บท 633: CH14 (628), Battles Galore (5)
The other semifinal battle ended with the victory of the Lucario trainer who stood out to me at the beginning of the tournament. Rahul won his match using only 2 Pokemon, and interestingly enough, those two were also the only Pokemon he used so far during the whole tournament. I did not know if it was because he did not have any other Pokemon that fulfilled the requirement of the tournament, but he had managed to reach the finals relying only on his (high) silver stage Lucario and Scizor, so good on him.
Nonetheless, I was naturally going to enter that battle with the assumption that Rahul did have a third Pokemon that he could field. Considering that both Lucario and Scizor were steel types, it was not impossible for the theoretical third Pokemon to be a steel type as well, which would make Rahul either a steel-type enthusiast or a specialist. I decided to try to see if I could find anything on him online.
I knew that I would likely have an easier time if I went to the alliance's internal database to look up his trainer profile. As a Junior Professor, there was a not inconsiderable probability that I would be able to find some "proper" information on Rahul, but I decided to give the regular PokeNet a chance since doing that would feel like a misuse of power/privilege. At least I would feel like that even though that was not the case.
The finals were scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m., so I still had around 1 hour until then, which was more than enough to allow me to waste some time. I began scouring the web for any information on Rahul Jindal, and after spending roughly 10 minutes looking through various entries and posts, I managed to find something. Following that lead, I ended up at the Sinnoh forum, more specifically the one on the Canalave Gym of Sinnoh.
As it turned out, Rahul Jindal was actually a Senior Gym Trainer from Sinnoh, specifically the Canalave Gym of Canalave City, one of the 12 Major Gyms of Sinnoh. This meant that my guess of him being a steel-type specialist was true since the Canalave Gym was steel-based. I had no idea why he was on a cruise heading to Hoenn. Maybe it was for a vacation or maybe he was on an assignment.
It could have also been due to an interest in Steven since the man was a steel-type specialist and had become somewhat of a celebrity after becoming the Hoenn Champion. Regardless of the reason, I now had the confirmation that Rahul was a steel-type specialist, and I knew where to look to dig up more information on Rahul's Pokemon. Some more digging revealed that Rahul's usual lineup contained 9 Pokemon.
It was a mix of gold and dark gold Pokemon, but I found no mention of any silver-stage Pokemon aside from Lucario, who only seemed to have recently made a public appearance. It seemed that Lucario and Scizor were being trained to join his team, and I suspected that Rahul either currently only had these two that could take part in the tournament, or he might have a third or even fourth Pokemon that was/were simply not strong enough in his eyes for its/their public debut.
Naturally, it was also possible that he simply had wanted to keep the third one as a surprise, but I kinda doubted that one. Either way, I was absolutely sure that we would win this battle. I was going to open the final battle with Igneel/Charizard, and depending on who he was going to face, I would decide if I was going to switch him out after he won or not. I, together with Chibi Mothra/Butterfree, spent the next 45 minutes rewatching all of Rahul's battles so far to get an idea of the moves and strategies Rahul and his Pokemon used during those battles.
From those videos, I learned that Scizor was pretty much a pure physical attacker, with only 2 long-range moves that he only used twice. While Lucario only showed two long-range moves as well, it used them rather feely which was not surprising since it was a much more balanced attacker. To sum it up, Rahul had pretty much concentrated on the strength of his Pokemon, and in Scizor's case nearly completely abandoned its weaker side.
When there were only 7 minutes left until my final battle, I made my way over to the battlefield. Upon my arrival, I was quickly asked to take my place on the field, where Rahul and the referee were already waiting. As soon as I stood in my "trainer's box", the referee began his usual speech before beginning the countdown. I as usual made sure to hide which ball I was holding since most of my PokeBalls were pretty distinct, which could be used to identify, or at least narrow down which Pokemon I was going to be using. Nonetheless, adjusted grip or not, that did not stop me from releasing Igneel at the same time as Rahul released his first Pokemon.
"Go, Fort," Rahul said as his Scizor appeared on his side, and seeing how its body gained a sheen, it was obvious that a clever order was mixed in his short opening line. I was guessing he used Iron Defense, so what he said was probably not "Go forth", but "Go Fort" as in defensive structure. I was going to remember that one. It was a clever line, and there was no reason for me to not use it in the future.
Anyway, while the other side did that, Igneel appeared on my side with the words "Let's dance, Igneel", which had my draconic Charizard perform a Dragon Dance as soon as he appeared. The frankly terrible match-up for Scizor did not stop the crowd from cheering once the two Pokemon made their appearance.
Rahul remained stoic when he saw Igneel, at least he tried to, but I thought I saw his right eye twitch for a moment. I definitely felt a spike of annoyance from him before it was suppressed, but none of that stopped him from swiftly giving his first command.
"DD," he shouted, and his Scizor first split up into 8 duplicates before each one began to dance/spin, but I honestly did not mind that and gave my own order as soon as they began to spin. "Dance Off, show them how it's done," I ordered and thanks to Igneel's mastery over Dragon Dance, both sides finished their dance at the same time.
