With experience from several Leagues, now, Ash knew that there were two ways of doing the last dozen or so matches in a tournament bracket.
One way was to run them all together in a big burst that took a single day, which was better for the spectators but meant that some Pokémon could be enduring up to four battles in a day, and the other was to space them out so that there was time for the Pokémon to be cared for in the Pokémon Centre and get properly rested up. The Indigo League was doing the second option, so it was the day after his battle with Ritchie that Ash went out onto the field for his semi-final.
"I guess the question is, how is this going to go?" Ash wondered, out loud, as he waited for his opponent to turn up.
Then he got his answer.
"Prepare for battle!" Jessie advised.
"You'll soon be rattled!" James agreed, setting off some fireworks.
Ash facepalmed, fortunately choosing the hand that wasn't currently holding a Pokéball. "Really?"
Jessie held up a case. "To collect each badge of our vocation!"
"To show off in battle across our nation!" James said, juggling three Pokéballs.
"To attain a record to be proud of!" Jessie boasted.
"To become as known as the stars above," James said, then looked hesitant.
After a moment's pause, they apparently decided the rhyme had been good enough, and kept going.
"Jessie!" Jessie introduced herself.
"James!" James informed everyone.
"Team Rocket, unmasked on this finals fight!"
James pointed at Ash dramatically. "Surrender now, or face a dreadful plight!"
"All right!" Meowth finished, jumping into the arena and vanishing.
Ash pointed forwards. "Riolu!"
"On it," Riolu said, running forwards.
"Seriously, though, how did Meowth do that?" Ash wondered.
Riolu advanced warily.
Meowth was using Faint Attack, that much was obvious, but… where was he?
Where would he want to attack from…
Riolu whirled, paw glowing with a Force Palm, and slapped the air. A Substitute appeared and burst at the same moment, and he shook his palm before looking around again.
"You know, it's usually Pikachu dat I fight," Meowth said. "I ain't seen you on da battlefield before."
The voice wasn't actually giving a clue about what was going on.
"Don't ninja usually rely on misdirection?" he asked.
"Yeah, and I ain't gonna tell you what I'm actually doin', am I?" Meowth asked. "Or maybe I am. So if I tell you dat I'm just wearin' a disguise as thin air, what does dat tell you?"
"Is that even possible?"
A coin bounced off the back of Riolu's head. "Whatever works, Riolu. Whatever works."
"It's going to take a while to knock me out if you stick to Pay Day," Riolu objected.
"Yeah, but I got a magazine to read," Meowth replied.
Closing one eye, Riolu spun slowly in place.
Normally he'd just be able to see Meowth, but whatever the Scratch Cat was doing it had apparently accounted for something as obvious as that.
Somehow.
Ninja were annoying.
Coming to a conclusion, Riolu compressed Aura in his fist before springing into the air and ramming a punch into the arena floor. The actual power of the attack erupted downwards, rippling out in an Earthquake, and a Substitute popped with a burst of smoke.
Not stopping there, Riolu charged up an Aura Sphere in each paw and rammed them together. That produced a cloud of smaller blue tracer spheres, which spread out across the field, and while they didn't home in on Meowth either they at least made it hard for the cat to hide no matter where he was.
Another Substitute burst as it dodged the wrong way, then Riolu caught a coin out of the air as it came in to hit him. The other paw fired an Aura Sphere back along the path the coin had taken, and Riolu kicked out to the side.
Meowth appeared, little bits of grass camouflage falling away, and staggered back two steps before steadying himself.
"Not a substitute this time."
"How'd ya do dat?" Meowth asked.
Riolu's mostly-closed eye widened a little, letting Meowth see the gleam in it. "Foresight."
"Huh, whadda ya know," Meowth said, shrugging. "Guess we ain't much'a ones for that kinda thing."
He crouched for a moment, then darted forwards to attack.
Riolu slapped aside the first Fury Swipe, dodged the second, then began giving ground as the attacks accelerated.
It turned out Meowth had a lot of speed to him, probably thanks to a combination of training and running away a lot, and it was giving Riolu trouble keeping up.
A swipe to the cheek got through his guard, leaving a hairline scratch. Then a cuff on the arm.
"What's up?" Meowth asked, sniggering, as he dropped down for a sweep-kick and Riolu barely jumped over it in time. "Not wantin' to fight for some reason?"
Riolu shrugged.
Then Meowth noticed something. "Hey, uh… is it me or is it a bit cold? You look kinda blue."
