{ === + === }
[Day of the First Gym]
…
Yay poison. Ugh…
Anyways, the format is as thus:
All four of the LoG Troops are participating and are recognized organizationally as a team, so we're spread out in the brackets.
As this is one of the first C3s of the season timing-wise, the amount of participants is exceptionally high, but so is the reward money. Getting spread out is nice.
The first act…all participating trainers are grouped into six, and matches are held against each other. The highest scorer of the group goes into the High Bracket, and the second place scorer goes into the Low Bracket. Each KO counts as one point, for a maximum of 18 points. Each point also has a small money reward attached, so the more the merrier.
For the brackets stage: 128 people get whittled down to 32 in knockout rounds. From there, the 32 fight a Gym Trainer and a Gym Elite, winning that nets them a badge and a payout for winning the C3. After that, the winners can opt to continue to a 'grand final' stage against each other, where the winners and runner ups get a further payout, and probably some advertisement deals in the mix.
While the high and low brackets give a different money payout, it's the same C3 Badge and record within the IPL. There's more prestige attached to a high bracket win, but that's only really a point of concern on certain forums on the internet.
For now, our focus is getting past the group stage. The best part about the group stage matches is that Poison types are rare. The worst part is that Poison types are rare. At least none of us are in the same group.
Alrighty.
…
[Round One]
…
Versus: Rattata, Rattata, Zigzagoon.
I should mention at this point that, at least early on, there's not much quality difference between Circuits. You're likely to get the same stuff regardless of rank. It's generally about…one-third of the way through a Circuit that higher ranks spikes in difficulty.
Also it's a placement match, so quality tends to be all over the place. This particular trainer, for example, earned the right to qualify via willing a very easy Local circuit, and is probably in for an uncomfortably rude awakening.
…I shouldn't really talk, since I qualified via winning an Area Gym and almost everyone else in LoG qualified via buying a ticket…
Either way, Eevee jumps in, dominates with his in-fighting, and Chingling tags in to seal the deal with some well placed Thundershocks.
3 points.
…
[Round Two]
…
Versus: Pidgey, Spearow, Aron.
Trainer won an Area Gym.
Kind of a weird combo, but Chingling has the coverage and, lack of damage aside, zones out all three of them with little effort.
6 points.
…
[Round Three]
…
Versus: Bellsprout, Magnemite, Machop.
I take back what I said earlier about a weird combo. Also, this trainer is a benchwarmer…of a competitive C2 Team.
The Magnemite specializes in Sonic Booms to the point where we can't effectively counter. It's an interesting strategy and I couldn't get a step in against the damn thing.
Yuck.
Still 6 points.
…
[Round Four]
…
Versus: Zebstrika(!), Blitzle, Pikachu.
Another Team trainer, an active one on a C3 team and the favorite to win this group today.
Patty is able to hold her own due to typing advantage(ish), but ultimately the sheer power difference behind the Zebstrika is just too much to overcome. If not for his approach of sending his weakest out first to build experience I would've been swept again.
8 Points.
…
[Round Five]
…
Versus: Zigzagoon, Spearow, Budew(?).
Winner of an Area Gym.
The Spearow was wonderfully trained and did everything it could, but it could not carry its team against Chingling blasting it at point blank range with Thundershock.
11 Points.
…
[Round Six]
…
Versus: Graveler(!), Sandshrew, Woobat
Winner of an Open Circuit and that's a very valid team against a Poison gym, not gonna lie.
Patty, despite the size difference, draws against the Graveler. Eevee is able to hold the Sandshrew down long enough for Chingling to finish it off, and Woobat is just terribly mismatched against something that can toss Thundershock at it. Woo.
14 Points.
…
[Rankings]
…
Getting swept by Guy Three did me no favors, but he got swept by Guy Six, so it evens out.
Ultimately, I am in fourth place. Guy6 moves on to the winner's bracket, and Guy4 moves on to the loser's bracket. Guy3 is third–his Magnemite was the only one that was well trained, so once it went down he crumpled.
Unfortunate, but oh well.
To put it into perspective: there are so many participants that the high low brackets got split into two and each one still has 128 people.
12 = a lot of people trying out.
The 14 points gets me a little pocket change, so it's a little consolation. I buy ice cream for my team.
…
At the end of the day, we, uh.
It didn't go well, but weirdly also went way better than I expected.
Of the twelve, only one qualified, barely, into the lower bracket. Clappity clappity and all that.
