Et Tu, Unova? Chapter Nineteen, a pokémon fanfic

Chapter 19

Ash and Jessie arrive in Mistralton City around midday, so Ash is surprised when he sees that the local gym is already closed for the day. With no way of earning a badge today, Ash decides to make use of the local Battle Club to get in some more training. Outside the building is a sign advertising the upcoming Clubsplosion, a Pokémon fighting tournament in which only physical or status moves can be used. The prizes for entry are a Black Belt to increase the power of Fighting-type moves and a Yellow Scarf to enhance a Pokémon's aura of toughness, so both Ash and Jessie immediately vow to win it.

Once they enter the building to start training, Ash sees his friend and rival, Stephan, training with an angry look on his face. Sawk practices his punches and other moves on the equipment, which Stephan is holding in place using the strength imparted by his rage. Ash runs over to see what's wrong.

"Stephan!" he greets, "Are you here training for a gym battle, too?"

"Oh, hi Ash," Stephan replies, "No I'm just here for the Clubsplosion. The gym leader in this city will only have air battles, so there's no point in even bothering with a challenge."

"Air battles? Like only using Pokémon that can fly or float? I can see why that'd be hard if you didn't have the right team."

"Ha! I wish that's what an air battle was. No, the gym leader plays out how she thinks the battles would go in her head. I guess she calls them air battles because they only play out in the empty space where her brain should be."

Ash, though shocked by Stephan insulting a gym leader, shares his fury at the concept of what a gym battle in Mistralton City looks like and joins in on the training. Through the day, Ash and Stephan exert themselves just as much as their Pokémon do to try to burn off some of the angry energy. By nightfall, they've calmed down just a bit and decide to go see the gym leader in the morning.

Ash, Stephan, and Jessie head over to the gym as soon as it opens, but there's already a large, excited crowd waiting outside. The gym leader opens the door to the open-top hangar that houses her battlefield and stands proudly beside a Swoobat, a male Unfezant, and a Swanna.

"Hey there, everyone," she calls out, "For those who don't know me, I'm Skyla and for today's air battles I'm using my four-to-six badge team. Newbies may want to come back in a couple of days, but if you think you can beat my team, send yours out and let's see who comes out on top!"

A few trainers sadly walk away, but most stay to try and win a badge without battling. Many teams fail to impress Skyla. Serperior, Watchog, and Excadrill are turned away as a loss, as are teams like Pansear, Woobat, and Whirlipede or Tynamo, Ferroseed, and Gurdurr. A team of Crustle, Stunfisk, and Klang is the first to earn their trainer a badge, before another string of entrants are turned away. Team after team, Skyla uses her internal criteria to either award a badge or claim victory and send a challenger away. Some people are clearly just using the opportunity to try for a chance at a gym badge without a battle and send out untrained Pokémon only to be quickly informed they'd lose. But many trainers are clearly experienced with real gym battles and send out much stronger teams with which they share clear bonds, and even they only win about half the time.

As Ash and his friends approach the front of the line, Stephan has sent out his Liepard, Sawk, and Zebstrika and even Jessie has decided to see if she can get a free badge with Frillish, Yanmega, and Galvantula, but Ash just has Pikachu on his shoulder and is even angrier than yesterday. Skyla marvels at Jessie's exotic Yanmega, but determines that the team isn't enough to beat her.

"I'm going to demand a real battle," Ash growls to Stephan, "And you should, too."

As Stephan approaches Skyla next, she takes an appraising glance at his team.

"Hmm…," she muses, not letting Stephan get a word in, "This battle's close, but I win in the end. But you should totally try again another day! And now for the next person in line."

Skyla looks at Ash and sees only Pikachu.

"At my gym, we have three on three air battles, so I can't accept your challenge with just a Pikachu."

"I don't want to challenge you to an air battle! I want an actual battle with your Pokémon!" Ash shouts. "There's no way you can tell how well a Pokémon will battle just by looking at it. You're not even asking for a demonstration of any moves!"

"Yeah!" Stephan chimes in, "And I want a real battle, too!"

"Look guys," Skyla explains, "Battles really cut into my flying time. And you're wrong about not being able to tell by looking at a Pokémon: I realized a while back that all my battles were turning out just like I thought they would at the beginning. So why should I spend all that time on battles when I could be in the sky instead? If you want to spend all that time in a battle, Brycen's up through Twist Mountain in Icirrus City or you could go down through Chargestone Cave and challenge Clay. But for now, I have more people in line for air battles before I close for the day."

