The New Normal - 16-14

A.N. Hi all, but I’m sorry to say that it’s going to be very likely that, for the foreseeable future, uploads will generally be delayed by a certain amount of hours from what you’re used to. I’ve really tried my best to fix my schedule, but it’s just not happening. Just to be clear, I will do my utmost to ensure that you will still get the same amount of chapters and on the same day, but each chapter might be delayed or so. Thank you again for understanding.

The New Normal – 16-14 – The Semi-Finals

After all of the delays thanks to the press conference, the penultimate battle of the Tournament was finally here. The battle to determine who the finalists would be for this World Tournament was about to take place.

After a coin toss, it was decided that Karen and Iris would be fighting against Crasher Wake and Marshal first, so the rest of us were relegated to the spectator stands for the time being.

On paper, Marshal and Wake had plenty of advantages going into this fight. Marshal had a type advantage on Karen thanks to his Fighting types, and most of their Pokémon were capable of using Ice type attacks to hit Iris’ Dragons supereffectively.

Furthermore, while their two types were not inherently synergistic, they made up for it by having very hard hitters. Marshal had proven his strength time and time again during the course of this Tournament, his Fighting types having defeated many opponents that were typically considered to be ‘strong’. Even other Elite Four members, such as Bertha, weren’t able to match his strength.

Likewise, Wake was showing off just why he deserved to be considered the second strongest Gym Leader in Sinnoh, just behind Volkner. With many on his team having the ability Swift Swim, letting him set up the Rain was just asking to be handed a quick defeat. His Pokémon were already inherently pretty powerful, and coupled with the incredible speed boost that they got in the Rain, and they were all but unstoppable.

Yet, despite all of the above, I was incredibly confident in Karen and Iris’ victory, and so was most of the crowd. It wasn’t because we looked down on Marshal and Wake’s strength, but it was purely because of the fact that Karen and Iris had just defeated Drake and Burgh in a battle.

For all of the strength that Marshal possessed, he was absolutely not stronger than Drake. Drake’s Dragons were just on a different level, and had Drake been the one to face off against Marshal today, I was very confident that it would have been Drake’s victory.

Therefore, given that Karen had already proven her ability to punch above her weight, I was confident that we would see something similar against Marshal and Wake today.

…And I was quickly proven right, considering how the fight was going.

Marshal and Wake had sent out their Conkeldurr and Floatzel respectively, while Karen and Iris had sent out a Spiritomb and Druddigon.

The former’s strategy seemed quite simple and obvious to me; they were using one slow but powerful attacker in Conkeldurr and had it paired up with a swift and nimble one in Floatzel. It was the same tactic that I had trained up Ornstein and Smough to make use of.

Unfortunately for them, their execution faltered when faced off against the disruptive arsenal of moves that Karen had in her possession. The moment the battle began, Spiritomb immediately released a Curse that ravaged through Conkeldurr, putting it on a timer as the Curse gradually drained it of its health.

By doing so, it forced Conkeldurr to remain on the offensive. But given its extremely poor type matchup into a Spiritomb, it only had one valid target that it could go for in Druddigon. Floatzel was in a similar state, but that was mostly due to the potent Taunt that it had been inflicted with that overwhelmed its mental defenses, causing Floatzel to target the nearest enemy – which was also Druddigon.

And that was perfect for them, as Iris’ Druddigon was her most defensive Pokémon by far. Not only that, but its ability Rough Skin meant that for each successful physical blow that their Pokémon landed against Druddigon, even if the attack was blocked, they would take a little damage back each time.

However, it seemed like Crasher Wake and Marshal had done a lot of preparation into training their Pokémon for this battle, because Floatzel was soon able to break out of its state of maddened rage. It was still affected by the Taunt, but it had regained enough clarity of mind to heed its trainer’s orders to bring down Spiritomb first. So it left Marshal’s Conkeldurr to deal with Druddigon while it rushed off to bring down Spiritomb, knowing that it could not leave such a disruptive Pokémon unattended to freely wreck havoc in the fight.

And the fight between Conkeldurr and Druddigon definitely favoured the former. Even though Druddigon was supposed to be a defensive titan, Marshal’s starter was capable of delivering a world of hurt. Especially after Conkeldurr had set itself aflame with a Fire Punch, activating its Guts ability and skyrocketing its own Attack.

