This is the second update of today, make sure you read chapter 7 first!
Upon his arrival in Silver Town, Ash quickly headed to the Pokemon Center, intending to get his pokemon checked on and to sign up for the tournament. Luckily for the direction-challenged teen, the town was quiet at the moment, since the Silver Conference wasn't for several months. Entering the center, Ash walked up to the counter to speak with the attendant.
"Hi Nurse Joy, I was hoping you could take a look at my pokemon. I just caught Larvitar today, and Typhlosion evolved a few days ago. I was also wondering if you knew about the tournament that's happening in a couple of days? Professor Oak said that one was happening but didn't give me many more details."
"Of course, go ahead and hand your pokemon over. It's a good thing you got here today though, the tournament actually starts tomorrow morning. Will you still be entering?
"Yes, please. I must have gotten the dates wrong, it's a good thing I didn't get here tomorrow," Ash responded. "Could I also get a room to stay in?"
"Yes you can, and your pokemon should be ready for pick-up in about an hour barring any problems. We hope to see you again soon!" Nurse Joy smiled as she handed Ash a room key.
Walking up to the building that housed the tournament he was about to compete in, Ash smiled. It had been a while since his last casual tournament, as Alola's lack of regimented training culture didn't lead itself toward tournaments at all, let alone ones that were largely for fun. If his short training session the night before showed him anything, it was that he wanted to win this tournament to prove to himself that he was truly going to improve as a trainer. Seeing a bracket displayed on a screen, Ash examined it to find that he actually had a bye for the first round, as only about 24 trainers had entered the tournament.
Slightly annoyed that he would have less battling to do, Ash found a spot to sit near a speaker and began to wait for his match. Losing himself in his thoughts, the trainer's mind went to how odd it felt to be without Pikachu for the first time in years. While both of them had talked it out and decided that it would be better for the mouse to stay back at Professor Oak's Lab and help Bulbasaur manage training, it didn't mean it wasn't weird not to be with his stalwart partner. Though Ash considered, it might have helped that there weren't as many dangerous legendary incidents when he was in Alola, and Pikachu felt a little safer leaving his side for short periods. Ash's partner trusted his other pokemon to protect him from wild pokemon or the likes of Team Rocket, but Ash knew that both of them felt uneasy without the other during the most dangerous of their adventures.
Seeing that the display had begun to gray out some of the trainer names, Ash turned his thoughts towards who he would use in the battles ahead. While he did want to use Larvitar, he wasn't sure it was a good idea to do so in the first round, which he had checked to see was a one-on-one match. Ash figured he should use Lycanroc for the first match, as the wolf pokemon, while still fairly limited on his moves, had perfected the majority of the ones he did know, with only sucker punch still needing work. In addition, Lycanroc was probably currently the strongest out of his Alolan pokemon, at least until Incineroar and Melmetal got used to their new bodies. Walking on two legs and having arms is a massive change for a pokemon, and having two pokemon not totally used to moving in a certain way certainly didn't help Ash in his final battle against Hau.
Hearing his name called over the speaker, Ash got up and headed towards the field, hand hovering over Lycanroc's pokeball. Ash noticed that the field appeared to be a basic dirt field, though it showed minor signs of wear from the battles that had already occurred. Seeing a couple of Kadabras maintaining psychic shielding, Ash smirked. He'd have to see if they could push that shielding today, even without Pikachu.
Entering the field, there were only a couple of rows of stands, as this small tournament likely only drew what few people who were battle-crazed enough to catch a tournament in the middle of the week, and what appeared to a small group of school children with a teacher, likely on a field trip. Ash gave a small wave to the referee, who pointed him towards one side of the battlefield, as a girl a few years younger than him walked out of the stands and to the other side of the field. Ash waved at her as well and was glad to see that he got a wave back in return. Hopefully, no matter what happened on the battlefield they could all walk away happy.
As the referee raised their flag, Ash gripped Lycanroc's pokeball, preparing to throw out his pokemon. The flag lowered on the ref's count of 'Go,' and Ash released Lycanroc as his opponent revealed a togetic. Ash saw the opposing trainer grimace and open her mouth to call out a move, but he already had his in mind.
"Accelerock!"
Lycanroc snarled and his eyes flashed red as he glowed white and shot towards the stunned togetic, slamming it into the barriers and shooting sharp stones into the fairy-type. Lycanroc quickly backed off as his opponent appeared to gather itself and attack with what appeared to be fairy wind, which the wolf nimbly out of the way of. Seeing that his pokemon had managed to avoid the attack, Ash called out again.
"Rock Throw, double time!"
The wolf pokemon quickly threw out the move, a ring of stones jumping from his ruff at the opposing pokemon, which dodged some but flinched in pain at the others. As Lycanroc was about to throw out a second ring of the move however, a glow of pink appeared around his head, causing the pokemon to visibly flinch and drop his attack. Ash called for his pokemon to get out of there as he puzzled over what must have happened.
Realizing what had occurred, he called out to his pokemon, "Be careful Lycanroc, that togetic must have Serene Grace, which can make you flinch from moves like extrasensory more often. We'll just have to hit it fast and hard! Now attack with accelerock into stone edge!"
