Chapter 740: CH120 (734), Brightwick Gym (5)
Just as Luna/Clefable was finally about to take down Rapidash, who was visibly struggling to remain conscious/on its feet, it vanished back inside its PokeBall after using Baton Pass at the last second. Its second use of the move not only passed on its boosts to the Blaziken that appeared in its stead but also ensured that it remained in the game for now even if it was only symbolically if we considered its current state.
The move was pretty good in situations like this, but saw practically no use in the wild; In fact, I would call it a trainer-exclusive move for one simple reason, the bond requirement. The move required a bond between the user and the target to pass along the enhancements, which unfortunately shut out 99.9% of the wild Pokemon from using it since the most that wild Pokemon had was a bond between direct family members, and even that was not always the case.
Not to mention that wild Pokemon had no convenient retreat site when they used Baton Pass because they obviously had no PokeBall to retreat to. Unlike them, trainer Pokemon could use even the artificial bond created by a PokeBall upon capture to use Baton Pass with the trainer serving as an intermediary between his Pokemon, which allowed the user to pass his/her/its enhancements to any other Pokemon the trainer had captured.
This difference was why I called Baton Pass a move that was pretty much Trainer Pokemon exclusive even though wild Pokemon could theoretically use it as well. It was a move that truly showcased the usefulness of the relationship between a trainer and his or her Pokemon. Anyway, Blaziken was Dennis' fourth and hence final Pokemon; It was at the (low) dark gold stage, making it the only Pokemon of that level I had come to face during this Gym Challenge even though I had expected to face a total of 4 of them, but it was just bad luck on my part I guess that the league decided to intervene just before I got to face the Brightwick Gym.
Well, at least the battlestyle they used made sure that the challenge was still somewhat challenging enough to be useful to my Pokemon even if it did not look like that with Luna dealing with pretty much 3 of Dennis' Pokemon on her own so far. That was simply because she was that strong, and the battles had done what I had hoped for and brought Luna to her limit, which was why she fell just a minute into the battle against Blaziken.
Granted it was a Blaziken that had been gifted a few speed boosts by Rapidash, not to mention that it apparently had Speed Boost as its ability, allowing it to speed up even further during their battle without having to waste any time to use moves to boost itself. That speed along with the exhaustion Luna experienced after dealing with her previous three opponents allowed Blaziken to take Luna down without suffering nearly any damage.
Nonetheless, she had put on a great performance which earned her cheers from the crowd even as I recalled her; After praising her on said performance, obviously. Once I had recalled Luna, I took a moment to consider whom to send out next, but after taking Blaziken's many-times boosted speed into account, I decided to go with Thor/Raichu since his abilities and talent made him the better option compared to Anubis/Lucario.
Since Thor was a "regular" Raichu, which was not an uncommon sight for the Hoenn audience, his appearance was greeted rather normally, though the audience still cheered for him, riding the wave of enthusiasm triggered by Luna's performance. Still, they got to see that Thor was not as "normal" as he appeared once the referee gave the starting signal. Thor immediately used Electric Terrain, triggering his Current Rider talent, doubling his already impressive speed, which allowed him to nearly match the speed of Blaziken, who had already pretty much reached the peak of its speed due to Baton Pass and Speed Boost.
That changed when Thor used Agility after dodging Blaziken's attempt to hit him with a Quick Fire Punch using Teleport. Agility caused Thor's speed to surpass Blaziken's speed, allowing him a greater ease when dodging Blaziken's attacks and delivering his own without having to rely on a real-life cheat like Teleport. Seeing the development, Dennis and Blaziken adjusted their strategy, switching from the straightforward approach they had been using while relying on Blaziken's speed to the more guerilla/long-range one they had been using so proficiently before/with the previous Pokemon.
Blaziken began to prove in short order that it was a master of the dirty fighting style as well. It used Sand Attack to throw sand into Thor's eyes, used Earthquake not as an attack but to trip Thor up, tried to burn Thor using Will-O-Wisp, and used Feather Dance as a smokescreen skill to mask uses of other moves and in combination with Will-O-Wisp and Fire Spin or even Flamethrower. Blaziken also used Bulk Up whenever it could raising its strength and endurance. Whenever Blaziken and Thor closed in on one another it tried to sneak in a Poison Jab through Detect, though unfortunately for them Thor was able to deal with/match most if not all of their tricks.
Thor first used Rain Dance to deal with the Sunny Day that was still going on in the background, before using Double Team to cause some confusion on the other side. Whenever Blaziken tried to trip him up using Earthquake, Thor either jumped or used Psychic to lift off the ground for a moment. Swift and Surf were used to deal with its attempts of using Feather Dance, Will-O-Wisp, and Fire Spin. I had to laugh at the audience's reaction when Thor used Surf for the first time, though as one would expect from a master of dirty fighting, Dennis/Blaziken showed no surprise when a water wave suddenly appeared and swept away the flaming feathers heading for Thor.
