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Rattata Chapter 46: Fall From Grace
🕑 Added 2024-12-03 15:00:07 +0000 UTCAN: Very long chapter ahead, its why it took a bit longer
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To reflect the seriousness of a four-on-four format in comparison to the standard three-on-three, trainers were allowed one substitution each.
Joey's mind quickly whirled with possibilities as he observed the rather unfortunate matchup that he had stumbled into. Metapod vs Butterfree. Would any of his other teammates be more suited for fighting an airborne battler? Or was his original strategy still the best bet?
Regardless of any tactical considerations, time waited for no one and before he could truly make a decision, the match started. However, even if no one else took his chances that seriously, Sabrina did because there was no verbal command coming from the girl but only an ominous glowing of her eyes.
The Butterfree gently fluttering in mid-air flapped its wings a bit more quickly, letting a yellow powder float down onto the battlefield.
“Cover yourself,” Joey quickly ordered, causing Metapod to spit out an incredibly thin sheet of string straight above herself to intercept the powder. Joey was just about to order a retaliation when Butterfree executed the next move.
The Stun Spore falling gently to the ground was suddenly enveloped by a purple glow directly in front of Metapod and underneath the sheet of string that she had spat up above her.
Butterfree was obviously using Confusion to work around Metapod’s block.
Joey grimaced, this was one of the issues with fighting against a psychic. Telekinesis was by far one of the most versatile abilities available.
“Again,” Joey ordered, “and retaliated with poison.” This time he knew that speed was of the essence, so he injected a sense of urgency into his voice. In reaction, Metapod quickly spat out another large white sheet at the incoming attack before quickly reorienting herself to send a batch of purple string towards Butterfree. The flying bug simply floated out of the way and let go of the Stun Spore that it had been manipulating. Once it achieved its new position, Butterfree simply spread its wings and again released more of the paralysing powder.
Joey furrowed his brow as he saw that the Butterfree was focusing more on spreading the stun spores all across the arena rather than actually engaging Metapod in battle.
He couldn't completely figure out the purpose behind it, so he just followed his own strategy which involved pushing Butterfree all around the battlefield so that Metapod’s poison string could create as large of a net as possible when it inevitably missed.
It was after a few repetitions of this cycle that Sabrina finally went on the pure offensive that Joey had been expecting from the beginning.
Metapod was suddenly enveloped in a purple glow and picked up in the air where she started getting twisted around and pushed in on herself. Joey decisively raised Metapod’s Pokeball and withdrew the green bug.
“Switch,” he said, more for the referee than himself. Then he quickly took a second Pokeball from his belt and threw it in the air.
Diglett materialised on the field while Sabrina used the free move accorded to her by the switch to simply spread more spores across the field.
“Go underground and stay there,” Joey ordered so as to reduce the exposure of the mole-like Pokemon to the paralytic spores in the air and on top of the ground.
The brown Pokemon disappeared, although Joey could keep commanding him because Diglett as a species had evolved good enough senses to listen to what was said above ground even when they weren’t.
As soon as Diglett disappeared underground and thus escaped the risk of paralysis, Joey shouted out his next command. “Sandstorm!” He didn’t bother codifying the message because there wasn't anything that Sabrina could do about it anyway.
He saw from his side of the field as the girl’s eyes widened at his plan. She was beginning to understand.
Looking at the battleground that had been absolutely covered in stun spores and turned almost yellow was already intimidating enough when one considered that a sandstorm would pick all of that up and throw it around. In addition to this however, if one looked at the structure from above one would see a gigantic and complex purple spider web which represented Metapod’s effort to cover the entire field and her poison string.
As Diglett roused from beneath the surface, the ground trembled and the yellow and then the purple flew into the air violently to create a beautiful but deadly storm of status effects. Quite frankly it likely would have done well in a contest.
As Joey’s view became obfuscated by the spore storm, he could see his plan unfold as more and more of the purple strings disappeared from the swirl. Obviously, they had latched onto something inside of it.
Considering that the ground was flat and Diglett was underground, there was only one possibility.
“Mud-Slap,” Joey commanded, preferring it over the more energy-intensive Mud Bomb because this battle was most likely already over.
