The New Normal – 15-4 – Interlude – Grimsley
A frown slowly formed on his face as he saw a look of grim determination settle on John's.
He admitted that his performance in the first fight against Karen and Drake was… lacklustre, to say the least. He had underutilised his Bisharp, not expecting for Karen to field a Pokémon that was so fast that his Bisharp would be taken down before it could really utilise its moves.
For a Dark type, his Bisharp had the raw attacking power to match up against even the greatest of Dragons. But that didn't seem to have mattered at all against Karen's Weavile.
He had underestimated the options from the new Dark types. In Unova, the fastest Dark type Pokémon that they had was a Zoroark or a Liepard, but this Weavile of hers had seriously outpaced even his most generous expectations.
It was his mistake. He should have studied up more on the Pokémon that his opponents were going to use before heading into this battle. He had mistakenly assumed that, as a fellow Dark specialist, Karen would be trying to fight with status conditions rather than brute force. It was a rookie error, and he was inwardly beating himself over it.
If only Alder hadn't saddled him with all this work. Then perhaps he could have spent his time more productively…
Even Marshal, that bootlicker of Alder's, had managed to hold up better against that beast of a Salamence.
Originally, he had proposed to fight against the Elite Four of Hoenn and Indigo to regain some of the momentum and prestige that Alder had so foolishly thrown away. His loss against John's starter had done far more harm than their blind Champion would ever know. How were you ever going to convince the new regions to respect Unova if their first ever interaction consisted of their supposedly greatest trainer losing a battle?
Therefore, he knew he had to convince the other members of the Unova Elite Four to organise such a battle – knowing that this was a necessary step to make sure that the other regions (which already outnumber them) would respect Unova's strength. The other two were more hesitant at first, but they eventually saw reason and acquiesced to his proposal.
It wasn't anything personal. He didn't even dislike the foreigners. It was just purely for politics.
However, as he stared down at John's determined eyes, his gut was screaming at him of the impending danger coming his way. He knew instinctively that John's starter was coming out – the starter that had so thoroughly trounced Alder's.
But he squashed down that fear. He always knew that Alder had a bad habit of holding back at times when he really shouldn't. And after rewatching footage of the battle, he was confident that Alder's loss could be explained away by the man being a fool as usual – rather than John's own strength.
Because it was obvious to him that his strength was exaggerated for PR purposes. Given that the man seemed to be heavily involved in helping to bring their three regions closer together, it made sense that their Leagues would make sure that his reputation was as spotless and as extraordinary as possible.
Drayden may have reported back otherwise, stating that John's strength was the real deal, but he would only believe it if he saw it for himself.
"Go! Krookodile!" "Your move, Chandelure!"
"Sableye!" "Tyrant, once again!"
"SLAKINGGGGG!" He flinched as a deafening roar was unleashed from John's Slaking, who wasted no time in charging towards his Krookodile.
His Krookodile instinctively went for a Dig, but Slaking stomped his foot on the ground, causing the dirt beneath Krookodile to erupt upwards and stop it from digging away. Realising that Slaking was about to barrel into it, his Krookodile threw up a hasty Protect shield and threw out his standard Sand Attack Dark Pulse combo at the incoming Slaking.
Most Pokémon would have been deterred by that. Unfortunately, Slaking didn't seem to be one of them as the Normal type slammed into the Protect shield. The Dark Pulse had practically bounced off Slaking's incredibly strong body, but fortunately, the Dark-infused Sand Attack did successfully manage to blind the Slaking.
Despite this, his Krookodile had now entered into Slaking's effective range, and his gut was screaming at him that this was an extremely bad place to be in. Even if Slaking was blinded.
His Krookodile tried to take advantage of Slaking's blindness and darted underneath a blind Brick Break before smashing a Brick Break of his own right into Slaking's face.
However, instead of flinching or stumbling backwards like he had expected, Slaking merely grinned.
Moving quicker than he could have ever expected from such a large beast of a Pokémon, Slaking's arms whipped around and batted aside one of Krookodile's claws before brutally smashing a devastating Hammer Arm right into Krookodile's face.
Krookodile let out a cry of pain as it recoiled from the blow, but as he had trained it, Krookodile used that pain to fuel its wrath, further boosted by a Counter, and the Dark type roared forwards and snapped down hard with its powerful jaws – sinking its razor sharp teeth deep into one of Slaking's arms.
This was the strength of his Krookodile – he had meticulously trained it to harness the power of its innately violent tendencies and use it to skyrocket its own strength. Even if Krookodile were normally seen as less powerful compared to more traditionally strong Pokémon like Haxorus, his Krookodile was different.
For every blow that his Krookodile took, he was confident that it would be repaid back with interest.
…That was, until today. Because unlike the pained reaction that he had expected to see on Slaking's face as his Krookodile took a large Crunch out of his arm, the bloodthirsty smile on Slaking's face only grew.
Like he had found the pain amusing.
And even though Slaking's eyes still remained covered by a layer of dark sand, he could still feel the raw savagery radiating out of them.
Before Krookodile could react, Slaking sent a powerful kick that smashed into one of Krookodile's knees, instantly causing his Dark type to trip over itself as its leg was kicked aside. Then, even with one arm still trapped within Krookodile's jaws, Slaking used his one remaining arm to parry away his attempted Brick Break before viciously smashing his free fist into Krookodile's gut, causing it to release Slaking's other arm from its mouth as it let out another gasp of pain.
But Slaking wasn't done yet, and he used his free arm to ruthlessly pry Krookodile's mouth open, grabbing onto it with both hands before lifting his Krookodile into the air and violently suplexing it to the ground.