Ash heard his opponent curse lightly as he said this, and smiled to himself as once again, Lycanroc's move was too fast for the togetic to dodge. As Lycanroc landed on the ground after his accelerock, the pokemon slammed his front legs into the ground, causing massive stones to erupt from the ground into the stomach of the togetic, whose eyes bulged from pain as it flew back into the barriers. Calling for his pokemon to hold for a moment, Ash and his opponent watched as the fairy-type barely fluttered into the air for a moment, before collapsing onto the ground face first, unconscious.
"Ash Ketchum is the winner of this Round Two match," announced the referee, as both Ash and his opponent returned their pokemon, Lycanroc snarling in displeasure as he was returned. Approaching the other trainer, Ash held out his hand.
"Thanks for the battle."
"Thanks, you too" replied the other trainer, who Ash realized he had never gotten the name of. Before he could awkwardly ask her name, she had walked off, apparently not wanting to chat for long with the person who had knocked her out. Ash shrugged and headed back out to the area he sat in before.
Checking the bracket and rules of the tournament, Ash saw that there weren't any breaks during the tournament for the competitors to heal their pokemon, meaning they had to be careful with who they chose to use, especially for the final couple of matches. Lycanroc should be alright since he didn't take much damage during his fight, but he should probably make sure that two of his pokemon were fresh for the final fight, assuming he got there of course. In addition, Ash saw that he was scheduled to fight at the end of the next round and the winner of that match would fight immediately after. Ash thought this was almost brutal for a lower level tournament, but figured that it was a good challenge if nothing else. Nodding to himself, the teen sat down and waited for his next match to start.
Making sure to listen to the announcer this time, Ash heard himself be introduced and his opponent be introduced as Fiorella from Olivine City. Ash nodded towards his opponent and got a wave in return. While Ash had already decided which two pokemon he was going to use for this match, he only now decided which he would use first. Once the referee began to count down, Ash put his hand over the pokeball he would throw out first and took a deep breath in. Hopefully, their training the night before would be enough for this match. Gripping the pokeball, Ash threw it toward the center of the battlefield as the referee's count struck zero.
Larvitar emerged from the pokeball, opposing a smaller rock type with appendages emerging from the holes on its shell. Ash grimaced slightly at this, seeing that his opponent was a shuckle. While shuckle weren't known for their attacking prowess, their defenses were absurd even without the right moves to boost them. Calling out to Larvitar, Ash began his plan.
"Larvitar dig now!"
Luckily for the trainer, Larvitar seemed to listen quite well for a newly captured pokemon, even discounting their bond many years ago when the pokemon was newly hatched. Unluckily for the duo, the shuckle was well trained enough to immediately withdraw into its shell and begin boosting its defenses with what could be any number of moves, even before the other trainer called out an attack. Larvitar chose this time to come up below the bug-type, though all that the attack seemed to do was cause Shuckle's shell to roll away a couple of meters since the pokemon was encased within at the time of the attack.
Before the shell could come rolling to a complete stop, however, Fiorella called out for it to use what sounded like 'poison.' With pinpoint accuracy, the opposing pokemon's head shot out of its protective casing and spit a nasty-looking poison liquid at Larvitar, who wasn't fast enough to get out of the way, though it didn't appear to have done much in return. Ash sighed gently to himself, knowing that this fight had a chance to become a battle of attrition, one which Larvitar might not be able to win. Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Ash called for his pokemon to start using rock throw and to stay at a distance for now.
Larvitar began to pull clumps of earth up from the ground and mold them for a brief moment before throwing them at his foe, the pieces of earth appearing to harden as they were thrown. While most of the rocks bounced harmlessly off of Shuckle's shell or hit the ground around the other pokemon, one or two did make it through to hit the pokemon's appendages, causing it to flinch back in pain.
Seeing that this tactic had a positive effect, Ash had an idea. "Use hidden power repeatedly Larvitar! Move closer in between bursts, don't give it a chance to go back into its shell!"
With a cry, Larvitar began to shoot orbs of energy at the other pokemon, who ignored the first attack, only for it to burst into water and drip into one of its holes. After this, it could only attempt to roll out of the way of the attacks while shooting small burst of poison back at Larvitar. Once Larvitar got close Ash announced the next part of his plan.
"Bite down on those limbs Larvitar, then try to use hidden power into the holes!"
"No!" Cried Fiorella, "use toxic now!"
"Larvitar let go now!" Ash yelled, knowing that this move could seriously hurt his pokemon, but unfortunately, Larvitar had listened to Ash a little too well, and was so focused on trying to fire a hidden power into one of Shuckle's limbs that he didn't hear this second command. Thus, the rock-type took the full force of the poison on his chest, where it promptly dissolved, causing the pokemon to begin coughing and release the shuckle, stumbling away.
Cursing under his breath, Ash realized they would have to finish this battle quickly, even as Larvitar stopped coughing. Suddenly, Larvitar's eyes began to flash red, almost like Ash's Lycanroc, and the ground under the small pokemon began to dimple and crack as if some powerful force was pushing down on it.
