Chapter 53.1- Oak

I looked left and right, across the field, feeling the crowd’s enthusiasm catch me and nearly overwhelm me. The League President had turned this selection process into something else. It was the most popular tournament in recent history, with viewership numbers set to overtake the conference in a few days and we weren’t even at the finals yet. No, we still had two more stages. This stage was more of a round robin. Everyone would face everyone, with those having the best ratio being sent ahead.

So far, things were looking good. I resisted the urge to puff out my chest as the crowd cheered me on as I took my position. I saw various sign posts, the most funny of which boldly displayed the phrase, “40 and 0”. I’d not lost a match since the trial started and that made me a quick favourite. I also haven't faced most of the other favourites. Giovanni, Agatha, and most of the gym leaders hadn’t been drawn up against me yet. Still, as one of only two people to still be undefeated, I had good odds riding on me. Of course, since the other person was Giovanni, its clear to see why I was the one getting the adoration.

I turned to my opponent, not allowing the crowd’s noise affect me as I set my lips into an easy smile and relaxed my shoulders. Time to fucking rumble. The woman across from me was the gym leader for Fuchsia after Koga’s death as his daughter and heir. Purple eyes stared at me with a worrying intensity as I considered my options for this battle. She’d almost beaten Sabrina, taking out both Hypno and Slowbro with some dirty tactics before being no-sold by Metagross. She was a poison type trainer, and clearly wasn’t skilled enough to totally negate the complete type advantage held by steel type pokemon.

Of course, it wasn’t like I could take advantage of that. Magnezone was still a total and complete idiot unable to pay attention for more than a second. I mean I could get him to do some training by turning it into a game and even make him fight a bit in actual battles where he had his teammates to rein him in. But that didn’t make him even the slightest bit ready for a battle like this one. Especially not with the stakes.
The board flashed and showed that I lost the coin toss, so I started things off with Igneel. My fire dragon was always a good choice. I felt sweat break out across my skin and my nose caught the unpleasant scent of sulphur. I licked my lips as they’d suddenly dried themselves. My opponent didn’t seem to be letting the heat get to her as she released her first choice a few moments after I released mine. She’d shown off three pokemon against Sabrina, and this one was the one I considered to be her most likely option when facing Igneel. After all, if Metagross hadn’t been a steel type supercomputer. This fucker would have done him in quite handily. Two spherical heads connected by a tube stared down Igneel as we waited for the board to begin the battle. Most of these matches weren’t directly refereed. Most league referees had come from Johto, and since Mewtwo’s announcement, foreigners had seen all shades of hell from scared Kanto natives. It was sad, but not unexpected.

The board flashed with the word, ‘Begin’ and the crowd held their collective breaths. The silence was deafening as a massive wave of purple gas spewed out from both of the pokemon’s mouths at the same time. Igneel took to the skies, careful to stay within the height limit of the arena and swept the gas away with a wave of his wings. The skies were safe for him, but he’d ceded the ground to Janine with that move. Purple haze covered every part of the battle field below nine feet. Any higher, and it would get dispersed by Igneel’s wings. The haze thickened, until it formed a cloud even I couldn’t see through. Igneel had better eyesight, on account of being a dragon and all, but I doubted even he could see within the cloud. Fuck.

Well, this was not untenable. The situation. Sure, we couldn’t attack without clear visuals unless we decided to say fuck it and go for shock and awe, but Janine couldn’t attack us either. Part of me chafed impatiently at the thought of waiting for her to go on the attack and hungered to cover the field in flames but I shut off Igneel’s influence as quickly as I could. Janine was Koga’s daughter. The same Koga who was widely recognised as the most crafty trainer in the league when he’d been alive. Considering all that, there’s no way she wouldn’t have been able to see an explosive attack like that. Igneel was the most popular of my pokemon, after all. Gifs of him exploding and dealing with Bisharp were even more popular than animated pictures of Ino whipping Claire’s dragonite. The internet was a weird place no matter the universe.

We waited, doing our best to stay still until a voice came through from the speakers, sounding mechanised and obviously modulated by some sort of software. ‘A time limit has been placed on this match. Both participants have five minutes to win or it will be declared a draw by timeout’ I guess no one was keen on watching us attempt to fake each other out for that long. Igneel heard the announcement, but clearly wasn’t able to understand it. Here’s a little unknown fact. Pokemon don’t speak english. They don’t understand a word of it. I can already hear your objections. “How do they take orders from trainers then?” I can hear you ask with a scoff. Well, the answer to that one is quite simple. Intent. They feel the intent laced with words and understand that. Most pokemon are empathic in that sense. They can feel human intent better than humans, and understand us better than we understand ourselves.

It goes without saying that mechanised voices through speakers couldn’t communicate any intent, so Igneel had no idea what time limit had just been imposed. He looked at me, and I just shrugged, not telling him so he didn’t get a bit overzealous.

We stayed still like that for two more minutes, as I waited for Janine to make her move, but eventually I realised that she’d be happy with a draw here. She was nowhere near my level. If standing still for a few minutes was all she needed to leave here with a draw, then it was a good deal for her. Fuck. Didn’t think this through. I waited till the board flashed ‘2:19’ till I instructed Igneel to move. He dove into the cloud with unreal speed and instantly exploded. His explosions didn’t come with much sound, but the light display almost blinded me the first few times. Now? Not so much.

The arena was devastated, and all the purple poison was gone, replaced by light dust from the shattered stone that made up the field. I searched for Weezing with both my eyes and Igneel’s senses, keeping a good look at the clock. ‘1:53’, was the time remaining on the board when we finally found it. It was hiding in the dust, trying to pull off some sort of retreat.

Igneel moved left, before moving right with the aura of agility around him. The feint worked well, and he was almost on top of the poison pokemon before its trainer could warn it. It mattered little though. Igneel was right in range, drowning the pokemon in a sea of flames that agitated the light sunburns on my forearms. For someone with sensitive skin, I spent way too much time around living furnaces.

He cut out the fire at ‘1:39’ and I noted that the pokemon had been able to survive with a protect just in time. Igneel didn’t allow it to disappoint him and was even excited at his opponent’s survival. Surrounded in flame armour, he moved in to the melee. Two spherical heads didn’t make for the most aerodynamic of profiles, and its attempt to run from my dragon was almost comical. Igneel fought Gai and Broly on a near daily basis. He knew speed, and this wasn’t even close. He caught up and raked through it with powerful claws, moving in to continue the attack as it reared back. He was a storm of claws and tail whips, each limb coated in flames that burned the poison up before it could reach him. I hadn’t forseen this kind of effectiveness against poison attacks, and this utility took the flame armour from a showy tool to fuck with steel and grass types to a legitimate defensive tool in our arsenal. It was impressive. I watched Janine watch the board, clearly wondering if her pokemon could wait out the remaining minute and twenty seconds. It wouldn’t. I just shook my head at her, and taking my advice, she returned her pokemon. Igneel was relentless, and that Weezing was already done for.

A/N; Let’s fucking gooo. How’s tricks?