Chapter 54.5- Oak

I looked between all the people by my side and began to form a plan for passing through this part of the selection process. It had never truly struck me exactly how many trainers were in Kanto. Over a thousand trainers had applied at the beginning after the President truly opened the floodgates, and from there, it was pure chaos.

Even now, months into the selection process, there were still quite a few applicants left. So many in fact, that the penultimate trial was going to be a free for all battle. One hundred and eight trainers were in the arena around me, each one allowed only a single pokemon to prevent the entire thing from becoming too chaotic. We were going to remain in this arena until only 10 trainers were left.

From 108 to 10, that’s a hell of a cutoff and I found myself looking forward to it. Especially as I spotted Sabrina at the other end of the arena. Our plan was going to be simple, fight our way to each other, and team up for the rest of the trial. Unlike all the other trials, this wasn’t just about the strength of one’s pokemon. Numerous factors like luck, tactical awareness, ability to work with others, as endurance would affect everything. It had been the most controversial of all the trials, but this time the president remained blessedly silent. Perhaps, he was wary of overruling Oak too often. The ex-Champion was a patient man and his kind genial old man persona was strong, but anyone with a working brain knew not to pull on his tail. The president had been doing just that ever since this entire thing started.

I took a deep breath and turned to Hashirama at my side with a smile. It had been a more difficult decision than expected, choosing which of my teammates would be at my side for this trial. Hashirama was able to narrowly beat out everyone else because of the sheer area utility being able to create a whole forest would provide in this arena. I’d not, for the life of me, been able to figure out how this had been built. The domed ceiling above me seemed to stretch impossibly high, giving flying types more than enough room to cause chaos. The X-axis dimensions were equally impressive. We all stood in the arena without pokemon and there was still more than ample space. Considering Bruno had brought a gigantic Onix for this trial, that was a lot more impressive than it sounded. Speaking of elite four members, I turned to the woman who had been staring at me since we entered the arena. Agatha of the elite four. Aged and sore, she had a perpetual look like she swallowed a lemon on her face as she glared daggers at me.

Oak had warned me that they had history and she’d probably be coming for me, but I didn’t think her focus would be so single minded. I had no doubts that she’d be coming for me the moment this thing started. Not choosing Ino for this seemed to be an even better decision than I thought. If I was going t0 be having a pissed off Ghost mistress on my case, then there’d be no better choices than Hashirama or Kenpachi. Her Gengar stuck out its tongue when it noticed my attention, floating around menacingly. I just smiled at it, baring my teeth and preparing myself for the fight of my life. This trial was definitely going to be the most difficult thing I’d ever faced.

The screen flashed, counting down to 1. 7…6…. I started considering all the strategies I’d prepared while checking my pockets for the ninth time today. I was ready. This was mine. 3…2…1. Once the event started, I sent my aura flowing straight into Hashirama, like a dam releasing all its pent up energy. It was a drop in an ocean when compared to his, but it was more potent. Leaps more potent. He could achieve so much more with my power than his own, at similar amounts at least. He held on to my aura and stoked the growth of the seeds he’d been spreading throughout the waiting time.

They began to sprout, slowly and surely. The ground itself then began to shake in an earthquake. For that move, he hadn’t even needed to split his focus much, with most of it already spread into the ground. The seeds had gone extremely far in their spread, so most oof Hashirama’s job right now was stoking them and bring them to life, which my ajura made even easier.

As I watched the forest form around us, I couldn’t help but smile to myself. At this point, my team was just blatantly overpowered for the setting. Of course, that was the moment life had to bring me down from my high horse. Sometimes, I just love life. Unlike the rest of the trainers, awe-struck at my sudden attack, Agatha was already on the move. All the trees between her and me crumbled to dust as she made her way forwards, her Gengar wrapping her around in a clound of poison so dense, that part of me feared for the old woman’s health. Of course, as I heard the insane cackling that matched her presence within the cloud, I flushed that feeling from my body. Agatha was fucking insane. Some people theorised it came from spendinjng so much time around the void creatures known as ghost types, but I had a simpler explanation. She was just born without any screws at all.

“Gotcha little Oaksy. Granny Agatha is here” She said with an obnoxious cackle that mad eme reflexively step back. Her voice grated, hitting a pitch alien to the human ear.

“Brother, Get him” She shouted at the cloud around her and I scowled in reply. There was something wrong here. There had to be. This wans’t just missing screws. It seemed like she’d lost the whole fucking car.

“Hashirama, keep it low-key. Conserve your strength. His poison is strong, but that will be no issue to you, will it?” I spoke to my partner in whispers and he just swayed one of his branches in reply.

THe Gengar formed out of the cloud and flew right at us, but Hashirama had been waiting. A branch from one of the few intact trees around us slamed right into the Gengar. It folded its body around the attack, continuing its approach, but that was what we’d wanted. The time taken there had been enough for Hashirama to charge up a solar beam. The blast of light energy slammed straight into the Gengar, actually driving the ghost backwards and we got right into the strategy for dealing with this species that I’d come up with. After all, we had a date with a Gengar set for one of these coming days. Hashi was careful to avoid attacking with any of his core branches, lest they be consumed in this particularly corrosive poison, but he also wasn’t shy about letting the forest he’d made lose a few trees as he animated them to do the attacking for him. One branch went right for its head, but as it dodged that, it was met with another going for its midsection. Both missed their marks along with the solar beam Hashirama tried to cleave iot with. As they fought and danced, I kept an eye on the surroundings. Hashirama’s forest had caught most of the other contestants off guard, but that surprise had quickly worn out, and now they fought their way through the environment, splitting trees apart and battling their way through and around the forest. Part of me could somehow tell that Sabrina was off towards the east, relatively unmolested. She’d probably wait for me to finish with Agatha before approaching.

