Happy 4th night of Hanukkah I think?

This was supposed to be a shorter chapter but noooo battles have a mind of their own and usually that mind is fully 2k words long and this one is 2.5k AHH

I realized that if I want the Chance holiday season to line up at all with the IRL holidays I gotta publish at least like twice a week for the next three weeks... idk if that'll happen but I might throw some non-Sunday updates at you to at least minimize how deep into January I get by the time the Chance holidays come around.

(And ofc CW: light depresso)

The sky had turned gray by the time we exited the main arena. I zipped up my jacket, shivering at the sudden cold. December was finally showing itself.

And I was sad again.

There just… there really was no chance with Lucas, was there? Had our battle really damaged us further? He hadn't even looked at me just now. We hadn't had a positive interaction in… Nearly three months now? Arceus, had it really been that long? Was that too long a period of animosity to salvage anything? Surely there was still something I could do?

I didn't know what to do with the knowledge that Trust had been named Chance, once. I just, I don't know, this was just a factoid I now possessed? Obviously I wouldn't change Trust's name – there was no reason to, plus "Trust" fit him better anyway, plus of course I'm not changing my pokemon's name over a boy – but it still felt weird to know. It just felt so important and significant and having nowhere to go with the information was like having a compressed spring coiled in my chest.

Anyways.

I sat in the Diamond Arena for half an hour before my battle, listening to the same song as usual. I submitted my round four pokemon selections almost at random, having minimal information about the pokemon I needed to counter. All I knew about Matthew Tian's team was that he had a ninetales, and last time there was a togekiss and lapras, but if my team had changed as much as it had, then there was no telling what his team looked like now.

2:30 rolled around and I pulled my earbuds out. Go time.

"This will be a four-on-four single battle between Evelyn Meyers of Twinleaf Town and Matthew Tian of Eterna City. Pokemon selections have been submitted ahead of time by the trainers. Substitutions may be made at one-minute minimum intervals. The battle will conclude when all pokemon on one side have been defeated. Battlers, are you ready?"

"Ready."

"Yeah." Between us stood a sad-looking once-woodland, or just an expanse of stumps across a gently hilly forest floor.

"Battle… begin!"

"Hope, it's yours!" I said, hoping I'd picked a good matchup.

"Arlo, you're on!"

Arceus fucking dammit, that's a tyranitar.

The tyranitar's sand stream stirred the battlefield into motion, throwing splintery dirt into a sandstorm. I glanced to the arenaside substitution timer, which was already counting down. At least in a minute I could send Prom in.

"Arlo, stone edge!"

"Hope, take off."

White-blue rings appeared around the tyranitar and solidified into stone, rocketing at Hope, trying to follow her ascent but zooming past below her.

A jump in time – Hope was up way above the sandstorm, pointed stones shooting up at her. She was dodging erratically, but the fact that she had to dodge as actively as she did meant the tyranitar had good aim. I eyed the clock – ten seconds til I could swap her out – and all but missed the rock that hit Hope in the wing. She chirped and flipped over, tumbling downward and picking up speed.

I clenched her pokeball in my hand. Seven, six…

She reentered the sandstorm, obscuring my view of her.

Four, three…

A click in my brain; suddenly I could see the multicolored outlines of everyone – Arlo, Hope, Matthew – through the sand. I aimed Hope's pokeball.

One–

"Hope, return! Prom, it's yours!"

I caught Hope before she hit the ground and promptly sent Prom out in her place. "Okay, just like our battle with Byron: soak the sand with aquajet. Coeur, was that legal?"

"Who cares?" piped the umbreon who'd loaned me her aura vision (because apparently THAT'S possible). "If you can telepathically communicate with pokemon who aren't battling, aura assistance should be allowed. Besides, they'll never know."

I suppressed a grin, but my face fell when I realized – as Prom's aquajet wiped away the sandstorm – Matthew's tyranitar was no longer on the field. Instead, there was a torterra currently hurling bullet seeds at Prom. A glance at the substitutions-cooldown timer told me he had swapped pokemon before I did, which meant he'd expected the substitution for Prom and countered it. This was a very different kind of battle than I was used to.