Therefore, Conkeldurr began to devastate Druddigon with a relentless barrage of Ice Punches and Drain Punches that struck with such power that it overwhelmed Druddigon’s attempted defense.

Quickly realising that it was outmatched, Druddigon roared out in rage as a bright blue aura flared out from its form as it began to Outrage, temporarily gaining a massive boost in strength.

With its newfound strength, it grappled onto the opposing Conkeldurr, the ground quaking in their wake as the two wrestled for dominance. Druddigon even tried to disorient Conkeldurr by smashing their heads together with an Iron Head, but proving that its opponents still didn’t hit hard enough, Conkeldurr merely shrugged off the hit and retaliated with a Counter-boosted Drain Punch to the face – which also restored a big chunk of its lost health.

This brawl was not going in Iris’ favour. Luckily, it didn’t need to, as it was evident that her main goal was to buy time for Spiritomb to deal with Floatzel.

Much like it had done against Drake and Burgh, Spiritomb was ambushing Floatzel from all kinds of unexpected angles. It had created a false puppet of itself made of shadows, which Floatzel failed to see through until it crashed into it with a Waterfall, causing the puppet to detonate in an explosion of spectral energies.

Floatzel staggered backwards, only for Spiritomb to jump out from its flanks and Burn it with a Will-O-Wisp, crippling Floatzel’s main strengths – its physical attacks. Then as if to add insult to injury, Spiritomb set up with a Sunny Day, weakening Floatzel’s primarily Water attacks even further.

In a matter of seconds, Floatzel’s offensive abilities had been completely crippled.

I noted that this was almost the exact position that Drake and Burgh were in during the previous battle. There, Karen had run circles around Accelgor and basically took it out of the fight in a matter of seconds as well, while Iris bought time against Drake, much like she was doing now.

However, in that last fight, Drake had forcibly broken through the deadlock by unleashing an all-destroying Draco Meteor, which completely annihilated everything on the battlefield. That Draco Meteor had instantly taken out Iris’ Hydreigon, while also severely injuring Spiritomb to the point where it could be quickly knocked out by another attack.

Yet here, Marshal and Crasher Wake could not do the same. As far as I was aware, the most powerful move that Marshal’s Conkeldurr knew was Earthquake. That was a powerful move, but not enough to match the unrivalled levels of destruction caused by Drake’s Draco Meteors.

This was why I rated Drake over Marshal. Marshal’s Pokémon specialised in duels, where his Pokémon would hit a single target extremely hard with physical Fighting moves like the elemental punches or Hammer Arm. But he didn’t have the same ability to cause widespread destruction like Drake’s Dragons did.

As a result, they had no way to break this stalemate. And knowing Karen, she wouldn’t allow anything to break her control over the situation.

Similarly, I noticed a shift in tactics from Iris’ Druddigon as well. Instead of trying to fight back, it just focused entirely on maintaining the defensive as it prioritised blocking and retreating over counterattacks.

It must have realised that the best thing to do was deny as much healing as possible from Drain Punch so that the Curse could bring down Conkeldurr.

While this was happening, Floatzel was being thoroughly torn apart by Spiritomb’s spectral tendrils. It did its best to fight back with Ice Beams, Hydro Pumps, and the occasional Waterfall, but Spiritomb was either too evasive to be hit as it jumped around from shadow to shadow, or it simply allowed itself to take the weak hit before retaliating with a boosted Hex.

With no way to break through the trap, Floatzel was soon knocked out by a Hex from behind. Wake immediately replaced his fallen Pokémon with his starter Gyarados – his physically strongest Pokémon – and had it rush down Spiritomb before it could begin its disruptive actions.

Even in the Sun, Gyarados still moved with incredible speed as it blitzed towards Spiritomb while it immediately skyrocketed its own strength with an Outrage, and the Ghost type hardly even moved as it seemingly waited for its opponent to get close.

…Wait a fucking second. I sat up in my seat as I leaned in closer to the screen. My instincts, honed after so many sparring sessions with Karen, screamed at me that Gyarados was about to rush into a trap.

And my instincts were instantly confirmed as an enraged, Outrage-boosted, Gyarados slammed into an unmoving Spiritomb with a devastating Iron Head into Dragon Tail combo… which caused Spiritomb to instantly collapse to the ground as it was instantly knocked out.

