Shadow Walk [Gym]

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

You know what? Adrian had happened to be stuck in the city of Hearthome for a while. Perhaps it was due to her being assigned to patrol around town frequently or perhaps it was due to her odd habit of going to hang out in Amity Square. Either way the ranger remained wandering among the busy streets of the city after work. The down time was usually relatively slow and admittedly that meant that the ranger ended up bored. It was during one of these days though that an idea struck the amber haired female. Why not challenge the local gym?

It was a stretch, sure. The Hearthome gym was known to be one of the more difficult gyms. Adrian on the other hand only had two badges on her but that was not due to the limits of her ability. The gym leader was also fairly popular among the people of the city. Thus it did not take much effort to learn the specialty of the gym was ghosts. That and the gym was legitimately decorated with a comically large Drifblim. With that knowledge the ranger could have planned around that… ideally. However, she had known the pokemon in her party were not particularly well equipped to hard counter the gym, with her partner Absol being the only exception. Sweeping such a gym with only her partner was not something the ranger wanted to rely on but the woman was not going to go out of her way to set up her team in such a way either. The goal was to train her pokemon, burn time, and hopefully win to get something out of the venture.

Which brings us to the entrance of the peculiar gym as the ranger began to walk in. Upon entering the lack of light caused her to blink a few times to adjust to the dim lighting. Without much wait the gym leader with the billowing dress appeared to welcome the challenger. There were a lot of words being said, something about ranting to be the fifth gym leader, though she did not say anything about requiring four badges to challenge her. Of course Adrian wasn’t going to question it and instead shrugged. “Yeah…. Right. Let’s just get this done and over with.”

Now normally Adrian would have started with Skitty however the normal type would not have faired well here. This was further accentuated when the Drifblim was called out to the field. There were too many factors in her team that would make Skitty not reliable here. Instead, Adrian threw out the back up plan to the field. “Melofee, come.” The pink Clefairy appeared in a flash of light chiming her name as she landed to the ground. Fantina wasted no time going first and called for an Astonish which hit its mark on the fairy type. The clefairy appeared to be able to brush off the attack without much issue, which was a good sign. “Use Encore then metronome,” which was exactly what the moon loving pokemon did as she clapped proudly to encourage the same behavior from the floating ghost. Afterwards rather than stopping it looked as if the pink ball of fluff could not stop moving as she waved her little arms back and forth. The tips of the pokemon’s fingers glowed briefly as an attack formed from them. What burst forth was a torrent of circling flames that was the move Flame Wheel in action. It hit its mark but Drifblim was not done in with such an attack. Unfortunately, no matter what Fantina said, Drifblim was stuck in encore - repeating the same move like a note on a chord. “Again Melofee, metronome.” The chanting hypnotic looking dance continued as the Drifblim tried to deter the move with Astonish. There was no such luck as the first metronome produced what appeared to be a recovery move and it was positively affected by the lack of light in the room, moonlight. It was something that would have been expected from a Clefairy. The next one not so much. A big burst of water shot from the glowing hands right at the Drifblim’s face as it came in for another attack. Hydro Cannon knocked out the floating ghost and the power of it shocked both the ranger and the gym leader.

Fantina returned her pokemon and remained someone boastful that she should still be able to win. Adrian on the other hand squinted at the woman as she sent out the next pokemon: Gengar. Clefairy chirped, now confident after defeating the Drifblim. The amber haired woman was less convinced but left her pokemon on the field for another round. Which was the mistake that she had made. The shadow pokemon revealed a huge grin, almost as if laughing at her manically as it charged forward to poison jab Clefairy in the face for its fallen friend. The sight of it shocked them both as the gym leader began to laugh as well. “No, that’s enough. Return,” she ordered as the thin line of red light recalled the pink fairy who looked pained. Since this was the second pokemon she figured that this was as good a time as any to call upon her partner. Throwing the next pokeball the red eyed disaster pokemon appeared with a howl. Instantly on appearing to the field the atmosphere changed to a heavier one. The dark type stared down his opponent up until the first move was called. “Psycho Cut,” the psychic blade of energy formed and shot out at the Gengar, and while normally it wouldn’t have been as effective, the partial poison typing turned that to Adrian’s favor. Gengar frowned here, displeased after being struck, and launched another poison jab to do more damage. At that the Absol was swift to disappear from sight only to reappear from behind in the darkness once the attack was close enough. Sucker Punch caught the Gengar off guard again and this time it caused the ghost to faint.

The gym leader looked significantly less confident about winning but maintained composure the best she could. It was a good trait to have. At least that was how Adrian saw it as the final pokemon was revealed to her. Mismagius was also a good match up for Absol and seeing as how her partner took fairly little damage against Gengar, it likely was not going to be a long match either. However it definitely was not going to be as simple of a time as the last round. The first thing that was launched was confuse ray, which was concerning to the ranger. Thus instead of allowing Absol to take it she’d reactively call out, “Dodge that.” And he had, nimbly jumping away from the flash of light chasing him down in the dark. Little did either of them homing leaves soared into the air and tracked down Absol to strike him in the side. Adrian’s lips formed a thin line as she watched her partner get hit but in an effort not to worry the woman, Absol returned to his feet and shook off the pain of being hit. Another wave of Magical Leaf appeared to strike Absol but he was being quick about following up this time. As the attack was launched, the dark type faded in and out of the darkness to strike sucker punch at the Mismagius. As expected it was super effective but not enough to take down the foe in one hit. Thus the grass move struck Absol again who braced for the hit. Unfortunately this was about all that Fantina and her Mismagius could hope to do against the dark type as two moves were virtually ineffective against Absol. They had known that so continued with their current strategy. Watching, Adrian knew that at this point the disaster pokemon would be able to handle himself for the remainder of the match. Taking another stab at knocking Absol’s health down, Mismagius launched confuse ray again to which Absol closed his eyes to evade rather than moving. In turn he was able to hear the sounds of the magical leaf fly through the air and react accordingly. One more sucker punch. That was all he needed as the dark type struck his paw down once more at the ghost to end the match.