Time for the conclusion to the first battle in the Neo League Exhibition, the good old trainers Tate and Liza. So what if I hyper-aged them, SS is set years after the animé/games, I can do that. Besides, it gave me an excuse to make Tate, uh, not exactly un-ugly, if you get what I mean. *coughs* But anyway, the conclusion to the battle. It's certainly better than that trash the animé just gave us for a "League battle."
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"Friend of yours?" Tschel asked, seeming a bit confused.
"No," Alex said. "Not at all. We fought like Meowths and Growlithes... Blastoise, Ice Beam the ground in front of you! ... Anyway, I'll explain this later, we've got to win this."
"Fine with me," Tschel said. "Umbreon, Toxic again!"
"Lunatone, take the Toxic for Solrock!" Liza shouted. Tschel muttered to himself. Alex figured it'd be annoying to have the attack blocked by an already-poisoned Pokémon.
Blastoise, hit again with a Psychic, slid along the ice patch it had just formed in front of it. Umbreon leapt forward to assist it.
"Solrock, Flamethrower!" Tate was still calm.
The flames erupted from Solrock and caught Umbreon squarely in the face. The Eeveelution stumbled to the ground, shaking its head furiously.
"It's no good," Alex sighed. "We aren't going to win this way. Have they even had to Recover yet? We're just screwed."
"Nah," Tschel said. "We'll be fine." He took Alex's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Just trust me. Umbreon, Confuse Ray!"
"Wow," Alex said, watching as the ray of light dazzled both Solrock and Lunatone at once, causing each's floating to become erratic and wobbly. "You can multitarget that?"
"You can if both Pokémon are bunched up like that," Tschel chuckled. "Look at Tate and Liza, they sure aren't happy."
Alex almost laughed. Liza looked furious. Tate was better at hiding it, but he still had a really annoyed look on his face.
"Oh come on, Alex!" The voice shouted yet again, which annoyed him quite a lot. "You could actually try doing something instead of leaving it to your partner!"
"Remind me to never introduce you two," Alex mumbled sourly. "Blastoise, Surf!"
"Block it with Psychic!" Tate ordered, a bitter tone in his voice.
The block almost worked. The only thing stopping it was the fact that Solrock actually hit Umbreon with Psychic. The only indication that Umbreon was even hit was that there was a loud thud at the ground at its feet. Umbreon itself was completely unaffected.
"Lunatone, Psychic!" Liza shouted, obviously hoping that she'd have better luck.
The massive wave of water, sweeping in past Alex and Tschel, drenching the both of them, was parted as Lunatone's glowing eyes showed it was deflecting the surge. The water wave died down a moment later, not having touched any Pokémon.
"Crap," Alex grumbled.
"I'll get this one," Tschel said. "Umbreon, Feint Attack!"
Umbreon leapt at Lunatone, a blur as it struck the crescent moon, and retreated as quickly as it came. Lunatone still looked quite confused, and attempted to use some manner of psychic attack, which Alex couldn't discern because all that happened was the ground cracked a bit just below Lunatone.
Solrock, though, seemed to have shaken off its confusion. With Tate's command of, "Solrock, prepare for a Solar Beam," Alex figured he had slim chances.
"Helping Hand me," Alex hissed. He hadn't noticed this before, but there seemed to be a damp aura around Blastoise, which he had to take advantage of.
"Wha?" Tschel asked.
"Helping Hand," Alex repeated in a quiet voice. "Just trust me."
"You got it," Tschel shrugged. "Umbreon, Helping Hand!"
As Umbreon raised itself onto its hind legs and gave a very clear cheer for Blastoise, Alex felt a knot in his stomach. He didn't like these gambles, the unusual moves that he didn't even know would work or not. Milotic targetting a Recover was tricky enough, but this... Alex shook his head in an attempt to clear the sudden anxiety eating at him.
"Blastoise!" Alex shouted. "Hydro Cannon!"