He was only able to see brief flashes of purple light and the shadow of mud being thrown around as the battle reached its peak. Something told him that it was over though. Joey waited for the sandstorm to clear to get a better overview of the situation.
As the wind and the sand slowly dissipated and calmed themselves back to earth, he couldn't help but smile at what he saw.
On the ground, unconscious was a Butterfree that was almost invisible underneath the purple cocoon of poison string that it was enveloped in.
It had taken a lot of effort to create a poison string of a consistency that wouldn't stick to itself but instead needed a larger object to start tangling, but it had clearly been worth it and with this strategic switch of Metapod to Diglett he'd won the first battle.
As the unconscious and most likely traumatised Butterfree disappeared in a flash of red light, Joey worked to return to an analytical state of mind instead of his current excited one.
Yes, his plan had worked, but now Sabrina had one more substitution than him. He’d also only beaten her newest Pokemon which was by default most likely also her weakest one.
As the referee raised his flag to announce Joey as the victor, the boy glanced at the girl on the other side of the field. She was glaring at him mulishly. He winked at her, hoping that the cameras would catch it.
His mind also calmed down because he had no more substitutes available. There was nothing in particular to think about. Diglett was on the field and had to fight for what he was worth.
“Release your next Pokemon,” the referee called, causing Sabrina to unlock another Pokeball from her belt and hover it above her head where it opened and unleashed a Kadabra onto the field.
There was no surprise to the choice considering the circumstances, now the only question was if there was any significant difference between the three Kadabras on the girl’s belt.
The referee swung his flag and the match restarted.
It was at this moment as Joey shouted out “Sandstorm!” that the question arose why exactly Butterfree had been so focused on covering the whole field in stun spores.
The most obvious answer would be that with the way that Butterfree had manipulated the spores with Confusion, Kadabrra could use them in the same way giving it an additional venue of attack. Also, it could simply use telekinesis to prevent the spores from getting to it.
However as Diglett, still underground, kicked up the Sandstorm, Joey realised that he had forgotten one possibility.
The Kadabra on Sabrina’s side of the field crossed its arms and teleported to a location that most wouldn’t have chosen.
The yellow two-legged fox-like Pokemon appeared on top of the large cocoon of poison string that Butterfree had left behind when it had been recalled. It was slowly degrading but still potent.
As a light purple colour started infecting the psychic’s legs, the entire field of view was covered up by the Sandstorm. Joey realised that Kadabra likely had the ability Synchronise. This meant that if it had managed to get paralyzed and poisoned at the same time, Diglett would soon be experiencing the same status effects.
“Astonish, finish it!” Joey shouted, but it was at this point that the disadvantages of Sandstorm became apparent. It was very hard to see what was going on and the only thing that the youngster could make out was the occasional bright pink Psybeam, and the shadow of a Mud Slap or a Mud Bomb.
He imagined that Sabrina wasn’t suffering the same disadvantage as him due to her psychic powers. Joey sighed while rubbing his nose as the sandstorm calmed down and showed him what he had unfortunately already predicted.
Diglett was now above ground and knocked out, twitching from poison and what was likely paralysis, while the Kadabra on the other side of the field seemed locked up, only able to move its eyes.
Joey recalled his Pokemon as he considered his options.
The situation wasn't actually that bad, although he would wait the entire minute that he had to choose his next Pokemon. He needed Kadabra to suffer the full effects of paralysis so that Joey’s next Pokemon wouldn’t immediately get locked up when it entered the field. Additionally, he wouldn’t complain if the state of the psychic type worsened due to the poison.
The thing about spores was that they didn't stay on the field for long because they lost their effectiveness. He wasn't necessarily a complete expert on the topic, but the fact that there was now less yellow present on the field was a strong hint that the toxin was degrading.
However, it was still very likely that it could have an effect for another round, which narrowed down his choices significantly. Sending out Rattata would mean that his starter would likely get paralyzed and therefore not be able to display his strongest advantage which was his speed. Considering he was keeping his fourth Pokemon as a mystery to apply psychological pressure to Sabrina, the only choice left was Metapod who at least benefited from her ability Skin Shed. Since Kadabra was poisoned, which was not something that would go away that easily, the transfer of that status effect onto Metapod would not be as meaningful considering her vast expertise and dealing with the pain.
