The New Normal - 16-4

The New Normal – 16-4 – The First Opponent

Fortunately for my own patience, it turns out that we were among the first people to fight. So we were quickly shuffled away to one side of the arena as several layers of enormous psychic shields were thrown up, causing the once massive arena to be split up into several sections, each one just big enough for a 2v2 battle.

We were given five minutes to run over any last minute strategy adjustments, but in the end, we stuck to what we had already planned long ago. We both trusted in our extensive preparations to be able to carry us through the fight.

Once the five minutes were up, we all took up respective positions across from Flint and Janine, and we stared each other down as we waited for the referee to lower his flag.

“Trainers! This will be a 2v2 battle with FOUR Pokémon total! One switch is allowed per team! The fight begins in THREE! TWO! ONE! FIGHT!”

“Go, Ornstein!”  “Emolga, time to show off!”

“Nidoqueen!”   “Rapidash, run freely!”

Flint’s Rapidash emerged from its ball in a sprint, instantly taking off and leaving a trail of flames around the arena as it built up speed and began to circle around us. Meanwhile, without needing me to say anything, Ornstein immediately blasted Emolga with a quick Thunderbolt, speeding it up with its Motor Drive as it zoomed off to catch up to the sprinting Rapidash.

Usually, Rapidash were incredibly fast Pokémon. They were not Pokémon you were expected to be able to match in speed, which made them perfect for hit-and-run attacks. And Flint’s Rapidash was certainly faster than your average one, which only made catching up with it even more difficult.

And yet, thanks to having its speed boosted by Motor Drive, Elesa’s Emolga was able to catch up with it in barely over a second. No, not just catch up – Emolga was actually faster than it.

Rapidash even looked surprised that Emolga seemed to be faster than it, but it still had the wherewithal to throw out an Iron Tail to absorb and redirect the incoming Thunder Wave, sending it harmlessly into the ground and avoiding the paralysis.

Furthermore, realising that it could no longer rely on its speed to outflank both of our Pokémon, Rapidash changed tactics and focused all of its attention on taking down Emolga first.

It pivoted on the spot, before suddenly rushing forwards with a burst of speed as it looked to ram into Emolga with a flaming Quick Attack. However, Rapidash instead went straight through Emolga – as it had only been an afterimage created by a Double Team. The real Emolga had flown back, and caught the unguarded Rapidash with a volley of Air Slashes.

Aside from managing to get a small flinch from Rapidash, those Air Slashes weren’t doing much damage. In fact, it was very likely that Emolga might not have the raw strength to take down Rapidash, but that was not its job.

Instead, its sole purpose was to distract Rapidash and buy enough time for Ornstein to finish up his fight. Which it was doing marvellously.

Because while all this was happening, Nidoqueen found herself locked into a battle against Ornstein.

Funnily enough, I recognised that her Nidoqueen was likely the Nidoran that Whitney told me that Janine had caught all that time ago. It was nice to see how much it had grown since then.

Nevertheless, her Nidoqueen had managed to successfully poison my Ornstein with a Toxic, but that was all she was able to do before Ornstein shut down any further status moves with a Taunt. Ironically, even though Ornstein was now on a time limit, being Poisoned had actually just triggered its Guts ability, massively increasing Ornstein’s already great Attack.

That Toxic was really going to backfire on her, because Ornstein had just used his far superior speed to lock the two of them in a close-quarters battle.

It was going to be a brawl.

And this was where Ornstein truly excelled at.

Nidoqueen tried to deliver what would be a quadruply supereffective Brick Break against Ornstein, only for it to be perfectly parried by an Obstruct. Ornstein let out a mocking cackle as he stuck his tongue out; giving Nidoqueen a knowing look as the dark energies from the Obstruct seeped into her form, greatly lowering her Defense.

Realising her mistake, Nidoqueen tried to surprise Ornstein as she looked to belch out a Sludge Wave, but Ornstein struck first, hitting hard with a Throat Chop that caused Nidoqueen to choke down the wave of poison that had been gathering in her throat.

