A bundle of red light exploded into the sky and changed into blue. Shifting azure plates slotted into place, forming a round shield in the shape of a giant snowflake that could almost shield my whole body. In the darkness between the plates, a mouth and eyes appeared glowing in a bright blue colour. The Crystallizing pokemon smiled with his eyes as he bobbed in the air, surprised at being called this late in the tournament. He looked across the field towards his opponent.

  The Emotion pokemon, Kirlia, stood on the other side. The psychic pokemon’s red eyes watched Mountain like a prey.

  “Mountain, we are fighting to win,” I whispered to him.

  The shield became a line as he turned to glance at me. He stopped his bouncing for a second and blinked, before turning back to the green and white pokemon. I also examined the psychic.

  The choice of Mountain had been a gamble. I had hoped that George would follow what he always had done until now and release Marowak. It would’ve been perfect for us, but I knew that it could also be Kirlia or Lampent. The plan would have to be slightly revised but it was all the same; lower their guard and land Night Slash.

  “Trainers, are you ready?”

  We nodded.

  “Ready… Fight!”

  “Icy Wind.”

  Mountain’s body released a giant cloud of snow, and then a gust of frigid air that advanced towards George’s side of the field. Kirlia teleported to the right of the Cryogonal and the air twisted as a Psybeam rippled towards the ice type.

  Mountain immediately rotated around and released three extended slashes of psychic normal type energy. The three lines, like the claws of a giant Arcanine, ripped through the psychic move and towards the wide eyed Kirlia. She teleported far away from Mountain and released stars of normal type energy towards him, teleporting away just as they curved towards him.

  “Body Slam.”

  The ice type followed. His body glowed and like a shield he advanced, using the energy running through his body to crash through the Swift barrage.

  Just as the energy from the Body Slam ended, a Psybeam came from the side and slammed into Mountain. The pokemon’s body was thrown to the side like a frisbee until he stabilized himself and turned towards the attacker.

  Kirlia was already gone, and now a barrage of glowing sharp leafs came from behind him.

  “Rapid Spin to the side.”

  Mountain hadn’t seen the attack, but he trusted me. The pokemon spun to the side, letting the leaves through. The leaves didn’t stop, they curved around towards the ice type. But Mountain didn’t stop spinning. He didn’t stop even when other moves entered the fray. The Cryogonal dodged sharp leaves, normal type stars, sharp and fast licks of shadows drowned in ghost energy, and psychic blasts. I instructed him when the moves came from an angle he wasn’t watching.

  He only stopped near me when the moves lost their energy and Kirlia presumably lost steam. She appeared on her side of the field, breathing slightly harder.

  “Treat her like she has Aerial Ace,” I said.

  Mountain froze for a second and then smiled. I didn’t need to be more specific. The ice type advanced towards the middle of the field while releasing clouds upon clouds of blue mist until there was a giant fog sticking to the entire field. Mist had a function in battle. We've found another one.

  Mountain had spared against Cape and Velocity during our travels, and because of them we’ve created a way to find out where a pokemon leaving Aerial Ace would end up. After all, where someone ends Aerial Ace the air is displaced, teleport does something similar. There’s a small window where, just before a pokemon appears, the molecules that are in place have to be pushed away by the incoming psychic energy to make room for the pokemon.

  Mist, full of the ice energy used to create it, can be sensed by an ice type.

  “Ice Shard and grab.”

  Plates shifted violently as ice chunks grew on Mountain’s six outer plates. With a cry like ice breaking, the Cryogonal launched those chunks to the other side of the field at his opponent. As the Kirlia gathered energy to teleport, chains made of ice surged from the plates that formed his crystal body. Mountain then spun around, and the chain’s ends were launched to all the corners of the field as fast as Mountain could throw them.

  Kirlia finally disappeared in a pink flash. I was about to scan the area when Mountain froze. My eyes widened. I screamed the only thing that passed through my head.

  “Night Slash above you.”

  Making me proud, my Cryogonal immediately spun around and sent a dark blade towards the sky. I heard a small cry before I saw her. Even then, I barely believed when I saw her falling down, the psychic energy of a failed Psybeam dissipating. Mountain saw her too. The ice type spun inward. Chains were pulled back from across the field and coiled around him for a second.

  The pokemon threw them up against the heavens.

