Pokemon Alternate Universe Adventures

Altaria suddenly slackened and sprawled over Manami/Lapras' back, while Manami herself slumped as well, showing that Perish Song had triggered. Yet, while Altaria as the user was definitely out cold, I could determine that Manami had managed to weather through the Perish Song, even if it had taken a lot out of her, bringing her to the edge of a knockout, which was why she had slumped at the sudden loss of vitality.

However, unless she was able to prove that she was conscious I could not declare otherwise, so when the referee began his ruling after he waited for a few moments all I could do was telepathically urge Manami to show some movement to prove that she was not out yet. Thankfully, due to my mental prodding, Manami was able to recover somewhat from the shock that came with suddenly losing such a huge amount of vitality all at once.

She turned her head to stare at the referee, who paused at the movement after uttering the word both. Seeing her slowly raise her head back up, the referee waited for a few more moments, likely to confirm that Altaria was not going to rouse itself as well and that Manami was truly staying conscious and not just going to slump over again since her state was obviously not good. Still, following that brief lull, he declared Altaria unable to battle and Lapras/Manami the victor.

The referee then called for Ryujin to recall her beaten Altaria and to release her next combatant. As she did that, I briefly considered whether I should let Manami, who was barely hanging in there, stay out or if I should let her continue. Just as Ryujin had put Altaria's PokeBall away I decided to let Manami continue. There were two reasons why I went with that choice. The first one was that I was hoping that doing so would make Ryujin skip or at least cut short her gym leader talk to avoid being seen as dragging out time against an obviously struggling opponent.

The second reason was that I was hoping/betting on the possibility that Manami would be able to set up Freezing Rain and maybe use Life Dew to recover enough before Ryujin's next Pokemon could take her down. My first hope came true; Ryujin silently pulled out a PokeBall from her belt and gave the referee a nod after looking over to us and seeing that I was not planning to recall Lapras/Manami. She then released a (low) platinum stage Kommo-o at the referee's signal, and once the clatter dragon made its appearance, he directly gave the starting signal, ignoring the excited chatter of the crowd at yet another apex dragon.

Manami immediately began brewing her Freezing Rain. Unfortunately, that plan fell through when Kommo-o Taunted her. While Manami tried to perform a final Sheer Cold, Kommo-o followed up with a Boomburst. That proved to be too much for the already teetering Manami, and she lost consciousness. It was honestly a bit anticlimactic, but her continued participation had hinged on her being able to heal herself. Once that fell through, I accepted that she would lose, which was why she tried that final/desperate Sheer Cold in an attempt to take/drag Kommo-o down.

Either way, that had failed as well, and Manami was down; I did not bother waiting for the referee to finish his declaration and directly recalled her. I then gave a few whispered praises as the referee finished his declaration, before placing her ball inside Utopia so that she could recover and watch the final battle with the others. With that out of the way, I began to ponder whether I should send out Dilong/Stan/Gyarados or Shino/Yanmega.

There was a very good chance that Dilong could take Kommo-o down on his own, while Shino's chances were considerably lower. Hence, it was likely that I would have to send out Dilong anyway to clean up after Shino, and while I could afford to do that since I still had two combatant slots, I was sure that Dilong would not appreciate it. In fact, I was pretty sure that having to do so would frustrate him quite a bit since it would leave him unfulfilled.

Shino, like his namesake, was calmer with such matters, so even if it came down to Shino having to clean up after Dilong, he would do so without feeling a fraction of the frustration Dilong would feel. It was obvious that going with Dilong was the smarter choice, I would just have to give Shino a few more battle opportunities when I later went to the local Battle Club to fulfill my promise to the others. Having pretty much made my decision, I took out Dilong's OceanBall once the referee told me to prepare my next combatant.

I expected the referee to prompt me to release Dilong onto the field, but it was Ryujin who spoke up instead. "You know, each of your Pokemon seems to be unusually strong," she said almost collegially, and I mentally lamented that I had not escaped the Gym Leader talk/speech after all.

"I first thought that your dragon Gyarados, I'm very jealous of that one by the way, was an exception after it beat my Kingdra, but your Lapras achieved a similar feat, which is incredibly hard to pull off even with Altaria's major weakness to ice," she professed, adding in a joke that had many people in the audience laugh or chuckle, though I could feel that she was genuine when she said that. Still, I knew that she was not done yet, so I did not bother replying.

"Not to mention that your Umbreon and Skellibra are both much stronger than one would think when compared to others of their species at that level. Granted, your Umbreon is a Shiny, but so is Ebony," Ryujin followed up and she shook her head at the last bit as if she was arguing a point she made herself.

"What I'm trying to say is that you and your Pokemon are just as impressive as I had hoped you'd be, and I can't wait for the day when you're ready to challenge me in an all-out battle," she professed, causing quite the hubbub in the audience, and I appreciated the praise since it came from someone of her level/status.

