Like No One Ever Was (Pokemon SI)

[Skyfyre]

Author: Sky Fyre
Published: 2022

This article contains spoilers for the Scarlet and Violet games.
So, we've had Scarlet and Violet out for a week now, and a certain Trainer is already getting a reputation up there with some of Pokemon's worst offenders for toughest fight in the game. That's right, I'm talking about Nemona Glitterati, your rival. She's the first one you fight at the start, and the one you have to fight near the very end.

Nemona is infamous for more than just your final battle, however. While she starts out like a basic rival, it's clear from the start that she's a Champion-ranked Trainer and is slowly building up a team to match you. She ramps up her team rather suddenly once you start your Treasure Hunt, but you don't need to win any of those battles, so as much as Nuzlockers might gnash their teeth, I'm only going to talk about the one battle you need to win to progress the story.

In order to go to Area Zero and complete the game, you need to beat Nemona after the Elite Five (haha, sorry Geeta, but putting your Glimmora in the back? Don't think you get to call yourself Champion after that). Thankfully, you get the chance to take a break in between them and Nemona, which most players use to grind out a quick ten or twenty levels to beat her. I can't blame them, but she is beatable at her own level. You just need to be prepared with solid counters and make sure to use good items (because she will too).

The first Pokemon she throws out is always a Dudunsparce. Don't let his silly body fool you, this Pokemon is a tank (and as a quick aside, I appreciate the dialogue she shares in this battle, giving you background on her and her team, like how 'Dun' was her starter when she was six). High health with Roost to heal (on top of the Leftovers he has equipped), and a decent special attack backing Boomburst to hit you incredibly hard. If you had a Ghost Type to be immune to it, he has Hex to do super effective damage pairing with his final Move, Glare to Paralyze you. Nemona will often use that one to cripple other Pokemon that might be too tanky for him otherwise.

You might think about using a strong Fighting Type to beat him down fast, but that's a mistake; go for a Ghost Type. The reason for that is her second Pokemon Gothitelle. Part of what makes her so difficult to beat is that if Nemona is at a disadvantage, she won't hesitate to switch her Pokemon around, so you'll want to have good coverage for multiple Pokemon on her team. Especially Gothitelle because she has Shadow Tag, locking you in with her when she switches in. Yeah, get used to hidden Abilities, a lot of her Pokemon have that.

Gothitelle has Psychic, Focus Blast, Nasty Plot, and Trick Room. With a Sitrus Berry and high defenses, if she gets a Pokemon she can set up against, she can sweep. Focus Blast does have a low hit chance though, so a Steel or Dark Type might take her out. Spiritomb is easier to get than ever in Gen 9, able to be found in three locations in the overworld, so if you can get one of them, Gothitelle is pretty easy to take out.

Next up is Scyther. If you've played the game up to this point already, you'll remember this jerk from her challenge after the third Gym. You know, the one where she pops up right after you've won, then challenges you to a battle with Pokemon about four levels higher than Iono (who's supposed to be the third Gym Leader by order)? Yeah, Scyther's back, with the same Eviolite to boost defense making them a tough hard hitter with Technician boosted Dual Wingbeat. Thankfully for this battle your team will likely have higher BST than back then and she doesn't tend to Terastalize Scyther to add more Flying STAB to the Dual Wingbeat in this battle. He's more of a setup role in this battle, with Tailwind and U-Turn over making the most of his high attack power and Technician, but he's still a tough customer with Swords Dance this time to let him do a ton of damage if you aren't careful. Since she doesn't Terastalize him often, a Rock Type attack will do a ton of damage to him.

Next up are the Pokemon that vary based on your starter. Thankfully Nemona picks the starter 'weak' to yours, but the secondary Typings of each makes things pretty even between most. Even worse though; whatever starter you choose, she has a Psuedo-Legendary that counters it. Yeah, it's insane. So if you picked Skeledirge, she has Hydregion, Meowscarada has to fight Kommo-o, and Quaquaval takes on Dragonite.

All Dragon Types means that she has resistances against your base starter Typing, but it also means that they all have quadruple weaknesses to deal with. Fairy for Hydregion and Kommo-o and Ice for Dragonite.

Hydregion uses Choice Specs alongside Earth Power, Flash Cannon, Dragon Pulse, and Dark Pulse giving them good coverage to hit what they need. Will often be sent out mid-way through the battle to let Nemona switch them out again if you take advantage of the Choice Specs lock.

Dragonite is a bit less straightforward. They run Haze as a way to counter any boosts you've stacked, combined with Multiscale to almost certainly survive any first attack. But on the other hand, they have Scale Shot to increase their speed at the cost of their defense, and with Loaded Dice, it'll hit hard. Extremespeed lets them outspeed anyone even without a boost and go faster than a lot of common priority Moves, with Fire Punch giving them an option for Steel Types that might otherwise wall the Dragon.

Kommo-o works similarly in that she really wants them to get a boost off. Unlike Dragonite though, if you do let them get the Clangorous Soul off, they'll tear your team apart, no questions about it. They have a Throat Spray to let them further boost with that Move. Find a way to get rid of this omni-boost + additional Special Attack boost or you'll be in serious trouble. Clanging Scales and Tera Blast get heavy boosts off this. Also has Body Press, giving them a STAB Fighting Move that makes use of their high defense, and will sometimes use that one before even going for an Clangorous Soul. Overcoat makes them immune to Spore Moves too, incase you wanted to try anything with that.

All of her starters have their Hidden Abilities. This gives Protean to Meowscarada letting him drop his bad Typing, Moxie so Quaquaval can build up steam and tear through your team easier, and Unaware so Skeledirge doesn't have to deal with your boosts.

Meowscarada is equipped with Choice Band to boost his high Attack further. Flower Trick always hits and always crits for high damage, Knock Off makes use of his other STAB and can remove your items, U-Turn for scouting, and Play Rough to cover his bases. A hard and fast hitter, but a priority Bug Move like First Impression can take advantage of his quad weakness.

Skeledirge uses Throat Spray to get even more of a Special Attack boost from Torch Song. Their slow speed and lack of recovery means he likely won't ever sweep, but he might take a few Pokemon out before you can stop him. Yawn can force switches, and Earth Power and Hyper Voice give him coverage against Types he'd have trouble hurting with Torch Song.

Quaquaval has a Life Orb, which will chip away at his own health, but usually not by enough to matter if he gets a few Aqua Steps in to boost his speed and sweep your team with that and Moxie. Close Combat is a good Fighting Move to make use of that STAB, and he's got Brave Bird and Rapid Spin for more coverage and hazard removal.

Something to make note of is that Nemona's team doesn't tend to have a lot of entry hazard or weather or terrain removal. If you can get those set up, it might help deal with the powerhouses she throws at you. Of course, some might still tear through anything you set up…

… Like her last but certainly not least Pokemon, Houndstone. If you've seen the memes about 'Nemona is banned!' this is why. Houndstone is a new Ghost Type that has a specific Move called Last Respects which Smogon has banned from most of their tiers, and it's one that Nemona abuses. It's a ghost Type Move with 50 base damage, and 50 more for each of Nemona's Pokemon that has fainted. Considering that she only sends out Houndstone at the very end of the battle, that means she'll hit you with a 300 power STAB boosted Move.

Houndstone also has Play Rough, Bulldoze, and Body Press. Of these, you'll only really see Body Press if you use a Normal Type against him because Last Respects is just that strong that even against a Dark Type, it's still better than Play Rough. Houndstone is pretty slow and is weak to Fire in addition to Dark and Ghost because of her Ability, Fluffy. That plus the Assault Vest she wears means that taking her down is incredibly annoying and has the potential to sweep you even with a mostly full team left if you aren't prepared. Because of Nemona's tendency to Terastalize before this, you'll rarely run into a situation where she Tera's her Houndstone to give it even more of a boost to Last Respects (thank Arceus).

Speaking of that, yeah, in addition to swapping her Pokemon around freely, Nemona's AI is also pretty free with who she Terastalizes. She rarely Terastalizes at the end of battle and some Pokemon are less likely than others, but all of them are tricky to deal with. Here's a list:

• Dudunsparce: Tera Normal (adds more damage to Hyper Drill)
• Gothitelle: Tera Dark (defensive, no STAB boost, but makes the usual counters difficult)
• Scyther: Tera Flying (gets rid of some of his Bug Type Weaknesses and lets Dual Wingbeat hit even harder)
• Houndstone: Tera Ghost (Last Respects even more deadly, rare)
• Skeledirge: Tera Dark (defensive, Types good against Dark aren't good against regular Skeledirge. Also powers up Snarl)
• Quaquaval: Tera Water (takes away some weaknesses from Fighting and powers up Aqua Step)
• Meowscarada: Tera Fairy (very rare to be used, usually Nemona just uses Protean to change their Type)
• Hydregion: Tera Poison (purely defensive. Levitate means that he's only weak to Psychic when Tera'd, which he'd otherwise be immune to.)
• Kommo-o: Tera Steel (defensive boosts. Has Flash Canon which get boosted as well)
• Dragonite: Tera Normal (Extremespeed hits even harder and loses all regular weaknesses to be neutral and only weak to Fighting, which it would otherwise resist)

Some general advice is to use Protect or other protection Moves to stall against speed control from Tailwind and Trick Room and watch out for those switches. Try to have coverage on most of your team, or see if you can otherwise force switches through Moves like Dragon Tail. Make sure to make the most use out of items as you can for this battle, and for that, follow the link to my next guide, detailing the top ten best held items in Scarlet and Violet and where you can find them. A lot of great post-Elite gear like Assault Vest and Life Orb can be found in the wild in Scarlet and Violet. Thanks for reading, and good luck against one of the toughest Trainers to date.

Spoiler: A/N:

So, to be clear here, this is not 100% accurate about the future. There's no guarantees that these specific Pokemon will be on her specific team by the time we reach the game start (obviously, since some of them are modular based on the player's choice while the ones in the fic won't be). Still, I thought it was a fun little meta view on what SI!Nemona might be like as a battle challenge for the players of the games. What do you think of the team and her potential battle choices/strategy?

Edit: Made a few changes based on some comments and some of my own ideas for a future Indigo Disk rematch against Nemona to make the Movepools a bit different.

 

[Skyfyre]

Just when I think I'm out… she pulls me back in. Yes, that's right, we've got our new DLC, exploring Blueberry Academy. We get to meet a bunch of quirky new students, try out the synchro machine for funky Pokemon walking animations, get a bunch of new Pokemon to collect including all the regional starters in the expansive Terarium… and we get another battle against Nemona.
This one is optional after you invite her to the Blueberry Academy three times, and we actually get a bunch of fun interactions with her, talking about her past, how she used to go to BB before graduating and attending Uva/Naranja. But that's all stuff you can find out in game, let's talk about how to beat her.

As this is battle is within BB and she was a student there, she's facing you here in a double battle. Nemona will lead with either a Wash Rotom and Gliscor or Dudunsparce and a freaking Diancie (She even mentions having a mega stone to mega evolve them but says she won't use it because you don't have one which on the one hand is nice, but on the other I really want to see megas again!). And you won't know who she's sending in before the match as it randomizes it every time the battle is initiated so you can't save scum to line up your team right.
Both of the initial teams have different area Moves to spam. Gliscor has Earthquake, taking advantage of Rotom's Immunity to avoid hitting her partner. She also has Taunt, Protect, and Dual Wingbeat. Her Ability Poison Heal and a Toxic Orb to constantly heal over the course of the battle while locking her out of other status conditions after the first turn. The Rotom is in Wash Form giving them only one weakness (and one usually checked by the dual wingbeat of her partner). It has Electroweb for speed control, with Hydro Pump to give them high single target damage. Will O Wisp Burn will cut most Pokemon's Attack, while Pain Split gives them a recovery option, alongside Leftovers.

On the flip side, Dudunsparce has Hyper Drill to make use of his surprisingly high attack and punish anyone that thought they could Protect/Detect to avoid the onslaught of his partner. If that doesn't work he has Glare to cut down an opponent's speed with Paralysis, Helping Hand to boost his partner (despite not having hands...), and Roost to keep him in the battle longer. And what a partner he's paired with Diancie uses the insanely broken signature Diamond Storm to hit both foes with a 50% of a Defense boost by two stages. This fuels their Body Press, making it hit even harder. Moonblast rounds out her offense and makes use of her Fairy STAB. Trick Room turns the abysmal speed those two share into a boon. Dudunsparce has a Lum Berry for a one time status block, while Diancie has a Babiri Berry to cover taking quadruple effective Steel attacks at least once.

So this might not seem great, but you might think of just preparing for one team. Like hey, maybe Gholdengo would be good against the Dudunsparce and Diancie team? Wrong, or at least wrong half of the time. See, there's a 50% chance that either of the leads you see on a given team are actually her Hisuian Zoroark in disguise. This greatly changes things, as you can think that you're going to be clearing out Dudunsparce with a Fighting move only to watch it whiff. Or letting him boost a Move of hers that would have been resisted if they replaced Diancie. H-Zoroark has Hyper Voice for spread STAB damage and Bitter Malice for single target STAB with a nasty attack debuff on top (also, when did we start getting base 75 power Moves with guaranteed stat drops?!) Burning Jealousy is there to give her more coverage, is another spread Move, and will punish you if you want to/have already set up. She's built for speed and power, with her EVs maxed out in speed and special attack, and she's got Protect too, to help keep the disguise going and to stall out things like Sucker Punch for a turn. Her Focus Sash helps with that, so even though she's frail, you'll need two hits to take her out.

The final Pokemon on Nemona's original team is Lucario. She's got a lot of offense with Close Combat, Meteor Mash, and Extremespeed, boosted by her Life Orb. Her last Move is Swords Dance, letting her setup to sweep you, if given a chance. Nemona will send Lucario out a bit later, usually to plug any holes you've poked in the offense going on so far.
Like your previous fight against her Nemona will feel free to switch her team around and Tera whenever she feels necessary. And on that note, here's what she has going for her team.
Tera List:

• Dudunsparce Tera Ghost (Stops Fake Out and gets rid of Fighting weakness)
• Diancie Tera Grass (feels weird, but it covers most of her weaknesses as well as giving Nemona something against powder Moves)
• W-Rotom Tera Electric (Boosts Discharge damage and takes away weaknesses)
• Gliscor Tera Ground (Boost Earthquake damage, not quite as badly affected by Ice after)
• H-Zoroark Tera Normal (Pretty rare to see this one, opens her up to Fighting and Normal attacks but gets rid of Dark weakness and boosts Hyper Voice)
• Lucario Tera Fighting (loses a lot of resistances but also all of her weaknesses while gaining new ones to Flying, Psychic, and Fairy. Also powers up Close Combat)

For this battle, you'll probably want to just pick a starter set and prepare for that, just reloading until you get the right starter set. It's very possible to have answers for one set, and even for either of the two starting Pokemon possibly being her Zoroark in disguise to start. It's a lot more difficult to try and deal with 5 potential different Pokemon to start. If you absolutely feel the need to do so, make sure to have Protect and other stall Moves to get a clearer picture on what she's throwing at you first, then respond. Priority Moves like Sucker Punch can do a lot of damage as she doesn't have many counters to those either.

She lacks most methods to remove your buffs, terrain, entry hazards, or weather (thankfully), but given how hard she'll hit, often nailing both Pokemon on your team twice, Nemona will quickly tear through your team if given the chance. There's no competing weather or terrain setters so any Pokemon with Abilities that can set up those up for you without giving up a turn are quite handy.

