Pokémon Legends: Court of Kings

[Spinne Biss]

Lumiose City Gym

Loki was currently in the Pokemon Center, which left Helena four more Pokemon with which to battle.

"You sure you're ready to face this guy?" Grant asked.

"Hey, this was all your idea, you tell me." Helena looked over at him and he smiled.

"Yeah, but we stayed up all night training. It wouldn't hurt to get some sleep and go at it tomorrow."

"I know," Helena said as she stared at the gym's doors. "But I need to keep productive. I think if I stop, I'll go crazy." With that, she stepped into the gym, and Grant followed after.

"I coached my team about Clemont's electric trap, so I think I'll be ready to go in. I'm going to open with Écarlate," she told Grant. Their place had been reserved earlier, and the line ahead of her had just finished. A few seconds later, her name popped up, calling her to the ring.

Helena would take her place once more, Écarlate's ball in hand, and look out across to see the gym leader.

In her other hand was another cup of coffee, from which she took a sip, as she waited for the gym leader to make his move.  

[Marsuru]

Lumiose City Gym

The crowds had thinned considerably as the week progressed. Though more than half the seats remained full, plenty of spectators had grown bored of spectating and decided to use their time in Kalos for other pursuits. Unless it was a high profile battle, you couldn't really expect a roaring crowd. Which was just the way Clemont liked it, honestly.

'Oh,' he said, stepping out of his dressing room and shrugging on his gizmo backpack. 'You again. The one who owes me a repair bill.'  

[Spinne Biss]

Lumiose City Gym

Helena tossed Écarlate's ball up and caught it with her hand as it came back down. It was an idle motion that she'd been practicing, mostly due to nervousness, the whole night from her battle.

"You made them so easy to break, though. I can only imagine that you were asking for it with such a fragile arena," Helena quipped back and then sipped her coffee again.  

[Marsuru]

'Hmph, still have an attitude, I see,' Clemont said, pretending to adjust his glasses. He was really pressing a button that activated the scanner built into his frames, which fed information onto his lenses. It would be invisible to anyone but Clemont, and provided him with a rundown of Écarlate's stats and win record. Écarlate was level 35, which meant Clemont would respond with a pokémon of equal level. Ordinarily, Clemont would take the challenger's other pokémon into consideration when choosing his own, but he had already done that with Helena, and she had taken every opportunity to drag out her eventual loss.

'Noise cancel, activate,' said the gym leader, and a dome of blocked sound erected around the arena. Invisible, and still able to let the spectators hear the battle, it nonetheless cut out all those distracting crowd noises. Clemont adjusted his glasses for real, and called across the arena in as authoritative tone as he could muster. 'Let's make this battle one on one! Any objections?'  

[Spinne Biss]

"Works just fine for me!" Helena called back as she released Écarlate into the field.

The scarlet Pokemon looked out at Clemont, ready to do battle. He'd been training all night for this, to see how he compared to other Pokemon.  

[Marsuru]

Good. Perhaps they might get this battle over with quickly, and Clemont could go back to watching anime before the next challenger appeared. A robotic limb extended from his backpack, clutching a pokéball that it deposited in Clemont's outstretched hand. It had been chosen from a cluster of balls kept at the bottom of his pack. Since keeping more than six loaded balls in close proximity could damage their capture mechanisms, Clemont had designed his pack especially to keep the balls insulated from one another. It was why it was so bulky.

He released his level 35 Heliolisk in a flash of light. It was fairly tall for its breed, measuring at 1.5 metres. It stretched and flexed its limbs, throat releasing a reptilian rattle as its frilly collar extended threateningly. Ready for battle.  

[Spinne Biss]

From now on, there are three types of battles. Helena's words echoed in Écarlate's mind. He knelt into a runner's stance, Agility boosting his speed, preparing to multiply it if the Heliosk kept its distance.

The first is one against survival, from the government. This one is the closest to chess. If we consider every environmental hazard, from rocks to the rain, to be pawns, then the remaining pieces are their Pokemon, except for the king. The trainer is the king.

Écarlate had been prepared for this match, a glint in his eyes watching the opponent. Heliosk wouldn't be much of a problem, not for its type. The difficult would come from its trainer.  

[Marsuru]

Heliolisk responded immediately to Clemont's call of 'Agility!' and bolted toward Écarlate with doubled speed. They already had the speed advantage, and now was the time to press it. Scizor was by far the better close range fighter, which meant it had to be crippled. The rest would be an exercise in kicking a pokémon when it was down.

The electric type hammered along the arena floor, bursts of electricity exploding with each step. When it was a short distance away, but not so close that Écarlate could easily respond with an attack, Heliosk hit the ground with a 'Bulldoze,' screeching to a halt as it stomped it foot and sent a wave of vibrations toward its foe.

