Have a great gym battle, Julianna! Nashi texted with a picture of Armarouge.
Julianna wasn't using Rebelde in the water gym and Nashi had offered to watch him well he trained his team so Armarouge could work on attacking with his new body.
So that left Julianna entering the water gym for her 4th badge.
Only when she stepped out into the battlefield Kofu was nowhere to be seen.
After 40 seconds Kofu came running out on the pitch "Valtin Veluza I'm late!" Kofu wheezed when he stopped to catch his breath.
"Sorry that I was late I had to go retrieve my wallet" Kofu stammered "Anyways that's not a problem right now" Kofu threw out Veluza.
"Toedscool vamos!"
With that, the battle was on.
"Mega Drain!"
"Dodge it!" Veluza flipped out of the way of the green energy.
"Now use Fillet Away!" Veluza shed the skin around its spin making it stronger and more agile.
"Use Pluck!" Veluza shot forward faster than Toedscool could dodge smacking Toedscool with its rostrum.
"Supersonic!" Toedscool fired rings of sonic energy well Veluza was still within close range.
"Use Aqua Cutter!" Veluza tried to use the move but hit itself in its confession.
"Jump into the air!" Julianna ordered. Toedscool propelled herself off her feet now directly above Veluza.
"Try again with Aqua Cutter!" Veluza swung with a blade of Water at Toedscool.
"Grab Veluzas spines" Through the strike Toedscool was able to grab onto Veluzas spines near the base of its tail.
"Now Mega Drain!" Toedscool started draining Veluza's health with green energy.
"Mega Drain again" Toedscool went for another Mega Drain causing Veluza to fall to the ground knocked out.
"Alright, then Wugtrio let's go!"
"Use Aqua Jet!"
"Toedscool devolver!" Julianna had a plan to use Wugtrio to its advantage.
"Clodsire Vamos!" Salvador landed on the field with her Water Absorb ability, she took no damage from the Aqua Jet.
"Alrighty then trying to through old man Kofu off I see!" Kofu laughed "Alright Wugtrio use Dig!" Wugtrio burrowed under the ground.
"Toxic Spikes!" Wugtrio was underground Clodsire threw a layer of poisonous spikes on the ground.
After the Toxic Spikes were thrown down Wugtrio resurfaced and struck with Clodsire for heavy damage with Dig.
"Use Headbutt!"
"Clodsire devolver!" Julianna returned Clodsire for Qauxwell.
When Quaxwell landed Wugtrio struck it with Headbutt for a decent chunk of damage.
"Use Triple Dive!" Wugtrio dove under the battlefield splashing Quaxwell for damage.
"Take it then Wing Attack!" after taking the Triple Dive Quaxwell struck the Wugtrio with Wing Attack. Striking Wugtrio with its wing caused Quaxwell to get coated in Wugtrios slime lowering his speed from its Gooey ability.
"Use Dig!"
"Use your foot to feel Wugtrio underground" Quaxwell tapped its foot along the ground searching for the vibration of Wugtrio moving underground.
When Wugtrio resurfaced Quaxwell was ready for it jumping up into the air and avoiding the Wugtrios Dig.
"Now Aqua Cutter!" Quaxwell slashed down on the Wugtrio's heads with Aqua Cutter.
"Use Triple Dive!"
Wugtrio went underwater again splashing water on Quaxwell before he could dodge because of the lowered speed.
"Use Triple Dive again!"
"Dodge with Aqua Jet!" Quaxwell shot past the Triple Dive with Aqua Jet standing behind Wugtrio.
"Aqua Jet!" they both called in unison. Wugtrio and Quaxwell collided with Aqua Jet knocking each other back.
"Use Headbutt!"
"Aqua Jet!" Quaxwell struck with the Aqua Jet before Wugtrio could strike back with Headbutt.
"Aqua Jet straight up!" Quaxwell flew upwards with Aqua Jet baiting Wugtrio into going to Aqua Jet too, it's only move that could propel it off the ground.
"Low Sweep!"
Wugtrio slammed into Quaxwells stomach with Aqua Jet but it gave Quaxwell the opportunity to kick the Garden Eel Pokémon sending it flying downwards.
"Finish it off with Aqua Jet!" Quaxwell flew forward with Aqua Jet pushing the falling Wugtrio into the ground knocking it out.