Of the twelve, I had the third highest kill count, in the context of 'ace get last hit'.
None of the advertised Aces got past five kills.
I was kind of surprised that Andrew did so poorly, given that Meowstic is, by all rights, a pretty powerful hitter. Post battle analysis showed that, essentially, while Meowstic is very powerful compared to its peers in his group, the reliance on Stored Power and Andrew's generally very passive/reactive command style meant that once Meowstic showed off all of its tricks, it got eaten alive by anything that had Quick Attack or was fast and scary enough to apply pressure. Andrew's other two options he more or less ignored, and thus they were woefully underprepared to carry the slack.
…I guess 'ignored' is not what he did, but that's the end result, so eh.
Tana…had basically all the issues we expected her to have. Not enough time to prepare, not enough resources to prepare with, difficulty of command, difficulty of structure, so on, so forth. Legitimately she has talent, and when she's on-tempo she did well, but as soon as that tempo broke she crumpled, and it was not pretty.
So, to back up slightly: tempo in this case refers to the flow of command. For example, Eevee has a very standard attack chain in Quick Attack and Bite. He QAs in, makes contact, and Bites. Both going off means he's on-tempo. If his target evades the QA then he has to step in and Bite, with that miss being him going off-tempo and the step in as the correction. Being off-tempo a little and missing attacks is normal, but not being able to correct afterwards is very punishable. If Eevee stepped in too hard and overshoots then Patty gets easy hits with Razor Leaves, things like that. Pretty standard stuff when you step back and think about it.
Under the proviso that everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face, I dedicated a fair amount of time to train for off-tempo situations, and it's very obvious (especially after the fact) that Tana did not. Or, at least, not enough to compensate for the actual field conditions.
For example, a standard technique for recovering tempo is just to make distance. Making distance is a terrible idea when your 'mon is beaten out on speed or agility. In one of the fights, she tried to get her Solosis, a small gelatinous ball, to make distance against a Mienfoo, a kung-fu weasel(?). To her credit, she did cancel the order almost immediately, but that was still several free hits the Mienfoo got in despite the type disadvantage.
Overall, there's a lot to work on.
…
[Next Day]
…
Round of 128, we're here to watch and support the only person who passed the group stage.
By we I mean me, Patty, Eevee, Chingling. Nobody else showed up. Corporate sucks.
The person who passed is…'Amy'. She graduated very recently and moved to Lumiose from Kanto. Reasonably polite but not necessarily friendly. A good girl. She was not chosen as an Ace because, and I quote what I overheard from marketing, "she's not the right kind of attractive."
Her team is Wooper, Baltoy, Baltoy.
The Wooper is hers, the Baltoys are on loan.
…Actually, this could be very informative for Chingling, who most definitely shares the same 'spin to win' perspective on life as the Baltoys.
…
First round.
Wooper, Baltoy, Baltoy
Versus
Execute, Oddish, Wooper
…
Wow this matchup is bad.
The two Woopers get on the field first and make friends, before being swapped out for Baltoy1 and Execute respectively. Mirror matches must be given respect and Woopers must be allowed to make friends. It's only right.
After that…the Execute dominates the field. They're able to scatter to an extent and each egg is almost as tall as the Wooper. Between the lack of water that reduces Wooper's mobility and the scattering that makes Baltoy's ability to engage the cluster as whole terrible, Amy gets swept by the cluster of egg-colored coconuts.
Executes are one of those Pokemon that are difficult to manage but hideously strong if you get them right, and Amy's opponent sure knew what he was doing.
I feel like I learned a few things from how he utilized them, too. I'll have to chew on it a bit before the next C3, though.
…
So, yeah, first C3 over. We got our participation money but that's about it.
The next C3 is two weeks from now, enough time for us to adjust, but not enough for retrains. The good news for me is that my crew are not at all discouraged from their losses nor are they finding creative ways to vent their frustrations.
I most definitely did not have to purchase Magnemite plushies for them to savage, no sir. Eevee most definitely did not tear one down to just cotton and ribbons through five minutes of incredible Pokemon-on-Plushie violence.
…I mean at least he cleaned up after himself, so that's nice.
So, adjustments.
Or, first, bureaucratic nonsense.
Marketing is absolutely livid that none of the Aces went to the second day match. The fact that nobody seemed to know or care about LoG sinking on the first day is completely lost on them, too.