“Helping Hand, Emolga!”

Out of nowhere, Emolga managed to find the space to fire off a Helping Hand towards Ornstein, just as we had trained to do. And I reacted instantly with new orders.

“Facade, Ornstein!”

Ornstein let out a vicious grin as he felt the Helping Hand boost take effect in his body, and before Nidoqueen could move block the attack, he slammed into her with a devastating Façade – that had its Attack power doubled because of the Poison.

The ground cracked beneath her as Nidoqueen fell to the ground from the pure power behind that blow, letting out a pained gasp as she did so.

With his opponent now on the ground, Ornstein showed no mercy as he ruthlessly pummelled a barrage of Ice Punches onto the downed Nidoqueen, brutally ensuring that she couldn’t get back up again.

“Poison Fang and Sludge Wave, Nidoqueen! Just get it off of you!”

Realising the terrible position her Pokémon was in, Janine desperately ordered her Pokémon to do whatever she could to get Ornstein off of her. But as a globule of poison formed in her throat, Ornstein savagely rammed his own arm down her mouth while shielding it with another Obstruct – interrupting the attack before it could even be fired and causing her to choke on her own poison.

Right before another Ice Punch smashed into her face.

At this point, it was pretty clear that Nidoqueen was moments away from falling. That wasn’t a failing on Janine’s part; no one could reasonably expect such a relatively new Nidoqueen to be able to hold itself against one of my Elite Pokémon. So it was only natural that she was being overpowered right now.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that unless Nidoqueen got some immediate assistance, she was going to be knocked out. Flint had to help now.

Unfortunately, the problem for them was that Rapidash was in absolutely no position to assist, as it was still busy trying to knock out Emolga. With the latter outspeeding it, the Fire type was really struggling to find space to help out against Ornstein – especially with how often Rapidash was forced to fend off or jump out of the way of incoming Thunder Waves.

Rapidash really didn’t want to get paralysed, as that would cause it to lose out on its main strength. Because of that, it had been forced into a lose-lose situation where it couldn’t ignore Emolga, but it also couldn’t get away from it either to focus on Ornstein, the bigger threat, since it was slower. All Rapidash really managed to do was land a few glancing blows or light burns against Emolga – nothing that would hinder its speed.

This left the two of them in a stalemate, meaning that Ornstein was free to beat down on Nidoqueen.

Just like we hoped.

But then, I saw Flint whisper a few words to Janine before his hand went to the Pokéballs on his belt.

“Rapidash, come back! Arcanine, Extreme Speed!”

His Rapidash was submerged in a red light as it was quickly swapped out for his Arcanine. Before Emolga could react and process the change, Arcanine blitzed forwards in an incredible burst of speed – moving even faster than Rapidash did before – and completely taking Emolga off-guard as the new Fire type slammed into it in a burst of searing flames.

Emolga cried out painfully as the scorching flames engulfed its body, and before it could recover, Arcanine savagely bit down with a fierce Fire Fang, silencing Emolga for the rest of the battle.

Arcanine had just secured the first knockout of the Tournament.

As Elesa scrambled to send out Emolga’s replacement, Arcanine wasted no time as it rushed over to assist the fallen Nidoqueen – but it was already too late. Ornstein’s ruthless assault was too powerful, and a final Ice Punch from Ornstein sealed Nidoqueen’s fate, causing her to fall unconscious to the ground.

Therefore, the incoming flaming Extreme Speed from Arcanine barely missed as Ornstein dashed to the side at the very last moment with a Quick Attack of his own. Ornstein even tried to retaliate with a quick Night Slash, but that went completely wide as Arcanine charged right past him.

Meanwhile, both Elesa and Janine sent out their final Pokémon in her other Emolga and Crobat respectively.

