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CHAPTER 16: BATTLE OF RIVALRY_________

“This could be fun!” Kinichi danced around in my head.
“Kinichi!” Monferno snapped at her. “This is serious! If we can't figure something out we could still be in trouble. we've obviously dealt with Venasaur and Blastoise before, but that was back at the Cubone Dojo and they were Ivysaur and Warturtle then! Who knows how much stronger they've gotten since then! And Dusknoir and Grovyle are already strong to begin with! They wiped the floor with us the last time we fought them! Granted we have gotten much stronger ourselves, but that was still only about a couple weeks ago!” Monferno was looking at this right, but we have gotten stronger and even I was confident about our skills.
“If we have to fight them four-to-four then I say we let Kinichi's twister take them out, first.” I suggested.  “If they're still willing to fight they should be weak enough for us to take out without breaking too big a sweat.”
“That would be the best solution, but if they challenge us to a one-on-one, then we should honor that request, too.” Ken was thinking the obvious, but it still made sense to talk it to the rest of us. By now, the four opponents approaching us, sluggishly slow but still causing suspense within me with every passing second. “We should be strong enough to take them out one-to-one.”
“I think we should think of this as the final test.” I thought of how, in school, you had several tests throughout the year, along with several practices before each test. Each test proved whether or not you passed or failed. We've had a similar experience with our time here. Each of our adventures were practices before the test facing Dialga at Temporal Tower. Now, we were readying for our final test, creatively called our Final at school. Everything we've done so far, the test against Dialga and the adventures we've had until now. This was the test before the final. If we pass this test, we have a good chance of beating Palkia, our Final. If not, usually you get second tries, at least in school. In this case, if we failed, there were no re-takes. We couldn't fail this test. “The final test before the Final.”
Monferno remained silent, obviously not entirely sure what I was talking about-but I knew he was smart enough to catch my drift- but Ken and Kinichi took no time at all to know what I was talking about. “We should meet them in the middle.” Monferno suggested and in agreement we walked their pace towards them. My face stuck itself in a concentrated stare. I wasn't letting any of them out of my sight. Grovyle especially. He juggled all four of us, plus Cubone, by himself without breaking any sort of a sweat. And Dusknoir, who took care of the legendary Team AC while Grovyle took care of us, was the other one I couldn't stop looking at. Venasuar and Blastoise, last seen as Ivysaur and Warturtle, were fairly weak and took only Ken and Chimchar to beat them last time while me and Kinichi took out a fake Groudon, so they were the ones that I didn't pay to much attention to. This is a mistake, I know, but I can't help it. They were so weak last time and comparing them to Grovyle and Dusknoir, Grovyle and Dusknoir were WWIII while Venasuar and Blastoise were bullies at school.
The eight of us met in the middle, our eyes never leaving each other. Grovyle was the first to speak. “Do I need to explain why we are here?”
“Darkrai has ordered you two to fight us off and these two happened to have a bone to pick with us, too, so you let them tag along. Is that it?” I responded, keeping my face straight and serious.
“Just about.” Grovyle made the first leap at us and swung at Ken with leaf blade. I put my fin in front of Ken before Grovyle could cause damage and took the hit. It wasn't much, it only stung, but I figured that wasn't all of Grovyle's power, not by a long shot. Grovyle jumped back and examined the mark he left on my steel-like armor and let the slight worry cross his face. It quickly disappeared and he lunged at the both of us, knocking both of us away from each other and Dusknoir grabbed Monferno and Kinichi and hurled them in separate directions as well. Grovyle walked to me while Dusknoir, Venasaur, and Blastoise went to Ken, Kinichi, and Monferno respectively. We were gonna battle them with four one-on-one matches. This was going to get hectic. Grovyle looked at the other three and they all nodded. “So you guys don't get any ideas about tag-teaming us, we'll battle far away from each other. The winners will all meet here. The team with the majority wins.”
This seemed weird to me. Why don't they just attack us all at once? Probably to make this easier on themselves, but a GAME??? Majority wins??? That didn't sit well in my stomach. Watch out! I communicated to the other three. I don't think they will just walk away if some of them win.
Do you doubt us Saori? Kinichi taunted back at me. I grinned and shook my head.
Of course not. Lets beat them and get to Darkrai!!! Grovyle and I ran straight away from everyone else. We traveled a few minutes before deciding that we were far enough away. We stood about ten feet from each other and took our poses. Grovyle, being the quickest to strike, came at me with leaf blade again. I easily dodged and predicted him to strike me again with a quick back attack. I turned around and swung my fin with steel wing, only to hit air. I turn around again to where I last saw Grovyle and discovered a hole in the ground, in a small patch of grass. I was standing on an ice patch of land. I wanted to follow him, but thought better. I shouldn't chase him. He might expect that. I couldn't stay in one place, either. I focused my human energy to my feet and felt the earth. I could feel a rumbling on the soles of my feet and knew where he was. He was digging a circle around me. What was he doing that for? Easy access for later? Or is it a trap? I thought of ways for me to not find out and ruin whatever he was planning while fishing him out of the ground. Attacking wasn't going to work. He “carelessly” left the hole in the ground. He would expect me to attack him or follow him underground. What was left? The rumbling beneath me changed and Grovyle was going all sorts of directions, completely avoiding me. It was then that he was preparing something down there. It was a trap! And from how the ground is now, he is making a maze! I sighed. Why another maze? I decided to do what he wanted me to do and followed him down the hole with aqua jet, making all of the dirt that the water touched instantly turn into mud.
That is, until I hit the patch of ice, in which case the cold nearly encased me in my own water and I stopped it before it would hurt me. I landed on my feet but kept sliding until I hit dirt again. This is what he was planning. Either way I would end up down here and there is no was for me to keep a strong advantage over him from down here. What he didn't know, luckily, is that I had the ability now to cause major damage and fish him out and escape. I re-focused my energy into my ears and listened for his footsteps. I heard soft tmp.....tmp......tmps coming from the wall directly in front of me. He knew I was down here. I listened for where he was going and heard him slowly walking to my left. I focused a ton of energy into my beak and it began to light up. I cocked back, leaned forward, and opened my beak to let hydro cannon destroy not only the ground in front of me, but to utterly destroy Grovyle in one blow. I looked up and saw the purple sky of this dimension and jumped out, expecting to see Grovyle's dead body limp somewhere close by. As hard as I looked, though, I couldn't find it. Suddenly, with my hearing still heightened, I heard rumbling behind me. The ground directly behind me erupted and I got hit with a wicked leaf blade in the back. This one was much stronger than his attack on Ken before and it hurt bad! I flinched forward and turned around to catch his next leaf blade with my steel wing. I kicked him away and sent the steel wing at him. He ducked and fired bullet seed, which I countered with hydro cannon. I couldn't see whether or not I hit Grovyle, but I defended myself against his bullet seed. I felt hydro cannon's effect kick in and I stood helplessly straight ahead. Grovyle was gone again, but there was no hole in the ground. I couldn't even move my neck enough to check around me. My ears, though, never since I set them on high were they turned off, I could hear a hissing some bit of a distance behind me. I tried to move but couldn't as the hissing grew louder. A few moments later, I could move a little bit and I turned around to see Grovyle glowing with a bright intensity. I knew what was going to happen, but I was too late. I still couldn't move properly and Grovyle had already fired solarbeam. I watched as the beam consumed me and I felt the excruciating pain throughout my body. The beam quickly disappeared and I fell to the ground, barely hanging on. Grovyle was still strong, and he was only using brute strength, not the speed and agility that I saw the last time we battled. I couldn't quit, though. I struggled to get up and focused my energy to up my stats a bit. I felt stronger, but not exactly refreshed. I could still feel the pain of the solarbeam.
Grovyle sneered and laughed at my condition. He was almost scratch-free and I was so close to collapsing. I pulled through the pain and sent another flurry of steel wing at him, which he dodged acrobatically. I continued until he was busy dodging them for about a few minutes and shot myself at him with aqua jet. I raced past my steel wings, not hitting them, and managed to hit Grovyle in mid-flight. The other steel wings hit him and I got behind him. Before he knew where I was I focused a little more energy to my claws, grabbed Grovyle, and threw him into the air, high, high into the air. I drill pecked myself straight up, following his path. Grovyle started falling after reaching the highest point and he fell face-down. He opened his eyes just as I made contact with him. I drove him into a U-turn and sent him into the ground much like I did the clone Darkrai. I jumped out of the crater I made and landed on my feet, then losing my balance on one foot. I fell all the way down and decided to lay there and rest. Then I would meet with everyone else and we would continue on with our journey.