Weirdly, or not so weirdly, nobody is bothered about the fact that we lost beyond the fact that we lost. As in, apart from some variation of 'do better next time' there's no further action from up top.
Which…is not ideal. Thinking back to the Ironwreckers, apart from the training I did, I was also able to ask for advice from a dietician about how to best feed the two Ponytas, how to best adjust their physical training, when to rest, so on, so forth. There was a network of specialists that could provide advice that I or other trainers lacked. Granted, they weren't specialized in Ponyta care, but they still had relevant and useful advice.
Here we're on our own. Apart from the costs being covered, no other support exists. Anything we need to know has to be researched on our lonesomes. The managers for the Aces exist almost entirely as their liaison of business rather than training. It's not great.
…To be fair, it wasn't as if I had a concrete goal to train towards and I'm not the kind that actively asks for help anyways, so…
…y'know what, it's a little late to hire new help now. If management didn't hire a support crew in the months leading up to this they sure as hell wouldn't suddenly choose to do so now. Gotta play with what I have.
…
[Adjustment week 1]
…
Yeeeep management is in scramble mode. They spent so much effort on marketing and none for actual trainer preparation and are hilariously busy fielding questions from investors (and Observer) that they just don't have answers to.
According to the rumor mill, LoG's founder was a venture capitalist who tag-teamed with a skilled trainer and had some success early. Observer then reached out for a deal and the founder jumped at it. Something then caused the trainer to quit, and the team went downhill ever since. The most commonly accepted rumor was that the trainer fell in love and subsequently moved to Unova. The Trainer handled almost all Pokemon aspects of the Team and was incredibly talented, so after he left the Founder thought he could just hire a single replacement and everything will be fine. It wasn't.
In other news, a very common and boring story of ego being expensive. LoG is going to be five years old at the end of this year, with the Trainer having left somewhere in the middle of year three.
Point being, the management staff are now scrambling to get answers from us about topics that we know only the most general knowledge of, because we are not specialists. And, in their efforts to save money, some of the trainers are being told to fill in for roles for dietician, physical therapist, Pokemon-Energy-Equipment-Operator-Person, and so on, so forth, with the incredibly useful advice of 'just look it up' when we ask how do we actually do that.
"It's not going well" is an understatement.
As a side effect, more pictures are getting taken of me and other trainers that have worked with Teams before, because we have a more structured idea of how to go about our business, for marketing purposes.
Fine by me, I'm not photogenic anyway. Pictures of Patty would sell for millions, though. She's so adorable.
Speaking of Patty, the goal here is to figure out nonstandard uses for Energy Ball. I'll be the first to say I was naive to believe that just having a strong shot would be enough to qualify for a C3. The Magnemite, objectively speaking, had lower firepower, but even discarding the nature of its attack its usage was still miles above ours.
Like, yes, I had a bunch of ideas for alternate use or teamwork stuff lined up, like that Leech Seed business, but the reality was…different.
My goal is to help make Patty 'knead' the shot better, so that we can either get a higher speed per shot or, in niche situations, use the energy as a barrier for a hit. Her current kit of running three attack moves is great for zoning and coverage, but gives her few options if the opponent successfully reaches infighting range.
Eevee…will focus on swift, with the same kind of 'knead' focus like Patty. His goal is to focus the traditional 'shower' of swift sparks into one shot, and then hold on to that one shot so he can move and fire without a loss of concentration.
This will take him a while to do correctly, so I don't expect this to be done by the next C3. If anything I'd love to improve his melee further, but I don't know how and the few specialists I've reached out to have not responded or have politely refused the Team's request.
Chingling is more straightforward. She just has to get used to flying around with psychic power. Her shooting comes very naturally, so she just has to learn to kite. Bonus points if she learns how to do dash evades like in a videogame, but my hopes for that aren't very high.
…That said, Pokemon does have equivalents of the Soulsborne kind of games, and they happen to be Chingling's favorite, so maybe she'll take inspiration from them. There's special controller setups that are sold for Pokemon to use. Chingling's looks a little like a drum set. It's cute.
For the record: Chingling likes videogames, Patty likes books (particularly romcoms), and Eevee likes coffee. He's not a fan of high caffeine content, though.
Patty's idea of a fantastic evening is to be draped with a little soaked cloth, some hard candy, and a novel. I bought her a Pokemon-specific tablet attachment so she can flip pages using her Pokemon Power, but she still demands that I flip her pages for her.
