Pokemon Alternate Universe Adventures

Abzu/Milotic's battle against the (high) dark gold Flygon went simultaneously as expected while also unfolding beyond my expectations. The end result was as I had been envisioning in our favor, but the process ended up being harder and taking longer than I had anticipated even after factoring in Abzu's slight sub-stage disadvantage since Flygon proved itself to be very well trained, which, to be fair, should be obvious since we were facing an Elite Gym Trainer after all.

Nonetheless, even though Flygon was able to drag things out for over 15 minutes, it eventually fell after a point-blank Ice Beam hit it following the flinch it experienced as a result of Abzu's Daunt triggering due to the Thunderpunch Flygon him with. Frankly, even though the battle did not go the way I envisioned it, I was fine with that since it forced Abzu to exert himself more, which was the reason he was battling in the first place. I praised my water serpent before I recalled him, and watched Joey do the same as the referee declared me the victor of our battle.

Once the referee's ruling had been announced, Joey wished me luck with the rest of my challenge before vacating the battlefield. The audience was cheering, though I was not sure whether that was for my victory or for Joey, and they only stopped when the emcee introduced my next opponent. Dalila kinda surprised me since she gave me Claire Wataru vibes. I meant the one from canon, at least Dalila's get-up and style, cape and all, had a nostalgic feel to it, though there was no way to confuse the two since unlike Claire's blue hair and light cream-colored skin, Dalila had black hair and tan/light brown skin.

Still, Lance existed, so it was possible that his cousin did as well, though I knew for sure that she was not the Blackthorn Gym Leader yet since Weiss had to face some other guy during her challenge. However, that did not mean that Claire could not be famous in the dragon tamer/trainer scene, so it was possible that Dalila was a fan of hers, or it was a coincidence and I was just reading stuff into it that was simply not there. Either way, Parvati/Beedrill was the first Pokemon I sent out, and she got to face a (high) dark gold stage Altaria.

The fluff dragon put up a good fight and used Safeguard as well as Cotton Guard to stretch the battle quite a bit more than I expected it to take. The Safeguard protected her from Parvati's poison, and the Cotton Guard reduced the danger posed by Parvati's lances/stingers. Meanwhile, Parvati's gender stopped the Attract trap and her Bug Buzz quashed Ataria's Sing as well as the final Perish Song Altaria tried to pull off at the end after the accumulated damage caused by Parvati's onslaught became too much.

Parvati was quite happy once she had beaten Altaria, especially after she had neutralized the final Perish Song, though she was much less happy when I declared to the referee that I was withdrawing her regardless. The audience was rather surprised by my declaration, but the referee simply accepted it after making sure that I was withdrawing her instead of substituting her using my single given opportunity. Thankfully I had informed Parvati and the others in advance that I was going to sub them out, so despite her reticence, Parvati did not make a scene and allowed herself to be recalled without a fuss.

Anyway, Altaria was a relatively common dragon among dragon trainers, especially here in Hoenn, so Dalila using one was pretty normal. Still, when she sent out a (high) dark gold Druddigon next I felt the chance that her getup might not have been by chance after all went up quite a bit. Well, imitation or not, her Druddigon got to face Gaia/Nidoqueen, so in my opinion it was a foregone conclusion that it would fall. Things ultimately developed exactly like I expected them to, and Druddigon ended up falling to Gaia despite the struggle it put up. The poison and the incessant Ice Beams as well as Ice Punches proved too much for the color-clash dragon.

With Druddigon gone, I was facing a choice; This time around I chose to go with substitution instead of withdrawal since Gaia was in pretty good shape, and I was suspecting that Dalila's next Pokemon would be either a Kingdra or an apex/pseudo-legendary dragon. In either case, Seb/Nidoking, who was going to be up next, would have a harder time winning than Gaia did, likely leaving him in worse shape, so it made more sense to use my substitution opportunity for her instead. Ultimately, Seb actually ended up facing a Kingdra, which finally convinced me that this could be no mere coincidence and that Dalila had to be emulating Claire.

So, Seb had to deal with a water dragon, which was less problematic than it could have been if he had not standardized his water weakness, though Kingdra actually switched to ice attacks after they noticed that its Hydro Pump was doing less damage than it should. It was not bad at all that they had caught that, even if Kingdra had to endure more than one shock courtesy of the Thunderpunch or Thunderbolt that Seb used in exchange for tanking a water move before that happened. Still, Seb had more ways to deal with Kingdra's ice moves than just dodging them, such as Flamethrower or Dig, so a switch like that was nowhere near enough to turn the odds against him.

Overall, it took Seb nearly 5 minutes more than Gaia to beat his foe since he had fewer ways to cause as much damage to Kingdra as she did to Druddigon. Seb looked more banged up as well, but he still managed to take it down thanks to a combination of poison as well as the many many hits he landed. His victory left Dalila with only her last Pokemon, so I had no qualms whatsoever, withdrawing Seb before she revealed her final dragon. Once both of us had recalled our Pokemon, I took out Luna/Clefable's Pokeball and waited for the referee to give the signal.

