The New Normal - A Pokémon SI

by CartecFF

For most, becoming a member of the Elite 4 would be the culmination of their Journey. A great achievement that solidified your status in the annals of history. For me, it was just the start of my journey. Hopefully, everything stays Normal. A pre-canon self-insert into the world of Pokémon. Inspired by Hard Enough. Crossposted SB/QQ. Updates every Mon/Fri. Short Interludes on Wed.

66. The New Normal - 4-10

John's Team

Tyrant - Slaking

Vordt - Ursaluna

Smough - Snorlax

Klee - Blissey

Port - Mantine

Zephyr - Pidgeot

Klaus - Wyrdeer

Luna - Clefable

Pixel - Porygon

Euphie - Eevee

Ornstein - D-Zigzagoon

The New Normal – 4-10 – Burn them all

We didn't have to wait long before Lance sent out his next monster.

"Charizard, it's your turn."

Lance's Charizard emerged from its Pokéball with a terrifying roar, sending out a huge plume of searing flames towards the sky and allowing small embers to descend onto the ground like droplets of fire. It looked every bit like a fearsome Dragon that was eyeing down its prey.

The clouds of snow in the sky immediately began to recede as Charizard sent an intense ray of light into the sky, gradually being replaced by a scorching harsh sunlight that illuminated the entire arena.

Even before Charizard made its first attack, I knew that this was going to a horrible matchup for Pryce's Abomasnow. The type matchup was just too imbalanced in Lance's favour. And, just as I was thinking it, Pryce made the move to immediately swap out his Abomasnow.

"Return, Abomasnow!"

"FIRE SPIN, CHARIZARD! Don't let it escape!"

Before the red light of the Pokéball could reach the Abomasnow, Charizard reacted quickly, releasing a quick burst of flames that snaked out and wrapped up the Abomasnow in a vortex of fire, blocking it from being withdrawn from the fight.

Pryce frowned as his Pokémon was trapped. The Fire Spin tore through Abomasnow, dealing constant supereffective damage that gradually chipped at its health. It was in a really bad spot.

But, faced with no better option, Pryce's eyes narrowed and he went on the offensive, likely hoping to do as much damage as he could.

"Rock Slide, Abomasnow!"

"Into the air, Charizard! Break down those rocks with Focus Blasts!"

As Charizard flapped his massive wings and took off into the air, rocks began being ripped out from the arena from around Abomasnow before being fired off in a barrage towards Charizard. Without slowing down, Charizard sent out a volley of Focus Blasts that shattered all of the incoming boulders while using his aerial manoeuvrability to dodge the rest.

However, as Abomasnow continued firing out rocks towards Charizard, the volley of rocks started to become staggered and weak, as if the Abomasnow was unused to maintaining continuous geokinesis like it was currently doing, especially while it was burned. And unlike my fight against Drake's Salamence with Vordt, Charizard was far from being pressured from the far weaker onslaught of rocks.

This was the disadvantage of relying on a Pokémon purely for its surprise factor. Once that surprise factor was exposed and the momentum lost, you had a weaker than average Pokémon that wasn't up to your usual level of training.

And, with that gap between the barrage of rocks, Charizard was able to begin his attack.

"Incinerate everything, Charizard! Flamethrower!"

A torrent of blue flames shot out like a long spear of fire out of Charizard's gaping maw, burning with such intensity that the flames were able to melt through the volley of rocks coming its way.

"Chilling Water, Abomasnow! Match it!"

Abomasnow retaliated as it fired out its own stream of freezing water towards the incoming spear of flames, and the two attacks clashed against each other. Normally, common sense dictates that fire ought to be put out by water. Similarly, a torrent of flames should be pushed back by a stream of water. But Charizard's blue flames were no ordinary fire.

And the result only became more skewed as Charizard's flames were boosted by the harsh sunlight, while Abomasnow's stream of Water was weakened.

A horrible hissing sound emerged from where the two streams met, and the crowd and I stared with enraptured silence as we watched as the blue flames literally evaporated the stream of water where they collided, forming a huge wall of steam that increasingly concealed the fight occurring below.

And so, the rest of us watched as Pryce's attack was slowly beaten back by the realities of physics, and his powerful geyser of water was nullified and pushed back by the immense heat from Charizard's flames.

