddi winced. It was her first time really thinking about Keya's harmonia, and with the knowledge of what Samarra had done, and the added revelation Cynthia had just provided was making her reconsider what she thought she knew.
If Keya was making wild pokemon fight and leaving them injured… that was really bad. Even Maddi recognized that.
Keya sighed.
"…You're not wrong," he admitted. "My power connects with my friends and gets them to fight on my behalf. And while they do so willingly… I would be lying if I said the risk wild pokemon face when they get injured is zero."
"Then I don't want to do this!" Cynthia protested. "If that Fearow gets injured because of me, and then another wild pokemon comes along and does something even worse to it, I'd feel just awful! So can we please stop it?"
Keya smiled. "You're very sweet, Cynthia, I'm glad to see you care about pokemon so much. But you don't need to worry. I don't let my friends fight to the point where they're rendered helpless. And even if I did…"
He set down his bag, and revealed the contents. It was stuffed with potions and revives!
"Just because I can't take them to the Pokemon Center doesn't mean I can't take care of them," he assured her.
Cynthia sighed in relief. That was a weight off her conscience.
Then he turned to Maddi.
"Maddi, I know what you're thinking," he said. "But trust me, this isn't like that. I can't make them do anything they don't want to do. Wild pokemon like fighting. And my friends want to help me. I'm just directing their natural instincts towards a specific target."
That helped Maddi feel a little better about this whole thing. She nodded in agreement and stood back to let the match continue.
Now that Cynthia didn't have to feel guilty, she could put her all into battling. "Okay, Elise! Change of plans! Let's take advantage of your speed with quick attack!"
Swellow were already a very fast species of pokemon. But with quick attack, that speed reached supersonic levels easily, even outpacing aerial ace. Comparatively, Fearow had no priority moves, so he was completely at the mercy of Cynthia and Elise.
At least, that's what it looked like, anyway.
Keya narrowed his eyes and smiled. "We saw that coming!" As the Swellow shot towards Fearow, he turned and mimicked her movements, somehow picking up speed until he was moving just as fast as she was.
"What?" Cynthia gasped.
"You and your Swellow are known for your speed. I expected you to try your hand at quick attack! That's why I had Fearow prepare one of its signature moves!" Keya smiled. "Drill peck is one of its signatures, designed to hunt their prey. But this move is reserved for when they fight against other wild pokemon for territory- mirror move!"
"With mirror move, he can completely copy any move the other pokemon uses," Maddi noted. "And with harmonia to boost his pokemon's power and speed…"
All of a sudden it was like the paralysis didn't even faze the Fearow. The avian pokemon matched Elise's movements perfectly and then surpassed them, outpacing the Swellow in terms of flying speed as they circled each other, until finally he took the bird's back.
"Now strike!" Keya ordered.
"Fearow!" The Fearow spread his wings and jammed his beak into Elise's wing, trying to puncture it and hamper her flying.
Cynthia smiled.
"That won't work!" She shouted. "Steel wing!"
As Fearow's beak struck Elise's wing, it was deflected as her feathers hardened to be as strong as steel. To Keya's surprise, Elise used the momentum of the blow to do a barrel roll, which happened to have the added benefit of bringing her other wing up right into Fearow's side.
"FEAROW!" The bird squawked in pain as he was batted out of the sky again. Keya winced, clutching his side.
Elise quickly righted herself, catching her breath. The beak had managed to do some damage before she could reinforce her wing, and she was feeling it right now.
"I figured out the weakness in your little natural instinct plan," Cynthia said, narrowing her eyes and smiling triumphantly. "Yeah, sure, seeing that mirror move caught me off-guard for a second. It almost reminded me of my fight with Mirar. But then I realized what your pokemon can't do."
Keya raised his eyebrow. "Oh? And what's that?" He was curious. This wasn't the first time someone had said something about a weakness in his fighting style. He was used to getting statements like that when he told people he relied on wild pokemon to fight. But most of the time, those statements were shown to be misunderstandings and wishful thinking.
But the smirk on Cynthia's face seemed to suggest she was on to something, and Maddi leaned in, curious as to what that could be.
"Your pokemon are wild pokemon!" She declared. "You don't train them! Whereas Elise… I've been training her using a TM, to teach her steel wing!"
A smile spread across Keya's face. "…I see…"
Maddi gasped. She hadn't even thought of that. That's right! Keya's pokemon aren't his, they're wild pokemon! The moves and abilities they have are the things they naturally learned in the wild! That means they can't use more complicated moves!
