648 CH29 (643), Lord Satoshi (1)

The next morning there was a thrum of energy in the air during our morning training session that was coming from the strongest members of our family. It was easy to guess why they were excited and I was not surprised when they asked me to hurry over to the Battle Club as soon as our training session was over.

I did just that and since I had entered Utopia not far from the club it took me less than two minutes to register for my first challenge of the day. I had to win 8 more battles to attain a 25-victory streak, which would allow me to initiate my advancement challenge, and I was hoping that I would be able to reach that point as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that was not up to me for the most part, and relied more on how long it took the Battle Club staff to set up each of my fights.

Luckily enough, it took only 5 minutes before I heard the announcement over the speakers asking Knight Commander Satoshi and Bran to head to battle room/field no 4. I made my way over to the battlefield and arrived shortly before my opponent. Once we had taken our positions, the referee began his usual spiel before initiating the countdown. I already had Thor/Raichu's ball in my hand, and as soon as the count went down to zero, I released him.

As luck would have it, a Pelipper appeared on the other side, and I could not help but feel bad for these poor unfortunate souls. I mean Thor was more than halfway through his final round of limit-breaking and could go head-to-head with average dark gold stage Pokemon, so a major electric weakness was overkill. Still, Thor was not one to underestimate an opponent or drag out a fight he perceived as boring, so I was not surprised when he figuratively vanished from his initial position using Volt Step.

He appeared behind Pelipper before channeling the electric energy into his tail for an Ion Tail. Pelipper, who barely had the time to register that Thor had appeared behind it, had Ion Tail slammed into the back of its head. The might and momentum of Thor's Ion Tail slammed Pelipper into the ground. Bran called out to his Pelipper, trying to get it to recover from that blitz attack by Thor, but we had no plans to allow that. When Thor saw that Pelipper was not out for the count yet, he released a Discharge that ended up finishing the job.

The referee declared Thor the winner, and Bran recalled his Pelipper with a slightly disbelieving look. I could not blame him for that since his first Pokemon got knocked out within less than half a minute after its appearance. Major weakness or not that was ridiculously quick for Pokemon at the same stage, even if his Pelipper had only been at the (mid) gold stage. It was just bad luck for it to have faced Thor, who was capable of punching above his weight class much less below it.

Bran's next Pokemon ended up being a Rhydon, which put up a much better fight and forced Thor to use non-electric moves. Nonetheless, Thor was nowhere near out of alternatives, and he used a mix of Quick Attack, Iron Tail, Double Kick, and Brick Break to fight instead. Once Thor had softened up Rhydon, he finished it off with a Surf, which took Rhydon as well as Bran off guard since they did not expect a Raichu to use something like Surf, and even though Rhydon could learn the move as well, that was useless if one had to face a surprise wave at near point blank.

Still, Rhydon certainly did put up a much better fight than Pelipper did, and Thor was breathing just a bit heavier than before. However, I still had no plans to recall him, so he got to face Bran's third Pokemon as well. Due to Breloom's Effect Spore, we chose to mostly handle it from afar, which made their battle a mushroom kangaroo mouse game, with Thor dodging Breloom's attempts at getting close, along with the occasional Seed Bomb it threw out while peppering Breloom with Thunderbolt and Discharge.

A few minutes into their "game", sparks appeared on Breloom's body and it flinched. I shared that with Thor and he stopped dodging Breloom, swerved around, and began dashing at Breloom with a Volt Tackle. Breloom tried to deliver a counterpunch upon impact but failed and got hurled away instead. Thor finally showed some obvious signs of fatigue after that, but was nowhere near done. Breloom on the other hand was out for the count.

After recalling Breloom, Bran sent out his final Pokemon and even though he tried to hide it, it was apparent to me that he was frustrated with the way things were going. Hence his order to take down that rat no matter how. He proved that he meant that when his Gengar first went for Confuse Ray and then used Destiny Bond while Thor was dodging that. Gengar then began Shadow Sneaking up to Thor, who was trying to knock it out as quickly as possible since the destined drain from Destiny Bond alone was likely not enough to knock him out.

Gengar and Bran seemed to agree, since they tanked his Thunderbolt in exchange for closing in on Thor, only to go out in an Explosion. Thor managed to endure the Explosion, though he was obviously hurt by it. However, he still got knocked out when the effects of Destiny Bond kicked in. I knew that Thor would dislike the way the battle ended even though he ended up winning the whole thing by himself.

Anyway, after I was declared the victor, I thanked Bran for the battle before directly heading to the counter to register for another battle. This time it took a bit less than 4 minutes for my name to come up through the speakers. Once I made it to the battle room I saw that the lady I would be facing was already there, so the referee began talking as soon as I took my position.

