I Will Touch the Skies – A Pokemon Fanfiction

Chapter 345

A/N: Been a while; I'm kinda burned out so it took a long time to get this over with and I might be a little rusty. Sinnoh's almost over, so fuck it I'll manage to finish it without as large of a break. We ball.

CHAPTER 345

A person could look back on their past and wonder how they'd arrived at this moment, unable to grasp how they'd made it this far. Not just in the life-or-death crises—the narrow escapes, the chances seized to keep going—but in the quiet, ordinary things too. Even now, as the battle unfolded before my eyes, it felt distant and strange, like something that was never meant to be part of my person. A pillar of fire erupted from the volcanic grounds, weaved into a powerful jet of blue flames by Sunshine's will. It was loud, so loud the crowd was nearly inaudible behind the roar of the fire almost animalistic in nature. It bent at an angle toward the Electrode who blurred to the side with Agility. The fire singed the spherical Pokemon's flank, but he used his momentum down the slope, his body bursting with electric power rivaling Honey.

Good.

I called out, "Shell Tr—"

Sunshine already knew, but Marley and Electrode knew as well. The electric type reacted beyond what we could even dream of, sliding out of the explosion's way before the dragon had even managed to spin around. With a booming laugh, Electrode fired off another Thunderbolt toward the glowing shell to trigger the explosion, and Sunshine growled in frustration, turning more of the earth beneath him into molten slag.

We were not fast enough to catch them even with our 'flying' with Shell Trap trick, but Sunshine's defenses were so high that they were struggling to break through. The battle had turned into a battle of attrition that we were neither winning nor losing. As it stood, it was advantageous for the both of us to not use our switches this early in the fight and to allow the likely trade to take place. Eventually, the heat from Sunshine would allow us to triumph, or Electrode would defeat us with a thousand cuts, I would send out Honey to take him out, and then Marley would follow suit with one of her own teammates. On and on, and on and on. Most likely, she had registered in Pokemon incapable of taking out Sunshine on their own, otherwise she would have switched already—most likely Ninjask along with her Crobat.

There was no story behind it. It was a rigid arrangement of tactics and spacing and efficiency and strategy and giving and taking—and that was good. Even with the new style I had made my own, that still remained to a large extent, but always the backdrop of a larger tale. Never the focus, but always at the edge of thought. And maybe, maybe if a decision was incoherent with the story I attempted to weave but the best strategically available to me, then I would not take it.

Now?

I used to battle like this?

It wasn't… bad. I could still recall the exhilarating rush of adrenaline during close calls, the thrill when a hard-fought strategy finally paid off after countless twists and turns. But what once felt electrifying now felt ordinary. The excitement had dulled, leaving the world muted and colorless, as if all the magic in the art of battling had quietly slipped away. It was like—you tasted french fries from Arlyle's, and you couldn't go back to other worse fast food places no matter how hard you tried. There'd always be an inescapable blandness about it; they weren't as crisp, as warm, as well-salted.

And you tried to go back. Oh, Arceus, you tried.

But maybe I still had it. A pivot had presented itself, half luck, half stratagem. The large 'volcano' at the battlefield's center had slowly grown more and more unstable throughout the fight, spewing fire and ash and taking stray hits from both Pokemon. In the highest echelons of battling, the trainer took more of a backseat, having come up with a plan of action before the fight itself and trusting their partner to see them through.

But when opportunity presented itself and your Pokemon was too embroiled in the fight—or in this case, so angry he might as well have been blind beyond what Electrode was doing—it was a trainer's role to know which artery to insert the knife into to see your opponent bleed out.

"Rock Tomb—the volcano!" My voice cut through the battlefield, echoing across the mountain's slope. The very same slope we were aiming for.

The Turtonator's eyes widened, but he immediately understood. Fiery rock at the mountainside turned molten under his influence, and he turned the volcano from pale mimicry spewing flames to a malevolent throne ejecting flows of lava.

"Get back here!" Marley screamed. The subtle fray in her voice betrayed the panic she was trying to hide. It wasn't the same given that she would be alive at the end of this, but I had heard it in dozens of Galactic grunts and their Pokemon.