I was a little surprised to see that Janine had chosen to send out her starter so early in the Tournament, which would inevitably show off its capabilities to the others, but I quickly guessed her reasoning. It was likely her only Pokémon that could catch up with Elesa’s Emolga, which had already shown itself to be an incredibly fast Pokémon.

But I had a plan in mind to deal with it, “Rain Dance with your Emolga.” I told Elesa, “Then distract while I finish the fight.”

She nodded and followed through with my instructions. Before Crobat could stop it with a Taunt, Emolga changed the weather to the Rain, greatly weakening Arcanine’s Fire type moves. Likewise, I had Ornstein land a Taunt on Arcanine too, just so that it couldn’t change the weather back with a Sunny Day.

Unfortunately, choosing to use Rain Dance had left Emolga exposed, and Crobat took the opportunity to strike hard with a powerful Cross Poison – poisoning the Electric type. Emolga immediately tried to Double Team and Quick Attack away to make distance, but just like her father’s, Janine’s Crobat had the keen eyes of a hunter – it wouldn’t let its prey escape.

Emolga let out a desperate Discharge, but Crobat patiently kept its distance as it waited for the Electric attack to dissipate before going in for the kill. It struck with a critical Night Slash, slashing a deep wound into Emolga’s side that almost caused it to crash into the ground. Emolga was barely able to keep up its flight.

However, despite being very much similar to her father’s own Crobat, Janine’s starter was not as skilled as his, nor was it as fast. Therefore, it had overcommitted to its attack, and Emolga quickly capitalised on this as it fired off a practically point-blank Thunder Wave that successfully paralysed and crippled the once-evasive Crobat.

With Crobat now paralysed and Emolga slowed down due to its heavy injuries, the battle in the sky started to turn into another stalemate as both Pokémon lost a lot of their previously incredible speed. As a result, both Pokémon started to rely more on their Special Attacks to bring the other down.

In the meanwhile, the battle on the ground was still going strong. Arcanine’s use of Extreme Speed had allowed it to massively outspeed my Ornstein, but only in short bursts. Furthermore, the Fire type’s attacks came at predictable angles, meaning once Ornstein got the timing down, he was able to parry and block most of Arcanine’s attacks with his Obstructs.

However, even with all of our training, that was far easier said than done, as Ornstein’s newfound injuries could attest to. His once white fur was now singed and burnt, and he was panting heavily from exertion as he now sported a noticeable limp.

On the other hand, Arcanine was mostly uninjured. It had taken a few glancing blows while it went for hit-and-run attacks against Ornstein, but managed to avoid any serious injuries. Yet it had also grown tired; its extensive use of Extreme Speed having taking a toll on the Fire type.

Once I noticed this, I silently signalled to Elesa that I was going for a switch. It was time to end this fight.

“Come back, Ornstein! Crush them, Vordt!”

“URSA!!!” A mighty and bellowing roar signalled the arrival of Vordt, his massive frame dominating the battlefield. He wasted no time in unleashing a powerful Earthquake, sending wave after wave of explosive tremors through the ground and causing it to crack apart.

“Aerial Ace, Arcanine! Avoid it!”

Arcanine managed to leap into the air in time to avoid the attack, but then the second part of the Seismic Eruption came through as large stone spikes suddenly erupted out from the ground. Flint seemed to have prepared his Pokémon for this though, as his Arcanine just barely had the time to throw up a Protect shield to try to prevent itself from being impaled by the stony spikes.

Unfortunately, the Protect shield that was thrown up was too flimsy, and the Stone Edge pierced right through it. Arcanine let out a pained howl as it fell out of the sky, right into the waiting claws of Vordt.

“Headlong Rush!”

Vordt blitzed forwards in a barely visible blur and slammed into the exposed Arcanine, barrelling straight into the Fire type and sending it crashing into one side of the psychic shields – leaving a deep trench right through the arena in his wake.

But even as it was pinned to the wall, Arcanine valiantly fought through its injuries and bit down as hard as it could with a searing Fire Fang – setting Vordt on fire.

…And causing its Attack to double as it was boosted up by Guts.