But then, a haunting cackle echoed across the battlefield as two swirling purple lights that just radiated with maliciousness seeped into Gyarados body.

Wake’s starter let out a shrill and haunting shriek of agonising pain as the Destiny Bond utterly ravaged it, before being painfully knocked out. It was Agatha’s bread-and-butter, and Karen was just making sure that everyone remembered just who exactly she learned everything from.

And just like that, Wake was out of the fight. It was now a 2v1, with Marshal left alone to face off against a total of three Pokémon from Iris and Karen.

Practically all of this was due to Karen’s Spiritomb, which had really been carrying the two of the through the Tournament with how versatile and resilient it has proven to be.

Now that the fight was a 2v1, Druddigon was relieved of much of the offensive pressure from Conkeldurr as the newly sent-out Umbreon was able to freely distract the Fighting type from a safe distance.

Not only that, but Umbreon was able to fully show off its full arsenal of disruptive capabilities.

First off, it had weakened Conkeldurr with a Charm, sharply lowering its Attack. If that wasn’t bad enough, Umbreon also use Skill Swap to switch its ability with Conkeldurr’s.

This was terrible for the latter, as it had lost its Guts ability for the far less useful Synchronise ability. It also lost its Attack bonus from the Burn, and instead it now had its Attack cut in half.

I knew then and there that Conkeldurr was done for. There was absolutely no chance it could make a comeback after all that.

Its resilience, its strength, its skills – none of that mattered anymore. Umbreon had systematically ripped it all apart. The Conkeldurr that remained was little more than a husk of the original, which didn’t take long to fall apart.

That left Marshal with his final Pokémon, which he chose to send out his Mienshao. It was a reasonable choice – it was fast and could hit hard, but I knew it wouldn’t be able to turn the fight around for the Unova Elite Four. Not in a 2v1.

Not against Karen and Iris.

So much like all of the Pokémon before it, Mienshao too eventually succumbed to the myriad of status moves coming from Karen’s incessantly annoying Pokémon. It did manage to take down Druddigon, though the Dragon had more than done its duty at this point and its defeat only allowed Iris to send out her fresh Haxorus to replace it.

Therefore, it didn’t take long for Karen and Iris to be confirmed as the first finalists of the Pokémon World Tournament.

And now it was our turn to prove ourselves worthy of joining them.

============

Elesa and I stepped forwards into the arena. Even though the stakes were as high as ever, we no longer felt nervous going into the battle. We had fought by each other’s side so many times by now that our nerves had long since settled. And we trusted the preparations we made beforehand.

From their past battles, we knew that Flannery tended to be the distraction. She would make use of large, area-of-effect attacks that forced a response, while Koga’s Pokémon would sneak around and inflict your Pokémon with deadly poisons. Those very same poisons would not only sap away at your health, but they would also slow you down or sometimes even inflict with a paralytic effect, making it all but impossible for your Pokémon to dodge out of the way of the massively hot flames coming their way.

Furthermore, Koga fought as disruptively as you would expect from a Dark specialist like Karen or Sidney. He was always mixing in a variety of Taunts and Torments when applicable to break through any prepared plans.

But my Pokémon were not going to be so easy to break mentally. And from the very start of our partnership, I had done as much as I can to train Elesa’s Pokémon to share a similar level of mental resilience since I anticipated fighting against another Dark specialist. I was glad that my preparations seemingly paid off.

“TRAINERS! ARE YOU READY?!” The booming voice of the announcer forced me to refocus, “THREE!... TWO!... ONE!... FIGHT!”

“You’re up, Ornstein!”    “Get’em, Galvantula!”

“Venomoth. Your turn.”     “Win this, Blaziken!”

All four of our Pokémon began rushing out of their Pokéballs as the battle begun.

Galvantula was the first to move, as it shot out a String Shot and Electro Web combo that looked to trap the charging Blaziken, but a quick Fire Punch burned through all webbing before it could latch onto the Fire type, allowing Blaziken to come slamming into Ornstein.

But Ornstein was ready, and he threw up an Obstruct shield that parried the incoming Hammer Arm that also sharply decreased Blaziken’s Defense. However, before he could follow that up with a Brick Break of his own, Venomoth came swooping down from above and released a cloud of poisonous gas right on top of Ornstein, which came into contact with the flames from Blaziken’s Fire Punch and instantly exploded.

