Chapter 48.3- Oak

XXXXXX- THE SINNOH ELITE

Garchomp’s mega evolution was every bit as breathtaking as we all expected it to be. Not like there was much breathing going on when the evolution took place though. We’d all collectively watched with bated breath, all our strongest pokemon around us. We were ready for the explosion we knew would be coming.

When the light of evolution died down, we were looking at a pokemon as different as it was the same. For every thing it shared with its lesser counterpart, mega Garchomp had something to set it apart. It’s whole body was more angular, if I cou;d use that word. Everything just seemed that little bit sharper on its new form. Its claws and fins, terrifying in their own right, had fused into massive scythes that looked sharp and strong enough to cleave a Snorlax in twain. From its abdomen came a new set of spikes to add to the ones already around its body. In conclusion, Mega Garchomp was a mean bad motherfucker, and from the roar it let out, an angry one as well.

It turned to its trainer as she bagan walking towards it. Lucian had done his best to try to convince her to stay farther away from the pokemon, but I could tell that his efforts were half hearted at best. After all, if the champion killed herself from her own carelessness, then she’d be doing us all a favour. We respected her, but that didn’t mean we’d ever be happy to have her as champion.

HEr Dragon roared as she approached, but that did nothing to slow her down, it even made her speed up her approach. I resisted the urge to facepalm as her first words reached my ears. “Behave yourself, Garchomp. You’re embarrassing me.” The scary part was that her chiding succeeded in calming the dragon. She criticised an enraged dragon and got it to calm down. What the fuck is she?

“Ok, now that we’ve settled that. Will you help us stretch our wings” She spoke, after spending a few minutes running her hands across her pokemon’s body. It was clear that she was addressing us, and while I felt the temptation to just say no, the trainer in me could not allow such a challenge go unanswered. That sentiment was clearly shared by the rest of the elite as we turned to each other, coming to an agreement without words.

“Prepare yourself, Champion. You will now be faced with the awesome teamwork of the elite four” Lucian said, spreading his hands wide and leaning back like some villain from a television show. At the same time, he had Bronzong connect all our minds and we began to plan.

“Ground rules?” She asked with a smirk, ignoring the melodrama of Lucian’s declaration.

“Two pokemon each. We remain in a state of emergency, and League policy states that we cannot have more than half of our teams incapacitated from training at any time,” I said, stepping into the discussion in the real world, while criticising Flint’s harebrained scheme in the mental one. It took a special kind of mind to adequately split focus between both realms. Lucian and I were the only ones of the four capable of doing it with any degree of competence, so it often fell to us to distract our adversaries whenever situations like this popped up, which, admittedly, wasn’t very often.

“I agree. Let’s go,” was all the Champion said before the massive dragon flew right at Volcarona. I’d seen this coming. The dragon was passable in long range, but its true strength lay in close combat engagements. Those scythes looked to have nothing but bad intentions for whoever managed to get within their range. Thankfully, Infernape intervened before the dragon could get very far. The fire monkey jumped straight at our shared adversary, enhanced with the power of bulk up and swords dance, and started wailing on him with powerful punches, each more devastating than the last. Not like one would be able to tell from just watching the Garchomp continue his pursuit, entirely ignoring the monkey clinging onto him. The only reason I even knew the attacks were powerful was because I’d gotten the pleasure of watching Flint try out that combination before. Let’s just say Heracross now had a healthy appreciation for the Infernape line.

I watched with bated breath as they got closer to my ace, her attack yet to be fully prepared. My worries proved unfounded as the dragon was halted in its tracks, the blue glow of psychic surrounding it. It fought against even that move, but its struggles were pointless. A single explosive spark flew from between Volcarona’s wings and hit both pokemon, or only one pokemon if everything went according to plan. The sky was covered in bright light and my ears heard nothing. It was silent, the kind of silence that accompanied loss of hearing.