Your Pokemon for this battle are going to vary wildly, it really depends on what combos you have ready. While her Pokemon are decently fast, Gen 9 metagame is insane so a lot of Paradox and Legendary Pokemon beat her for speed, which is good… unless she sets Trick Room up. Room Service may be an item you can consider using for those Pokemon. Here are a few others that we've found generally handy:

Scrappy Flamigo is a solid counter to H-Zoroark and Dudunsparce even if they Terastalize. Storm Drain Gastrodon can block Rotom, and can threaten Diancie and Lucario, and even Gliscor with Ice attacks. Maushold can be either an offensive threat with Technician Beat Up/Population Bomb and Wide Lens to threaten all but Diancie and Lucario, or as a support with Friend Guard and Moves like Helping Hand, Follow Me, Encore and the like. Rillaboom sets up Grassy Terrain to limit the effectiveness of Gliscor's Earthquake, while also threatening Diancie. Palafin outspeeds all but the H-Zoroark, so you can Flip Turn easily, or just switch out if you're scared of that with a bunch of support options in Haze, Encore, and Taunt, as well as just insane stats once Zero to Hero is triggered.

Incineroar or any Intimidate Pokemon are generally traps here. Nemona has three physical attackers, but only one (Gliscor) can be affected by Intimidate. Lucario has Inner Focus which stops flinches and Intimidates as of this gen, and Diancie has Clear Body making them immune to all stat drops from enemies. You can aim for a Trick Room team of your own, but that can be difficult to set up given how much offense Nemona has, and you need your team's speed to be really low so that Dudunsparce and Diancie can't take advantage of it themselves.

It'll be a tough fight, but try it a few times, get a feel for how she tends to respond and do your best to predict her Moves and switches because she will be prepared for you. If you show up with two Pokemon that know Steel Type attacks, don't be surprised if she swaps her Diancie for Rotom as you try to double tap them, etc. With enough perseverance you'll emerge victorious.

After all of that? She'll do the trade like every other mentor you can call into the club does, with Nemona offering a Shiny Dunsparce. Which might not seem like much until you learn it's guaranteed to evolve into a three segment Dudunsparce, saving a bunch of time for collectors… or not depending on how long it took you to beat her, haha.

Spoiler: A/N:

The second one of these! This time we get to see her original team in double battles (those are going to be fun/complicated to write). I originally planned to have Nightwing use her Fling → Acrobatics strategy I have in the story, but with how long it would take to set up Toxic Orb self poison, Fling to get rid of it, then Acrobatics, it just seemed too easy to see through in a video game and made Nightwing way too open to counter play. Miles' Moveset got changed around dramatically as well, as I realized I was hewing too closely to what their Moves are now, in the story. Which works there, but wouldn't in a double battle, especially in a game with move limits and the like.

 

[Skyfyre]

I have some exciting news. King crimson over on Sufficient Velocity has just posted a lovely omake over on their quest Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest, and with their permission, I'm crossposting it here. This is the first part, and even without specific knowledge of their fic, I think you'll enjoy it too (but definitely do check the quest out if you have the time, it's great).

Like No One Ever Was Crossover omake Part 1
Cassandra Luthor (several years in the past)
Cassandra Luthor was born to be better. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about it, Cassandra was a Luthor which meant that she was better than virtually everyone else. Of course as Father's chosen heir, Cassandra had to prove she was the best. LexCorp was an industrial titan, easily cornering the power generation market in Unova, as well as the far less public facing weapons industry. They'd attempted to enter into the phone market but were beaten out by the Glitteratis. LexCorp had better hardware but raw machines couldn't compete with the Rotom-Phone's versatility.

She hadn't thought much of the Glitteratis at first. They were competent enough but there was nothing especially exceptional about them. They were too soft where it counted and whilst others might underestimate them, Cassandra could easily see through their facade. They'd be beaten and conquered before long. Cassandra had risen up to each and every challenge her father had placed before her, a bunch of tacky, would-be business rivals would fall just the same as everything else.

The eldest daughter, Cyan Glitterati, wasn't a real peer in any way that mattered. A weak soft-hearted little sheep coddled by over-indulgent parents. She wasn't nearly as imbecilic as other children her age, but that by no means put her on Cassandra's level. Cassandra would easily run roughshod over her if need be, especially in any relevant field that required drive and competitiveness.

The younger daughter, closer in age to Cassandra appeared to be the same at first. A foolish little girl strutting around with her parent's toys and playing the video darling for tapioca brained masses to coo over. The girl's musical ambitions were equally insipid, a bunch of mealy-mouthed sentimental mush. Cassandra paid it no mind, she had tutors upon tutors and countless academic and practical subjects to master in order to prove herself a worthy heir. And Cassandra would prove better but her perception of Nemona did change with time.

Somehow the Glitterati girl proved to be a remarkably competent battler. Cassandra could acknowledge that much. In a real fight Cassandra was confident she would win, real fights didn't have judges or rules and Cassandra excelled at interpersonal violence, but in an official match it was far less clear.

And official matches were important. Being able to succeed in the various leagues against gym leaders was a sign of competence and was internationally lauded. Being able to defeat Elite Four members and even champions would open up countless doors. Cassandra liked battling and alongside her starter Nibbler, Cassandra was confident that she could dominate the actual league, but so far it appeared Nemona might have a leg up on her.

The last straw was when Nemona took on the gym leader Clay and won. Cassandra had plans. She was going to attend Blueberry Academy eventually, it would be useful for connections at the very least, and she wanted a debut wherein her battling prowess wasn't in doubt. The plan was to take on several gym leaders in a row, and then come to the Academy before going on to clear the league as the youngest to ever do so. Of course Nemona had to go and beat a gym leader first. Now when Cassandra did take on Clay, her debut would be marred as Nemona had already done it first at a younger age.

It was infuriating, that all of Cassandra's plans would be thrown off by an outside factor but that was fine, Cassandra could pivot. She would prove she was the best one way or another. Now it just meant that she had to crush Nemona first.

Cassandra promptly accelerated Nibbler's training. She'd evolved her starter into a Gabite on her own following the instructions experts on LexCorp's had provided, but it was clear that it wasn't fast enough. He was bred to be the ideal battling Garchomp eventually, and Cassandra greatly enjoyed spending time with him, but she also had to learn to take over the company. As such there was only so much time she could spend training him. From now on Nibbler would be regularly trained by the best money could acquire. She was confident that Father could get some of the Dragon Tamer Clan in Opelucid to contribute. Nibbler would have a whole team of professionals dedicated to ensuring that he was the best. Cassandra would still train with him when possible but this would make sure that Cassandra came out on top.

Of course Nibbler on his own wouldn't be enough. Cassandra had an entire team to fill out. She had some ideas on what to do and sooner or later she'd be able to get the best breeders to provider her with the best eggs and she'd have the best team possible. Those new members would need to be trained up as well, but Cassandra could deal with it. There would be some struggle in finding time to ensure that Cassandra herself did not become the weak link, but Cassandra was confident she could manage.

Cassandra smiled as she prepared her arguments for Father to set things in motion. She was going to crush Nemona and prove to everyone that she was the best.

Nemona Glitterati (a few months later)
It wasn't often I took the time to think about how far I'd come. There was always something to do or somewhere to go, and that naturally meant there wasn't a lot of time to spend navel-gazing. Still as I was hiking in the wilds I couldn't help but think that I'd come fairly far.

I was going to take on the Elite Gauntlet and the Champion soon and I'd proven immensely successful in the Paldean League. True the Paldean League wasn't considered as intense as some other regions, but it was still a solid accomplishment. I had an excellent team, and while there were rough patches, like with Radiance, we were coming together as a unit remarkably well.

Raifort was still on the loose and Turo was still a problem but I'd made friends and come out on top. The future wasn't certain but I was confident we could take it on regardless.

I was getting ready to keep heading further when I spotted someone approaching me. I wasn't used to being famous still, and it was a little weird to be approached in the middle of nowhere, but it couldn't hurt to be friendly to a fellow trainer.

As she got closer I got a better look at the person in question. A dark haired girl, about my age approached us. The boots and the fingerless gloves she wore seemed practical at least but while I still didn't get fashion, my sister had chatted about it enough that I could vaguely recognize that the other girl's collared shirt and slacks were expensive and likely some kind of designer brand. The luxury balls tied to her belt only further solidified the impression that whoever she was, she wasn't shy about throwing around money.

It might be a little hypocritical but it felt a little weird to encounter some rich girl out in the middle of nowhere. That wasn't a thing people normally did. I couldn't recognize who she was off of my time on the internet looking into previous trainers, and my general metaknowledge of the games was also drawing a complete and total blank. It was certainly a surprise.

"You're Nemona Glitterati, right?" The girl asked, her voice flat and level. She seemed to kind of have a resting scowly-face. It was kind of cute on a kid, but I could see her coming off as intimidating or scary to other people my age. She wasn't nearly as bad or as aggressive as some other kids I'd encountered on my journey so I just assumed she was kind of bad with people.

"Yeah?" I asked somewhat confused but hoping to get to the bottom of things quickly. The other girl remained placid but I could see a bit of a competitive spark light up in her eyes.

"My name is Cassandra Luthor" the girl semi-dramatically introduced herself. She seemed to expect me to recognize her name but I was drawing blank. Maybe she was the daughter of someone who worked with my parents? I could figure it out some other time though as the other girl continued her declaration.

"I've come to challenge you to a pokemon battle" Cassandra stated. I was certainly interested. A weird rich girl tracking me down to battle me wasn't something that I was expecting but it wasn't overly unpleasant. I hadn't planned on a battle but I wasn't opposed to it one way or another.

"Alright, sure" I responded. "How many badges do you have?"

Cassandra seemed to get visibly irked by this question.

"None but don't think that means you can afford to hold back, I want to beat you at your best!" Cassandra declared. Badges weren't a surefire way to tell how capable a trainer was but it was still a decent shorthand. The fact that Cassandra had none made me pretty sure she was new on her journey. I figured I could afford to take it a little easier. I wasn't going to underestimate her, but I'd be putting Bahamut out first. This was a friendly match against a rookie, I could afford to take things a little easier.

"Got it" I answered "Ground rules for the match?"

"Six on six standard Unovan League rules" Cassandra responded before handing me a blocky device. I couldn't make heads or tails of it as the design was well past the level of tech I knew how to work. Apparently Cassandra picked up on my lack of knowledge because she quickly came over to assist.

"It's basic battleshield tech" Cassandra grumbled "You plant it on the ground in front of you, activate it and then we can go all out without needing to worry about hitting each other"

Huh, neat. I revised my assessment of Cassandra a bit, she was definitely some wealthy tech guy's daughter. Once the battle was done I'd have to ask her for one of these, it'd be nice to be able to recreate gym conditions out in the wild.

We each took up a spot a fair bit away from each other and readied ourselves for the battle.

"Go, Bahamut!" I shouted as I tossed the relevant pokeball. Bahamut let out a roar as he loomed over the battlefield. If Cassandra was at all unnerved by facing down a large pitch black Haxorus, she didn't show any signs of it. She merely ran a hand through her hair and smirked before tossing out her own ball.

"Snowy, you know what you have to do"

With a name like Snowy I was expecting some kind of ice type, an Alolan Ninetales or an Abomasnow would've made sense to me. Instead Cassandra apparently named an Annihilape of all things Snowy. I was kind of curious as to the story behind that.

The Annihilape let out a ferocious howl as it seemed to size up Bahamut. It was time for the match to begin.

"Bahamut, Aerial Ace!" I cried out, deciding to take the initiative. Cassandra did say she wanted me to try my best so I figured I might as well set the tempo. Bahamut leapt into the air and gathered flying type energy around himself before then diving down.

The blow easily connected with the Annihilape which made no move to dodge. The fact that Cassandra was entirely unreactive, just smirking a bit lead me to believe that either she had no idea what to do and was relying on strong pokemon someone else had given her, or she was setting some kind of trap.

"Leg breaker low sweep!" Cassandra called out, confirming that it was a trap.

The Annihilape lashed out and swung its foot outwards, breaking Bahamut's balance and sending him tumbling to the ground. I didn't quite know what Cassandra's game plan was but I know that I needed Bahamut to get up and get distance.

"Dragon pulse!" I commanded.

"Dragon breaker" Cassandra calmly responded.

Bahamut heard my command and did manage to fire off a purple pulse of power but the Annihilape danced around it and closed the distance, promptly landing an ice punch hard enough to turn Bahamut's head.

The Annihilape promptly then grabbed one of Bahamut's tusks and roughly pinned his head to the floor. At the same time the Annihilape began to repeatedly strike the back of Bahamut's head with ice punches.

Cassandra's strategy made sense in hindsight but I needed to come up with a counter to it. As is, she'd used Annihilape's strength and Bahamut's body type to pin the Haxorus to the ground in such a way where Snowy could hit him, but he couldn't hit the Annihilape back.

"Bahamut use breaking swipe, try to weaken its hold!" I cried. I wasn't sure it would work but Cassandra had completely thrown off my intended strategy by using a strategy that would only work against pokemon with the same body type as Haxorus. Still I needed to try something.

Bahamut unfortunately wasn't listening to me. Getting pinned to the floor and repeatedly punched was frightening and he was openly panicking, firing off moves and desperately trying to get free. They were connecting but there wasn't any sort of strategy and the Annihilape seemed to be content taking the blows.

Bahamut was a big fully evolved dragon but at the same time he was still pretty young. Something like this was a little too intense for him.

I made my decision promptly.

"You did good Bahamut" I reassured him as I recalled my Haxorus and thoguht of what my next move was going to be.

"This is not a switch" I informed Cassandra "I'm retiring Bahamut from the rest of the match"

Cassandra seemed taken aback by this before her smirk once more reasserted itself.

"I thought you were better than that" The other girl taunted "One thing goes wrong and you immediately fold? You might as well give up now"

"Thanks but no thanks" I responded to the other girl, doing my best to ignore her attempted taunt. "You caught me off guard but it won't happen again"

"I'm sure you'll find some other excuse for your loss" Cassandra fired back. I did my best to ignore her taunts as a game plan settled in my mind.

I grabbed Phantasm's ball and readied myself. I hadn't gotten to see much of the Annihilape but I knew it was fast and strong. However I know that a Hisuian Zoroark would be immune to both its fighting type and ghost type attacks, and Phantasm's illusions could be used to bait both Cassandra and the Annihilape into using fighting type moves by making them think they were fighting Dun, against whom such moves would be super-effective.

"Alright Dun, you're up to bat" I loudly called out. Phantasm quickly set up an illusion of Dun calling out.

Cassandra kept grinning, confident she was going to win but I wasn't intimidated. This match was far from over.

"Snowy, cloud cover!" Cassandra yelled as soon as the battle began. The Annihilape promptly slammed its fist directly into the ground, kicking up a massive amount of dirt and dust, obscuring it from view. Phantasm meanwhile had kept the false Dudunsparce in place while invisibly moving to the right.

When the Annihilape burst out of the cloud of smoke at frightening speeds, we were ready for it.

"Blizzard!" I yelled as Phantasm moved her illusion to make it seem as though Dun had dodged the attack. When Phantasm and the illusion were aligned, Phantasm let out an icy wind attack, faking that Dun had launched a blizzard attack.

The Annihilape wasn't quick enough to dodge and instead it rushed after what it thought was Dun, constantly trying to connect with a fighting type move as Phantasm peppered it with icy winds. The Annihilape slowed down and I decided to switch tacks.

I signaled to Phantasm to use shadow sneak to close the gap and get in close. The Annihilape swung its fist but the move completely missed.

"Night slash, full swing!" Cassandra commanded, causing the Annihilape to charge its fist with dark energy as it swung its arm in a full 360 degree motion.

"Abort and shadow ball" I fired back. Phantasm promptly stepped out of range of the Annihilape's attack and launched a sphere of dark ghostly energy directly into the Annihilape. The ghostly pokemon stumbled back before it regained its balance. It then lout out a massive earsplitting rage filled shriek.

I was ready to exploit the Annihilapes anger when a red beam struck the pokemon. Cassandra had recalled her pokemon.

"I'll be making a switch now" Cassandra said as she placed the luxury ball back on her belt before picking up a different one. "Hunter will be dealing with your Zoroark now"

From the luxury ball, a male Pyroar with a resplendent fiery mane burst forth. It did not roar and instead seemed to stare at "Dun" with snooty disdain.

