Author's Note: Every single book, movie, or song I reference in my chapter titles is well worth a read or listen by the way. West of Eden is a speculative fiction novel from the 80s essentially about what would conflicts between human bands and small groups of dinosaurs that survived the interim 65 million years (like crocodiles had) might look like. And I know Isaac's dad sounds like a snake at times, but he's just scientifically ambitious, his mother is the one who is socially ambitious. And once we get through this and Isaac starts getting evented to social events personally…well we'll be seeing his mother a bit more as well as his father in person.

Also I realize Isaac has a lot of internal dialogue even in the middle of battle, this is in fact how my brain works when flooded with adrenaline. I've had entire conversations with myself when that stuff kicks in in the span of a few seconds. I realize this isn't a universal experience though.

Isaac's Team with new evolutions included:

Nidoqueen- Cleo

Marowak- Estella

Rhydon- Alberich

Quagsire- Huckleberry

Piloswine- Alexei

Alolan Sandslash- Brinker

Kleavor- Artagnan

Perrserker- Rum Tum

Aerodactyl- Hannibal

Krookorok- Lyle

Flygon- Shahrazad

Kabutops- Axel

Omastar- Grauben

Giant Golurk- Mr. Darcy

Magearna- Ozma

Chapter 24: West of Eden

"This is definitely the reveal battle," I said over the phone with my father, "I know Fergus and his team pretty well, he's a water specialist so Axel and Grauben would be some of my strongest bets against him even if we weren't planning their reveal."

"Yes, that does sound ideal. Especially as you're now out of the preliminary fields and onto the mixed arena. So there will be small bodies of water, not entire fields. Highly optimal for Axel in particular."

I'd sent my father all my training data on my kabutops, omastar, and aerodactyl for his own studies. It also meant I'd be a co-author on his next paper and he'd be a co-author on my own as we debated the different angles of these pokemon species in their resurrected version against their divergent underground evolution version. It seemed like the underground "regional" forms I had captured had what were rare or "hidden" abilities on the resurrected versions more as normal and had completely new or unseen on the resurrection pokemon abilities as their rare abilities.

Grauben was one of two of the omanyte line I had captured that had Skill Link as an ability, the rest all definitively had Shell Armor and Weak Armor, with no sign of Swift Swim.

Which made perfect sense, generation upon generation of no weather would have made that ability completely useless and it would have been bred out by natural selection.

In fact, as part of the attempt to propagate these pokemon and get a broader set of data points on training methods, I'd gifted both Misty and Brock the opposing basic tier of the lines they hadn't received a resurrected from fossil version of from Cinnabar Labs. This meant Brock had a resurrected kabuto and an underground omanyte, while Misty had a resurrected omanyte and an underground kabuto. They'd already been taking training data and diet notes for my father, so it hadn't been a stretch to add the opposite to their pool. The data from two gym leaders would continue to be invaluable.

Indeed, Grauben's Skill Link combined with Rock Blast was integral for my plan to take out Fergus's gyarados, who he usually used as his final pokemon of a battle that puts him on the back foot. Which fighting Axel out the gate absolutely would.

This was one place where my family's money was giving me quite the leg up on my competition. Family ranch access as well as having finished my badges far earlier than most trainers, gave me the time and facilities to have a much larger pool of competitively viable pokemon trained up than most trainers. The average trainer had about eight viable pokemon, and two or three often stood head and shoulders above the rest and carried the team.

And certainly I had pokemon that carried my team as well, but they carried my team on the level beyond what many saw in the Conference outside of the top eight. I mean, Assunta, who had been top eight last year, had yet to evolve her ivysaur and it had still been a core team member. As far as I could tell it didn't have any disdain for evolving like Ash's Bulbasaur. It merely hadn't reached the peak of its stage.

It was one thing I had noticed here. The skill and power levels of the average competitor in these Conferences was…far below what you could expect from the best a gym leader had in their real team, the weakest pokemon an Elite Four member would put out, and leagues below the weakest pokemon a Champion would put out. The last time a first time conference winner had taken out even a single Elite Four member's team was Lance, four years ago. And before that it had been even longer. Even then, Blaine had been old and overconfident when Lance challenged and had lost two of his pokemon to a dragonair before he caught on that he should take things seriously.