Likely recognizing that he was not about to win this exchange of attacks, Pryce went on the defensive.

"Protect! Shield yourself, Abomasnow!"

Abomasnow quickly cut off his attack as a Protect shield formed around it, before it quickly got engulfed by searing hot blue flames that began to melt the ground from underneath it. Though at least Abomasnow remained safe from within the Protect shield.

However, this focus on defense now gave Charizard free reign to make use of its more devastating attacks.

"Flare Blitz, Charizard! Annihilate it!"

With a deafening roar, Charizard surrounded itself with a ball of flames as it started its apocalyptic descent into the Abomasnow, looking every bit like a sun was about to crash into the ground of the arena.

And, surrounded by flames that as it still was, Abomasnow didn't even realize that its doom was rapidly descending from the sky. But Pryce knew that the end was coming, and so, with a determined frown, he gave his Abomasnow his final command to make its last stand.

"Outrage, Abomasnow. Fight till the last."

But Draconic energy was barely able to surge around the Abomasnow before Charizard crashed into it like a descending meteor, knocking up a huge cloud of dust. The cloud of dust blocked the spectators from seeing what was happening below, but it didn't take a genius to guess what had happened.

I heard Walker sigh from next to me before he got up and made his way to the buffet table once again, likely to pour himself another drink. Poor guy, I knew that he was likely friends with Pryce, so seeing him in this state was likely a sad affair.

I stared patiently as the dust slowly settled, revealing what I had expected. Abomasnow was lying unconscious in a center of a newly created crater, small wisps of flame still dancing across its badly charred body, while Charizard stood triumphantly over it, barely scratched and hardly winded.

"WHAT A CONVINCING VICTORY FOR LANCE'S CHARIZARD! MANAGING TO BLOCK OFF PRYCE'S ATTEMPTS TO SWITCH OUT HIS ABOMASNOW JUST TO FINISH IT OFF WITH AN EXPLOSIVE FLARE BLITZ! LANCE REGAINS THE LEAD WITH 2-1!" The announcer called out over the excitement of the crowd, "HOW WILL PRYCE RESPOND TO THIS DEFEAT? HE HAS THIRTY SECONDS TO DO SO!"

Pryce withdrew his Abomasnow and gave Lance an angry glare, no longer maintaining the indifferent stoicism that he had previously. Perhaps he was starting to realize how big of a threat Lance truly was at his ability to maintain his title as Champion, something I'm sure literally everyone else had realized by now.

He fidgeted with a few of his Pokéballs before eventually deciding to send out his chosen challenger against Lance's monstrous Charizard.

"Dewgong, you're up."

Pryce's Dewgong slammed onto the wrecked arena as the sheer weight of its body cracked the ground. Its normally friendly expression at odds with its size and heft. Even more importantly, a thick layer of fat could be seen wrapped around its body, which only serves to improve its distinct bulky appearance.

"AND PRYCE HAS BROUGHT OUT HIS FEARSOME DEWGONG! THE FAMED ICE-TYPE DRAGON SLAYER HAS BROUGHT DOWN MANY A BEAST BEFORE, BUT WOULD IT BE ENOUGH TO BRING DOWN THE FIERY CHARIZARD?!" The announcer hyped up for the crowds.

Dewgong was an excellent choice for Pryce. Lance had no good swaps; Charizard was his only Pokémon left that wasn't weak to Ice. But with Dewgong's ability Thick Fat, Charizard wasn't the best Pokémon to fight with either. It was a dilemma between choosing between two bad decisions, and I wondered which choice Lance was going to make.

"Aqua Ring, Dewgong. Prepare yourself."

"Flare Blitz, Charizard. Start out strong and pummel it!"

With a reverberating roar, Charizard burst forwards as it engulfed himself in flames once again, leaving a trail of scorch marks in the wake of its attack, before the two Pokémon slammed together.

Fire met Ice, but the Ice refused to melt. The Thick Fat surrounding the Dewgong insulated it from the sunlight-boosted scorching flames of the attack, leaving Dewgong mostly unharmed and healthy. As if to take its endurance as a personal insult to its pride, Charizard roared out and unleashed a stream of blue flames point-blank straight towards Dewgong.

