660 CH41 (655), Unlimited Power

The answer to that question ended up being not all that long since just two minutes into their exchange, Ludicolo ended up being a bit too slow in his dance dodge maneuver, which resulted in it being grazed at the knee. Aside from hurting Ludicolo, that glancing shot also slowed down any of its following dodging/dancing attempts, which less than half a minute later resulted in Fortuna/Togekiss finally properly hitting Ludicolo with an Air Slash.

The next bit was a repeat of Shiftry's experience, and Ludicolo ended up succumbing to the Air Slash barrage as well, though it did hold out for 7 Air Slashes in total, which was one Air Slash more than Shiftry. Either way, it ended up being unable to battle and I was declared the winner. After thanking my beaten opponent for the good match and praising Fortuna for her battle performance, I once more returned to the lobby and began to wait for my next battle.

The announcement actually came a bit earlier than expected, and about 8 minutes into my wait, I was asked to go to hall 5 for my battle against Knight Vito. This time around, I decided to start with Ferrus/Eevee. He along with Hestia/Eevee were the only ones among the silver stage Pokemon in my team that had yet to reach the (high) silver stage. This was also why they had not evolved yet, and their being at the (mid) silver stage meant that they could be fighting at a slight stage disadvantage.

That was exactly what ended up happening in this battle. Vito released a (high) silver stage Vigoroth, which put Ferrus at a disadvantage in more ways than one. Vigoroth were frontal fighters that relied on close combat. Unfortunately for Ferrus, Vigoroth also happened to be a rather quick Pokemon. In fact, Vigiroth were quite a bit faster than Eevee in general, though they were not as nimble.

Still, Vigoroth's natural advantage along with its higher stage meant that Ferrus would need to rely on Quick Attack and better combat awareness as well as reaction time/decision-making to keep Vigoroth at a distance so that he could bombard it from afar to take advantage of its relative weakness in its elemental/long range offense and defense. This was the only way I saw Ferrus coming out of this as a winner in any way that was not a pyrrhic victory or a victory at all.

Since Ferrus was at a disadvantage, I actually took charge and kept mental contact with Ferrus to give him necessary orders whenever I saw something he didn't. The battle that happened was quite tense with Ferrus barely able to stay out of Vigoroth's range relying on his mastery over Quick Attack. Dig occasionally served as an emergency exit gambit, but he used it purely to dodge since closing in was too risky.

There were a few close cases during moments where Ferrus was unable to chain another Quick Attack onto the previous one without taking a few moments of respite, but Star Shield came through during those dangerous moments, which allowed him to stay unhurt, and go under with Dig. Well, except for a single instance where Ferrus got grazed by a Slash, that managed to pass through his Star Shield before he could Dig down.

Nonetheless, thanks to this evasive strategy Ferrous managed to eventually complete 5 Work Ups, which was more than enough for him to perform what could probably and hopefully turn into a one-hit knockout. Well, not really a one-hit knockout since he had been using Hyper Voice whenever the opportunity presented itself, meaning that the opening, or breathing room was not enough to boost himself with Work Up.

Anyway, the number of boosts alone was enough to turn Stored Power into an ultimate move, but one could not forget that Work Up also boosted Ferrus' energy potency five times. This translated to Vigoroth getting knocked unconscious and hurled across the battlefield after getting hit by Stored Power once Ferrus allowed Vigoroth to close in before stopping to release the move at close range.

With Vigoroth out cold, Ferrus was declared the winner, and he yipped in happiness, though he was also breathing somewhat heavily since running around like that cost him quite a bit of stamina, not to mention the energy he expended during the battle. Nonetheless, there was no way we were not going to make use of his boosted state, so I told Ferrus to use the time before the referee declared the start of the second battle to regulate his breathing.

That only ended up being about 20 seconds since Vito swiftly recalled his Vigoroth before sending out his second Pokemon, which happened to be a Kecleon. I had to admit that I was a bit surprised to face one since they were rather rare due to their tendency to go invisible and hide. That was also what happened as soon as the referee gave the starting signal, Kecleon turned invisible and we lost sight of it.

Thankfully, Ferrus had a somewhat easy fix for this. He first sent out a volley of Swift, and while the homing stars flew towards the hidden Kecleon, he performed a Star Shield just in case to avoid getting ambushed whenever Kecleon reestablished its invisibility/camouflage. While Ferris did that, Kecleon briefly became visible and destroyed the approaching stars using Psybeam before vanishing once more.

Knowing that this time a prolonged battle was disadvantageous to us, I decided against using another Swift to reveal Kecleon, and instead told Ferris to use two more Work Ups to reach the current maximum he could hold. We would be aiming for a counterattack that would hopefully take Kecleon out in one hit, though I seriously doubted that Ferrus would be able to finish his third battle after that due to a lack of energy.

