The Snowflake Cup: Final Round

Celeste felt the cold creep up on her legs as soon as she called Powder out. Her eyes scanned around nervously and rested on the patches of frozen ground being formed on the battlefield.

She took a deep breath that came out misty and her heart hammered violently in her chest.

Beside her, there were claps and whistles. A full audience. The DJ and his wigglytuff were eating them up, of course. Celeste couldn't be bothered to listen, but there was a sense of finality to his rambles.

Her eyes shifted again, from the cool ice patches and the pale bluish fur of her vulpix to the red.

The red light of a pokéball's beam. The red painted smile dancing on her opponent's lip. The red hair flowing with the cold wind. And those piercing crimson eyes.

Lorelei was her friend, but she wasn't playing.

—*—*—

"Accept things as they are," Celeste said with a smirk, glancing at the silver-haired woman beside her. "That was good advice," she continued, turning her attention to the gym leader on the other side of the video phone's screen. "So I accept I can't beat Lorelei." She crossed her arms and nodded. "Not by myself anyway."

There was a moment of silence as Opal and Olga exchanged looks. Although they had just met, there was a familiarity in their shared concern for the girl.

Celeste grinned at them. "That's why I called for a meeting of Team Cee! Olga, I have no idea why someone who sells ice cream knows so much about battling, but you're good. You, me, and Opal can figure this out."

The girl looked expectantly at the two women, who were still staring at her. Olga maintained a neutral expression, while Opal, with her eyes hidden by a hat, tapped her fingernails on the table and wrinkled her long crooked nose.

"I'll call mom and dad after the battle, I promise," Celeste said, absentmindedly playing with a strand of her hair. "But right now, Aunty Opal, I really need your help. It means the world to Powder to win this, and I don't want to let her down."

Opal sighed and removed her hat, her gaze shifting to Olga rather than Celeste. "She told me you have a son."

Olga nodded and crossed her arms. "These days, it feels like I'm taking care of a lot more than just him."

"Good, good," the gym leader smiled as she trailed her fingers along the edges of her hat. "Would you mind convincing some of those children to call their mother? Tia can give battle advice, too. Once upon a time she completed the Alolan Island Challenge with her icy sandshrew."

"I'm right here," Celeste muttered. "Can't we do this guilt thing after the battle?"

The two women exchanged a look, and Opal, placing her hat on the table, finally gestured for Celeste to speak.

The girl sighed, fiddling with her thumbs, unsure where to start. "Right… in the last battle, I finished with Moonblast. It was a lot stronger than when we trained it, but..."

"Your vulpix collapsed shortly after?" Opal leaned in closer to the screen, making her already big nose appear even larger. "I thought this might happen."

"Shouldn't I have got a heads up?" the girl complained. "I was so worried. She was also poisoned... I thought it was bad."

Opal let out a croaky chuckle and grimaced. "Cutiefly, you need to make mistakes to learn from them," she said. "Put yourself in your pokémon's place. You are in an intense battle. There is poison in your system, but you are fighting with all you've got. Your Powder was filled with adrenaline and ended up taking more fairy energy than her little body could handle."

"That... that makes sense." Celeste admitted. "But that's also kind of my problem. We can't win against Lorelei with just Powder's Snow and Ice Shard. We won't even have time for Moonblast to charge, and even if we do, there's always the risk of Powder being taken out immediately after... It feels like a losing game."

The girl looked at the two women again, but this time, her eyes rested on Olga.

"So how do I win this?" She bit her lower lip. "And please don't say I can't."

—*—*—

The hail from Powder's Snow Warning ability was already falling when the referee gave the signal for the battle to begin.

"Kristal, let's start with Lick," Lorelei commanded with her usual calm.

"Don't let her," Celeste reacted, trying to ignore her trembling hand and her pounding heart.

The smoochum playfully stuck her tongue out, like a kid tasting snowflakes on a snowy day. Large ice chunks falling at high speeds from the sky shouldn't be as soft in the mouth as a snowflake, however.

Someone in the audience, who had the exact same idea, let out a loud groan. A hailstone falling into a human's mouth would certainly hurt, but smoochum, much like Powder, was an ice-type, and things worked differently for them.