"Ice Slam, Dewgong."

Making use of its inherent bulk and resistance to fire, Dewgong elected to simply tank through the meltingly hot blue flames and shielded itself with an aura of ice and charged through it to land a powerful Ice-infused Body Slam against Charizard.

Charizard stumbled back as the impact cut off its own stream of fire as he was forced to take a breath. Pryce was unwilling to allow Charizard room to breathe and pressed on.

"Again!"

Dewgong pulled its weight to the front and remorselessly slammed into Charizard once again, this time able to land a direct hit into the center of the Charizard as it couldn't raise its arms in time to block the attack. Charizard roared out in pain and indignation, enraged at the fact that this oversized slug was able to hurt a Dragon like it was.

Thinking that Charizard was on the backfoot and not really able to harm his Dewgong, Pryce used this moment to hopefully secure his lead.

"Set up the Snow, Dewgong!"

Dewgong seemed content to ignore the raging Charizard before it as it began to release a gust of cold air around it, causing thick clouds dripping with snow to descend from the sky and shield against the once harsh sunlight.

Being ignored only seemed to infuriate the Charizard even further, and Lance seemed to share in his Pokémon's frustration.

"Dragon Claw, Charizard! Overwhelm and crush that thing before you!"

"Aqua Tail, Dewgong! Hit it hard!"

No longer being weakened by the harsh sunlight, Dewgong followed up with a powerful swipe of its tail that was blocked by one of Charizard's arms. However, fuelled by its pride, the Charizard ignored the pain of the supereffective move as it charged forwards and raked its claws violently across Dewgong's fatty body; Dewgong tanked through the attack with barely a reaction.

The lack of effective damage from its attack only further incensed Charizard, who, unprompted, recklessly slashed again with another Dragon Claw, but it failed to do much damage to the Dewgong. Worse, by attacking recklessly like this, Charizard had unintentionally overextended and exposed itself to being counterattacked, which Dewgong quickly capitalized on with another hefty Aqua Tail to the chest.

To add insult to injury, this kind of meagre damage from Charizard was quickly healed up by the Aqua Ring that Dewgong had deployed at the beginning of the fight. Realizing that the Dewgong proved resistant to its Dragon Claw, Lance took command of his Charizard before it could lose itself in its rage once again.

"Brick Break instead, Charizard! Smash it!"

"Waterfall, Dewgong! Put your weight behind it!"

Its rage now tempered by its trainer's command, Charizard refocused itself on the fight and was no longer lashing out. This renewed discipline allowed it to brace itself for Dewgong's incoming Waterfall and partially blocked the attack with a defensively raised arm before its other arm descended from above and chopped supereffectively into Dewgong.

Dewgong stumbled backwards with pained surprise; this was the first attack that managed to actually hurt it throughout the entire battle. Lance immediately pounced on the sudden distance between the two Pokémon.

"Focus Blast, Charizard!"

A volley of Focus Blasts almost instantaneously shot out from Charizard's claws, detonating savagely as they impacted on Dewgong before it could even form a Protect shield to block the damage.

"Again!"

"Hydro Pump, Dewgong!"

Two instances of damage were hardly enough to fell a tanky beast like Dewgong, and it reared its head backwards and unleashed a powerful torrent of water that collided against the barrage of Focus Blasts. A series of detonations followed as the Focus Blasts repeatedly detonated against the stream of water, the two attacks constantly pushing back and forth against each other.

However, the deciding factor revealed itself to be the energy reserves of the two Pokémon. While Charizard was an extremely well-trained and all-round terrifying Pokémon, it ultimately wasn't a Fighting type. Sure, it was more than proficient at using Focus Blasts, but Dewgong simply had more energy in reserve to use its same type Hydro Pump compared to Charizard.

Thus, as the two Pokémon continued to give their all with their two attacks, Charizard slowly wavered as it gradually bottomed out its Fighting type energy reserves. Its attacks were starting to get pushed back.

I wasn't sure if Lance had realized this, or if his pride stayed in the way of him ordering Charizard to switch attacks, which would effectively be conceding defeat in this exchange, but he made no move to change tactics.

Of course, the result was that Charizard inevitably ran out of energy and was blasted backwards as the torrent of water slammed it unceremoniously into the psychic shields.