With no warning, Larvitar grabbed onto one of Shuckle's tendrils and hurled the bug-type at the barriers, causing them to flash at the impact and creating a small crater where the foe hit the dirt. Ash startled, realizing that Larvitar must have just unlocked an ability, as there were no moves he knew of that would do something like that. Racking his brain, he remembered that while Tyranitar commonly had sand stream as an ability, larvitar had guts as theirs. There was a downside to the ability that gave a pokemon massive strength however, as the pokemon would still take damage while under the influence of whatever status condition caused guts to activate, so the timer from toxic was still active. Knowing this, Ash quickly called out to Larvitar.
"Larvitar you're on a timer now. Your attacks will do a lot more damage now though, so get in close and start smacking that bug around!" With a cry that was almost more cute than ferocious, Larvitar charged at the shuckle and began to hammer it with his fists. As the shuckle poked its head out to shoot more poison at its trainer's command, Larvitar once more grabbed it and threw it, yelling as the small pokemon began to summon a rock slide that, while taking a few seconds to form, slammed down on top of the shuckle, burying it in rocks.
Before Ash could call for another attack, Fiorella raised a pokeball, withdrawing the bug-type from the pile of rocks. "I'm withdrawing Shuckle, she announced to the referee, who nodded and raised a flag to Ash's side. Larvitar sat down at this action, looking exhausted and beginning to once more cough slightly.
"Ash Ketchum has won the first battle, will his pokemon continue or switch?"
"No," replied Ash, raising and activating his own pokeball. "Larvitar is too hurt to continue, I'll withdraw him. Good job buddy, a great showing for your first battle" Ash muttered to Larvitar's pokeball, smiling as it wiggled slightly before going still.
"Both trainers will release their next pokemon and continue the match now," called the referee, pointing both flags to the field.
Grabbing his next pokeball, Ash released at the same time Fiorella did, revealing Bayleef to the crowd at the same time as a slim jolteon appeared across from her. "Let's finish this quick," Ash yelled to Bayleef. "Razor leaf to cover for charging solarbeam!"
Bayleef let out a pleased cry at her release, but responded to Ash far quicker than Larvitar, a bundle of leaves jumping from her neck at the jolteon. The other pokemon was fast enough to dodge some of the leaves but not all, as some struck the electric-type in the flank and knocked him over, where he lay prone, staring wide-eyed at the incoming solarbeam. Fortunate for the eeveelution, his trainer was quick enough to recover from this brutal opener, and shouted for the pokemon to use protect.
The jolteon got a feeble green barrier up, but it didn't seem to matter much to Bayleef, who shot the solarbeam directly at the other pokemon with a yell. The white beam seemed to get stuck on the protect for a moment, before it broke through and shot Jolteon into the psychic barriers protecting the crowd. While this didn't finish the jolteon, it seemed to be a telltale sign of things to come, as the other pokemon was able to get up and shoot a pin missile towards Bayleef at his trainer's command, but she smacked most of them down with her vine whips, and barely flinched at the other hits.
"That's it Bayleef! Finish him with a super body slam now!" Ash yelled towards his pokemon, knowing that she would know what he meant.
With a happy cry, the dinosaur charged towards the jolteon, who tried to move out of the way but failed to get far, limping slightly from Bayleef's previous powerful attacks. Without warning, Bayleef slammed her vines into the ground and launched herself in the air, landing on top of Jolteon, who maintained a protect for a moment that took some of the sting out of the grass-type's attack, but not enough to keep it from being knocked out on impact with the ground.
Bayleef carefully stepped off of the other pokemon and let out a happy screech towards Ash, who called out a congratulations towards her before she was returned. As the referee announced Ash's win, he stepped over the mildly rocky field to speak with his opponent, who looked mildly dejected but not angry.
"Good match," Ash said. "Your shuckle could have been a lot harder to take down if Larvitar's ability hadn't activated.
"Thanks, but I don't know that both of them combined would have been enough to take down your bayleef."
"Haha, thanks," Ash replied, rubbing the back of his head. "I've had her for years but she doesn't usually get that worked up over matches. She might still be annoyed over something that happened a few days ago."
While Ash could tell that Fiorella was curious about what he had just said, she didn't reply to this, only nodding to him and heading towards the doors. Ash turned to follow for a moment before being called back by the referee.
"Mr. Ketchum, please stay on the field, as your next match will begin momentarily."
Ash retreated to the field upon hearing this, and quickly thought over which pokemon he would use next. He wanted to save two pokemon for the final battle, and since Larvitar was still poisoned he would stick to Lycanroc, Bayleef, and Typhlosion. That way he would still have two pokemon totally fresh for the final fight, as long as he could get past this one.
Soon after he had decided which pokemon he would use the announcer sounded once more, letting Ash know that his opponent would be Juro from Violet City. Once more giving his foe a wave, this time Ash was disappointed to see that the other trainer just sniffed and almost seemed to hold up his nose at Ash. Shrugging, as there wasn't anything he could do to change the man's mind other than winning the fight, Ash readied himself for the battle and hovered his hand over a pokeball as the referee read off the rules for this battle.
