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Learn a thing or two? Henrietta hadn't been forced to learn anything so far but that people were cruel. Every idea came from an idea of more effective battling, every idea was a way to make her Pokemon more effective, less likely to take a hit.

"There's nothing a guy like you can teach me!" she shouted. "I've endured a lot more than you give me credit for!"

She was fuming.

And Socant was hit by telekinesis, trading blows with Solosis. It might not do much, but an electroweb lowered the opponents speed.

Enough to maximize the power of his Electro Ball. An attack he released next, at maximum power - if Solosis was hit - it'd have the effective damage of a hyper beam. Before one took into consideration all of the calm minds.

Luka held Kai's Pokéball firmly in his hand. "Let's start as we mean to go on buddy." He released the Pignite and Kai punched his fists together to pump himself up. This may have been a stupid move, after all, why waste Luka's most useful Pokémon on the first opponent? Well, Luka knew the general Pokémon that Burgh used. He generally used a Dwebble, a Whirlipede and a Leavanny all of which Luka could tackle given the right circumstances.

Luka's guess was correct as Burgh sent out a Whirlipede. With a glint in both of their eyes, the battle was begun.

"Kai, Flamethrower!"

It may have still been relatively weak, but, Kai put in enough effort to send the flames licking incredibly close to the Whirlipede. The flamethrower was just short, and through the flames the Whirlipede came charging with a Rollout. It cut through with ease and was about to ram into Kai when the Pignite thrust his hands out to catch the rolling bug. The force started to push him backwards and a honey pit opened behind where Kai was. Kai was pushed slowly and surely towards the pit when he heard Luka shouting.

"Flame Charge!"

Kai exhaled some steam through his snout as he went up in flames. Then, he started pushing back against the Whirlipede. Faster and faster the Whirlipede span, but, it simply couldn't match the brute force that Kai was displaying. Kai pushed and pushed and pushed and finally, the Whirlipede failed and faced the full force of Kai's Flame Charge. It went flying and landed on the other side of the arena.

"Iron Defense." It may not have done much to lower the damage that the flames could cause, but it was certainly going to make the Whirlipede a tougher beast. Then from nowhere the Whirlipede had launched a Pursuit. Closing in quickly on Kai and hitting him full in the face. The Pignite reeled back and glowered at the Whirlipede.

"Flamethrower."

"Rollout."

As Kai launched the Flamethrower, the Whirlipede rolled out of the way and began circling in on Kai. It seemed that Kai had no hope of escape when Luka came up with an ingenious plan.

"Rollout on my mark. Three, two, one and GO!"

Kai launched himself as soon as Luka said "Go!" and he rammed straight into the side of the Whirlipede knocking it off balance and into the air.

"Now, Flamethrower and then Flame Charge as it hits the ground."

Kai launched the Flamethrower and it engulfed the Whirlipede. A cry of pain could be heard from inside the fire but as the Whirlipede fell, Kai rammed into it with the Flame Charge. The Whirlipede was thoroughly defeated and could not continue to battle.

Burgh returned Whirlipede and clapped manically. "Yes! I can see the beauty of your artistry! All of the fire, the intense burning passion of your Pignite's soul. You have won this round, but, now we shall move on to Round 2!"

Luka recalled Kai with a "You did brilliantly buddy, now, get some well earned rest" and then he waited to see what Burgh would send out next. Luka already had an idea as to who to choose next so he grabbed the ball and held it aloft. They would release the Pokémon at the same time. What would appear next was anybody's guess.

((Not quite the wall that I promised, but, there shall be two to three more parts of this later. I've got some other stuff I wanna do before continuing this Gym Battle. biggrin ))

((Cause I don't have a PS3? And all I know about Raiden is that A) He used to girly, ymmv, and B) Now he's not girly, and fights big robots.

So gimme some robots for Jump to fight. razz

EDIT: Just looked up the Raiden trailer. Jump hasn't breakdanced in between the legs of robots stomping at him to slice them with swords held by his toes. But he has breakdanced on top of a mass of writhing tentacles belonging to a supernatural horror to slice up more tentacles with soundwaves emitted from his legs.

That's close, right? Could use some more robots, I guess))

((@Kenta- It's not auto-hitting. He's stating the situation and your likelihood of legitimately dodging in that timeframe is practically nil. You still have an opportunity to mitigate or counter damage but outright evasion at that point would be very unlikely. You can do it to him too, if you think that he's pushing the boundaries of realism you can argue your case for why X should happen over Y. It's how battles work.))

And so Gallade was right next to swanna. In midair. Literally unable to really dodge physically. The swanna activated aerial ace, and in a moment of speed was out of range, and had stricken the tiny water molecule that had been her target. Result? The tail swinging at her was aimed for Gallade instead. And only gallade.