  Kirlia whirled in the air. She faced the ground but was unable to gather psychic energy with a dark energy cut upon her body. The psychic’s hands glowed green as she used her grass type move. The leaves rained from above, darting down towards Mountain and his frozen chains.

  A single leaf wasn’t enough to stop or divert a chain, but there were dozens of green drops against ten blue snakes.

  Two chains fell from ten. Four stood firm after five seconds. Only two were able to latch into the single small pokemon. Kirlia grunted as the chains squeezed around her leg. Mountain pulled her and where before she was falling like paper, now she fell like rock.

  “Take Down.” I said.

  Mountain’s strongest move.

  “Knock Off,” George screamed.

  A move that shaved another move’s power.

  As Kirlia fell, Mountain shoot up. The plates glowed grey. The psychic’s hands darkened. Kirlia swiped her hands in front of the blue shield taking out half his power just before the Cryogonal smashed into her.

  The psychic was thrown to the side as the ice type continued on to the sky. They changed places for a instant. And then the chains stretched to the limit and the two pokemon snapped still in the air. Kirlia was dazed, Mountain was not, and with a second Night Slash towards the ground, he released her. The first battle of the finals was over like that.

  The arbiter made it official. George returned Kirlia and after glaring at the pokeball, put it away.

  I turned to look at the approaching Cryogonal and smiled at him. Mountain stopped near the edge of the field and returned the smile with his closed eyes. I’d have to thank Aiden later. Knowing that Kirlia could also teleport above turned what could be a tough battle into a relatively easy victory.

  Mountain was in good shape and could fight more, but I knew we were fated to lose. The only pokemon that Aiden would consider next was the worse for him.

  George released his next pokemon with a thrown. Blue fire emerged from the next pokeball, glass covered the fire, and from the glass, metallic black limps and a black hat surged forth. Lampent’s yellow eyes turned towards Cryogonal, and the crackle of a campfire flame echoed all over the field. The ghost and fire type was clearly pleased to be fighting an ice type that could melt.

  I pulled Mountain’s pokeball from my belt, but didn’t recall him, “Let’s just tire him as much as we can. He can use Minimize and Flame Charge.” George was similarly talking with his Lampent, probably also warning him about Cryogonal’s dark type move.

  Cryogonal’s plates shifted as he took in the new information, and I was briefly surprised about how calm he was—considering that an ice type pokemon generally dreaded fire and fire type pokemon—before remembering that Cryogonal lived in a place with no ice or snow. Maybe had even fought fire types before.

  The arbiter started the battle.

  Lampent didn’t charge like he did against Swablu. The ghost just floated forward, no doubt trying to panic the feeble ice type. I was debating what to do when I noticed that Cryogonal was barely moving.

  I had to fight down a smile. My pokemon was acting, of course, how else would an ice pokemon survive without ice against other pokemon.

  I remembered the advice from the commentators and left my pokemon do his own thing. Lampent passed the middle of the field and started to slow down, the smile on his eyes dimming, and that was when Mountain used Rapid Spin on the ghost.

  The Cryogonal’s exploded forward. Its edges glowed as the pokemon spun vertically at the bemused ghost. Lampent's flame blazed. It’s phantom body expanded and he shot forward a torrent of orange flames at the incoming blue disc, a weaker version of the powerful Flamethrower, but no less deadly to a pokemon like Cryogonal.

  As the Ember was coming, Mountain let Rapid Spin die. The grey glowing edges turned blue once more. The energy dissipated, but not the force, Mountain was still flying fast at the ghost.

  The storm of fire reached the ice crystal body. I raised my pokeball, waiting for the now familiar cracking sound of pain to click the button. But no sound left the fire. Lampent hesitated for a second before the fire flood inflated like a bubble. A grey blur exited through the back of the exploding fireball and slammed into the confused lamp like pokemon.

  Mountain stuck the fire type with a Body Slam, crumbling the glass orb and hat as if they were made of plastic. The reaction came almost immediately, Lampent exploded in blue flames, the flames consumed everything around, including Cryogonal. Shocked as I was, I forgot to click the pokeball—No need—said a feminine voice inside my head.

  A small but perceptive burst occurred inside the bigger explosion of flames. As they died down a dark crescent moon separated the remaining fire and exploded on the side of the fire pokemon.

  The ghost screech and minimized instinctively before floating back in an evasive pattern. Not that he needed, Mountain was floating back to our side, eyes on the ghost. His plates of ice moved sluggishly, and I understood him. After that sequence of moves—Body Slam, Substitute and Night Slash—he was simply too tired to continue.