Clemont's aim was to force Écarlate off the ground, where it would be easily nailed with a follow-up 'Glare!' that would leave the bug type paralysed. Even if Écarlate remained grounded, if it closed the distance, he could still call for Glare, which would be next to impossible to avoid in a melee.  

[Spinne Biss]

The second type of battle is against just Pokemon. By themselves, they're wasy enough to handle. The king is ther endurance, their stamina. Everything else - their limbs, their moves, their senses, they're all pieces. From pawns to the queen. You control those, you control the battle.

Écarlate would not be taken so easily. When Helena called Écarlate to "blind!" the Scizor moved up into the air, firing off a Flash Cannon that would mask his movements, as well as leave the Glare hidden within the Flash.

The jump took the Pokemon up, over Heliosk, for the Flash Cannon.

It's only when you're fighting another trainer that you cannot take out that leads to a difficult match. This is the third type -

Écarlate would prepare a whirlwind as he moved overhead from Heliosk. The spiral of air would follow the flap of his wings, the air growing powerful - and sharp. Unless Heliosk stopped it, or very quickly retreated, it would be caught in the Razor Wind.  

[Marsuru]

Heliolisk craned its neck as Écarlate flipped overhead. Luckily for the Flash Cannon to drive Écarlate over Heliolisk, it would have to be pointed away from the electric type, otherwise it might have taken some damage. Then again, it would take some damage regardless, from the Scizor's Razor Wind.

The normal type attack was okay I guess, but coming from a Scizor it was kinda crappy. Heliolisk could quite happily stand in what amounted to a cold breeze and drop a 'Thunder!' on Écarlate's head. In short, unless Écarlate abandoned its attack, it would trade a weak Razor Wind for a powerful Thunder that would render it a crispy critter.  

[Spinne Biss]

The goal of the third type of battle is to control what the trainer and the Pokemon will do. In this instance, the trainer is the king, and the Pokemon is the queen.

Écarlate would abbandon the Razor Wind, having got his desired affect. Instead, he would blast a Flash Cannon into the ground to push himself away from Heliosk, and back toward the ground as the Thunder came down, blinding and bright.

The goal is to manipulate two targets. First, we have to control what the trainer does, second, we have to control what the Pokemon does. Once we do this, we start taking pieces from them both.

Écarlate would dash in, boosted by Agility and Bullet Punch, the bullet fast snap made to grab Heliosk's arm before he could regain his target, the speed aiming to ensure this would work.

For example, if the goal is to make sure the enemy can't see you, it would be ideal if they did this for you. For every move you make to take advantage of an opponent's disadvantage, you put yourself in your own disadvantage.

And if it did, Écarlate would aim a series of these blows into Heliosk's legs, eyes on the Pokemon as he was ready to avoid any melee attacks, even at the zero distance, by controlling his opponents weight and leverage, and using his own mobility from his position.

There are two ways around this. The first is to make sure the trade-off is always unbalanced in your favor. Taking the blow to the chest in favor of destroying a Pokemon's leg, and thus their speed and mobility, is ideal.

He was also prepared to take Heliosk's special attacks that came directly from touch - all he needed to do was land a few blows, ruin Heliosk's legs, and then get away to pick off the weakened opponent.

The second way is to make them create their own disadvantages with no advantages for themself. This only works so long as the opponent thinks they're in control. Against a trainer, you have two peple to trick, but that only means playing to their idea that they're superior. Unsettle the trainer, and let the Pokemon step into your space under the impression that they're able to so easily because they're better.  

[Marsuru]

By Flash Cannoning the ground, Écarlate forced itself upwards, which meant it had to arc before reaching the floor where it could continue its assault. This gave Heliolisk ample time to keep track of the pokémon and prepare its Glare. As Bullet Punch activated, so did the Glare attack.

Unless it chickened out again, the Scizor would trade landing the first blow for paralysis. Thanks to bullet punch definitely being a steel type attack, which Heliolisk was definitely strong against, its full damage would only level out at around the same as Razor Wind. This was far from enough to cripple Clemont's pokémon, and assuming the paralysis went through, Helena's pokémon would struggle to coordinate its assault, especially considering the difference in speed between the two species.

If Helena had Écarlate continue with her bullet punch strategy, then the bug type's paralysis would leave it wide open to receive Heliolisk's 'Fire Punch!' as Écarlate wouldn't be able to deal damage fast enough to prevent the strike. Despite the electric type's physical weakness, the punch would be able to cleave off over half of the Scizor's health thanks to type advantage. The blow would hit at the bug type's gut, and the flaming fist would mean damage even if the Scizor performed a block.