If she'd figured it out that quickly it was probably better to change things. Most of Phantasm's ranged options were something a Pyroar would either be resistant or immune to. Yes I did still technically have Hyper Voice to fall back on, but I figured I'd be better off saving her for later, especially since Phantasm was my best answer for Annihilape.

"I'll also make a switch then" I replied, causing Cassandra to frown "Notch, come on out!"

Notch swiftly appeared in a flash of white light. As a Carbink, Notch wasn't the most expressive but I could tell they were ready for a fight. Cassandra meanwhile seemed utterly unmoved by what was going on. Where she'd been frowning before she now seemed to be grinning again. The battle swiftly began once again.

"Noble Roar!" Cassandra ordered and the Pyroar let out a bellowing roar in response. This seemed like an amateur mistake. Notch was resistant to both fire and normal type moves. In theory boosting up her Pyroar's offensive moves was the right play, but Notch could easily hold out against it for quite a while. If Cassandra wanted to try breaking through Notch, I was happy to set the field and punish her for it.

"Light Screen!" I called out in response. Cassandra meanwhile merely ordered another noble roar. It felt like I was missing something but I wasn't sure what. I'd underestimated her once and Bahamut had got taken out fast. Still I couldn't spend too much time dwelling on hypotheticals and what-ifs, I had a battle to win.

I gave the order for stealth rocks and then for three layers of spikes, all the while Cassandra continued to order more and more noble roars, boosting up Pyroar's offensive capabilities. The ground was littered with hazards and I was fairly confident that I had managed to get things to work out. Maybe Cassandra had made a mistake. She was still entirely focused on buffing Pyroar.

As such I made the call to try and go for an iron defense, raising Notch's defensive capabilities. Yes Pyroar were typically special attackers and iron defense boosted physical defense, but the increased damage of body press, which should be Notch's most powerful move as it was super effective against normal type pokemon like Pyroar, did offset that.

"Hunter, no more nobility" Cassandra commanded. I took a second to ponder what that meant, as it wasn't a straightforward command. That one second was all it took for Pyroar to let out a massive full bodied roar which promptly forced Notch back into their ball. I couldn't help but grimace again as once more I was put on the back foot. I had to come up with some way to throw Cassandra off her rhythm or else I'd end up losing the match.

Cassandra Luthor
Cassandra was ecstatic as she saw the grimace on Nemona Glitterati's face. She delighted in seeing the other girl lose her composure. It was satisfying seeing that the time spent practicing and studying how the other girl might choose to battle and having it pay off. She'd finally be able to prove that without a doubt she was the best.

Then the other girl let out a smile.

"Don't count me out just yet!" Nemona said "I'm not giving up!"

Fine. It was all fine. Cassandra would just need to knock her down again. She'd knock her down again, and again, and again, and again until she utterly, totally and completely crushed Nemona. She'd make Nemona regret continuing to battle. Cassandra had set the stage and now she was going to beat the other girl effortlessly, and utterly one-sidedly.

When the other girl sent out a Lucario, Cassandra was still confident she'd end up winning. Yes Lucarios were impressive and their fighting type capabilities did match up well against Pyroars but Pyroar's fire type attacks were super effective against steel types like Lucario. Cassandra was going to melt Nemona's pokemon if a single attack so much as grazed it.

Cassandra focused on the battle as Nemona promptly mega-evolved her Lucario. The blue jackal-like pokemon was enveloped in a cocoon of energy before bursting out in a new more powerful form. Cassandra scowled. She'd looked into mega-evolution and found it lacking. She'd purchased a mega ring and the appropriate stones and attempted to do so with Nibbler. It should work with a Garachomp and Cassandra was certainly bonded with her starter. And yet no matter what she did, Cassandra couldn't get the mega-evolution to work.

She ultimately came to the conclusion that all those people talking about bonds being the key to mega-evolution were lying in order to protect their secrets. By saying that the key to the technique was friendship, they'd waste everyone else's time and keep the real secret to it hidden. When it didn't work, they could just claim that whoever attempted and failed just didn't love their pokemon enough. Well Cassandra wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. She didn't need mega-evolution, it was a dumb gimmick hidden by protectionist liars. She'd win on her own terms in her own way. She wasn't going to open herself up to some ridiculous notions that she didn't love her own pokemon enough. She'd just demonstrate that mega-evolution was nothing more than a crutch for people who couldn't get strong with their pokemon as they were.

Cassandra refocused her attention back to the fight proper.

"Flamethrower" Cassandra commanded, and Hunter promptly responded letting out a billowing stream of fire. The Lucario still managed to dance around the fire, bounding off of the rocks put into play by the Carbink earlier. Annoying. Still no matter, Cassandra would win in the end eventually.

"Hyper voice" Cassnadra commanded as Hunter let out a mighty bellow in response. Unlike flamethrower this move was significantly harder to see and as it traveled in a cone rather than a stream like flamethrower it was significantly harder to dodge.

The Lucario ended up getting clipped and Cassandra heard a cry of concern from Nemona. Cassandra wasn't done yet.

"Fire Blast to finish it!" Cassandra ordered as her Pyroar promptly shot out a searing hot cavalcade of fire, directly at the Lucario which hadn't quite recovered its footing. This match was over.

"Endure it Athena!" Nemona cried out right as the move connected. Cassandra readied another fire blast. She'd end it one way or another. Then she heard Nemona command the Lucario to use detect, enabling it to avoid the follow-up.

Cassandra wasn't worried. She just had to get more accurate with her attacks and wait till the Lucario got burned. She had her Pyroar fire off another torrent of fire and this time the Lucario endured it again. Once more and once more further the same pattern emerged. Cassandra kept up the pressure but Nemona's Lucario just would not go down. Fine if that was the game she wanted to play Cassandra would flip the table and win anyways.

"Will o' Wisp" Cassandra commanded, hoping to end this. Hunter let out a small collection of dancing blue ethereal flames which flickered towards the Lucario. Unfortunately the Lucario managed to avoid them once more.

Nemona made a move to try and use Dancing Sword and Cassandra moved to cut her off at the pass.

"Taunt" She ordered, with Hunter promptly letting out a mocking purr towards the Lucario, staring down at his inferior. It appeared to work as the Lucario was properly enraged.

No more power-ups, no more enduring, no more dodges, Cassandra was finishing things now, this was checkmate.

"Earthquake!" Nemona suddenly cried out. Cassandra outwardly kept cool as Pyroar leapt into the air to avoid the shockwave. Apparently they'd both forgotten the Lucario had that move. Hunter let out a pained yowl as he landed atop some of the spikes scattered earlier.

An aura sphere promptly shot out towards Pyroar. Cassandra immediately ordered Hunter to intercept the move with his own flamethrower. She was not going to lose this! She was still in control.

"Extreme speed!" Nemona followed up and the Lucario blitzed right into Hunter's space. The blow itself wasn't all that damaging but the problem was that now Hunter had to turn to get at Lucario. As a Pyroar all of Hunter's most powerful moves were launched from his mouth. With the Lucario standing to the side, Hunter wasn't able to leverage his most powerful attacks.

Cassandra wasn't going to be caught out like that by any fighting type moves, she wasn't going to give Nemona the chance to ruin everything again.

"Dig and get out of there!" Cassandra ordered. Hunter quickly disappeared under the ground, having learned to rapidly dig in order to escape close ranged pursuers. Cassandra knew that Nemona wouldn't be able to hit Hunter with any fighting type attacks.

"Alright then, earthquake" Nemona ordered, seemingly pivoting plans. Cassandra felt rage. How could she have forgotten about earthquake? Now that Hunter was underground, he could no longer dodge it and he'd take extra damage. Somehow some way Nemona had managed to get Cassandra to make a mistake.

Her poor Pyroar was promptly pushed out of the earth and sent flying through the air, his fur matted with dirt. Once more he was hurt by the spikes and stealth rocks the stupid little pebble Cassandra had outmaneuvered had set up. Cassandra wasn't going to let this go. Nemona wanted to play the game of undodgeable attacks? Cassandra would give her an undodgeable attack.

"Burn it all down!" Cassandra cried out. "Full power!"

Hunter knew the command and promptly launched a ball of fire up into the air. Nemona seemed confused as to the move. This was the advantage of using more obtuse commands instead of conventional attack names, trainers who were used to familiar cues would get thrown off. Cassandra had hidden that she'd ordered a sunny day to be used first.

Unfortunately for Cassandra, Nemona was also good enough that the momentary confusion didn't slow her down much as the Lucario continued to race in. There was no commitment to extreme speed but Cassandra knew she and Hunter were running out of time.

Hunter managed to leap into the air just in time to avoid a drain punch from the oncoming Lucario. This was it. Cassandra figured, now the Lucario was finished. Cassandra couldn't help but giggle a little bit, giddy from how she'd still managed to overcome Nemona after everything that the other girl had pulled out. Mega-evolution, a Lucario that wouldn't go down, and Cassandra making mistakes like forgetting about earthquake and it still wasn't enough. Cassandra was going to win!

Hunter launched a blisteringly hot overheat attack at full power right down into the arena they were fighting in. It had taken Hunter months of specialized training but these full powered wide range overheats should be completely unavoidable from the angle he'd jumped at. Lucario was as good as gone.

Cassandra smirked as the massive attack hit the ground and the barrier flickered to life as flames washed against it. Everything burned and Cassandra had come out victorious.

The fire slowly cleared and Cassandra was ready to let Nemona know of the futility of continuing to fight when she saw that the Lucario was some how still standing. Hunter was winded the massive overheat had a side effect of completely exhausting him. He was a sitting duck. Cassandra did her best to hide her horror as Nemona ordered a drain punch and the Lucario promptly knocked out her Pyroar.

Cassandra bitterly returned Hunter to his luxury ball.

"You should have won, you did everything right" Cassandra whispered, unwilling to let the other girl hear her moment of weakness "I messed up and I'm sorry you ended up losing because of my mistakes"

Cassandra didn't dwell on her frustration for long. She considered how the Lucario could have survived that last attack. She wracked her brains for a few seconds before coming up with an answer. The Lucario must have shaken off the taunt from earlier and been able to endure. It was irritating but at least it meant Cassandra could bring it down if she just blitzed the Lucario. She was still going to come out on top, she just had to not make any more mistakes.

"You doing okay over there?" Nemona asked, seemingly out of kindness considering Cassandra had taken a while to pick her next pokemon.

"I'm perfectly fine" Cassandra said as she imagined landing a fist right in the middle of Nemona's stupid face. She wasn't going to let the girl with the green fringe ruin this for her or get into her head. "I just was contemplating my next move"

Cassandra knew what had to be done.

"Ravager, come on out!" Cassandra called as she tossed out her next pokeball. The luxury ball activated and her red Scizor emerged, almost completely ignoring the various rocks and spikes she landd on. As Ravager's wings beat and she rose above the ground, her carapace gleamed in the mid-day sun like bright red battle armor. She looked more than ready to fight while the Lucario looked tired and worn down. Cassandra was still in control.

"I'll make use of my last switch then." Nemona stated as she returned the Lucario back to its ball. "You're up Nightwing!"

Nemona's Gliscor popped out of the ball and soon happily flitted about. Fine then, this was still within what Cassandra had expected of the match. She was going to win this. She'd planned on using Drakul to crush the ground type but she was confident that Ravager could wreak some havoc first. All of the research she'd done showed that the Gliscor didn't have a fire type move beside fire fang and if she played things carefully that would never be a threat. This was still Cassandra's battle to win.

Cassandra prepared herself as the battle began in earnest once more.

"Vacuum Wave!" Cassandra commanded. She would've preferred opening with a harder hitting move but at least now she could see if Nemona had a way to retaliate at range. Ravager promptly snapped her claws shut at a massive speed, leading to a blast of pressurized air flying towards the bat-like pokemon

"Tailwind!" Nemona fired back. That was enough to seal in Cassandra's mind that Nemona's Gliscor didn't have a ranged option to deal with long ranged attacks, save perhaps for earthquake, whose viability as a response had been nullified through Ravager's flight. That meant that she didn't need to bother with using struggle bug to weaken that option into nonexistence. She could begin the beatdown now.

Of course the tailwind likely was an attempt to increase the Gliscor's speed to enable it to close the distance, but Cassandra already had an answer prepped for that.

"Tailwind in return" Cassandra answered. A turbulent wind picked up and Cassandra saw the spikes and stones the Carbink had set up earlier rescatter across the field. Ravager seemed unaffected so she paid them no further mind, she had a fight to win and time spent second guessing herself would cost her in the long run. Now though the speed was equalized which meant that Nemona's Gliscor wouldn't be able to rely on raw speed to close the distance.

"Air cutter barrage!" Cassandra continued. Arguably swift might've been the more optimal attack, due to its homing properties, but Cassandra preferred the increased likelihood of hitting a weakpoint for extra damage that air cutter brought to the table.

Ravager seemed to enjoy using her wings to shape crescents of violent wind to fling into the Gliscor. The large scorpion-bat was getting hit every so often but the damage wasn't all that impressive. Cassandra was relying on a lucky strike and sooner or later Cassandra would get it if things stayed the same.

"Quick attack!" Nemona called out, clearly hoping to use the speed of the attack to catch Cassandra off-guard and allow for the fight to be shifted into close quarters. Cassandra was well aware that Nemona had at least three pokemon with moves that involved incredible amounts of speed in a short burst, the Lucario, the Gliscor, and her strange Zoroark. Three was a large enough number that Nemona was going to use one of those techniques eventually. As such Ravager had been trained to use quick guard, an attack designed to specifically block those techniques, automatically without any input from Cassandra.

Cassandra smiled as the Gliscor bounced off the brief energy shield Ravager had formed.

"Bullet repositioning into head grip" Cassandra promptly announced as Ravager moved to executed the command.

Her Scizor promptly used bullet punch, not to strike the Gliscor, but instead to reposition behind it. From there Ravager could promptly used her claws to grip the Gliscor's head, keeping it so that it couldn't turn and land any bite based attacks.

"Bring it down" Cassandra commanded as Ravager moved to pin the Gliscor against the earth to limit the space it could use to struggle.. She would've preferred having Ravager fire flash cannons at the back of the Gliscor's head, but she couldn't afford to have Ravager's grip weaken and give the Gliscor the chance to break loose as the other pokemon was wrestled to the ground slowly but surely. For now the ball was in her court so Cassandra figured she could afford to engage in some taunting, to try and distract Nemona and prevent her from calling out useful command.

"Seem familiar?" Cassandra mocked as Ravager seemed to solidly get the upper hand "The last time you had a pokemon in this position you had to recall it, give up now and save us both some time and suffering"

Nemona seemed unphased by the trash talk and merely quipped back.

"I think you're going to regret making comparison's too quickly" the other girl singsonged as Ravager finally pinned the Gliscor to the ground. What was different? What had Cassandra missed? She couldn't afford to make mistakes, so what had Cassandra not seen that Nemona seemed to have observed. Cassandra's eyes quickly swept back to the fight.

"Let loose an earthquake!" Nemona commanded right as she realized what was happening. The Gliscor hadn't been panicking the entire time. It hadn't had a fun time getting pinned as it was, but now that Ravager was touching the ground to pin it in place, Ravager could no longer dodge the Gliscor's earthquake attacks. In a way Nemona had turned Cassandra's pin into a double edged sword, as if Cassandra sought to maintain it, the fight would turn into a battle or endurance. While Ravager was strong, she couldn't heal over time like the Gliscor could and Ravager's best attacks were physical attacks that couldn't be pulled off easily while pining the Gliscor in place. Cassandra grimaced.

She ordered Ravager to enter into the air, weakening the pin but once more allowing Ravager to avoid the opposing Gliscor's earthquake attacks. Cassandra hoped this would be enough

"Breaking swipe, from the tail!" Nemona promptly cried out, finding a clear cut weakness in the current pin. Ravager didn't have the room to fully lock down the Gliscor and it showed as the move promptly connected, once, twice and then thrice. Ravager's grip slackened and the Gliscor resumed thrashing, slowly breaking loose of Ravager's grip. The fight would be over for Cassandra. She didn't want to deal with any potential fire fangs from this close up and Ravager's weakened attack meant she likely wouldn't deal much meaningful damage if this did turn in to a slugfest. She could try and gain range again but that was unlikely to work when the distance had already been closed. Cassandra needed to retreat.