In contrast, Chingling's evening is a marathon gaming session with a vat of energy drinks and a straw. A Chingling-sized vat is just a moderate sized bowl, so it's like, one-and-a-half cans of energy drinks if she really works on it, but, y'know, it's the heart that matters.
And, of course, Eevee's evening is to sip his coffee (that he gets me to brew for him, according to his exact-ish detail) and curl up for a nap. In utter contrast to his more energetic daytime mode. He tells me how he wants his coffee brewed through a rather complicated process of him tapping the container he wants and then, when numbers are needed, tapping my arm with his paws. Seven taps equals seven things. His paws are very soft.
There are quadruped-specific tools that I could buy so Eevee can brew his own coffee, but he's adamantly against using them for whatever reason.
…
I'm saying all this because I'm kind of at a loss on what to do next, apart from the training I have detailed, and I'm stressed out, and I need to take my mind off of things.
…
[Adjustment week 2]
…
I know what I want to do and have a vague idea of how I want to do it, but the results are just not there.
Patty's Energy Ball can be used as a shield, but only against melee strikes.
Eevee's Swift hits harder, but he has to stop to charge it.
Chingling can now air dash.
…One out of three isn't bad.
…
[Day of C3]
…
Fighting Gym. This one has a different layout than the previous.
There are five matches in total required for a badge, spread over two days. The first two matches are gym trainers and happen back-to-back. Matches three and four are against other trainers (PvP), either later in the day or in the next morning, and the last is against the gym elite late afternoon. Win all, get badge.
There are a few hundred participants, instead of a few thousand, and the relatively easier structure means it's a fairly low graded C3 with a similarly low prize pool to match, but it's not like we can taste it, so it's of no concern.
Once again, we are four teams of three, but there's no seeding in this gym, so here's hoping none of us meet in the pvp section.
Also, per management: we're still obligated to have the psychic types come out on top, but winning prize money is priority number one. I guess the boss ain't happy that his last ditch effort to keep LoG in relevancy is currently crashing and burning.
…
[Round One]
…
Against: Machop, Mienfoo, Dedenne.
…
Uh, ok. No points for guessing who's on anti-air duty today.
Eevee goes in first. He's at a disadvantage in this fight, and he knows it. I take care to avoid dragging him into infighting.
The field, I should note, is littered with little spheres that are 'rocks'. These rocks allow the incumbent fighting types to use Smack Down, or just to throw projectiles at the target.
Eevee, to his credit, has trained fairly hard for evasive maneuvers. While he can't use the charged Swift while moving, he can use regular swift on the go just fine.
It takes quite a bit, but he's able to sweep all three mons with a combination of fancy footwork and chip damage. Machop's plan was to throw rocks and Counter if we took advantage of that massive, trap-like opening and go in for melee attacks. Mienfoo was more into jump kicks, which made it very easy to dodge and counter via Agility and QA. Dedenne…as a dedicated anti-air he didn't move around much, so Eevee basically dragged it kicking and screaming by its tail and swung it around until it gave up.
While he did sweep, Eevee is now too exhausted to participate in the second match. So he will cheer in spirit.
…
[Round Two]
…
Against: Machop, Hawlucha, Timburr
…
Eeeeee that Hawlucha scares me. I forgot it existed so I made no preparations against Flying/Fighting, up to and including doing research on its abilities. Patty swaps Stun Spore for Synthesis because I'm just going to assume it has Limber.
.
Patty versus Machop.
.
Machop tries Smack Down, Patty counters with her Magic Leaves. She's a better shot, and she's been learning to hover better by watching Chingling, so this was no contest.
.
Patty versus Timburr.
.
Timburr is significantly more interested in in-fighting and is very good at using its log to defend itself while closing the distance. Fortunately, its swing with the log is too telegraphed and its non-log attacks are too slow, so Patty is able to dodge and counter with Leaf Blade enough to get the breathing room required to finish with an Energy Ball.
Whew. Ok.
.
Chingling versus Hawlucha.
.
Chingling starts by Thundershocking itself. The damage is non-trivial, but it stops the Hawlucha from latching on.
Thus, Hawlucha tries to latch but immediately recoils upon contact, Chingling fires off a Confusion and Hawlucha makes…a lot of distance. Huh.
Interesting.
Hawlucha gets a hold of itself and charges in again, but Chingling repels it again with Confusion.
…Very Interesting.
