Story Notes:
Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon
Crasher Wake
Everyone decides to take a day to honor their deceased friend and the next day the group meets in front of the Pokemon center although Latias hasn't spoken a word since two days ago. Kaza stretches his arms above his head with a big yawn,
"Today's the day we get badge number five!!!" Yakira smiles,
"You know he's a water gym leader right?" Kaza looks at her with a blank expression,
"You know I have Tankburger right?" Yakira giggles,
"Touché but a Snorlax might not be able to take down a gym leader." Kaza shrugs,
"You weren't there when Scarlet caught him." Scarlet nods,
"It took down my entire team but Dane managed to beat it." Yakira blinks,
"Then I guess he does have some power in him." Stratos adjusts the hat on his head,
"So when are we gonna fight the gym leader?" Vecransyh cracks his neck and looks down at Stratos,
"In a little while. You think we could go there now?" He looks up towards Kaza and Scarlet. The two nod,
"Sure." The group heads south of the Pokemon center to the large building off to the left of the town with an orange roof. Shortly after arriving they all walk in through the sliding doors and look around. The inside of the gym is a large pool of water with two platforms suspended a little above it and a few platforms in the pool. Kaza's eye twitches, "This looks awfully familiar" Vecransyh nods,
"Yup, just like Misty's gym; except the platforms for standing on are suspended." The group is approached by a muscular man in orange boots with blue wrestling pants and an orange belt. On his face are bands similar to the black lines on a Lucario's face with the eye bands under his eyes instead of over them. From the meeting point of the bands are two white SUPER EYEBROWS. The man has large, black sideburns and a small amount of black hair on the top of his head,
"Well, well! Look at all of you! You all here for badges?" Scarlet, Vecransyh, Kazamaru and Stratos all nod and the man looks down at Stratos, "You're a trainer?" Stratos giggles,
"Yup! I'm gonna be a trainer until my daddy gets back from his trip!" The man laughs heartily,
"And just as I thought I'd seen everything in this old world. Alrighty. I am Crasher Wake. I'm the gym leader here." Stratos bows,
"Pleasure to meet you Mr. Wake." Wake chuckles,
"Somebody was raised right. How old are you little guy?" Stratos grins,
"Almost one." Everyone looks down at Stratos with odd looks. Vecransyh blinks,
"How can you be almost one? You hatched like 16 days ago." Stratos giggles,
"You forget that I'm not a human. I'm a Lucario so I age in dog years. That means on my hatch day I'll be 15." Everyone looks shocked, "And my brain develops quicker because of that." Everyone accepts the good answer and turn back to Crasher Wake as he speaks,
"So, who wants to go for the Fen badge first?" Everyone expects Stratos to raise his hand but when he doesn't they all look at him as he looks at all of them before shrugging,
"Hey, don't look at me. I've never been a trainer before so I need to watch you guys first." Vecransyh looks back to Wake and raises his hand,
"Guess I'll go first." Before long Wake and Vecransyh stand across from each other on the elevated platforms. Wake takes out a pokeball and throws it releasing Gyrados from it and the giant blue Serpent slips into the water and is lost from view. Vecransyh thinks for a moment going through all his Pokemon in his mind before settling on one and throwing a pokeball releasing Gengar to the field. He looks up at the bright lights with disgust,
"Why can't these battles ever be in the dark?" He sighs and looks around, "Okay, what am I fighting?" Vecransyh brings his palm to his face,
"You're fighting a Gyrados, it's underwater right now." Gengar nods and begins building electricity in his body,
"So... this is supposed to be a challenge?" Suddenly an explosion of water erupts to the side and Gyrados emerges firing a powerful ice beam. Gengar leaps over to another platform and sits down smiling as he sets his feet in the water, "Wow! Almost got me with that one!" Gengar releases his charged electricity and all of the water absorbs it electrocuting Gyrados thoroughly, "Strike one!" Wake returns Gyrados to his ball and scratches his head,
"Well, forgot all ghosts could use electric attacks. This might not end well for me." He tosses another ball releasing Quagsire to one of the platforms. The blue salamander tilts his head with a happy smile and Gengar stands up charging more electricity,