"Wild pokemon are too uncontrollable to work with move tutors, and they won't watch TMs either, will they?" Cynthia prodded. She smiled. "I bet they won't! So the only moves you can use are ones in your pokemon's natural moveset! But my pokemon have been trained with things like TMs and items in order to win!"
Keya smiled even wider. "Not bad, Cynthia, not bad at all."
Cynthia blinked, and her face brightened. "So… I got it? I'm right? YES! That's so awesomesauce!"
"You're right," he confirmed. "Because I rely on wild pokemon, things like TMs and move tutors are off the table. It severely limits the amount of coverage my pokemon have available. So a move like steel wing, I don't think that's in the cards."
He glanced at Fearow, who was slumped over on the ground.
"…Right now, though, I think Fearow's had enough anyway," he said, taking a potion and crouching next to the bird, taking care of his injuries. Fearow recovered rather quickly, to Maddi's surprise. Those potions must have been very high quality.
I suppose he doesn't have to spend money on pokemon food like the rest of us, she rationalized. Just keeping all of her teams of pokemon well-fed meant she was habitually broke.
The bird's wounds weren't completely healed. But he was capable of flying again, at least. And judging by the fact that his wings were no longer twitching, the paralysis from Tristan's effect spore was dealt with as well. Keya must have really been thorough.
"Thanks for your help, Fearow, you can go rest up," he told the bird. The Fearow nodded to him and flew up into the air, disappearing through the crack in the ground without looking back.
Keya turned to Cynthia. "Not done yet, are you? We were just starting to enjoy ourselves."
Cynthia smiled back at him and shook her head. "No way! Come on Keya, show me what else you've got up your sleeve!"
Keya nodded. "Since you're dealing with birds, I think a good choice would be… this one!"
He extended his harmonia again, and another wild pokemon ran forward.
"Lycanroc!" The canine snarled. His fur was a dark brown, and he had a fluffy white collar behind his pointed ears. Jagged stones jutted out of the collar. He snarled at Elise.
"Ooh, what pokemon is that?" Cynthia asked, her eyes shining with excitement.
"It's a Lycanroc," Maddi answered for her. "It's a Rock type pokemon."
"Rock type, huh?" Cynthia smiled. "Then it's a good thing we've been working on our steel wing, right Elise? Go!"
"Swellow!" Elise flapped her wings and soared towards the Lycanroc. Silver light began to shine over her feathers as they hardened with a metallic sheen.
"Lycanroc!" The Lycanroc snarled, leaping back to avoid the strike. But he needn't have bothered. Before Elise's wing even made contact with the air in front of him, the metallic glow had already left and it returned to a normal wing again, much to Keya's confusion.
"Whoops," Cynthia said, scratching her head sheepishly. "Truth is, while I taught Elise how to use steel wing, it was more of a last minute thing. We still need a bit of training with the move!"
"Don't worry, I understand," Keya laughed. "I'll be happy to help!"
His smiled took on a menacing tinge.
"Let's see if you can keep up, then! Accelerock!"
"Ly!" Lycanrock barked, lowering his head. He shot forward at high speed, to Cynthia's surprise.
"Look at that thing's movements!" She gasped.
"Cynthia, that move is a priority move!" Maddi shouted. "It's a Rock type quick attack!"
Her warning was too later to make a difference. Fast as Elise was, she didn't have the reaction time to match the Lycanroc's speed, and the dog leapt into the air and collided with her, knocking her out of the sky.
"Whoa! Watch out, Elise!" Cynthia cried. The Swellow tumbled but managed to right herself, putting some distance between her and the Lycanroc.
Keya smiled. "Didn't expect a Rock type pokemon to be so fast, did you?" He laughed.
"Got me there," Cynthia replied. "But I like it! Those were some nice moves! Finally, someone that can give Elise a run for her money when it comes to speed! Now Elise, use agility!"
"Swellow!" Elise flapped her wings and picked up speed, flying circles around the Lycanroc as she looked for a place to strike.
Keya smiled. Now they were getting somewhere!
This battle is really heating up! Cynthia and Keya are both showing what they're capable of, and the wild Fearow had a brilliant display, taking out Tristan and doing some damage to Elise as well! But it's a good thing Cynthia realized what Keya's fighting style was capable of. Wouldn't want her to feel guilty about hurting wild pokemon, and lose her enthusiasm for battling.