Joey pulled a Pokeball from its belt and enlarged it. In addition to all of that, summoning Metapod again meant that he could reuse his poison string strategy.
It wasn’t like all of Sabrina's Kadabras could have the ability Synchronise, right? At least one of them would have to have Inner Focus, especially considering Synchronise was statistically rarer.
“This is a warning!” the referee suddenly announced with a look towards Joey. “You have ten seconds to release your next Pokemon or else it will be considered forfeited and you will get an additional minute to bring out the next.”
Some light booing came from the stands surrounding the battlefield.
Joey just shrugged and counted down to eight in his head which incurred a glare from the referee before releasing Metapod onto the field again.
The man, obviously in a worse mood now, swung his flag to restart the battle.
No matter the disapproval, Joey's decision to wait had been correct as Kadabra didn't seem paralyzed anymore and the spores had lost even more of their lustre. However, Metapod immediately glowed purple upon entering the field, purple veins crisscrossing over her carapace. About this, of course, she gave zero fucks.
Joey narrowed his eyes however as he determined that Sabrina's Kadabra similarly didn't seem to be suffering much damage from the poison. Sure it looked a bit roughed up from the paralysis and sandstorm. Joey was sure that Diglett had hit some Mud Slaps as well, but he was now very familiar with what being poisoned looked like. Kadabra wasn’t exhibiting any of the signs.
For that, there could only be one real conclusion. Sabrina had gotten lucky enough to have not only caught a Kadabra with Synchronise but also one with a fully developed Miracle Guard.
Miracle Guard was a hidden ability that negated damage from damage afflicting status effects. As one could imagine, it paired perfectly with getting poisoned and paralyzed. If Kadabra was poisoned and paralyzed, it would not be able to move, but its opponent would also not be able to move, while additionally taking damage from the poison. Joey grimaced at the combination of abilities but wasn't able to think about it further as the battle quickly started escalating.
“Poison String the area,” Joey ordered, causing Metapod to once again start spitting out her own variety of Toxic Thread. The Kadabra meanwhile simply brought up its spoons. However, contrary to expectation, its eyes flashed a grey rather than a purple and suddenly Metapod found herself unable to use String Shot.
Sabrina’s Pokemon had used Disable.
Joey grimaced, as that had in essence been the only ranged attack that Metapod could use… That Sabrina knew of at least.
It was at this point that the girl made a mistake based on her misunderstanding, and Kadabra teleported right in front of Metopod but still far enough away to not be in the range of biting attacks such as Bug Bite.
A bright and powerful Psybeam shot out from the point where the two spoons Kadabra was holding met. Sabrina likely assumed that since Metapod an immobile Pokemon, and String Shot was disabled, she couldn't block or dodge.
However, Joey and Metopod had been working on a brand new move.
“Electroweb!” Joey shouted. At his command, Metapod opened her mouth and blasted out a bright yellow crackling net of electricity. The Psybeam cut right through the middle of the web and smashed into Metapod with enormous force. At the same time, however, Kadabra was enveloped by the bright electricity and spasmed under the voltage as it got entangled in the web. Unfortunately, the web quickly dissipated, as Metapod was still unused to the move.
Both Pokemon were far from knocked out however and Kadabra soon recovered enough to bring its spoons together again, before it suddenly jolted in place and seemed unable to move. Metapod similarly locked up and became, if possible, even more immobile.
It was like this that the match got locked once again as both Pokemon suffered under the facts of paralysis.
Joey glanced at the ground underneath Kadabra's feet and saw that it had teleported straight onto a spot that was still somewhat yellow. Or maybe it had been the jolt of electricity. A glance towards Metapod revealed that her Shed Skin ability had gotten rid of the poison, but immediately after he had noticed that she got reinfected as Kadabra’s synchronisation took effect once again.
It was an unfortunate position because while Kadabra was suffering no damage from the poison, Metapod, no matter how resistant she’d become, was.
Similarly, the issue was that if Metapod got rid of the paralysis first which would likely be the case because of her Shed Skin, she would immediately get reinfected. Joey was surprised by Sabrina's tactical acumen, but his respect wouldn't prevent him from trying to find a loophole.
“Electroweb the second you’re free,” Joey ordered.