"You should just give up!" Gengar releases a thunderbolt that covers Quagsire then dissipates leaving the Pokemon without a scratch, "Wha...?!" Gengar then takes a powerful ice beam that freezes him into a block of ice. Vecransyh then blinks,
"What's the deal?!" Wake laughs heartily,
"Since you've got electric attacks I decided to use my buddy Quagsire." Quagsire meanwhile has jumped to the platform with Gengar and blasts him with a Hydro Pump. The frozen Gengar sinks into the pool a little ways before being recalled to his pokeball. Vecransyh looks over to Xylina next to him with a smile,
"Ready?" Xylina grins and flies out in front of him,
"You know it!" She dodges out of the way of a sudden ice beam and throws a shadow ball into the face of Quagsire blasting him backwards into the water. Then silence, Quagsire is nowhere to be found. Until after a moment he jumps from the water behind Xylina and fires a Hydro jump into her and Xylina falls into the water,
"XYLINA!!!!" Vecransyh looks into the water and Xylina jumps from the water giving Vec a wink before Quagsire jumps up next to her and fires another Hydro Pump. Xylina performs a midair dodge before rapidly punching Quagsire in the torso and face before slamming him on top of the head sending him falling hard against one of the platforms. Wake stares wide-eyed as Quagsire disappears into his ball,
"What attack was that?!" Xylina smiles as she looks towards the gym leader,
"Return." Wake blinks,
"Wow. Never seen one do that much damage!!" Wake throws his third pokeball releasing a Floatzel to the field. The male Floatzel smiles as he eyes his opponent,
"Gimme a good fight." Xylina begins radiating with electricity as she grins,
"Bring it." Xylina begins releasing bursts of electricity but the Floatzel repeatedly dodges them as he continues making his way closer to her,
"You'll have to do better then that missy!!!" Xylina glares at him and throws a shadow ball that catches him in the leg sending him crashing into a platform only to be hit by a thunderbolt. Floatzel stands up and brushes off his shoulder, "Touché." Xylina then leaps back as Floatzel lunges at her with fangs of dark energy and she continually dodges him only to have him continue pursuing her and dodges every attack she throws. Floatzel eventually connects with her shoulder and Xylina cringes as she feels the dark type attack pulse through her body. She takes the opportunity to release a powerful thunder into her opponent causing him to be blasted away into the pool and begin to sink before he is returned to his ball. Vecransyh hops down from his platform and lands on Xylina's,
"You okay?" Xylina smiles with her other hand gripping her shoulder,
"Yea, just a scratch." Vecransyh raises an eyebrow,
"Looks pretty bad. You'd better head to the Pokemon center." Xylina nods,
"Okay. I'll be back soon." With that Xylina leaves through the gym doors. Wake tosses a badge across the arena and Vecransyh catches it with a grin. After a short healing process Xylina returns looking fairly happy and Wake stands across from Kaza after being quickly defeated by Scarlet,
"So!! Took me a while to recognize you all but you're those kids from the Kanto Pokemon league people have been talking about." Kaza grins,
"That's us!" Kazamaru sends out his Snorlax, Tankburger who scratches his stomach with a yawn. Wake sends out his Gyrados and it dives into the water. Snorlax looks into the water tracking the movements of the Serpent. When Gyrados bursts from the water behind him Snorlax turns around and throws a punch into his face sending him flying backwards into the side of the pool. The serpent shakes his head unsure of what just happened and fires an ice beam that hits Tankburger and freezes a small part of his stomach. Tankburger inhales shattering the layer of ice on his stomach and blasts Gyrados with a Hyper Beam knocking him unconscious. Tankburger wipes his mouth as Gyrados returns to his pokeball. Wake smiles brightly,
"Well, that's certainly a powerful Snorlax you've got there!" Wake releases his Floatzel from his ball in a flash of light and Floatzel raises an eyebrow as he sees his opponent,
"That's unusual." Tankburger smirks,
"Never seen a Snorlax before?" Floatzel shakes his head,
"My opponents aren't usually this easy. One attack and you're done." Floatzel lunges towards him with a focus punch but takes a punch to the face sending him crashing to the platform he was just standing on. Floatzel stands up rubbing his nose, "Okay...? New tactic." Floatzel takes a step back disappearing into the pool with a smile. Tankburger looks around into the water,
