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"You'll be taken care of when you both arrive below. Good luck!" The receptionist answered Keiko and wished Terashi good luck.

Once Terashi tapped on the touch screen a metal railing would rise up and around the platform, boxing them in for safety. A buzzer would sound before the platform would give one strong sudden shake as its locks disengaged, then proceeding to slowly descend into the floor.

As the platform went downward they would find themselves in a well lit shaft with the walls covered in metal. For a good while they traveled down through this shaft until the metal gave away to rocky subterranean layers and the lights disappeared, lights clicking on at the perimeter of the platform's floor to provide some light. For awhile longer they continued down until the shaft seemed to get wider and wider, now noticing they were traveling on vertical rails. Eventually the shaft gave completely away and they were now descending into a wide open chamber, a sort of underground cavern.

Here they would spot all kinds of digging equipment, workers and their Pokemon, and beautiful green gemstones jutting out of the rock all around them. The platform would finally arrive on the ground, joining with another metal platform, the railings soon disappearing again into the platform to allow them to step off. The typical gym guide waited for them at the bottom of a short flight of metal steps.

"Welcome to the Driftveil Gym!" He welcomed them excitedly. "Pretty cool, huh? Clay is an expert on excavations and mining, I guess that's why he loves Ground types so much! Kind of weird he would make his gym in a port city though, don't you think? Any who, whichever one of you is the challenger please step up to the trainer box and wait for Clay. The other come with me to the stands." The gym guide said.

Straight ahead they could see the battlefield; a slightly raised section of rectangular rock, the surrounding floor carved away to make the battlefield, some of the green gemstones were left to mark the perimeter and the outlines of the field were carved into it with the trainer 'boxes' been slabs of metal on the ground. Surrounding the field were sets of bleachers with high sheets of what was perhaps some sort of safety glass to shield them from the battle. Not as high tech as some gyms but it served its purpose. Already workers were dropping their work and taking to the bleachers to watch the forthcoming battle, it was here Keiko was led to.

Now all they needed was their challenger to take his place and the Gym Leader to arrive.

"Hrmph! Kept ya waitin', kid? Hopefully fer not long." A stout man sporting a white ten gallon hat and soft leather outfit spoke out to Terashi as he stepped up and took his place in the gym leader's box, no doubt he was Clay the Gym Leader but dang if he didn't look like he just walked out of the Old West. "So yer the Trainer Elesa was talkin' about, huh. I'm Clay. I'm the Gym Leader 'round these parts. Don't be expectin' not much a welcome, now. I'm a man that gets straight to business."

With that said Clay wasted no more time and immediately tossed a Great Ball onto the field, the device popping open and releasing a Krokorok from inside. The Desert Croc let out a growl before beating its chest wildly with its claws, psyching its self up for better. "Here's a warm up fer ya."

A worker would walk up to the side of the battlefield once Terashi let out his Pokemon and proceeded to announce the contestants and format. "Challenger Terashi Toumei of Castelia City will be challenging Driftveil City Gym Leader Clay for possession of the Quake Badge! It will be a single format battle with four Pokemon each, first to knock out their opponent's last Pokemon wins! Challenger gets the first move! Begin when ready, challenger."

Clay would stand firm and largely still as Samurai appeared, not surprised to see a Water-type in the least, especially the evolved form of the region's own starter, he had perhaps seen numerous of them in his time as a gym leader including its Grass-typed 'starter mate'. His Krokorok however responded with much vigor and aggression, beating its chest even harder and snapping at the air with its exposed teeth to Intimidate Samurai with its ability and reduce its Attack.

It wasn't until Terashi ordered the Swords Dance that Clay himself actually moved, the man taking off his hat to adjust the knitted hat underneath it. How many hats does one person need to wear? "Hate this fer ya, kid, Snatch." Clay ordered as he put the ten gallon hat back on.

Krokorok would let out a roar into the air, an aura of dark energy glowing around its body and as Samurai danced the Attack boosting energy that was meant for it simply flowed out of Samurai and into Krokorok in the form of a stream of dark shadowy energy, Krokorok stealing the benefits of the Swords Dance for its self.

Terashi and Samurai would clock Krokorok's personality right away it would seem, playing against its ego and anger with Swagger. The croc would immediately fall for it, the energy from the Swagger causing its strength to increase even more however the insults against it caused all this strength to go to its head and boil over into seething anger.

"Krok krok krok!" It shouted insistently, stamping its feet and slapping its tail against the ground as it began to see red.

"Not bad, partner. I see yer the kind that isn't 'fraid of an ole high risk high reward strategy. I respect that, kid. Reckon we should see if it pays. Krokorok, use Power Trip." Clay commended Terashi and then ordered an attack.

Also attempting to play into the Ground-types prideful and angry personality Clay would order Krokorok to show Samurai its true might and prove its insults to be mere fantasy. If Krokorok could fight through the haze of confusion it would let out such an intense roar that even Keiko could feel the sound vibrations. A shroud of dark energy would explode into existence around it and the Desert Croc would leap off the ground with a powerful jump and come flying at Samurai prepared to claw and bite at him and end it with an extremely powerful smack of its tail, all while going on about tasting its true power and might. If it was successful Samurai would take a devastating blow.

Otherwise if Krokorok could not fight through the confusion it would instead of leaping at Samurai it instead mistook a large gemstone in the corner of the battlefield and attacked it instead, completely destroying it eventually but continuing to attack the ground with such disregard and violence that it was wearing its self out heavily and harming its self greatly. Wouldn't last much longer at this rate.

(If 1-33 Krokorok hurts its self very badly in confusion.)

[Roll for confusion turns. If 1 then Krokorok has snapped out of its confusion. While make another post after.]

Samurai was on his last legs as it was. Revenge's getting doubled by his pain only to get doubled again before being thrown back at him... yeah, there was no way he was powering through that. Krokorok didn't look to have much energy left, either, so at least I had a gameplan going deeper into the battle. With Samurai recalled in his fainted state, I sent Orion out in his place. "Orion, use Brine!' I ordered simply. Knowing that Krokorok was low on strength, Brine should have more strength to it than it otherwise would, even if it would wind up being overkill.

A small amount of twirling allowed Orion to dig his way out of the pile that Mud Bomb left behind. The attack hurt a bit but his gemstone would remain brilliantly clean, although his... fins? were another story.

"Much as I'd love the keep the pace up, I don't have an andvantage to lean on to do so. Sorry if the fight slows a bit. Light Screen, Orion."

The Starmie twirled faster, creating a barrier of Psychic-type energy in front of his body to protect him from further Mud Bombings or any other moves that utilized Palpitoad's special strength. While this would potentially keep Orion alive, I could only hope it served another purpose.