"U-turn, you've done your job" Cassandra ordered. Ravager appeared displeased by the order but did as Cassandra bid, unleashing the bug type attack and promptly returning to her ball. U-turn was a fairly unique move in that it more or less allowed a pokemon to switch out of the field and back into its ball without counting as an official switch in these sorts of regulation matches. This meant that Cassandra still had one switch left while Nemona had none. It also meant that Cassandra could afford to have Ravager soften up her opponent and then retreat as Cassandra sent out her intended counter.

The Gliscor annoyingly enough seemed to have not taken too much damage but that was fine. Now Cassandra had the fight she wanted. Drakul would utterly and entirely crush the other pokemon and Cassandra would finally be able to offset her mistakes and make it so that Nemona needed to keep up with her rhythm. Not wanting to give the Gliscor any more time to heal, Cassandra promptly tossed out her next ball and in a burst of white light, Drakul emerged out from her Luxury ball.

Drakul was a Gyarados but she wasn't just any Gyarados. She was the biggest, meanest most aggressive Gyarados money could buy. Cassandra was fairly certain if she'd been bought as a Gyarados, and not as a Magikarp, Drakul would've never followed Cassandra's orders. As it was it had still taken Drakul longer than Cassandra had liked to realize that Cassandra was still in charge. Still the obedience issues had been worked out and now Cassandra's big danger noodle knew who the boss was.

Drakul also knew that as the boss following Cassandra's orders was the key to victory. There was a plan in place for this Gliscor and they were going to execute it perfectly. Drakul let out a massive roar as Cassandra contemplated the sheer size disparity between the two of them. Drakul could fairly easily swallow Nemona's Gliscor whole.

If the other girl was intimidated by this at all she showed no signs of it. The black and green haired girl seemed to still be grinning at some mistake that Cassandra hadn't noticed yet. That pissed Cassandra off.

Just what did she notice that made her think she could win such a lopsided match-up? Cassandra let the glower on her face fester. She'd wipe that stupid smirk off the Glitterati's face. Cassandra Luthor didn't lose! Especially not to two-bit, plan ruining, mega-evolution hiding, spoiled little princesses who looked at her like a Mandibuzz eyeing its next meal.

"Crush them into paste!" Cassandra screamed, forgetting entirely about decorum for a short while and just giving into instinct. The earth rumbled as Drakul roared in response and yet Nemona stood unflinching.

Cassandra Luthor didn't lose!

 

[Skyfyre]

"Hello, everyone!" exclaims a man wearing a long, black coat from his spot at what appears to be a desk for news. "And welcome, WELCOME! To Station Six-Two-Five: The Reuben, my place and yours for all of our world news!"

The man is on a screen. Could be a television, phone, or whatever screen, but definitely a screen. In the bottom-right corner of said screen, the number "62.5" is displayed, encased in the middle a cartoon rendition of a sandwich, between bread, cheese, and sauerkraut. Or maybe the period is actually an olive?

An Absol to the man's left comments, "Bso." Her comment both affirms and corrects the man's words. A faint knocking sound can be heard from off-screen.

The man nods. "You're right: in Paldea. I'm your host, 'Jack'," the man called Jack air-quotes.

On the screen, an overlay appears beneath the man, showing the name "Jack" on top of a subtitle that reads "The Man They Call 'Jack'".

"And next to me on my left is my dearest friend and co-host, Rules!" Jack beams and positions both of his arms as if to showcase the Absol.

"Absol," Rules states.

An overlay appears beneath the Absol, showing the name "Rules" on top of a subtitle that reads "It's spelled 'R-O-U-X-L-S'.".

"In today's exciting news, the Paldean League released notice of THE CHALLENGE OF THE CENTURY!" Jack starts. The knocking sound is less faint; louder.

"Abs," Rouxls confirms.

"We were all wondering when Nemona Glitterati, Paldea's most surprising nine-year-old, would take on the first member of our Elite Four."

"Would she take a break beforehand?!" Jack asklaims.

"Sol," Rouxls declines with a shake of her head.

"Would she continue her training?"

"Bso," Rouxls bobs her head in a "sort-of" motion, "lab."

Jack stares at Rouxls, surprised. "Really? Where?"

"Alola," Rouxls explains.

"Huh. Well, then. A surprise is in store for us all! You can almost hear the excitement!" Jack holds his hand up to his ear. The not-quite-as-faint knocking sound has turned into a light pounding sound, joined with some light shouting of unintelligible passion.

Jack goes back to his previously-lost thought, "The League has announced that young Nemona will be taking on the Gauntlet Challenge, a format rarely seen in our time!"

"Abs."

"Indeed; it seems like she going for a major challenge. Certainly fits what we know of her, her having taken on our nation's Gym Leaders at their highest levels."

"Sol," Rouxls corrects.

The pounding gets louder, and the voice gets more intelligible: a human female-sounding voice, "D----t, Jack! - -ol- y-u -o- can'- do th-- ---more!"

Jack and Rouxls glance at each other, stare towards the camera (which nods), and continue, both shrugging, "Iono aside."

"In just a few days, we'll get to see this musical, battling, trash talk-flipping prodigy show off her skills!"

Rouxls nods in agreement and shifts her gaze away from the camera to an area off-screen to Jack's right.

"And hopefully, we'll get to see Nemona face off against El Primero himself: Miguel. This… Friday! Monday!... Wednesday?" Jack looks beyond the camera. "What day is it gonna be?"

"Gothitelle," the cameraperson answers as a flash of red emits from stage right onto Jack's right.

A shout can clearly be heard from said right, "Flamigo, on my mark!"

Jack stands up and points at the camera, "Right! That day!" An overlay appears over the desk, stating the day and date of Nemona's Gauntlet Challenge.

Rouxls crouches into a battle stance, humming as music from Nemona's hit lyricless song "Megalovania" starts playing from timestamp 1:52.

"Well, Paldea, that's all the time we have for today! Next time you see us, we'll excitedly recap the results of Paldea's Centurial Event!" Jack gets into a sprinting stance, facing towards his former left.

"I've been Jack, she's been Rouxls, and you've been great."

"Go, Flamigo!" the female voice roars, and what sounds to be a door breaking down breaks down.

"Bye-bye!" Jack laughs, sprinting stage left.

"Sol-sol!" Rouxls barks teasingly to the audience, the Flamigo, and the human woman wearing a bright yellow jacket. Rouxls does a Backflip 180 and follows Jack, a smirk on her face.

The camera briefly stays in place until Jack and Rouxls are off-screen, the Flamigo and woman are on-screen, and the angry woman glares at the camera.

The camera view lowers to the ground. Both the camera feed and the music cut off as "Megalovania" reaches timestamp 2:36.

Spoiler: A/N:

This lovely omake comes courtesy not of me, but of Ectomanom! Thanks to them very much

 

[Skyfyre]

Spoiler: Skyfyre Note

Not the author note, as I'm not the one who wrote this. This piece was done by King crimson, the wonderful author of Lex Sedet in Vertice, a Quest on SV following Lex Luthor's rise to power. Its an awesome story that I've really been enjoying reading, and I love the crossover idea they pitched about Cassandra Luthor from that quest, in my story (who is very different from the Cassandra from the League Club, btw). They've already written another part of this before, so go check it out if you haven't (and if you've got the time, maybe check out their quest too)

.


A/N: So it took a fair bit to get things done but here's the second part of this battle/omake. It's a doozy but I had a lot of fun writing this crossover omake.

I'm not going to talk too much about things as I want to let the omake speak for itself but I did want to note that you'll start to get to see a bit more of Cassandra's issues. I also want to comment on her issues with mega-evolution a bit.

Obviously people familiar with pokemon know that people aren't lying about bonds being necessary for mega-evolution. That being said Cassandra doesn't have the outside perspective of knowing the truth.

To kind of put yourself in her shoes, imagine you're a young girl without much social interaction with peers your age and a bit of a nepobaby. You have a super special pet that's been with you for a very long time. This pet was made just for you and you love this pet. This pet is arguably your best friend in the whole wide world and you do everything to make sure the pet is happy and healthy. You don't doubt that your pet loves you as much as you love it and it's the closest thing you have to a partner.

Then you find out that there's a super special secret involving this pet/partner. You buy the necessary materials and attempt to access the secret. Only you fail and you can't do it. When you ask experts they tell you that you failed because you don't have a close enough bond with the thing you are arguably closest to in the whole world. Isn't that utterly infuriating? Isn't it much easier to conclude that said experts are lying to you and keeping secrets rather than that either you or your pet/partner don't love each other enough?

That's kind of Cassandra's situation with mega-evolution. I'll leave further speculation on her character for later but suffice to say I do plan on explaining the situation and the dynamic by the time this omake series is done. Hope you guys enjoy!

Like No One Ever Was Crossover omake Part 2
Nemona Glitterati
I was honestly having a ton of fun with this battle. I had no idea who Cassandra was but she was really good for her age. It felt a bit weird saying that, but she genuinely was a cut above most kids our age. Unfortunately it wasn't enough.

It was easy to write Cassandra off as being just some rich kid throwing around the best mons money could buy with no idea what she was doing, but she was genuinely pretty good, I'd been forced on the back foot and she'd legitimately managed to lock down the best responses to her intended moves.

She'd caught me off guard with the use of the move roar to forcibly switch out Notch, and while Athena had come out on top, she'd taken heavy damage and needed to mega-evolve. When Nightwing and her Scizor battled, Cassandra's strategies had completely prevented me from using fire fang, the ideal counter to a bug and steel type pokemon like Scizor. I was winning but it would be a mistake to say that I wasn't working for it.

That being said I was still confident I was going to win this. Cassandra didn't seem to have a ton of experience in pokemon battles. She was good but she tended to panic when her plans got disrupted and tunnel visioned too hard on what she wanted. She was too complacent against Athena, figuring she'd sealed the deal, and when Nightwing and the Scizor clashed, she'd completely neutralized fire fang as an option at the cost of leaving herself completely open to earthquake instead. I was pretty sure that if she got a bit more practice or I was less experienced the match might go another way, heck I was still cautious of what she might try and pull after having been caught off balance with Bahamut, but I felt pretty confident in saying that Cassandra's lack of experience was going to cost her the match.

The other thing that I picked up on was that Cassandra seemed to take things personally. If I hadn't had aura to enhance my hearing, I might not have caught her apologizing under her breath to her Pyroar about how it was her fault that they lost, essentially blaming herself for it. It put a few things into perspective.

Cassandra didn't blame me or her pokemon or insist that something was wrong, she blamed herself when things didn't go her way. She took the time to tell her pokemon that she was sorry. Maybe I was reading into things too much but I couldn't help but see that as a sign of her being not that bad. She didn't seem particularly friendly, but neither was Amethio and I got along with him just fine. I could afford to have fun with this match and hopefully Cassandra would take this as a learning experience. Win or lose you were supposed to have fun with a pokemon battle and it seemed like Cassandra was having a hard time with losing.

As Cassandra sent out an absolutely massive Gyarados, maybe an alpha Gyarados of some kind, I couldn't help but grin wider. I could use U-turn to pivot out of this match-up but I chose not to. Cassandra used pokemon in wierd niche ways, a special attacking Scizor was not at all normal, getting a sense of how she was going to use her Gyarados would give me a better sense of how to counter it.

"Smash them to pieces!" Cassandra said, her voice rising in both tempo and fervor even as she did her best to stifle it. She seemed to be really getting into the battle. I wasn't sure quite how that was going to play out, but considering how previously she'd been either stoic or smirking, I could expect a change of pace. She was off balance and I was going to make use of that.

The Gyarados let out an enormous bellow as it surged forth surprisingly scary. I wasn't too worried but there was some animal part of my brain that couldn't help but get a little freaked out when a massive sea serpent started flying at me.

I didn't lose my cool however and promptly ordered Nightwing into the sky directly over the Gyarados, hoping to make use of flight to catch it off guard and hit it from a potential blindspot. The Gyarados wasn't quite quick enough to catch Nightwing and the momentum had turned in my favor.

"Coilspring" Cassandra commanded, catching me off guard as her Gyarados promptly landed on the ground and coiled itself like the worlds largest, bluest, angriest rattlesnake. I didn't have much time to think before the Gyarados promptly launched itself up into the air, shaking the ground with the force of its jump.

The massive Gyarados was already on top of Nightwing before I could get another word out.

"Aqua Tail!" Cassandra shouted, the Gyarados responding to the other girl's order by swinging the full force of its massive tail, now coated in a watery aura, downwards onto Nightwing like a hammer onto a nail.

"Protect!" I cried out, hoping to shield Nightwing from the hit. Hopefully Cassandra's commitment to this attack would leave an opening when the aqua tail was blocked. A green orb of energy shimmered around Nightwing mere moments before the attack could connect.

The green orb cracked but didn't quite break under the weight of the blow. I was stunned. I'd specifically trained up Nightwing to be able to block a big hit with her protects and the Gyarados was already cracking it in just one hit. Just how powerful was this Gyarados? I knew that dynamaxed pokemon could pop protects but this was just an abnormally large Gyarados, not a dynamaxed one. This discovery tilted the whole usual pace of the battle, where normally Nightwing could use protect to stall, now it was clear that Cassandra could break protect if given the opportunity. Still this fight wasn't over by any means and I still was going to hold onto u-turn a bit longer.

"Time for spite, Drakul" Cassandra aggressively stated as the massive Gyarados then let out a black wave of ghostly energy. Nightwing didn't have time to react as the black wave washed over her and she seemed to grow ever so slightly more tired. It didn't seem to do any damage but from what I knew of the games, spite would make it so that using protect would tire Nightwing out faster. Almost no one in the competitive circuit used spite at all so it was another weird niche attack.

I felt like I had a sense of Cassandra's strategy now, Gyarados had a type advantage so in a fight with Nightwing the only issue would be protect. The Gyarados would've popped a normal protect and even when Nightwing's defenses still held spite would ensure that I couldn't use the move to block hits for long. It was similar to her previous plan to prevent Nightwing from using fire fang against her Scizor, a multi-step plan to pick apart the seemingly most optimal option. However I wasn't going to panic just because I had my best path forward cut off. I let out a smile instead, this battle was fun.

The obvious solution would be to u-turn, but then Cassandra would either dragon dance, use roar or dragon tail or some other forced pivoting move, or use her remaining switch. I knew exactly what her Gyarados would be going for and so I could battle around that and overcome the strategy.

The next strategy I came up with was going to be dependent on what I'd observed. Cassandra had made her Gyarados jump at Nightwing, instead of flying which suggested to me that doing so was easier and faster than flight. Furthermore, the jump had been straight up. I'd thought that by positioning Nightwing in what was a typical blindspot, I'd managed to put her at a disadvantage where she couldn't hit me. However, it seemed that if she used the spring trick that counter intuitively, placing Nightwing low to the ground would actually make it harder for Cassandra to hit her. It was way easier for a coiled spring to fite off of a flats surface instead of an angled one, so by keeping Nightwing low to the ground I'd actually make it so that Cassandra was less likely to be able to have her Gyarados close the distance in an instant.

"Nightwing, fly underneath the Gyarados and fling!" I ordered, hoping that my observations were right and looking forward to seeing what move Cassandra would make next as Nightwing glided directly under the massive sea serpent. Nightwing barely managed to get off hurling her toxic orb at the Gyarados when an aqua tail slammed into her like a massive hammer blow, sending her tumbling down to the earth.

The hit was powerful enough that I was confident that even with the passive healing of Nightwing's ability, Nightwing wouldn't be able to take another hit like that. I briefly mulled things over. I thought I managed to get the toxic orb to connect, which would've badly poisoned the Gyarados. Now I needed to play for time since Nightwing couldn't eat another hit. Still it wasn't like Cassandra was going to give me a ton of time to come up with any clever plans beyond just stalling.