The surprising explosion caught Ornstein off-guard as he was knocked to the ground. Blaziken quickly capitalised on this brief moment of vulnerability as it ruthlessly smashed down with a quadruply supereffective Hammer Arm, causing Ornstein to let out a howl of pain.

Blaziken immediately tried to follow up with a roundhouse kick to the face, but a large crackling Thunderbolt came crashing down from above, painfully electrocuting the Fire type and interrupting the attack.

But even that attack from Galvantula did not go unpunished. Rapidly pivoting on the spot, Venomoth dove forwards and threw out a volley of Air Slashes towards Galvantula – some managing to land a glancing blow against the retreating Electric type. Galvantula tried to retaliate with a Thunder Wave, but Venomoth moved too quickly to be hit and blasted the Electric type with a barrage of pulsating sonic waves, inflicting confusion on the Galvantula with a Supersonic.

Yet we had prepared countermeasures for this. So the instant Galvantula realised it was about to be confused, it struck itself with a piercing bolt of lightning that forcefully snapped itself out of the confusion. Thanks to this, Venomoth was kept busy as Galvantula continually bombarded it with Thunderbolts and Discharges, making sure that Koga’s Poison type couldn’t interfere in the fight between Ornstein and Blaziken.

Despite the rough start, Ornstein had picked himself up off the ground and was fighting back with a vengeance, showing off just why he was the better close-quarters specialist between the two.

The two Pokémon, though they fought similarly, were actually almost complete opposites in terms of their fighting styles. Blaziken fought like an avatar of searing wrath, throwing out lightning fast punches and kicks that only got faster and faster as its speed continued to be enhanced by Speed Boost. On the other hand, Ornstein fought far more defensively, relying more on Obstruct to parry blows and set up opportunities for it to strike back with a hard-hitting Counter.

But whereas Blaziken mostly relied on its superior speed to overwhelm its foes, Ornstein relied on technique and skill.

I was actually impressed that the two of them were so evenly matched. Both Pokémon had grown so much since their previous battle in the Tournament, where Flannery’s Blaziken was far less skilled than it was now, and Ornstein was still a Linoone at the start of that battle. Yet now the two of them were equally matched, and the fight between them was like an elaborate battle dance between two martial artists.

Koga must have really helped out with its training.

My admiration aside, I was fully focused on observing the brawl between Ornstein and Blaziken. I knew full well that Blaziken would slowly gain the advantage as it grew faster and faster – especially since Ornstein was already pretty badly injured. Similarly, I understood that it was only a matter of time before Venomoth began to overwhelm Galvantula with its better speed and training, which meant that it could start throwing out Toxic Spikes everywhere and plague us all with its deadly poisons.

If that happened, our chances of victory would plummet.

However, this was why I had chosen to send out Ornstein first, even though I recognised that it wasn’t the ‘most powerful’ choice in this situation. I was worried that Koga would come up with a strategy to instantly bring down or badly cripple whatever I sent out first, so Ornstein was just there to scout out their opening moves.

The real threat was coming out now.

“Parting Shot and Dark Pulse, Ornstein! Retreat! Come and crush them all, Vordt!”

A bellowing and terrifying roar echoed throughout the entire arena as Vordt came erupting onto the battlefield. Instantly, before it could even react as it had flinched from the Dark Pulse, Blaziken found itself suddenly impaled by a field of sharpened rocks as a Stone Edge burst out from beneath it.

It let out a pained cry as it was hoisted into the air by said rocks, and was unable to do anything when a crackling spear of lightning came mercilessly crashing down from above – causing it to be paralysed.

Then the sky itself turned dark as it was enveloped by a tsunami of rocks, all of them bound and controlled by Vordt’s geokinesis. Venomoth, who had successfully struck Galvantula with a flurry of Air Slashes while the Electric type was distracted with its previous attack, looked up at the impending avalanche of rocks with a sense of inevitable doom.

This was not the first time Vordt had shown off just how powerful its geokinesis was. And the last time he had done so, he had completely pulverised Koga’s Ariados. It would be little different with his Venomoth.

Compared to Ariados, Venomoth might be able to fly, but it wasn’t like that mattered when the sky itself was raining down with rocks – each of them large enough to smash the Bug straight down to the ground.