Skyla shoos the pair of trainers away to get on with her air battles. After about an hour, she's managed to disperse the crowd and leaves the gym for the airstrip. She hops in her prop plane and goes to take off, only to find the plane won't leave the ground. Ash's Swadloon is tethering it to a building with String Shot while Stephan's Sawk uses its sheer Strength to hold the plane down.

"You really, really want a battle, huh?" Skyla says as she exits the cockpit, "Fine, I'll battle the team Muscles there showed me earlier, but be warned: it'll go just like I said it would." She walks back to the gym to start her battle with Stephan. The walls of the building taper to a dome, which more often than not, is open to the sky above. With plenty of air space, rafters, and places to perch, Skyla's gym is built for her Flying-type Pokémon.

As promised, Skyla starts off the battle with Swoobat as Stephan sends out his Liepard. Swoobat tries to use its speed to start off with a super effective Signal Beam, but Liepard leaps into the air and prioritizes its Fake Out, then uses Swoobat's flinch to attack with Night Slash. Swoobat whips up a Gust to blow Liepard back and gain some distance, before taking advantage of the open roof of the gym to fly higher into the air than Liepard can reach, even with its agile jumps. From that height, Signal Beam is able to strike true, but Liepard endures the hit and strikes back from the ground with Shadow Ball. A barrage of these shadowy blobs force Swoobat to get closer to the ground as a part of its movements: close enough for Liepard to open its gaping maw wide and let out a large Yawn. As Swoobat grows drowsy, one of the Shadow Balls hits and Swoobat falls to the ground, where Liepard awaits its prey with another Night Slash. Swoobat is defeated by the onslaught, but Skyla is undeterred.

The gym leader sends out Unfezant next and turns Stephan's strategy against him by ordering a Hypnosis from her Pokémon. As Liepard goes down, Unfezant charges in with a Giga Impact, knocking his opponent and taking to the air to wait out the recharge period all in the same movement. Stephan knows that male Unfezant have weaker flying abilities than their female counterparts, so he uses his Sawk next. He starts off with a Thunder Punch, but this Unfezant's flying skills are good enough to dodge out of the way of Sawk's leaping attack. Sawk uses the distance for a Bulk Up, but Unfezant launches an Air Slash at him. One super effective hit isn't enough to take Stephan's brawny Pokémon down though, and he uses his bulky strength to leap straight into the air and shock Unfezant with a midair Thunder Punch. Unfezant falls into a dive with the damage, but when he lands, he hits the falling Sawk with another Air Slash, causing a flinch. Skyla has Unfezant use that time to charge up a Sky Attack, which he uses to slam into Sawk and win the bout.

Stephan sends out his final Pokémon. Skyla tries to end the match quickly with another Hypnosis, but Zebstrika is faster and decides that it's Me First. Unfezant falls asleep and is struck by Spark, quickly taking him out of the battle.

"Just because Swanna is both a Water- and a Flying-type, don't think an Electric-type is going to have an easy win," Skyla cautions as she calls out the Pokémon in question.

Skyla's warning is proven true all too quickly: Zebstrika's speedy Spark only hits a Substitute, while the real Swanna uses Tailwind from the air. With the wind at its back, Swanna is fast enough to avoid Zebstrika's Wild Charge and put up another Substitute. It then goes to recover the health it expended on its decoys using Roost as another Spark dispatches the second Substitute. Skyla's next move is Scald, which hits Zebstrika with a jet of boiling water to burn it and lower its attack power. With the burn, a single Spark isn't enough to destroy Swanna's third Substitute, so Skyla's Pokémon takes the opportunity to heal up again with Roost. Skyla's combination of status moves and Scald proves unbeatable for the grounded Zebstrika. A few Scalds later, the Electric-type goes down and Swanna's air battle result is proven correct.

"See," Skyla gloats, "It's just like I said. It was a close match, but I won in the end."

"So what?" Ash answers, "One battle goes how you think and you decide all of them will? That's the most insane idea I've ever heard."

"If I get into my plane, you're just going to stop me again, aren't you?" Skyla asks. When Ash nods, she adds, "Then how about this: if you think you can prove me wrong about air battles, do it with a challenge on your own time first. There's a tower to the north of the city that's dedicated to lost Pokémon. At the top of that tower there's a bell that trainers ring in those Pokémon's memories. Enter Celestial Tower after dark tonight - just you and your Pokémon - and ring that bell by midnight. If I hear the bell before then, I'll battle you first thing tomorrow, otherwise, you'll accept that this is my gym and we battle by my rules. Agreed?"