As for the combusken, his legs moved quickly, instantly, in less than a second. Ten blows swung, kicks aimed at the hinges of the gyradose's jaw. If it couldn't become aware of this as it ducked and swung its tail at swanna, then dodge completely in less than a second, the time it would take for the double kick to end, Combusken would likely have broken its jaw. And have fired an ember into its throat a moment later as it moved.

(Because I'm assuming the bird you mean is swanna. Be less vague next time if it isn't.)

Not only was the combusken not in mid-air, considering his height and the fact that maybe half the gyradose's length, three quarters at most, was legitimately able to become height. So, instead, the partially ducked-down pokemon had its jaw broken. This would happen in the less-than-second time stated earlier, while gyradose was apparently smiling at her ally.

As a result, her jaw would drop down, and there would be no smile. The ember, apparently also not dodged, would enter gyradose's throat and have a chance to burn it, making it painful to breath, use water attacks, or anything like that. And Combusken? Would let it run.

The tail had missed and was swinging down. Apparently, it had magically missed at first, then was leveled enough, which would take time considering the momentum had to be basically reversed, for the gallade to reach it and land. Then it was launched. Not nearly enough time.

Swanna had activated another aerial ace, and moved around, coming at the gallade from behind before it could land on the tail, the blow would come with a wing attack and air slash the moment it hit, aiming to launch the gallade up and away from the tail, and ground. With range for another air slash to be used and hit.

And, of course, because the attack came from behind while the gallade was in mid-air, not yet able to reach the tail, a counter was damn near impossible.

((Dodge my moves. You have to, or this sort of thing happens.)

N stood on the sidewalk next to the pier, facing the waves that crashed against the docks. Or rather, he stood with his back to the Plasma Building in the north. He dared not turn around. It wasn’t long ago that he had been informed of Victini’s cooperation. But he knew all too well what that would mean for the Victory pokemon.

“Casteliacone, my lord?”

N turned his head. A few feet away from him stood Reid, looking out at the ocean himself. In both hands, the blue haired Psychic held ice cream cones, one of them being half done. He held the other out to the green haired trainer. N looked at it for a moment before turning away. “I take it you aren’t a fan, then.”

Without his fingers on his temple, Reid could not read N’s mind. It was a pose that helped him concentrate. So N surmised that it would be safe to think disdainful thoughts about Bronius’s team leader. Reid was perfectly willing to use Lancer as bait. A most dishonorable tactic. “This is wrong.”

“I dislike withholding the truth as much as you do,” Reid said solemnly, pausing to lick his ice cream. “But it had to be done. Victini wouldn’t be able to help use without that cage.”

The green haired trainer folded his arms. “Withholding the truth is your job.”

Reid said nothing at first, his eyes obscured by stray locks of blue hair. Slowly, a smirk cracked on the side of his mouth. “Right now, it’s also yours, my lord.”

The remark wasn’t unexpected, not entirely. But N still held his tongue. For a moment, a hint of regret gleamed in his eyes. And it passed over quickly as N’s eyes returned to their normal dull stare. He said nothing.

“I assume you haven’t forgotten about the banquet,” Reid continued.
“How could I? There are posters for it all over the city.”

N’s eyes shifted to look at Reid. The blue haired boy had already finished his ice cream and had moved on to eating the cone meant for N. “Am I still expected to attend?”
“Of course. As low profile as possible. The staff has been ordered to interact with you as thought you were just another guest.”
N shifted uncomfortably in his stance. “I’m not sure if my presence is necessary.”
“It isn’t. But you should be there for what may come. If somehow someone became suspicious of you, it would be more telling that you didn’t show up.”
“I’m…not very good at interacting with many people.”

Any semblance of confidence on Reid’s face faded away. “Neither am I. You get used to it.”
“Being good with people?”
“No. Faking it.”

With one last bite, the ice cream was finished. Reid wiped his mouth on a napkin from his gakuran pocket and promptly threw it into the trash. “My team is meeting up in ten minutes to debrief before tonight. You know how to reach me if you need anything.”

He turned to leave N at the pier’s sidewalk. “Remember, attire is formal,” he said over his shoulder to N. N said nothing, and so Reid continued to walk away.

“Reid.”

Reid stopped and turned around. N still wasn’t looking in his direction.

“If I ever find out about you using pokemon as bait again, we’re going to have problems. Do you understand?”

Reid exhaled sharply. “I understand. You’ll never have to find out again, my lord.”

And he was gone, leaving N by himself on the sidewalk. The green haired trainer narrowed his eyes at the distance.

Other people seemed perfectly fine with making his decisions for him. Did they expect him not to think for himself? N sighed and rubbed the side of his head, closing his eyes.

I really need to speak with Ghetsis.