For Vordt, this was just one of his usual attacks. But for Venomoth and Blaziken, it was like the apocalypse had come early. The Bug swerved through the air, ducking and rolling past the eruption of rocks that were hurling down around it. It made use of every last bit of speed that it could muster and harnessed every aerial technique that it knew to dodge past all of the incoming rocks. At the same time, Blaziken was forced to move too, and it let out a series of punches and kicks as it tried to shatter the rocks before they could hit it.

Even Galvantula was not spared from this attack. Vordt’s unending avalanche of rocks was indiscriminate in its destruction, and since Galvantula was unable to Dig, it was forced to endure the attack alongside our opponents.

Fortunately, we planned for this, and Galvantula skittered across to one side of the arena where there were less rocks falling down in order to stay safe. Likewise, as both Venomoth and Blaziken had realised that the only way to stop the rocks from coming was to break Vordt’s concentration, Galvantula began firing off a volley of Thunder Waves and Thunderbolts at them so that they couldn’t easily reach Vordt.

Venomoth tried to disrupt Vordt with a Taunt, but Vordt didn’t even react even as it was engulfed in a cloud of malicious dark energies. His mental discipline was too good for that.

Eventually, a surprisingly fast Thunderbolt caught Venomoth while it was mid-dive, stunning the Bug for long enough that a huge chunk of rock splattered it against the ground, instantly knocking it out.

“HEADLONG RUSH!”

The second that Venomoth was knocked out, Vordt let go of his geokinesis and suddenly charged forwards at Mach speeds against the distracted Blaziken. Blaziken only had time to widen its eyes in alarm before Vordt came brutally barrelling into it, violently slamming into the Fire type and sending it limply crashing to the ground.

With a ferocious roar, Vordt raised a fist and smashed down with a earth-shaking Hammer Arm, before viciously cracking their heads together in a monstrously powerful Zen Headbutt. Despite being stunned and disoriented, Blaziken still managed to instinctively unleash a scorchingly hot Overheat, igniting all of their surroundings as Blaziken burned with white-hot flames.

Vordt’s fur was completely singed black as it was engulfed by the flames. And yet, the Burn only managed to activate its Guts ability.

Now with its Attack heavily increased, the next Hammer Arm that came smashing down not only knocked out Blaziken, but it shattered the arena below them – sending out a spiderweb of cracks spreading out in all directions. Blaziken was utterly buried into the ground, with only its legs sticking out from within the tomb of reinforced concrete.

Needless to say, it was knocked out of the fight as well.

Suddenly, a purple blur zoomed past Vordt – moving too fast for me to even follow its movements. Then a pained cry echoed out from Galvantula as it fell backwards as it was struck by a lightning fast Brave Bird from Koga’s Crobat, which were also infused with deadly toxins that badly poisoned the Galvantula upon contact.

And it seemed like the poison was no normal poison, as it also caused Galvantula’s muscles to lock up in paralysis. Was its poisons also infused with paralytic effects?

Galvantula tried to retaliate by unleashing a Discharge, but Crobat perfectly calculated the effective range of the Discharge and fell back just enough so that it was just out of range, before firing off a flurry of Air Slashes that cut deeply into the exposed Bug type.

I hesitated for a brief moment on whether to support Galvantula or not, but Vordt ended up making the choice for me. He let out another thunderous roar as he charged towards the newly released Torkoal, who was in the middle of unleashing a devastating Eruption.

An avalanche of molten rocks came crashing down all around Vordt, their scorching flames boosted even further by the Sun that had been set up thanks to Torkoal’s Drought. The boosted-Eruption actually proved powerful enough to break Vordt’s charge, forcing him to a halt as the fiery rocks crashed down all around him.

But then Vordt slammed both of his fists into the ground, sending out an earth-shattering Earthquake that devastated the already-destroyed arena even further. Torkoal proved too slow to dodge out of the way of the initial Earthquake, nor the sudden eruption of rocks that burst out of the ground from below it.

Though thanks to its impressive Defenses, Vordt’s signature Seismic Eruption had not done nearly as much damage as you would have expected from a supereffective move, but lowering Torkoal’s health was all I wanted as it would weaken subsequent Eruptions – Torkoal’s most powerful move.

