Rampant Growth [Gym]

we burn in fire.
we burn in blood.
we burn in dreams.

You know, as a ranger it was never supposed to be the plan to challenge gyms like a normal trainer. At least not to Adrian. Yet here she was in Eterna City doing what most other trainers did… and that was preparing for a gym challenge. It wasn’t a pride thing but duty to her job description. After the last gym battle it was not as if she did not want to prove her worth. It was less about that and more about being tired of watching some the other rangers boasting about themselves and their rank. Apparently gym badges were the best way to show how strong you were within the hierarchy of her job which sounded strange. Yet who was she to argue when that meant she could establish her strength and get some training in at the same time?

The next stop that was advised for trainers was the gym in Eterna. It was a quaint little city that had history and culture in their roots. Normally when undertaking such a challenge Adrian would have done a hint of research first. This time however she was in a rush and eager to get the battle underway. There were a few guesses as to what the type specialty could have been but when the woman entered the gym it was revealed instantaneously. The entire field was a grassy plain that had a few pieces of flora lining the edges, making the easy assumption of grass type enter her thoughts. The gym leader was swift to greet her as she approached the battlefield and even she claimed stake to the grass type master title. Whatever the case may be the woman shrugged, “Alright let’s start the challenge then.”

It was like the last gym battle, three versus three, single battles. Gardenia was first to release her pokemon which was a cherbi. Thinking over the choices Adrian had, the ranger decided to go with a disadvantage at first glance. Calling forth her Tentacool, the water type shrilled as it appeared. The gym leader looked skeptical but the ranger wasn’t batting an eye at the initial type disadvantage. In moments the battle began. Being the challenger the ranger was the first to make a move, “Use toxic spikes and then acid spray.” This was more for future set up as the field was then littered with poisonous barbs. Poison was going to be the trick to winning here and so Adrian wanted to take advantage of Tentacool’s dual typing. The water type then squirted a purple gunk at the small pokemon who was soaked in the attack. It gave a small cry of pain to which Gardenia tried to salvage some of the heath by launching leech seed.

The Cherubi launched a growth first to regain some of its lost stats and then used leech seed. Initially that would have been a good idea… in this case it wasn’t so much. Saying nothing as the seeds began to embed themselves in Tentacool, it did not take long for the effects to activate. The water type was being sapped of health slowly but much to Gardenia’s shock it Cherubi looked to be hurting even more from its effects. The cause was Tentacool’s ability being liquid ooze to which Adrian had baited out. “Alright I know you’re hurting but use poison jab before it can do anything else.” With one flick of a poison covered tentacle, the water type lashed out at the grass type and knocked it out in one foul swoop.

The Cherubi was recalled swiftly afterwards and replaced with Turtwig. Unfortunately for it, the toxic spikes caused it more pain that it should have. The gym leader was not going to allow this to end that easily though. First Turtwig casted Reflect to which Adrian sucked her teeth in annoyance. It made the battle that much more difficult. Then it used razor leaf and while Tentacool could do something similar it wasn’t going to be as effective as reflect. “Barrier to soften that damage then use Acid Spray.” Might as well considering that the reflect made poison jab less effective overall. While Tentacool was bracing for the attack, the grass type move still hit a significant mark. It would not be long now until it had fallen. It did spray another jet of purple acid and in the same manner as Cherubi, Turtwig cried out in pain. This was amplified by the poison from the toxic spikes and now the final dose of the liquid ooze from leech seed was enough to have it doubling over in pain. Not enough to knock it out but tentacool couldn’t really say the same. Though at this point did would not have taken much to win over the Turtwig with Tentacool’s effort.

Recalling the fainted water type, the ranger pulled out another pokeball. This time she had no other super effective pokemon to take Gardenia’s grass type out so she decided to use brute force. Turtwig got to its feet nevertheless and tried grass knot to trip up the dark type but the dark type saw this coming and had his own plan. Blending into the shadows as the attack was winding up, a paw would smack the turtle pokemon from behind and cause damage before it could even use grass knot. Sucker Punch ended up knocking the second pokemon out through reflect.

Gardenia recalled turtwig and then brought out her final pokemon: Roserade. Admittedly Adrian was not expecting a fully evolved pokemon from this woman but it made things much more interesting. The Roserade pretty much ignored the spike that surrounded it due to its part poison nature, which ruined the initial plan but made Adrian feel better about not adding more layers. At the least now they had the type edge again because of Absol’s moves. Now it was Reflect that was being troublesome. “Absol, use Psycho Cut as much as you can to get through that reflect.” Admittedly that alone was likely going to be the bane to their attacks but it was not going to last much longer. The dark type silently executed the order as wave after wave of psychic blades surged towards the Roserade. They hit and did damage but it was not an instantaneous victory. It fought back with Stun spore and Absol knew that it had to dodge that to keep executing the attacks efficiently. Luckily Psycho cut did not involve him getting close like sucker punch did. What he was not able to dodge though was Magical leaf which homed in on his location, though that wasn’t much damage compared to Psycho cut. In the next wave of psycho cuts the reflect finally broke and the full brunt of the damage was unleashed on the part poison type, falling to the sheer force of it all.

"That's the end of that."