Ken-

I had the advantage over Dusknoir type-wise, but Dusknoir was all but strong in both strength and defense. I crunched hard on him and it barely left a mark. I shadow-sneaked him and he didn't even flinch. He merely chuckled at my feeble attempts.
“You can't win!” he said through his laughter. “You were not meant to fight. Of your team, you are the defender. Your defense is remarkable, like mine, but your strength barely meets mediocre. I, on the other hand, am not only a defensive fighter, but I am exceptional in attack as well.” I got tired of his talking and tried to confuse him with confuse ray, but he simply moved a small bit and dodged the beam of light. Dusknoir charged at me rather sluggishly and hit me hard with a  shadow punch. It wasn't that strong against me, like he said. He nearly struck again when I crunched his hand as hard as I could. He pulled his arm up with me and looked me straight in the eyes. “If you wish to live, then you will forfeit to me and allow me to torture your friends in front of you.” I shook my head and hit him with confuse ray. He covered his eye and I let go of him. I used shadow sneak and got him from under, using some of my human energy, and sent him in the air. I jumped, wall-jumped off of his back, and crushed him with protect. I jumped off and watched as he got up again with the biggest frown I'd ever seen. His eye was all red, either from anger of me blinding him, I couldn't tell.
“Touch my friends and I'll kill you!” I roared at him in disgust.
“You'll pay for that!” Dusknoir yelled back. “The first one to die will be your little girlfriend!” Jut then, I saw a huge blue beam behind him. I was surprised he couldn't hear it roaring behind him. I recognized it as Saori's hydro cannon and decided it was now or never. I walked a little to the right and Dusknoir walked directly in front of the hydro cannon.
“Don't you dare touch her!” I improvised to keep Dusknoir where he was. The blue beam wasn't far now. I waited until it was about five feet behind him and cast protect on myself. Dusknoir wondered what I was doing and felt the blast as it hit him from behind. Thank you Saori for missing! Dusknoir fell forward and I crunched hard on his head, enough to knock Dusknoir out for good.

