...Y'all there is now FANART of CHANCE I'm SO EXCITED I'm super honored and feel like I've made it as a writer ahh
(I can't link things on ff dot net, but go to Suwako20 on deviantArt and check out "Forest" in her gallery if you're interested)
Anyway welcome back to part 2 of Chance Getting Published Regularly This Month (or Sorcery, for short).
I had an entire blast writing this battle, largely because of the shitpostiness of some parts (it wouldn't be a pokemon fic written by me if I didn't roast Unova at some point). You'll see. Enjoy!
(CW Evelyn's still depressed)
Thomas and I meandered around the festival for a while, although he didn't seem to want to commit to any of the activity booths. He actually looked concerned when I suggested trying the grown-person-sized bouncy castle. Okay, fine, be an adult about it, gosh.
When I proposed going to the learn-how-to-make-poffins stand he'd been so excited about earlier, he frowned and said, "Are you okay?"
I blinked. "I'm… Yeah, I am. Are you?"
"I'm not the one trying to distract herself from her battle."
I was bewildered. "I mean, you are taking it shockingly well, considering."
"What's it about this time?"
"It's not 'about' anything, I'm just trying to enjoy the festival."
Thomas clearly wasn't buying it. "Evelyn…"
"I'm not trying to distract myself, honest," I said, raising my hands. "It's not like I'm the one facing off against the victor of the Celestic Tournament."
Thomas frowned. "Who's that a reference to?"
I grimaced. "I wasn't going to bring it up… but your opponent won the Celestic Tournament."
The frown turned to one of confusion. "But… that was Kaitlyn Cabot who won."
"Yeah?"
"…and I'm battling Andrew Nguyen."
"You… what?"
"This isn't about me though. It's almost 2:50 and you're acting like your battle isn't coming up soon. You're not stuck in your head again, are you?"
"My battle's at seven."
"No it's not."
"Seven pm, Platinum Arena, Etana Bing."
"Three pm, Diamond Arena, Renée Fournier."
We held a brief confused staring contest before I realized.
"My time jump. I went back before I went forward."
"It does that?"
"It does now. Chance must have rewritten the lineups."
We made it to the Diamond Arena with five minutes to spare. I felt nauseous. I hadn't gotten the chance to prepare myself for this battle.
"Hey," Thomas said. "You got this."
The sheer certainty in his voice eased my nerves a little. "Thanks," I said. I walked toward the green room; he headed to the stands.
Entering the green room brought back the full feeling of Oh Arceus oh fuck I'm not ready for this I almost missed this entirely ahh. I checked the wall for the time – four minutes to go. But what if time started to skip again, and I froze in the room just outside my battle?
I exhaled, tilting my head toward the ceiling. My heart was pounding. I couldn't battle in this state. How could I calm down?
There was a part of me that wanted to call Megan. Something in me instinctively knew that would help. But I didn't have enough time, and she might not pick up out of the blue.
I fumbled in my bag for my headphones. They were threaded between other items, but luckily that meant they weren't tangled. I plugged them into my ears and my poketch and pressed shuffle.
I smiled at the opening chords. It was one of my favorites. I sank into an armchair facing the curtained doorway to the battlefield, and the clock above it.
As the clock ticked down the seconds til 3 pm – at a steady pace, miraculously – my heartbeat sank back to a normal tempo and volume. The sick feeling in my stomach faded. By the time the stage manager came backstage for me, the song was winding down and I felt ready.
I put my headphones away, smiling.
"This will be a best-of-five single battle between Renée Fournier of Icirrus City and Evelyn Meyers of Twinleaf Town. Substitutions will mandatorily be made between matches. The battle will conclude when one side has won three matches. Battlers, are you ready?"
"Ready."
"Good to go," said Renée, a girl in all black who looked a few years younger than me.
"Battle… begin!"
"Hope, it's yours!"
"Zweilous!"
She sent a black-and-blue two-headed dragon out onto the flat (basic) dirt battlefield. Oh no. Not a Unovan. I didn't know Unova's wildlife.
"Hope, into the air!"
Hope took off. The zwsomething spread her wings and flapped hard, rising swiftly into the air.
Oh good! I thought. Hope won't have a distance advantage. Fantastic.
"Zweilous, ice fang!"