"This battle will be a 3-on-3 match, with neither trainer being allowed substitutions. Both trainers will release their first pokemon simultaneously. Are the trainers ready?"
After both Ash and Juro gave nods to the referee, Ash noticing that his opponent was still sneering at him, the referee raised and lowered both flags. "Begin!"
Ash threw out his pokeball to reveal Bayleef once more, as his opponent opened a pokeball to show a murkrow.
"Tch, just what I thought. Predictable, using the same pokemon twice in a row. Let's see how this works out for you when you don't have the advantage, Murkrow, use Mean Look! Now you're stuck here until we knock you out."
Ash looked skeptical at this, since neither pokemon could switch, but shrugged and pointed at the murkrow. "Let's start this off with a razor leaf Bayleef, see how well this murkrow can dodge."
Bayleef responded by quickly shooting off rows of razor leaves at the corvid, which to its credit, it dodged most of with aplomb. The few that did pass through to hit the pokemon didn't appear to do much damage either. Ash realized this may be a tough battle, since he had checked while training and saw that Bayleef didn't tend to learn many moves outside of their type-specialty until evolution, and Bayleef didn't have the advantage of Pikachu or Charizard's raw power to compensate for this.
As Bayleef jumped out of the way of an incoming wing attack and threw more leaves out in response, Ash decided a different tactic was necessary. "Start up a sweet scent and flood the whole battlefield! If we can't do a lot of damage then we'll just have to smoke them out and make them take all of our hits."
Ash's pokemon did just that, her buds opening up and filling the field with sweet scent, even as she took a wing attack to do so, flinching at the attack but not stopping her move. Once the arena was sufficiently filled, Ash told his pokemon to stop. "Now go to town Bayleef, just avoid what moves you can, and don't use solarbeam unless you get a good chance."
Even as Ash said this his pokemon was already on the offense, leaping at the murkrow like she had done to the jolteon in her previous match, only to miss and slam heavily onto the ground. This gave the murkrow time to hammer at her with dark-type energy, causing the dinosaur to flinch back slightly before grabbing the bird with her vines and slamming it into the ground.
Bayleef switched back to razor leaf after this, deducing that her physical attacks, while likely to do more damage, would be much harder to hit even with the sweet scent flooding the murkrow's senses. As she attacked with more razor leaves though, the murkrow flashed into a double team that covered most of the field, and the half of the clones that were hit burst, meaning she had missed. Before she could attack again she was hit from behind with a flying-type move.
As the grass-type decided to heal up from these damaging blows with synthesis, Juro noticed this and called out to his pokemon. "Murkrow! Stop that beast from healing with taunt!"
Murkrow cackled and its eyes flashed with dark energy as it appeared to spout nonsense at Bayleef, who responded to it with anger and abandoned her attempt at healing.
"Bayleef!" Ash cried out, "You can only use damaging moves now, but calm down, you can still win this, I believe in you!"
Bayleef visibly took a deep breath in, and as if the words from her trainer were all she needed, began to glow with white light even as the murkrow came in for another attack. The light became brighter as her form glowed and changed, her stature growing and losing many of the buds and leaves in favor of a massive flower at the base of her long neck and two antennas sprouting from the top of her head. As the light faded and Meganium emerged, the newly evolved pokemon suddenly shot vines out from under her flower and pulled Murkrow in close, before erupting in petals, slamming into the flying-type. Even as the petals continued to fly from her flower, Meganium once more crushed the murkrow into the ground before attacking with what seemed to be an improvised stomp attack. While perhaps not a real move, the attack certainly hurt, as the dark-type was visibly dazed, and its attempt to fly away was waylaid by the mass of petals hitting it from every direction.
This was too much for the bird, and it crashed into the ground, eyes closed in unconsciousness. Ash cheered at this, calling out to his pokemon. "Let's go Meganium! I'm so proud of you!" Ash's pokemon cooed at him, her petal dance stopping, though leaving her to appear to be teetering on her feet and a bit weakened from the powerful attack.
"Bah," spat out Juro, "you may have defeated one of my flying-types, but the next will see you to your doom!" At this, the other trainer threw out a pokeball to reveal a large ledian that flexed its skinny limbs before it eyed Meganium.
"Gee," muttered Ash, "this guy's a real trip isn't he." Raising his voice, he called out to his pokemon, "alright Meganium, do your best now!"
As the ref called for a start to the next wave of the match, neither pokemon took any time with their opening moves, Meganium immediately throwing out razor leafs that already looked faster and stronger than before, and the ledian quickly dodging around this before screaming and emitting a series of red waves from its antenna, causing the larger pokemon to let out a pained cry and bow her head.
"C'mon Meganium, fight through it," called Ash, who was racking his brain for what he could do here. Figuring that sometimes the easiest way out of a problem was the right one, Ash called for his pokemon once more.
"Try using razor leaf in a spread all around you! If it can't focus then it can't hit you."
With a yell, the pokemon fought through the pain and did just that, throwing out wave after wave of razor leaf, only a few of which hit the ledian, but forcing it to stop using the powerful move.