  In fact, he was almost fainting in place. I warned the arbiter and retrieved my pokemon.

  Apart from the whole battle, there was also the thing he did against the Ember that let him pass through harmlessly. I hummed as I looked at his pokeball, he never showed that before. I shrugged as I clipped the pokeball to my belt, it wasn’t like I’ve ever used him against a fire type that needed such a thing like this one.

  Speaking of the ghost, as the Lampent looked around and saw he was alone, the Lamp pokemon returned to his actual size. The pokemon had a collapsed hat and glass, a dark cut cutting horizontally from his side to his ‘face’, and was battered from where Mountain slammed into it. It was quietly floating around, pondering, calm like a sea before a storm.

  Now which of my pokemon would weather this storm. Cape was out considering that Lampent could still use fire as a barrier, pretty much making him untouchable by the bug pokemon. Mesa was a great defensive pokemon, and could handle whatever the ghost threw at him. It would also work well since Lampent would have a hard time gathering ghost energy with a dark type wound.

  Well, that was an easy choice. I lifted Mesa’s pokeball from my belt and clicked the button. My pokeball sprang open, releasing the Baltoy into the field. The clay dool glared at the fire type on the other side.

  “Mesa,” I said, and my pokemon showed curiosity by glowing pink, as if to goad the ghost type. “We’ll be leaving here with the win, got it?”

  Mesa glowed brighter, immediately figuring out what I said. He’d come a long way. As a typical Baltoy that got taken out of its ruins, he was dull at first, lethargic, and couldn’t hold much information. Now he was my smartest pokemon, maybe not street smarts now that I’ve seen Mountain in his natural habitat, but definitely the one that could hold, remember and utilize the most data. I quickly told him everything that Lampert could do.

  The battle between the ground and psychic pokemon and the fire and ghost pokemon began with a high screech that echoed through the arena. The crowd could’ve confused it with a move, but it wasn’t. It was the release of a wraith’s rage. The Lampent rotated and lines of pure raging fire left him and dripped to the ground around Mesa. They laid on the field as overlapping rings. The lines burst into flames as the Fire Spin ended.

  “Rock Tomb, push them back.”

  Baltoy commanded, and the earth answered. A small wall of rock rose from the ground around the brown doll and expanded outwards, banishing way the scarlet lines and their fire. So focused Mesa was on this that I had to warn him about the spinning comet bearing at him.

  The pokemon looked up and used Psybeam to the sky. The flaming lamp smashed through the move with a little help from his ghost energy, but slowed him down enough that Mesa could work something out. Using Rapid Spin, Mesa whirled to the right, another Mesa to the left, and a third to the center. I smiled at the number.

  Lampent didn’t care to choose. The pokemon stopped in the middle of the three and spewed forth flames with Ember before rotating. As the ghost whirled around, the flames transformed into a violent fire tornado that expanded and engulfed the three clay dolls. Lampent stopped, yellow eyes wide as plates. The three Baltoy had dissipated.

  A earthly groan from below was all the warning the ghost got. Exploding from under the ground like a bomb, a dozen big rocks shot up. Lampent, floating, dodged the three that were about to smash him and glared down.

  At the bottom of the crater was the Baltoy.

  I smiled proudly at Mesa. A few weeks of training Double Team and he already could use four copies. And he wasn’t done yet. With a mighty heave of his arms, the boulders radiated a brownish glow, already infused with Mesa’s rock type energy even before the explosion. The boulders stopped in the air and soared towards the only common point between them, Lampent. The pokemon screeched in indignation. His eyes locked at the psychic purple and bluish-white fireball exploded from his glass towards Mesa, who had to take it in order to finish the ghost.

  Lampent looked around. No escape. The rocks coming, the ghost exploded into fire, trying to push them away. It didn’t work. Minimize brought him more time. Lines in the form of rings flew out of his body and attached themselves to one side of the closing rocks. The lines exploded into bright red flames. The small Lampert, eyes narrow and iron hands extended, put more energy into the move as the rocks approached, and red turned into orange, and then into white, and then they exploded into blue fire and flames. All of that happened in seconds. The rocks had melted halfway. The ghost failed.

  Struck by the avalanche of stones, the ghost was finally buried into a giant tomb of rock.