His magmar had almost finished Lance's last pokemon, his starter dragonite. But the dragon master had squeaked a victory with a well timed Extremespeed.

Bruno had stomped him into the ground though. He'd taken an entire year off after that before he rechallenged, that's when he had earned his own Elite Four spot, Blaine retired after that second loss and Lance had made it all the way to the Champion before being stopped.

The Champion whose retirement had left the Kanto Elite Four deadlocked fighting for a successor. Which, I imagine, was why Giovanni and Team Rocket had made so many bold moves in the last two years. A deadlocked and leaderless Elite Four, with two of the members being relatively new, was certainly a situation just asking to be exploited. It was a testament to the Leagues inner bureaucracy and the social standing of the Gym Leaders that the Indigo League, particularly on the Kanto side, had stayed as strong as it had.

I'd done some research, both Will and Karen, who I'd seen become future members of the Indigo Elite Four, had been the winners of the Indigo and Silver Conferences respectively. They had not participated this year, leading me to believe they were both deep in secluded training to bridge that gap and be able to impress with their challenges. After this year they'd still have two years left on their timer for their conference win challenges.

Koga, I was certain, was more than ready for his own challenge, the deciding factor would merely be when he felt Janine was ready to take over. Gym Leaders could challenge any time they wished. It never guaranteed a spot, but usually if someone beat multiple members of the Elite Four somebody was getting the boot. And if someone made it all the way through to the Champion, as Lance did, then it was a guarantee.

But, I thought as I palmed the Dusk Ball holding Axel, standing on the blue stand across a mixed field for the rest of the tournament. It had a standard grass tennis court looking field in the middle for duking it out directly, a rocky outline surrounding that section, and in the middle of the outer lanes on each side a rectangular pool sat for water-types to not have a disadvantage.

I waved in acknowledgement to Fergus who gave a nervous salute. Mewtwo hadn't erased anyone's memories thanks to my and Mew's interference. He'd just, with Mew's help, implanted a small impulse for everyone else to not talk about it. Obviously I'd been exempt as the liaison with the League.

So Fergus knew exactly what I could bring to bear.

He was quite lucky I wasn't going to go full throttle, I was here to show off. Though admittedly, Hannibal and Artagnan qualified as ancient pokemon to be shown off, and they were two of my heaviest hitters.

"Next up we have the Red Trainer, Fergus of Porto Vista, water specialist extraordinaire! As the Blue Trainer we have Isaac Beech, Pokemon Tech graduate! Both trainers have shown brutal efficiency and great advanced planning in their matches so far! This will be the final three versus three match of the tournament!"

I raised my hand, I'd gotten permission for this beforehand and knew I'd be called out when I gestured, "It appears Trainer Beech has some kind of announcement before the match!"

"Today, as we sit here, my father and I are releasing two joint papers on the pokemon I will be using tonight. They are discoveries that I personally made in my journey months ago, and the study uses comparative data from my father's own fossil resurrection program with Cinnabar Labs. I now present to you all, a formerly believed to be extinct pokemon, that I found in a sealed off cavern. Kabutops, go!"

"Kabu-tops!" Axel yelled out dramatically as he appeared with his mottled multi-shaded carapace, a patently different coloring than the two kabutops that my father's lab team had managed to train up and publish to much publicity in the past decade.

"What's that? A living relic of a pokemon! How fascinating? How will Fergus retaliate against such an unknown?"

Fergus reacted as predicted and went with his safest starting pokemon, a golduck. And his golduck in particular had shown a fascinating talent for the more esoteric abilities available to the species. Disable and fine control of Water Pulse had stopped numerous of the black pokeballs Mewtwo had had flying around during our fight.

"Starting position, Golduck!"

"Sharpen up, Axel!"

We called out our opening moves simultaneously, the golduck shot a watery orb into the sky that collected condensation around it, causing the weather to shift, Rain Dance was in play.