The bug-type then seemed to decide that closing in was a better way to take care of the grass-type, fist glowing with power. Meganium saw this coming though, and grabbed the other pokemon with her vines and wrapped it up tight, squeezing painfully before whipping it into the ground and releasing a charged solarbeam directly towards its face. While Meganium sagged back in exhaustion after this and released Ledian, the bug-type didn't look to be in great condition either. Resisted move or not, most pokemon didn't exactly want to take a point-blank solarbeam to the face.
Fluttering weakly in the air, the other pokemon did manage to let off another bug buzz quickly, which caught the Meganium in the middle of using synthesis, disrupting her once more. Before the herb pokemon could use her counter-strategy once more, the bug flew in close and delivered a devastating uppercut to her chin, slamming her into the ground and knocking her out.
Returning his pokemon, Ash smiled. While she hadn't won the second bout, she had set them up nicely for Lycanroc to come in and sweep through the bug. Releasing his next pokemon as the referee called for him to, Ash grinned. This wouldn't be pretty, but he figured Lycanroc would have fun.
"Accelerock into crush claw! Finish it off in one fell swoop!"
Lycanroc howled as it quickly accelerated, glowing with a white aura. While the ledian attempted to move out of the way and respond to its trainer's commands, it was heavily weakened from the previous fight and stood little chance of getting out of the way of the wolf pokemon. Slamming head-first into the bug's belly, Lycnaroc brought its right paw up and, with pure white claws, rammed them into Ledian's unprotected head, crushing the pokemon into the dirt and knocking it out in one powerful combination attack.
Juro seemed taken aback for a moment, before yelling in rage and returning his pokemon. "Fine! But there's no way you'll be able to get past my final pokemon! Go, Xatu, and bring me that dog's head!"
Grimacing at the distaste he was beginning to feel for the other man, Ash called out initial instructions for his pokemon. "Stick to distance moves for now Lycanroc, but if you get a chance then close in and go to town, okay?"
The odd bird pokemon floated perfectly still as its eyes glowed with psychic power. The opposing pokemon began to sway to and fro as Lycanroc's attacks failed to find purchase on it.
Suddenly the xatu disappeared from Ash and Lycanroc's view, only to appear behind the rock-type and flap its wings for the first time that battle, a slice of air hitting Lycanroc on the flank and causing him to flinch slightly and pause his attacks for a moment. Before he could retaliate, however, the psychic-type had already teleported away, appearing on the other side of the field, eyes glowing blue.
Ash grimaced, learning that the xatu had obviously mastered teleport just made this battle significantly more challenging. It could move away before Lycanroc could get close to hit it with a dark-type move, which would help staunch future teleports. If he wasn't mistaken, the pokemon also knew future sight, which Lycanroc didn't have much of a chance of avoiding either. There may be one way around the frustrating battle to come though, as long as Lycanroc could finish learning a move on the fly.
"Lycanroc, I have an idea but you'll have to trust me here!" Hearing his pokemon chuff at him, Ash smiled slightly and continued. "I want you to use crunch, but hold the move and try to diffuse it through your whole body like you do with accelerock. Don't release that energy, until I tell you to, and then move like you do with accelerock. Got it?"
The pokemon barked confusedly at his trainer but began to do what he was asked, dark-type energy slowly growing over his body, giving the pokemon a shadowy aura. As he did this however, Xatu had teleported behind him once more, wings glowing silver. Ash waited until the other pokemon was almost right on top of his before calling out an order.
"Concentrate the energy and attack now!"
Still looking confused, Lycanroc did just that, and looked as surprised as both the crowd and Juro that he moved with almost unnatural speed and slammed into Xatu, glowing with dark-type energy. Ash was finally able to see a look of shock on the bird's face as it let out a pained caw and had to start flapping its wings to stay airborne. Not wanting to give up his advantage, he called out for another move immediately.
"Now jump onto Xatu's back and use crunch on its wing, don't let up!"
While still confused that he had managed to hit the other pokemon, Lycanroc trusted Ash completely, and leaped onto his foe, biting down with great aplomb before the psychic-type could throw him off. This had great consequences for the bird, who was suddenly infused with dark-energy and could not teleport to get away from the dog. Even if it could, Lycanroc would just come with it, considering the grip strength of Lycanroc's jaw was immense.
Panicking, Juro called for a psychic that shook Lycanroc around on top of Xatu, the wolf pokemon already had other ideas. Shooting up into Xatu's stomach were sharp pillars of stone, that severely damaged the pokemon even as they slammed into Lycanroc himself, finally causing him to let go and tumble away from the other pokemon.
Ash shook his head at his pokemon's sacrificial play, knowing that Lycanroc didn't care about how much damage he took in battle as long as he came up on top. As his pokemon climbed to his feet, Ash noticed blue glowing all around him and realized what was about to happen.
"Lycanroc, that's a future sight attack! Quick, I want you to infuse yourself with dark-type energy again!"
Responding quickly, the rock-type was able to get most of his body covered in dark energy before the attack hit, though the force of it was still enough to throw him into the barriers and give Xatu a chance to catch its breath. Lycanroc whimpered for a moment, red eyes flashing green before he snarled and they returned to their normal color in battle.