"Hope, magical leaf! Don't let her near you!"
Hope ascended quickly, blasting leaves behind her. The zweilous flew straight through them. Right, okay, dragon type probably. Any secondary type? Maybe flying?
"Shockwave!"
Hope sent a beam of electricity behind her, which the zweilous brushed aside as well. Nope. Not effective.
Time skipped – Hope and Zweilous were in different spots, but I couldn't tell if it was a forward or backward jump.
"Hope, swift!"
The move hit the zweilous and… I mean, it did a little more than the other moves, so I guess this pokemon wasn't a rock type? Surely this wasn't pure dragon?
"Zweilous, use crunch!"
Oh, hold up.
"Hope, aura sphere!"
Hope launched a periwinkle blue aura sphere behind her. It wasn't even close to hitting, which meant she hadn't even tried to aim. Zweilous didn't need to dodge. Hope still had a strong speed lead, whirling around the arena with zweilous in pursuit.
Maybe we could use that?
"Hope–"
Time jumped again – they were up high – and then again – higher still, and zweilous had nearly caught up to her, ice glinting in her teeth.
"Hope–" Words were too slow, so I switched to communicating through Coeur and visualized what I wanted to happen. In a second, Hope was letting loose small aura spheres behind her as she flew, forcing the zweilous to focus more on dodging and slow down. Good news: the few that hit did seem to really affect the zweilous.
Another time jump – why did this always happen during battles? – and they both were high in the air, high above the top of the open-air arena, much higher than Hope had ever gone in training.
"-ve!" I only heard the tail end of Renée's command.
"Keep using aura sphere behind you," I said, squinting to try and see what was happening.
I might've vaguely seen some blue up above, but I couldn't really tell what was happening until Hope began to spiral down.
"Hope?"
"Elle est paralyzed," Def said.
I took out her pokeball. "Hope, try and level out, you can do it!" I heard her chirp distantly, but nothing changed in her movement. At some point she stopped spiraling and started tumbling, which was a change but not a positive one.
"Come on, Hope…"
As she grew nearer, the speed she'd built up became clear. She'd have fallen faster if she was diving, but falling from the height she'd gained would do a little worse than knock her out.
"Return," I said, catching her before she could hit the ground.
"Togekiss has forfeited the round. The first matchup goes to Zweilous!"
"Good job anyway, Hope," I said, patting the pokeball and putting it away.
I reached for another pokeball, but a moment later Prom was already on the battlefield, fighting a giant… feraligatr… but brown?
Ok time out (haha) let's just go over all the Unova pokemon I actually know:
Daikenki (technically samurott, but the Hoenn name is cooler)
Dream-eating pink balloon
Seasonal stantler
Flying pachirisu
Sort of like if you took the general form of an arbok and superiority complex of an empoleon and combined them and made them grass
Goth gardevoir
And last but not least,
Goth gallade with KNIVES
You may have noticed "brown feraligatr" is not on the list. Judging from the earthquake currently rocking the arena, though, this was a ground type.
"Krokorok, crunch!"
…and maybe dark again? Wait, was this a dark type trainer? Renée's outfit easily supported that idea. Ooh, maybe I'd get to see goth gallade with knives.
Another skip in time and Prom came crashing down with a large pond's worth of water onto the krokrokrokrokrok. The krok krok toppled over.
"Krokorok is unable to battle! Match two goes to Buizel!"
"Thanks, Prom," I said, recalling him. "Sorry I couldn't be there."
"He says it's okay," said Coeur.
I sent out Trust as Renée sent out an aHA I KNEW THIS ONE ah shit that's a water type. "Okay, Trust, stick to fighting moves," I said. "Mach punch, like we discussed."
Trust dashed forward, led by the white light in his fist. "Smokey, dodge, and use agility!" Renée shouted.
The daikenki (aka samurott) (aka Smokey, I guess) sidestepped Trust's punch and darted away, glowing faintly.
Time jumped backward into Prom's battle. I watched him blast the krokorok with water pulse before I jumped back to Trust's battle. This time, instead of fighting a daikenki, Trust was battling an unfamiliar black and red canine. The pokemon let out a ripple of darkness.
A moment later Trust was fighting a daikenki again. I couldn't keep track of all these time jumps. "What did I miss?"