"Waterfall" She ordered and the Gyarados shot straight down. I had a moment to react and I wasn't going to waste it.

"Time to dig to get out of there!" I told Nightwing, who promptly complied, managing to easily make it into the earth before the Gyarados slammed into the ground with all the force of a freight train. The ground shook and I caught myself before I stumbled and fell.

Cassandra appeared unphased but when Nightwing popped out of the ground unphased a scowl briefly flashed over her features before she once more attempted to set the pace.

"Scald hole" Cassandra ordered and the Gyarados promptly unleashed a blast of boiling water straight into the hole Nightwing had created. I immediately ordered Nightwing to fly towards me. Cassandra's trick was clever but it wasn't good enough. Using the tunnel Nigtwing had dug as a tube to redirect an attack so that it came up from beneath Nightwing to make it less easy to intuitively dodge was clever but it wouldn't work if it didn't catch you off guard. Furthermore, it left her Gyarados open for a few seconds.

I promptly ordered Nightwing to use gunk shot, and she near instantly followed through, launching a large dripping ball of toxic sludge at the Gyarados's head. I wasn't sure if the toxic orb had connected or not so I figured I might as well try to guarantee that the giant pokemon was poisoned.

The Gyarados lifted its head just in time for the attack to land right in its eye. The Gyarados roared in pain as it was half blinded.

"Waterfall!" Cassandra yelled, "Focus on hurting them back!"

The Gyarados promptly surged forwards and like the world's greatest matador, Nightwing promptly rolled to the side, skillfully avoiding the raging pokemon's attack.

"Aqua tail!" Cassandra followed up, seemingly eager to connect with the attack. I wasn't going to use protect this time.

"You know what to do Nightwing, dodge it with dig"

My Gliscor let her mischievous grin grow wider as she dug into the ground, easily avoiding the blow. However I noticed that Cassandra was also smiling, an ear to ear intense rictus grin spread across her face the moment she heard my command.

"You made my mistake" She giggled before composing herself again, a smile still on her face "Earthquake, Drakul"

The Gyarados let out a roar as its tail smashed into the ground, sending out a powerful shockwave of ground type energy that promptly launched Nightwing out of the earth and into the air. It'd actually been a while since I'd been caught up in a situation like this, it hadn't been since the very start of my career that this situation had occurred. In the games the flying type pokemon would take no damage even while underground but I'd since learned that in actual battles the submerged pokemon did still take some damage, albeit reduced from what you might expect. It was actually kind of funny that it seemed like my first battle and what I suspected was Cassandra's first battle would share a moment like that.

Nightwing quickly righted herself as the Gyarados came barreling down towards her.

"Sand attack then a quick attack escape!" I said. Nightwing hurled sand into the Gyarados's eyes and promptly shot off, avoiding the attack. Even with the situation turning somewhat in my favor, things could still swing back the other way. The Gyarados was a threat that needed to be handled carefully.

I could still have Nightwing u-turn out but that would require getting close and risking an attack from that oversized Gyarados connecting. Any direct water type attack would knock out Nightwing if it connected. I couldn't block hits with protect, and I couldn't dodge hits with dig. The hits with earthquake would have their damage reduced but with the damage Nightwing had already taken, I couldn't afford to eat many more hits for free. It was genuinely tricky.

As Nightwing narrowly dodged another attack I came up with a plan of action. Nightwing was hurt but she was healing over time, and the Gyarados seemed to be shrugging off the poison damage for now but it would add up over time. Cassandra was grinning, seemingly happy that her plan was working. My best bet was to play along with it for now, let Cassandra think she'd won and let the toxic damage rack up over time. Then an opening would present itself.

"Nightwing use stone edge and keep your distance" I yelled. Nightwing promptly flung several stone shards at the Gyarados and backed away. The Gyarados merely batted them down with an aqua tail and then once more attempted to close the distance to Nightwing.

I promptly ordered Nightwing to use sand attack as cover as she dove away from the Gyarados and continued to lead it on a chase.

"I'm tired of your sand cover, and your running away" Cassandra growled "I'd like some scalding rain, Drakul!"

The Gyarados promptly began undulating as it fired up a massive geyser of steaming hot water into the air. clouds gathered round the apex of the water blast's arc. Then droplets of boiling water promptly began falling from the sky.

The forcefield protections for both myself and Cassandra promptly began flickering to block the boiling rain and I could see Nightwing let out little winces as the droplets landed on her. It wasn't enough to do significant damage but Nightwing wasn't healing any more. Worse yet with all of this water in the air, sand attack was almost certainly not going to work as it normally would as the sand would near instantly turn into mud and fall to the ground.

Cassandra smiled and the Gyarados charged forwards once again as it's tail glowed with a watery aura. I let out a command for Nightwing to use quick attack to get under the massive tail swing. Nightwing managed to weave around it but it was still far too close for my liking.

"Quick attack towards its head!" I ordered, hoping that the plan would work. It might've seemed counter intuitive, but the head was actually the point where it would be hardest for the Gyarados to swing its tail around towards.

"Muddy water" Cassandra replied back, seemingly ready with an answer to this latest move as the Gyarados immediately let loose a massive flow of dirty brownish water from its mouth. Nightwing wasn't going to be able to dodge in time so I needed to gamble. Gyarados typically was a much stronger physical attacker than it was a special attacker. As such protect should work against a move like muddy water.

"Protect" I called out, to which Nightwing immediately reacted, cutting her attack short and forming a protective barrier to block the oncoming attack. The move seemed to hold but when Cassandra immediately called for a waterfall, I once more had to call for Nightwing to avoid it with quick attack.

The pattern continued for a while, the Gyarados unleashing devastating attack after devastating attack, and Nightwing either barely avoiding them or blocking the special attacks we could afford to take. The boiling rain had dissipated but it had kept Nightwing from healing. The only relief was that the Gyarados was slowing down as the poison seemed to be ticking away and dealing more and more damage.

Cassandra seemed to be noticing this as well if the way the scowl grew on her face was any indication. This match was going to turn on the next few moves and so I intended to use u-turn to change things up and hopefully throw off Cassandra even more. I'd seen enough of how the Gyarados was going to be used that I felt confident going for it.

"Nightwing, time for-"

"Drakul final venture!" Cassandra called out interrupting me. The Gyarados immediately responded, charging at Nightwing. It didn't seem like a water type attack so I made the call to try and go for a thunder fang. I hadn't used it all match and Cassandra seemed to have gotten confident that I wouldn't ever contest the Gyarados.

There was a genuine chance that Nightwing might go down here. Cassandra's Gyarados was a major threat and while I had other pokemon that might match up better into the giant sea serpent, Cassandra had more switches then me. If I pulled out now, there was a good chance that Cassandra would switch out the Gyarados and bring it back in when Nightwing hit the field again and after both sides were more whittled down. Plus there was the fact that Cassandra very clearly wanted this match-up in particular. She was aggressive with the Gyarados, confident she'd come out on top. I likely wouldn't get another opportunity to trade like this again. There was an unfortunately high chance Nightwing would go down, but I wasn't confident switching out now would prevent me from being in the same position as I was now, only without the opening to make the trade. I didn't like it but I made the call to try and bring down the Gyarados, at the potential cost of Nightwing also going down.

"Thunder fang!" I shouted. The two pokemon collided in the air. Nightwing fell to the ground, tumbled a bit and slowly but surely righted herself, getting steadier on her feet before rising into the air. The Gyarados meanwhile finally collapsed, spent from the slowly ticking toxic poison, the few scattered hits I'd landed and the final super effective blow.

Cassnadra returned the Gyarados back into a luxury ball. It might've been a little rude but I used my aura to enhance my hearing to listen into what she was saying.

"I was stupid, I missed the toxic orb and didn't close things quick enough" Cassandra muttered "I'm supposed to be better than this, I'm not going to lose this. You did everything you could and I won't throw that away."

Cassandra seemed to really be taking the fight personally. I got that it was a battle and I knew full well that sometimes when you got competitive you could beat yourself up when you made mistakes but Cassandra had to learn to relax a bit. I was having fun and since I was probably her senior in terms of battling, I figured I could try to teach her a thing or two. I was no Hassel, but I figured that I knew a thing or two about battling.

"You're Gyarados was really impressive" I said, causing the dark haired girl to glower at me "I almost thought you had us"

The other girl took a deep breath before responding.

"So did I" Cassandra ground out "I'd planned on beating your Gliscor with her, and yet I still lost"

I was of the opinion that she needed to loosen up a bit. Yeah her plan hadn't worked but she'd done serious damage to Nightwing. On paper I was ahead, but both Athena and Nightwing didn't have a lot of gas left in the tank. It was probably frustrating to come up short twice, but if she played things smart she might still be able to turn things around. I wasn't going to let her win but I did at least want to encourage her a bit.

"Battle's not over till the last pokemon" I jubilantly stated, hoping to try and convey to her that it wasn't over yet. I was having fun still and I didn't want her to take it so personally. She was actually doing really good, this was the first time someone my own age had really pushed me like this and I wanted to see just how far she could go.

"You're right" The other girl placidly stated as she readied herself once more. "It's not over. Don't think you're going to win just because you've surprised me once or twice"

Cassandra promptly sent out her next pokemon, a Roserade named Ivy. The grass type pokemon trilled a bit as it stood atop the now thoroughly torn up ground. While the stealth rocks and spikes had by and large been scattered, I didn't miss the minute wince that it let out. It probably wouldn't continue to effect the fight much longer if the battlefield kept getting torn up but it was nice to know that Notch's work had paid off.

Regardless, I was excited. Roserade weren't pokemon native to Paldea, which meant that it might try things I'd never seen before. In general Cassandra liked using weird out of the way strategies that denied intuitive answers to the match-ups she chose to fight. I was looking forward to seeing just how far this could go.

Cassandra Luthor
Cassandra was absolutely livid as she saw Nemona still smiling at her, enjoying the battle like it didn't matter at all, like she wasn't overturning every plan and studied stratagem Cassandra had overcome. It infuriated to see the seeming carelessness with which all of her work was being overturned.

Cassandra had always been exceptional at body reading, she could tell when someone was lying or what they might be thinking from the minute twitches in their body language. It was far more applicable to a fight than a pokemon battle, being able to read the direction of a punch was easier and more actionable then knowing that the opponent was going to shout a command, and yet it was still useful. Everything about Nemona Glitterati's body language screamed that she was having fun. Fun!

Cassandra was throwing everything she had at Nemona, had actively studied the other girl's teams and tactics and devoted her time, effort and resources into ensuring she came out on top and Nemona was having FUN ruining everything again.

At least what the other girl said was true, the fight wasn't over yet. Cassandra did her best to stay calm and composed, at least outwardly, as she prepared herself for the battle to come. It wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

The battle began with Cassandra promptly calling for an energy ball barrage as Nemona in turn instructed her Gliscor to dodge and make its way closer. The bat-like pokemon had fire fang so Cassandra was going to hold off on setting a sunny day, even if it would allow Ivy to freely fire off powerful solar beam attacks with minimal charge-up time.

Ivy happily complied with the order letting out happy cries as she freely fired off countless balls of glowing green energy. The Gliscor swooped around and managed to avoid the attacks for the most part. Annoying but Cassandra could deal with that in its own time. Drakul had done enough that all it would take was one good hit. One good hit and Cassandra could begin to turn things around. It'd need to be a powerful blow to prevent the Gliscor from healing, anything less than a knockout blow would give the gliscor time to heal up, but if Cassandra could land that devastating blow she'd be able to come out on top.

"Nightwing, quick attack!" Nemona commanded, seeing some kind of opening in Ivy's attacks. The Gliscor swooped forwards but Cassandra saw it coming. Maybe she didn't need that powerful devastating blow. With Nemona oh so conveniently closing the distance, Cassandra could command Ivy to make use of a move that would prevent the Gliscor from healing up.

"Leap and Leech!" Cassandra retaliated. Ivy promptly leapt over the charging Gliscor and fired off a series of seeds directly into the Gliscor's back. Cassandra's Roserade grinned primly as the leech seed attack began its work and sprouted into a series of vines which drained energy from the Gliscor. Whatever healing it might've managed to get was now completely cut off and Ivy would be the one recovering over the course of the fight.

"Get in close Nightwing!" Nemona shouted. Cassandra didn't have time to think, instead ordering Ivy to fire off a retreating bullet seed. The attacks connected and Cassandra could see that the Gliscor was weakening but wasn't slowing down. Cassandra assumed that Nemona was going to try and get off an extremely powerful acrobatics to do as much damage as possible before letting the Gliscor go down.

The Gliscor closed the distance when Cassandra heard three words that made her heart sink to the bottom of her stomach.

"Gliscor use U-Turn" The black and green haired Glitterati called out as the Gliscor finally got close to Ivy. Cassandra didn't have time to react and the move hit allowing the injured pokemon to return to its ball and escape the trap Cassandra had thought was completely inescapable. Again Nemona ruined everything.

How did that Gliscor have U-Turn? Why hadn't she used it at all during the fight with Drakul? It didn't make sense, the stupid girl in front of her didn't make sense! Cassandra wanted to scream at the other girl but kept herself composed. She had an image to maintain and she wasn't going to lash out just because that stupid airheaded, worthless little plan-ruining, nonsensical moron kept overcoming her every move and was having fun doing so!

Cassandra was meant to be the best! Father had adopted her solely because she was the best. Cassandra had proven it time and time again. Science, business, diplomacy, everything and anything related to being the perfect Luthor heiress and worthy daughter Cassandra had excelled at and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Even pokemon battling was something she was good at with every tutor praising her skills and calling her a prodigy. And yet when it came to battling Nemona, Cassandra just wasn't good enough.

Even if Cassandra won, this match was a humiliation, showing only how Cassandra wasn't good enough. She'd had every advantage, she should have been better than this! Cassandra was glad she'd decided not to record the match as she'd fantasized before the battle. Far from showing Cassandra as the dominant superior, it would've shown Cassandra trying her hardest and losing or getting outsmarted far too often for her liking.

Cassandra calmed down. This was fine, Father didn't have to know the details. Cassandra was just going to win the match and report that. Then he wouldn't have any doubts about adopting her and no one would question the best. People might question if she'd actually beaten the Glitterati girl, but Cassandra would shut them up by crushing them totally and utterly. Yes, Cassandra could work with that. She had this.

Cassandra almost came back to an equilibrium when Nemona sent out her next pokemon.

"Go Athena" The other girl called out. Cassandra seethed as she saw that the stupid mega evolving Lucario was back. Cassandra didn't think that Nemona was making fun of her, but she still couldn't help but imagine a little mocking voice behind the grin plastered on the other girl's face.

"Look what I can do that you can't" the mocking little voice said "Look at all the ways I'm better than you."

Cassandra did her best to shut out the voice but it still kept on mocking her.

"After all you can't mega-evolve can you?" The voice mocked "The best Luthor heiress would've figured out the secret to it by now, maybe your father made a mistake adopting you"

Cassandra clenched her fist so tightly that her nails began to dig into her hand. If she hadn't been wearing gloves, Cassandra probably would've drawn blood. Cassandra growled as the fight started back up. She wasn't going to lose. She wasn't. She refused to.

Cassandra immediately used her tera orb to change Ivy's typing. A large crystalline candelabra sprouted atop Ivy's head as the Roserade changed to a fire type . She wasn't going to give Nemona and her Lucario time to ruin anything.

"Surprised?" Cassandra taunted, hoping that her voice hid exactly how angry she was "I might not be from Paldea but I managed to acquire one of these handy little terra orbs you all came up with."

"A little bit" Nemona guilelessly admitted. Couldn't the other girl have been a little bit taken aback? Cassandra had needed to put in a good amount of work and burn a solid amount of resources to get a tera orb as a foreigner to Paldea well before they were in common circulation. It would've been nice if the other girl could've at least been impressed by what Cassandra managed to pull.

"But I'm more excited than anything else" Nemona said "You're really good so I look forward to seeing how you make use of the type change, especially with a pokemon like Roserade"

The other girl was so annoying, just a happy fun loving smile and a declaration that no matter what Cassandra pulled she'd knock her down. Fine then. Cassandra would prove that she wasn't second best.