"Okay, Prom? Evade whatever grass you can, and get in there with ice fang."

Time jump – the entire stadium had grown brighter, and the torterra was charging–

"PROM, PROTECT!"

The solarbeam ricocheted off Prom's hasty shield, but not without cracking it badly at the point of impact. It definitely wouldn't last under the next solarbeam, which was charging quickly.

"Prom, play evasion… wait, hide under the torterra."

Prom leaped out of the way of the solarbeam, which fried a tree stump instead. He darted below the torterra to hide from the next one charging above.

"Leto, down!"

"SHIT, Prom, get out of there!"

The torterra sank down right-side-first, so Prom shot out the left – which was the point, I realized. Leto anticipated Prom's direction with a solarbeam that hit him square in the back. Prom flew forward and skidded through the dirt, faceplanting against a tree stump.

Okay. Ahh. Okay. Ice, we need ice.

"Prom – try infusing watergun with ice energy."

It wasn't quite ice beam, but it would be a start. I didn't get to see the results, though, since time skipped forward enough for the substitutions timer to run out.

"Prom, return," I said. "Faith, you're up."

Faith appeared and immediately sank underground. "Red cedar," Def reported.

"Hm– oh, the stumps?"

"Oui."

I sent Faith a nonverbal message.

"Leto, earthquake!"

The arena shook – I steadied myself, grinning. It would have worried me, if I hadn't already learned from Byron's battle.

The tree on Leto's back rustled suddenly. "Nightshade," I said. A ripple of ghost energy spread outward from the tree trunk, hitting Leto's back. Faith followed up with a dark pulse.

"Leaf storm!"

Leaves peeled off of the tree and whirled around the trunk, but it was clear Leto didn't want to harm his own tree. Faith was fine.

"Hypnosis!"

A flurry of gold rings floated down from the tree, popping against Leto's head like bubbles. He sank down, asleep.

"Leto, return–"

"Mean look!"

The beam of pokeball light that hit Leto couldn't pull him in. "Nice job! Now use nightshade!"

A jump in time – Faith was fighting a ninetales. I knew this one.

"What did I miss?"

"Leto is down, Mei used safeguard," Def informed me.

Safeguard… oh, the one that blocks status ailments. Well, crap, that was Faith's entire fighting style.

"Faith–"

A jump… forward, I assume? Prom was out, dodging solarbeams again, except this time from Mei.

"Water pulse at the sunny day."

Time jump – Hope falling from the sky into a sandstorm. I pulled out her pokeball to catch her–

Time jump – Faith against Mei, a pink shield rising.

Time jump – Coeur running into a sandstorm, glowing purple with aura. "Def, what's happened so far?"

"Promise et Faith sont inconscient," Def said. "Leto aussi. Coeurage is fighting Arlo."

"Do we know who his fourth pick is? Tyranitar, torterra, ninetales, and…?"

"Je ne sais pas."

I heard a small explosion in the sand, accompanied by a roar. Aura sphere, hopefully.

Time jump – Hope falling from the sky.

Time jump – a sunny day active. Mei let out a boosted flamethrower that brought Faith to the ground.

"Gengar is unable to battle!"

"Who's conscious?" I asked Def.

"Promise, Coeurage, et Hope."

"Prom, it's yours!"

"Mei, return! Leto, you're on!"

Ugh, not again. "Prom, use ice punch from below!"

Prom dove out of the way of a solarbeam and shot under the torterra. Before Leto could consider crushing him, icy blue energy flashed below. Leto roared.

"Leto, leaf storm!"

"Protect!"

A whirlwind of leaves shot beneath Leto's body right before his left legs lifted off the ground. Prom expanded the shield slowly, straining as it pushed against the weight of an entire torterra. He gave a final shove, his shield turning a dark shade of blue as the torterra rolled over. The spiked stones on Leto's right side dug into the ground, protecting the tree on the left, but he was stuck with his legs in the air. I glanced at the clock – thirty seconds til he could switch out.