The thing was, since Metapod would likely get rid of the paralysis first, and synchronisation needed at least a second to link, maybe she could shoot out an attack during that time.
His prediction proved to be correct as a few seconds later Metapod twitched, opened her mouth and shot out an Electroweb before suddenly freezing up again.
The electric attack flew through the air and there was nothing that Kadabra could do as it smashed right onto its form and shocked it.
However, it seemed like the shock was what it needed because immediately after it lifted its arms to cross at silver spoons and teleported, this time behind Metapod.
Metapod managed to turn around and was just about to retaliate, forming electricity in her mouth, when Kadabra disappeared in another flash only to reappear on Metopod’s side. That was when the Psybeam was created and hit Joey’s Pokemon, sending her stumbling back.
The Electroweb, suffice to say, missed. Also, from what Joey was seeing, Metapod was getting exhausted. She wasn't used to electric-type energy yet and she probably only had one more attack in her.
“Metapod, prepare Electroweb for when it does it again, you'll have to guess where it teleports to!” he shouted just as Kadabra disappeared again.
It appeared behind Joey’s Pokemon, and the youngster quickly had to decide if it was going to come again from the front, the left, or the right. The only correct answer in this situation was of course, “Up!” he shouted just as Kadabra reappeared hovering above Metapod and crossing its spoons.
The situation from earlier reoccurred. A Psybeam sheared straight through the middle of Electroweb and both Pokémon ended up being hit.
Kadabra fell to the ground with a bang, unable to teleport itself back to the ground, while Metopod simply rolled over a few times and came to a stop with swirls in her eyes.
The referee raised his flag. “Double knockout!”
Joey sighed and recalled his Pokemon. He was grateful that Sabrina’s team was still relatively immature and couldn’t chain together endless teleports. The girl was going to be an even bigger issue in the future. He coughed to himself. As if she wasn't one already.
His fingers went to his Pokebelt as he decided on his next Pokemon.
He critically appraised the field and saw that there were still some yellow patches present. There was also the big cocoon of poison string that was almost gone but potentially still represented a threat. In this case, there was only one choice.
He looked up at Sabrina who was staring at him with crossed arms. He wondered what she was going to pick. Her Kadabra, or her Kadabra? It truly was a mystery of the ages.
Ignoring the jokes, however, there was a large difference between Sabrina's remaining two Kadabras. Namely, one of them was her starter whom she’d had for much longer than she had been a youngster. The other one she had for a similar amount of time that Joey had either Metapod or Diglett.
It was this starter Kadabra that Joey wanted to confront with his Rattata. His newest acquisition had the same issue that Diglett had back when he’d joined the team. Joey had been a three-badge trainer and it had taken him several months to get Diglett up to speed with the rest of his team.
Now his newest catch had joined a team that was at the four-badge level and had to work even harder to catch up. Sure they’d been training together for longer which meant that there was less of an adaptation phase, but it was still an issue.
Facing a Pokemon that has been getting trained for more than a year at this point was a problematic situation. It was in the first three years that Pokemon training under a good trainer faced the most explosive growth. There was a large difference in seniority during this period depending on the year.
The only problem was that while from the outside Joey and Sabrina looked like they were in a similar position because they had both lost two Pokemon, Joey had additionally also lost his only substitution. This meant that Sabrina could pick which one of her Kadabra she wanted to use if she didn't like what he had.
Well, there was nothing to say here, he enlarged his newest Pokeball when the referee signalled that should release, and clicked the button before throwing it out.
The small dark-bluish ghost appeared on the battlefield, purple tentacle hair flying in a wind that wasn't there.
On Sabrina's side appeared a Kadabra, however, the girl didn't look all too happy with the matchup, throwing a disgusted look at the Pokemon floating opposite her.
Joey was suddenly reminded that the first time that the two of them had met, the girl had called him an abomination.
It was at this moment that the referee announced the start of the match.
The first thing Sabrina did was recall her Pokemon.
“Switch,” the referee announced as another Kadabra appeared on the field. Joey didn't know if she'd switched her newer one for her older one, but he at least assumed. It wasn't easy dealing with a ghost-type.
Joey grimaced. Had he known that he would be in this situation he would have put more focus on learning Mean Look to prevent switching out.
Instead, he used the free move that he got to call out for “Astonish!”