"Alright, then Crabominable lets go!" Crabominable landed on the ground getting poisoned by the Toxic Spikes.
"Prepare the rigging for a big transformation My Pokémon's gon' rock the boat" Kofu bellowed as he threw his tera orb at Crabominable creating a burst of blue light and a water tera crystal to form over the crabs head.
"Use Crabhammer!" with his speed lowered by Wugtrios Gooey Quaxwell was too slow to dodge the Crabhammer getting slammed into the ground by a burst of blue sparkles.
At least Crabominable took poison damage from the poison damage.
Speaking of poison now was Clodsire's time to shine.
"Salvador time to tiempo de Terastalize" Julianna threw her tera orb at Clodsire creating a burst of purple light and the Poison Tera Crystal to appear on her head.
"Use Ice Punch!"
"Poison Jab!" Poison Jab and Ice Punch met midway with a bit of extra force Clodsire was able to overpower Crabominable with the tera boost.
"Poison Tail!"
"Crabominable grab it with your pincers!" Crabominable intercepted the Poison Tail with its pincers.
"Now use Slam!" Crabominable raised Clodsire over its head and then slammed her down on the ground.
"Now use Ice Punch!"
"Counter with Mud Shot!" Well on her side Clodsire fired a Mud Shot although it wasn't able to stop Crabominable just slow it down. Crabominable slammed its icy fist down onto Clodsire freezing her body in a block of ice.
Well, shit she wasn't planning on Clodsire getting frozen.
"Ice Punch don't stop!" Crabominable keep laying into the frozen Clodsire with Ice Punch dealing heavy damage to Clodsire.
"Salvador if you can still hear me use Poison Tail to break out from the ice!"
To Julianna's amazement, Clodsire did break through the ice with Poison Tail pushing the poisonous ice shards back at Crabominable.
Julianna shouldn't have been so surprised Salvador was the most reliable member of her team.
"Crabominable hit that ice right back with Crabhammer!" Crabominable swung its arm around sending the poisoned ice back at Clodsire proving too much for her and knocking her out shattering the tera crystal in a dazzling blast of purple.
Well, that definitely wasn't part of the plan to be left with just Toedscool.
But that's where she was and she would have to make it work.
Thankfully Clodsire had managed to damage Crabominable heavily from direct hits and from Toxic Spikes poisoning.
"Use Ice Punch!"
"Run!" Toed took off running from the quad effective move. This was where Clodsires speed drop from Mud Shot came in handy as Crabominable was unable to keep up with the faster Toedscool.
"Use Supersonic!" Toedscool fired the rings of energy at Crabominable confusing the crab.
"Use Crab Hammer on the ground!" In its confusion, Crabominable began to blindly swing at the ground with Crabhammer uprooting the battlefield as blue light particles surged through the ground.
Toedscool went flying into the air when the ground underneath her erupted with water tera energy.
"Grab Crabominable's pincer!" With her feet outstretched Toedscool was able to latch onto Crabominable's arm the crab began thrashing about trying to get the Woodear Pokémon but Toedscool held strong.
"Use Mega Drain!" Toedscool began to suck Crabominable with rays of green energy.
"Get it off your face with Ice Punch!"
"Jump!" With a summersault Toedscool leaped off Crabominable's head causing it to smack itself squarely in the face with Ice Punch.
One more tick of Poison damage and it was over Crabominable fell on its back with a loud thud and fainted.
That left Julianna walking out of the Cascarrafa gym holding out the water badge in her badge case.
"Thank you for that performance back there Ayuda that was a really impressive use of your speed"
"Toeeee!" Toedscool did a little hop and held her arm like a salute.
Julianna returned her to her Pokeball and went to heal Quaxwell and Clodsire.
All that was left to do was to get Armarouge from Nashi.
"Oh hey, Julianna!" Nashi greeted her turning his head from a practice battle between his Sunflora and Houndstone.
"How did the gym battle go?"
"I'm officially halfway done with the gym challenge" Julianna held up the water badge.
"Congrats Julianna I knew you could do it" Nashi congratulated by giving her a hug.
"Thank you hope I wasn't interrupting anything"
"Oh no I was just working on leveling up Nokocchi and Yanyanma learn the moves they need to evolve soon"
"Well that's good you think they'll evolve in time for your battle with Kofu"
"Oh no Hakadog and Kimawari should be able to handle most of the work for that battle it won't be worth going through all that extra effort when I'm fairly confident I can win the battle.
