668 CH48 (662), First Gym Challenge (3)

As soon as the referee gave the starting signal, Jade/Gyarados performed Surf to flood the battlefield and drown Excadrill in water. Her attack interrupted Excadrill's attempt to set off a Sandstorm since it switched to triggering an Earthquake instead before rushing away, which was kind of smart. The Earthquake split/cracked the ground, which caused the Surf-generated wave to lose its steam as it spread outward due to the water sinking much faster through the cracks in the ground.

Thanks to that, and its speed Exacdrill essentially managed to outrun the wave, and by the time the water arrived at its side, it was barely knee high, which it blocked by raising a miniature rock barrier in front of itself. Excadrill also triggered the Sandstorm while it was behind that rock cover. Nonetheless, Excadrill was not the only one that could benefit from a weather condition, and while it was busy with Surf as well as Sandstorm, Jade used Sunny Day, which as usual did not conflict with Sandstorm.

As soon as Sunny Day went up, Jade's Chlorophyll activated, doubling her speed. That was good since it was likely that Excadrill had Sand Rush which doubled its speed as well, though if we were lucky enough for it to have one of the other two abilities of its species, I'd be even happier. Sunny Day also activated Jade's Photosynthesis talent which doubled her vitality and gave her a slight recovery boost. This took care of most of the damage that Sandstorm could cause Jade, and she could easily take care of the little bit that did stick using Synthesis or one of her other recovery moves.

She actually made preparations to that end by spreading out Leech Seed as soon as she was done with Sunny Day. The soaked as well as split earth actually helped her Leech Seed by making it easier for it to enter the ground while also making it harder to spot. Jade followed that up by throwing Seed Bombs at Excadrill, but it intercepted those with Rock Slide, causing an explosion in the area between them, which sent rock chips flying everywhere.

While that was happening Excadrill rushed towards Jade, and going by its speed I was certain that it had Sand Rush. Still, Jade had no problem keeping up with its speed, and she shot a Hydro Pump at it, which Excadrill dodged by diving underground. It seemed Excadrill wanted to only do a quick dip, likely to avoid the chance of being hit by an Earthquake from Jade. Unfortunately for it, it managed to dive head first into one of the Leech Seed that Jade spread.

As it leaped out of the ground, the seed grew and its roots enveloped Excadrill starting from its head area. This not only immobilized it temporarily but also hurt it since the Leech Seed began to leech its health. While Excadrill began doing its best to get rid of the roots that had wrapped around its body, Jade rushed at it and used its helpless state to wound her body around Excadrill.

Once she had Excadrill constricted, she bathed Excadrill in fire using Flamethrower for some time before switching to Horn Leech to not only recover herself but to also cause further damage to Excadrill in the process. That the Leech Seed roots got burned by her own Flamethrower was acceptable since she already had him tightly wrapped up. Additionally, the damage caused by Flamethrower was higher than the one she could have caused with Hydro Pump due to Sunny Day.

Once she was back to full health, she once more switched back to Flamethrower, but before she could do another move switch my opponent raised her hand and declared that she was forfeiting Excdarill. I had to admit that I had expected them to attempt something like Guillotine before being taken down, but it seemed that she did not think that Excadrill would be able to get enough wiggle room to do anything but take a beating.

Regardless, the referee declared Jade the winner, and she let go of Excadrill once that happened. I was then declared the winner of the battle, and another 5-minute intermission was announced to once again clean up the battlefield before the next fight. Once the battlefield repairs were done and my third opponent had taken his place the referee began to do his thing.

He announced that the battle would be 4 vs 4 with no substitutions before going over the usual do's and don'ts. He then finally asked us if we were ready before starting the countdown. As soon as the signal was given, I released Gaia/Nidoqueen onto the field, and a Mawile appeared on the other side.

Putting my opinion on Mawile aside, this was not an ideal matchup type-wise since its fairy moves did reduced damage and its steel moves only did regular damage to Gaia. The fact that Mawile was immune to Gaia's poison moves was its only saving grace, but I was certain that Gaia would be able to easily take down Mawile even without using her poison moves.

Anyway, Mawile started things off with Taunt. That thankfully only took effect after Gaia finished her opening move which also happened to be Taunt. It was funny that both Pokemon ended up limiting each other to offensive moves at the start of the battle, but we were fine with that since this situation was decidedly in our favor.

I had Gaia set off an Earthquake, which caused Mawile to stumble a bit. Gaia followed that up with Earth Power, and the eruption of earth beneath Mawile sent it flying. Its big mouth appendage flapped panically when that happened, but Mawile managed to calm down quickly enough and the back mouth released a Flamethrower that actually propelled it away from the trap Gaia had set for it.

Gaia having predicted where Mawile was going to crash set up a Sand Tomb there, but Mawile's Flamethrower maneuver saved it from plunging into the Sand Tomb. Still, a backhead Flamethrower-supported flight was anything but stable, so Mawile did crash land a few meters to the Sand Tomb's right. Gaia used the time the whole debacle took to close in on Mawile and while Mawile tried to stand up after its crash landing, Gaia came close enough to give the barely standing Mawile a Stomping Tantrum.