That didn’t bode well for Arcanine, who was painfully pounded into the psychic wall by Vordt’s subsequent Façade, which struck with such force that the supposedly ‘reinforced’ shields immediately began to ripple and crack from the raw might behind that blow.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the organisers panicking as they were afraid that the shields were going to break, causing our battle to accidentally spill over into the other ones.

Then Vordt followed up with a devastating Brick Break that shattered Arcanine’s jaw.

Seeing its partner getting helplessly pummelled like that, Janine ordered Crobat to try to assist – but it was futile. Even a volley of Air Slashes sliced into Vordt’s back, my Ground type merely ignored it as he remained fully focused into making sure that Arcanine was buried into the ground.

But as it was now distracted, Crobat failed to dodge out of the way as a small Thunder Shock from Emolga struck it from behind. Due to its heavy injuries, the attack was weak, yet it was enough to force Crobat’s attention back onto itself.

And then, a final CRACK could be heard as Vordt finished off Arcanine with a decisive Hammer Arm to the face – which managed to literally bury Arcanine deep into the ground, to the point where only its hind legs were sticking out.

Needless to say, that Arcanine was not recovering from that blow. It was out of the fight.

Now the only Pokémon were remaining were a paralysed and crippled Crobat, and a Rapidash that had already run itself into exhaustion – against both Vordt and Emolga. Because of this, everyone knew that the battle was lost. Even though the battle might be a 2v2 on paper, there was no chance that these two crippled and exhausted Pokémon could take down a fresh and mostly uninjured Vordt, especially since he was still boosted by Guts.

So before I could give another command, Janine raised her arms in the air, “We forfeit.”

And just like that, the battle was over. We had secured our first victory.

The crowd’s cheers for our win was a little muted than what I was used to, though that was because our fight was only one of many that were taking place simultaneously. I looked around and saw that we were the first fight to finish as the other fighters were still not done yet, and the sounds of their battles had mostly drowned out most of the cheers for ours.

I felt Elesa tap me on the shoulder, and I turned to see a wide smile on her face. I returned it, and we both clapped our hands together in a high-five as we celebrated our first victory of many.

Moments later, we were approached by both Flint and Janine.

“Phew. That was well played by you guys.” Flint said as he walked over to us, not looking at all disappointed by his loss, “I must say, I underestimated you, Elesa. I knew your Pokémon were fast, but I was too confident in my own Pokémon’s speed and didn’t think you would be able to match or even be faster than me. That was impressive.”

“The recordings we studied did not do your justice.” Janine agreed.

“They sure didn’t.” Flint nodded, “But I suppose that’s what happens when all the information you can get for an opponent is from a screen. It becomes difficult to judge just how strong, or in your case, fast a Pokémon truly is. Even though I tried to account for that, you seemed to have surpassed those predictions too.”

Flint’s words caused a smug smirk to form in my mind. In fact, the recordings about the speed of Elesa’s Pokémon were pretty accurate, but most of them only showcased her Pokémon’s incredible base speed – they didn’t show off or take into account the boost in speed that her Electric types got thanks to Motor Drive or other boosts. Because of that, it really threw off Flint’s expectations – exactly like I hoped it would.

Of course, after this battle everyone would come to expect it. But there was no point in hiding it anyways as it wasn’t like Motor Drive was some big secret or anything.

Speaking of secret, that was probably why Janine made the ‘uncharacteristic’ decision to forfeit the battle – she likely didn’t want to show off too much of her starter if she didn’t have to. So given that her loss was most likely inevitable anyways, it was better to forfeit early and save any tricks for later.

“You give me too much credit.” Elesa’s words shook me out of my thoughts, “I was merely playing the distraction. Though that had always been plan, I can’t deny that John was doing most of the heavy lifting there.”