"Ice punch!"

Leto tried to reach out with a giga drain, but Prom evaded it and stayed distant. "Okay, use aquajet, and head it with ice punch," I said.

Prom shot forth, swerving around another blast of leaves. It chased him, but fell when he crashed into Leto's underside, icy fist-forward. A few more quadruply-effective hits were enough to take down the inverted torterra.

"Torterra is unable to ba–"

Time jump – Hope falling.

Time jump – Faith blasting the fiery sun-substitute with dark pulse. It vanished in a wisp of flame, and Mei's flamethrower lost power but still hit–

Time jump –

I heard a crunch somewhere in the sandstorm in front of me. A collective gasp sounded from the crowd.

"What happened?"

Two voices on two different wavelengths told me–

"It's Hope–"

"Hope just crashed–"

"–fell HARD–"

"–she was really high–"

"Is she okay?" I pulled out Hope's pokeball.

Coeur lent me her aura vision – onfield, there was a tyranitar-shape in leafgreen and a violet human past that, and on the ground–

I recalled her quickly. "What's it mean when their aura dims like that?"

"Uhh… it could mean a few things, but none of them are good."

I knelt down to place Hope's pokeball in the urgentcare box by my feet. The crowd murmured with worry. A sunny day replaced the sandstorm, and I could see the concern on Matthew Tian's face from across the full battlefield. That was his maybe-former togekiss I'd let crash into the earth. I felt sick – the timeskips were putting my pokemon's lives at risk. I was putting their lives at risk, by not having a reliable anchor.

How could I possibly call myself a decent trainer when I endangered my own pokemon?

The urgentcare box took Hope underground, and I stood up. "Um… Coeur. Fighting advantage," I said, suddenly exhausted, swapping her in.

Time skip – not backward, unfortunately. Faith fighting Leto. "Mean look, hide in his tree," I told her before skipping

in time again, to Coeur against Mei, Coeur trying to dig her way underground. "Wait, stop, you'll get caught in the roots," I said before I jumped

to another point where it was Leto and Prom again, and I sent Prom a mental image of tipping him over with protect and ice moves before I was

heavy, like my bones had doubled in weight and my heart fallen asleep, and

watching Coeur get blasted by a solarbeam, which propelled her thirty feet before she tumbled to a stop.

"Umbreon is unable to battle!"

"Who's left?" I asked, recalling her.

"Just Promise."

"What about the other team?"

"Mei and whoever his fourth is."

Time skipped again – Prom was onfield, fighting erratically, and I knew he was toxic-poisoned before I even saw the muk, because I'd never seen Prom in so much pain Arceus alfuckingmighty. There were tears streaming down his face and horror in his eyes, and his limbs moved gracelessly, like he was too panicked to fully remember how to use them. Part of me just wanted Prom to hurry up and lose because shit, at least then he wouldn't be suffering, but Prom was too strong for that and so he was still going, and still going, despite the pain in his head and body, the poison in his veins and the traumas it dredged up…

No, fuck this.

I pulled out his pokeball to pull him back. Fuck this battle, I'd forfeit if it meant–

Time skipped – Prom was fighting Mei, totally fine. He chased her with aquajet while she fled using quick attack. He changed directions suddenly to preempt her path, crashing into her side and sending them both tumbling across the field. Prom got up with a water pulse poised and ready – and then dropped it.

"Ninetales is unable to battle!"

"Def, is it Prom and a muk left?"

"Ehh, c'est Prom et un autre pokemon."

I took a deep breath, forcing myself awake. Prom needed me. I couldn't let him suffer the way I'd seen. I would not let it happen again.

"Ume, you're on!"

"Prom, I'm gonna have you in aquajet most of the time, for poison protection."

I heard an affirmative.

"Ume, use spikes!"

