Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Pokemon Quest ❯ The Gym Battle Continues ( Chapter 36 )

Pokemon Quest

 

It was now a standoff between Lucario and Empoleon. The penguin stood her ground awaiting Lucario's first attack.

 

“Lucario, try not to get too close,” Jacob said, “That Empoleon is more powerful than most.”

 

Lucario nodded, cupping his hands together and preparing an Aura Sphere. However, much like the Thunder Waves from Manectric, Empoleon simply leapt to another platform, avoiding it easily. Jacob needed some way to catch the penguin Pokemon off guard.

 

Lucario continued to fire aura sphere after aura sphere, Empoleon dodging each shot, while Jacob thought long and hard about this. Just how was he supposed to hit Empoleon? Then it hit him.

 

`I must predict where Empoleon is going to land,' Jacob thought, `She's defenseless in the air.'

 

“LUCARIO, AFTER USING AURA SPHERE, LAUNCH AN ATTACK TOWARDS ANOTHER PLATFORM!!!!” he shouted as Lucario's eyes went wide. Even the infant understood what Jacob was planning.

 

With that, Lucario unleashed another Aura Sphere, which Empoleon dodged with ease, but while Empoleon was dodging, Lucario leapt towards the very platform the penguin had gone for with his paw out. Empoleon started to panic, but seconds before she could land on the platform Lucario planted his palm into her ribcage.

 

The penguin groaned as she landed, standing there with little emotion on her face. All was silent throughout the area. Had Lucario won?

 

This was clear when the penguin toppled over, falling on her side and Clarissa clapping for Jacob and saying, “That was very well done! That was quite a strategy! How did you know where Empoleon was going to land?”

 

“I didn't,” Jacob replied, rubbing the back of his head, “I just sorta… guessed…”

 

Clarissa was most impressed. Jacob was proving to be far more of a challenge than she'd first predicted.

 

The boy called Lucario back over to his side and said, “You'd better rest up. She may have something better in store.”

 

Clarissa's next Pokemon was a jellyfish-like creature with two large gems on his head. With its menacing eyes, this was Tentacruel.

 

Jacob winced at the sight of this. Tentacruel was another of those Pokemon he had a deep fear of. Unlike Nosepass, he had a reason behind this. The boy's eyes twitched as he remembered it all like it was yesterday.

 

Jacob was only 6 when he was first learning how to swim. After proving himself to be quite a fast learner, his mother decided to allow him a chance to swim without her supervision. Unfortunately, Jacob stumbled upon a group of small jellyfish-like creatures called Tentacool.

 

One thing led to another and Jacob had to be rushed to the hospital. Since then, he had a great fear of Tentacool and anything associated with them. However, now was not a good time to be afraid.

 

He needed to think. What was the best Pokemon to use against a Tentacruel? This would have been easy had his Manectric not been defeated earlier. The biggest problem was that Tentacruel was strong against a lot of Pokemon. Fighting and Steel type attacks wouldn't be much help, so Lucario was out of the question. Bug type attacks were also weak against the jellyfish so Heracross wasn't a good choice either. Floatzel was definitely out of the question for Tentacruel was, after all, a water type.

 

That left Cacturne, but was the cactus really a good choice? Jacob had just discovered that Cacturne had a fear of water.

 

`I guess my best bet would be Floatzel,' Jacob thought, `At least she has resistance to some of Tentacruel's attacks.'

 

And so Jacob sent out his weasel companion, both Floatzel and Tentacruel diving under the pool's water. Jacob had done so well up to this point. There was no way he was going to throw that to the side now.

 

Meanwhile, in the contest arena, the finals were now underway with Izy and Roxanne going up against one-another. Roxanne looked in the crowd and sighed, realizing that Jacob wasn't there to cheer her on this time around. Izy was also quite surprised. Jacob was usually finished his gym battles by now. Perhaps Clarissa was just a very difficult opponent. Unbeknownst to her, half of the reason Jacob wasn't there for the finals was because of a certain event that had caused him to pass out earlier.

 

Anna and Ninetails cheered Izy on as the battle started. Izy sent out her Scyther for this battle while Roxanne went with the one Pokemon she had been saving for this contest: a large crab-like Pokemon called Kingler.