"Where are you...?" Tankburger staggers forward when he feels a powerful punch into his back and his arm quickly moves behind him grabbing Floatzel around the neck. Tankburger turns around and looks at Floatzel with a dark gaze before punching him in the face sending him flying out of the arena into the wall next to Vecransyh and the others. Tankburger turns back towards Wake with a smile, "Next?" Wake returns Floatzel to his ball and sends out Quagsire. Tankburger scratches his stomach as he looks at the Pokemon, "That it?" Quagsire then suddenly runs at him and begins striking Tankburger with powerful punches. Tankburger simply stands there and after a moment reaches down and picks up Quagsire looking him in the eye. Tankburger turns his head back to look at Kaza, "Can I just eat him?" Kaza shakes his head,
"No you can't eat him!! You can eat after the match." Tankburger sighs and punches Quagsire in the face knocking him out,
"There. Now feed me." Kaza takes out a pokeball,
"Just chill. You'll get food in a little bit." Tankburger disappears into his ball as does Quagsire to his own. Wake grins,
"Well dang. That's one powerful Snorlax if I ever did see one. Here kid!" Kaza catches the badge thrown to him and looks down at the silver, blue and purple circle with a grin,
"Finally..."
"My turn!" Kaza jumps as he looks to his left and sees Stratos with a determined look on his face,
"You sure you're ready?" Stratos nods,
"Mommy let me stay up last night and read books on Pokemon and their type advantages and disadvantages. I could give you a brief run through if you don't believe me." Kaza scratches his head,
"Umm... later would be better." Stratos nods and looks back towards Wake with a happy smile,
"Alrighty." Wake returns to his platform after quickly healing his Pokemon and looks over to the Lucario with a happy grin,
"All right little guy. Time to see how much skill you really have!!" Stratos bows,
"Let our battle be a splendid one Mr. Wake!!" In two flashes of light Ren stands across from Gyrados and he looks back to Stratos before the two exchange nods. Gyrados rushes forward and slams into the platform Ren is standing on causing him to wobble slightly but Ren leaps forward and sinks his teeth into Gyrados' side before sending electricity through his body and causing the giant serpent to slam into the platform unconscious breaking it into shards. Gyrados returns to his ball prompting a grin from Crasher Wake,
"I gotta hand it to ya kid, you know what you're doing!!" Stratos grins,
"Thanks but you should give Mr. Ren the credit, not me." Wake nods with a grin and throws a second ball releasing the blue salamander that looks at Ren with a happy smile. Stratos takes out Ren's pokeball, "Return!" Ren disappears into his pokeball and Stratos returns it to the belt before taking out another, "Go Arcanine!" Stratos throws the ball but the pokeball simply lands on the platform not opening. There is an awkward silence before Stratos hops down from his platform after calling for a temporary stop of the match and walks over to the ball picking it up. He presses the button and the ball opens revealing it to be empty. Stratos looks oddly down at the empty ball and closes it before looking up to Wake with a smile, "I guess daddy has Arcanine with him." Back at the wall everyone looks towards him in shock of what they had just heard. Latias looks down sadly,
(Arcanine always said he would stay with Drake no matter what happened... but that could also mean... could he be...?) Back on the field Stratos puts the ball back on his belt and hops back up to his platform before throwing another,
"Then how about Swampert?!" The ball opens and in a flash of light the female Swampert looks towards her opponent with a roar. Quagsire and Swampert stare each other down before nodding as if to say, 'may the best Pokemon win' and they both jump back off of their platforms and disappear into the water. The two sink into the water not taking their eyes off each other until they both set down at the bottom. The two both stand there with tiny air bubbles floating from their mouths as they both stare down the other. Only a moment later the two rush each other freely able to move around in the water because of their natural ability to swim incredibly well. Swampert throws a punch that is easily dodged by the smaller Pokemon and Quagsire spins slamming his tail into her head. Swampert spins into the attack and punches Quagsire in the face. The two begin slamming into each other with powerful attacks and eventually Swampert jumps back with a smirk,