"OUTRAGE AND COUNTER NOW!" He desperately shouted, knowing that in a mere matter of seconds, his Krookodile was somehow already at risk of being knocked out.
A bright blue and orange aura exploded from Krookodile as it unleashed its full, unbound strength. Krookodile charged at Slaking – channelling every last bit of its strength as it slammed into Slaking with a blow powerful enough to knock down any one of Drayden's Dragons.
And for the first time in the battle, Slaking actually let out a pained grunt and stumbled backwards.
Unfortunately, that was all that he did.
And then Slaking flashed orange with a Counter of his own, and Grimsley instinctively knew that the fight was over.
A devastating, Counter-boosted, Hammer Arm crashed down hard into Krookodile's back. Krookodile immediately collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
And Slaking instantly pounced on top of it before brutally stomping down and unleashing a point-blank Earthquake that eviscerated through its health. His pinned Dark type struggled and wriggled, furiously trying to claw and slash at Slaking's arms and legs in a desperate attempt to free itself, but Slaking cared little for its futile struggles.
Instead, Slaking's fist began to glow a bright pink before he ruthlessly began to pummel Krookodile with Fairy-infused fists, raining down blow after blow onto his helpless Dark type. Even after Outraging, Krookodile was completely unable to fight back against the sheer, tyrannical strength of John's Slaking.
All the while, he was forced to stare in horrified realisation at just how outmatched he was in this battle. No, calling it a battle would be too generous. This was a beatdown, pure and simple.
He realised he had lost the moment the battle had begun.
He turned to his partner, Shauntal, wondering what in the fuck she was doing during all of this. However, as he did so, he realised that Shauntal had been completely neutralised in the fight in a different manner to him.
He didn't know how it happened, but Sableye had completely crippled her Chandelure. The once proud Ghost type that was Shauntal's beloved starter was Taunted, Tormented, and it was doing everything it could to prevent itself from being paralysed.
The powerful Fire type was trying to fight back, but the Sableye proved itself to be extremely elusive as it continued to run circles around the enraged Chandelure while harassing it with the occasional Dark Pulse and Night Shade. Occasionally, Chandelure would manage to hit Sableye with a Flamethrower or a Shadow Ball, but most of the damage was healed up with a very quick Recover.
…Now this was more familiar ground to him. Sidney fought exactly how he had expected Karen to fight, which was likely why Shauntal seemed to be struggling so much against him. Shauntal's Ghosts had never been good at dealing with moves like Taunt and Torment, and even though she had told him that she had been recently trying to train up her Pokémon's mental discipline, it was clear that this was very much still a work in progress.
At least that explained why Shauntal didn't help him. Her Chandelure looked so thoroughly enraged and tunnel visioned that it probably couldn't pay attention to anything else other than the Sableye. It would probably win its fight in the end, since Sableye also wasn't dealing any meaningful damage to it, but definitely not anytime soon.
Because of this, as he turned back to his own fight just in time to witness Slaking picking up his Krookodile by the head and painfully slamming it back into the ground, he inwardly let out a bitter sigh.
He knew that the fight was doomed.
Therefore, he was now no longer blind to the truth – John's victory over Alder was absolutely no fluke. Whether their Champion fought at full strength against John or not, his starter would have lost regardless. Just like him, Alder had lost the moment he issued the challenge.
He let out a bitter sigh. As soon as this battle was over, it would be impossible to hide the fact that the Elite Four of Hoenn and Indigo completely stomped them in a battle, proving that in this current moment, that they were outclassed in terms of strength.
His plan to reclaim some of Unova's lost prestige had just utterly backfired.
Today had proven that Unova was the weaker region, both in terms of political influence, and in the raw strength of their trainers.
Despite only wanting the best for Unova, today, he had instead failed them.
And now there was only one thing he could say at this point.
"Stop. Krookodile, return." He held out Krookodile's Pokéball and watched as his beaten and bruised Pokémon was returned to its Pokéball. Inwardly, he apologised to his fallen Pokémon. It should not have had to fight such a battle in the first place. He had fucked up, having jumped into a series of battles unprepared, and both his Bisharp and Krookodile were the ones to pay the price.
He let out another sigh as he watched the now-freed Slaking wipe the sand out of his face, before he turned his attention onto the lone, crippled Chandelure.
And as he watched the Slaking leap straight over a Flamethrower from the Chandelure before transitioning into a rolling strike that delivered a Dark-infused heel kick right into Chandelure, he hoped that Shauntal could read the writing on the wall and withdraw her Pokémon before it suffered through the same fate as his Krookodile did.
Either way, after this battle, Unova would really have to reconsider how they approached the upcoming negotiations about open borders and the like. He had wanted to resort to a slow and gradual approach at first, but he was heavily reconsidering that now.
Because he realised one thing – Unova could not afford to become enemies of the new regions. With such powerful trainers on their side, if they came to blows, it was looking exceedingly likely that Unova wasn't going to win.
A.N. I felt it would be interesting to show off a Tyrant fight from a POV that isn't John, just to see what it's like to face off against him. And yes, Grimsley is reaping what he has sown. Despite trying to play games with the new arrivals, I've tried to show that Grimsley isn't really a bad guy, he's just doing what he thinks its best for Unova. Unfortunately, he's really fucked up today, and there will be consequences from this loss.
Of course, this was just a battle consisting of 1v1s. In a full battle with all 6 Pokémon available, Grimsley's got far more strategies in the tank waiting to be used. So he'll put up a better performance if it ever comes to that. Anyways, hope you enjoyed!
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!