Misdreavus rushed forward with a loud cry. The Kadabra simply teleported away. Had Joey taught Misdreavus the move Calm Mind he could have strengthened her instead, but this way the battle could only continue normally. He hadn’t known that it would be a four-on-four.
After having repositioned, Kadabra brought together its spoons and fired off a meagre but solid Shadow Ball which crackled with ghostly energies. Misdreavus got the chance to show off she wasn’t too shabby at dodging attacks either and simply let herself float downwards to fall underneath the incoming attack, before retaliating with her own Shadow Ball which Kadabra simply teleported away from.
Joey sighed as he saw that this was going to be an annoying matchup. Misdreavus would fire off a Shadow Ball as he commanded, while Kadabra would simply teleport away and retaliate with its own attack.
The battle quickly descended into something utterly boring, Kadabra resorting to using Psybeams instead of Shadow Balls at some point. Ghost didn’t have any resistance to psychic attacks so it wasn’t like it mattered. Ghost attacks just had an advantage against psychics.
It was a smart decision from Sabrina to switch to Psybeam because continuously using a ghost-type move would have exhausted Kadabra sooner.
With the way that things were going, Misdreavus would start flagging first.
Unfortunately, going by the fact that Kadabra had not bothered to dodge into any of the barely present Stun Spore or poison string, it was unlikely that it had Synchronise as an ability meaning that it more likely had Inner Focus. This meant that trying to use Astonish was a relatively useless gesture because Kadabra wouldn't flinch anyway and the damage inflicted by the move was less than from Shadow Ball.
It looked like the battle would descend into a complete stalemate and that victory would depend mostly on the Pokemon's dodging ability and their capacity to guide the enemy’s position with their ranged attacks.
There had been one strategy that Joey had been considering, however, there was no more poison string available on the field, and Metopod’s use of String Shot had been disabled in the last round so she hadn’t been able to produce new traps.
In the end battles, especially in the lower levels, sometimes went like this. Two Pokemon had good dodging ability and good range attacks. There wasn't any particular trick with which one of them would win. It simply depended on the training that they had gotten beforehand, their positioning and their accuracy.
Another factor was one's mastery of type energy, and considering that Kadabra had been trained for a considerably longer time, it made perfect sense that it would be the one who got tired later.
Sabrina knew this as well, so when Misdreavus started getting tired, as shown by the fact that she descended a bit more towards the ground, she intensified Kadabra’s teleportation.
It was at this point that Misdreavus was finally nicked by a Psybeam and fell towards the earth in pain. However, just as Kadabra started charging another attack to take advantage of this fact, Misdreavus disappeared into the earth, into her own shadow and reappeared directly behind the Psychic.
Teleporting away became impossible as Misdreavus hit Kadabra from the back and injected ghost energy straight into its body. She then formed a Shadow Ball as the Kadabra stumbled forward and shot it off. At the same time, Kadabra turned around, physically swiped out with one of its spoons and fired off a face-blank Thunderbolt just as the Shadow Ball impacted its torso.
Both of the Pokemon were flung backwards, however, Misdreavus had indeed gotten tired and thus Kadabra recovered first and finished her off with a Shadow Ball.
Joey looked at his knocked-out Pokemon and sighed. In his opinion, Misdreavus had recently reached the third badge level. Even a type advantage would make it hard for her to compete with the Kadabra which he judged was already at the fifth or even sixth badge level since he believed it was Sabrina's starter.
He'd known that Shadow Sneak was his only opportunity, which was why he'd reserved it in the hopes that he could finish the battle at once.
Unfortunately, this Kadabra likely had the ability Inner Focus which meant that he couldn't follow up on the Shadow Sneak with an Astonish, but had to use Shadow Ball immediately instead of chaining it. This meant that he hadn't been able to do enough damage to truly take advantage of his one opportunity before their opponent knew that Misdreavus had her own semi-teleportation ability.
However, looking at it, the Kadabra seemed a bit tired and a bit bruised in the spot where it had been hit by the relatively powerful Shadow Ball, there was still a chance of winning if Rattata managed to take advantage of the situation well enough.
He recalled Misdreavus. “We'll get her next time, we just need a bit more training,” he whispered to the Pokeball before clipping it back onto his belt.