"That's enough playing around." Quagsire gives her an odd look and watches as Swampert begins dashing around him at a high speed. Quagsire makes a futile attempt to escape the attack but instead takes a punch to the face knocking him back. Quagsire eventually looks up to see the top of the pool slowly but surely making its way towards him in a spiral. The point of the spiral makes contact with the top of Quagsire's head shooting him into the whirlpool. Swampert looks up with a grin and bends her knees as she stands on the bottom of the pool and springs upwards eventually shooting out of the pool above the trapped Pokemon. She takes a deep breath and releases a powerful freezing blizzard downwards towards the whirlpool completely freezing it and making a giant pillar of ice with Quagsire frozen into the middle of it. As Swampert begins to descend downwards towards the pool she throws a punch into the top and instead of simply cracking the ice she barrels through it until finally reaching her opponent and shattering all of the ice around him along with landing the vicious focus punch into his head. Swampert returns to the bottom of the pool and springs back out of the pool to a platform near Stratos. Wake claps his hands before taking out Quagsire's pokeball and returning the fainted salamander to it,
"Well! That was a very impressive attack combination!" Swampert smiles and bows her head slightly,
"Why thank you." Wake takes out his third Pokemon and releases his Floatzel from it. The otter smirks with a look of confidence in his eyes. Swampert wastes no time leaping towards him with a punch but her eyes go wide as Floatzel fires an intense beam of ice that knocks Swampert back into the water. Swampert shakes her head as she recovers but suddenly feels repetitive and powerful strikes as Floatzel zips back and forth through the water rebounding off the walls of the pool for extra speed and Swampert chokes as the strikes begin building on each other adding to the already intense pain. Stratos, realizing the predicament of Swampert's condition, returns her to her ball and brings out the couple's ball before clicking a button on the front switch and throws it releasing Roze. She quickly scans the arena before locking eyes on her opponent zipping around under the water. Roze tracks the movements of the Floatzel before leaping into the water and slamming him in the face with a kick. The two Floatzel begin to spin around each other in the water as they begin striking each other with physical punches and kicks. The two blast away from each other as they fire Hydro pumps towards one another. They both jump out of the water and stare each other down growling. The two slam together locking claws and glare at each other neither one receding an inch. Wake and Stratos blink when they can't determine their own Floatzel and one of them smashes the other in the head with a Headbutt knocking it back into the water. The Floatzel stands up fully and smirks before speaking in a male voice,
"Good fight." There is a sound behind him and Floatzel turns to face an oncoming Blizzard that freezes him into a block of ice with the stunned look pinned on his face. Roze stands next to him with an unimpressed look on her face,
"Good fight indeed." She punches the ice shattering it leaving Floatzel to fall forward in front of her. Floatzel disappears into his pokeball and Stratos hops off of his platform and runs over to Roze,
"We did it!!" Roze smiles and lays a hand on his shoulder,
"You are a fine trainer Stratos." The two look up when they hear Wake whistle,
"You won so here's your badge kid!" Stratos grins brightly as he catches to oncoming badge in his paws. He looks down at it smiling happily,
"Yay!!"
After saying their goodbyes to Wake the group heads out of the gym back to the Pokemon center where they all sit around a table in the lobby. Vecransyh looks over when he sees Latias deep in thought instead of her usual grieving look,
"Something up Latias?" Latias looks up and shakes her head with a slight smile,
"No, it's nothing." Vecransyh nods,
"Okay." With little more events left in the day the group heads to bed early eagerly awaiting the trip back to Canalave city and their next badge.