"And seeing how swiftly you've risen so far, I get the feeling that that day is much closer than anyone, myself included, believes," she followed up, and I had to nearly sweat drop at how true that was. I nearly blurted out the words you've got no idea but thankfully my self-control was good enough to keep stupid impulses like that under control.

Still, if nothing unexpected happened, quite a few of my Pokemon would directly start at the (high) platinum stage once they broke through, so as soon as the forerunners among my Pokemon were ready to advance to the next stage, my team would catapult me past the Champion class, which she was currently at the peak of, straight to the Master Class. Well, at least Pokemon-wise that would be the case. Honestly, that was so insane that no one, my family and friends included, expected me to reach that point as quickly as I was expecting myself to do.

My guess was that in 2 to 3 years at most I would be able to field a team of 6 made up of entirely (high) platinum-stage Pokemon. Frankly, at that point, I would most likely make my way out into the wider world and no one would be able to find any good arguments as to why I shouldn't. "I'll pay you a visit once that happens," I replied half jokingly, which earned me a rather serious nod. "I'll take your word for it," she returned without hesitation.

"Let's have a proper talk after the Gym Battle. There's some stuff I want to ask you and we can exchange numbers while we are at it," Ryujin followed up, and I heard some envious and/or unbelieving yells from the audience. In fact, I thought I heard two excited shouts that said "Another one" that sounded suspiciously like Ace and Yu, but that didn't make any sense. Either way, the referee finally took up his job again, which signaled that the time for talk was finally over.

He told me to release my next combatant, and I let Dilong out. His Intimidate activated right away, and I saw Kommo-o's left eye twitch in reaction to it. That was an honestly remarkable amount of self-control that Kommo-o showed there, though once the referee gave the starting signal, its opening showed that likely felt quite provoked by that initial Intimidate. Kommo-o opened up with a war cry that seemed to be a combination of Noble Roar and Screech, which was a killer debuff combination.

Honestly, seeing it pull off something like that, I immediately told Dilong to Taunt it as soon as his Safeguard was complete. He made his Taunt at nearly the same time as Kommo-o, who actually completed its Taunt a moment before him. Kommo-o immediately followed that up by giving Dilong a mean look, and I was not talking about the move here but what appeared to be a combination of Scary Face and Leer, at least it would have been if it had worked.

Unfortunately for Koomo-o, it got to witness how its combo failed to take effect, which was because Dilong's Taunt had taken effect on it despite it completing its Taunt first. It could not have known that Dilong's Personal Pace talent made him immune to Taunting, so he was able to ignore Kommo-o's Taunt and complete his without a problem. Also, while Kommo-o wasted time by trying to perform a combo that did not work, Dilong used Torment on Kommo-o.

He followed that up with a Scary Face which took effect just as Kommo-o began to rush toward Dilong, visibly slowing it down. Dilong lost no time to slam his tail onto the ground, triggering an Earthquake that messed with Kommo-o, who was still rushing toward him, further slowing it down. That powerful tail slap also pushed him off the ground, letting him avoid the Dragon Pulse Kommo-o released after it was forced to stop to trigger an Earthquake of its own to counteract the one caused by Dilong.

Much to everyone's surprise Dilong stayed in the air instead of falling back down. Gyarados that could Fly were rather uncommon, so no one expected Dilong to be able to do so, including Ryujin and her Kommo-o. Dilong wasted no time in starting a Dragon Dance as soon as he was up there, so while everyone was still processing that he was not coming back down, he finished his first dance and began his second one.

Kommo-o finally reacted at that point and cast a Rock Slide at Dilong, forcing him to shift his focus from Dragon Dance to avoiding the boulders. After slithering his way through the rock shower, Dilong started a Hurricane, which he then sent at Kommo-o. Unlike what we expected to happen, Kommo-o did not even bother dodging the incoming Hurricane; It actually confronted the Hurricane head-on by blasting a Boomburst at it, and the destructive power of the powerful/explosive sound of the Boomburst ripped the Hurricane apart.

It even continued toward Dilong, who was forced to release the Dragon Pulse he was overcharging prematurely to block it. Dilong's Dragon Pulse not only matched the Boomburst but even overpowered it as Kommo-o was unable to keep it going. With Boomburst fizzling out, Dragon Pulse continued unimpeded, and despite Kommo-o's rapid reaction, it was unable to completely dodge the energy beam. Kommo-o did a side jump, but its right leg as well as part of its tail got caught by the Dragon Pulse, hurting it and causing it to tumble/roll along the ground.

It did three somersaults before jumping up and firing/spitting a glowing red orb into the air. I immediately recognized the orb as a Draco Meteor and told Dilong to snipe it before it could explode. Dilong tried to nail it with a Hydro Pump as it passed past his side, but the shot missed, and the Draco Meteor rose above Dilong.

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