Electrode sparked with the brilliance of a star, thinning and thinning until he grew indistinguishable from pure electricity. Before the sides of the mountain collapsed into a mess of lava that would trap him on the other side of the field, the electric type made it past our trap in one piece. Burned, but alive. At least Sunshine was focusing now that Electrode's permanent grin had been wiped off. It was surprising, with how shy the electric type was outside of battle.

Damn it. I was rusty. I clenched a fist, ignoring the irritation in the back of my head. I glanced at Marley through the dissipating toxic gases and saw her struggle. She was fighting for her life: a spot at the top 256, and you could see it in her movements. Every order came with a certain trill in her voice that made it break, with movements wild and unrestrained. Meanwhile, I had to contend with irritation, not fun. So what was the point? Why was I battling? A good finish in the Conference no longer seemed appealing if every battle was going to be like this.

Suddenly—

The world buzzed and came alight with electricity. Balls of lightning glided into the skies, each one pulsing with a steady, synchronized glow. For a moment, the battlefield below was bathed in a strange, flickering light, as if the sky itself had been netted in electricity. The hum of charged air grew louder, a tension building in the space between earth and sky, until it felt like the entire world was holding its breath.

A trap of their own. I could tell she'd been holding onto this because she'd only be able to use it once; it was a finisher, the kind of move that would wipe out your own Pokemon's energy.

Then, all at once, the Electro Balls began to descend—not with chaos, but with precise, calculated intent. They rained down like falling stars, each one targeting its mark with ruthless accuracy, each hitting a singular spot in Sunshine's chest until he retreated into his shell, but even then, they kept hammering him until it was nearly broken and nigh unusable. It was not the strength of the attacks that would do us in, but their pinpoint precision. Like a drop of water digging into stone for a decade, it had punctured us.

Could I counter this—yes, of course I could. Flashes of brilliant ideas, threads nearly within reach that I had grown too lazy to grab onto. Unwilling to let himself be bested without a fight, Sunshine roared from within his shell, flames spilling from every opening, begging to burst at its seams. The jet pushed behind him; he traveled up the molten slope as fast as he could. The jet of fire surged behind him, propelling him up the molten slope with blistering speed. As he barreled forward, the ground trembled beneath his weight. Chunks of hardened lava cracked and shattered, flung into the air like volcanic shrapnel.

He could see his opponent again, and he struck. His shell brimmed with power—Shell Smash—he was quicker, stronger, more determined than ever, and he barrelled down toward Electrode with the heat of a small star at his side. A game of cat and mouse ensued, one I felt nearly absent in. He chased, and Electrode ran; he brought heat upon the electric type like a physical force, a hammer on a nail visible through the way the air vibrated, and Electrode summoned a Light Screen and Reflect to bear the relentless attacks at the cost of much of his speed.

Not enough of it, however, for even then, he was quicker than us. Splitting the field in two had allowed us to cut off the amount of space they had to play with in half, but Electrode still managed to chip us down.

I hadn't really felt a part of that.

The battle commentator buzzed on and on about the state of the fight—obvious statements for the people sitting at home in front of their television instead of for me, so I paid him no mind. Rolling my shoulders, I recalled Sunshine and moistened my lips. They'd rarely felt this dry.

"...job Electrode." Marley's voice came into focus. Her Pokemon grinned and sparkled with electricity even while tired. "Keep going! You've got this!" Quickly, she stared at me, dark blue eyes piercing with… wanting. "Grace, are you—okay?"

There were murmurs in the audience, the highs from the first bout having now abated. Thirty seconds to speak—less than that now. Her voice somewhat snapped me out of my autopilot. Already, Sunshine was back in his Pokeball; he would be a hassle when he was healed. It would take a week for me to hear the end of it.

"Yup." My words resonated in the microphone, which hopefully hid away the bitterness in my tone. "Just dandy."

What next? I could take a risk and go with Princess, hoping that Electrode was tired enough to take down, or play it safe with Honey and give her the tempo back right after Electrode fainted. He'd suffer from the heat, but with Rain Dance and general use of ice TE through Ice Punch…

"You seem out of it. Where's—you don't have a story?" she hesitantly asked. She usually wasn't one for attention like this. "Everything seems flat." I gave her a look, not knowing what to answer. "This isn't… what I really wanted."