"Today's the day we get badge number five!!!" Yakira smiles,
"You know he's a water gym leader right?" Kaza looks at her with a blank expression,
"You know I have Tankburger right?" Yakira giggles,
"Touché but a Snorlax might not be able to take down a gym leader." Kaza shrugs,
"You weren't there when Scarlet caught him." Scarlet nods,
"It took down my entire team but Dane managed to beat it." Yakira blinks,
"Then I guess he does have some power in him." Stratos adjusts the hat on his head,
"So when are we gonna fight the gym leader?" Vecransyh cracks his neck and looks down at Stratos,
"In a little while. You think we could go there now?" He looks up towards Kaza and Scarlet. The two nod,
"Sure." The group heads south of the Pokemon center to the large building off to the left of the town with an orange roof. Shortly after arriving they all walk in through the sliding doors and look around. The inside of the gym is a large pool of water with two platforms suspended a little above it and a few platforms in the pool. Kaza's eye twitches, "This looks awfully familiar" Vecransyh nods,
"Yup, just like Misty's gym; except the platforms for standing on are suspended." The group is approached by a muscular man in orange boots with blue wrestling pants and an orange belt. On his face are bands similar to the black lines on a Lucario's face with the eye bands under his eyes instead of over them. From the meeting point of the bands are two white SUPER EYEBROWS. The man has large, black sideburns and a small amount of black hair on the top of his head,
"Well, well! Look at all of you! You all here for badges?" Scarlet, Vecransyh, Kazamaru and Stratos all nod and the man looks down at Stratos, "You're a trainer?" Stratos giggles,
"Yup! I'm gonna be a trainer until my daddy gets back from his trip!" The man laughs heartily,
"And just as I thought I'd seen everything in this old world. Alrighty. I am Crasher Wake. I'm the gym leader here." Stratos bows,
"Pleasure to meet you Mr. Wake." Wake chuckles,
"Somebody was raised right. How old are you little guy?" Stratos grins,
"Almost one." Everyone looks down at Stratos with odd looks. Vecransyh blinks,
"How can you be almost one? You hatched like 16 days ago." Stratos giggles,
"You forget that I'm not a human. I'm a Lucario so I age in dog years. That means on my hatch day I'll be 15." Everyone looks shocked, "And my brain develops quicker because of that." Everyone accepts the good answer and turn back to Crasher Wake as he speaks,
"So, who wants to go for the Fen badge first?" Everyone expects Stratos to raise his hand but when he doesn't they all look at him as he looks at all of them before shrugging,
"Hey, don't look at me. I've never been a trainer before so I need to watch you guys first." Vecransyh looks back to Wake and raises his hand,
"Guess I'll go first." Before long Wake and Vecransyh stand across from each other on the elevated platforms. Wake takes out a pokeball and throws it releasing Gyrados from it and the giant blue Serpent slips into the water and is lost from view. Vecransyh thinks for a moment going through all his Pokemon in his mind before settling on one and throwing a pokeball releasing Gengar to the field. He looks up at the bright lights with disgust,
"Why can't these battles ever be in the dark?" He sighs and looks around, "Okay, what am I fighting?" Vecransyh brings his palm to his face,
"You're fighting a Gyrados, it's underwater right now." Gengar nods and begins building electricity in his body,
"So... this is supposed to be a challenge?" Suddenly an explosion of water erupts to the side and Gyrados emerges firing a powerful ice beam. Gengar leaps over to another platform and sits down smiling as he sets his feet in the water, "Wow! Almost got me with that one!" Gengar releases his charged electricity and all of the water absorbs it electrocuting Gyrados thoroughly, "Strike one!" Wake returns Gyrados to his ball and scratches his head,
"Well, forgot all ghosts could use electric attacks. This might not end well for me." He tosses another ball releasing Quagsire to one of the platforms. The blue salamander tilts his head with a happy smile and Gengar stands up charging more electricity,
"You should just give up!" Gengar releases a thunderbolt that covers Quagsire then dissipates leaving the Pokemon without a scratch, "Wha...?!" Gengar then takes a powerful ice beam that freezes him into a block of ice. Vecransyh then blinks,