He swiped with a claw, which missed, then looked awkward. "Dat came out wrong."
"I know what you mean," Riolu replied, skipping back a step, then reversed his momentum and darted in for an uppercut.
The spiral clicked over to mix.
"What was that?" the announcer commented, knowledgeably, as a blast of spiralling air from nowhere launched Meowth upwards.
Riolu blurred after him, riding the storm, and delivered a stunning trio of Force Palm strikes that rendered Meowth unable to fight on by the time he hit the ground.
Riolu landed, panting. That had taken a lot out of him.
He had about half a second to catch his breath before a Psywave bored in, and he summoned two sets of flickering Shadow Claws to block the attack.
Abra teleported behind him as the attack reached its target, fired a Psychic, then flashed away again as Riolu reacted.
"Are you on caffeine?" Riolu asked, catching sight of where Abra had gone to this time and charging a Dark Pulse.
I might be.
Abra disappeared as the pulse came in and took telekinetic hold of Riolu with a Psychic attack from behind, then blasted him with Psywave until he went limp.
Next please.
Ash frowned. "Hmm… Pikachu?"
"All right."
Pikachu leapt into the arena with his cheeks sparking, and launched a powerful lightning bolt at Abra.
The Psychic type teleported out of the line of fire. Or lightning.
"Oh, here we go. It's Saffron gym all over again." Pikachu raised his forepaws and tail to the sky, forming a large flat electric structure overhead. "Shockwave!"
The plane of electricity slammed down on the arena.
Pikachu jumped out of the way as a Signal Beam nearly hit him from behind. Sure enough, Abra was sitting seiza in the sky, having teleported through the attack.
"Right, no more mister nice mouse."
Pikachu's cheeks sparked up, and he launched himself into the air. He formed a Counter Shield around himself, then expanded it by pushing electrical energy into it.
"Yeah, this should work," he decided, before conjuring three electrical rings around himself and winding them up.
Abra began blasting him with Psywaves, but Pikachu darted left and then right with flashes of Thunderbolt aimed either at Abra or to the side from where Abra was. The recoil boost was helpful, and Pikachu did entertain a sort of faint hope that he'd get lucky and Abra would accidentally dodge into one of the bolts, but no such luck seemed about to present itself.
On the other paw, he'd wound up enough charge now.
Pikachu discharged the whole of his knotted-up electromagnetic capacitor into his Counter Shield, and it instantly expanded to the size of the whole stadium. Then it shrank back again as it lost all that charge into the ground, but the bang-bang of two Counter Shields hitting Abra in quick succession had left him paralyzed and shocked enough for Pikachu to actually aim and hit him that time.
James recalled Abra, and Jessie held out a Luxury Ball of her own.
Cubone announced her arrival with a thrown bone, and Pikachu shattered it with a punch rather than dodge – a guess that was borne out, since the areas he could have dodged to erupted in Earth Powers a moment later.
"I am the bone of my club."
She didn't continue the aria, instead throwing bone after bone into the air in curling paths. The first had great, long, sweeping trajectories that blurred past Pikachu in seconds and flew off into the distance. The next ones were slightly slower and on a different path, and the sequence continued without pause until the last one was thrown straight at him.
And all the rest of the Bonemerangs hurtled back into the target area at the same time.
Pikachu jumped – it was about all he could really do, with that many bones coming in – and fended off a blizzard of additional attacks in close quarters. He couldn't change his trajectory in mid air, not with her pressuring him in-close – the momentary lapse in attention that a Quick Attack would take would be an extremely bad idea at this close of a range.
The thud as he hit the ground came as a shock. Wincing, he noticed that the area he'd hit was raised above the rest of the arena.
Like might have happened from, say, an Earthquake while he was focusing on everything else she was doing.
Cubone was pretty much his worst matchup, since she was flat immune to his electrical attacks and knew it. He couldn't even bypass it like he could with enough power for most other Ground types, since she had Lightningrod.
"Fissure!"
Pikachu tried to move out of the way, but she was still on top of him – and, in fact, still hitting him. The white line of the attack connected with him more or less instantly, knocking him out.
Ash frowned for a moment.
Who to use… then he had it.
"Primeape!"
Cubone was knocked backwards by a Mach Punch that blurred in from nowhere, even as Pikachu was removed from the battlefield by the Alakazam acting as linesPokémon.
She backed into the edge barricade and her eyes scanned back and forth under her helmet, looking for any tell-tale that might indicate where the ludicrously fast Pokémon was.