While this was all happening, Galvantula had swiftly fallen to Crobat – having proved completely outmatched and overwhelmed by the sheer speed and mobility of Koga’s starter. It was subsequently swapped out for Elesa’s starter – Zebstrika – and a duel had begun between the two Pokémon to see who could outspeed the other.

Initially, it was Crobat that proved to be the more mobile of the two. Not only did it simply have more raw speed, but it was also able to fly. However, that rapidly changed as Zebstrika struck itself with its own Thunder Shock, activating its Motor Drive and skyrocketing its Speed to insane levels.

Zebstrika shot off like a rocket as it began circling the arena, and the insanely fast Electric type only got faster and faster as it continued to activate Motor Drive again and again.

However, despite all of its speed, Crobat proved no less able to target it as it locked onto the speeding Zebstrika with its keen eyes and unleashed a Supersonic. Of course, Zebstrika wasn’t just circling around the arena aimlessly, and had been firing off its own barrage of Thunderbolts at Crobat, but even with the sheer speed of the attacks, Crobat was still able to dodge past all of them while also maintaining its own concentration.

In the end, the perfectly aimed sonic waves struck and confused the Zebstrika, causing it to tumble over to the ground as it lost control of its speed. Crobat immediately swooped in with its wings gleaming purple as it readied to deliver a vicious Cross Poison—

“Stone Edge, Vordt!”

But then a sudden burst of rocks ripped through the ground, surprising the Crobat. Admirably, even though it was caught off-guard by the surprise attack, Crobat managed to perform a hard swerve to the side and narrowly flew out of the way of the Stone Edge, only managing to take a glancing blow from one of the sharp rocks.

However, that was when a crackling Thunderbolt struck it head on – it had forgotten about Zebstrika. A crippling amount of electricity now surged through Crobat’s body, and every muscle in its wings began to lock up. Yet, with an immense amount of determination and willpower, Crobat forced itself to keep flapping its wings, just barely keeping it moving in the air and not allowing it to crumble to the ground from the paralysis.

Unfortunately, knowing that Crobat was the far bigger threat, Elesa and I had both of our Pokémon target it down – even to the point of temporarily ignoring Torkoal. Therefore, taking advantage of its wounded state, Zebstrika pulled itself up and blitzed forwards in a lightning fast blur as it mercilessly slammed into Crobat with a supereffective Wild Charge.

Crobat managed to block it with a Protect shield, but Vordt was right behind it, and he purposely used his own body to shield Zebstrika from an incoming Lava Plume from Torkoal before crashing into the now exposed Crobat with an Ice-infused Headlong Rush of his own.

The double impact from both of our Pokémon’s charges brought Crobat painfully crumbling to the ground. But before Vordt could slam down with a crushingly powerful Ice Punch, Crobat quickly threw out a flurry of Air Slashes that flinched Vordt and threw out another Sludge Bomb that completely drenched Zebstrika with an ocean of deadly poison.

Just like with Galvantula, the paralytic effects of Crobat’s poison began to circulate through Zebstrika’s body, causing its muscles to lock up as it suddenly lost all of its speed and mobility.

Taking advantage of this, Crobat flew back into the skies again—

Only for Vordt to suddenly leap into the air and brutally slam it back down again with a Smack Down before delivering crackling Thunder Punch that struck it right in the face.

Ironically, it was Crobat’s turn to be paralysed.

However, Torkoal wasn’t content to just sit on the sidelines, and it was always dangerous to turn your backs on a Pokémon that could unleash a scorching amount of firepower. Therefore, a torrent of blue flames incinerated Zebstrika from behind, inflicting terrible burns on the Electric type.

The attack didn’t end there either, as the flames that were dancing across its body suddenly morphed together and transformed into a fiery vortex of burning flames that completely engulfed Zebstrika within, trapping it in a blazing coffin. Zebstrika’s whines of pain could barely be heard over the conflagration, but seeing its barely visible silhouette collapsing to the ground told me enough about its current condition.

Fortunately, before a second torrent of flames could come for Vordt, he did what he was best at and crushed Crobat with his powerful fists, breaking Koga’s starter before it had a chance to fly up into the air again.

And as was always the case when a Pokémon found themselves pinned down by Vordt – Crobat was swiftly defeated.

Unfortunately, that was when a second vortex of flames surrounded Vordt, incinerating him within the tornado of searing-hot flames. Zebstrika had succumbed to those very flames seconds earlier.