In his hand, he then grasped the last hope that he had to win this match which had turned out to be a bit harder than he'd originally fought.
As the referee called for him to release his next Pokemon Joey critically looked at the Kadabra standing on the other side of the field.
It was very obvious to him that despite its strength and relative maturity the Pokemon was halfway done with the battle. Ghost types were a natural counter to psychics because even if they didn't have a resistance to psychic attacks, their energy could disturb the concentration necessary to perform them while also dealing super effective damage.
There was only one type that potentially had more advantages against psychics and that was the dark type. Their attacks were just as effective while psychic attacks on them led to no results whatsoever.
Unfortunately, Joey didn't have a dark type, but as his starter appeared on the field baring his incisors he couldn't help but feel that it wasn't such a big deal. He might not have had a dark type, but he had a Rattata which was sometimes just what you needed.
The only issue was that even if the Kadabra on the other side wasn’t looking too hot, afterwards Rattata would have to take out another one to secure victory.
Suffice it to say that under most circumstances using an unevolved Pokemon to beat up two secondary-stage evolutions in a row was a bit controversial.
There was only one way that this was going to work.
“We gotta finish fast this time!” Joey called out. “We still got another Kadabra on the production line,” he said just as the referee swung the flag to start the battle.
Before Sabrina or her Kadabra for that manner could even blink, Rattata had already disappeared from his spot in a blur of white.
“Switch to Tackle!” Joey called just as Kadabra’s eyes suddenly glowed grey.
The rat Pokemon's charge halted for a second as the Disable took away the Tackle, but immediately after, he restarted the charge.
Psychic force suddenly enveloped Rattata, but a quick switch to Bite made the Kadabra wince as its awareness touched the nothingness.
Rattata dropped to the ground a second time and attacked again, at this point, Kadabra could only teleport away.
Reappearing on the other side of the field, closer to Joey, and having to face the fact that Rattata would be in front of it again in just two seconds, the Kadabra held up its two spoons and exerted its force to send out an incredibly broad range Psywave. The multicoloured rings almost covered half of the battlefield.
Rattata for his part simply dropped underground in a Dig and burst forth underneath the Kadabra’s position only to find that the Pokemon had disappeared again.
Joey didn't care and Rattata didn't either, he shot forward like a missile again to Kadabra’s new position and so the chase started.
Whoever in the stands had thought that a battle between a Kadabra and a Rattata was an unfair matchup thought completely right, just that it was the latter who was the predator, and the former the prey.
Joey had always known that at some point during this season or the next, he was going to have to face Sabrina and her team of psychics.
There had already been a moment at some point in this league season where the two of them had said that they would battle. But, when they’d met it had turned out that what Sabrina needed more than battle was help with dealing with the Murkrow that she had taken a job to disperse. Regardless, Rattata had been in a way preparing for this exact battle ever since that day. He struggled through the challenges he faced when learning Bite and gained physical strength on par with a much larger Pokemon just so that he could keep up with teleportation.
He was the one Pokemon in Joey's team that had prepared for this battle the longest and it showed.
Kadabra was harried, and Kadabra was running, but the one unfortunate truth was that Kadabra never got caught.
There was just something incredibly unfair about teleportation in lower-level battles where supersonic speed had not yet been achieved by the other participants. Additionally, Joey was still in the early part of his career where his Pokemon didn’t have the technical variety to deal with any and all situations yet.
The only thing he could continue doing in this situation was chasing Kadabra across the field.
It was as these two Pokemon got into the rhythm of chasing and dodging that the scene became utterly incomprehensible.
If Rattata at the start of the season had been able to put an enemy in a cage with his Quick Attack, now he was able to turn the whole battlefield into a cage. He was moving across the battlefield so fast that by the time he drew a new white line, the one from five Quick Attacks before had just started deteriorating.
Kadabra for its part wasn't any less impressive and it blinked away in one-second intervals all across the field to always just barely avoid the destructive missile trying to impact its body.
Both trainers knew very well that the second Rattata actually caught up to its foe, it would switch its attack into Bite to utterly entrap and destroy Kadabra’s ability to fight back.
The only issue was in getting to that Bite.