I grabbed Honey's Pokeball. "Sorry, I guess." I had too much on my mind for this. My focus was already fraying some now that there wasn't action right in front of me. Time was running out. "What did you want?"

"Haven't I shown you?"

I did not know if she'd answered like this because she had no time left, or because she truly meant it.

Honey materialized onto the field, his feet and fur catching fire until he flexed and frost returned cool temperatures to his surroundings. It wasn't perfect—but we'd practiced giving everyone their little ways of surviving one of Sunshine's rampages for the stories we'd come up with. Still, he suffered under the remaining heat and summoned a Rain Dance whose drops turned to steam before they could even touch the ground, blanketing the battlefield in a dense fog and hiding Marley away.

The fight began in earnest with Honey blurring across the field until he disappeared in a fog and all I could see was a clash of yellow and blue electricity. It coiled around the vapor like living serpents, crackling and hissing as they fought for dominance in the thick, damp air. The fog pulsed with each surge of power, flashing bright enough to momentarily carve out silhouettes within the haze.

Through her actions—those of an eager girl in the most exciting, high-stakes battle of her life—she'd spoken to me. This was life and death for her, given that we were both on a knife's edge. I had never considered her a rival, but she had, hadn't she? From the day that we had met, she had opted to hide her tactics away from me.

Ah.

She'd be disappointed if she won like this. And maybe I would be, too. A battle without meaning, made up or otherwise, was no battle at all.

The clash between Electivire and Electrode was short-lived as expected, with my electric type besting hers in around twenty seconds. The electricity slowly subsided, and everything went quiet for a moment after the referee announced that Electrode had fainted.

"I don't know what happened, but Grace, I think you inhibit yourself too much." Her words cut me deep, even if I couldn't see her. "I know you want to let loose. So let loose and do what you want to do. The world isn't holding you hostage." A pause. "You're better than this."

"You don't…" understand, I wanted to say, but it wasn't that complicated, was it?

Something bad had happened to Cecilia, and it was most likely my fault, so I just couldn't help but self-sabotage. Self-sabotage. It was at this moment that I had just realized I'd wanted to lose as some sort of punishment for myself, some sort of way to balance the world. You put it in words so strikingly straightforward, and it sounded so silly.

The world was complicated, but sometimes it was simple. An opponent faced me, and I needed to beat her until she was incapable of fighting back. I gripped my wrist, feeling at Mimi, and took a deep breath.

Chains, broken—no, there were never any in the first place. I just imagined them to be. "Let's do this, then," I declared right as a flash of red appeared in the vapor.

I recognized that screech, high-pitched and ragged, like frantic chittering undulating across the battlefield. Crobat might have not been Marley's starter, but she had turned her into one of her most vicious fighters. Instead of clearing the mist, the bat sank into its depths and grew so quiet she might as well have not been there. Electric energy sparked around Honey, keeping him protected from attacks up close, but Crobat's true threat lay in her poison and her attacks at a distance. Their hit-and-run tactics had the potential to destroy us.

And then, I heard it. The sizzling of poison melting through fur and skin, pained groans, and flashes of electricity exploding outward in Discharges large enough to cover nearly half of the battlefield.@@novelbin@@

There was a story to seize, to grip within my palm without letting go even for a second. Not one of a trainer tired and who had lost her flame—that wasn't what this was, and I would be retreading the same grounds I had sworn would now be unneeded. No, there was something else which was far more obvious. A trainer who unbeknownst to her had met her match, a final clash of rivals where to err meant the unraveling of a year of work and the bitter taste of defeat. I had beaten her easily over and over and hadn't taken her seriously until now, when the realization that I might lose had finally sunk in. Added weight.

"Honey!" I bellowed, cupping my mouth with my hands. Color returned to the world. "Clear the fog!"