By default, a Pokemon getting hit with something it's weak against will recoil. It's an integral and basic part of training to help them overcome that so they can effectively counter despite being in trouble. For an in-fighter and (I assume) a grappler like Hawlucha, getting zoned out by a ranged attack means pressing in and pressuring at close range.
The fact that it's not doing that is great for us. We just have to make sure it's not so desperate that it lets adrenaline take over.
Thus, for the next minute, Chingling hovers, more or less out of range, against a determinedly grounded Hawlucha. Every time the Luchador Parakeet tries something, she'd blast it with Thundershock or Confusion and keep it pinned. The damage isn't high enough for the bird or the trainer to be worried yet, so they're looking for an opening.
…The problem is that Chingling still lacks respectable firepower. She's purposefully chipping away now, sure, but…
Yeah, crud.
Hawlucha flinches at its most recent damage via Thundershock and suddenly lunges in with Wing Attack. Chingling hits it with a Confusion by reflex, but Hawlucha follows through and grabs Chingling.
I had her cut the self-Thundershock to save energy. Super crud.
Yeah, Hawlucha pile-drives Chingling into the ground and she's out.
.
Patty versus Hawlucha.
.
I have momentarily forgotten that Eevee's too exhausted for this one. Uh oh.
Alright.
Patty's not necessarily energetic, either. She starts with Synthesis to get some energy back–it's basically a plant-based adrenaline rush–and the Hawlucha closes the distance, running and flapping its wings. It looks comical but if a man my size rushed at me like that I'd be sprinting away.
So, y'know, kudos to Patty for staying put.
Patty shoots Razor Leaves in response. Hawlucha ignores the hits and goes in for a grab.
Patty backpedals just barely out of reach and punishes it hard with a Leaf Blade. Nice.
Hawlucha readies a Wing Attack and Patty's not getting out of this one. Her hovering is better but it's not impressive.
Still, she counters with Leaf Blade and lets herself get clipped by Hawlucha's clawed wings. Since she's lighter and airborne, the hit lacks all of its power.
So Hawlucha flies up and grabs Patty.
Patty's response is a frenzy of Razor Leaves exploding outwards like a shotgun, finishing with an Energy Ball into Hawlucha's face.
The hit forces the bird away, but not before it's already made most of its pile drive distance to the ground. Patty lands worryingly hard, Hawlucha lands harder.
Patty floats upright and Synthesizes for energy, stumbling quite a bit. The Hawlucha, breathing hard, gets up as well.
And signals defeat.
…
Oh my god that was scary
Need to check up on Patty now
…
[Post Action Checkup]
…
Not hurt, just tired. Thankfully.
Pokemon are tough, and this was, fortunately, not a battle that exceeded Patty's durability.
…I feel terrible that I had to put Patty through that, and also rather guilty that I have not an ounce of shame about Chingling getting pile-drived into the ground.
Chingling, for her part, is aware of this disparity in treatment and is suitably sulky. Her favorite food happens to be beef jerky. I carry some around with me now, in a different pocket than Patty's candy because the flavors would clash, or so the two insist.
Not to go on a tangent or whatever, but you know how cats and dogs can be trained to push buttons and those buttons correlate with words or whatever? Pokemon can do that too, and most people, me included, have a set at home for the Pokemon to communicate. Pokemon can also just straight up be taught how to write, but it takes a long time for even simple pseudo-language. Supposedly it's built-in to all Pokemon, since even Alakazam have trouble writing despite being very mentally eloquent.
…
Anyways.
I passed my two gym fights, so now I get to spectate and let my team chill. With Patty on my left shoulder and Chingling on my right, each nibbling on their snack, I look around for Andrew and Tana's matches.
Eevee is getting treated like a cat: cradled by one arm and getting petted.
Andrew is not for another thirty minutes, so Tana it is.
Let's see…
…
…
Eh…
Tana is up against her second Gym Trainer, so she passed the first one, but by the looks of things she spent a lot of energy on her first trainer. Her team seems exceptionally tired.
It's Solosis, Espurr, Hoppip, versus Machop, Machop, Hawlucha.
Solosis seems to have already gone down and going by the heads up display visible to bystanders, Espurr and Hoppip are hovering between half to quarter strength. The other side has one Machop at a little under half. The display is not exact.
That reminds me, I should get the post-battle analysis before we leave.
Anyways, Tana has swapped in Hoppip and is using it to Gust, both on itself to get altitude and the target Machop for damage. The target Machop is maintaining a fairly low stance to minimize damage.