"Typical Blackthorn pride." Agatha scoffed as she watched Charizard remained pinned, "Any idiot can see that it was about to lose that exchange, and yet Lance insists on continuing because his Pokémon would never forgive him if he didn't allow them to give it their all and TRY to win."

That was very interesting to hear, but Karen spoke up before I could. "You mean that Lance had raised all of his Pokémon like this?"

"Of course." Agatha answered as she rolled her eyes. "Were you blind when his Gyarados refused to stay down? That's the famed Blackthorn pride at work. All of his Pokémon think they're some mighty Dragon that can never be defeated. Oh sure, it has its upsides, as you saw, but then you get stupidity like this because they're so unwilling to bend or concede." She scoffed once again.

"That's ridiculous. A Pokémon should use every little inch to their advantage." Karen said, like the Dark-type specialist she was.

I agreed with Agatha about the drawbacks. I could never see myself encouraging my Pokémon's pride to such an extent that they would literally refuse to back down from an engagement due to their pride. Despite the advantages and obvious power that such a training method allowed for, I thought that this way of fighting was far too restricting and prone to being exploited by crafty opponents.

Pride was important for a Pokémon to have, but never to such an extent that it consumes your every action. Perhaps it was suitable for a team as strong as Lance's, but since Normal types weren't traditionally powerhouses like Dragons were, this method of fighting was entirely unsuitable for me. Even Tyrant, with all his battle lust, can still reign himself in when necessary, such as when he allowed me to withdraw him against Drake's Salamence because he knew that was what we had planned for.

Although, the tenacity shown by Lance's Pokémon was truly impressive.

Despite being blasted with a supereffective torrent of water that kept it pinned against the psychic barriers of the arena, Charizard's eyes remained alight with rage and defiance. Its eyes told the world that it would not be defeated so disgracefully, and Lance understood that.

"Rock Slide, Charizard! Fight back and interrupt it!"

Impressively, Charizard was able to push past the pain of being endlessly blasted by a stream of water as it still managed to focus itself and start levitating the many surrounding rocks around it. I knew just how difficult it was for a Pokémon to be able to concentrate on their attack like that WHILE it was still being pinned by a supereffective attack, so it was remarkable that Charizard had the willpower to push through the pain.

With intense concentration fuelled entirely by its unyielding pride, the rocks shot forward like bullets that crashed into Dewgong's side, eliciting a moan of pain, and cutting off its Hydro Pump. As Charizard was finally free from being pinned by the Hydro Pump, Lance went back on the offensive.

"Flare Blitz, Charizard! Show your strength to the world!"

With a defiant roar, Charizard surrounded itself with a pulsating flames as it blitzed towards the Dewgong.

"Glacial Impact, Dewgong! Crush this usurper!"

Dewgong let out a powerful bellow of its own, ignoring its many injuries that had gradually built up over the course of the battle, before it rapidly charged up its own Ice-infused Giga Impact and burst forwards like a rocket.

A deafening BANG exploded across the arena as Fire met Ice once again and the two Pokémon collided with their most devastating attacks. An unstoppable force meeting an immovable object as a cataclysm of opposing energies crashed against each other, causing a veritable eruption of power.

And then, there was nothing left. Not even steam. Even the clouds of Snow above were dispersed by the attack.

The arena shattered instantly at the impact, ripped entirely apart. The first layer of psychic barriers utterly failed at containing the blast, almost as if it they didn't exist entirely. The second layer, held in reserve to protect the audience for destructive attacks like this, flickered widely as it strained to maintain itself.

The VIP room was far more protected, the reinforced glass and stronger psychic barriers managing to protect us from feeling most of the impact, but glass and plates shattered as the force of the impact still managed to send tremors through the room. Though the trainers in the room all remained unfazed as we were more than used to enduring through these kinds of attacks. You didn't make it this far without being able to do so.

As the tremors ended and the aftershocks of the impact went away, we were all able to observe the results of that attack.

Unsurprisingly, the arena was devastated. Cracks spread out from the center of a massive crater that was almost artistic in appearance. In the middle of the crater, both Charizard and Dewgong laid unconscious at the center of the crater, almost looking like an entire portion of the arena had just collapsed on itself from the attack. From my high-up viewing point, it was almost like a reverse pedestal for the two Pokémon. A very fitting result for an attack of that calibre.