"Oh, ya I guess. Your team does have a better match-up into Kofu than mine does"
"It's also important to take breaks you know every time I've talked to you recently you seem to be doing something that involves training"
"Don't worry about it I just didn't want to fall behind with the rest of the academy students"
"Julianna I think that you're one of the first people that beat Kofu the only other people that have gotten that far are the try-hard kids" Nashi gave her a "You're not listening to a single word I'm saying, are you?" Look.
"Well it's never a bad thing to be ahead of the competition I know Rinto beat him already"
Nashi gave her another look Julianna knew that didn't help her case since Rinto definitely meet the tryhard description.
"And anyways Nemona beat Kofu last week she'll probably be onto Larry before half of us get our 4th badges"
That comment struck a nerve with Julianna. It was well-known what a battle prodigy Nemona was, With her being considered stronger than Geeta by many and the captain of Paldeas under 18 girls team that represented them at intercontinental events.
When Julianna did get all eight badges she, and presumably Nashi and Cherry would get to compete at the Academy Tournament at the end of the Treasure Hunt. Of course, another well-known thing in Paldea was that said tournament was basically a formality since Nemona got there since she had easily won the last three and had never gone below 3 Pokémon.
And considering Julianna's history with how her battles against Nemona had all ended in defeat safe to say most students in the cafeteria betting on the tournament knew who to place first.
So what did Nashi know? If Julianna kept training at least she could place higher on those cafeteria bets than him.
If she kept training she could even place second.
If she kept training maybe she could even beat Nemona.
"Varoom use Iron Head, Krokorok, use Foul Play!" Rinto's two Pokémon flew at Iron Leaves but were easily repelled by a Sacred Sword.
Try again.
"Frigibax use Ice Fang! Lapras use Ice Beam!" Once again his team failed to stop the Paradox Pokémon Iron Leaves cut through Ice Beam with Psyblade and jumped out of the way of Frigibax's Ice Fang and sliced it with Leaf Blade.
"Gallade use Night Slash!" Gallade was the only one able to hold his own against Iron Leaves the Night Slash and Leaf Blade exchange ended in a draw.
Rinto knew it shouldn't frustrate him that much that most of his team couldn't touch Iron Leaves it meant that he had a strong Pokémon that thanks to his position with the League he could use in the Acadamey Tournament.
But only having one other Pokémon that could keep up with it was a bad sign.
Were Gallad and Iron Leaves strong yes, but if they went down he didn't have anything to fall back on in the moment.
And it wasn't like he could use Iron Leaves in gym battles anyway well he could paperwork his way into using it in the biggest matches flaunting it around willy-nilly was a horrible idea.
No matter he still had plenty of time he was only on his fourth gym badge and was already ahead of most people not named Nemona.
Although from checking socials posts later that day Julianna had managed to get her 4th gym badge already.
Figures she seemed like the type to be a cut above the pack he should train with her at some point.
Although that had to wait for that since Team Galactic was calling to pester him again.
"What do you want?"
"Rinto I'm sure you've heard about the recent emergence of the Love-Hate Pokémon Enamrous"
"Yes, yes I did" Rinto sighed.
"Well it appears its emergence has caused the other Forces Of Nature to migrate to Paldea"
"And you want me to deal with this why?"
"As you know after the incident involving the legendary birds we are currently scattered and trying to regroup. We want you to see what is going on with the Forces Of Nature so when we're ready to regroup we can capitalize on it"
"Okay, when do you want this to happen?"
"Tomorrow in the desert that's where they were last sighted and don't worry the Paradox Pokémon will also be sent with you"
"Well that's just great" Rinto groaned internally because those guys had such a good history.
Rinto ended the call and groaned on his side this was a horrible idea getting involved in this mess.
Surely there had to be a better less than legal way to try and change the League?
End Credit Song-Obsessed with You by the Orion Experience.
More of Julianna's unhealthy training habits, and hints at what the end of the series is going to be like yipee.
This will probably be the last chapter till next week because I'll be out with family.
Also if you want to know what Nashi sounds like my headcanon is he sounds like Sachiro Hirugami from Haikyuu but that's just me.