She might have given it a Fire Punch if Mawile had not been so short, but as it was, Stomping Tantrum was the quicker/easier option. The stomps forced Mawile right back into the ground, and Gaia directly followed up with a Flamethrower. Mawile's second head/maw tried to block the Flamethrower with its own, but it failed to stop Gaia's flames from roasting it.

When it failed to block the fire, Mawile tried to roll away, but Gaia simply adjusted the angle of her head a bit, so the Flamethrower followed after Mawile. Mawile seemed to realize that it couldn't dodge like that since it stopped, but its next move showed that it was not giving up. It endured the fire and aimed its large maw at Gaia before releasing a bigger-than-usual Hyper Beam that cut through Gaia's Flamethrower. The Hyper Beam landed squarely on her chest and sent her flying.

Unfortunately for Mawile, it was unable to follow up with anything to capitalize on Gaia's state since it was unable to move due to the after-effect of Hyper Beam. Gaia on the other hand was pissed after recovering from her short involuntary flight, and she used Earth Power as soon as he recovered to send the unmoving Mawile into the air. Gaia rushed up to it while Mawile was thrown upwards. Things that went up usually had to come back down, as long as they could not fly or levitate, and sadly for Mawile Gaia made it to Mawile's side as it came within 2 meters of the ground.

Gaia delivered a Fire Punch straight at Mawile's Face as soon as it reached/fell to the ideal punching height. The force of the hook hurled Mawile towards the wall on the left and Mawile crashed into it with enough force to get embedded into it, though it did fall out after a few moments thanks to gravity. Surprisingly enough that still did not prove to be enough and Mawile was struggling to lift itself off the ground.

Gaia gave me a look subtle look at that and I had her send a Mud Shot at Mawile, which sent it sprawling once more. The little thing proved itself to be quite tenacious. Mawile struggled and rolled to its side, showing a staunch will and I honestly considered if taking another shot at it would be dangerous to its health since I was pretty certain that it was past its limits by now. Thankfully the decision was taken off my hands with the Gym Trainer raising his arm and declaring that he was forfeiting Mawile.

The referee declared Gaia the winner and we all watched as the Mawile got recalled. Gaia gave Mawile an impressed/respectful nod before it vanished, and like before I waited to see what kind of Pokemon would be called out next. Once the Steelix appeared I raised my arm and forfeited Gaia. The reaction from the audience and the Gym Trainer was minimal, but Steelix released a disgruntled huff. The referee acknowledged my intent and I recalled Gaia after praising her on her victory.

I called out Seb/Nidoking and he gave Steelix, who growled at him, an impassive look. Once the referee gave the starting signal Steelix released a Screech at Seb, who blocked it using Supersonic. Steelix then set off a Sandstorm while Seb used Flamethrower, covering Steelix's head and upper body in flames. Steelix tanked the move and successfully started the Sandstorm.

It then used Autotomize before dodging the Ice Beam Seb tried to hit it with. It followed up with a second Autotomize to shed some weight and speed up some more while it tried to dodge Seb's attacks with varying degrees of success. While it had admittedly gotten much faster, that did not change the fact that Steelix were rather slow as a species, on top of being quite big, so outspeeding Seb on land was a tall task.

However, the other party was aware of that as well. After Steelix used a third Autotomize, which once again boosted its speed and reduced its weight, it actually used Magnet Rise while enduring another one of Seb's Flamethrowers. Steelix's heavily reduced weight along with its boosted speed allowed it to move around the air much faster than it could on land, making it easier for it to dodge Seb's attacks.

Not to mention that its flight invalidated most of Seb's physical moves, though Seb had more than enough long-range/energy moves that this did not affect him all that much. Still, I was thankful for Steelix's big size since it would have been much much harder for Seb to hit it with any of his long-range moves if that had not been the case.

What followed was pretty much a shoot-out with Steelix raining Dragonbreath, Flash Cannon, and Rock Slides down on Seb, while Seb released Flamethrowers, Ice Beams, and Water Pulses into the air. He naturally did his best to either dodge or block Steelix's attacks even while he was returning fire, though it was inevitable that he got hit on occasion.

Still, he was landing more hits than he was being hit so that was fine, especially since the alternating hits of Flamethrower and Ice Beam were starting to hurt Steelix more and more, even if it was the same alternation that prevented Steelix from freezing down or getting burned.

Nonetheless, it was that rapid temperature change that eventually allowed Seb to take Steelix down since it finally failed to endure Seb's latest Ice Beam and fell from the "sky", landing on the ground with a thud, displacing some dust into the air. The dust dispersed pretty quickly, showing Steelix's prone body. Moments later, the referee declared Steelix unable to battle, which made Seb the winner of the fight.

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