I was somewhat surprised at Charizard's defeat, thinking that it would be like Lance's Gyarados and fight to the end. However, I suppose that its pride may have been sated by going out in a 'blaze of glory' like this, or possibly because it had just suffered from too much damage throughout the fight that it could fight no longer.

"AND BOTH TRAINER'S POKEMON LIE DEFEATED AFTER A DEVESTATING FINAL ATTACK FROM THE BOTH OF THEM, PUTTING THE SCORE AT 3-2!" The announcer cut through the silence with his booming voice. "HOWEVER, THE REFEREES HAVE JUDGED THAT THE ARENA IS NO LONGER SUITABLE FOR FIGHTING AND THAT THE BARRIERS NEED TO BE RECHARGED, SO THERE WILL BE A SHORT BREAK TO FIX EVERYTHING!"

Then a few commercials started playing on the big screen as the repair crew went and tried to fix up the arena. I was almost amused by the fact that they had saved commercials in advance just to be played during situations like these even when they had previously announced that there wouldn't be commercial breaks. The consumerism was almost impressive.

"Any thoughts on the battle so far, John? Put that brain of yours to good use." Karen said as she poked me in the face before she stood up and stretched from her seat. My eyes lingered slightly too long before I responded.

"…Despite his recent showing, Pryce threw away a big advantage early on." I remarked, trying to avoid her gaze. "He wasn't utilizing his Pokémon properly up to now, but I fear it might be too late."

"Oh? Now that's a very interesting thing to say." Agatha suddenly interrupted us. "Go on, explain why you think Pryce is using his Pokémon badly."

I was slightly surprised by the question, but I mulled it over in my head before responding. "…Well, like you said before, Pryce should have tried to make use of his freeze strategies that he so favoured using in the past. He underutilized his Glalie and Abomasnow against Gyarados by trying to brute force his way to winning." I replied and then continued when I saw Agatha give me a 'keep going' look.

"He could have focused on maintaining the Snow and made use of Snow-based weather strategies, or just used it to boost his Ice type attacks and make it easier to freeze his opponents. He had a huge advantage with Abomasnow's ability to instantly set the Snow, and with careful switches could have maintained the Snow for the entire fight and set up powerful support moves like Aurora Veil. But he was careless and utilized and got it knocked out far earlier than I would have anticipated, losing a very useful Pokémon. He's doing better now with his Dewgong, but it might be too late." I explained thoughtfully, digging into some of my meta-knowledge. Though, to be fair to Pryce, that was all on paper. Everything could go wrong in an actual fight.

"…Good, well explained." Agatha said after she gave me a considering look that flicked between Karen and I. "Glad you're using your brain of yours to do proper research against your enemies. Don't let yourself get caught off-guard. And don't let yourself get ruined by pride like the two fools battling right now. You're on a hot streak, boy, don't let it get to your head."

I nodded while trying to keep the surprise off my face. That was probably the friendliest interaction that I had ever had with Agatha, and she even gave me advice!

"Why are you staring at me like that, boy. Go on, they've almost finished repairing the arena." She said with a visible smirk, and I felt like I was missing something. Still, I turned back to the now repaired arena and tried to put it out of my mind.

I would think about Agatha's sudden friendliness another time. For now, I had a match to watch.

A.N. Thanks for the feedback last chapter, I've made some changes to the fight to make it more balanced. Hope it worked and that you've enjoyed the match between Lance and Pryce so far. Unfortunately, there won't be an in-between Interlude chapter on Wednesday, so the next chapter will come out on Friday.

I hope that the way that the two of them battle matches their personalities. Pryce is well-trained, disciplined, but he was previously misusing his Pokemon due to his ego. Lance is powerful and full of pride, to the point where his pokemon are unyielding monsters that sometimes act stupidly because of said pride.

In this chapter particularly I wanted to highlight both trainer's flaws, yet also show that Pryce IS able to be a match when he snaps out of it.

This chapter has been BETaed by Allute! Cheers! And to anyone who wants to support me, please check out my p atreon at CartecTNN where you can read 8 advanced chapters! Thanks to those who have supported me already!