"Not much. This samurott is speedy, but that's about it," said Coeur.
The samurott blasted a quick series of water pulses at Trust, who dodged and dodged again. A water pulse burst against his shoulder in passing, but instead of seeming hurt at all, Trust just looked perplexed.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"He isn't sure," said Coeur, "but he says it didn't feel like water."
"Smokey, hone claws!" Renée called out. The daikenki's front claws glowed white. That didn't make sense either – daikenkis use swords. I'm very sure of that. But Smokey's swords stayed sheathed in his arm scabbards.
"Evelyn, je ne peux pas read this pokemon," Definite said, confused.
And then it all made sense – the non-water, the hone claws, the other pokemon I'd seen battling Trust, the fact that Renée called this pokemon Smokey rather than Samurott.
"Trust, don't worry about the water. That's not a samurott. Get in there and get some fighting-type hits in."
Trust's feet glowed white as he immediately propelled himself forward. Smokey blasted water his way, trying to keep him back, but Trust ran right through like it was fog. Trust punched; Smokey dodged with his boosted speed, but didn't escape a kick imbued with mach punch-style fighting energy.
A veil dropped; Smokey was no longer a daikenki, but the black-and-red pokemon I'd seen before (later? future sight ooo). Trust landed several solid hits; Smokey dodged a few before he switched to countering with his claws. Shadow and dark energy rose from his hands, barely boosting the damage done to Trust by his scratches. Trust seemed to preempt Smokey's movements, countering swipes with punches just below his claws. I hadn't seen this kind of speed from Trust in months.
A blow to the jaw sent Smokey flying. Trust leaped after him, fist pulled back with fighting energy. He paused just above Smokey and waited. Smokey didn't move. Trust let the fighting energy subside.
"Zoroark is unable to battle! Infernape wins match three!"
"Nicely done, Trust," I said, swapping him out. We had a two-one lead. I already knew my fourth match pick.
"Coeur, it's yours!"
I'd barely sent her out when a time jump knocked me all the way back to Prom's battle. I was only there for a split second before the battle shifted to Trust versus Smokey the daikenki.
"Trust, that's a dark type in disguise, go for–"
Another jump: Coeur was mid-battle with–
AH YES IT'S GOTH GALLADE WITH KNIVES ! ! ! ! !
Coeur was darting around, leaving behind lavender aura spheres like land mines. The (I'm so sorry I don't know the actual name) knifey boy was picking his way through the aura spheres, which I took to mean he didn't have any special attacks that would be effective on Coeur.
A jump – the spiky emo pokemon slashed at Coeur twice with a light green energy I associated with bug types. She fell to the ground, aura spheres fizzling out around the battlefield.
"Umbreon is unable to battle! Bish–"
Another jump, and she was conscious again. Goth gallade's name was bish?
"Careful of the fury cutters," I warned Coeur.
Another jump–
"–unable to battle! Umbreon wins match three, which means Evelyn Meyers of Twinleaf Town is the winner!"
"Come on, Dialga, let me have this, please…" I muttered, walking forward to shake hands with Renée. I stayed on edge as I returned to the arena concourse through the green room, and met up with Thomas again, and returned to the festival, but time continued to flow smoothly and cheerfully as if it never deviated from consistency. The bastard.
"Oh, hold up, what was that pokemon called?"
"Which one?" Coeur asked.
"Goth gallade. I never heard the full name."
"Goth gallade?!"
"Yeah, you know, pointy dude, knifey boy, stabby stabby bish."
Coeur did eventually tell me the pokemon was a bisharp, but she was laughing so hard it took a while to get there.
(Zweilous technically evolves from deino at level 50 but that's a stupidly high level so shhhh don't tell anyone)
Featuring my sister whose name is not Etana, my son Andy who's been helping with Big Chance Project, and my son Renée who's been reading Chance and also helping with BCP! If I'm being totally honest my reasons for including friends in bigger or smaller cameos are inconsistent (even though I try to give the more-involved readers bigger ones), but the reason for Renée's cameo will become clear next chapter. My only regret is she's totally gonna use this to argue that she's the favorite son smh.
Evelyn's pre-battle song is Shelter by Porter Robinson and Madeon, aka my favorite song of all time.
Ok see you next chapter lol.