"Well then it looks like it's all sunny days from her on out!" Cassandra snarled, doing her best to keep a smile on her face as covertly ordered Ivy to change the weather using the sunny day attack. Cassandra privately wondered why she even bothered, it didn't matter what she seemed to do, the other girl would probably keep that dopey happy-go-lucky grin on her face regardless.

The other girl seemed to take this as a signal to refocus entirely on the battle as Ivy launched a bright ball of energy that hung high in the air and shone like a miniature sun.

"Athena, extreme speed!" Nemona called out. The jackal looking pokemon blurred forwards and struck Ivy but that was fine.

"Weather ball" Cassandra respond as Ivy rolled with the blow and near instantly righted herself before launching out three massive high speed fire balls.

The Lucario managed to roll passed the first weather ball but wasn't ready for the second which clipped it and set it up to be hit by the third.

"Endure!" Nemona called out right as the Lucario was once more engulfed in fire. It was an unfortunately familiar sight but Cassandra wasn't going to let Hunter's loss be for nothing. She'd learned since then.

"Leech seed, pronto!" Cassandra commanded. The Lucario was winded enough that it didn't have the strength to avoid the seeds and Cassandra was thrilled when she saw them sprout. The same trick wouldn't work twice, Now if Nemona wanted to try and stall the fight, she'd still lose due to the leech seed.

Nemona seemed to realize this as her next move was to call out for an earthquake attack. Cassandra promptly ordered Ivy to jump into the air to avoid the shockwave that would've been a super effective hit otherwise, thanks to Ivy's type change via terastalization.

"Force whip, reel it in!" Nemona ordered. Cassandra quickly put together the intended plan. Roserade was not a pokemon that could fly. With Roserade now in the air, it should theoretically be a sitting duck for the force whip attack. By then pulling Ivy into melee range from the air, Nemona's Lucario could land a drain punch, which would now be neutral, and recover enough health to keep on fighting.

Cassandra felt jubilation at finally being able to get one over on the other girl. She hadn't prepared this trick for the Lucario, but she could pull it out now to blindside the other girl.

"Ivy, two point solar rocket" Cassandra gleefully stated as Ivy let out her own grin at finally getting to cut loose.

Cassandra's Roserade promptly fired off a solar beam from its left hand, sending it flying backwards due to the recoil and out of range of the force whip. Then with its right hand it fired a another solar beam at an angle to use the recoil to further reposition itself, this time right behind the Lucario's head. To the naked eye, it locked like Ivy had rocketed around the battlefield in an instant using energy beams and now it was directly behind the Lucario which was turning around too slow to avoid the next hit.

"Weather ball" Cassandra cheerfully demanded and the ensuing fireball connected with the pokemon right as Nemona called for the Lucario to use endure one more time.

After the smoke cleared, the Lucario was still standing. It was clearly in pain and its fur was singed, but it remained standing. Cassandra was more than a little irked but unlike with Hunter, this time the Lucario was going down. The Lucario took one trembling step forward. Then another. Then another.

And then before Cassandra needed to make another move, the Lucario promptly collapsed, the Leech seed having done enough chip damage over time that even with the constant use of a move like endure, which would prevent a knockout via a direct attack, the pokemon still ultimately went down. Nemona recalled her Lucario without much fanfare

Cassandra bared her teeth in joy. She wanted to run up to Ivy and give her a hug but she had to maintain decorum. Besides it would be both rude and foolish to celebrate victory early. Nemona had surprised her too much for Cassandra to want to call this a win, but she'd finally managed to turn the tide. Things were in her favor.

Nemona returned her pokemon, seemingly unshaken by the loss of her mega-evolved pokemon and prepared for the next fight, sending her Carbink Notch back onto the field. This was why Cassandra couldn't relax. She might've beaten the Lucario, but in her eagerness to crush it, she'd set things up so that what was previously an advantageous match-up for Ivy was now one slated in the Carbink's favor. Still Cassandra wasn't going to let up even a little bit.

Nemona was better than even Cassandra's research had indicated, but that didn't mean she was unbeatable. Someway, somehow, Cassandra was going to prove herself superior.

"Alright then" Nemona calmly said, still smiling despite the fact that her mega-Lucario, the pokemon that had ruined Cassandra's plans went down. "Notch you're back up to battle!"

The dinky little Carbink once more popped out of a pokeball with a flash of light. Quickly Cassandra realized the issue. Normally Ivy would've had the advantage in a fight like this. Carbink's were rock and fairy type pokemon, which mean that Ivy's natural types, poison and grass, would naturally resist attacks of the type said Carbink was most proficient with and have an offensive advantage via super effective grass type moves. However because Cassandra had terrastalized Ivy and changed her type to fire, Cassandra's Roserade was now vulnerable to rock type attacks.

Cassandra didn't regret making the play to put down that stupid plan-ruining Lucario, but she was realizing that Nemona might've outmaneuvered her. It was incredibly annoying. Cassandra was supposed to be better than this.

She'd studied Nemona and by all metrics Cassandra should've been able to run circles around her. The other girl wasn't stupid by any means but she shouldn't have been able to outmaneuver Cassandra even half well as she had. Cassandra had put herself through the most intense coursework possible on tactics and strategy and worked hard to succeed. Nemona meanwhile had seemingly faffed about and done nothing. So it didn't make sense that she was able to outmaneuver Cassandra so consistently.

It all came back to that stupid irritating grin. Nemona hadn't broken when she should've and she was irritating enough that she'd managed to throw Cassandra off her game. She wasn't outmaneuvering Cassandra because she was better than her, she was doing so because Cassandra wasn't good enough. Well then, that meant Cassandra could still win this. It wasn't over yet. She might've made some mistakes but she was still going to win this.

"Notch, power gem!" Nemona ordered, starting the battle back up again.

"Solar sweep to intercept it" Cassandra ordered in immediate retaliation.

The Carbink's launched stony projectiles were immediately shattered as Ivy let out a sweeping beam of light that obliterated anything it came into contact with. The little geode-like Carbink was forced to duck out of the way of the blast. Still this exchange was a loss for Cassandra. Sunny day wouldn't last forever and then Cassandra would be relying on the far weaker energy ball for damage and her solar rocket trick wouldn't work. It meant that she needed to make an opening now.

"Close the gap" Cassandra ordered, which in turn prompted Ivy to promptly sprint at Nemona's Carbink.

"Psychic!" Nemona called out. The stony little Carbink began glowing but Cassandra wasn't going to let that move connect.

"Solar rocket three points" Cassandra commanded and Ivy complied, firing enough solar beams to rapidly reposition and effortlessly avoid the psychic attack that no doubt would've increased the distance between Ivy and the Carbink. However this time Nemona seemed ready for the trick.

"Notch, set up the sandstorm and cut out the sun" Nemona shouted. That was a rather simple counter. without sunny day active, Ivy would need to take time to charge each solar beam and thus wouldn't be able to use them to rapidly reposition by firing off several in succession. It was irritating even if Cassandra had a counter for it.

"Keep the sun shining Ivy" Cassandra snarled, irritated at this match not going quite how she would've liked it as she was forced to abort the three point solar rocket early. The sandstorm was promptly extinguished as Ivy's artificial sun ensured that the Carbink wasn't able to have the sandstorm self-perpetuate but now Ivy was hovering in the air and hadn't gotten much closer. This merely meant Cassandra might have to switch gears.

"Sludge bomb" Cassandra retaliated, hoping to keep the momentum. Ivy promptly launched numerous globs of thick viscous poison. Cassandra's grin didn't fade even as Nemona had her Carbink intercept the blows with a power gem attack. The stones tore through the sludge bombs but this just resulted in the clumps of poison shattering into many little droplets that rained down on the field below. The ensuing attack was underpowered, but it meant that the Carbink would still take damage.

"Light screen!" Nemona ordered, even as Ivy twisted in the air to avoid a few of the oncoming rocks. The Carbink promptly set up a screen of energy upon which the splatter of the sludge bomb promptly fizzled out. Ivy landed neatly, even if she winced a bit as she landed on one of the spikes that had been scattered, but Cassandra was irritated at how things were going. She was losing this battle.

"Iron defense!" Nemona called out, likely wanting her Carbink to exploit the fact that Ivy still hadn't closed the distance in order to raise its defenses. Ivy's change to a fire type via terrastalization meant that Cassandra would likely have to be far more wary of body press attacks now as well.

"Growth" Cassandra retaliated. Ivy took in the energy and promptly enhanced her offensive capabilities. On paper this was a stalemate but Cassandra didn't intend to keep it that way. It meant she had to use a different kind of attack.

"Magical leafstorm" Cassandra commanded. The trick was relatively simple, combining two moves into a single attack. Magical leaf was a traditionally low power move that traded raw offensive potential for a homing property. Leafstorm meanwhile was an incredibly powerful attack that usually weakened the special attacking capabilities of the pokemon that used it due to the exhaustion it generally induced. By combining the two moves, Ivy was able to create a massive swarm of leaf-like projectiles, that while weaker than a traditional leafstorm despite having the same offense reducing drawback, could home in like a magical leaf attack despite being significantly stronger even if their homing wasn't quite as good.

A torrent of leaves shimmering with irridescent energy promptly bloomed out of Ivy and then in a moment surged forwards. Cassandra though wasn't going to let up on the offensive pressure either and promptly ordered Ivy to close the distance. This way even if Nemona wriggled out of this attack somehow, Cassandra would still be in position for a follow up. Yes Ivy's special attack had been lowered by the attack, but the earlier growth attack had ensured that Ivy had at most reset back to where she was the start.

Cassandra was completely unsurprised when Nemona called out for the Carbink to use protect. After all if you couldn't dodge an attack it only made sense to block it. However Ivy was closing the distance more than quickly enough while the Carbink was pinned down in a glowing green bubble as the magical leafstorm attack shattered against it.

It took five whole seconds for the attack to drop. Five whole seconds in which the Carbink was forced to expend energy and effort to ensure that nothing went wrong. It didn't sound like much but five whole seconds was a long time in a pokemon battle, even more so when it came to the duration of protect against a powerful move as that required power and concentration. It was impressive that Nemona's Carbink had managed to hold the protect for five whole seconds. But it was also five whole seconds in which Ivy was able to close the distance, and Cassandra doubted that the Carbink would be able to block or dodge this next attack.

"Power whip!" Cassandra screamed. She probably broke decorum but her plan had finally worked. She'd managed to trap Nemona and there was no way for her to avoid what came next. Cassandra caught the slight hint of panic on Nemona's face. That was what she wanted to see. It had taken a while but the other girl wasn't unbeatable. Cassandra would inevitably come on top.

Unfortunately Cassandra didn't get to bask in the moment as Nemona swiftly composed herself.

"Stone edge" The girl with the two-toned hair called out, turning the attack into a trade. Green tendrils extended out from Ivy's flowers as they slammed into the Carbink but an instant later, a series of rocky pillars slammed into Ivy dealing massive damage right back. Unfortunately for Nemona though, Ivy was faster than Carbink and in much closer range.

"Solar beam!" Cassandra followed up. Nemona relied on another protect to block the attack but she and her Carbink were definitely on the back foot.

As soon as the protect dropped Ivy once more began to pummel the Carbink with power whips, this time getting two hits in before a stone edge connected and forced her back a bit.

Both pokemon were taking damage, but Ivy was far better at dishing it out than the Carbink was at taking it and could move faster. For every blow the Carbink scored, Ivy managed to land two or three more and was hitting harder. Normally power whip would have the drawback of being inaccurate due to its unwieldiness, but at this range that drawback had more or less been mitigated. The match was Cassandra's. Of course as per usual Nemona wasn't finished yet.

"Trick room!" Nemona ordered commanded. The Carbink let out a cry of determination and the dimensions of the nearby area promptly warped. This was bad. Trick room created an area of unusual space. Father had studied the physics of the area but the exact details of how it worked were beyond Cassandra. What she did know was that broadly speaking, faster pokemon became slower and slower pokemon became faster, likely due to some kind of inversion. Where before the advantage had been Cassandra's due to Ivy's superior speed, now that dynamic had been flipped in favor of Nemona's Carbink.

That being said Cassandra had specifically prepared for trick room strategies. She was well aware of her own preference for fast, aggressive, overwhelming pokemon and even an amateur would see trick room as a natural counter to that. Considering the fact that Nemona's Carbink was known to have trick room as a move it could use, Cassandra had prepared multiple counters for such an eventuality. Ivy's counter involved two little considered technical details of how trick room worked.

"Solar rocket, sky-high bombardment!" Cassandra commanded, right as the Carbink launched a power gem attack. The Carbink was incredibly fast under the conditions of trick room and it was close enough that there was next to no time to dodge, while Ivy moved like she was buried in some thick viscous liquid. Despite that Ivy was able to avoid most of the attack, at most getting clipped in her foot.

This was because the speed and strength of projectile attacks themselves didn't have their speeds altered in trick room. In other words something like the beam of a solar beam attack wouldn't have its speed affected. Furthermore, because of this Ivy's method of propulsion using solar beams wouldn't be slowed down at all. After all if the speed and force of the beam was unaltered, then the kinetic energy imparted to Ivy's motion via simple physics of equal and opposite reactions remained the same and she moved at the same speeds.

There was still a delay on how long it took Ivy to aim, and such a tactic wouldn't work with a pokemon that couldn't self-propel itself with its own attacks, but after a good amount of training Ivy managed to get it to work and it allowed her to move at incredible speeds even within trick room. Admittedly though it wasn't that effective as Ivy would only be able to move in linear directions and with the increased amount of time it took Ivy to move her hands to aim the solar beams, her movement would be erratic and somewhat predictable for any opponent with sense. That was where the second exploitation of a technical detail came into play.

Nemona recovered quickly from her surprise and had the Carbink launch more power gem attacks, but Ivy managed to aim her flowery hands directly downwards and fired another solar beam to launch herself even higher into the air. Ivy rose to such heights where even Cassandra struggled to see her with the harsh sunlight of the sunny day attack streaming in. At such heights, Ivy was outside of the trick room and could easily fire off solar beams to counter any projectiles launched back at her.

The exploit was simple. Obviously trick room had a range limit, otherwise a single use of the ability would affect every pokemon on the planet. Furthermore while Cassandra was fairly certain some psychic type specialists could alter the properties of the move, trick rooms were locked in place and not on the pokemon. A simple experiment found that pokemon who used trick room and moved around within the altered space did not shift the trick room, as it would have if the trick room was an effect affixed to everything within a set radius of a pokemon. Further testing involving pokemon on a moving vehicle showed that it had not fully locked into a set coordinate, if it didn't account for some degree of relativity than a pokemon using trick room on a moving train would have the move immediately become useless as the train moved out of the location.

Putting all of that together, Cassandra understood that outside of a few talented specially trained, most pokemon using trick room, mentally designated a set area as the room, and then once they set it could not move it. The move was tied to the pokemon's mentality as many psychic attacks were, hence why relativistic physics didn't wreak havoc on the move, but broadly speaking, once the room was set it couldn't move. And since there was a range limit in turn, a pokemon moving fast and far enough could escape the trick room simply by staying outside the set range.

Such a trick wasn't relevant in most official pokemon battles with closed off arenas, and Cassandra doubted Nemona had ever had to consider something like this, but in an open air environment, pokemon could easily ascend outside of the trick room's range.

Cassandra had debated the use of the tactic, anyone with sense would decry someone who set up a challenge and then exploited the field condition to have their pokemon run away at such a distance where the battle couldn't be conducted effectively, but Cassandra felt this was different. After all Ivy was still remaining in the designated battle area as best as possible and was only going to such heights to avoid an attack from an opposing pokemon. And besides Ivy was still going to be fighting.

Beams of blinding light struck the ground every so often as Ivy remained airborne. They weren't well aimed at the Carbink, and as such it was able to avoid them, but Ivy was at such a height where aiming an attack from such a distance was difficult.