"What's the deal?!" Wake laughs heartily,
"Since you've got electric attacks I decided to use my buddy Quagsire." Quagsire meanwhile has jumped to the platform with Gengar and blasts him with a Hydro Pump. The frozen Gengar sinks into the pool a little ways before being recalled to his pokeball. Vecransyh looks over to Xylina next to him with a smile,
"Ready?" Xylina grins and flies out in front of him,
"You know it!" She dodges out of the way of a sudden ice beam and throws a shadow ball into the face of Quagsire blasting him backwards into the water. Then silence, Quagsire is nowhere to be found. Until after a moment he jumps from the water behind Xylina and fires a Hydro jump into her and Xylina falls into the water,
"XYLINA!!!!" Vecransyh looks into the water and Xylina jumps from the water giving Vec a wink before Quagsire jumps up next to her and fires another Hydro Pump. Xylina performs a midair dodge before rapidly punching Quagsire in the torso and face before slamming him on top of the head sending him falling hard against one of the platforms. Wake stares wide-eyed as Quagsire disappears into his ball,
"What attack was that?!" Xylina smiles as she looks towards the gym leader,
"Return." Wake blinks,
"Wow. Never seen one do that much damage!!" Wake throws his third pokeball releasing a Floatzel to the field. The male Floatzel smiles as he eyes his opponent,
"Gimme a good fight." Xylina begins radiating with electricity as she grins,
"Bring it." Xylina begins releasing bursts of electricity but the Floatzel repeatedly dodges them as he continues making his way closer to her,
"You'll have to do better then that missy!!!" Xylina glares at him and throws a shadow ball that catches him in the leg sending him crashing into a platform only to be hit by a thunderbolt. Floatzel stands up and brushes off his shoulder, "Touché." Xylina then leaps back as Floatzel lunges at her with fangs of dark energy and she continually dodges him only to have him continue pursuing her and dodges every attack she throws. Floatzel eventually connects with her shoulder and Xylina cringes as she feels the dark type attack pulse through her body. She takes the opportunity to release a powerful thunder into her opponent causing him to be blasted away into the pool and begin to sink before he is returned to his ball. Vecransyh hops down from his platform and lands on Xylina's,
"You okay?" Xylina smiles with her other hand gripping her shoulder,
"Yea, just a scratch." Vecransyh raises an eyebrow,
"Looks pretty bad. You'd better head to the Pokemon center." Xylina nods,
"Okay. I'll be back soon." With that Xylina leaves through the gym doors. Wake tosses a badge across the arena and Vecransyh catches it with a grin. After a short healing process Xylina returns looking fairly happy and Wake stands across from Kaza after being quickly defeated by Scarlet,
"So!! Took me a while to recognize you all but you're those kids from the Kanto Pokemon league people have been talking about." Kaza grins,
"That's us!" Kazamaru sends out his Snorlax, Tankburger who scratches his stomach with a yawn. Wake sends out his Gyrados and it dives into the water. Snorlax looks into the water tracking the movements of the Serpent. When Gyrados bursts from the water behind him Snorlax turns around and throws a punch into his face sending him flying backwards into the side of the pool. The serpent shakes his head unsure of what just happened and fires an ice beam that hits Tankburger and freezes a small part of his stomach. Tankburger inhales shattering the layer of ice on his stomach and blasts Gyrados with a Hyper Beam knocking him unconscious. Tankburger wipes his mouth as Gyrados returns to his pokeball. Wake smiles brightly,
"Well, that's certainly a powerful Snorlax you've got there!" Wake releases his Floatzel from his ball in a flash of light and Floatzel raises an eyebrow as he sees his opponent,
"That's unusual." Tankburger smirks,
"Never seen a Snorlax before?" Floatzel shakes his head,
"My opponents aren't usually this easy. One attack and you're done." Floatzel lunges towards him with a focus punch but takes a punch to the face sending him crashing to the platform he was just standing on. Floatzel stands up rubbing his nose, "Okay...? New tactic." Floatzel takes a step back disappearing into the pool with a smile. Tankburger looks around into the water,