"Toise," Blastoise seemed a bit offset. Its cannons once again came out of its shell, and the giant tortoise hunkered down on all fours. For a moment, Alex thought that nothing would happen, that Blastoise wasn't powerful enough to use Hydro Cannon, but just as he was thinking this, twin jets of water exploded forth from Blastoise's cannons, with an almost deafening rushing noise, sailing at a velocity Alex didn't imagine possible for a water attack to go at, and struck Solrock directly.
Solrock didn't even make a noise as the force of the Hydro Cannon struck its glowing body, sending the sun Pokémon sailing further than any overpowering attack Alex had seen before. The sentient, sun-shaped meteorite sailed literally out of the massive Neo League Colosseum, the spray of water following it clear over the stands.
"Holy crap," Tschel said, breaking the stunned silence of the temporary stop in the Pokémon battle. "Holy Goddish, what the...? Your Blastoise can do that?"
"It can now," Alex laughed, his previous anxiety turning into a complete overjoyment, almost making him delerious. "Oh man. I can't believe that. Great job, Blastoise! That was awesome, I'm more than proud of you!"
"Toise!" Blastoise responded cheerfully, though sounding slightly tired from the massive exertion of the Hydro Cannon. It turned around halfway and bent its short claws into a very recognizable thumbs-up gesture.
"Are you quite done with that gloating?" Tate asked from across the field, sounding very annoyed.
"Sure we are," Tschel laughed. "Umbreon, Torment!"
Rings on its body glowing, Umbreon gazed at Lunatone, its eyes flashing. Lunatone's floating became even more erratic than before.
"Lunatone, Future Sight," Liza's voice was almost resigned. Alex saw that Tate was looking at her in the way only a pained brother could. Alex wondered dully what was going on.
"Blastoise, see if you can recover any faster," Alex said to the very strained and injured tortoise.
"Umbreon, another Feint Attack!" Tschel shouted.
"Lunatone, Explosion!" Liza's sudden order took Alex by surprise. Before he could fully process what the order meant, a bright explosion struck him temporarily blind and deaf. The last thing he saw before he had to shake off the blindness was Umbreon's shadowy form being thrown back by the force of the explosion.
"Son of a..." Alex mumbled, regaining his senses. "What was that about?"
"What a cow," Tschel growled. "What a total and complete cow. She knew she'd lost and decided to just hurt our Pokémon further. You hear that, you dumb c—"
"Insulting her might not go over well," Alex hushed Tschel, ears still ringing a bit. He took a look at the field, which was in bad shape following the explosion. Umbreon and Lunatone were lying on the ground, each knocked out. Blastoise, having been struck by the explosion, was stumbling around, barely able to stand up. But it was still conscious.
"The winners!" The judge announced, raising a flag in the direction of Alex and Tschel.
Alex didn't waste a second after the judge announced the battle over to run out to Blastoise.
"Blastoise, you okay?" Alex tried to help the tortoise stand, but it was extremely heavy.
"Blas," Blastoise grunted. It stumbled to one knee. "Toise. Blastoise."
"It's all right," Alex said. "You did great."
"Blastoise," Blastoise grunted again, proud of itself.
"Well would you look at that," Sam leaned back in her seat in the front row of the stands. "They actually won."
The young woman beside Sam, indeed the same one that had heckled Alex earlier, leaned forwards. "Yeah. I didn't think he had it in him."
"So you two were really rivals for a few years?" Sam asked.
"Oh yeah," she answered. "Fought like hell back and forth. He got my Nidorina killed at one point. Never forgave him for that. Then that deranged psychic nearly killed me and I just kind of drifted for a few years."
Sam winced microscopically. She didn't think it would be a great idea to tell this woman, who Sam realized she didn't even know the name of, that she, Sam, had been travelling around with David for the better part of a year now.
"He never mentioned you much," Sam said.
"Never told me he had a sister, either," the young woman countered. "Still... nah, you'd laugh at me."
"For what?" Sam said. "Come on."