  The arbiter waited a few seconds and then declared Mesa the winner. George’s body was trembling. Shock was the best way to describe the crowd. Of course they were stunned. They had probably already thought, in their minds, of either George or Yael as the winner of the tournament, considering the performances they were giving out.

  I, on the other hand, was coming out of nowhere since I didn’t fight strong opponents. Even winning against that Pincer wasn’t that convincing against their performance in the semis.

  I looked at George as he groaned silently, probably thinking about how things played out. Well, it might’ve been good to not fight a powerful opponent until now… Alright, in hindsight it was great not having a powerful opponent until the finals. I’d guarded my tricks and tactics, held onto them like treasures and now I could spend them all to win the tournament. I don't expect that his last pokemon, his starter, will be easy though.

  For all the power that Deino showed in his matches, George hadn’t seen worried—at least until Deino fought against Katy’s team. Which means that he believed that this pokemon would be able to handle the dragon if he didn’t use Assurance, and speaking of it.

  George, on the other side of the field, released his starter.

  The red flash disappeared, giving way to a dark bluish-green body floating high above the ground. The last ghost’s head was bigger than its body, and the body was malleable and flowy, around its neck were five red gems., and vermillion orbs moved over yellow as the ghost’s eyes looked around, taking in the location. They stopped when they reached Mesa.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I expected a pokemon from the Gengar line of course, but I wasn’t really surprised about a Misdreavus. It was also possible that Agatha’s Mismagius that was still securing the barriers alongside Alakazam knew her, if not birthed the pokemon outright.

  The arbiter waited for a few seconds, and started the fight.

  “Rock Slide.”

  Mesa opened the crater further by yanking small rocks from its walls. The ground type raised them high and then threw them at the floating ghost. Misdreavus sneered as the dozens of hard projectiles neared her. The pokemon dodged them all. Flight steady as she weaved, bobbed and twirled around them. She could’ve easily left the area of attack but instead decided to effortlessly evade them all with a smile.

  As the last rock passed she moved. She was like an arrow, flying directly at her target. She wasn’t faster than Lampent’s Flame Charge, but she was still closing into the Baltoy fast. I realized that there wouldn’t be any finesse in this battle.

  “Mesa, use everything you can, exhaust yourself, but don’t let her get close.” The Mismagius line was, as the name of the pokemon implied, mischievous. We couldn’t let her get close enough to use the curse moves that she definitely has. And of course, Mesa was burning from the Will-O-Whisp that the fire pokemon landed on him. A long fight wasn't beneficial for us.

  Mesa’s body exploded with brownish light, overriding temporarily the quiet blue flame sizzling his clay body. Slim spikes of stone thrusted from the ground and towards the floating pokemon. Unlike other pokemon I’ve witnessed in person, Misdreavus didn’t dance, rushed, or dashed around the danger, she moved. Every single move she made, she made with the conviction that she needed to do it and that she knew exactly how much space she needed to travel. Someone looking from outside probably thought that she was barely dodging the barrage, she wasn’t. The ghost also wasn’t retaliating.

  Mesa stopped with the spikes and raised a wall in front of himself. The ground type was about to Dig once again when the wall exploded. There was the brief flash of darkness before the Baltoy was pestered by the rocks and retreated further back. Misdreavus floated over the ruined wall, pouting exaggeratedly until she let her red eyes discover Mesa, and a smile blossomed on her face like a lover finding her love. She was acting, playing with her prey.

  Well, I guess it's time to stop playing the prey.

  “Rock and Sand Tomb.”

  The most powerful strategy that Mesa knew. I’ve yet to see a pokemon with less than six badges who can turn rock into sand and sand into rock as freely as Mesa. That might sound strange, but a substance that could be hard one second and moldable in another was surprisingly powerful as Mesa was about to show.

  Mesa slammed the ground with the spike on his rear, sending his energy to the ground. A wave of earth rose from the ground on the right of Misdreavus, threatening to slam her into the ground. The ghost gave the formation a side eye and a small ball of dark type energy appeared and darted towards the move. As I thought, Shadow Ball, a very advanced compressed ghost move that exploded in dark energy. Fuck.

  She looked forward and almost missed the fact that the wall turned into sand and opened up a hole in the middle, letting the shadow ball slam harmlessly at the pink wall—courtesy of the two powerful pokemon outside. A double take later and the holed wall turned into a dozen rock spikes that were launched at the Misdreavus. She responded by doing something astounding. Six spikes she dodged. The ones she didn’t dodge, she used small and fast bursts of Confusion to parry them, moving one of her hem like limbs like a rapier to direct it. But it wouldn’t be that simple with Mesa.