Machop Smacks Down the Hoppip with a rock, and the little pink weed thing is…well, it's actually pretty ok. Again, it's got a very light body and so there's a cap on how much damage a projectile can do, in a situation like right here where the hit wasn't dead on.
That said the Hoppip is still undertrained, and the hit flusters it enough for it to lose focus, panic, and get nailed by another Smack Down rock.
This ends the Hoppip, and it's out.
Espurr versus Machop.
Espurr, at least, seems to have gotten some focus during the two weeks. Its numbers in my vision are much higher, and she's running Psychic on the little thing.
…why is she running Psychic?
Well, alright then.
Espurr squares up against Machop and uses Psychic. The target Machop is down, because Psychic is a hideously powerful move regardless of circumstances.
The Gym Trainer sends out the second Machop, and Espurr taps out, because Psychic is a hideously powerful move regardless of circumstances.
Overkill is a great way to ensure that both you and your opponent are down one Pokemon.
But, yeah, the little thing has enough gas for one hit.
In other words, Tana did not do any sparring prior to this gym challenge.
In other other words, Tana was able to win against the first Gym Trainer without playing this card at all, which…y'know, all things considered is pretty impressive. If we consider the total damage sustained by her team versus Eevee, then she actually comes out on top in efficiency.
Regardless, she does lose here, so her challenge is done.
…
She's a bit bummed out and I'm under no obligation to play nice, but I offer to buy her some ice cream as a consolation prize. She politely refuses, and then disappears to god knows where.
So be it.
Andrew's match next.
…
…
Some thirty minutes later, I find Andrew, give him some words of encouragement, and see him on his way. Although we're technically a team of three, there's no cohesion and we…really don't know each other that well. We're basically just work buddies.
Anyways.
Andrew has Bronzor, Gothia, Meowstic.
His first Gym Trainer has Machop, Timburr, and…what is that? It's a pink bear-looking thing.
…The display says its name is 'Stufful'. Native to Alola. Huh.
First time seeing one of these.
Bronzor versus Machop.
It's similar to the Hoppip v Machop fight. The Bronzor is able to fly and uses Psychic attacks to great effect, while the Machop throws rocks. The Bronzor is denser and a target with less deflective potential, so while the Machop hits harder, it goes down faster.
Bronzor versus Timburr.
Timburr has basically no anti-air. It has a magnificent leap, but its swing is too easily telegraphed against a Psychic type, and it gets punished hard.
Bronzor versus Stufful.
The display shown to the audience shows a lot of info, but typing is somehow not one of them. Still, this is a Fighting gym and the opponent is a Gym Trainer, so it's a fair guess to say that Stufful is at least partially Fighting type.
Bronzor tries to put it down with Confusion, but as soon as its attack lands the pink bear devolves into a murder machine and smacks it with a Revenge of such force that the Bronzor is down almost immediately.
Not to be easily approached, that thing.
Meowstic versus Stufful.
Andrew is done playing around, apparently. He swapped out something in exchange for Psychic, and blasts the bear to kingdom come.
Round one over.
There's not enough time to fully recover in between matches, so Bronzor only regains a little of its energy. It can go into round two, but is probably not going to do much beyond soaking a hit.
…
Round Two.
Andrew's Team versus: Machop, Hawlucha, Riolu.
Huh.
I'm aware of…for some reason I default to thinking that Riolu's evolved form is Ludicolo and they're not related in the slightest…I'm aware of Lucario and it's generally high standing, especially in Kalos/Shalour culture. Riolu…less so.
Gothita versus Machop.
Gothita is defensive and relatively passive, so it does Charm things against a Machop. Charm, while useful, gets significantly less useful when the target is within Karate Chop range.
Gothita also can't do its Psychic-type attacks while getting punched in the face, and this particular Machop is noticeably larger than its target, so this just looks like bullying.
In the grand scheme of things, Gothita went down but it did what it was meant to do: weaken the opposition.
Thus, Meowstic comes in and goes into Calm Mind almost immediately. There's a fundamental problem with this strategy.
Machop throws rocks. It is rather difficult to keep composure while rocks are being tossed, and Meowstic is not getting as much effectiveness as it should be.
Three or four rocks in, and Andrew decides that it's enough, and Psychics the Machop to nothingness. Proverbially speaking.
Meowstic versus Riolu.