Celeste let out a small smile as she watched the hail turn into some kind of sparkly dust right before it touched Kristal's tongue. It was subtle and quick, but the effect of ice energy negating itself was quite pretty. The individual hail pieces were small enough to disintegrate completely, making ice pokémon immune to it. Other moves, like Ice Shard, wouldn't vanish completely, but rather become smaller and less effective.

The science of type interactions was a strange new world that Celeste would be extremely curious about at any other time. Right at that moment, however, there was a tiny pink thing taunting them. It was hard to care about anything else.

"Keep your cool," Celeste said, trying to steady herself. Powder knew what she needed to do. All of her tails were spread on the floor, and her gaze locked onto every movement the smoochum made.

"You can play later, Kristal," Lorelei told her smoochum while clicking her heels on the floor. "Use the move."

Kristal winked at Lori and didn't waste another moment to leap into action. With her tongue still out, she closed the distance between herself and the vulpix quickly.

Celeste took a deep breath. She didn't need to issue a command. Her pokémon was in control.

At the right moment, when little Kristal was close enough, the vulpix dodged the attack and circled around to the smoochum's back. From there, she launched a few ice shards, dealing some damage, however small.

Celeste smirked when she noticed her opponent wince. This was just like their battle with the swinub.

That smoochum was faster than any swinub, however. She spun around, taking the ice shards to the face, and leaped towards Powder again, tongue out and ready for a lick.

Celeste held her breath as the small pink pokémon got dangerously close, but Powder got away once more. Using the surrounding hail to create larger shards, she drove Kristal to pause and huff in frustration.

With another click of Lorelei's heels, Kristal resumed her sprint towards Powder, who remained attentive and ready to dodge again.

Running her hands through her hair, and feeling stray hailstones fall on her shoulders, Celeste shifted on her feet.

This was going to take a while.

—*—*—

"We're not supposed to give you the answers, Celly," Opal said, still tapping her long fingernails on the table. After a few moments of back-and-forth, the gym leader seemed resolute.

"You're supposed to teach me if I ask for help," Celeste pouted, turning to Olga in hopes of finding a more favourable response. The silver-haired businesswoman simply lifted her eyebrows, unamused, encouraging the girl to continue. "Please?"

"Do you remember when you were younger, and we played pop quiz?" Opal grinned, seemingly pleased with the new direction of the conversation. Celeste rolled her eyes in response.

"You mean the ones where you'd ask me how old you were and then give me cake if I said you were sixteen?"

Opal puffed her chest. "Excuse me!" She raised her eyebrows and brought her hands to her face. "I hope you're not insinuating I'm not sixteen."

"Of course you aren't," Celeste narrowed her eyes and grinned mischievously.

"You wound me, cutiefly."

The girl blinked innocently. "Come on, it's been what? Seven, eight years since we last did one of those?" she said, her grin widening. "You must be twenty-three by now."

The gym leader let out a hefty laugh, and Celeste didn't dare look at Olga's face. She was pretty sure there was a subtle groan coming from behind her, though.

"You know," Opal said, leaning back in her chair with a smile, "you've just proved my point."

"You were trying to make a point?" Celeste raised her eyebrows. "What was that, again?"

"That you pay attention and try to learn," Opal smiled. "So, pop quiz. You had three battles. What did you learn from them?"

Celeste leaned back and crossed her arms. She glanced at Olga, whose expression remained as blank as ever.

"The first battle was against a seel," she began, somewhat annoyed with the direction of her team meeting. "I had a plan, and it went wrong, but I came up with a solution on the spot. That felt nice."

"You were always good at improvising," Opal laughed. "Even though you keep telling everyone that you're awesome with plans."

Celeste opened her mouth, then closed it again, laughing awkwardly. "I can only improvise when a plan fails, and, uh... that's part of the plan? Or no. I have a better comeback: I'm awesome with plans because I can come up with them on the spot... sort of..."

"Focus," Olga groaned, eliciting another laugh from Opal. "Anything else?"

"I've been trying to focus," the girl muttered, but another glance from Olga caused her to slump her shoulders and continue. "I liked how the seel transformed the field into an ice rink. Powder and I could create platforms and such in the future, but we're still nowhere near that."