  As the ghost defended herself from the projectiles, pillars rose from the ground towards the pokemon. A shout from George made her look down and almost be speared from the right. As soon as the spikes ended she stared down at the four pillars with green glowing eyes. A green spectral shield made of hexagons formed below the ghost and stopped the battering rams. Too bad they turned into sand and flowed around the shield. Yes, we’ve fought too many rich assholes who bought the Protect TM, how did you know?

  The rising sand took the shape of four hands and made to grab the floating ghost from every direction, but we apparently had our fun according to Misdreavus. She looked directly at Mesa and her face flashed purple. The ground type slumped backwards, and the entire frame lost their master.

  The rock pillars, the soft sand, and the hands shaped particles lost their will, and together with pieces of the Protect fell to the ground. Mesa had been successfully astonished and it would take a few seconds for him to come back.

  He didn’t have seconds, a Shadow Ball was beelining to him, “Wake up, Mesa!” I shouted, but it didn’t work. The small Shadow Ball was going to smash him.

  I recalled Mesa before the attack could land. The pokemon turned into light and came back to his pokeball. The move still landed on the ground in front of me. The ball of darkness expanded, compressed again, and detonated in a explosion of dark energy, taking a huge chunk of the ground to oblivion.

  The arbiter announced the preening Misdreavus as the winner. Ghost type pokemon normally didn’t like attention. Misdreavus were one of the exceptions.

  I swapped pokeballs on my belt, and felt the weight of my starter on my hand. Overall, I was satisfied with this fight. Shadow Ball and Protect were very intensive moves to use, so I doubted that Cape was going to lose by exhaustion, and Cape rarely loses a fight if not in stamina. After a nod from the arbiter, I released Heracross.

  The giant blue beetle appeared in his favorite place in the world, the battlefield. He smiled in satisfaction at seeing the familiar place. He knew about the powerful prodigy called George from the night before, so he was happy to see the ghost trainer and his powerful looking pokemon. Glancing around, he was then surprised to see a powerful Alakazam and the rare Mismagius outside the barriers. After letting him take everything in, I called him. There was still some time until the last battle of tournament started.

  “Cape, you remember the talk we had with the Professor in Azalea?”

  Cape’s stopped smiling, his face took a more pensive look. He nodded vaguely.

  “Look at the crowd,” I said, and Cape noticed that around us were thousands of people who were also looking at him. “I told him we were going to overwhelm everyone with our battles right? I think this is a good enough crowd to impress, so don’t hold back at all Cape. We’re going to give them their money’s worth.”

  Cape’s eyes widened in shock as he saw that I wasn't the same person as always. I was like him right now. I, the voice of reason, was asking him, the crazy bug, to go crazy.

  He slowly nodded and turned back forward before bending slightly his knees, ready for takeoff.

  “Trainers ready?” The arbiter asked, and we nodded. “Ready… Fight!”

  Cape would've typically waited for the battle to 'heat up' before using Aerial Ace. Not right now. The Heracross’ wings blurred as they came out and were plunged in blue flying energy for less than a second before the bug disappeared.

  Misdreavus moved to dodge the flying attack in a way that told me she’d fought Aerial Ace before. It would’ve worked with any other pokemon in the tournament. Cape was different thought. Aerial Ace for him was not a sideshow, something to be used to move or to get close. Aerial Ace was his first move, his main move. The one he trained for two years straight every time he could.

  Misdreavus was struck, she shot sideways and slammed into the barrier on the right side of the field. The pink wall glowed with psychic energy. The ghost righted herself, a giant bruise on the side of her head. She’d been punched.

  George shouted something, and the air around the pokemon blurred for at least two meters around as she looked for Cape. I knew what that was from Conference battles. Psychic pokemon concerned about physical damage maintained a telekinetic field around themselves at all times. The closer a pokemon came the stronger the field became. Normally used with Psybeam, but I could see that Misdreavus was using Confusion to maintain it. The question was if she was proficient enough with the move to use another while maintaining Confusion. Cape certainly was with Aerial Ace.

  “Let’s try our new move, Cape.”