A wash of air… no, he'd already passed it.
A-
WHAM!
She went flying, and skidded to a halt as he disappeared again.
"How are you doing that?" she asked. "I can't see you anywhere, but that attack came in from the side!"
Another blow hit her, this time from behind. "They're called saccades. It's when the eye moves from one place to another."
Another, sending her up into the air, and even looking down she couldn't see her opponent."The brain doesn't register information during a saccade. Normally it wouldn't work on a trained Pokémon because their trainer would let them know where I was, but I have studied you – you don't listen."
It was true, she fought alone. But if that was a weakness, then…
She took a moment to breathe deeply.
"Abra. Please inform Jessie that I will be wanting guidance."
"He's to your left!"
Cubone turned her head, deliberately not letting her eyes twitch. She was staring at the end of her helmet's nose, and letting her peripheral vision pan across the stadium.
Her thick club snapped up and diverted the next attack, the wash from it sending her staggering. A follow-up blow missed as the agile Fighting type left before it could hit.
"Right! No-left again!"
This time she was quick enough, and parried. The club blow knocked both fighters backwards from the impact, and Primeape recovered with a skid along the floor.
"You have learned the lesson. Good."
"So, this was a test?"
"Not all of it. But some." Primeape flickered into motion again, and the two clashed with an explosion of air pressure.
As Primeape dodged back, Cubone followed him. "There we go. I know your bones now – no more hiding for you."
"Interesting trick… impressive, but also infuriating!"
As the tempo of their blows began to increase, Cubone closed her eyes and let herself be guided entirely by that part of her that resonated with her opponents' skeleton.
It didn't make her reactions much faster, but it meant he couldn't dodge through her saccades like he had been. That trick wouldn't work again, in fact – her team would be ready for it, and would train for it. Such was the arms race between rival trainers.
It was like a mental competition to go along with the physical one. And when it was at the cusp, like this…
Cubone felt alive.
At an unseen signal, both fighters separated.
Cubone shifted her grip on her club, taking a stance, and reinforced the internal spaces as much as she could. Primeape drew back a fist and took a deep breath, focusing.
Then, still perfectly in sync, they charged one another.
Ash dove behind his wall just before the shockwave.
"And that's a double KO," the announcer said, thankful to be of some use for once. "Not exactly the first of these from either of our participants, either. Both must now send out another Pokémon!"
"He's acting like these don't happen all the time." Ash said to himself, thinking. "Pidgeot!"
They really don't. You're just lucky in crazy ways.
Pidgeot circled, watching as Jessie released her Arbok to tunnel underground and hide.
The annoying thing was that, with Arbok underground, she couldn't actually attack… but, then again, nor could he.
"Well, we'll see who cracks first," Pidgeot muttered, banking around to orbit.
A minute or so passed, neither participant making any sort of move.
"Okay, I can see this becoming an issue."
Far below, Jessie pointed up at her and said something. Pidgeot strained her hearing.
She blinked.
Surface to air ballistic snake attack? Surely she hadn't heard that right?
As it turned out, Pidgeot didn't have anything to worry about… at least, regarding her hearing. With a crash, Arbok came rocketing out of the ground and upwards at high speed.
"Oh."
Pidgeot slipped sideways in the sky, shedding air from beneath her wings to avoid Arbok's trajectory. Though this meant she wasn't in the direct path, it didn't do much about the poison that he began to spit as soon as he had the altitude.
Gunk Shot attacks went splat splat splat through the air, mostly missing, and the Alakazam who was running the crowd protection shield sighed theatrically as he funnelled the Gunk Shot attacks off to one side and disposed of them.
For Pidgeot's part, she did her best to weave air control layers and help her own defence that way, but Arbok had surprisingly good aim to go with his surprisingly good height on his jump. One splat made it through, hitting her left wing, and gumming up the feathers enough to throw her off course.
And, unluckily for her, she'd rolled out towards Arbok.
He spat a jet of poison behind him, adjusting his trajectory a bit more, then hit her with a Thunder Fang. Pidgeot's wing cuff sent him flying, but the electrical burst also paralyzed her right wing entirely.
Ash judged Pidgeot's flight for a moment, as she began to spin out, then held out her Pokéball and recalled her before she crashed.
"She's out," he confirmed to her referee, passing the Pokéball to Pikachu, and switched to Muk.
"Ah," Arbok said, sibilantly – which was quite a feat for a word without any esses in it. "This, I admit, is something of a tricky one."