When the light died, I was met with something that should not have been a surprise. Garchomp floated in the sky, untouched. A powerful attack like that and it just shrugged it off. Fuck, but we can’t stop now. Maintain the tempo, I thought to myself as Mega Steelix crashed right it. Bronzong and Mr. Mime had added their psychic power to the steel type’s own strength to allow it jump that high. When they collided, Mega Garchomp was forced to move for the first time in this battle, and we had the initiative. Both pokemon crashed into the ground, but Garchomp had been able to wrestle his way out from underneath his assailant and was able to land relatively intact. But it was on the ground now, and the second part of the plan started to kick in.

Bronzong’s eyes took on a bright blue glow as he raised his hands. I could see the air around Garchomp warp under the influence of increased gravity. The gravity itself was only able to slow him down, but that was enough for what was coming. Rhyperior strode into the gravity field with a smile that looked especially cruel on its stony face. Espeon’s eyes glowed to show that she was doing her bit to protect Rhyperior from the influence of her comrade’s move. The old elite pokemon was keen on revenge. When both pokemon met in the middle, Garchomp struck first, but Rhyperior just endured the attack and lashed out with the force of one of its drill arms. Even Mega Garchomp was sent reeling from the force of the blow. The crafty pokemon had found a way to imbue the shifting and quaking force from earthquake into its fists for increased striking power. Even a durable monster like Garchomp couldn't just shrug that off.

Rhyperior moved in and landed another vicious haymaker. Garchomp took the attack even better and struck with a counter almost instantly, but Rhyperior just calmly moved out of the way of the slower attack and punched Garchomp into the ground once more. The attacks were devastating. When Garchomp stood once more, Rhyperior moved in with two punches to the midsection, each one creating massive shockwaves. I was barely able to keep my footing but Garchomp did not share my problem. It took a third punch to put the pseudo-legendary down and Rhyperior calmly waited in a ready position for Garchomp to get up. It took us a while to realize that he wasn’t going to be getting back on his feet on his own. Rhyperior walked on over to him and stretched a hand to pick up the Ground type Dragon. That was the moment he struck. Hyperbeam. The blue beam of concentrated energy sailed right over Rhyperior’s shoulder and I would have been able to count the attack as a missed last ditch effort if I didn’t notice the trajectory. It was heading right for Bronzong.

No one had expected Bronzong to be attacked from such a distance, so Espeon was the only one in range to protect him from the attack. She ended her defence of Rhyperior and stepped in front of Bronzong, using protect to stop the attack from interfering with the Bronze pokemon’s concentration. It was the right move. With all the information available, it was the right move. But now, knowing what came next, I had to admit that it would have been better for Bronzong to end his attack and defend himself. Perhaps Garchomp would have been slowed down for a few seconds by the absence of intense gravity. Instead of that, Rhyperior was beset with the gravity field without protection and nearly went down just from the force. It wouldn’t have been that bad if Garchomp didn’t choose that moment to stop holding back. One of his scythes went for Rhyperior’s knee and sent the powerful rock type crashing to the floor.

Garchomp rose like an avenging angel, and even if Espeon had since returned her protection to Rhyperior, it was too little and much too late. Garchomp had seized the initiative and, like a Growlithe with a bone, was extremely unwilling to let go of it. He wailed on Rhyperior with punches and slashes, each powerful enough to tear through steel. Eventually, when it became clear that Rhyperior was only seconds away from being knocked out, Bertha returned him to his ball to avoid further brutality. Now that he stood alone and unmolested under the gravity field, the monster started walking. He didn’t even attempt to snipe Bronzong from range. He just walked out of the gravity field. He probably knew that the move needed a fixed epicentre and that if Bronzong wanted to move it, he add to end the move and use it again, giving him more than enough time to escape. Moments like this served to remind me of the kind of genius Cynthia Shirona was. After I stopped underestimating her, all her actions started to show the signs of a keen mind.

A/N; Sorry the chapter isn't complete yet. I wasn't able to get any writing done yesterday. We had elections in my country and voting is a whole experience.