Lycanroc threw out another stone edge at the xatu, who blinked at it before teleporting behind Lycnaroc once again, only for the rock-type to be ready and waiting for it with a crunch to the body. Xatu screeched in pain and frantically tried to teleport, only for nothing to happen.
Realizing what was probably about to happen again, Ash called for Lycanroc to "back off and stone edge from the ground this time!"
With a huff, Lycanroc released the xatu and dropped to the ground, but with the psychic-type still infused with dark energy it couldn't manage a teleport in time to move out of the way of the stone edge, and Xatu simply were not very fast fliers. Xatu took the stone edge on the chin, and dropped like a stone, clearly unconscious. Lycanroc panted for a moment before letting out a howl, clearly pleased to have defeated two out of their three opponents.
"Great job Lycanroc! You even managed to finish learning sucker punch! We'll have to practice that but why don't you take a rest for now. Let someone else do some of the work."
Ash returned his pokemon at this and turned to approach Juro. Before he could get close to the other trainer however, the man spat at his feet while glaring at Ash and turned and walked out of the arena. Ash rubbed the back of his head and looked at the referee to see if he missed something, only to see the other person shrug in return.
"Just an unpleasant man I think. Maybe not a people person? Didn't hear him say anything bad to his pokemon though so at least there's that."
Ash shrugged in return, "You're not wrong, very glossy feathers on the murkrow and xatu." With this Ash moved to the stands to wait for the next match to be completed so he could have his final battle of the day.
Ash stood across from his opponent as the announcer relayed the rules to the audience. Of course, they were the same rules as the previous three matches he had had, but for any new viewers, it made sense. At least for Ash at least, it was easy to choose which three pokemon he would be using in this match, and Ash had a feeling he wouldn't be able to power through with two like he had in his previous match.
"This match is between Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, Kanto, and Lila Smith of Ballonlea Town, Galar."
This made Ash's head turn slightly, as he didn't think he had ever fought anyone from Galar. He knew the region was close to Kalos, and had a highly regulated gym challenge, but not much more other than their newly appointed champion was named Leon. This just got more exciting than he thought it would be. He wondered if he would get to fight against any new pokemon today, the thought putting a pep in his step. The referee made his thoughts take a turn to the battle when he raised both flags.
"Both trainers will release on three! One, two, three!"
Ash had grabbed at the pokeballs he had shifted to the front of his belt when he saw the ref was moving his flags, and he felt for the ball he wanted before throwing it out.
Typhlosion appeared on the field, flames billowing behind her. Across from her was a massive pokemon with two large tusks jutting out from the sides of its face. Ash realized he hadn't seen a mamoswine since he parted ways with Dawn, and decided this would be a fun match. Typhlosion had an advantage over Mamoswine with fire-type moves, but the mamoswine could counter with ground-type moves that would do immense damage to Typhlosion.
"Start with a flame wheel to gain speed," Ash called out to his pokemon, even as he heard Lila order her pokemon to use earthquake."
Ash cursed under his breath. He had been hoping that Mamoswine didn't know earthquake, as on a limited field like this there was little area to get away from the power ground-type attack. All they could do was jump or take it, and Ash knew which he'd prefer.
"Jump with flame wheel and use eruption!" Ash cried, hoping that his pokemon had built up enough speed to clear the earthquake.
Luckily it seemed Typhlosion was still capable of moving just as quickly in a flame wheel as she was as a quilava, so it was a simple matter for her to jump before the earthquake hit her and emerge out of the move into an eruption, which caused the psychic barriers to flare up, just as they had when the earthquake hit them. Even as the eruption splashed over Mamoswine's back and caused it to moan in pain, Lila had already called out her next move.
"Stomping tantrum! Right in front of you!"
At this Ash's eyes widened. She knew her pokemon's eyes would be closed in pain so she had predicted Typhlosion would land in front of Mamoswine and called for a move that didn't require it to be perfectly accurate. She was better than he had assumed. He grinned, this was going to be fun.
Typhlosion probably thought differently than Ash at the moment, considering she was just slammed backward by the rumbling of the earth and the splintered pieces of ground that erupted from the move's base. Regardless of her thoughts on this battle, she pulled herself up from the ground and blasted off into a flame wheel once more, circling around the mamoswine, which had opened its eyes back up and moved away from the steaming ground that Typhlosion's eruption had caused.
Typhlosion took the initiative here, throwing out a flamethrower from behind that caused Mamoswine to roar in pain. She probably couldn't handle too many more hits like the first one, but he knew that eruption had to have hurt the mamoswine badly. Its thick fur and massive reserves of fat would dull some of the pain for now, but the more they battered at it the more it would stop being able to ignore the damage to its body.
"Really hammer it Typhlosion, use flamethrower when you can, and don't let it get too close to you."
As Ash's pokemon responded to this statement with another powerful fire-type attack, the opposing pokemon reacted to its own trainer's orders by slamming down in another earthquake. This time Typhlosion wasn't quick enough to dodge, the powerful ground-type attack causing her to fall to all four paws and pant. Ash figured they would have to wrap this up as quickly as possible before his pokemon went down.