The young woman sighed. "Fine," she said thoughtfully, reflectively, "I'd always hoped that our fighting wasn't out of actual dislike of each other, but... it seems to have been that way."
"Wouldn't take it personally," Sam shrugged. "He's not exactly, ah, into women."
The young woman snickered derisively. "Doesn't surprise me. I figure his battle partner out there's his boyfriend, then?"
"Good guess."
"Pretty high profile, the great Eevee trainer, Tschel Hakujin."
"He's a creep," Sam said dismissively.
"Well, stadium's clearing out, might as well go down and congratulate them," the young woman said.
"Sure," Sam shrugged. She also figured that then was as good a time as any to ask, "You know, I didn't even get your name."
"Amanda," she introduced herself. "Had you at a disadvantage, then, Sam Yasashii, Pokémon Master."
"Quite," Sam said, standing up, stretching, and following Amanda down to go pester Alex.
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That's it for this week, folks. Next chapter goes up when it goes up. Until then, remember your ex-rivals. Actually, there's quite a bit to say about how I handled Amanda suddenly resurfacing like that. In the original SS, I actually did have David kill her, but you never actually saw her die, so I un-wrote that part. Her becoming friends with Sam was actually something I didn't see coming until I was writing it. I seriously didn't plan on it, but the way the conversation was going, it seemed the logical progression. On two other random notes, this marks the third time that Alex's orientation is ever referred to in all of SS, and again nobody ever says the word "g-ay" (censor dodge, whee) or "homosexual" (mainly because I don't see him as either, he's just a boy in love with another boy, nothing exceptional about that). Second, and most ironic, is that in one of Alex and Amanda's shouting matches in the original SS, Alex made quite the vocal point that he definitely wasn't batting for the other team. How time changes, eh?
Oh and since I didn't describe it in the fic itself, here's a short and quick description of Amanda, physically: About 5' 6", brown hair/eyes, kinda spanish-y skin tone (I forget what exactly to call it), casual clothes not unlike Sam's, has a team of... I think Charizard, Pidgeot, something else I'm forgetting (hey, it's been years), and had a Nidorina that's now deceased.
Edit: I should also add that a Torrent'ed, Helping Handed, super-effective critical hit Hydro Cannon is sheer and utter pain.
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"Friend of yours?" Tschel asked, seeming a bit confused.
"No," Alex said. "Not at all. We fought like Meowths and Growlithes... Blastoise, Ice Beam the ground in front of you! ... Anyway, I'll explain this later, we've got to win this."
"Fine with me," Tschel said. "Umbreon, Toxic again!"
"Lunatone, take the Toxic for Solrock!" Liza shouted. Tschel muttered to himself. Alex figured it'd be annoying to have the attack blocked by an already-poisoned Pokémon.
Blastoise, hit again with a Psychic, slid along the ice patch it had just formed in front of it. Umbreon leapt forward to assist it.
"Solrock, Flamethrower!" Tate was still calm.
The flames erupted from Solrock and caught Umbreon squarely in the face. The Eeveelution stumbled to the ground, shaking its head furiously.
"It's no good," Alex sighed. "We aren't going to win this way. Have they even had to Recover yet? We're just screwed."
"Nah," Tschel said. "We'll be fine." He took Alex's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Just trust me. Umbreon, Confuse Ray!"
"Wow," Alex said, watching as the ray of light dazzled both Solrock and Lunatone at once, causing each's floating to become erratic and wobbly. "You can multitarget that?"
"You can if both Pokémon are bunched up like that," Tschel chuckled. "Look at Tate and Liza, they sure aren't happy."
Alex almost laughed. Liza looked furious. Tate was better at hiding it, but he still had a really annoyed look on his face.
"Oh come on, Alex!" The voice shouted yet again, which annoyed him quite a lot. "You could actually try doing something instead of leaving it to your partner!"
"Remind me to never introduce you two," Alex mumbled sourly. "Blastoise, Surf!"
"Block it with Psychic!" Tate ordered, a bitter tone in his voice.