Assuming this all went through, Heliolisk would launch a Thunderbolt from its mouth to Écarlate's face, knocking the pokémon out.  

[Spinne Biss]

Both Pokemon and trainer were already aware of Glare's existence. Instead of trading the first blow, Scizor would watch Heliosk's body as opposed to its eyes. Heliosk could not use its eyes to intimidate a target that did not look into them - a simple task.

Instead, Écarlate's bullet punch would aim to grab Heliosk, as previously intended, and deliver the sharp blows of successive Bullet Punches toward the Pokemon's legs, its own body and superior strength being the leverage for this control - with Scizor being more than twice as strong as Heliosk.

And, as before, Écarlate would be prepared to use that weight to alter Heliosk's positioning. In other words, once grabbed, Écarlate had control over Heliosk's center of gravity, allowing the bug/steel type to land its blows and twist its own body, or Heliosk's, to off-center or out right avoid the Fire Punch, and the Thunderbolt.

Écarlate only needed a few of the blows, even one for each leg, to bruise the area and cause pain from movement. Adding to that would only intensify that pain, and damage the area, lowering Heliosk's overall speed.

And once the task was done, Écarlate intended to speed away, to finish the opponent off without further risk.

Helena watched the match between the two Pokemon. Stepping into Heliosk's space was necessary, but it didn't bode well for taking down a special type Pokemon. Instead, there was a degree of stress about it.

Helena counted the moves, watching Heliosk, and listening for Clemont. Every bit of the strategy needed to adapt, but once something had occurred, once a trade had been made, it was set in stone. Everything from the first success, was adapting to keep that momentum going. The more she fought, the more she could be prepared for. The more she was prepared for, the easier it was to adapt to possibilities before they happened, and to be ready to easily take care of them.

None of it would be easy, Helena knew, but she was ready for it this time. She would not go down without a fight.  

[Marsuru]

(("The user intimidates the target with the pattern on its belly to cause paralysis" says the description for Glare, and I haven't mentioned it yet but Clemont's Heliolisk has a tattoo of a Scizor on fire on its stomach))

Drat! Foiled by an ingenious manouvre! Heliolisk took those hits and what more, they were all critical! It fell, frothing at the mouth and spasming slightly. Its offspring would surely feel that that one, assuming it was still capable of producing such things! Clemont stared, open-mouthed, sure that there was some cosmic force responsible for this sudden upset, potentially one who's felt kinda bad all day and wants to go to sleep.

'What. What the ********,' he said, forgetting that his every word was being broadcast. 'No no no, what the actual s**t.'

He breathed out hard, pursing his lips and rubbing his head angrily. As he dragged his hands down his face, Clemont accepted his loss. He lifted his pokéball, recalled his battered mess of a pokémon. 'Okay, okay, you win. Congratulations! Here's the Voltage Badge, now please leave.'

Clemont turned to his exit, waving his hand over his shoulder to summon a Magnemite on Helena's side of the arena, which bore her new badge. Since the badge was stuck magnetically to the pokémon, it might take a bit of tugging to get it to let go, almost as if it really didn't want to concede it, but had no other choice because zzz  

[Spinne Biss]

Helena was too surprised to gloat, and too shy of Clemont's clear frustration to ask whether or not she was getting paid for the match, since she destroyed his arena. Instead, she'd take her badge - with some effort, recall her Pokemon, and slink away.

Once out of the trainer area, she would see Grant striding up toward her.

"Congratulations!" he shouted and she'd run over and jump, wrapping her arms around his neck and laughing. He'd swing her around as his arms wrapped around her waist before setting her down.

Helena didn't release her own arms, however, forcing Grant to hunch forward. Both of them blushed, but Helena was too tired to care. "I did it!"

"Yeah, we should really get some rest," Grant said.

"No way. I'm on to the next match. You should rest, though, I'll tell you how it goes." She released him of her arms and stepped around him. Grant turned after her, and moved to keep pace.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yeah. Your explanation that it's a lot like chess really helped me focus. Besides, I'm just going until I lose. It won't be that exciting to see, just to hear about." She flashed him a smile and he shrugged his shoulders.

"If I was more awake I'd insist on going," he said with a yawn. "But I'm beat. I'm surprised you're still so active."

Helena lifted her cup of coffee. "I'm eventually going to burn out on the stuff, but right now it's keeping me going." Grant smiled and Helena was off.

With Tyrant and Alice's Scizor placed in the PC, and Loki retrieved from the center, it would significantly lower the next gym leader's level average. With that, it was a very short flash of light to Shalour City.