"Disregard previous orders Typhlosion and start using swift, then move into a flame wheel and keep them coming!."
Typhlosion did start using swift, which began to target the mamoswine, but before it could respond, both it and its trainer appeared slightly stunned by the combination move Typhlosion was using. Stars of fire began to burst from Typhlosion's burning body as she circled around, moving too quickly for mamoswine to pin her down but still managing to do a surprising amount of damage with the move.
The mammoth groaned loudly and shook itself as if to stop the pain, but it didn't seem to grasp that this wouldn't do anything. Lila did, however, and was ordering her pokemon to use earthquake again, which it did after a moment. Unfortunately for it, Typhlosion was still moving in flame wheel and it was easy for her to jump when Ash called for one. Without the energy for another eruption without charging time, however, she couldn't retaliate quite as easily.
Ash heard Lila call out for Mamoswine to close in and hit Typhlosion hard, but before it could do that he had an idea.
"You go in too Typhlosion, but use quick attack to get underneath Mamoswine and use eruption straight up!"
Lila began to call for Mamoswine to back up and use earthquake again to stop Typhlosion from closing in, but before it could Typhlosion was underneath it, the speed from flame wheel and quick attack causing it to move at lightning speeds. With a mighty cry, the fire-type pokemon's back erupted in fire and smoke, slamming molten fire right into the soft underbelly of the mamoswine. Mamoswine, finally registering the amount of pain it was in and the damage to its body, passed out immediately.
Unlucky for Typhlosion though, it had no time to get clear from Mamoswine as the larger pokemon collapsed on top of it, slamming the weasel pokemon into the ground as thousands of pounds of ground-type suffocated it. This situation wouldn't last long though, since Lila returned Mamoswine after a few moments to make sure the massive pokemon wouldn't be getting up again. The fire-type crawled out and panted for a moment, before slowly standing up on her back legs and flaring her flames.
Lila released her next pokemon then, and suddenly floating before Typhlosion was a mass of green seaweed and glowing rusted metal. It was a dhelmise, a pokemon Ash had seen before in Alola but had never fought in battle. This might be tricky. He knew it was really a ghost and grass-type pokemon, but its steel-type moves would hit very hard, and it might not take too much damage from physical attacks.
Suddenly the dhelmise vanished off of the field just as Typhlosion's flamethrower splashed weakly off of the barriers where Dhelmise had been floating a second before. Looking around, neither Ash nor Typhlosion could find where the other pokemon had disappeared to. Before either could react, the possessed anchor appeared behind Typhlosion and in a flash of ghost-type energy, slammed into her.
Typhlosion hit the barriers hard and weakly got up, but before Ash could command her the dhelmise vanished again. Knowing she couldn't be hit by that move again without going down, Ash called out.
"Swift during flame wheel again! Let's get some damage on this thing quick."
Typhlosion did just that, though the first stars spun around harmlessly for a moment fore disappearing with no effect. The remaining ones hit the dhelmise as it came out behind Typhlosion, unfortunately for it, just too slow to actually hit the fire-type. This let Typhlosion spin to a stop and throw out a flamethrower that hit the other pokemon, causing a burning smell and causing the dhelmise to let out a sound almost like metal groaning as too much strain was put on it.
Dhelmise was far from done, however, and slowly floated closer to Typhlosion while being hit repeatedly with flamethrower before seemingly gripping her in its seaweed. Typhlosion let out a cry in panic and both vanished from the field. Ash gripped her pokeball in panic, but both pokemon soon reappeared, Typhlosion obviously unconscious.
Returning his pokemon, Ash quickly pondered his next choice. It was either Noivern or Goodra, and while he figured that Goodra could do more damage, he wanted Noivern to have a chance to strut his stuff. Making up his mind, Ash threw out Noivern's pokeball, releasing the dragon-type into the air, where he screeched happily upon seeing his trainer.
"Noivern! It's a ghost-type so don't use boomburst and try to not let yourself get hit physically. Start with an acrobatics into a supersonic."
Noivern screeched a positive response to Ash before diving at the dhemise in a flash. The other pokemon had no time to respond and was tackled to the side by the flying-type move, causing the odd sound of metal groaning to emit from it once more. Before Dhelmise could respond to this it was hit with waves of sound, causing it to groan and begin to move erratically, its one open eye fluttering.
As Lila shouted out at her pokemon to snap out of it and use gyro ball, Noivern ducked back in with a flash, claws glowing green and extended. Noivern began slashing at the dhelmise, causing it obvious pain, but after a few seconds of this the pain seemed to snap it out of its confusion and it began to spin. Before Noivern could pull out of his attack and move out of the way, he was sent flying back into the barriers by the steel-type attack.
Ash grimaced. Noivern weren't very physically bulky as a species and they hadn't done very much training to help him resist those kinds of hard-hitting moves, so one more and he was probably done. Even now he looked a bit pained getting up from the ground and taking off again. The positive side was that Dhelmise was floating lower and lower to the ground, and looked as if one or two strong moves would knock it out.