Muk rippled in a kind of shrug, then flowed forwards like a purple tidal wave with a Jolly nature.
Ash called Muk right back again before the Rockets could pick their fifth Pokémon, waited until they chose them – a Victreebel – then decided to go ahead with the plan he'd been thinking of.
He'd sent out almost his entire team over the course of the tournament, and while he couldn't quite do every single Pokémon – and he didn't really want to impose on either Mewtwo or Ho-Oh – he could still manage a representative sample, and sent out Tauros Five.
At least, that was Tauros Five if he'd got the notes right. It still took help to identify them.
"So, what's your thing?" Victreebel asked.
Tauros snorted, hooves drumming the ground, and stared at the Grass-type.
"Well, there's no need to be rude," Victreebel muttered. "Come on, then."
The bull rolled his eyes, stamping at the ground again, and Victreebel promptly fell down a fissure.
Still, it was at least good to know that all the earthquakes Oak had been complaining about had been good for something.
Jessie and James glanced at their Pokéballs.
"We don't have much left, do we?" James muttered.
"Gyarados?" Jessie suggested. "Ash has Tauros and Muk active, but that's it."
"We don't have much choice," James agreed. "We could try Lickitung?"
"Of course not!" Jessie retorted. "You can't lick Normal-types, and at that point Lickitung is out of ideas."
"That sounds like a plan," James decided. "Or it sounds like something like a plan. At least Gyarados is less likely to fall down a hole."
Speaking of which…
Abra levitated Victreebel's Pokéball out of the crevasse.
"Oh, thanks!" James enthused. "Right, here goes… Gyarados!"
Tauros jumped to the side as soon as Gyarados formed, avoiding a blast of Hyper Beam, and began running around the sea serpent at maximum speed.
"Get in closer!" Ash called. "He can't turn fast enough to track you if you're close!"
"Not a bad delaying tactic," Jessie conceded. "But not good enough! Thrash!"
Gyarados probably hadn't needed that one as an order, because even an unusually placid Gyarados was still very much all about the occasional Thrash.
Tauros went skidding backwards from the tail blow, and smashed into the retaining wall. A blast of incandescent energy followed him, creating a huge explosion.
"Well?" James said, mockingly. "Going to send out your Muk?"
"No thanks," Ash replied, turning his hat backwards for old times' sake. "Wild Charge!"
With a bellow, Tauros emerged from the dust and rubble. His coat was marred, there were scorch marks down one side and a horn looked like it had just escaped serious damage… but he was still on his hooves. And looked very, very angry.
"Oh, no, if it isn't the consequences of our actions!" James lamented.
"That may have been a tactical error," Jessie said. "Who knew Tauros could learn Endure?"
Meowth raised his paw, looking Mareepish.
Electricity snapped off Tauros's hooves as he charged, enveloping his entire body just as he crashed into the recharging sea serpent.
Both Pokémon collapsed from the titanic impact, unconscious.
The announcer cleared his throat, drawing attention over to him and away from the devastated arena. "Since Ash Ketchum still has one Pokémon able to battle, the victory goes to him. He'll face the other finalist tomorrow! We don't know who it is yet, but we'll find out this afternoon. And that same battle will also reveal who his opponents will be facing for the third/fourth playoffs."
That afternoon, Umbreon dove through a psywave which flared ineffectually from her coat, and charged the Hypno that had been firing psychic attacks at her.
This went badly for the Psychic-type.
Not the best choice from Gary's opponent, but then he had been down to his last Pokémon. The Psychic-type hadn't been able to hit her with a Miracle Eye, despite his best efforts, and that had more-or-less decided the course of the battle.
"Well, suppose that means I'm fighting Gary," Ash said, as the scoreboard flashed. "We both got a lot further than last time."
"Comes of combining talent with experience," Brock replied seriously. "Both of you did well, last time, for first-timers."
The Pewter man stretched as they got up. "You going to use… them, by the way?"
Ash blinked. "Who?"
"You know. Them."
"No, I clearly don't."
"He doesn't," Pikachu agreed. "I think I do, but he doesn't."
Brock palmed his face. "Oh, for… one of them's in a Premier Ball, the other's the first thing you technically caught this time, and you're clearly dense if you don't work out what I mean."
"Right, gotcha," Ash replied. "And I thought about it, but it'd be rude, and plus…"
He shook his head. "I sort of want to prove to myself that I can do it, before I do it that way."
AN:
A bit more of a rework for this one, too… and exploring why Ash isn't using any Legendary Pokémon.