"I hadn't planned on doing things this way" Cassandra stated, hoping to distract Nemona. Cassandra couldn't issue commands to Ivy anymore but Nemona still could issue orders to her Carbink. Drawing her into a conversation thus meant that it would only negatively impact Nemona.

"I would've preferred not to rely on such a trick that wouldn't work in most official formats, but trick room is too big a threat to take lightly"

Nemona seemed to mull it over before responding.

"I don't mind much" Nemona said "A battle's a battle and it's not like you're cheating or something. Weird tricks and tactics are all fair game in a friendly match like this"

Cassandra couldn't find any lie there. It irked her a little bit but apparently the other girl didn't see Cassandra as a threat. Even though Cassandra was trying to undermine Nemona's reputation as a young prodigy by proving that she was a more skilled battler at a younger age, the older girl appeared to view Cassandra's challenge as "friendly". Cassandra didn't view this as "friendly". Friends could only be friends when they weren't threats. Someone who pushed Cassandra so far in a battle when by all means Cassandra should be the greatest meant that Nemona as she currently was, was a threat.

It didn't matter that Cassandra had superior scientific knowledge and had been excellently trained to take over the most important company in all of Unova and was certainly Nemona's superior in any actual martial art. The world placed value on pokemon battles and so Cassandra needed to also be the best battler. Without that extra bit of legitimacy, people would always look at her as weak and seek to exploit such weaknesses. As such Cassandra needed to win.

She'd already failed enough that she wasn't going to show the results of this battle to anyone else. She'd made too many mistakes for this to be anything but a humiliation. It didn't matter that Nemona was skilled or clever or a prodigious battler, Cassandra should not have been second best.

"Well then far be it from me to disappoint you" Cassandra mocked as more solar beams tore up the ground and the Carbink occasionally ineffectually launched power gems or set up light screens to try and lessen the blast. "Just don't cry when you lose"

"I've lost before, it's no big deal" Nemona fired back, irritating Cassandra with how the other girl dismissed her. Cassandra wanted the other girl to take her seriously! She wasn't a friend or some worthless fangirl, she was a threat! Nemona should feel challenged or intimidated or something, not taking things so lightly that she was able to brush off Cassandra's potential victory as no big deal. This should have been a very big deal.

"It is a big deal" Cassandra hissed. "Don't you want to be the best? To show the world that you can take on anything they throw at you? Where's your pride in yourself and your pokemon? Are you telling me that seeing all of the grueling hours of training and studying and struggling and overcoming be wasted when you're not good enough is no big deal?"

Cassandra probably should have kept her thoughts to herself, but Nemona was absolutely infuriating. How dare she say that a loss here wasn't a big deal. That Cassandra's struggles and feelings and efforts to match her weren't worthwhile. It was disgusting seeing someone who had pushed her so hard and managed to put Cassandra on the back foot so many times spew such mediocre worthless sentimental tripe. This was important!

"I'm not sure if you've heard this before" Nemona quietly retorted, "but there's always someone better. Even if you're the greatest trainer ever and you've never lost a match before, eventually someone'll challenge you for your spot and if you don't know how to handle defeat, you'll never come back from a single loss"

"You don't get it" Cassandra angrily responded "I'm not going to lose. I'm not here to be your friend and to smile and shake your hand after everything is over. I'm here to prove I'm the best. I worked hard for this. My team worked hard for this"

Cassandra struggled to get her thoughts out.

"Stop trying to tell me how I need to learn how to lose. Stop smiling at me like my best isn't worth taking seriously. Stop insulting me and acting like I can't win just because you caught me off guard a few times" Cassandra screamed.

"Take me seriously already and fight your hardest!" Cassandra continued "Spout whatever nonsense you want when the battle's over, but until then, stop treating me like a little kid you need to teach a friendship lesson and take me seriously, because I'm here to prove I'm the best"

Cassandra calmed down for a second. The other girl had a frown on her face. Good. Cassandra hopefully hadn't gone too far but the other girl had seriously pissed her off. This wasn't fun, and Cassandra didn't want the other girl to have fun. This was a fight and treating it as anything less than that was disrespectful. Cassandra wasn't going to tolerate that.

"I'm sorry to hear that" the other girl somberly answered "I'll save the advice for the end of the match then. I hope you know I genuinely wasn't looking down on you or trying to make fun of you"

Cassandra stared at Nemona.

"Even if I'm having fun or smiling that doesn't mean I'm not taking you seriously" Nemona stated. I'm having the most fun when I get pushed to the edge in a battle. You've managed to do so in a way barely anyone else has up until now."

Cassandra didn't care anymore. She turned her attention back to the field. The Carbink was holding up alright. While the conversation had distracted Nemona, it hadn't turn the tides all that much. Unfortunately it also meant that Ivy was likely growing tired and things had turned in Nemona's favor.

The artificial sun created by sunny day began to wink out. Ivy had trained extensively to make the artificial sunlight last as long as possible, but eventually it was going to run out. Ivy began to plummet as the solar beam took longer to charge up. This was bad

Cassandra cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at the top of her lungs "USE SUNNY DAY!"

Ivy complied but as soon as she did Nemona and her Carbink retaliated.

"Sandstorm!"

This time the clouds of sand smothered the artifical sun and ensured that the sunny day attack was smothered before it could alter the weather in any meaningful manner. It was problematic as it meant that there wasn't anything Cassandra could do to counter it and Ivy would keep falling down into the trick room, where the Carbink could pummel her with long range attacks.

"SOLAR ROCKET DESCENT!" Cassandra commanded. She couldn't avoid the trick room any longer so she'd run out the rest of its time by going on the offensive.

The trick to the solar rocket descent was relatively simple. Since there was a sandstorm up, Ivy needed to charge up her solar beam attacks rather than being able to fire them off instantly. However unlike basically every solar rocket beforehand, Ivy was falling in the air and working with gravity rather than against it. Ivy would already be accelerating downwards due to gravity and the ensuing solar beam propulsion would add to that speed, making it arguably the faster than more conventional solar rockets that worked against gravity. Admittedly it wasn't the instantaneous meteor strike it would've been if sunny day was still active, but it was still fast and the greater acceleration meant that the solar rocket descent actually hit harder.

After a few moments of charging, Ivy rocketed downwards to wards the Carbink at blistering speeds.

The Carbink threw up a protect, only possible due to the delay caused by the sandstorm forcing Ivy to charge her solar beam rather than firing it off instantly, and blocked the blow but Cassandra had a follow-up ready.

"Magical Leafstorm!" Cassandra cried out as the sandstorm raged and Ivy was buffeted by the heavy winds and hurt by the ensuing scraping sand. The Carbink's protect flickered out and the leaves launched at the Carbink.

"Notch, stone edge, finish the fight!' The Carbink launched its own move and promptly both moves collided with the opposing pokemon. The Carbink remained upright, hovering a little bit above the ground.

Ivy meanwhile collapsed to the ground as the crystalline candelabra above her head shattered into countless pieces, a clear sign that she would not be able to continue fighting. Cassandra promptly returned Ivy to her ball, promising Ivy that she'd done well enough.

"It's not over" Cassandra murmured "I'll prove that we're the best, Ivy"

The trick room was still up, though it'd be going down soon. As such there was only one option left on who to send out.

Nemona Glitterati
I felt kind of bad about how things had gone. I was still having fun, but somewhere along the way it appeared Cassandra had stopped having fun. She'd dropped some of the more formal stuff and just gotten mad. I hadn't meant to be demeaning or mocking or anything but apparently in attempting to give her advice while we were battling, the other girl had felt like I was looking down on her.

I didn't mean it and I still felt like my grasp on Cassandra was pretty accurate and the advice was warranted, but she wasn't taking it well. She had some messed-up views about battling and respect and I didn't agree with her, but watching a little kid freak out and get angry because they felt like they were being mocked wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Cassandra was good. She was really good and I had fun battling her. At the same time though she felt like I was making fun of her and her efforts when I didn't take her 100% super seriously or told her that the match wasn't a big deal. It genuinely wasn't a big deal, I doubted this battle was going to affect either of our futures in any meaningful way, but Cassandra was a little kid who wanted to be taken seriously so she reacted badly to my comments.

She was kind of a brat but she wasn't malicious or anything. I wasn't going to stop having fun, but I'd at least try and tone down the advice till after the battle was over. Hopefully she'd learn something from this match and grow from it. I was kind of hoping she could be a rival later on down the line. I'd certainly learned a thing or two from this match and hopefully as Cassandra grew she'd only be able to push things even farther. Despite Cassandra's anger and annoyance, this battle was still fun.

Cassandra recalled her Roserade and sent out her Scizor again. The match up more or less made sense. I was tempted to say something but decided to bite my tongue. Cassandra was kind of emotionally unstable right now and while I wasn't opposed to some banter, I also didn't want to set her off accidentally. It was a downside of battling a genuine child genius I guess, they were going to be a little immature, especially when it seemed like I was the first opponent whom Cassandra didn't immediately roll over and win against. I kind of wondered if someone like Poppy might've also acted like Cassandra before she got more experienced.

"Notch, power gem!" I called out. This was a bad match-up considering how vulnerable Notch was to steel type attacks, but I was out of switches. The best I could do was lay some screens and deal some chip damage to set up for the next round of the battle.

"Ravager, bullet train" Cassandra ordered, causing the Scizor to begin rapidly moving around the trick room in a somewhat jerky fashion. It was a similar trick to what she'd done with her Roserade to counter the trick room.

Priority moves like bullet punch retained their speedy property even in the trick room. As such the attack could be used to rapidly reposition, even if the Scizor should be slower than Notch in the trick room. It was a clever trick.

Suddenly the the trick room flickered out of existence and the speed advantage was back in Cassandra's favor.

"Bullet punch" Cassandra growled out.

"Protect then screens!" I responded. Notch blocked the punch and then promptly set up both a light screen and a reflect to try and prevent anything from occurring. I would've normally gone for another iron defense, but Cassandra's Scizor had proven weirdly proficient at using special attacks rather than the more typical physical attacks. Hopefully, by throwing up both screens I'd be able to reduce the effectiveness of Cassandra's Scizor even if it behaved atypically like it did before.

"Brick break" Cassandra fired back. The Scizor's right claw glowed with fighting type energy as it shattered both the light screen and the reflect and landed a solid blow on Notch, sending them tumbling back. I pointedly didn't grimace as things went wrong. I'd made the mistake not knowing Cassandra's Scizor had brick break, but it was still annoying to know that I'd overthought things and would've been better off going for iron defense rather than trying to cover all options and failing anyways.

"Bullet punch" Cassandra commanded once more. I called out for another protect but Notch wasn't quite able to right themselves in time. The fight against Cassandra's Roserade had taken a lot out of them and Notch was still mid tumble when Cassandra launched her follow up. As such the Scizor was able to land a bullet punch before Notch could get off the protect.

I grimaced a bit as I recalled Notch. There was no point in dragging this out. Cassandra was grinning jubilantly. I was tempted to say something but figured I could let my pokemon do the talking. This was far from over after all.

"Nightwing, you're up!" I called out. Cassandra immediately scowled. Apparently she didn't like this match-up all that much. I didn't mind that she'd stopped keeping her poker face, it made her easier to read. Nightwing was still a bit injured but she wasn't so badly injured she'd be liable to get knocked out in a few hits from a normal pokemon and she could heal over time. Maybe if the Gyarados was still around it'd be a one touch fight, but against the Scizor, Nightwing could take a few hits and keep fighting.

Without much more waiting the battle resumed once again. We'd both seen what happened before so we weren't eager to replay that song and dance.

"Nightwing, quick attack!" I commanded, causing my bat-like pokemon to leap forwards, hoping that Cassandra.

"Air slash to interrupt" Cassandra retaliated, causing the Scizor to fire off razor sharp blasts of wind as it rose into the air. Nightwing managed to weave past the attack this time and the quick attack connected. It didn't do much, but that wasn't the point of this move. Now that Nightwing was in close, I could pile on the pressure to Cassandra.

"Fire Fang!" I calmly ordered my Gliscor. Panic briefly flashed across Cassandra's face as she made her own response. That seemed to clear up why Cassandra hadn't gone in for the knockout immediately with the Scizor, she was very afraid of a fire fang crippling her Scizor.

"Bullet Punch behind it!" She cried out. The Scizor promptly shot around Nightwing, managing to rotate to get behind Nightwing such that my Gliscor couldn't connect with a fire fang. Cassandra's Scizor was remarkably fast for the big red bug pokemon. Admittedly some of that was likely based in how Cassandra seemed to be using bullet punch not for offensive purposes but to rapidly reposition in incredibly fast bursts of speed. It was abnormally fast as a baseline and every time Cassandra called out for bullet punch, it's speed grew exponentially for a few moments, making it even harder to pin down and hit. Still though that was fine.

"Breaking swipe" I called out. Cassandra had her Scisor promptly block it with its claws and didn't take much damage but its offensive output would be reduced due to the attack connecting. Cassandra notably didn't call out for her Scizor to dodge it via bullet punch. I'd seen it use bullet punches consecutively to navigate Notch's trick room at high speeds, but such a trick was likely tiring. The Scizor had been battling long and hard enough that it was likely already a bit fatigued and couldn't simply spam bullet punch to reposition anymore.

"Aerial ace" Cassandra responded, causing her Scisor to lunge forward before tackling Nightwing. The blow slammed Nightwing into the ground. Nightwing tumbled back and quickly righted herself but the damage had been done and Cassandra had regained some space, pushing Nightwing away from her Scizor with that aerial ace attack. "Now swords dance"

Apparently Cassandra wasn't going to let me weaken her Scisor through debuffs to her offensive capabilities. Well then that just meant I had to catch her off guard a different way.

"Quick attack!" I called out hoping to get Cassandra caught into a similar pattern to what had happened before.

"Air slash" Cassandra calmly commanded "Then rise into the air"

It appeared Cassandra was wary of a follow up earthquake or something. Not quite what I'd been planning on setting up, but it did show that she was wary of some kind of trick. Nightwing didn't manage to avoid all of the air slashes this time, taking a hit or two, but she did manage to close the distance.

"Fire fang!" I called out once we were close. Cassandra appeared to get really annoyed that she couldn't figure out what I was doing.

"Second verse same as the first, bullet punch behind" Cassandra ordered. This time though I was ready.

"Flip over!" I yelled. See Cassandra's tactic of positioning her Scizor behind an opponent using fire fang was a good one. Most pokemon couldn't rotate their heads 180 degrees to connect the attack and thus so long as her Scizor stayed in that position, the most dangerous attack couldn't connect. However Nightwing could fly and was maneuverable enough that she could flip upside down in mid air.

Something like a Skarmory or a Noivern, big pokemon with massive wingspans that could fly, needed too much space in order to flip upside down quickly. Completely grounded pokemon couldn't do something like this at all. But Nightwing was fast and maneuverable enough as a Gliscor that she could near immediately flip upside down, which in turn meant that she could practically immediately land a fire fang even if Cassandra's Scizor remained directly behind her. Cassandra's Scizor meanwhile was tired enough that it couldn't whip out another bullet punch, and wasn't fast enough to stay in Nightwing's blindspot unaided by bullet punch once Nightwing didn't need to fully turn around.

The Scizor let out an immense shriek of pain as Nightwing latched on with a powerful fire fang. There likely wasn't enough space for Cassandra to use U-turn either. Nightwing wouldn't be able to hold on forever but the longer the fire fang could last, the more likely we'd be able to score a burn and thoroughly cripple the Scizor.

"Ravager, return!" Cassandra called as a beam of red light emerged from her luxury ball, returning Scizor to it.

"I'm using my last switch" she mulishly grumbled. Using U-turn probably would have been better practically speaking but breaking free of Nighting's grip might've taken long enough that Cassandra wasn't willing to risk Scizor going down and went for the guaranteed but suboptimal play.

"Snowy, it's up to you" Cassandra called out as she sent out her Annihilape.