It was the smart thing to do, and Sabrina had always been a smart woman. After all, what psychic master would stroll into a fight with a Ghost type elite trainer.

I turned to the fight in front of me, taking note of the fact that Gangar had managed to get even closer to Hashirama’s body after completely destroying close to a dozen trees. More trees sprang up from the ground, shaped to entrap the poison type, but it just fazed through them in a cloud, not allowing them touch it.

We waited a few seconds for it to become solid again before lashing out with another attack. I was being constantly reminded of the saying, ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy’. My anti-Gengar strategies weren’t proving nearly as effective as I’d hoped. Even though in an ideal situation, I’d have Igneel here to run interference and threaten with flying type attacks to disperse the Gengar to the winds if it dared phase out for too long, I still expected that Hashirama alone would be enough to deal with the threat.

It was now, that the Gengar won first blood. They’d danced for close to ten minutes, neither one winning the advantage, until Gengar suddenly changed tact. He;d previously been kept at bay by a mixture of physical attacks from the trees around him and solar beams, I thought we’d gotten the right rhythm, until he threw everything into disarray by turning completely into gas, splitting up ito several streams to dodge around the solar beams, and then phasing his poisonous body right through the arm Hashirama raised to attack him. I watched the branch wither with a wince as Hashirama instantly retreated, taking refuge underground when his opponent didn’t press the attack.

Gengar stood still, waiting for Hashirama to resurface as I detonated the plan for retreat. I jumped backwards and blew on the whistle clutched in my hand. Alakazam appeared right behind me, and with a palm on my shoulder teleported me, kilometres away, to where Sabrina stood looking at something I couldn’t quite see.

I took a deep breath and instantly reached out with my aura. Hashirama was making good speed towards us. I’d have been worried about one of the multiple rock or ground type pokemon getting him off guard while he was so injured, but the fact was that with so many roots underground, I found it unlikely that anyone who got into combat with him as he was submerged would be making their way back up. Especially as injured as he was right now.

“That was a mess” I said with a deep breath, finally able to talk to Sabrina after making sure my teammate was alright and on his way. “Indeed. I did not expect Agatha’s Gengar to represent such a threat” Sabrina replied, not really doing much for how I felt. Fuck, I thought myself powerful. Thought myself strong. We had a plan. Everything was going so well, and then it turned out the fucking Gengar was just holding back. We’d never had the advantage. We had nothing against that pokemon, and that was just insane.

“She is making her way over here” Sabrina said, pointing me over to a line of collapsing trees. He arena was big, and Sabrina had kept her distance from oir battle, but as it stood, I didn;t give Agatha more than five minutes to arrive here. “Fuck” I breathed out, trying to think of a way out poof this.Agatha was coming right for me, and I couldn’t be near Sabrina when that happened, or even leave her on the way to me.

“Teleport away. I’ve got this” I said, putting on my most confident smile and shutting down all my thoughts on the matter so she couldn’t see them.

“Alright” She said simply, and disappeared with Alakazam. She was much too trusting. Her psychic abilities made her supremely difficult to deceive, but it also made her even easier to fool for those who could get around those psychic abilities. She had no skill for reading body language or facial cues. She quite literally took everyone at their words, mental or otherwise.

It was a good thing for now though, much more convenient, at least. I looked at the rapidly approaching line of destruction and promptly began heading east. The arena was a few dozen kilometres in every direction, so we had more than enough space to avoid each other all through the event. I started running, jumping over a root and trusting myself to figure out something to solve this.

XXXXXXX

And finallyyyyyyyyyy. For the final battle of the first round of the Sinnoh Representative Qualifying Tournament, we have Aaron of the Elite four facing off against Volkner, Gym Leader of Sunyshore City.

I took a deep breath as I prepared myself to head out. Of course, my first battle just had to be against an elite level trainer. At this point, I’d given up on trying to predict my luck. Going against a trainer everyone recognised as being on Flint’s level for my first battle hadn’t been the optimal outcome, but I still had a plan prepared for him.

His first choice would be that Jolteon of his. He had a 69% chance of using her as his first pokemon in serious battles, and an 85% win rate for when he did. It was unlikely he’d use anything else. However, I had to choose my first pokemon carefully. I needed to bait out that pokemon to deal with first, but the fact of the matter was that the stronger the pokemon I sent out, the less likely he was to use her first. I fucking hated going first. Way too inconvenient.

I sent out Drapion after a few seconds of consideration. He lazily sent out the electric pokemon I’d wanted him to, and I just smiled in satisfaction. Everything was going according to plan. Of course, this was often the time when things started to go pear-shaped.

The referee pulled down his flag to begin the battle, and they blurred into motion, Drapion retreating to get distance from the physically dominant pokemon, and Jolteon covering the ground at amazing speed, keen on achieving the exact opposite goal.

A/N; For some reason, I can’t access the Patreon site without a VPN. Isn’t that just mightily inconvenient. So sorry this chapter still isn’t done with. Life is really doing its best to fuck with me right now.