And it made the golduck fast enough to get a Nasty Plot off before Axel could transition out of his Swords Dance.

Swift Swim, that was…unfortunate. I had miscalculated by assuming his golduck merely had Damp, as there'd been no noticeable lessening on Mewtwo's storm from its presence.

I suppose I had never seen it directly out in the rain.

"Night Slash!" My goal was to disrupt its psychic control early so it couldn't abuse those energies later on. It would normally only have Confusion, but I had seen it show enough mastery of Disable that I imagined it likely knew something stronger from either a technical machine or tutoring.

"Water Pulse!" Fergus countered, "Spread!" Uh-oh, some kind of twist on the move?

It sure was, the pulse grew in the golduck's mouth then compressed and…the water pressure caused it to explode in a cone outwards as opposed to the traditional structure. It hammered into Axel even as he tried to dodge to the side and sent him skidding backwards, his Night Slash dispersing as he slammed that scythe into the ground to steady himself.

He stood tall however, it hadn't inflicted him with confusion. And I saw pieces of flaked off armor laying nearby. Disconcerting that that Water Pulse had had enough punch to deal concussive damage that triggered Weak Armor, but I'd take the trade.

"Again!" I called out, now sure that Axel could-yes before I even finished the thought he was executing the attack, juking around then behind the surprised golduck. Likely he was used to being the fastest thing around in the rain.

But with the boost from shedding the Weak Armor, Axel was now back to being as much faster than the golduck as he had been before the rain.

Even though golduck typically were slightly faster than your average kabutops, Axel was trained to be especially fast for his species, as well as the underground versions having on average a bigger trend towards speed, no amount of defense would protect against an aerodactyl, but getting underwater faster would.

And Axel trained against Artagnan and Brinker regularly, he was used to fighting pokemon as fast or faster than he was when boosted.

This golduck however, seemed used to being the fastest thing around when in the rain and was stunned into not reacting in time.

The Night Slash slammed into its gut as it turned to face my kabutops. The golduck went tumbling ass over tea kettle a solid two meters backwards.

I wasn't going to get a lucky one hit knockout however, the golduck got back up and tried to fire off a Disable, but it faltered as the dark-type energy disrupted its psychic control, it gave up and just as I was about to launch another command Fergus called out, "Steal the boost!"

Steal th-uh oh. A thin string of white normal type energy snapped out at Axel and then thickened and pulled back into the golduck who glowed a stronger white.]

Psych Up, it had just copied Axel's speed boost.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance, not only had this just gotten harder but I'd been caught out playing to the audience instead of pressing my advantage, a silly mistake.

"Aqua Jet! Press your advantage!" I needed to nullify that speed advantage and whittle away the remaining stamina of this duck. That Night Slash had been a brutal hit, it likely didn't have much left in it.

The rain helped the water coat Axel even faster and stronger than usual as he burst forth like a rocket. Slamming into the golduck and making it take a step back.

He immediately tried to go into a round of Fury Swipes, but Fergus's pokemon got off a Protect in the small delay where Axel was transitioning type-energy to switch moves.

"Disable!" The psychic abilities had apparently recovered as Axel seized up and could not continue with the Fury Swipes, but that was okay, "Alternate close combat moves!" I commanded, he immediately switched to Night Slash, which the golduck studiously avoided, not wanting another round of that, but the following stabbing motion with his vicious scythes took the golduck off guard, as he had primarily been slashing until now. The blade glowed green and Leech Life took effect, sucking the remaining stamina right out of the golduck who collapsed.

And rejuvenating Axel.

My kabutops raised his twin scythes into the air in victory as the announcer called out, "And after a stunning back and forth golduck is unable to battle! What will we see next from Red Trainer Fergus?"

Fergus returned his golduck and pulled out what I pegged as a Friend Ball and released his most obnoxious pokemon of them all straight into the right side pool of water.

His vaporeon.

Because a vaporeon's ability to sink into the water and disperse with Acid Armor was unmatched, and an absolute pain to combat.

Meaning I had to completely change tactics here.