"Anything useful?" Olga asked, crossing her arms.

"It's good to have something to strive for," Opal chimed in, looking amused at Olga. "But what about the second battle? What have you learned in there, Celly?"

Celeste looked at the silver-haired shop-owner and smiled. "That is easy. I learned I can't obsess over one idea. Sometimes I need to accept that the direction I was going was wrong, take a step back, and try another approach," she said, then turned back to Opal. "Well, that, and the fact that Powder's tails are freaking amazing. She can react much better when she uses them."

"Good," Opal nodded and closed her eyes. "What about the third battle?"

—*—*—

Celeste watched as the smoochum closed in on the vulpix again. She was surprisingly fast and sturdy for such a small pokémon, but Celeste could see that she was tiring out.

They had been playing a game of tag for about two and a half minutes. The smoochum would get close, Powder would avoid the move just in time and shoot ice shards at her. Plan A was to continue this pattern until the vulpix could execute her fairy move to finish the battle.

Celeste tapped her feet on the floor as Powder narrowly avoided Kristal's tongue once more. After missing, the smoochum twirled like a ballerina and jumped toward the vulpix again. The tip of her tongue scraped Powder's hair puffs, but another quick reaction allowed Celeste's pokémon to escape. Kristal, however, lost her balance and ended up falling on her face.

"There's our opening!" Celeste yelled. "Use—"

Before the girl could finish her sentence, there was a loud cry from Kristal as she swung her little arms and legs in frustration. It was like a kid throwing a tantrum, and there were some loud boos from the audience who didn't seem to appreciate Powder making the smoochum cry.

The young trainer gritted her teeth when Powder looked at her, confused. She had fallen for Kristal's Fake Tears before. No way this was happening again. Celeste's eyes darted to Lorelei, who seemed unmoved. Whatever she was planning, they would not let this opportunity slip by.

"Powder, Moon..." Celeste took a deep breath. "Moonburst!"

The fairy energy was already swirling around her pokémon as Celeste counted the seconds. One, two, three...

"Heart Stamp followed by Lick," Lorelei finally said, clicking her heels.

The smoochum got up and around as if nothing had happened and jumped towards Powder.

"Five!" Celeste yelled, but it was too late. Kristal had got closer to the vulpix, her fists lit up with psychic energy. She extended her stubby little arms and punched the air, forming a strong, heart-shaped attack. Powder didn't have time to finish her move or dodge, being thrown to the other side of the field by the psychic blast.

The vulpix stood back up, stumbling on her feet. The hailstorm was weakening, which was never a good sign. Worse than that, the smoochum put her tongue out again and started darting towards Powder once more. Instead of getting ready to dodge, Celeste's pokémon had her tails up and wasn't moving. She was frozen in place, flinched.

Across from her, the young trainer noticed a small smile dancing on Lorelei's lips. Her heart sank.

What next?

—*—*—

"I feel the most important lesson from that last battle was that Moonblast is suicidal," Celeste said gloomily. "But it's still our strongest move."

"So change the move," Olga said, placing a hand on her shoulder and giving her a meaningful look.

After a few minutes of conversation and some brainstorming, the trainer became excited again. "Okay, so the way I can keep control of the blast is by counting the time. What do you think?"

"You need to instruct your pokémon to absorb the energy at a steady rate," Opal said. "But go on."

"Moonblast means she goes all out, even if she gets knocked out with it. Mooncracker is the express version. She will gather all the energy she can in a single second and release it in a small burst, like a firecracker," the girl said with an excited grin. "Moonburst is the middle ground. Five seconds of absorption, unless I say otherwise."

The gym leader laughed. "Congratulations, cutiefly. You are the first trainer I've seen creating weaker versions of your moves."

Celeste pouted. "It's not my fault that I only have the hardest fairy move ever to work with."

"So, are we done with this team meeting?" Olga asked, crossing her arms.

The girl looked at the woman beside her with a grimace. She hesitated for a moment until she finally asked, "You also trained Lori when she was starting out, didn't you?" Olga narrowed her eyes. "Can't you tell me her weaknesses or something?"

"No," she simply said.