"Quick," Rahul ordered, and all 8 Scizor blurred forward. The moment the first letter left his mouth, I gave my own order, "Up, then Sun D". Igneel immediately flew higher, causing all Scizor to flash past his previous position. While he was out of Scizor's reach, Igneel directly followed up with a Sunny Day, ensuring the full use of his talent.
Had Rahul's Scizor been one with Light Metal as its ability, it might have been able to perform a certain degree of aerial combo, but as things stood, it was simply unable to fly. "Air Slash," Rahul ordered, left with no choice until Igneel came back down.
"Dodge, then Burst," I countered, and Igneel rose higher, avoiding the 8 Air Slashes coming from all sides. Someone with a higher mastery over the element might have been able to feel the air movement and thus deduce the direction of the original Scizor, but Igneel couldn't do that, at least for now.
Instead, he aimed the Flame Burst at the center between the 8 Scizor, and it burst apart upon impact, hitting all Scizor with the resulting "secondary" flame. While the damage was minimal, it was enough to disperse the copies, revealing the real Scizor.
"Air Dance," Rahul followed up, ignoring the loss of the illusory clones, and his Scizor began to spin once more. It also released a bunch of Air Slashes while it was spinning, but those got sucked into the funnel it was causing, creating a dangerous tornado that began to suck in the air. Igneel simply flapped his wings harder to counteract the attraction.
"Fire Spin," I ordered concurrently, and Igneel released his own spinning fire just as Scizor stopped spinning, sending the tornado in Igneel's direction. The two moves collided, and I was honestly not surprised to see that Igneel's Fire Spin came out on top due to Sunny Day and Solar Boost+, though it did not get stronger as I expected it to but slightly weakened instead. After a moment of consideration, I attributed that to the normal energy in the tornado.
"Quick, out of there," Rahul ordered his Scizor. "Flamethrower," I followed up just as Scizor blurred away from the approaching Fire Spin. Igneel swiftly followed after it from above and doused Scizor in fire. Scizor tried to blur away again, but Igneel stuck to it from above, repeatedly sending gouts of fire at Scizor.
Rahul was probably gritting his teeth right now, but there was nothing he could do to turn this around. His Scizor just did not have the means to attack Igneel while he was up in the air. "AIR SLASH BARRAGE, keep it from spouting any more fire," Rahul yelled and Scizor did a twist mid-run and fired an Air Slash at Igneel. A second followed as Igneel dodged and a third and a fourth.
"Daylights," I ordered and Igneel dived towards Scizor. Igneel kept sliding/dropping past the Air Slashes. The speed of his drop was incredibly swift, and he was in front of Scizor, right fist ablaze, in a matter of seconds. Rahul barely had time to order Scizor to block with Slash before Igneel's flaming fist crashed into Scizor's head.
Scizor's raised pincers dropped as the Fire Punch landed, and that was not the only thing that dropped. Scizor crashed head-first into the ground, stirring up some dust just as Igneel touched down with a loud thud. His momentum caused his feet to buckle a bit and his landing caused some cracks, but Igneel ignored that and observed the downed Scizor with flames in his mouth, ready to unleash a Flamethrower in case it was not beaten yet.
However, it did not come to that since Scizor was out cold. The referee declared Igneel the winner, and my dragon released a roar of victory. Due to the fire Igneel had gathered in his throat the roar ended up becoming a fiery one, though the spectators seemed to applaud the fire cone he released since they cheered even louder when it happened.
I contemplated whether I should keep Igneel out or not as Rahul recalled his Scizor. Still, after a moment of deliberation, I decided to switch him out after all, for no reason other than to give Gaara/Gabite a chance to appear as well, so I quickly recalled Igneel before Rahul could call out his next Pokemon.
Seeing that, the referee immediately took charge and asked if we were ready. Upon our assurance, he began another countdown, and the two of us once more simultaneously released our Pokemon. "It's Up to you," Rahul said as he released his Lucario, who immediately started boosting, presumably using Work Up. We naturally did not lag behind, and I called out Gaara with the words "Dance in the Storm". Gaara directly set off a Sandstorm before moving on to Dragon Dance.
Thanks to Gaara having mastered Sandstorm, he only finished boosting slightly after Lucario, so when Rahul ordered an Aura Sphere, I had him shoot it down with Dragon Pulse. "Scorching Sand," I directly gave a follow-up order. "Dodge with MP," Rahul countered and Lucario sped away using Mach Punch.
"Wide Tomb," I ordered, deciding to make it harder for Lucario to run/speed around. Gaara focused his energy and released a slightly larger Sand Tomb at Lucario's current direction, before quickly following up with a few more smaller Sand Tombs around the first one. The smaller quicksand pits fused into the larger one, creating a super Sand Tomb, that covered nearly a third of the battlefield.
The whole area between Lucario and Gaara became a quicksand pit, forcing Lucario to brave it if it wanted to close in on my boy. It was either that or trying to attack from afar until the quicksand settled. That is if Gaara allowed that to happen.
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