"All right, go!"

The muk conjured and scattered tetrahedral shards over the ground. Prom kicked an aquajet into motion. Hopefully that would keep him airborne enough to avoid–

"Stealth rock!"

I clenched my jaw. Those would be harder to avoid. At least they weren't–

"Toxic spikes!"

Fuck.

I felt my focus sharpen. "Prom, we're gonna avoid physically attacking her, just in case she has a poison-contact ability. Surf is good, and so are water pulse and watergun."

Another affirmative.

Prom shot across the field, trailing water. The stealth rocks he brushed against hit only the stream around him. He dropped a small water pulse on Ume's head in passing and was gone before she could aim a sludge bomb his way. Prom returned with a second pulse, icier than the first.

"Thunderbolt!"

"Drop the water!"

Ume aimed wide, but the electricity would've connected with the tail of Prom's aquajet had he not let it disperse. He fell towards the spikes. "Surf!"

The water that had fallen all around the field rose as one from the soil. Prom let it catch him and rode forward on the wave. Ume waited. I was ready.

"Thun–"

"Jump!"

Ume aimed for the water again, hoping to electrocute Prom by conduction, but he was already out of the wave. She stopped the electrical current by the time the water reached her, though it pushed her into some of her own spikes. Prom landed in a protect bubble, avoiding the battlefield hazards awaiting him on the ground.

"Ume, use acid armor!"

The muk melted – her amorphous form dissolved into the water, melding into the soaked battlefield. I narrowed my eyes.

"Let's get some ice going."

Pale blue sparks flickered in front of Prom's face.

"No, start small. If we evade, we have time."

He started with a watergun with shards of ice within it. A sludge bomb flew out of the soil behind Prom – he and I both stepped to the side. A small part of me realized what had just happened, but the rest of me pushed forward with intense focus.

Prom turned a water pulse into a slushy ice shard, directing it at the sludge's source location. It burst on the muddy ground, but another sludge bomb flew from a different spot.

No words; just an aquajet straight up into the air, where Prom paused thirty feet up to shoot ice down. Still a slushy ice bomb.

Ice beam isn't ice itself; it's purer than that. It's ice energy itself. It only forms ice after it hits. It's the same energy that lingers around your teeth when you use ice fang, just shot forward.

Prom came down in an aquajet, narrowly missing a toxic spike I noticed in time. He exhaled close to the ground. It was barely more than an ice fang – the ice energy hardly left his jaws – but it froze a small section of the ground. Perfect.

A sludge bomb flew high; Prom dodged it, but neither of us saw the follow-up coming much faster til it was too late. It hit; Prom shuddered at the feeling of poison in his fur, but surrounded himself in an aquajet that washed it off of him. He wasn't poisoned. He moved to a new spot and froze the area around him, then shot with aquajet to another location and froze it too. The frozen patches were getting bigger with each breath. And soon I spotted purple in the ice.

All our attention clicked at once. Prom shot high in the air with aquajet. He reached the peak of his ascent, weightless, and began to fall. Matthew was shouting something, trying to help his muk unfreeze herself from the ice in time. Prom shot downward, aided by gravity and aquajet, headed by water and a bit of ice, and slammed into the purple spot on the ground.

Water, ice, and splintery soil burst from the point of impact. I covered my face. When misty dirt stopped raining down on me, I could see Ume was solid again – solid and down.

"Muk is unable to battle! Round four goes to Evelyn Meyers of Twinleaf Town!"

"Well done, Prom," I said, pulling him back into his pokeball rather than having him navigate the spikes back to me.

"Thanks," said a voice in navy blue. I smiled, but wasn't surprised. We'd been too entirely in sync in that battle for it to have been anything else, and Coeur was already down.

Prom had learned to use aura.

Sorry Matt this was the only way I could beat you in a pokemon battle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Shoutout to all the pokemon I ever use for not being available in gen 8, bc bulbapedia defaults to not showing their movesets :(

Yeehaw we love allegories :)