"Come on, it won't—"

"I said no," she interrupted, her voice emotionless but resolute. "How would you feel if I went around telling people about your weaknesses?"

"Please, I don't have any..." she started saying, but one look from Olga was enough for the girl to change her mind. "I don't have many weaknesses?" The woman shook her head. "Come on, there can't be that many! Tell me one?"

"You want some advice? Time your moves right and don't make Powder waste energy throwing those moon attacks without thinking. The trick with ice-types is being patient and still until the right moment comes," Olga said, making Opal laugh and Celeste pout.

"I'll pretend there was no hidden meaning in your advice," the girl said, huffing. "Are you really not telling me anything about Lori?"

"She doesn't need to," Opal said with an amused voice. "You said she was great, but has only been training that pokémon for a week, right?"

Celeste nodded.

"She may be a fancy trainer, with lots of tricks, but in difficult situations, people revert to what they are comfortable with," Opal explained, waving her hand around. "I call it a battle crutch."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Let's use me as an example. You never really paid attention to any of my battles, but I'm good at messing with people's and pokémon's heads," Opal said, leaning back in her chair once more. "And I do take offence that you never paid attention."

"I have an arsenal of tricks to make attacks weaker, defences broken, lower accuracy. It's very useful, and I'm very comfortable using it," she continued, nodding. "I might feel I'm unbeatable, but eventually, if I only use that one trick, people would start to figure me out, and once that happens, they could prepare against me. Preparation is how you win against stronger trainers."

"So, don't rely on just one single trick?" Celeste asked, tilting her head. "I'm sure you can do more than just that. Seems obvious enough."

"Sometimes you need something to lean into before you can run," Olga interjected. She turned to Opal, but her eyes seemed far away. "Having some sort of gimmick is expected of gym leaders, though. At least when they face official challengers."

Opal laughed and made a grand gesture. "We need to make it easier for the kids. That is a trade secret, though." She leaned in closer to the camera again and smirked. "You are a curious one, miss Olga."

Olga simply shrugged and turned to Celeste again. "What your... uh... what your aunt is trying to say is that sometimes it's good to have a strategy that you know you are comfortable with."

"A strategy to fall back on when you are stuck in a difficult situation..." Celeste thought about it for a moment, and then it clicked. With her eyes widened, she snapped her fingers. "Like when you have one week with a new, very young pokémon, and need to prepare for a tournament?"

The girl saw both women change their expressions and felt her heart pounding. They were not giving her the answer, though... but she had it on the tip of her tongue. Lori's first battle had been a mix of Lick to paralyse and then hammering the opponent with Pound. The second battle was the same, but she told smoochum to also use Sweet Kiss. Celeste had missed the third battle, but the boy in the Pokémon Centre had told her she used Sing and Pound.

That was it.

Celeste grinned with pride. "Her crutch is status moves. She will try to stop Powder with something like sleep, confusion, or paralysis. Then, when she is sure we can't fight back, she will tell Kristal to get close and use Pound with full force until we are down."

"I'm not telling you anything," Olga said, but her expression betrayed her. Her eyes were softer, and the corner of her lips had a small twist upward.

The girl grinned. "Now we just need to figure out how to win."

—*—*—

"Powder, snap out of it. You're not paralysed... Not yet."

The vulpix looked at Celeste with panic but shook her head. The hail's strength increased again, and she dodged the smoochum.

But just barely.

At the beginning of the battle, Powder set the rhythm, moving gracefully and quickly, launching steady attacks. The plan had been working before that last move.

Now?

Now she was just running away. She was much slower than before. Her paw was clearly injured, and no amount of determination could turn this around.

Celeste bit her lip. She needed to do something, or they would lose.

If she hadn't become impatient earlier, she would have called for the weaker but faster Mooncracker. Powder wouldn't have taken the hit and would be in a much better position now...

"Speed it up, Powds. We can still do this!" Celeste yelled, trying to be encouraging.

They still had one card up their sleeve, but she couldn't afford to get impatient and mess up the timing.

The girl's eyes darted to the smoochum, who was also slowing down, and to Lorelei, who looked more serious. Powder was still slightly faster than Kristal, and if Celeste were to guess, her pokémon, even though injured, had much more stamina. The red-head across the field had clearly noticed that too, as she clicked her heels and placed her hands on her hips.