The block almost worked. The only thing stopping it was the fact that Solrock actually hit Umbreon with Psychic. The only indication that Umbreon was even hit was that there was a loud thud at the ground at its feet. Umbreon itself was completely unaffected.
"Lunatone, Psychic!" Liza shouted, obviously hoping that she'd have better luck.
The massive wave of water, sweeping in past Alex and Tschel, drenching the both of them, was parted as Lunatone's glowing eyes showed it was deflecting the surge. The water wave died down a moment later, not having touched any Pokémon.
"Crap," Alex grumbled.
"I'll get this one," Tschel said. "Umbreon, Feint Attack!"
Umbreon leapt at Lunatone, a blur as it struck the crescent moon, and retreated as quickly as it came. Lunatone still looked quite confused, and attempted to use some manner of psychic attack, which Alex couldn't discern because all that happened was the ground cracked a bit just below Lunatone.
Solrock, though, seemed to have shaken off its confusion. With Tate's command of, "Solrock, prepare for a Solar Beam," Alex figured he had slim chances.
"Helping Hand me," Alex hissed. He hadn't noticed this before, but there seemed to be a damp aura around Blastoise, which he had to take advantage of.
"Wha?" Tschel asked.
"Helping Hand," Alex repeated in a quiet voice. "Just trust me."
"You got it," Tschel shrugged. "Umbreon, Helping Hand!"
As Umbreon raised itself onto its hind legs and gave a very clear cheer for Blastoise, Alex felt a knot in his stomach. He didn't like these gambles, the unusual moves that he didn't even know would work or not. Milotic targetting a Recover was tricky enough, but this... Alex shook his head in an attempt to clear the sudden anxiety eating at him.
"Blastoise!" Alex shouted. "Hydro Cannon!"
"Toise," Blastoise seemed a bit offset. Its cannons once again came out of its shell, and the giant tortoise hunkered down on all fours. For a moment, Alex thought that nothing would happen, that Blastoise wasn't powerful enough to use Hydro Cannon, but just as he was thinking this, twin jets of water exploded forth from Blastoise's cannons, with an almost deafening rushing noise, sailing at a velocity Alex didn't imagine possible for a water attack to go at, and struck Solrock directly.
Solrock didn't even make a noise as the force of the Hydro Cannon struck its glowing body, sending the sun Pokémon sailing further than any overpowering attack Alex had seen before. The sentient, sun-shaped meteorite sailed literally out of the massive Neo League Colosseum, the spray of water following it clear over the stands.
"Holy crap," Tschel said, breaking the stunned silence of the temporary stop in the Pokémon battle. "Holy Goddish, what the...? Your Blastoise can do that?"
"It can now," Alex laughed, his previous anxiety turning into a complete overjoyment, almost making him delerious. "Oh man. I can't believe that. Great job, Blastoise! That was awesome, I'm more than proud of you!"
"Toise!" Blastoise responded cheerfully, though sounding slightly tired from the massive exertion of the Hydro Cannon. It turned around halfway and bent its short claws into a very recognizable thumbs-up gesture.
"Are you quite done with that gloating?" Tate asked from across the field, sounding very annoyed.
"Sure we are," Tschel laughed. "Umbreon, Torment!"
Rings on its body glowing, Umbreon gazed at Lunatone, its eyes flashing. Lunatone's floating became even more erratic than before.
"Lunatone, Future Sight," Liza's voice was almost resigned. Alex saw that Tate was looking at her in the way only a pained brother could. Alex wondered dully what was going on.
"Blastoise, see if you can recover any faster," Alex said to the very strained and injured tortoise.
"Umbreon, another Feint Attack!" Tschel shouted.
"Lunatone, Explosion!" Liza's sudden order took Alex by surprise. Before he could fully process what the order meant, a bright explosion struck him temporarily blind and deaf. The last thing he saw before he had to shake off the blindness was Umbreon's shadowy form being thrown back by the force of the explosion.
"Son of a..." Alex mumbled, regaining his senses. "What was that about?"