"Acrobatics now" Ash called to his pokemon, even as Lila called for a phantom force.
Luckily for Ash, Noivern was fast enough to slam into the other pokemon just as it disappeared into the shadows, causing Lila to curse and grab its pokeball while looking around. Dhelmise did indeed emerge from the shadows, but nowhere near Noivern and visibly unconscious.
Quickly switching her pokeballs around, Lila released a pokemon that Ash did not recognize. It bore some superficial resemblance to Rapidash, but its coat was pale white rather than cream, and it wasn't covered in flames. Rather, it had a long mane coming out of the back of its head, with the hair being mostly purple with streaks of blue, the same being seen around its ankles and tail, and it had a longer purple horn that was streaked with white in a spiral pattern.
Ash had no idea what this pokemon was, and a tournament final was no time to check things with a pokedex so he continued on.
"Noivern, back up and use boomburst!"
Massive sound waves erupted from Noivern's ears towards the other pokemon, causing it to reel back in pain before stamping both of its front feet and throwing out a psycho cut from its horn. The wave moved with surprising speed, but Noivern was able to move out of the way, but unfortunately he moved directly into a wave of rainbow light, that caused Noivern to screech in pain and hit the dirt. As he got up the other pokemon rammed its horn into his chest, throwing him back once more and knocking him out.
Ash blinked, that had all happened so fast that neither he nor his pokemon were ready for it. Returning Noivern and sending out Goodra, Ash suspected he might know at least one of this pokemon's types.
"Goodra, this pokemon is strong, try firing a dragon pulse at its flank."
Goodra did just this, quickly shooting a dragon pulse at the other pokemon, who wasn't able to dodge this in time. The dragon pulse splashed harmlessly off of its flank, causing Ash to nod.
"Just as I thought, it's a fairy type of some sort. Anti-fairy tactics Goodra!"
Goodra narrowed her eyes and let out a surprisingly fierce cry, her arms flinging slime to each side as her horns moved, causing rain to begin to fall on the battlefield.
The other pokemon let out a neigh and threw out a dazzling gleam once more, though it wasn't expecting Goodra to simply cross her arms and let the attack slide off her. Goodra then threw out an ice beam, which froze one of the other pokemon's feet to the ground for a second before it snorted and broke the ice off with another psycho cut. The few seconds it took to do this let Goodra close in though, the dragon surprisingly quick for her size. Tail glowing purple, she slammed it into the side of the fairy-type with a cry.
The other pokemon let out a scream and fell backward, skidding into the barriers. Snorting in rage, the pokemon charged at Goodra, glowing pink. Goodra and Ash obviously had the same idea here, as even as Ash shouted for Goodra to 'use its first attacking move,' Goodra was already glowing white.
"Shite, get out of there now! Knock it out from afar!" Lila called to her pokemon, who looked confused at this order and backed up, throwing another dazzling gleam Goodra's way as it did so. Goodra seemed to smirk at this, and slowly inched her way forward, glowing white all the while. Just as yet another dazzling gleam hit her and Goodra started to appear hurt, everything ahead of her exploded in white as she unleashed her bide.
Ash smirked along with Goodra, as the light cleared from his eyes to show that the other pokemon was lying unconscious on the ground, having bounced off the barriers with the power of the attack. Barriers that were, now that he looked closely, a bit more cracked and battered looking than before the attack had hit them. Ash called out to his pokemon as the barriers lowered.
"You did it Goodra! Great thinking on that bide, you were doing it before I even called out for it! You're getting much better at fighting on your own. I guess all that fighting against the florges in the swamp must have helped you resist those fairy moves a little bit too?"
Goodra nodded and let out a happy cry before grabbing Ash in a slimy hug. Ash laughed, "Thanks buddy, but can you do a small rain dance above me so I can shake Lila's hand?" Goodra happily did so, the rain dance slightly soaking Ash but it was better than being covered in slime for the rest of the day.
Approaching the two of them was the Galarian trainer Lila.
"Thanks for the battle," she said, extending her hand. "And thank you for um, washing off first."
Ash laughed "No, thank you for the battle! That was the best battle we've had since we got back from Alola. What kind of pokemon was the last one? It looked kind of like a rapidash but not like one I've ever seen before."
"Oh, he is a rapidash, just one from Galar. He's a psychic and fairy-type. I never thought my fairy-type wouldn't be able to take down a pure dragon-type with that many direct hits."
"Oh wow, so they're like the Alolan variants. Yeah, Goodra's special! He's spent lots of time fighting fairy-types so he's used to their tricks by now, and can take their moves a little better."
"I didn't expect that bide either. Well, I'm going to head to the pokemon center, but look me up if you're ever in Galar." Turning towards the door with a wave, Lila left just as the announcer was reporting Ash's victory in the tournament.
Thinking to himself, Ash realized that despite winning the tournament in one day, he was now stuck in Silver Town for the night, since his flying pokemon was completely unconscious, and probably would be until night fell. Oh well, Ash shrugged, just another night at a pokemon center. At least he would still get to sleep in a bed that night.