"I know we haven't used it in a while," I called out, "But Axel I need you to spam Mud Shot into that pool!"

This would clog up the pond, make it murky, make it harder to maintain Acid Armor, and hopefully reveal the vaporeon.

"Oh, come on!" Fergus shouted in annoyance as he noticed that the rain had made it even easier for Axel to kick up a bunch of mud out of the dirt part of the field and into the pool.

I was lucky that Axel worked so often with my ground-types and hadn't gotten too rusty with that type-energy. He'd known the move when I caught him and we hadn't really practiced it much. In fact, glancing at the spread of the shots, he probably couldn't use it effectively to hit an opponent, his aim was all over the place, though perhaps that was on purpose? I'd make sure we practiced when we were done with the Conference to check. Though I was pretty sure I'd focus instead on pushing forward towards Liquidation, a stronger same-type physical skill than Aqua Jet would be nice.

This match didn't last very long. Once the vaporeon revealed itself Axel outsped it enough with his boosts to rain slashes down on it. Unfortunately it got a Haze off removing Axel's speed boost before it went down.

I let Fergus call his gyarados out before recalling Axel, he'd done great but he wasn't going to sweep against this gyarados.

"In replacement, I choose my omastar, Grauben!" I called out, man most of my pokemon were caught in Dusk Balls, I noted as I caught her pokeball on its way back to me.

We'd both released our pokemon into the clean pool on the left side of the field from my direction.

It was a pity she hadn't learned Shell Smash yet, but we'd make this fight work.

"Withdraw and Rollout!" I called out, we weren't going to reveal Skill Link until the very end.

She immediately pulled into her shell and rolled along through the shallow parts of the pool. Fergus's gyarados had immediately launched an offensive with a barrage of Aqua Tails slammed into the watery clay behind her. Some of the misses were rather close for comfort. However, the third one had the gyarados pausing to reorient and that's when Grauben struck, launching her spinning form straight into its underbelly.

"Whirlpool!" Fergus called out and my spinning mollusk was caught in the turbulent waters for just long enough that the gyarados got off a Dragon Dance that make it a big problem.

"Crunch!" Fergus called out as the spinning stopped, but I had been waiting for that small window of opportunity.

"Pin Missile right down that maw!" I called out, and Skill Link revealed itself when all five green glowing spikes shot out at once in a tight cluster.

"What precision!" The announcer called out as the gyarados pulled back, choking, "I've only seen a spread that tight in cloysters with rare abilities!"

I grinned, "Rock Blast! Gatling mode!" Another tightly spread burst of projectiles shot out, this time rocks. They slammed the bottom jaw of the gyarados causing it to bite its own tongue a bit.

"Dragon Rage!" Fergus called out, it wouldn't be boosted by Dragon Dance, but it would cover the gyarados in a spinning twister of draconic energy to block the follow up Rock Blasts that Grauben was firing as follow up. The twister shot forward after forming and sent her flying back out of the pool as well.

"Spike Cannon!" I called out and she shot out her final multi-strike move, pity omastar couldn't learn Water Shuriken, but perhaps I could work on creating a different water multi-strike, Water…Senbon? It was a future experiment.

Oh wow this gyarados was a tank of a beast. It took that hit like it was nothing, glaring down at Grauben and then lunging in for…I frowned at how unrefined that head slam was. Followed by a tail slam, followed by…oh it had gone into Thrash.

"Rollout hit and runs!" I called out and Grauben pulled back into her shell and started maneuvering around the thrashing beast. She'd bounce in and out of range to strike, and luckily she was giving more hits than she was taking, but this gyarados had boosted itself so they were constantly close calls.

"Up high then Rock Blast!" I called as she dodged a particularly over extended tail slam.

She bounced off the sea serpent's tail and up into the air, from her shell she then materialized and shot off a barrage of rocks, they were less powerful when materialized than when pulled from the ground but they slammed into the top of the skull.

The gyarados wobbled once, then twice, then finally collapsed.

That…had been pretty stressful, my underground variant pokemon definitely deserved a treat after this though.