Sunny’s loss put a dampener on the evening even though Sunny herself was the first to try to lighten the mood. But I saw her smile dipping throughout dinner when she thought no one was looking. It was a tough loss for her. Darren assured her that forfeiting was the right call, and despite the instinctive repulsion giving up before fighting to the last brought up in me, I had to admit that in this case, he was right. It was impossible to convince Sunny. She said that a true Pokémon trainer would have fought against all odds, to which Darren replied that that was silly. Joey, possibly, was the most candid about it.

  “You were going to lose anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you forfeited or not,” he said in his typical aloof tone.

  We spent the rest of the day walking around the beach, watching battles and visiting stalls until it was time to go to the restaurant Godfrey had booked. It was Kantonian and I wasn’t entirely sure I liked the food. It wasn’t a flavour I was used to. My brother made a toast congratulating our victories, and reminding us that it was the beginning, not just of the tournament, but of a long journey with many more battles to come. After dinner, we turned in for an early night to be well rested the next day.

  My second opponent happened to be Brunette. I might have been able to remember her name if she hadn’t leered at Sunny before our match started. Somehow, she’d heard of Sunny’s loss and wasted no time in bringing it up. Unfortunately, Luca wasn’t around to stop her. Fortunately, our battle was due to start before she could make too much of a nuisance of herself.

  Darren’s wasn’t on until later in the day, so this time I had a whole audience watching me. Except for Joey. He had disappeared first thing in the morning, whether because he had his own battle, or because he didn’t feel like being around us, he hadn’t deigned to say. In any case, the pressure of having familiar eyes on me made me fumble Mareep’s pokeball as I brought it to my lips. Brunette laughed and declared that today, she was going to take revenge against me.

  “Go Vivi!” she said. She threw her own pokeball onto the pitch and her Eevee burst out of it. Mareep joined a half second later.

  My starter was ready for action. She was building up Charge, simultaneously using Agility. Our foe wasn’t idle either. Vivi sprung forwards fast enough that it had to be a Quick Attack. She never landed the hit though, simply using it to reposition herself close to Mareep and lob a pawful of wet, sticky sand at her. The beach had affected the appearance of the move, but I recognised it as Mud-Slap. Mareep avoided a direct hit to her face, but couldn’t fully dodge.

  “Slow her down, Cotton Spore,” I said.

  Bits of wool fired off all over the battlefield. Vivi used Quick Attack to dodge the largest wads, but Mareep had been practicing. She never let up and the fluff mixing in with the sand made the field a truly diabolical to move in.

  “Ignore it and keep using Mud-Slap,” said Brunette. Vivi followed her instruction. Even prepared for it, the combo of Quick Attack and Mud-slap was too difficult to dodge. Mareep was hit several times in quick succession.

  “Switch to Thunder Wave,” I called out. Thin streams of electricity honed in on Vivi. She dodged the first few. When it looked like one was finally about to hit, she blocked it with a Mud-Slap. Worse, the bits of fluff that were accumulating on her fur were mostly shaken off by her quick movements. I grit my teeth.

  “Back to Cotton Spore. It was working,” I told her. I was being a little optimistic. With Quick Attack, it was hard to tell if Vivi was slowing down at all. I was sure she was. More than that, she was tiring, and despite Mud-Slap being super effective against Mareep with every hit, the move was too weak and her defences too strong for it to do much damage.

  Finally, Vivi had to pause. Moving so fast on the treacherous ground had drained her. Mareep didn’t miss the opportunity to land a massive pile of wool on her. Vivi emerged spluttering, and what I was hoping for had happened. She took a step forwards and the muscles in her leg locked up and she tumbled. She was paralyzed.

  I had the idea a while back to try to combine Mareep’s ability, Static, with Cotton Spore. If there was a relatively high chance of the wool paralyzing others when it was on Mareep, I thought it might work when it was detached from her too. Our first few experiments didn’t work at all. Then we tried using Cotton Spore with a build-up of Charge and we were rewarded. While it had a much lower probability of success than Static, the mildly electrified wool could still paralyze and overtime, the chances were high that it would. Against opponents like Vivi, where Thunder Wave was too easy for them to parry, Cotton Spore was our best bet.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Let’s go, Thunder Shock!”

  The blast that came from Mareep was even stronger than yesterdays. Charge had more time to build, I guess. Vivi wasn’t able to move fast enough and took the hit. She whimpered, and the smell of singed fur mixed with the salty air. Surprisingly, however, she was still standing. A burst of Quick Attack landed her directly before Mareep and before either of us could react, her small fangs dug into her neck. Mareep cried out.