Two of his fists shone brightly with Hammer Arm, and he clapped his hands together—the fog shuddered under the pressure, twisting and peeling back in ragged sheets as the nascent shockwave tore through it. Honey was in quite a sorry state, burned by acid, his skin punctured with holes that crippled him in all the ways that mattered. He had obviously been poisoned and was now on a timer.

I pointed toward my rival. "I guess you've made it here for a reason. Maybe I'll have to take you seriously after all!" I boasted with a haughty grin. "Let's bring the fight to them! Railgun!"

Though the shockwave had cleared much of the fog, it had also shattered the earth into many pieces—rocks Honey gathered around himself with electric currents like spiderwebs. They clung to his two fists, turning into larger and larger spheres and building up into what we needed, but Crobat was not idle. In between Air Slashes and torrents of poison she brought forth with each flap of her wings, Marley had another trick up her sleeve. A shrill screech tore through the clearing mist, sharper than before, and suddenly Crobat split into dozens of flickering afterimages, darting through the air like a swarm of shadows.

With some luck, it wouldn't matter. Honey's arm bulged, vibrated with a high-pitched hum and shone once more with an electrified Hammer Arm until his entire limb was alight. Then, with a thunderous crack, Honey thrust his arm forward and the rocks flew off like shrapnel. Each fragment was the size of a pebble, but fast enough to puncture metal. The rocks shot through the air in a blinding volley, propelled by electromagnetic force, and left streaks of light in their wake. The electrified projectiles dissolved Crobat's clones in a single hit, but none of them got to the real—

"Behind—"

"Leech Life!" Marley laughed.

The real Crobat. She'd disappeared

Crobat fell apart first, her remaining clones disappearing and the poison type collapsing onto the volcanic grounds, but Marley made use of her thirty seconds and Honey followed on the twenty-third. Effectively, it was a draw, because even though she'd have to release her last Pokemon first, Princess was already locked in and I wouldn't be able to adjust my choice. It was all or nothing.

Marley's final Pokémon emerged with a constant, grating buzz that set my teeth on edge, eerily reminiscent of Louis' Vespiquen, but sharper—if less all-encompassing and unnerving. It felt like it burrowed beneath the skin, a droning vibration that made the air itself seem thin and brittle. Red eyes gleamed in a darkness that wasn't even there. Already, Ninjask was a blur of motion smeared across the air, more of a splattering of beige, black, and red than a concrete shape. Aside from the occasional sonic boom, I had no way of knowing where Ninjask currently was. Her fastest Pokemon. She was putting it all on the line.

My teeth unclamped from the inside of my mouth. "I didn't know you'd grown into a risk-taker, Marley," I probed, hands immediately going for Princess. With Speed Boost, there was no way I'd let her gain any more time. "You've surely grown, but it won't be enough to defeat me!" My tone was corny, but it was fun again.

Out into the air came Princess, but she was attacked before she could even take stock of the situation. Slashes and cuts relentless and too fast to even see. Ninjask was so quick he might as well have been everywhere all at once; he was an omnipresent enemy that would be nigh impossible to beat conventionally. He was more like a force of nature than an singular opponent.

Princess exploded with a burning Dazzling Gleam to get Ninjask away from her, but he managed to slip away and only got slightly burned—or at least I thought he did, it was difficult to tell. Bloodied but far from beaten, Princess summoned burning, red-hot flames that she spun around herself like a ring that then stretched into a sphere.

"Barrier!" I commanded.

It was solid now. A bubble of fiery wrath wrapped around a psychic shield. It would cost us speed, but it wasn't like it mattered given that we were fighting Ninjask. The bug type buzzed in irritation, a sound that was everywhere all at once, and darkness blurred—Night Slash—it broke Princess' barrier at the cost of heavy burns, but his claws cut deep and left behind lingering consequences. Damn it, everyone knew that trick now. It wasn't perfect, but the time it took for Princess to make her barrier appear would now be longer, and in this fight, that was the difference between five hits and none.