 

“LET'S DO THIS, KINGLER!!!” she screamed excitedly as the crab sighed, rolling his eyes. Very much like Torterra and Farfetch'd, he didn't much care for his owner.

 

Scyther started off flying at Kingler and using a well-aimed X-Strike. Upon hitting the crab, the X leftover from the attack split up into separate small X's, impressing the audience even more.

 

The crab growled, now feeling motivated to battle as he unleashed a stream of bubbles known as Bubblebeam. Shifting his body around, he was able to make the Bubblebeam look like a whirlpool made of bubbles, which was earning him quite a high number of points. But due to the fact that Scyther seemed more than capable of dodging said attack, the flying bug was still in the lead.

 

Jacob was worried now. Tentacruel had only taken in a bit of damage from Floatzel and now the weasel was out cold. Jacob grimaced and thought, `I can't use Cacturne and I need to save Lucario.'

 

With that in mind, he hurled another Pokeball into the battle area as Heracross emerged, flexing his muscles. Clarissa had to admit, that was an interesting choice.

 

“Heracross, take to the skies!” Jacob shouted as the beetle nodded, opening up his shell and revealing his wings. Clarissa knew what Jacob's plan was. He did this so Tentacruel would have no choice but to stay above the surface, otherwise he wouldn't land a blow on the Hercules beetle. Also, Heracross had a weakness to poison attacks and Tentacruel was also a poison type.

 

Tentacruel stood his ground as Jacob gave his partner a command, Heracross nodding and flying downward for an aerial ace. This was the best he could do, after all.

However, Clarissa wasn't at all worried, and it was shown why when Tentacruel his chin up, firing a large blast of water known as Hydro Pump.

 

“HERACROSS, SPIN TO THE SIDE!!!” Jacob spat as Heracross twirled his body around, shifting to the side and dodging the incoming attack. Clarissa had to admit she was impressed as the beetle rammed his head hard the jellyfish's face.

 

Tentacruel growled in pain as Heracross took to the sky again. The jellyfish proceeded to attempt a series of long-ranged attacks such as Bubblebeam, but Heracross simply dodged each one, eventually catching Tentacruel off-guard and ramming his horn into the Pokemon's skull.

 

“Tentacruel,” Clarissa said as the jellyfish looked at her, “use Acid.”

 

This was a surprise. This was the first time Clarissa had given her Pokemon a command. Perhaps Tentacruel wasn't quite the strategist her other Pokemon were.

 

Nevertheless, Tentacruel seemed good at taking orders as he shot a ball of liquid towards Heracross. Before the beetle and Jacob could even realize what was going on, Heracross took a fierce blow to the chest, his back ramming into the ceiling. But that was the least of his worries.

The beetle shook off the pain in his head and flew in attempting another Aerial Ace, but this time Tentacruel was prepared. Seconds before Heracross could strike, Tentacruel whipped out his tentacles and caught the Hercules beetle within them. Heracross groaned in agony as Tentacruel's grip tightened. This was his Constrict attack and it trapped opponents within it.

 

`No,' Jacob thought, `we can't lose now. We were doing so good until now.'

 

Then he saw it. Tentacruel had carelessly forgotten to use all of his tentacles for the attack, thus less pressure was applied to it. But did Heracross have the strength to escape even with an eighth of the power missing? There was only one way to find out.

 

“HERACROSS, SPIN AND USE NIGHT SLASH!!!!” Jacob shouted as the beetle grinned and started to twist his body. Tentacruel started to lose his grip as he now had a worried expression on his face.

 

After a fierce struggle, Heracross managed to free himself. He also pulled the tentacles with him, lifting up Tentacruel and sending the jellyfish flying into the air.

 

As Tentacruel descended towards the ground, Heracross lashed his claws downward sending the jellyfish spiraling into a platform, knocking him out for good. Clarissa sighed and returned her partner saying, “That was some very quick thinking, Jacob.”

 

Unfortunately, it wasn't all good for the boy. Heracross had taken in a lot of pain and that Acid had actually done more damage than first predicted, and as such, he was feeling very weak after using straining himself and ignoring the pain for so long. Jacob sighed and returned Heracross to his ball saying, “Great job out there, buddy. You deserve a good, long rest.”