"Where are you...?" Tankburger staggers forward when he feels a powerful punch into his back and his arm quickly moves behind him grabbing Floatzel around the neck. Tankburger turns around and looks at Floatzel with a dark gaze before punching him in the face sending him flying out of the arena into the wall next to Vecransyh and the others. Tankburger turns back towards Wake with a smile, "Next?" Wake returns Floatzel to his ball and sends out Quagsire. Tankburger scratches his stomach as he looks at the Pokemon, "That it?" Quagsire then suddenly runs at him and begins striking Tankburger with powerful punches. Tankburger simply stands there and after a moment reaches down and picks up Quagsire looking him in the eye. Tankburger turns his head back to look at Kaza, "Can I just eat him?" Kaza shakes his head,
"No you can't eat him!! You can eat after the match." Tankburger sighs and punches Quagsire in the face knocking him out,
"There. Now feed me." Kaza takes out a pokeball,
"Just chill. You'll get food in a little bit." Tankburger disappears into his ball as does Quagsire to his own. Wake grins,
"Well dang. That's one powerful Snorlax if I ever did see one. Here kid!" Kaza catches the badge thrown to him and looks down at the silver, blue and purple circle with a grin,
"Finally..."
"My turn!" Kaza jumps as he looks to his left and sees Stratos with a determined look on his face,
"You sure you're ready?" Stratos nods,
"Mommy let me stay up last night and read books on Pokemon and their type advantages and disadvantages. I could give you a brief run through if you don't believe me." Kaza scratches his head,
"Umm... later would be better." Stratos nods and looks back towards Wake with a happy smile,
"Alrighty." Wake returns to his platform after quickly healing his Pokemon and looks over to the Lucario with a happy grin,
"All right little guy. Time to see how much skill you really have!!" Stratos bows,
"Let our battle be a splendid one Mr. Wake!!" In two flashes of light Ren stands across from Gyrados and he looks back to Stratos before the two exchange nods. Gyrados rushes forward and slams into the platform Ren is standing on causing him to wobble slightly but Ren leaps forward and sinks his teeth into Gyrados' side before sending electricity through his body and causing the giant serpent to slam into the platform unconscious breaking it into shards. Gyrados returns to his ball prompting a grin from Crasher Wake,
"I gotta hand it to ya kid, you know what you're doing!!" Stratos grins,
"Thanks but you should give Mr. Ren the credit, not me." Wake nods with a grin and throws a second ball releasing the blue salamander that looks at Ren with a happy smile. Stratos takes out Ren's pokeball, "Return!" Ren disappears into his pokeball and Stratos returns it to the belt before taking out another, "Go Arcanine!" Stratos throws the ball but the pokeball simply lands on the platform not opening. There is an awkward silence before Stratos hops down from his platform after calling for a temporary stop of the match and walks over to the ball picking it up. He presses the button and the ball opens revealing it to be empty. Stratos looks oddly down at the empty ball and closes it before looking up to Wake with a smile, "I guess daddy has Arcanine with him." Back at the wall everyone looks towards him in shock of what they had just heard. Latias looks down sadly,
(Arcanine always said he would stay with Drake no matter what happened... but that could also mean... could he be...?) Back on the field Stratos puts the ball back on his belt and hops back up to his platform before throwing another,
"Then how about Swampert?!" The ball opens and in a flash of light the female Swampert looks towards her opponent with a roar. Quagsire and Swampert stare each other down before nodding as if to say, 'may the best Pokemon win' and they both jump back off of their platforms and disappear into the water. The two sink into the water not taking their eyes off each other until they both set down at the bottom. The two both stand there with tiny air bubbles floating from their mouths as they both stare down the other. Only a moment later the two rush each other freely able to move around in the water because of their natural ability to swim incredibly well. Swampert throws a punch that is easily dodged by the smaller Pokemon and Quagsire spins slamming his tail into her head. Swampert spins into the attack and punches Quagsire in the face. The two begin slamming into each other with powerful attacks and eventually Swampert jumps back with a smirk,
