“Recklessness only differs from decisiveness after the fact,” she shouted back, trying not to get too distracted. After all, without the protect, the Salamence would have taken a good deal of damage, probably. As was, it had interrupted its own attack as well, which left Hydreigon reeling a little from the sudden, more unexpected impact. But it had expected to impact with something at least, so this was not something overbearing. It could deal, even as it backtracked a bit itself. Apparently, the melee was over.
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But to Megan, those words were relatively meaningless. She knew from her fight with Doug that most Gym Leaders mostly saw themselves as teachers, so she took this as constructive criticism, rather than him looking down upon her. But still, it didn’t help much. Not like they could do much more than attack when the opportunity arose. A shield just delayed matters.[break]
Come to think of it though, that was a good thing after all. That shield was used now. Sure, the Salamence would be able to try again – but it could hardly shield itself when it was attacking at range, either. “But, sure, I guess we can be more careful with the next beam, right Hydreigon?”
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The dark type smirked in response, as the three heads gathered energy once more. Only this time, when they released their attack, it wasn’t three differently coloured attacks and elements. Instead, it was all the same. A massive hyper beam, that hopefully would do more than just take care of the next salvo.


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The gym leader had the right idea. Megan, knowing what would come, had prepared herself to quickly shield her own and look away briefly in advance. During training, she had worn shades for this attack in particular. But she couldn’t exactly do that in a battle like this. Would just give the game away more easily. Yet, with some anticipation, she was able to both do that and recuperate faster, soon finding herself looking at her Hydreigon, which needed to recharge for the time being.
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That kind of attack did take something out of it, after all. Hence, it simply hovered where it had been, the distance created by the other now benefitting it. That rock slide had absorbed some of the attack, but so far, it was difficult to tell just how much the Salamence had taken. The dust still needed to clear. Though both Megan and Hydreigon were apprehensive, anticipating that the other dragon had managed to take the beam without going down. There would be no premature celebration. Especially not when they were the most vulnerable.



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It wasn’t down. Right. That was to be expected. But it was definitely reeling from that attack, which was good enough. Though, incidentally, in a fight like this, pitted as it was, one dragon was almost always bound to be cornered in some capacity. Neither of them were at their best and the balance could swing at any time.
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Which probably was why Hydreigon finished recharging just as the Salamence arrived, unable to truly do anything about the incoming attack which caused it to roar in pain – but it requited the assault right away with another multi-angled crunch at the Salamence now in range. That was another truth about dragon battles – at and point in time there was a decent chance that it would just devolved into a frenzied melee of claw and tooth as both sides struggled for dominance.



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Phew. The frantic biting and attacking of the three heads caused that Flamethrower to go awry. That would probably been rather badass, had it been calculated. But Megan just considered them lucky in that regard. It did slightly remind her of that embarrassing HST match, but she was not going to let him get a free hit in return or anything like that. He would probably hate that. Much like going soft on someone whom she had an advantage over. At least that had been one of the major lessons of her first gym battle.
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Hence, she did not stop Hydreigon who kept biting at the other, trying to sink its teeth into the other’s body to stop it from moving, so that the others could hit. If nothing else, they were trying to do as much damage as possible in order to bring the other dragon down. It already had an injured wing, so if it did a little more, that would probably be enough to at least ground the opponent.


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If she herself had an option to mega evolve, Megan would probably also have been tempted to use it. After all, the melee was devolving into frantic attacking now. Hydreigon just tried to bite and bite, while the other dragon, in turn, kept wailing at it with its claws. From a technically point of view, the Salamence was probably doing better, using a dragon attack instead of a dark typed one, but it also seemed to have already lost quite a bit of power.
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Plus, she really didn’t have a lot of better options here. At best, they could try a dragon rush – but much like the other’s stone edge, that was nigh impossible to do without giving up this grip on the wings. Which, in turn, would just allow the other to move again, thus potentially doing more harm than good.[break]
No, this was a battle of endurance now. And the best she could do now was to have faith in her partner, who clearly was suffering from those slashes, to be able to take them without fainting and wearing the other down first. It was not a grandiose tactic, it wasn’t a very dignified one. But it was the best she got here. So, she did not avert her eyes but instead watch the other intently, as if trying to project power into it and see if they could outlast this gym leader.



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