Indeed, Andrea was once again wearing her signature dragon-like onesie in public. She waved at the approaching Elinor. "Hi there! Yeah, people say that an Oranguru has been challenging random trainers in Mossdeep. I figured that's the kind of stuff Rangers usually deal with."

After all, a human criminal could be arrested and put on trial, but a Pokémon needed to be handled more delicately, especially if it was a rare species. In addition to protecting civilians from harm, they needed to take the Pokémon's own safety and well-being into account.

Speaking of the devil, a manly cry was heard, prompting Andrea to run towards the source of the sound. Not too far from them, a Black Belt was kneeling on all fours, having just lost a battle against the notorious Oranguru. "Argh! I can't believe my Fighting-type Pokémon lost to a darn monkey!" The martial artist lamented.

The draconic cosplayer stopped in her tracks, examining this Oranguru. "It's... you." She muttered in bewilderment. There was no mistaking that steely look in his technicolor eyes, that thousand-yard stare reminiscent of a war veteran having a flashback.

Peering into the two girls' souls with his unblinking gaze, the wise old ape pulled a Pokéball out of his white, furry coat, and hurled it into the air, unleashing a Clefable whose eyes were glowing an eerie purple hue. Trainer Oranguru wanted to battle.

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"Yeah, we've met..." The dragon-hooded girl replied to her friend's inquiry, before narrowing her eyes at the highly intelligent orangutan. "What's wrong with you? First you try to sacrifice people to a dragon god, and now you're stealing other trainers' Pokémon and using them to battle? Why are you doing this?"

The ape did not answer, continuing to stare at them instead. It looked like they had no choice but to accept his challenge. While Elinor sent out an Aggron that looked like Barron's identical twin, Andrea turned towards her Hydreigon with a trusting look. "I don't know how well Chomper can do against a Fairy type, but we'll do our best!" She declared.

Trainer Oranguru thrust his leaf fan forward, commanding the mind-controlled Clefable to strike Chomper with a meteoric fist. "Meteor Mash?! Why didn't he go for a super effective move?" Andrea pondered with a puzzled look, while Chomper growled in anger and retaliated with a Crunch that barely fazed the resistant Clefable.

Elinor Anderson

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The rhinoceros' metallic claws connected with the lunar fairy, who cried in pain. Calling the Clefable back into its ball, Trainer Oranguru switched it out for a new Pokémon: A round, floating rock with five white spikes protruding from its mineral body.

"A Minior? What a strange team..." Andrea mused, getting increasingly perplexed by the ape's game. A Rock type probably wouldn't fare much better against Aggron's Steel-type moves than the Clefable did, so why switch it out? Was Oranguru truly the worst trainer in history, or was he planning something?

The Minior used Shell Smash, shedding its rocky outer coating to expose its neon pink Core, then barreled towards the duo with a boosted Rollout attack. Chomper intercepted the attack with his own Outrage, barely keeping the Meteor Pokémon at bay with his draconian might.

Elinor Anderson

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It wasn't much of a contest, to be frank. With its weakened defenses, the Minior was easily knocked out by the combination of the two attacks. Completely unperturbed, Trainer Oranguru sent out an Altaria to replace it.

"Oooh, it looks so pretty! I wanna bury my face in its fluff and sleep there!" Andrea went into fan girl mode for a minute, before remembering that they were in the middle of a battle. "Right, that must be his last Pokémon. Let's do our best!"

The bird-like dragon spread its fluffy wings and cried into the heavens, summoning a rain of flaming meteors from the sky. "That's Draco Meteor! Chomper, watch out!" The Dragon type enthusiast cried out, ducking to safety herself, as the meteors crashed all around them, razing the very ground they stood on.

While the Hydreigon tried his best to dodge most of the descending projectiles, he still wound up taking hefty damage from them. Ever defiant and seemingly immune to pain in his berserk state, he charged straight into Altaria with another Outrage.

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Having expended much of its energy in unleashing its most powerful attack, the Altaria could not withstand two opponents at once. It was only a matter of time before fatigue took its toll, and eventually it happened, Aggron's high-impact move being what sealed the deal. He and Chomper were victorious.

Returning what seemed to have been his last Pokémon into its ball, Oranguru kept staring intently at the two young women, almost as if expecting something from them. Being a wild animal, he had no prize money to gift them, but all previous hints pointed to this having been no regular battle.

"I'm alright... I think." Andrea replied to Elinor, while dusting off her bright-colored costume. She then placed a hand on her chin, thinking deeply. "Wait a sec. Meteor Mash, a Meteor Pokémon, and Draco Meteor... I think this whole battle Oranguru was trying to tell us something!" And she had a hunch she knew what that was, but would Elinor reach the same conclusion?

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Yep, it looked like they both had the same idea. Andrea pulled up the relevant HNN article on her Rotom Phone, holding the screen up for Oranguru to see. "Is that the 'star of death' you were talking about back at the island?" She asked, to which the wise ape nodded affirmatively.

Chomper landed near his confused owner, slightly battered from the gauntlet, but otherwise fine. "So the reason you were challenging people to a battle was because you wanted to warn them too?" The dragon-hooded girl asked, receiving another nod from the ape. "But why? The Commissioner said she has a plan to deal with the meteoroid, so there's nothing to worry about."

Oranguru's technicolor eyes shot wide open, words of wisdom boring themselves into the two girls' minds thanks to his advanced telepathy: The solution of the white woman will bring nothing but pain and untold horror...

"What the hell's going on here?" The Black Belt from earlier scratched the back of his head confusedly. Apparently he was not privy to the ape's telepathic message.

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