The New Normal – 9-4 – Interlude – Cynthia
Although she was not someone that was prone to arrogance, she was pretty confident in saying that Aaron was just not at her level.
Especially after her Lucario just decimated his Scizor in under a minute.
The normally speedy and agile Scizor quickly found its match against her Lucario, who was not only faster in many ways, but was able to punch and strike with far more precision and force. Even after taking down his Heracross, her Lucario was still rearing to go, and his Fire Punches and Blaze Kicks remained as deadly as ever, burning a swath through Aaron's team.
Despite Scizor's best attempts to circle around and rely on hit-and-run attacks, her Lucario reacted faster. Each exchange was heavily in Lucario's favour – her Fire attacks were far more punishing than Scizor's Fighting ones. And she never let go of the momentum, always pressuring Aaron's Scizor and doggedly pursued it with Lucario's repeated use of Extreme Speed until Scizor eventually made a mistake, which resulted in a Fire Punch crashing fist first into Scizor's face that sent it careening into the ground with a thud as its metallic face was caught ablaze.
Scizor thrashed on the ground in a fruitless attempt to put out the fire, but it was no use. Another Blaze Kick smashed into its chest, causing a visible dent to appear on its steely exterior that instantly silenced the Scizor for the rest of the fight.
And now the score was already 3-0, with her Lucario already sweeping through his earlier Yanmega and Heracross.
She could see that the crowd was going wild at yet another victory for her Lucario. They likely didn't have high expectations for her going in; mostly attributing her draw against John as a fluke that happened in a friendly match. So they failed to recognize how strong she was.
But now they must have reversed their earlier opinion, as they were all now chanting her name and cheering at her every success. On the other hand, Aaron was frowning deeply, likely upset at his string of losses and his poor performance.
She ignored all of that though. All she focused on was the status of her Lucario – was it strong enough to keep fighting? Or would her chances increase if she withdrew it?
A more prideful trainer would have kept it in the fight, trying to rack up as many victories as possible with her Pokémon in a display of strength. But she was never a prideful person – she liked to think herself more practical than that.
And she knew that her Lucario had reached its limits already.
"I RETIRE MY LUCARIO!" She announced, drawing gasps of disappointment from the crowd as they hoped for Lucario to perform a clean sweep of Aaron's team. That was always an unrealistic expectation; Aaron wasn't nearly weak enough for her to do that.
Still, with the lead that she had it was all about maintaining that momentum. She didn't want to give Aaron any opportunity to setup or reorient himself. He was on the ropes, and she was going to make sure she gave him one last push to topple him over.
"GO! VESPIQUEN!"
"TOGEKISS! YOUR TURN!"
Her Togekiss immediately began setting up with a Calm Mind as it flew high into the sky, and Aaron's frown became more pronounced as he watched her Togekiss setting up.
Vespiquen did her best to fight back, but she had already worked out a plan with Togekiss beforehand to completely dominant the opposing Bug type. She recognized Vespiquen to be a defensive Pokémon, relying on her superior defences to slowly wear down the opponent. But Vespiquen were slow Pokémon, despite being able to fly.
His Vespiquen was more suited to fighting against grounded Pokémon rather than other fliers. And her Togekiss heavily punished this fact by refusing to fight the way Vespiquen wanted to fight, and repeatedly scorched it with a barrage of Flamethrowers and ignited Air Slashes.
His Vespiquen was visibly outmatched.
Aaron obviously spotted this – but he was unable to do anything about it. His only other powerful Flying type, Yanmega, had already gone down earlier, and Vespiquen's litany of injuries meant that it was already too late to switch. THIS was why she had waited until now to deploy Togekiss – because she knew that Aaron would have nothing left to counter it with.
It didn't take long for Aaron's Vespiquen to fall. Plus, just like she had hoped, with all of the buffs that Togekiss had already set up thanks to Vespiquen's inability to punish it, the Flygon that Aaron sent out next, which was normally Aaron's second strongest Pokémon, struggled to take down her Togekiss.
She gave off a small nod as she watched her Togekiss' dominant performance. She really had to thank John and Professor Oak for piecing together the secrets of the Fairy type – it really had solved a few inconsistencies that she had spotted with her Togekiss earlier on. And it gave her yet another weapon to take down those Dragon types.
After a short exchange of attacks where Flygon tried to grapple onto her Togekiss while her buffed Togekiss tried to batter Flygon down from a distance, the result was both Pokémon going down, leaving the match at 5-2.
And then came Aaron's starter and ace – his Drapion. She had seen the recordings; his Drapion was an utter powerhouse at close range. Combining brutal and hard-hitting close-range combos with powerful and debilitating poisons that could bring down even the strongest of foes overtime. It was one of the greatest 'bruiser' counters she had seen; every aspect of his Drapion was designed and trained to take lumbering threats.
Unfortunately for Aaron, he only had the one Pokémon remaining. So Cynthia played it extremely safe, sending out her Spiritomb to wear it down with Burns and Pain Splits before ultimately going down to Drapion. Then came her Milotic, who simply took advantage of the crippled Drapion to repeatedly blast it with a torrent of powerful Hydro Pumps, bringing down the big bruiser of a Dark Type.
It didn't matter how much Drapion tried to rip and tear into Milotic with its poisonous claws, her Milotic stood like an unbreakable wall of fortitude, tanking through the crippled Drapion's blows with little issue. 'Greatest bruiser' or not, Drapion fell all the same.
Sure, she could have sent out Garchomp. But she was saving her starter for later. There was no need to show them off now.
Was her victory flashy or dramatic? Of course not. But the crowd cheered loudly regardless, recognizing the planning and skill that she displayed in securing her victory.
"AND THE CHALLENGER CYNTHIA HAS CRUSHED ELITE AARON, WINNING WITH AN UTTERLY CONVINCING 6-3 VICTORY!" She briefly hear the announce scream out, but she had already tuned him out in favour of running over the battle in her head. She already spotted a few improvements she could have made.
"…I can't say I'm not a bit bitter, but congratulations on your victory." Aaron said to her after the match was over, "Lucian really wasn't overhyping you when he told us that you were strong. I guess I should have listened a bit harder."
"You fought well." She simply replied. "But I did prepare very carefully about how I would defeat you."
That caused Aaron to let out a snort, "Yeah, clearly. You really didn't leave anything up to chance against me. I don't think I've lost this hard in a long time."
He shook his head, "You better keep up this kind of performance against the other three, otherwise I'd look like a weak fool."
She smiled, "I'll do my best. I certainly intend on repeating my performance here."
"Good, just don't forget I'm considered the weakest of the Elite Four for a reason. I'm just the beginning. The other three in the gauntlet won't be as easy to beat as I was." Aaron reminded, but he wasn't bitter about it.
She nodded – his words were true enough, but she was already thinking about how she would be defeating Bertha next.
One down, three to go.
A.N. I think this comes at no surprise to anyone, but Cynthia dunks on Aaron. Aaron is quite strong, don't get me wrong, and he more than deserves his place in the Elite Four, but I've always seen him as the weakest of the Sinnoh League, and Cynthia is most definitely NOT the weakest among the Sinnoh League. So the result is just about what you could expect, which is why I didn't want to write this out into a full fight.
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