With a stern tone, Lorelei commanded, "You're not getting to her. Time for you to sing."

There it was. The opening she had been waiting for.

The smoochum would sing, and Powder would gradually become drowsy, eventually falling asleep. Opal had mentioned they had a window of about five to ten seconds before the song took its toll. And that... that was all they needed.

It was all or nothing.

"Moonburst, eight!"

As the sweet notes of the lullaby filled the air, Celeste experienced a strange moment of stillness. Though she was too far to be affected by the move, it brought her a sense of peace and clarity.

One.

Lorelei, standing across from her, had maintained her composure throughout the battle. Yet, Celeste noticed a subtle twitch in her eyes. It was a small, almost imperceptible movement, but undeniably a twitch. It shattered the illusion of her frozen facade.

Two.

And once the facade crumbled, so did the illusion.

Her opponent wasn't a lapras or some intimidating poison-type. It was a small smoochum who had only spent a little over a week bonding with Lorelei and training. Celeste and Powder were a family, their bond forged on the peaks of an unforgiving mountain.

Three.

Lorelei had years of experience, sure. It showed. Celeste, however, had Opal and Olga. That was her lesson this time. Sometimes you are lucky to have a gym leader in the family. Sometimes you meet the strange owner of an ice cream shop who has a vanillite and a lot of knowledge about pokémon battles. Life is strange, but people shouldn't be afraid of asking for help when they are struggling.

Four.

Powder was quicker than Kristal by a lot. Her reflexes were unmatched. Lorelei had also watched Celeste's battles, and she was well aware of Powder's speed. She knew that hitting her with Lick or Sweet Kiss would be challenging. So, what did she do? She tried to trick them. Heart Samp didn't require physical contact. It was faster than Lick and had the potential to make Powder flinch. In that moment of panic, they would have an opportunity to inflict paralysis and finish that battle.

Five. Now they were in the danger zone.

Lorelei probably didn't anticipate the vulpix recovering as quickly as she did. It wasn't her fault, really. Powder always surprises.

Once her initial plan failed, she had one final move. Sing.

Six.

Sing, was scary. However, it also left her pokémon open for a few seconds. Lorelei probably hoped Celeste wouldn't know that. She likely expected her opponent to be disoriented and defenceless against the lulling song. Lorelei certainly hoped Celeste wouldn't seize that moment to charge her most powerful attack.

Seven.

If all else failed, Celeste would be proud she and Powder had pushed it through to the end.

Eight.

Lights flared, and a blue orb shone brightly before shooting up. Powder took too much energy, Celeste could see the intensity of the glow was a lot.

She couldn't see much else, though.

When the light faded, there were two pokémon on the floor. The hail had dissipated and there was nothing but a serene silence around them.

"A tie?" Celeste muttered, blinking rapidly. She didn't want a tie. She could deal with defeat, but a tie was just too open-ended. This was the final match. People needed a resolution.

The referee approached the pokémon and was about to raise both his hands up.

And then Powder snored and curled herself into a ball. She was asleep, not fainted.

Celeste chuckled when she heard squealing from the audience. Lorelei also joined in the laughter.

The referee looked to the side where Celeste was standing and raised a hand towards her. "Victory goes to trainer Celeste."

A/N:

Sorry I vanished last week, had a work thing to attend :D

So, here we go! The end of the tournament. Surprisingly Celeste won against Lorelei, thanks to all the support group around her. (That and the fact that Lori wasn't using her much stronger team. I promise there will be real, full power Lorelei battles soon).

I hope this tournament worked out and was fun :)

When I started to write I expected that writing battles would be difficult, but I didn't expect that the most difficult thing would be dealing with the fact that Powder only had 3 moves and Tail Whip to work with. And I tried to put the other pokémon on her level, so except for the Delibird no one had a big movepool (which is funny, because delibird's movepool is very bad).

Anyway, Celeste has grown a lot as a trainer during this tournament and she is starting to figure out how to train her pokémon properly, and who to call if she needs help. The arc on four island isn't quite done yet, though. So I wait for you guys next week (or maybe earlier if I have time) for:

Chapter 34: The Ice Fall Festival