I sent out Luna/Clefable and she honestly crushed her opponents. Luna used Gravity to considerably slow down her opponents, or even immobilize them in Swellow's case while bombarding them with long-range moves. Whenever someone still managed to get close enough either with an attack or on their own, she skipped away. She could have teleported, but that would have interrupted her Gravity, so we chose to forgo Teleport during Gravity unless absolutely necessary.

Either way, Luna managed to cleanly win the whole fight and I knew that she would be teasing Thor about that to mess with him. The two were best friends, and they enjoyed teasing each other. Honestly, I would not be surprised if they ended up together at some point, and I was not the only one. Pretty much everyone in our family thought the same. The pair itself seemed not to entertain those thoughts, at least for now.

Anyway, Optimus/Butterfree won the third battle, Ali/Gallade won the fourth, and Tatsumaki/Alakazam won the fifth battle on her own. Hades/Gengar started the sixth battle, but Saphira/Altaria had to sub in to finish it, and the same happened during the seventh and eighth battles as well. Tyson/Machamp had to help out Kun/Azuraid during the seventh battle, and Gwen/Gardevoir had to help Prime/Beedrill in the eighth battle.

The reason for this development was that the last few opponents of my 25-victory streak ended up being quite strong. They were able to field one or two dark gold stage Pokemon, which made it hard for a single Pokemon of mine to beat all four of the opponent's Pokemon. I was not surprised this happened since an increase in difficulty was only normal, and it provided a better fighting experience for my Pokemon.

The only drawback was that it took longer for them to match me with an opponent. By the time I had completed my 25-victory streak and earned the right to apply for the advancement challenge, it was already 3:40 p.m. I now had 3 chances to challenge a Lord or Lady and had to win one of them. Not that I thought that I needed three attempts to complete the challenge.

The battle would be 4-vs-4 as well, and since I wanted to challenge my Pokemon, I was going to let them fight until they lost each time I sent them out as well. I knew that my dark gold stage Pokemon would reveal my true identity since Horus/Xatu, Mothra/Butterfree, and the Slytherin Squad were pretty distinct. While it may not be impossible for someone to have one of them, I was the only known person who had all of them, so the outing of my Satosthi alias was pretty much a guaranteed thing since I was not planning to hide any of them.

Doing so would go against the reason I came to the Battle Club in the first place after all. I had long decided that I would send out Mothra/Butterfree for the advancement battle. Once I got called over the speakers, I made my way over to the battle room and listened to the referee as she did her thing. The moment the countdown reached zero, I released Mothra, who began to dance in the air. She started out with a Teeter Dance, which she had learned from the Spinda Quartet, and once the Shiftry began to sway a bit she switched to Quiver Dance.

Kamila ordered her Shiftry to use Taunt and it actually went through. Unfortunately for them, Mothra was already done boosting and moved on to Bug Buzz while Shiftry was taunting her. Shiftry cried out in pain and Kamila tried to order it to use Uproar to intercept the move, but it used Razor Leaf instead. Mothra incinerated them with Heat Wave while also attacking Shiftry. Kamila's shock at a Butterfree using Heat Wave was rather amusing, but not as amusing as seeing the shock on the referee's face.

Anyway, Shiftry tried to stop her with Extrasensory, and it kind of succeeded since she stopped using Heat Wave in favor of Bug Buzz. Her Bug Buzz easily overwhelmed Shiftry's Extrasensory and attacked Shiftry. She followed that up with a Signal Beam while it was writhing in pain, which ended up knocking Shiftry out. The whole fight ended rather quickly for a battle between dark gold-stage Pokemon, but I was not surprised considering the rather unfortunate matchup.

Kamila sent out a Houndoom next, no doubt wanting to take advantage of its fire-typing. Little did she know that Mothra had standardized her fire weakness long ago, so that was not going to work out like she wanted. Still, fire typing or not, calling out another dark type was not a good idea. It seemed that Kamila was either a dark-type specialist or she thought the advantage was worth the disadvantage. Unfortunately for her that was not true.

Her face when it began to rain after Mothra used Rain Dance was amusing and I actually heard her mutter "For real? What's wrong with this monster." to herself. Her incredulity turned to outright shock when Mothra easily tanked Houndoom's Flamethrower. She flew through the flames, closed in, and countered with a near-point-blank Hydro Pump, which earned us a fresh round of disbelief from everyone else. Mothra did not let them recover from their confusion and used their shocked inaction to send out a few Signal Beams straight at Houndoom's head.

Houndoom showed some impressive resilience and remained on its feet, though from the way it shook its head, it seemed that one of the Signal Beams had managed to cause some confusion. Kamila tried to order Houndoom to use Protect, but it used Howl instead. All it got in turn was a mouthful of Hydro Pump. While Houndoom was wheezing, Mothra followed up with a Bug Buzz, and this time around Houndoom actually went down.

Kamila recalled her Houndoom while the referee declared it unable to battle. She then stared at Mothra for a while and only took out her next PokeBall at the prompt of the referee.

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