It was after Joey decided that his starter was warmed up enough to add another layer of complexity that he ordered a Swift, which resulted in Rattata throwing out a minuscule amount of stars during every change of direction. It barely halted his momentum, but the small number of yellow stars changed the situation completely as they homed in on the Kadabra before dissipating. New ones would always come to replace those that faded in the attempt and Kadabra was forced to teleport around much, much faster.
The entire battlefield became just as hard to watch as when Diglett had used Sandstorm.
There were stars flying everywhere, white lines blocking the sight of the viewers from a variety of angles and purple and blue flashes of light signifying Kadabra’s teleportation.
As was inevitable when one's matter of transportation fit one’s type of energy on both sides and thus both sides were getting tired equally fast, it was the one who had entered the battle with less stamina who ran out of juice first.
Kadabra failed, got stuck in one place for too long, which in this case was two seconds and was immediately slammed in the torso by a dark-energy-encased Rattata. Sharp and long teeth lodged themselves in the Kadabra’s torso interrupting any psychic moves and despite the attacker being about 15 times smaller than its opponent, Rattata shook and twisted the Kadabra into the air like a crocodile killing its prey. The Kadabra managed to get off exactly one relatively weak Thunderbolt before being thrown to the ground like yesterday's trash with swirls in its eyes.
Joey smiled with a proud look as Rattata finally came to a halt after what must have been several minutes of high-intensity combat, sweating visibly and panting like a dog in the Sahara desert.
He was tired, yes, but the performance had been absolutely admirable and Joey couldn't have asked for more. He’d faced a Pokemon that could teleport and had beaten it with pure speed.
Sabrina recalled her Pokemon but didn't look too perturbed by the loss of her starter. However, that wasn't saying much considering she never looked like she was feeling any particular amount of emotions.
Unfortunately, this lack of emoting was soon explained away as she revealed her last Pokemon.
Kadabra, taller than the last, with a longer moustache and a more orange carapace, came onto the field. There was an aura of power surrounding it, one that Joey couldn’t ignore. The only reason he hadn't seen it earlier when the Kadabra had appeared for a brief two seconds before being switched out was just because it had been on for too short a time.
Joey sighed and could only shrug. He’d never claimed that he was an expert in estimating the age of the Abra line and the last one had probably just been particularly old when Sabrina had caught it for them to have looked similar enough.
This was obviously her starter and Joey was going to face it with a Rattata that was already halfway done with the battle from sheer exhaustion.
“Let's do this,” the youngster muttered.
His starter on the field heard him and perked up in an attempt to show strength in the face of what must have looked like an almost insurmountable challenge.
In other words, they weren’t going down without a fight.
-/-
AN: This wasn't an easy chapter to write because I have to show that Joey did progress since the first day of his career, but also leave some room for upwards mobility. Also had to make somewhat complex tactics to fit the experience both contentasts now have.
Comments
bor902
Ah fuck you're right, slipped my mind that Teleport should be more energy intensive than what Rattata was doing...
DiscoT
Not sure i'm willing to believe the amount of teleports that were used by that Kadabra and it holding up at this level, seems like a cop out to manufacture a loss or dramatise a win with a raticate evo win. That would mean that an elite lvl Kadabra would just be invincible without getting taunted. It's not really known to be a pokémon with endurance.
Green0Photon
This may have been one of the sickest battles that you've written yet. What an incredibly chapter! I'm also very happy with where it ended, because it wasn't an annoying mid battle chapter end. But rather, something that hypes up this final bit. So I got a very nice amount of battle in this chapter. And we got Misdreavous! Man, what a great chapter. I'm so happy
Pope Yoda I
Good chapter. A shame the misdreavus didn't get more screentime. My only real criticism, which you've already addressed in the chapter, involves learning how to chain attacks instead of each attack just being its own, singular item.
Apostle_of_Tea
Oh, I’m not frustrated, I just noticed more spelling and grammatical mistakes than normal and then read the end blurb thing. I just sorta attributed one to the other ya know?
bor902
Actually really loving writing the Rattata story, you're obviously just reading this frustrating part, but I'm already past it for a month. It wasn't like amazing but all stories need some chapters where less good things happen
Apostle_of_Tea
I can feel your frustration at this chapter coming through. Might be good to write something else if the chapters for this are starting to wear on you