  “Thunder Shock, now!”

  “Get away, Vivi,” said Brunette.

  Vivi didn’t listen. Growling in anger, she clutched onto Mareep with Bite and took the Thunder Shock head on. She fainted while still attached to Mareep.

  The arbiter declared Vivi unable to battle and Brunette returned her. The crowd, which I had forgotten about during the battle, cheered. From the corner of my eye I saw a camera pointed at me. I fought down my blush, keeping my eyes on Brunette. She took out a second pokeball. I bit my lip. The second round of a tournament was a two on two, so I was expecting it, but in this particular one, it wasn’t uncommon for trainers to enter with a single Pokémon due simply to a lack of time to catch a second. I’d been hoping that was the case with Brunette. Clearly, I was mistaken. I wasn’t sure Mareep was up for another round, and Comfey wasn’t an option. Sensing my hesitation, Mareep glanced back at me and generated a shower of sparks from her wool. I calmed down. She was strong.

  “Go Watty,” said Brunette.

  Her second Pokémon emerged. Flapping in the air. He had an orange bill, black and yellow wings, a grey chest and webbed feet. The Wattrel squawked; a whole forty centimetres of horror. A pit of dread opened inside me. It was the first time I’d be fighting a flying-type. I started shaking and only got worse when I remembered the camera watching.

  Ignorant of my plight, the arbiter gave the signal to begin the round. The Wattrel flew straight at Mareep. It also had Quick Attack. It landed the hit and had barely disengaged when it sped towards her again. This time it ripped into her skin with its beak, Pluck digging into her flesh. Mareep retaliated with a Thunder Shock. The Wattrel didn’t even bother dodging and appeared entirely unaffected. Likely, its ability was Volt Absorb. It continued its relentless assault. I felt every scratch, every peck as if it was with my own body. The scarring on my head itched. Every time it dove in, I was facing another, much larger enemy.

  With sweat coming out of every pore, and my breath shallow, it was all I could do to stand there. I couldn’t even think of what commands to give, never mind actually giving them. Mareep was made of sturdier material than I was, though. She went back to using Cotton Spore, this time without Charge, and concentrated on Agility. She wasn’t able to dodge every attack, or even most of them, but the combination made some progress on equalizing the speed gap between them. It wasn’t enough. She had no long range moves that could affect it and the only times she could use Take Down was when it came in to attack. She was always one step behind and couldn’t connect.

  Blood hammered at my ears. I tried to force myself to think. My hand raised to scratch at my scar. It was halfway up when I noticed. I jerked it down. I was very conscious of all the eyes watching, and the camera recording every moment of my suffering. Mareep was getting torn into.

  Anger liberated my voice.

  “Mareep, get him!” I screamed. It wasn’t a useful command. Giving one wasn’t within my capabilities. It worked well enough to encourage Mareep. The Wattrel came in from behind her. She twisted and slammed into it with Take Down.

  It wasn’t a clean hit and it should have had little effect on the battle at all. For Mareep it was a win. She planted her hooves firmly in the sand, raised her head, and maaed loudly. She began to glow.

  Bands of light wrapped around Mareep like a cocoon. Underneath, barely visible, she started growing and her centre of gravity shifted backwards. She shed most of her woollen coat as she stood on her two hind legs, and with a final burst of sparkles Flaaffy emerged from her evolution.

  Brunette and Watty waited for the process to complete. It was flat out illegal to interrupt an evolution in a tournament battle, and even in friendly ones it was one of the worst taboos to break. Once it was over, however, there was nothing stopping them.

  “Go in with Quick Attack and Pluck,” called out Brunette.

  Flaaffy dodged. She was more nimble now, but it wouldn’t be possible to keep it up for long. On the plus side, her evolution had snapped me out of my negative spiral and had bought me enough time to think.

  “Stun him, Flaaffy,” I said, tasting the way the word sounded.

  Watty dove in for another attack and Flaaffy countered with a full powered Flash. Blinded, Watty missed Flaaffy by a wide margin and crash landed on the sand. Flaaffy didn’t give him time to reorient himself and smacked him with a Take Down. From there, the rest of the battle was easy. Watty never had a chance to make it back up into the air. He was hit continuously with Take Downs, Agility and Cotton Spore finally paying off and giving the speed edge to Flaaffy. He tried to fight back, lashing out with his bill. In close range, though, Flaaffy had the advantage, and reinvigorated by her evolution, it wasn’t long before she emerged victorious.