"That's enough playing around." Quagsire gives her an odd look and watches as Swampert begins dashing around him at a high speed. Quagsire makes a futile attempt to escape the attack but instead takes a punch to the face knocking him back. Quagsire eventually looks up to see the top of the pool slowly but surely making its way towards him in a spiral. The point of the spiral makes contact with the top of Quagsire's head shooting him into the whirlpool. Swampert looks up with a grin and bends her knees as she stands on the bottom of the pool and springs upwards eventually shooting out of the pool above the trapped Pokemon. She takes a deep breath and releases a powerful freezing blizzard downwards towards the whirlpool completely freezing it and making a giant pillar of ice with Quagsire frozen into the middle of it. As Swampert begins to descend downwards towards the pool she throws a punch into the top and instead of simply cracking the ice she barrels through it until finally reaching her opponent and shattering all of the ice around him along with landing the vicious focus punch into his head. Swampert returns to the bottom of the pool and springs back out of the pool to a platform near Stratos. Wake claps his hands before taking out Quagsire's pokeball and returning the fainted salamander to it,
"Well! That was a very impressive attack combination!" Swampert smiles and bows her head slightly,
"Why thank you." Wake takes out his third Pokemon and releases his Floatzel from it. The otter smirks with a look of confidence in his eyes. Swampert wastes no time leaping towards him with a punch but her eyes go wide as Floatzel fires an intense beam of ice that knocks Swampert back into the water. Swampert shakes her head as she recovers but suddenly feels repetitive and powerful strikes as Floatzel zips back and forth through the water rebounding off the walls of the pool for extra speed and Swampert chokes as the strikes begin building on each other adding to the already intense pain. Stratos, realizing the predicament of Swampert's condition, returns her to her ball and brings out the couple's ball before clicking a button on the front switch and throws it releasing Roze. She quickly scans the arena before locking eyes on her opponent zipping around under the water. Roze tracks the movements of the Floatzel before leaping into the water and slamming him in the face with a kick. The two Floatzel begin to spin around each other in the water as they begin striking each other with physical punches and kicks. The two blast away from each other as they fire Hydro pumps towards one another. They both jump out of the water and stare each other down growling. The two slam together locking claws and glare at each other neither one receding an inch. Wake and Stratos blink when they can't determine their own Floatzel and one of them smashes the other in the head with a Headbutt knocking it back into the water. The Floatzel stands up fully and smirks before speaking in a male voice,
"Good fight." There is a sound behind him and Floatzel turns to face an oncoming Blizzard that freezes him into a block of ice with the stunned look pinned on his face. Roze stands next to him with an unimpressed look on her face,
"Good fight indeed." She punches the ice shattering it leaving Floatzel to fall forward in front of her. Floatzel disappears into his pokeball and Stratos hops off of his platform and runs over to Roze,
"We did it!!" Roze smiles and lays a hand on his shoulder,
"You are a fine trainer Stratos." The two look up when they hear Wake whistle,
"You won so here's your badge kid!" Stratos grins brightly as he catches to oncoming badge in his paws. He looks down at it smiling happily,
"Yay!!"
After saying their goodbyes to Wake the group heads out of the gym back to the Pokemon center where they all sit around a table in the lobby. Vecransyh looks over when he sees Latias deep in thought instead of her usual grieving look,
"Something up Latias?" Latias looks up and shakes her head with a slight smile,
"No, it's nothing." Vecransyh nods,
"Okay." With little more events left in the day the group heads to bed early eagerly awaiting the trip back to Canalave city and their next badge.