As soon as he did, I released Luna on my side of the battlefield while a Dragonite appeared on Dalila's side. The fact that Dalila had an apex dragon, a Dragonite at that, was quite impressive, and the crowd went wild out of enthusiasm. Still, the fact that she had/used Dragonite instead of Salamance was the final nail in Dalila's fangirl coffin. She practically copied the Pokemon/dragons I remembered Claire having in the games. Admittedly, I had no idea if that was the case here as well, so there was still a chance that I was wrong, but I had already labeled her as a super fangirl in my head.

Anyway, fangirl/copycat issue aside, her Dragonite's (high) dark gold stage remained a fact, and Kitty and her Dragonite showed throughout the battle that followed that even the uselessness of their dragon moves against fairy Luna was not enough to stop them from being a threat. Dragonite used its ability to fly and its versatility to bombard Luna from afar. It tried to fight close up twice, but they realized rather quickly that doing so put them at a considerable disadvantage thanks to Luna's Gravity.

Only by flying at a sufficient height and a decent enough distance could Dragonite minimize the effect Luna's Gravity had on it, and I was saying minimize instead of neutralize since the battlefield was not big enough for Dragonite to fully escape the Gravity no matter how much it tried. Consequently, Dragonite ended up burning through more energy doing anything really even if it managed to stay mobile. Despite all that, Dragonite still managed to fight Luna for nearly 15 minutes, before it began to slow down. That increased the impact Gravity had on it, which culminated in Luna finally being able to nail it in the head with an Ice Punch to finish it off.

She could have done so a bit earlier using Moonblast or Ice Beam instead, but Luna told me over our telepathic link that she wanted to finish the battle personally with an Ice Punch out of respect for Dragonite's persistence. I was not sure if Dragonite appreciated the whole Ice Punch to the head bit, but it was what she wanted, so that was what we went with. Either way, I got the result I wanted, so whatever. Meanwhile, Luna happily waved at me after taking Dragonite down, before waving to the crowd that had started to cheer after the referee declared Dragonite unable to battle and Luna the winner.

He then followed it up by declaring me the victor of the battle, which raised the cheers to another level. I loudly thanked Luna for the hard work, to ensure that she could hear me over all the noise coming from the stands, which earned me a bright smile and had Luna skip over to my side to hug me tightly. I heard some laughter but filtered it out since I had more important stuff to focus on like Luna. Her hug nearly squeezed the air out of my lungs but I kept up my smile, and I would have patted Luna on the head but seeing how my arms were being mashed into my sides I couldn't do that; Or could I?

I used telekinesis to ruffle her hair/curled lock before once again praising her on her performance following which I asked her to let me go so that I could recall her since the emcee had already begun to introduce Ryujin. I watched as Dalila gave me a teasing smile before vacating the battlefield, though I acted oblivious to that and simply nodded to her. I then recalled Luna who had let me go, and moments after I put her ball away, Ryujin stepped out into the open. Honestly, I still had to stop the association of that word with my Dragodos, or a boy for that matter whenever I mentioned/thought of the word Ryujin, but I knew that people named girls Ryujin as well, even if it was much less common.

Admittedly, doing so became much easier once Ryujin stepped onto the stage since she was without a doubt a woman, a particularly attractive one at that. Still, I had to stop myself from laughing when I saw her get up, and I succeeded in that endeavor, though I could not prevent the smile that appeared on my face. Honestly, what was it with dragon tamers/trainers and capes? Lance had one, Drake had one, Claire from the games had one, Dalila had a cape, most likely because Claire had one, and now Ryujin also appeared while sporting a cape. Was it some status symbol of some kind that I did not know about? Frankly, now I could not help but wonder why Joey had not worn one.

I was broken out of my musing by Ryujin herself addressing me. "Welcome to the Fallabor Gym," she said, her voice ringing over the cheers/noise the audience was releasing even without her having to actually raise her voice. The audience quietened down when they heard/saw her speak up, and Ryujin smiled at them before she resumed talking. "I have been looking forward to this challenge ever since I saw your battle against Steph," she declared with a grin, and I actually saw her cape ripple as if a breeze passed by at that exact moment even though there was no wind at all, just like Snape with his wizard robe, making me wonder if she was causing that effect herself to look cool(er).

"I hope our battle will be just as intense and exciting as the battle between you two has been. Just for that, I've made some adjustments to my usual 8-Badge 3-Star team," she disclosed while letting her fingers trail over the PokeBalls on her belt. "So look forward to that, and make sure not to disappoint me," Ryujin followed up with a predatory grin, that nearly sent a shiver down my back, and I heard more than one person scream "Ryujin-sama" and "Punish me", which contributed to my feeling. Besides, I could literally hear the "or else" at the end of her sentence, and I was sure that I was not the only one, which was most likely why some degenerates let out those shameful remarks.

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