“Nah, nah, you’re underselling yourself too much.” Flint waved off her words, “My best friend, Volkner, he’s an Electric specialist too. But he doesn’t fight like you do. He’s more power than speed, and while speed alone shouldn’t be able to win a battle by itself, it does give you an unique and powerful niche that you can use to great effect – as you showed just now.”

“Admittedly, I was excited to battle against you and John mostly because of John.” He continued, “I didn’t think you were a deadweight, but I went into the fight thinking that John would be the bigger threat. While that wasn’t necessarily wrong, I see now that you’re a fighter of your own and that I was wrong to overlook you. In fact, I’d love to see a battle between you and Volkner in the future. I really think that would be an exciting fight.”

He suddenly took out his phone, “Actually, let me call him right now. You deserve to meet him at least.”

Before anyone could respond, Flint took out his phone and began dialling up Volkner… only for the call to fail to connect.

“Must be busy.” Flint muttered to himself, “Anyways, I’ll let him know to talk to you. Ciao!”

Flint was very much a man to drummed to his own beat, because we didn’t even get a chance to respond before he just made his exit from the stage. Meanwhile, looking a little resigned at her partner’s antics, Janine simply performed a short bow before joining after her partner.

As they left, I turned to Elesa as if to ask what she thought, who merely returned a shrug. She had previously expressed interest in meeting Volkner anyways, so this was just accelerating the process.

Either way, with our first victory under our belts, we headed off to the spectator stands as we waited for the remaining battles to conclude. With so many fights needing to take place, the battling schedule was far more packed than you would expect. From what we were told beforehand, we might be expected to fight twice in one day during the preliminary stage if that is what the schedule demanded.

And turns out, that was exactly what happened.

============

Our next fight was scheduled to take place in the late evening, against Bugsy and Glacia. Our fight against them went similarly to our battle against Flint and Janine. Actually, I felt that it went easier than that.

Mostly because Bugsy’s inexperience was really obvious; not surprising, given that he was only recently named Gym Leader.

Unlike Janine, who clearly had expert instruction and tons of practice at fighting at a high-level, Bugsy was far more nervous and inexperienced going into this Tournament. Even though he was older, he clearly struggled taking part in battle after battle against so many trainers that were either equally as good or were even better than him.

Unfortunately, because of that, he fumbled. His Bug types, who had the potential to fight like Aaron’s did, were unable to bring out their true potential in our fight. They were clearly overwhelmed in our 2v2 fight, and had allowed Elesa to land some pretty easy Thunder Waves on them, which practically taken them completely out of the fight.

This allowed both of us to gang up on Glacia and take down her Ice Types in a 2v1. All the while Bugsy struggled to contribute. We managed a swift victory thanks to that.

Glacia was no easy opponent, but since she had absolutely no opportunity to set up the Snow in a 2v1, a lot of her strength and effectiveness was neutered.

Bugsy looked pretty upset with himself, but fortunately, Glacia seemed to understand his situation and was actively working to push him to be better. I hoped that her words would find purchase; it would be a great shame for Bugsy’s career as a Gym Leader if his first public showing on a big stage like this was this lacklustre. It would create a bad first impression for the public, and the stain would be hard to remove.

Nevertheless, that put our score at 2-0, meaning that we were one win away from being able to qualify to the elimination stage. So the two of us took the time to get some rest and get ourselves prepared for our next battle and hopefully final battle of the preliminary stage.

For our next battle was against Brawly and Drayden.

A.N. Hope you enjoyed the first two battles of the Tournament. Naturally, with how many battles that will be taking place, I won’t be able to shine the spotlight on each and every one of them. So in the interest of making sure that the Tournament doesn’t drag on for too long, some battles like this one will be skipped over. I hope you can understand.

However, I will always do my best to show off every battle that I deem are important, especially because I think it’s important to show off the strength of all these great trainers. Furthermore, this Tournament won’t only be about battles, as I’m going to do my best to make sure that John gets an opportunity to interact with all of the many different trainers that have come over for this Tournament too – especially with those that he hadn’t really spent much time with before. Hope you enjoyed!