  A buzzing sound was the most I get before a line of dark energy surrounded and muted by a cold blue hue cut towards the Misdreavus like a lighting strike. It was beautiful, as if a writer had used a fountain pain to slash a page with a black ink under the hue of a cloudy day.

  A Protect begun to be formed, but not in time. The green particles shattered all around the field. The psychic force, the second layer of protection, was also cut by the effective Throat Chop like mist. Misdreavus was stuck again, but this time she had a plan. The pokemon exploded into blue flames. And as fast as Cape was, even he needed a wind down before activating Aerial Ace again, the flames probably touched him. A second punch sent the ghost rushing down towards the ground.

  I couldn’t see Cape but I could picture him. Flames burning his skin, the bug probably shrugged and thought that since he already was burning, might as well get another hit in.

  We also had the habit of waiting for a pokemon to recover before attacking again. A habit that we gained after battling many times against Alice, who nagged that it wasn’t fair to chain attack her, and her Ariados, Spike. We’ve worked these last few months to break that habit. As I thought that, Cape appeared under the falling Misdreavus with a burst of blue energy. I knew we were having success.

  Cape, burning blue from the Will-O-Wisp, crouched down as low as he could. His arm glowed like a black-colored sun. George screamed at his pokemon and the Misdreavus, falling as she was, looked back at the approaching ground and at Cape. I saw colours flash about on her face. I saw Astonish, Mean Look and at least two more moves before she reached Cape. My pokemon winced in pain, but weathered the moves and struck up at the dropping ghost with an open palm. The move reached for the throat as always.

  Cape’s feet hit the ground and the space around him exploded under his prodigious strength. Fissures ran across the field as the dark blow slammed up at the Misdreavus’s red pearls and neck, and distorted them for a second before the small pokemon flew up again at the sky with a screech of pain. Cape disappeared again.

  George screamed again, now with genuine anxiety. Psybeam exploded all around the ghost and they were luck that Cape wasn’t good enough to use Throat Chop again to cut the psychic move. Still, Aerial Ace slammed Cape’s strong body against the move and the backlash threw the ghost towards George’s field. Crazy Bug Cape followed.

  Misdreavus glared, and seeing that Cape was visibly following her closely, she let out everything; Psybeam, Confuse Ray, Shadow Sneak, Swift, Will-O-Wisp and Shadow Ball.

  Cape flipped in the air and slammed a glowing leg at the psychic wave of force, the air shaking move broke easily. Turning his body back to flying position, he dodged the fast purple beam by twisting his head. Raised his horn and parried away the shadowy sharp lines with blue energy. Danced between the ten grey stars. Funnily enough, shrugged and dove through the flames. Finally, the Shadow Ball.

  He raised his arm, and the limb exploded with a vivid and sharply shaped dark type energy—with meant a sign of Cape completely learning the move. He swung his arm forward and the dark type move cut the ghost energy ball, sending the two halves exploding against the pink barriers.

  Cape was still approaching with his arm extended, Throat Chop still searching for the ghost’s neck. Misdreavus narrowed her eyes and glowed her whole body pink, but didn’t use the power on him, she used it on herself. A burst of Confusion and she sailed to right. Cape wings, with a burst of blue energy, followed.

  An incredible chase happened against the backdrop of the orange sky. The pink glowing Misdreavus hauled and tugged herself around using her psychic power, left, right, down, up with a force that would make any human whiplash. She moved everywhere across the entire field trying to shake off the annoying bug with the black spear for an arm. The Heracross’ blue body exploded with concentrated burst of blue energy, imitating the movements of its prey.

  At least that was what I, as the Heracross' trainer, understood of the hunt. To the people watching from the stands, all they could see was a pink glowing projectile moving unbelievably fast, like some supersonic train, through the air and across the entire field, and then suddenly charge towards another direction in random patterns for no other reason than to dodge a spiked black limb attached to a blue form that followed the pink projectile by explosion parts of its body with blue heat.

  That happened for half a minute before the Misdreavus calmed herself down and remembered that she was so good at Confusion that she still could use another move. She moved down and began to fly near the ground and that was when the Shadow Sneak began to shoot out. Dozens upon dozens of cutting tendrils left the pokemon shadow on the ground and rose behind her to slash the Heracross.