The assault began anew, and again we were on the defensive. Ninjask was relentless, sticking to us like glue. The moment Princess left an opening in between a Dazzling Gleam or Mystical Fire or an omnidirectional Air Slash, he was always there—an impossible blur against the sky. Ninjask darted through the air with a speed that felt unreal like he wasn't flying but teleporting from one angle to the next. Princess tried to climb higher, banking hard to gain distance, but it was useless. He was already there, slashing at her flank with claws glowing dark as pitch. Night Slash again. Were they hoping to make all types of TE slower to use and slowly cripple us?

That was the thing with Marley's team. Offensively, they weren't that tough to deal with, Ninjask especially, but the damage added up. Attacks requiring concentration like Moonblast were impossible to use under such conditions. We'd fought battles where we hadn't been the fastest in the air, but rarely had she been dominated so.

"Cut!" I bellowed the order, feeling my voice rasping against my throat.

Nearly invisible, belief streaked through the air like razors against reality. Little tears she had willed into existence. My jaw unclenched for a moment when I caught a glimpse of a shape, a slowness that could have only meant Ninjask had gotten hit, but my expression fell when he—

I didn't think it possible to be so fast you could go through belief. Princess was fighting a force, not a thing with a tangible shape. There was no meat to cut into, and so her cuts frayed and allowed Ninjask to slip past. A shockwave burst right next to Princess, stunning her—Arceus, breaking the sound barrier right next to your opponent to confuse them; they did that?!—and a splattering of mud landed on the Togekiss' eyes, allowing for something deeper.

I recognized that particular gleam, and the weight added to Ninjask from Metal Claw slowed him some, but he was still so quick he cut across Princess' flank, dealing real damage.

Things couldn't keep going this way, or we would lose. Marley would snatch victory for the first time and ruin us. We were better than that and better than her. Princess didn't know where to aim or what to do besides attacks that hurt the world around her. We had harmed Ninjask throughout this, but we needed something decisive. A trap that would take them down in one fell swoop. Ninjask was fast, but he was frail. Able to be crumpled like a leaf underfoot.

My fist clenched with that thought, and my eyes focused on the remains of the volcano amidst cheers, gasps, and screams from the crowd. It was nearly all collapsed, but it was what remained under that interested me, the bits and pieces that hadn't been fully cooled by Rain Dance. Fire and hot air expunged by the occasional geyser turned to molten rock and toxic gasses. It was all there, but trapped, having suffused below the earth and building up with pressure.

My eyes darted back toward the sky—Princess, bloodied fur, bruised skin, and half blind, but not broken just yet. She had used everything in her power to stay alive, and she was still hanging on. The Togekiss was losing altitude due to Ninjask's constant harassment, and I assumed Marley's goal was to ground her permanently.

I snapped my fingers and whistled sharply. Cool, calm, and collected in the face of what looked to be certain defeat; that's my character. "Down," I ordered, waiting, waiting, waiting as she fell further and further toward the ground like a fallen angel. Ninjask followed closely behind, catching up in less than a second. My face remained neutral, waiting for our opportunity, waiting for Marley and Ninjask to overextend. That familiar gleam of Metal Claw hoping to finish us off—"Ancient Power! Blow up the earth!"

Turning on her back and remaining afloat, Princess responded instantly, her wings flaring out wide as a shimmer of energy pulsed through the air. The ground beneath us groaned, a low, guttural sound that seemed to vibrate through my bones. Marley's mouth gaped, the confidence in her stance faltering as the earth itself seemed to come alive under Princess' command. The battlefield cracked and split, jagged lines racing outward like veins, glowing faintly orange from the heat beneath. Princess burned, but she could still summon a barrier even if it took seconds—an eternity on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the defenseless Ninjask's entire body caught fire, leaving afterimages of himself burning as he followed Marley's orders to flee back into the sky.

Lava spewed up from the ground in great bursts, partly cooled but still functional. Princess widened it, casting a wide net that made Ninjask flee and gave her the space needed for this.

"Moonblast, gravity."

The sphere materialized in front of Princess, glowing with a soft, ethereal light that belied the sheer force simmering beneath its surface. A perfect replica of our dearest moon that gathered rocks—molten and solid—under its thrall. Ninjask darted through the air, wings a blur of desperate motion, but even speed couldn't outrun gravity.
The bug type burned to a crisp soon after.