Ash accepts the challenge. He can't see how Skyla views this as a challenge: Ash is more than fast enough to climb a tower in five hours. And as he quickly crosses the first floor and climbs to the second, Ash is even more confident. And then on the second floor, he starts to see what Skyla was thinking: it's pitch black, though Ash thinks he might see some small purple lights in the distance. But he has his Pokémon with him, so he calls out Swadloon and Tepig and pulls a tentpole out of his pack. Ash has Swadloon coat the end of the metal pole with silk and Tepig light it on fire. With his homemade torch, Ash takes a closer look at the second floor and is surprised to see that the purple lights he saw were part of a massive hoard of Litwicks. The Ghost-type Pokémon each use their dual Fire-typing to unleash Ember or Flamethrower at Ash and his Pokémon, quickly knocking Swadloon out.

Ash tells Tepig to use Rollout while he has Pikachu use Thunderbolt. At the same time he calls Oshawott, Tranquill, and Gible from their Poké Balls. Ash's five remaining Pokémon make short work of the aggressive Litwicks and Ash climbs to the third floor, where an even larger group of Litwicks awaits, this time backed up by a few floating Pokémon that Dexter tells Ash are called Elgyem. Oshawott uses Water Gun and Tranquill uses Gust on the Litwicks, while Pikachu, Tepig, and Gible take on the Elgyem with Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, and Dragon Pulse. This proves to be a harder task than expected as the Elgyem are able to Recover between hits. While Ash is focused on the Elgyem, the Litwicks manage to use Ghost-type moves and defeat Oshawott. Tepig switches gears and plays candlepin bowling using Rollout on the Litwicks. Eventually, Ash has cleared out the third floor. He checks the Xtransceiver he borrowed from Stephan. It's already 10:45 at night and there's at least one more floor to clear.

Skyla sits at home at 11:30. How dare that kid insult her style of battling? The good news is he'll never make it up the tower alone at night. There's just half an hour left and the only noise from outside is silence.

The fourth floor has proven more crowded than the two below it combined. Ash is down to Pikachu, Gible, and Tranquill to defeat a few dozen Litwicks and Elgyem and even a few Lampents. It's ten minutes to midnight and his Pokémon are exhausted. Ash moans how Skyla sent him here to defeat hundreds of Pokémon just so they can have a real battle. Then he realizes: Skyla didn't say anything about defeating the Pokémon - Ash and his Pokémon just have to ring the bell one floor up. So he tells Tranquill to avoid all the Pokémon and fly up the stairs to the roof to complete the task. But the Lampents and Elgyem don't seem to like the idea of letting Tranquill pass, and attack with Flame Burst and Shadow Ball. But the Flame Bursts are met with Pikachu's Thunderbolt and Gible chomps down on the Shadow Balls. Tranquill, seeing the effort her teammates are making glares in determination and glows blue. After she finishes evolving into Unfezant, she uses her newly mastered Tailwind and improved flying skills to dodge past further attacks and wild Pokémon and fly up the stairs before using Aerial Ace on the bell. A loud ringing sound echoes into Mistralton City at 11:58 PM.

The next day, after Ash has traded out his tired team, he and his friends walk into the gym bright and early. Ash stands in front of Skyla while his friends and Pikachu hang back.

"I've beaten your test, Skyla," Ash declares, "Now it's time for our battle."

"Well, Ash," Skyla says, "A deal's a deal and we can have a non-air battle. What kind were you thinking?"

"I want a full team battle. Six of my Pokémon against six of yours. And here are the Pokémon I'll use," Ash retorts, sending out his full team.

"Are you nuts? All six of those Pokémon are at some kind of disadvantage against Flying-types. There's no way you'll win!" Skyla exclaims.

"No. I know my Pokémon and we will win. And when we do, you're going to promise never to do another air battle again."

Author's Note: And here's air battles sans Cilan - fun fact: the entire reason I sent Shauntal away is that there's no way this would fly (no pun intended) with a member of the elite four around. Onto the next thing: I have no idea how this will go over, but for this chapter I thought I'd introduce a little game. You know what Pokémon Ash has (everything from the anime through 4th Gen and everything from this story) and that his team of six are all "at some kind of disadvantage against Flying-types". Let's see if you can guess the ones I picked for him to use in the battle. And to make it interesting, I have two Characters of the Day in slightly larger than normal roles who need names. The person who gets the closest will get to name one of those characters (within reason - I reserve the right of veto power if a name is inappropriate or doesn't work as a name in universe) while the other will go to the person who gets closest on Archive of Our Own, where I've finally started cross-posting this story. In the event of a tie, I have a list of possible wrong answers ranked by priority. If there's still a tie, I'll draw usernames out of a hat (since I can't get in touch with guests to get their pick, I can't accept entries via guest review). You have until at least March 15 to make your guesses. Happy Pokémon Day and may the odds be ever in your favor.