  Cape snorted and, after releasing Throat Chop, extended his other arm to scratch the soil as he passed. That was enough for him to spread rock type to the ground of the field and for rock to rise like giant serpents from the earth, coil around the flying type and smash away the sneaky tendrils. As the shadows thinned Cape left his control over the earth and small green spikes left his wings and blasted towards the Misdreavus.

  The small pokemon looked back with red eyes and let out a screech that sounded like a curse. She unleashed a Psybeam at the green projectiles and at Cape. Cape smashed through with his newly remade dark arm, but the spikes slowed down enough that a barrage of stars was enough to end them.

  Cape hummed and decided to slow down until he finally stopped on the ground.

  Misdreavus, surprised at his decision, also stopped, but didn’t stop the Confusion around her body in case she needed to dodge a surprise Aerial Ace. I, unlike the crowd, was not surprised at all, Cape could win by just exhausting the pokemon with the run. But he couldn’t get an easy win, could he? No, of course not, that would be too boring for the bug.

  I almost wanted to scream at him. Cape was already limited in the moves he could use, he couldn’t use fighting or normal moves, leaving only Aerial Ace, Pin Missile and Rock Tomb, so what did he have planned?

  Cape smirked at the twitching Misdreavus, raised an leg, and slammed it into the ground. Energy vast enough to raise an boulder the size of the Sprout Tower emerged from his leg, entered the earth, and visibly spread throughout the battlefield before slamming into the pink barriers, being held back only by the immensely more powerful Alakazam and Mismagius. His carapace opened and he disappeared in a blue storm. Misdreavus was already pulling herself up to the sky by the time the Heracross punched the center of the battlefield hard like a blue meteor with an orange glowing fist.

  I facepalmed as Cape entered deep under the ground without knowing Dig before the land understood what had happened to it. The ground inside the pink barriers oscillated like waves in a tempestuous beach, rippling from the point of contact where Cape punched the ground. Of course Cape would've made sure to learn that from Mesa. The tactic that the Baltoy used to defeat Lampent was replicated, but now on a larger scale. The scale of the entire battlefield. Deep lines bisected the entire field many times over until they hit the barriers and came back, the rebound breaking the entire floor in giant pieces of stone.

  Misdreavus was high in the air when the ground inside the battlefield exploded into giant blocks of rock and the new floor became three meters lower than the outside.

  Ascending from under the ghost were boulders that looked like Onix in shape and size.

  The scary part for me was that Cape still hadn’t used Rock Tomb. This entire cataclysmic event happened only because of the strength of his Brick Break, the velocity of his Aerial Ace, and the fact that there were two powerful pokemon reinforcing the barrier, which made the force revert back from the barriers.

  I would say that Cape was a genius, but I knew that he was just copying a Conference level Rhydon he once saw. He didn’t have a powerful Earthquake to make the first part happen, so he had to improvise with the barriers. So still a genius.

  I looked down and saw him sometimes when the flying rocks let me. He was deep inside the giant field-crater, smiling as he saw the rocks rising around him. The Heracross then turned his head to me, carapace still burning with purple flames, and raised an eyebrow. I felt my eye twitch as I understood that he was waiting for me to say it.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Cape!” I shouted as high as I could for the crowd to hear his name, and pointed in the direction of the pink glowing Misdreavus as she dodged the flying boulders. “AERIAL ACE!”

  “Misdreavus, Shadow Ball at full strength!” George shouted as soon as he figured out what I screamed.

  Cape crouched, and even under all those rocks, blue light exploded from him. So powerful was that energy pull that the far away rocks still on the bottom half of the battlefield were pushed away from the center of the field, slammed into the barriers and broke down.

  The Heracross put as much energy as he could into the move, to the point where his body couldn’t contain anymore of the energy and started to groan, and he pushed off the ground and beat his wings. The Aerial Ace was so packet with energy that the move couldn’t hide the pokemon. A blue star broke the sound barrier as it rose from the ground and advanced upon the Misdreavus. She widened her eyes and released the Shadow Ball. That ball of darkness, even compacted as it should be, was bigger than Cape. The orb of compressed revolving ghost type energy was descending upon the rising flying energy strike.

  There was another variable though. The rocks rising around the entire battlefield glowed with Cape's rock type energy.

  Mesa saw his tactic with the floating rocks as a way to trap and crush his opponents. Cape, however, was a warrior. He wanted to punch, kick, headbutt and things similar to that. As a pokemon who could use Aerial Ace together with other moves, he didn’t see this tactic as the primary move, but as a helper so that his opponents don’t stop him or escape. That’s why a third of the rocks around the ball rushed it. The move slowed down as more and more rocks smashed it, becoming similar to a giant rock glove to catch the ghost ball. After many hits, the Shadow Ball fully stopped and destabilized.