Anyway, Ferrus followed my instructions and remained unmoving while performing Work Up. Kecleon tested the waters by sending a Psybeam at Ferrus' back, revealing his position in the process before vanishing once more. Its attack naturally got blocked by Star Shield, and Ferrus simply replenished the broken starts with new ones. Still, Kecleon continued its probing attacks, and it was obvious that it was trying to determine the details of our defense. Part of that was likely how much it took or rather would take to completely destroy the star shield in one go.

The important bit for us was that Kecleon came closer during each successive attack, which meant that it was planning to execute its main attack from close range, which was exactly what we wanted since it would reduce Kecleon's chances of dodging Ferrus' ultimate counter. Also, since Kecleon took its time with its probing attacks, Ferrous reached the maximum charge of Work Up and moved on to Calm Mind. By the time the decisive attack finally came, he had completed an additional 3 Calm Minds raising the power of the Stored Power he would perform to more than double that of a Hyper Beam.

Anyway, Kecleon reappeared behind Ferrus and released Synchronoise, which not only clashed with the Star Shield but also reached Ferrus, though with diminished strength. Still, Ferrus endured the pain and released Stored Power in retaliation. His counter-attack was blinding, and for a moment Kecleon vanished under the pink light that hit it. Still, that only lasted a few moments before Kecleon was hurled away. It rolled around a bit before it came to a stop and lay on the ground.

Kecleon was out cold and the referee declared it unable to battle. While Vito did his part, I focused on Ferrus and my boy was breathing quite laboriously. It was obvious that he was extremely exhausted and I was honestly not surprised. The fact that he managed to take down two more "advanced" Pokemon was already good enough and I considered recalling him since there was no way he would be able to put up another fight.

Yet, Ferrus insisted on staying out, he wanted to leave the field due to a defeat, fully aware that he could not win the next fight. Heck, I doubted he would be able to do much damage given how exhausted he was, but I went along with his wish. Vito's third Pokemon ended up being an Exploud, and as soon as the signal was given it used Hyper Voice. Ferrus tried to counter it with his own Hyper Voice, but Exploud's voice overpowered his and he got hit by the slightly weakened attack.

Exploud directly followed that up with a Hyper Beam that hit Ferrus head-on and flung him away, causing him to roll along the ground. Using Hyper Beam now was smart of them since they wanted to make use of the time of the Pokemon swap to let Exploud recover from the consequences of Hyper Beam. Considering how quickly that happened, it was clear that he had not used a fully powered Hyper Beam, which also made sense since Ferrus' exhaustion had been clear as day, and using a serious Hyper Beam would have been a waste.

Regardless, I swiftly recalled Ferrus and sent out Jean/Espeon to make up for her missed chance during her previous/last battle. Jean was quite happy with my decision, and I had her directly use Copycat to copy Hyper Beam before Exploud could perform another move. Exploud used Hyper Voice mere moments after Jean successfully copied Hyper Beam, and she swiftly Teleported away to one of the corners of the battlefield.

She used the distance between them to use Calm Mind, while Vito had his Exploud close in a bit before starting another Hyper Voice, forcing Jean to abort her second Calm Mind in favor of once more teleporting away. This happened a few more times with Jean boosting her energy-related offense and defense before evading Exploud's attempts to attack/stop her.

Our tactic seemed to have annoyed Exploud beyond his tolerance level since he actually fired a Hyper Beam during his latest attack. Jean obviously Teleported away, but this time she appeared behind Exploud and released Stored Power. Exploud, unable to move as it was, got hit by the move and was sent flying like a rag doll. Nonetheless, it managed to endure Jean's attack and tried to get back up.

Unfortunately for Exploud, Jean did not plan to allow that to happen. When Exploud managed to push itself into its hands as well as knees and looked ahead, it came face to face with the pink Hyper Beam Jean had released. The psionated Hyper Beam was more than enough to knock out Exploud, and I honestly thought it was a bit overkill, though I did not plan to chastise Jean in any shape or form because of it.

Anyway, with that, I was declared the winner of the battle, and I made my way back to the lobby after thanking Vito for the good fight. Currently, more than half of my Pokemon had fought at least twice, and only Hestia/Eevee, Igneel/Charizard, Freyja/Lopunny, as well as Hypno, had yet to make an appearance. Admittedly, Gaara/Gabite and Fortuna/Togekiss had been sub-ins, but since both had already won two battles, I was planning to push their turns to the very end.

It was Igneel who got to start the next battle, and frankly, I was expecting him to finish the whole battle on his own. His first opponent ended up being a Ninjask, and while it was certainly fast and kept getting faster throughout the fight, that did not stop Igneel from frying it even if it took longer than expected.

The second Pokemon Igneel had to face happened to be a Pelipper and since I did not want to deal with that whole Stockpile, Swallow, and Spit Up-set, I told Igneel to get in close and take it out as quickly as possible without giving it any time to set up a proper Stockpile. He had to endure two Hydro Pumps, but Pelipper got knocked out of the sky by a bunch of Thunder Punches, and Igneel even bathed it in Dragon Rage as it fell just to be sure that it was down.

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