 

This was it. Clarissa was down to her last Pokemon while Jacob still had two left. Jacob, of course, went with the obvious choice as he sent Lucario into the battle area.

 

Clarissa smiled and hurled her last Pokeball shouting, “GO CLOYSTER!!!”

 

Jacob didn't like the sound of that. Cloyster had a very tough shell that was almost unbreakable. That was sure to be a problem.

 

However, he was shocked by what he saw emerge from the ball. If it hadn't been for the unicorn horn atop its head, he wouldn't have believed for a second that this was a Cloyster.

 

This Cloyster didn't have a shell. In fact, he was nothing but a purple ball. If Jacob had only seen Clarissa's battle at the Team Advent head quarters, this wouldn't have been so much of a shock.

 

I'm sure many of you reading at home already know this, but during the attack on the Team Advent base Clarissa had faced off against Perona. Cloyster went up against Zaptos and during the battle, Zaptos destroyed his shell with Drill Peck.

 

Despite this event, Clarissa was still willing to battle with Cloyster. Of course, Jacob could only feel confident during this. Without a shell, Cloyster could not defend himself nor could he use Spike Cannon. Besides, Cloyster was weak against fighting type moves, so this was perfect.

 

Another factor that seemed quite lucky was that Cloyster couldn't swim in this state. He was far too light and without hands or feet, he couldn't shift his weight. All he could do was float on the water's surface.

 

“LUCARIO, USE AURA SPHERE!!!” Jacob shouted as the infant cupped his hands together, preparing a ball of energy.

 

But Cloyster was ready as he shot a beam from his horn. The beam managed to pass straight through the Aura Sphere, destroying the ball of energy in the process, while Lucario's body was soon covered in ice.

 

Jacob cringed at the result of the Ice Beam. Clearly, this battle wouldn't be as easy as he'd first expected it to be.

 

Clarissa sniffed, feeling very proud of her Pokemon. Despite the loss of his shell, Cloyster was standing strong. Before Lucario could free himself from his ice prison, he took in a small icicle that rammed into his shoulder, piercing through the flesh as blood ran down his arm. This was known as Icicle Spear.

 

“LUCARIO, PULL THAT OUT!!!” Jacob spat as the infant pried the ice from his shoulder, but this didn't change the fact that now had a small hole through his shoulder.

 

“Oh dear,” Clarissa said with her eyes wide, “I'm so sorry. I wasn't expecting to go that far.”

 

Jacob and Lucario grinned, Lucario ignoring the pain as the boy said, “Don't apologize. This is a battle, isn't it?”

 

Clarissa blushed in response to that. Jacob was, after all, right. A battle was a battle, be it with a gym leader or not. Besides, it wasn't as if she'd killed Lucario.

 

And so the battle resumed, Jacob needing to come up with a way to hit his opponent. Like with Empoleon, he needed to catch Cloyster off guard.

 

“I GOT IT!!!” he shouted with fire in his eyes, “Lucario, aim your Aura Sphere next to him!”

 

Lucario found this command rather odd but nodded as he shot an Aura Sphere right beside Cloyster. Cloyster didn't respond as he knew it would miss, but both he and Clarissa were shocked when the sphere stirred up a small wave, covering Cloyster's vision. This left him wide open for an incoming Aura Sphere to the face as he flew into the side of the pool, feeling serious pain from the collision.

 

“Cloyster, are you okay?” Clarissa asked as the Pokemon looked up at her, grinned and nodded. He was not going to let his master down.

 

Despite Cloyster still standing, Jacob and Lucario were full of confidence now. One more blow was sure to win this battle. However, when Lucario attempted another Aura Sphere to Cloyster's side, the purple pearl-shaped Pokemon spun his body around, unleashed its Whirlpool. The pool prevented this Aura Sphere from knocking up water, therefore it was unable to cloud Cloyster's vision like the last one.

 

Jacob's eyes went wide as the Pokemon proceeded to unleash a rainbow from his horn known as Aura Beam. This did it. Lucario felt too weak from the attack and passed out.

 

Jacob couldn't believe it. He stood there silent. Had Lucario just lost? Furthermore, what was he going to do? With Cacturne's fear of water, how could he win this battle? Let alone that fact, Cacturne was also weak against ice attacks and had no advantage over Cloyster. All he had was the damage dealt by Lucario previously.