The battle was now a 1v1. A duel between two injured Pokémon, though Vordt was noticeably more injured from all of the damage he took from the previous battles. For the first time in a long time, Vordt looked exhausted and weary, as his back-to-back fights must have taken a heavy toll on him.

Unfortunately for Torkoal, even in this exhausted state Vordt was never one to give up on a fight. So even as Torkoal unleashed a burning torrent of flames at Vordt with a Flamethrower, Vordt endured through the flames as he charged forwards with a Headlong Rush. The ground around him was completely burnt black, but Vordt kept going until he ferociously slammed into Torkoal and sent it skidding backwards.

Then, with his powerful arms, Vordt latched onto Torkoal and lifted it into the air, before flipping Torkoal onto its back and smashing it face first into the ground. With its shell facing the ground, Torkoal’s soft underbelly was now exposed, and Vordt punished this by forming a large, jagged rock in his hand and bashing it right into Torkoal’s uncovered belly. It was a critical hit.

Yet that was when a surprise explosion of searing flames engulfed Vordt as Torkoal unleashed a point-blank, Sun-boosted Overheat. It actually managed to force Vordt to release his hold on Torkoal, allowing it to follow-up with a scorchingly hot Lava Plume that struck Vordt in the face.

But it wasn’t enough to take Vordt down. Not yet. So before Torkoal could open its mouth again, Vordt darted forwards and sent a Drain Punch that crashed right into its jaw, delivering a brutal uppercut that also restored some health for himself and knocking Torkoal back onto its back.

That was the death knell for Torkoal. With its injuries piling on, and with it denied any chance to heal up as it became Taunted, there was little Torkoal could do to fend off Vordt’s overwhelming assault.

In the end, it fell too.

Meaning we were the winner. We had made it into the finals of the Tournament.

========================

(Cynthia POV)

“…and so I thought that this would be a good opportunity for me to show off that my victory over Wallace wasn’t just a one-off thing.” Her fellow Champion said to her over the phone, “I know it’s pretty last minute, but I’d like it if it could happen.”

It was definitely a surprising request. Originally, the Champions had agreed that they wouldn’t be participating in the Tournament. However, as they drew closer and closer to the finale, she had been feeling like the Tournament was missing a little something. She felt that it wouldn’t be right for the very first World Tournament to end without a battle against a Champion.

In fact, she had been about to suggest participating herself, so Steven’s request came at a very good time.

“I was actually thinking the same thing.” She replied, getting a pleased hum from Steven, “The ending for such a grand Tournament should be more… dramatic. I’ll be happy to see if we can slot in a battle for us two after the finals are over, Steven.”

“That would be excellent, thank you.” He nodded.

“But what about me?” Lance asked, almost sounding like he was letting out a whine. Understandable, in his position, since he had always been the most eager to participate, “If the two of you are battling, then where would there be space for me?”

“Hah! I guess there’d be none!” Alder barked out a laugh, “Too bad for us, Lance. But I guess you and I are going to be sitting out of this one. Maybe we can participate next year instead!”

Lance let out a grumble, and she shot him an apologetic smile, “Sorry, but Steven spoke up first. But if you really want to participate I’m sure we could come up with something—”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He waved her off, “I’m not that upset about it. I can just wait until next year’s Tournament to get my licks in. Just don’t forget to include me in next year.”

She nodded, and after a few more minutes of discussion, the matter was settled. Both her and Steven would be participating in the World Tournament, as a surprise addition for the finalists.

And she definitely had a preferred choice about who she would face.

A.N. I know I said this above, but I really am sorry for the delay. This chapter took me 7 rewrites to get right, so I hope the final product is to your liking. There were genuinely so many different things I wanted to focus on, and I kept going back-and-forth about how I wanted both fights to play out.

And surprise! I felt that it was only appropriate to wrap up such a Tournament with one proper final battle against Champions, and given that John had missed out on being able to battle against Cynthia and Wallace last time, I felt like it would be good if he got the opportunity to battle against Champions.

As for the battle between John’s and Koga’s teams, I wanted to highlight that it was not a complete stomp unlike last time when John faced off against Koga. Flannery had grown a lot since the last time they fought, and Koga is still very much a formidable opponent. Hope you enjoyed!