The Aurorus became DROWZY, but didn’t sleep. Not yet. There was enough time to summon her electric power, which radiated and struck out towards the Spiritomb in a THUNDER WAVE. She hoped to immobilize the ghost, at least, to make it easier to hit.

Bo watched, trusting his dinosaur.

STEALTH ROCK proved ineffective for the Dragapult. Bo thought of Raphael Pryde , and his face went flat a moment, before he shook the unpleasant thought away again. Ghost-type trainers were tricky, and they were consistently besting him it seemed.

Something he needed to work on.

The lizard disappeared into nothing. Great. Eyes dart around, looking for a sign of something opening in the fabric of reality—both Bo’s, and his Gigalith’s.

Instead, they opted to attack the Meowth, who was SCREECHING terribly. It was impossible to ignore, and so Gigalith was hit effectively by the ROCK SLIDE, too distracted to evade—not damaging terribly, but still robbing it of its opportunity to attack.

In its frustration, the SANDSTORM picked up even more.

They watched the Vibrava spin out. Another one taken by the cruel wrath of HST.

TRI ATTACK was sent their way, and delivered a FREEZE to poor Durant—this was the second time this week that ice would be its downfall. What a bitch. The bug sat there, cold in his steel, but thankfully melting under the sun.

On the other hand, Munchlax was PARALYZED, and there was no getting out of that one.

Aurorus had avoided the balls with another ROCK THROW. Feeling the heavy pressure of being the only teammate still able to move, when tossed a few balls, she launched a HYPER BEAM to send them careening towards the other side.

Bo watched, a bit mortified as it ripped through the sand down the beach hazardously.

“Woah! No more of that!”

Aurorus roared. Bo assessed the other team from afar, glancing at Vic. “Our bad!”

Wow. Bo was really glad these people needed new hearings aids.



As the old couple continued waving and enjoying the sight of the ‘nice young man and his son, so cute, first battle’, Bo leaned over again to disperse his wisdom. “No, Ro—” But he was cut off by his aggressive child’s enthusiasm. His mouth went flat a bit and he shook his head, giving up.

Again, he waved back to Agnes.

“You’re so handsome! You’re making my poor husband jealous!”

Bo nodded, smiling. “Thanks, ma’am. Sorry sir!”

“Uhh, yup!” Amos gave a thumbs up and a grin. “Good luck!”

Gold eyes found Roman again with an amused and somewhat resigned smile. He lit up a bit at Roman’s question, eager to help. “Okay. Bet he knows HOWL. You could try some rock moves, like ROCK THROW or STONE EDGE. I usually use STEALTH ROCK first with Gigalith...”

While explaining, he took for granted how quickly the battle would begin. Agnes called out, clearly meaning business.

“Too slow, boys! Eldegoss! HYPER VOICE!”

Suddenly, there was a terrible high-pitched ringing.

“Shit.” Bo moved hands to put over Roman’s ears, and then, unable to bear it himself, pulled Roman’s hands up. “Cover your ears.” Though surely he couldn't hear him, the hints were all there. Hands went up to clap over his own quickly.

Amos reached for his hearing aid, muttering something about it being on the fritz. Pincurchin acted of its own accord, sending a WATER GUN towards Bo’s Swalot—and it hit cleanly.

Bo pursed his lips.

“POISON GAS!”

It seeped towards the opponents, POISONING both of them.

Bo laughed. “Munchlax is the same way. Just kinda have to wait for him to do something.”

The raptor (?) tilted its head to one side, watching as the Snorlax began to roll towards it, and then simply charging out of the way. It was moving very slowly, so it was quite easy, really.

Once on a safer side of the beast’s ROLLOUT, it sparked with electricity, waddled after it, and once within range again, pecked at the bear’s blubber with a strong BOLT BEAK.

Golurk had nearly dinged the top of the contraption, and he’d leaned a bit into his anticipation—only for them to fall a hair short. Oh, well. It was still one hell of it hit! “Nice, Golurk! So close!”

After he was declared the winner. He looked at Sam with a smile.