Kinichi-

Venasaur had his roots into the ground, keeping himself firm while the winds attempted to pick him up off of the ground. No matter how hard they were, though, and I was at full blast twister, he wouldn't move. I forced myself to move in the opposite direction and stopped twister. I spread my wings and hovered high above the sky, judging my next course of action. I opened my jaws and showered the ground below me with a huge heat wave. Venasaur opened his bulb and spewed a purple powder into the air, making a slight wind from the force of the powder and blowing the heat away. The powder hit me and I felt sick to my stomach. It was harder to flap my wings and I began to fall. I assessed the situation and decided that it was a perfect opportunity for some major damage. I released heat wave again and nearly covered Venasaur, but he countered again with poison powder. That small distraction was all I needed and set my claws ready for dragon claw. Venasuar took the hit and roared in pain. I smiled and was about to turn around to slash at him again but a jolting pain sent me to the ground a few feet below me. I crashed and Venasaur was in front of me, his vines poised in the air to strike. He opened his mouth and started a speech.
“You know why we added you to our rescue team back then?” he started grinning the most maniacal of grins. “You had something about you that was different. You came out of Infinity Forest with nothing but some scratches on you and you looked like a weak little Charmander. Warturtle and I took you in, seeing that you were different from the ordinary pokemon and you foolishly told us about you being human and asking us if your friends were here. From then on, we planned to find your other two friends and have them join our team. We used you to find your friends and told you that if you did find them not to talk to them. But you screwed that up, obviously, because that Piplup friend of yours made that bet that would make us look suspicious if we refused. You then lost and betrayed us!” Rage was building inside of me. This entire time they wanted to use Saori and Ken? But for what? “Why get them to join at all, right?” Venasaur grabbed me and held me in the air, wings and arms folded down. “Because if your friends were as strong as you then we could have been the most powerful team in the world! Since you all were confused little humans, it would have been easy to manipulate them like we did you for a while. We could have performed countless crimes and gotten away from every one of them! But no, you...” He squeezed tightly on my throat and tighter with every word he spoke. “...had...to...mess...it...UP!!!!”
The bulb on his back started to glow with energy. I struggled, trying to break free, but Venasaur's vines were wrapped too tightly around me. I started to lose my breath. I had an idea, then. I sucked in what little breath I could and spread a light, nearly invisible shower of heat wave on him. Before he could fire, his bulb caught fire a little and he dropped me in a panic. I sucked in more breath and unleashed a full-power heat wave, giving him a bunch of damage. I charged in and finished it off with dragon claw, sending him head-first into the ground.
I sighed with relief. I beat them. Maybe they would finally leave me alone.

Monferno-

I had a hard enough time dodging Blastoise's hydro pump. It seemed very illogical that so much water was packed into those guns, but the streams of water were not ending. The only thing saving me was my new speed. “What's wrong?” Blastoise asked sarcastically “Can't fight back?”
I quickly dodged another hydro pump and quickly charged in with a mach punch. Almost instantaneously I was in front of him, ready to sock him one. I ducked down and upper-cut him, sending him into the air a little bit. He landed on his back, helpless to get up and fight. He squirmed and wriggled but couldn't for the life of him get back up. I sent a flurry of mach punches to his stomach and jumped into the air, starting flame, and landing on his stomach with it, copying Ken's protect move. I cracked his shell a bit and walked away from my victory. “Of course I can fight back.” I said loud enough for him to hear. A few minutes later, I met with everyone else, who showed back up a while later.
“How did it go everyone?” I asked with a sudden burst of excitement.
“Obviously we won since we're all here.” Saori said with a small laugh. But mine was pretty difficult.
“I need to thank Saori for missing her target once.” Ken said with a grin on his face.
“What do you mean?” Saori asked.
“One of your hydro cannons came at Dusknoir and I used it to win the battle. I was in a tight jam before then.”
“Oh,” she said, patting his head like a dog, which he didn't enjoy to much “then your welcome. What about you Kinichi?”
“It was pretty easy. All it took was a good heat wave.” She responded after a moment or so. “Venasaur ticked me off a little bit and I almost lit him ablaze. I only cause a small fire, though, and it was out by the time I finished him off.” She looked at us and our eyes were bugged-out, sweat running down our faces. Remind me not to get her mad at me.
“In any case,” Saori stepped forward towards the mountains that were originally our target “we need to move on. Our final chapter is getting nearer and as bitter-sweet as it might be, we need to keep going and finish this quickly, before its too late.” We all agreed and ran to the mountains, chasing our destiny.