"What a cow," Tschel growled. "What a total and complete cow. She knew she'd lost and decided to just hurt our Pokémon further. You hear that, you dumb c—"
"Insulting her might not go over well," Alex hushed Tschel, ears still ringing a bit. He took a look at the field, which was in bad shape following the explosion. Umbreon and Lunatone were lying on the ground, each knocked out. Blastoise, having been struck by the explosion, was stumbling around, barely able to stand up. But it was still conscious.
"The winners!" The judge announced, raising a flag in the direction of Alex and Tschel.
Alex didn't waste a second after the judge announced the battle over to run out to Blastoise.
"Blastoise, you okay?" Alex tried to help the tortoise stand, but it was extremely heavy.
"Blas," Blastoise grunted. It stumbled to one knee. "Toise. Blastoise."
"It's all right," Alex said. "You did great."
"Blastoise," Blastoise grunted again, proud of itself.
"Well would you look at that," Sam leaned back in her seat in the front row of the stands. "They actually won."
The young woman beside Sam, indeed the same one that had heckled Alex earlier, leaned forwards. "Yeah. I didn't think he had it in him."
"So you two were really rivals for a few years?" Sam asked.
"Oh yeah," she answered. "Fought like hell back and forth. He got my Nidorina killed at one point. Never forgave him for that. Then that deranged psychic nearly killed me and I just kind of drifted for a few years."
Sam winced microscopically. She didn't think it would be a great idea to tell this woman, who Sam realized she didn't even know the name of, that she, Sam, had been travelling around with David for the better part of a year now.
"He never mentioned you much," Sam said.
"Never told me he had a sister, either," the young woman countered. "Still... nah, you'd laugh at me."
"For what?" Sam said. "Come on."
The young woman sighed. "Fine," she said thoughtfully, reflectively, "I'd always hoped that our fighting wasn't out of actual dislike of each other, but... it seems to have been that way."
"Wouldn't take it personally," Sam shrugged. "He's not exactly, ah, into women."
The young woman snickered derisively. "Doesn't surprise me. I figure his battle partner out there's his boyfriend, then?"
"Good guess."
"Pretty high profile, the great Eevee trainer, Tschel Hakujin."
"He's a creep," Sam said dismissively.
"Well, stadium's clearing out, might as well go down and congratulate them," the young woman said.
"Sure," Sam shrugged. She also figured that then was as good a time as any to ask, "You know, I didn't even get your name."
"Amanda," she introduced herself. "Had you at a disadvantage, then, Sam Yasashii, Pokémon Master."
"Quite," Sam said, standing up, stretching, and following Amanda down to go pester Alex.
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That's it for this week, folks. Next chapter goes up when it goes up. Until then, remember your ex-rivals. Actually, there's quite a bit to say about how I handled Amanda suddenly resurfacing like that. In the original SS, I actually did have David kill her, but you never actually saw her die, so I un-wrote that part. Her becoming friends with Sam was actually something I didn't see coming until I was writing it. I seriously didn't plan on it, but the way the conversation was going, it seemed the logical progression. On two other random notes, this marks the third time that Alex's orientation is ever referred to in all of SS, and again nobody ever says the word "g-ay" (censor dodge, whee) or "homosexual" (mainly because I don't see him as either, he's just a boy in love with another boy, nothing exceptional about that). Second, and most ironic, is that in one of Alex and Amanda's shouting matches in the original SS, Alex made quite the vocal point that he definitely wasn't batting for the other team. How time changes, eh?
Oh and since I didn't describe it in the fic itself, here's a short and quick description of Amanda, physically: About 5' 6", brown hair/eyes, kinda spanish-y skin tone (I forget what exactly to call it), casual clothes not unlike Sam's, has a team of... I think Charizard, Pidgeot, something else I'm forgetting (hey, it's been years), and had a Nidorina that's now deceased.
Edit: I should also add that a Torrent'ed, Helping Handed, super-effective critical hit Hydro Cannon is sheer and utter pain.