she's sure there's bruising around her ribs and torso, but that's outweighed by everything else. persephone's hand flies to her side the second her arm is freed and she tosses out the pokeball ahead of her before she unsteadily rises to her feet.

lucario is one out, and is quick to make sense of the situation by getting a practiced read on persephone's state of mind.

"dispatch the kecleon," persephone orders, finally aware of the identity of her attacker after it revealed itself to lash out at mawile. the lucario pauses to sense out any other combatants on the field, honing in on where the kecleon is; even if it tries to hide, it can't erase its own aura. to be sure and to signal his direction, the lucario sends out an unmissable aura sphere.

the kecleon's strikes meet their mark, but maybe it's the mawile's iron defense or intimidate that keeps the hits from hurting it too much. with the lucario intent on handling the kecleon, the mawile turns back to where its trainer stood and launches forward, swinging the large jaw around and intending to slam down the mimikyu with an iron head.

FERNANDO SILPH

the idea dawns on her quickly, like a light switch being flicked on. fernado said to bring him to submission, not to battle his pokemon. even after slateport, even after what happened to kanto, the idea of attacking trainers is unnatural, but the thought is sown.

the lucario catches it like a direction.

the glalie's ice shard hits the metal of lucario's plating but almost bounces off. it does, however, alert the pokemon to the attacking blaziken. it's too late to side-step the flare blitz, so the lucario braces itself for the hit. what would otherwise have made it lose its balance, the pokemon is expecting, but it sears painfully anyway. he can't go toe-to-toe with the blaziken, and he knows it. the pokemon feels the heat and power of the flare blitz course through him, waits a fraction of a second to process it and attempts to throw it all back to the blaziken in a counter.

he doesn't wait to see the effect, if there is one, because grappling with it would spell certain defeat. the lucario deftly darts around the larger pokemon, and an extreme speed lands him across the arena, drawing alongside fernando. he's undefended by his pokemon, and he would know that the fact that this is a trial is what stopped the lucario from knocking him down with extreme speed's momentum.

the blaziken is still a problem, especially with two steel-types out, and persephone tosses another pokeball in its direction to release a milotic alongside the fire-type. "keep it out of play," persephone directs, and the milotic sends out a water pulse to either distract the blaziken or to otherwise knock it prone, which would allow the milotic to wrap it in its grasp.

the mawile attempts to swat away at the mimikyu's bind, but ends up getting her head's jaw caught instead, the over-sized mouth snapped shut. annoyed, the pokemon swings and flails the leaf-looking jaw, trying to bat away at the approaching tyrunt to knock it away altogether.

FERNANDO SILPH

fernando finally comes into clear view, his face visible as the hail finally clears from the arena. persephone is unsure whether to be amused or exasperated, ultimately settling on something part-way, underpinned by the stubbornly competitive gleam that should be all too familiar to him.

she reaches into both pockets and lets the capsules cascade from elegant fingers, filling the area around her with the bulk of her pokemon. those closest to the arena itself trigger the stealth rock, the sneasel is clipped and yowls, as are the garevoir and chandelure.

"is this what you wanted?"

persephone is aware that for the most part, only her lucario can fight mostly independently. the others are in some respect reliant on her direction and there is no way she can spread herself that thin. already she's missing things that should be the obvious; persephone stares intently at the stone edge trap for a long moment, cursing herself.

across the arena, the lucario senses the release of the meowstic instantly. the new presence on the field catches his attention instantly, and he's quick to swerve to avoid the sucker punch — he's a melee combat specialist, after all, and won't be brought down by such an underhanded dark tactic. his job was to reach fernando's side of the field, and then he froze in place; the lucario wasn't preparing an attack and thus caught the sucker punch in time. he aims to grab the meowstic's tiny punching paw and throw it aside, though his defiant gaze remains fixed on fernando.

seeing that the lucario is somewhat injured due to the blaziken's earlier attack, the selfless milotic envelopes the canine pokemon in an aqua ring in spite of her own pain due to the effects of freeze dry. her job remains the same; keep the blaziken off the field, and she tightens her grip through the wrap as though the ice hardened her resolve as well as her muscles.

the mawile's cry brings persephone's focus back to what is happening closer to her; the tyrunt's horn drill meets its mark, goring the mawile through the torso. the pokemon will be fine with healing, eventually, but persephone is quick to return it to its capsule because she can't stand to see the little slumped body. at the very least, the mawile manages to baton pass the effects of her iron defense to pokemon nearest to it, luxray.

"get rid of that," she says quietly to her surrounding pokemon, as neutrally as she can, a slight indication of her head enough to signal to the mimikyu. while it's still visible, the chandelure attempts to snatch it and dangle it in the air with telekinesis. even if the mimikyu does attempt to escape through the shadows, the chandelure will follow like a determined bloodhound until it can make it prone for the others to attack.

the sneasel is less than happy at being hit by stone edge the second he is released, and turns to glower at the most likely culprit of the attack, tyrunt, incidentally the same pokemon he saw knock out one of their team. the ice shard slung at it from a distance is more of a warning or challenge. the real beat up comes when the sneasel lunges forward to tackle the tiny dinosaur to the ground, hissing and spitting, empowered by the might of all of persephone's pokemon.

that leaves only the glalie to the gardevoir and typhlosion, and leaving someone unaccounted for is not a mistake she'll make again. the typhlosion launches a series of discs in the form of swift at the glalie, and hopes that the distraction is enough for the gardevoir to exploit the weakness and allows it to snatch and hold it in the air with psychic.

FERNANDO SILPH