“Thanks; I definitely have a lot of heavy hitters, I guess.” He laughed. “Good game. I’ll look forward to it.”

He turned to leave.

“See ya, then. Good luck!”

“Bo. Nice to meet you too!”

The HAIL did help to cool things down, but it also made things a bit uncomfortable. He felt the sting of ice hitting his bare skin, along with the steady streams of sand that bordered on painful—but it wasn’t worth it to put his shirt back on. The heat was decidedly worse.

“Nah, you’re good! I was thinking the same thing.”

But, now he didn’t have to use Aurorus’s blizzard summoning power. They could start off with something else.

“Set it up.”

At once, THUNDER WAVE coursed across the blowing field towards the opponents. Along with it levitated STEALTH ROCK; raising up an obstacle of sharp stones and boulders from the ground to create a hazardous surrounding, just in case the two might still be able to move at all.

The Lycanroc was aggressive, coming right back with another offensive attack. The dark energy of the canine’s LASH OUT began to swirl, and Golem reacted with a DEFENSE CURL, if only to bolster her against the dark attack. Still, it consumed her stone mass and damaged it at its very core. Golem gave out a roaring cry of anguish before taking a few steps back, doing her best to create distance while stumbling through the pain.

Bo watched wordlessly.

Bo and the Nidoking both heard the Excadrill coming, and when it broke the sand, he knew exactly what he was going to do:

“Again!”

EARTH POWER, for the fifth time, would claim take their victory. ^{[ooc: noodles said i could]}

He didn’t look proud of himself. In fact, he still looked a little pissed off, maybe. It was hard to tell, but if anyone could, it’d be Cian.

Without approaching, he stood there a moment.

Then, “You know where Roman is, Cian?”

Bo nodded, appreciative of Gavin’s selection.

The wolfish opponent was quick to launch its first assault, flaming fist incoming with a FIERY PUNCH. With a whistle, the ground began to rattle beneath the canine’s feet as it came close in pursuit. EARTHQUAKE cracked beneath sand, shifting, and making progress generally difficult on top of seeking damage.

The Golem was hit, regardless, giving a roar as it happened—but quickly shaking it off. Then, taking advantage of the close proximity, it attempted to BULLDOZE right over the Lycanroc, its heavy rock body rolling sideways towards the opponent.

Bo gritted his teeth invisibly. Stared.

As the Nidoking prepared for a fifth assault of the same, the Maher brother called, “Wait.”

The beast did as told, focusing more on attempting to minimize the damage it took from the EARTHQUAKE, though it wasn’t very fast, and it was clear that it was hurt.

He took the badge and returned Fernando’s smile. Pride welled in his chest. Somehow, this made him feel like he was almost on the other side of things.

“Thanks.”

A hand held up the badge and he flashed teeth in a slightly sideways grin. “First badge, too.”

Fernando’s words were motivating—not that he needed any more encouragement. His efforts throughout the tournament would be with the intention of being noticed; by other rangers, from whom he’d kept the extent of his battling prowess mostly under wraps from—even Laurence Anderson . Finally, he dared to move out from the shadows and into the sun; alone.

Maybe his son would notice, even. Roman Maher had been spiraling out. Maybe if his father did well enough, it would inspire something healthy in him. The good side of the sport.

Bo nodded gratefully and began to turn away.

“Means a lot, Mr. Silph. Thanks, again.”

With that, they’d part ways.

A HURRICANE swirled, and Bo watched as the winds gradually began to drag off his poor Anorith. Seeing that it would soon be blown away entirely if he didn’t act quickly, Bo reached out with a pokeball—however, he was too late. A ball went flying and crushed it, and when it rolled away, his shrimp lied there motionless, FAINTED.

“Shit! Anorith!”

He ran over, picking the fallen up into his arms and returning it to its ball, looking sort of guilty as he did so.

Now, they needed vengeance.

DURANT used AGILITY to evade. Munchlax used DEFENSE CURL and rolled out of the way, just in time.

Aurorus, apparently deciding to play dirty, sent a THUNDER WAVE towards their opponents, hoping to render them static targets.

Swalot used STOCKPILE. In other words, it just sat there.