Meowstic is now buffed, and while Riolu is able to apply pressure with high agility and decent QA, it only has the durability to suffer one hit, and one is all it took.
Meowstic versus Hawlucha.
Cat versus bird. Meowstic is very much so daring Hawlucha to come in and grapple, and Hawlucha accurately reads that getting in close would be bad. Still, it doesn't have many other options. It takes off into the sky to dive in and latch.
Meowstic blasts it at near point blank range. Which, while visually impressive, does mean that it gets bodyslammed by the disoriented bird. Some damage, but not much.
Round Two over. Having an evolution and making semi-good use of it is like night and day, huh?
Still, we won. Woo! Er, he won.
…
Alright, so, post first-day-analysis:
Of us twelve, seven made it past the first round. Of the four aces, only one made it.
Per collective agreement, we all get the battle recordings for all of our fights and go through them. The records are not visual, as the visual is on stream and freely available, complete with poor camera angles. Rather, the records are timestamps of energy use, relative positioning, move usage, inferred damage…basically, a giant pile of data.
I only have the time to thoroughly examine my own data, but a very high level, generalized conclusion I can draw from all our data is that the people that failed to qualify either underestimated how much energy they were burning through Round One, and/or took the Psychic type advantage for granted and got punished for it.
Someone has to be last, and it happens to be Tana this time. Really only on a technicality.
Still, we did a lot better than the first gym, so we all go out for dinner to celebrate.
I don't think any of us have hopes for tomorrow.
.
.
[Next Day]
.
.
The two PvP rounds. Like yesterday, the two matches are practically back to back, so there's no time to rest in between. Fortunately, since it's all challenger vs challenger we're all on more or less equal footing. Theoretically.
…
Round One:
Patty, Eevee, Chingling
Vs
Pidgeotto, Fearow(!), Hawlucha
Ha.
Ha ha ha.
Yeah there's no chance.
The Fearow leads and is very well trained. As a large(ish) bird, it enters the field landed, so Eevee gets an advantage via QA…but the advantage is not nearly enough to keep Fearow grounded, and it takes off after a brief tussle. Afterwards, the only one that can remotely keep up with its agility is Eevee, and his Swifts are not nearly enough to shoot down the bird whose beak may as well be the length of his entire body.
I like to believe that I've caused a not negligible amount of energy loss for our opponent here, but…yeah. It's one sided.
Flattened, rolled up, and tossed aside.
Incidentally, the trainer is a familiar-ish face: he was one of the participants during that forest race with the Natu. He's also a prospective trainer for the Wings of Glory (WG), which is a C1 Team that specializes in Flying types. He grew up with the bird when it hatched as a Spearow, so their teamwork is leagues ahead of ours.
Sucks, but, that's life.
…
As far as the rest of the crew goes…it's not better.
Andrew goes the furthest, barely losing in his second round.
Well, hey, improvement, I guess? We're doing bad but not terrible. According to some people crunching data on our…very corporate sponsored fan chats, we're performing at a fairly normal rate for a new team that's trying to brute force its way into C3 victories.
Which…is very whelming news, I guess. For some of the team, they're more used to a standard Cinderella-esque story and…I don't wanna say they expected themselves to perform as such, but they definitely dreamt it.
It is what it is. Moving on.
…
[Dark Gym]
…
This…I would be lying if I said we were ready for it.
I would be lying if I said we were able to amply prepare for it.
I would be lying if I said we, uh, participated in any meaningful way.
Long story short LoG pulled out of this one. Like given how badly we got worked over in the other gyms, the Dark gym would literally eat us alive.
Well, the gym's format would mean we would've fought people with teams that are vaguely anti-Dark, so we actually would have done really well, but, eh.
But, yeah, the top brass pulled out.
…
I mean I'm talking about it like they pulled out due to cowardice, but realistically the Dark gym was five days after the Fighting one and the retraining would've been really tight. According to Andrew the top brass expected us to ride high on the feelings of victory.
Ha.
…
Anyways, the honeymoon phase is now over. Psychic gym is next and none of us have any knowledge on how to train against that beyond what can be found on the internet. And this is with the full understanding that we have had Psychic types to practice against for months.
Yay.
.
.
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{ === + === }
Author Notes:
I think this is the point where I start to have a framework in mind of a 'gamelike' system that the story will follow.
Somewhere in the middle between Pokemon, Monster Rancher, and Umamusume.
So, a net wide enough to encompass many things.