Blaziken just Bounced into the air, letting the water pass below it before using Blaze Kick to dodge out of the way of the Thunderbolt Thor followed up with in hopes of sniping Blaziken while it was in mid-air. Honestly, at this point, I only raised an eyebrow at that since it seemed that here on Terra everyone and their mother seemed to have a way to move through the air even without having the flying type, so Blaziken doing the same caused no waves in my mind. The crowd thought otherwise and cheered loudly for Blaziken, and I heard more than one person chanting/shouting "Blaze Walk".
Its Poison Jab attempts were dodged using Teleport or stopped using Psychic. Obviously, it was not possible to dodge or block everything Blaziken dished out, but overall Thor dealt out much more damage than he took, and after battling for nearly 15 minutes Thor finally managed to take Blaziken down. It was only thanks to its speed and heightened endurance along with its sneaky fighting style that it took Thor this long to beat Blaziken, but I was actually happy with the way things went since Blaziken managed to force Thor to expend a lot of effort and energy to deal with everything Blaziken had to offer.
In fact, while Thor did not get hurt too much during the battle, he did expend a considerable amount of his stamina and energy, though he would still have been able to continue fighting if his victory had not pretty much meant my successful completion of the Gym Challenge/Battle. The referee declared me the victor under the cheers of the crowd, and Dennis proceeded to do a slow clap after recalling his beaten Blaziken. He raised his hand and declared that he was forfeiting his Rapidash which made my overall victory official, before he walked up to me and extended his hand for a handshake.
He congratulated me on my victory as we shook hands, before taking the Badge from the assistant that had come to our side and handing me the Badge telling me that I had more than earned it. I observed the Badge, noting its flame design and its purple coloring. As a Standard Gym, the Brightwick Gym had the right to choose their own Badge design so it was no surprise that they went for a custom one, and I had to say going for a flame design as a fire Gym was pretty standard. Well, the Badges coloring stood out since it was not red or orange, but purple instead, and I was pretty sure that it was a nod to the fact that they liked to use the move Will-O-Wisp so much since the flame generated by that move was purple.
Aside from its shape and color, one side of the Badge had an "A" in the center, with the word Bright at the bottom part of the flame. The other side had 3 stars in the center and the words Wick at the bottom of the flame. Overall, the Badge looked pretty good, and I added it to my growing collection. This was number 1 out of 14 A-rank Badges I was planning on earning during this season, though I kept that bit to myself and just thanked Dennis for the battle/Badge.
Still, after putting the Badge away, I could not help but ask Dennis what he would have used against me if the league had not interfered like they had; I was curious, alright. Dennis first laughed before apologizing and explaining that he was just happy that I had asked that. He admitted that he knew about me, or rather my Gym Challenges so far, and he told me that he would have likely increased the difficulty even further compared to the usual.
According to Dennis previous challengers going for the 3-star A-rank Badge as their 5th Badge would have faced Blaziken as his third Pokemon and a (mid) dark gold stage Pokemon as their fourth opponent, either his Salazzle or his Houndoom, so either Ninetales or Arcanine at the start, followed by Chandelure; Then one would face the Speed Boost Blaziken, and finally either a Salazzle or Houndoom. That sounded more than just a bit more challenging alright, and I had to admit that I could see why the league decided to intervene.
From what I had read online, that sounded more like what other standard Gyms or even some Major Gyms used for their 3-star 8th-Badge challenges, so it was honestly no surprise they decided to act after receiving a lot of complaints. That they actually listened to the trainers and followed up on their complaint by properly investigating one of their own Gym Leaders/Gyms was a major plus for the League/Alliance in my opinion since it showed that the League/Alliance did not disregard the voice of the common trainer despite the power they had/held. Professor Oak had done a really good job when he formed the alliance and everyone else had done a good job in preventing it from becoming corrupt, at least from what I could see.
Admittedly, the fact that Professor Oak was still alive and most likely keeping an eye on things probably played a role in that. Not to mention that the good professor had become even stronger/more influential since he stepped back instead of becoming obsolete. Frankly, everyone was very lucky that Professor Oak was such a good guy instead of being a bad guy or even just a normie since the current scene/situation would probably have been a very different one if that had been the case.
Anyway, since he said that my challenge would have been even harder than that, I could not help but wonder what Dennis would have used against me, and I could not help but stare at him when he revealed that he would have skipped the Chandelure and instead used a Pokemon that he had kept hidden until now for its official debut. The fact that he would have "broken" a secret like that for me was a bit flattering, and I could not help but ask if he could tell me what the mystery Pokemon was; Dennis lowered his voice before telling me what the Pokemon was.
I was pretty shocked when Dennis told me that he had a freaking ghost-variant Typhlosion that he had trained in secret, who recently reached the (high) dark gold stage. After staring at the proud-looking Dennis for a few moments, I had to ask if he could tell me where/how he got his hands on a ghost variant (Hisuian)Typhlosion.
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