It had been difficult to tell how much damage exactly Ninjask had taken due to how fast he'd been, but he was a sorry sight. Ignoring the obvious burns, he had plenty of cuts covering his body and residual glamour from Dazzling Gleams. Princess was worse for wear too, nearly incapable of even floating and covered in shallow wounds that must have hurt like hell. I hadn't even noticed the cheers rising up and up and up, along with the referee declaring my victory.

My legs were shaking. Top 256.

It didn't feel real, and thank the Legendaries, I was brimming with excitement—not that I had forgotten the Copperajah in the room. Cecilia was in pain, but… I could worry about her without destroying myself. I recalled Princess, letting my shoulders sag, and I wiped the sweat off my forehead. Mimi vibrated in glee around my wrist, and Mesprit giggled in the back of my head.

Rarely did trainers come and meet each other beside the field in the Conference outside of the knockout stages, but this fight was too important not to. Marley's eyes were red with tears when I got close to her. Heat and poison coiled beside us right behind the psychic barrier. Many words could have been said here: apologies for getting her out of the tournament, affirmations guaranteeing she would do better next year, or that it could have gone either way, but that wasn't what she wanted to hear or what I would have wanted to hear had I lost.

"Thanks for battling me. That was an awesome fight." I smiled at her. "And thanks for shaking me out of my… issues. I hope you had fun too."

It wasn't… a great story. I'd pulled at the nearest thread on the spot and used it as a springboard more than committing to a character for much of the battle, but it had pulled me out of my funk and served its purpose.

"Are you kidding?" Marley let out a sniffling laugh and held out her hands. "I'm still shaking, look." She could barely keep them still. "That—I felt alive. I don't think I've ever spoken that loud."

"Your voice has gone a little."

"It would have been embarrassing if I'd had to keep going with a raspy voice like this." She gently rubbed the front of her throat. "The lava—Legendaries, that completely went out of my mind after Rain Dance. I thought I had you afterward, and with your Turtonator gone, Ninjask had nothing to worry about."

Which explained why she had sacrificed her Crobat to set up for a one-on-one. Ninjask's biggest counters were large changes in temperature, and she'd taken care of that. Her strategy had nearly worked. It would have with a little more power without her attacks.

"Your Ninjask sure is a piece of work," I sighed. I'd expected him to have much less stamina, but the last time he'd been used in a public fight had been her eighth Gym Badge. She'd kept his progress hidden this entire Conference.

"He's pushed his limits."

We didn't have much time left, but we promised each other we'd talk later and tell each other about how we'd strategized to beat each other.

We shared a hug before leaving.

—

Maylene had two kinds of anxiety. The one where it concerned herself—for example with her father or Gym—and it made her want to avoid even thinking about it, throw herself into work, and lash out at people before finally accepting help. Then, there was anxiety for others, which was a much more restrained affair. Fidgeting fingers, darting eyes, and the desperate need to say something despite clearly not wanting to. Finally, she leaned against the stadium's hall's wall and took a deep breath.

"Temperance came to talk to me."

I froze for a second, but nodded, letting her explain what had happened. Temperance had spoken to her just to hurt in an attempt to heal her broken heart.

"It's gonna be okay," Maylene rambled in a whisper. "Just keep your head in the game for your tournament—didn't Melody call you? You should—"

"Maymay." I looked up at her. "I'm fine." And I was fine, in the literal sense of the word. The guilt was there because it had never left, but things were going to be okay just as she said. Maylene's eyes widened, but I continued before she could speak. "There are words we left unsaid, Cecilia and I. I think we need to have a heart-to-heart—if she wants to."

Enough avoidance, enough self-harm, enough of it all. I didn't think it would clear the air between us and we'd go back to being friends or even acquaintances—far from it, but there was so much more I wanted to say.

She leaned in and murmured, "a—are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I know her," I said. "I think she'd want it, but I'll let her take the first step."

Only a few days later, the group stages finished, and my first battle of the knock-out stages was revealed, along with the entire bracket.

Grace Pastal v Cecilia Obel

The world had a way of doing these things.

A heart-to-heart, I had wished for, a heart-to-heart, we would get.