  The rocks surrounding it moved to George’s side of the field, and the ball went with them. Cape’s rising form, glowing blue, accelerated even more as he crossed the exploding ball on the side. He did that on purpose of course, he wanted me to see this image.

  A flying Cape rising to the sky. His entire body glowing blue with flying energy, racing between giant floating boulders while a unfurled Shadow Ball the size of an Yanmega exploded in the background.

  The fighting type was still a showman in the end.

  Misdreavus froze when her most powerful move was thrown away like nothing. But she wasn’t done. If only she could escape. Her psychic energy came back and her body lurched to the side, only for a giant boulder to cut her path. Eyes wide, she flew backwards, but another boulder interposed itself in front of her. Her red eyes searched another exit, but she saw none. The ghost was trapped in a giant hollow ball of rock with only one exit, the one rapidly being filled by the flying insect. The blue energy was growing and growing in her vision. She narrowed her eyes in fury and tried to launch a dozen waves of psychic force towards the pokemon and erected a Protect in vain hope. But that wouldn’t stop Cape. A dozen Psybeam were thrown, a dozen were broken with no loss of speed. The Protected also shattered like glass.

  The Heracross's blue punched Misdreavus, one second they were speeding up, the next they were dropping down. Cape had struck, and then curved so fast that they exchanged places before anyone could notice.

  Under the light of the fading sun of the afternoon, the two pokemon, one bug and the other ghost smashed into the earth under the ground. A massive wave of blue and pink energy exploded across the battlefield. The rocks still in the air stopped glowing and fell to the ground around the center of the battlefield. The sound of them falling was the only one for a quite a while. Dust came soon after, rising from everywhere and letting no one see inside its cloud.

  There was no mystery to be solved, but everyone still waited for the dust to settle with halted breath, and after two silent minutes, everyone could see the result.

  In a small pit inside the giant crater, Cape was lying down on a rock with his hands behind his head, smiling with his eyes closed. Beside him, deeper into the hole, in the middle of it in fact, were five red gems arranged as a collar. Some children shouted something about the ghost dying, before their parents quietly explained that when a Misdreavus fainted her physical body entered the gems that she held in her neck.

  The silence was broken when George returned his pokemon, and walked away from the field, leaving behind the silent employee that was supposed to escort him out. It was further broken by a single person who cheered with a big and long scream, and then the rest of the crowd woke up from the spell. The crowd went understandably hysterical.

  I looked around and could only try to smile, which probably looked very awkward, and wave at them, which only made them cheer more. My smile soon turned into a glare as I saw that the cheers had only made Cape’s smug smile widen.

  I will have to see if Akashi has time after tomorrow to let one of his dragons spar with him. For today and tomorrow though? It might as well be the team’s birthday.

  The tournament was finally over and after many congratulations from friends and strangers, as well as a very big dinner, courtesy of Akashi, we’re finally in our room, preparing to sleep. We had to wake up early tomorrow. There would be an award ceremony tomorrow just before breakfast, so that people could come see us before work or school in the central park of the town. Turns out they have medals to give and a podium for us to stand as they give it to us.

  My entire team was out. We'd just watched the finals and Valley and Jungle were talking to the other three pokemon about the match. Cape was still arrogant, Mountain was learning how to explain what he did, and Mesa was simply watching everyone and interjecting sometimes, mostly to correct Cape.

  I didn’t see how he could make up things about that battle against Misdreavus but he was somehow finding a way.

  Speaking of Cape, my bug would have to stay put for three days since he dried up all of his reserves, and it was better for him to recover them fully before fighting again for some reason that Nurse Joy quickly explained.

  I was about to head to the bathroom to take a shower when someone knocked on my door. I put my things, towel, shampoo, clothes, on the bed and went to open the door. It was Nurse Joy probably, she gave a warning to the lobby of the Pokemon Center about knocking on my door to talk about the finals or to get an autograph.

  I opened the door and standing just outside was Professor Oak, with a big Umbreon on the floor, near his left leg.

  “Hello Scott,” he said, as if it was just normal for us to speak, “I was hoping we could talk for a bit before I travel back to Alola.”