"Nightwing fly high up" I ordered. Cassandra grimaced as she quickly realized what I was doing. Annihilapes typically didn't have great ranged options. As such by having Nightwing sit outside of the range where Annihilape could comfortably fight her, I could let the poison heal build up over time and restore Nightwing's health.

The Annihilape quickly howled and screamed with rage as it realized that I was denying it a fight entirely. I let Nightwing do a few loop-de-loops and laugh at the Annihilape as she healed, hoping that taunting the ghostly monkey would exploit its naturally raging tendencies and cause it to make mistakes.

"Smack down" Cassandra bit out. The Annihilape shrieked with a malicious sort of glee as it began tearing up the ground and hurling chunks of earth at Nightwing after imbuing them with some rock type energy.

Smack down wasn't an incredibly offensive move but it was capable of temporarily grounding a pokemon that it connected with. Preventing Nightwing from flying would make the ensuing fight far easier.

I decided to continue to stall things out. Where before Nightwing had been on her last legs, now she seemed to have recovered somewhat. She wove around most of the attacks before eventually one of the rocks connected and knocked Nightwing down.

"Ice punch" Cassandra angrily demanded, as her Annihilape charged towards Nightwing.

"Protect!" It called out and Nightwing managed to get up the shield in time. However it quickly wavered. It appeared the spite attack from Cassandra's Gyarados had taken its toll and now Nightwing wouldn't be able to use protect anymore. Still I'd gotten what I needed.

"U-turn" I ordered, as Cassandra screamed in frustration for another ice punch. Nightwing was able to connect first though and promptly returned to her ball. The Annihilape was utterly enraged at having been denied a fight thus far and promptly beat its chest in rage. Howling and screaming but not moving.

Despite it being a berserker of sorts it appeared pretty well trained. Unfortunately that wasn't going to be enough.

"Phantasm, you're up!" I stated as I tossed out Phantasm's pokeball. Phantasm didn't bother with a disguise this time as she howled up to the air. The battle resumed in an instant.

"Shadow ball!" I called out, hoping to keep making use of the distance between our two pokemon to wear down Cassandra's Annihilape. Phantasm launched an inky black sphere of ghost type energy.

"Phantom Force" Cassandra responded, her eyes slightly manic "We're not going to let them win!"

The Annihilape promptly disappeared, allowing the shadow ball to continue on unimpeded before colliding against Cassandra's forcefield projector. The other girl appeared unmoved, though she looked slightly manic now. I didn't want to say anything for fear of setting her off further but she didn't seem that well put together. Where before she'd been somewhat calm and put together, now she was glaring at me with wild eyes and appeared a few inches away from screaming her head off. It was more than a little uncomfortable but hopefully it was just her being really competitive and not anything more concerning.

The Annihilape promptly reappeared behind Phantasm and launched a brutal swing attack. Phantasm promptly ducked it before using double team to create numerous illusory copies. Phantasm also used the opportunity to turn herself invisible as the Annihilape charged towards her double team after images.

"No illusions!" Cassandra shouted "Rage Fist for a dust cloud"

The Annihilape let loose another rage filled shriek as it slammed a glowing fist into the ground, kicking up a massive plume of dust. If there were any spikes or stealth rocks left, they'd probably be thoroughly cleared by now.

"Shadow Ball" I called out. If Cassandra was going to figure out Phantasm's position the same way she had at the start of the match then I figured it might be better to launch an attack while the Annihilape was still likely blinded to some degree.

"Phantom force to dodge" Cassandra responded, getting her Annihilape out of the dust cloud and able to avoid the attack. However this time when the Annihilape reappeared it was in front of Cassandra.

"Shadow sneak" I followed up, causing Phantasm to shoot forwards and connect. "Bitter Malice to follow up!"

Phantasm let out a ghostly wail of energy that promptly connected with the Annihilape. However instead of weakening the Annihilape as expected, it appeared to get even more enraged and powerful. The Annihilape probably had the Defiant ability.

"Brutal Swing", Cassandra commanded gleeful at the opportunity to turn the tide. The Annihilape managed to connect a vicious hook directly into Phantasm's gut and slammed her into the ground, creating a crater. That single hit was enough to do massive damage.

Phantasm wasn't out of the fight yet, promptly launching a shadow ball directly into the Annihilape's face when it attempted to follow-up before retreating with mincing steps. Phantasm didn't seem to be too badly hurt but I couldn't afford to have her take another hit like that.

"Smack down time Snowy" Cassandra called out, causing her vicious monkey pokemon to once more tear up the ground and launch massive chunks of rock. Phantasm wove around them, before shattering one with a shadow ball.

"Shadow sneak" I ordered. Phantasm followed through and rushed forwards. The Annihilape took a half step back.

"Brutal swing" Cassandra retaliated.

"Detect into Icy wind" I replied in return. Phantasm dodged the Annihilapes vicious attack and promptly blasted it with icy particulates.

The Annihilape grew angrier and and angrier, launching attack after attack after attack. All it got for its troubles though were more icy winds as it slowed down further and further. Every blow got stronger and stronger but the Annihilape was now too slow to connect even a single blow anymore.

Cassandra it seemed had grown deeply irritated by this as she realized that her Annihilape couldn't land anymore attacks.

"Snowy" Cassandra seethed "Curse"

The Annihilape let out a baleful howl before promptly collapsing. Still the Annihilape had done its job as I saw Phantasm wincing from pain. The curse had gone off. The battle wasn't over yet though and I had a three two lead.

"Ravager" Cassandra bitterly snarled, seemingly out of energy. The Scizor came out but it was clearly worn down. It winced a bit it looked at the area where Nightwing had landed the fire fang. Apparently the bug had been burned. For a second Cassandra looked mournful.

"I'm sorry, I messed up" She whispered, seemingly holding back tears. I wanted to say something but also didn't want to set her off or let her know I could hear her with my aura enhanced hearing.

"Do your best" Cassandra continued. "I just need a little more. A little more and me and Nibbler can finish this. We're going to win and prove your the best. I won't let our hard work be for nothing"

The Scizor seemed to trill in affirmation. Cassandra steadied herself and let out a vicious glare.

"Flash cannon" She ordered and the Scizor promptly launched brilliant beams of metallic energy from its claws. I was ready for this however and promptly ordered Phantasm to dodge it.

"Bullet Punch" Cassandra commanded, waiting for the exact moment when the curse kicked in and Phantasm flinched from the damage it dealt. The red bug rushed forwards and connected a gut check against Phantasm. Phantasm promptly rolled one the ground and created an illusory copy that got up just a little bit faster in front of her.

When the Scizor followed up with another bullet punch, the blow faded right through it. Unlike before where Cassandra had her Annihilape kicking up dust clouds to help her figure out what was and wasn't an illusion, her Scizor didn't seem suited for that.

"Hex" I called out and Phantasm promptly complied. The move did massive damage to Scizor thanks to its burn. Things were going to be over soon one way or another.

"Bullet punch Ravager" Cassandra now that she had Phantasm's location. I had Phantasm launch a shadow ball, but the Scizor plowed right through it, connecting the blow and managing to stand above it.

"Steel Beam" Cassandra commanded and the Scizor promptly gathered energy in both of its claws before firing downwards with barely a moments hesitation. A blinding silver light fired out and by the time it cleared up, Phantasm laid on the ground before Cassandra's Scizor, knocked out cold completely.

The Scizor took a stumbling step forwards and then collapsed as well, knocked out by the recoil of the steel beam attack. I recalled Phantasm, who thankfully wasn't too injured.

Cassandra was getting desperate and she was down to her last pokemon. Whatever came next it was going to be rough.


Cassandra Luthor
This was all wrong. Everything was wrong. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Cassandra refused to lose. She couldn't give up now. She couldn't stop. She was going to win. She was going to win. She was going to win! The battle wasn't over yet. Cassandra felt the anger flowing through her. She hated Nemona in this moment. Every move was countered, every strategem disarmed. The other girl was looking down on her calling her a failure.

"You are a failure." The voice in Cassandra's head whispered. "I'm not smiling anymore but that's because you've gone from being a funny joke to being just kind of sad. Your father would be so disappointed."

Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!

Cassandra let the emotions buoy her. Rage, desperation, and more. All of it fuel for what she had to do next. She was going to win no matter what it took. Cassandra wasn't supposed to do this, but she didn't care anymore.

You're not good enough, you're not good enough" The voices laughed "You're a failure because you're not good enough"

Cassandra abandoned thoughts of the future. She abandoned thoughts of the past. None of it mattered anymore. All her plans, her schemes, her composure. It was all worthless right now. None of it was enough to let her win and she was going to win. She was the best. She was Cassandra Luthor. Cassandra abandoned everything about herself that she didn't need for this fight.

The voices went silent. The rage flattened into a dull throbbing burning background. There was only the instant. No more talking. No more thinking. No more pain or worry or fear. Only violence and the goal.

Cassandra tossed out her luxury ball and in a burst of white light, her first partner emerged with a vicious roar. Cassandra echoed him, letting instinct overtake her.

 

[Skyfyre]

Spoiler: Skyfyre Note

Hello, this is another omake from the wonderful King crimson! Enjoy

What if a different Cassandra was part of the League Club?
Entering the League Club was always a breath of fresh air, and even more so at the moment, with none of the other members milling about, only the Elites and our Champion. The room was spacious enough, with lockers to one side, Macho Braces and other training equipment to another, desktops in the corner, and a large meeting table in the center. The entire room was painted in light blue and white, with faint silver snowflake designs painted all around. I remember how much work getting the remodel done was. Our dear Champion insisted upon each snowflake looking different, no easy staple work for the remodelling club.

I did take the time to make myself presentable at least, changing out of my tracksuit and into a nice Summer Blueberry Uniform. The only adjustment from the standard was a patch sewn in marking my rank as one of the Elite Four of the League Club. The others, who had already arrived before me, were wearing a much more eclectic set of 'uniforms'.

Cassandra, the youngest of the group, had pale skin, though not nearly as pale as our Champion's. Cassandra was the daughter of the wealthiest businessman in Unova and apparently she felt the need to show it off with how she dressed, wearing not a uniform proper but instead some kind of business casual outfit composed of black slacks, a purple collared shirt and black vest alongside combat boots. She even had a ridiculous black and white tie with motifs of the two legendary dragons on them. The junior CEO look honestly made her seem more ridiculous than anything else. And frankly if anything the fact that she was perpetually uninterested in doing anything but the bare minimum to hold onto the weakest seat in the Elite Four proved that even if money could take you far it couldn't make you the best.

Ares, the buff boy a year my senior, sneered at me as I entered. His naturally red hair was done up in a mohawk, and he wore a punk shirt with some rude catch phrases on it. The ripped jeans and sunglasses he constantly wore helped sell the 'rebel' look I knew he had spent a surprising amount of Pokedollars on. Ironic, for someone who comes from one of the top 500 wealthiest Unovan families.

Charlotte Linlin was eating noisily at the table, barely paying attention as I entered. The girl's tan had faded slightly in her time away from Alola, but it was still visible. Her choice of dress was Blueberry tank top with a sheer, flower patterned overshirt, and a shockingly short skirt I did my best to steer my gaze away from. For all her… wildness, Charlotte is a powerful Trainer. I can't underestimate her.

Finally, there was Elsa 'Es' Death. She sat at the head of the table with a commanding presence. Her uniform was a paler white than usual, the top and long skirt going together almost like a dress. She had a short, dark blue jacket over top to cover her shoulders. Her icy white hair was done in a half-Kalos braid.

"Atticus, you're late," she reprimanded me.

"It was rather last minute this meeting you called, I was out in the field, running my sector." I replied, to take the bite out of any of the jeering glances or smirks directed at me from the rest of the Elites. Yeah, that's right, I know that none of you take anywhere near as much effort as I do to keep your biomes running smoothly. Charlotte barely even keeps up her arena!

Sitting down, I was about to ask why we were here until I was cut off.

Charlotte's noisy snacking was immediately cut off as Elsa began to start her meeting.

"Enough." Elsa's icy tone brought the pink haired girl to a halt. "Yes, as an Elite Four you are granted certain privileges, so you can eat in this club room, but not while I'm calling a meeting. Put it away." The Champion ordered the highest ranking Elite Four. Charlotte gave her superior a baleful look before defiantly shoving the rest of it down her gullet in two massive bites. How Charlotte keeps her figure, I have no idea.

Elsa gave her a disgusted look, but since the pink-haired glutton brought out no more food, she clearly considered the matter settled. "I've called you all here to talk about a threat to our club." Her Rotom Phone floated up, presenting the Trainer ID/record page of Nemona Glitterati, the young girl smiling in her account picture.

Ares snorted. "That pipsqueak? She doesn't look like much."

"And you look like an incompetent troglodyte but somehow you've managed to prove halfway competent" Cassandra dully responded. Ares flushed red as he began to puff himself up to get into a fight. Really he should know better than to pick fights with a literal child but Ares was barely a step above one himself so I suppose it was only right he bicker with someone on his level.

Before those two could devolve into another bicker-fest that derailed things further, I interjected. "Nemona's the strongest Champion of her region; I think regardless of our opinions of how she accessorizes, she's strong." I pointed out, and while Cassandra frowned, thinking it over, Ares just laughed.

"If she's so strong then why hasn't she challenged us?" His words were meant less for me and more for Elsa.

"Not challenging us is the point," the white haired teen replied. "She has students going to her for help on battle strategies, to her for training tips, to her for what they need." Elsa's control slipped a fraction, and I noted how my breath was making small puffs in the air from how cold it was. "If she was just a part of the club, then even if she was the strongest," the disdain in her tone made it clear how unlikely Elsa thought that was. "It would hardly be a threat to the club as a whole."

"You've been completely incapable of getting her to battle?" Cassandra glowered, suddenly much more invested in the meeting. "I owe you an apology Ares, you're not the most incompetent person in the room"

Elsa scowled as Cassandra deliberately instigated a fight. I was quite curious to see how things would play out. Cassandra didn't normally pick fights like this and she'd never challenged any of the other elites. I'd considered that a sign that she knew her place amongst the pecking order and couldn't be bothered to push further but clearly something was off. Perhaps I could glean something from her style if it escalated further.

With my mind made up I didn't interject to try and deescalate things even though I could have.

"I'd remind you not to overstep your bounds" Elsa reminded, frustration leaking into her tone as her fingers tapped against the table, a clear tell that she was angry. Now if only I could get a table placed in front of her when I challenge her. Such an event would be a way off in the future, but it never hurts to be prepared.

"I'm only taking my rightful place" Cassandra dully stated as she stood up. "I joined this school solely for a rematch with Nemona. I deliberately took the lowest ranking elite position so that I could fight Nemona first and when I beat her, force her to challenge me again and again every time you childishly antagonized her and she wanted to fix things"

The room had gone silent as Cassandra fully stood up.

"And now I find you're too incompetent to even get her to want to battle? You've run out of use for me Elsa" Cassandra continued, her voice remaining placid "Consider this an official challenge for the title of champion and leadership of the club. When I'm done we'll be doing things my way"

Elsa angrily sputtered but ultimately accepted the challenge full of rage and bluster, promising to make Cassandra regret it. Cassandra for her part merely replied that she looked forward to having as passionate a subordinate as Elsa.

"Oh Charlotte, Atticus and Ares before I forget" Cassandra continued, a thin mocking smile on her face "When I'm done with Elsa you all better make sure you do your best to get Nemona to battle me, one of you will be losing their position regardless but I'd rather not have to purge more than one of you for incompetence"

Just who does she think she is? Just because daddy paid for her to have the best team money can buy doesn't mean she can come out on top. I did my best to calm down as Cassandra acted out while Charlotte and Ares joined Elsa in fuming at her. I was more than happy to push for a rematch with Nemona and if Cassandra didn't prove delusional I was confident I'd be better off than Ares or Charlotte. This was just another opportunity.

"You're all little Wishiwashi, thinking you're tough because you're the biggest in your pond" Cassandra said grinning from ear to ear "You're swimming with Sharpedos now. Get me my rematch or I'll make a meal out of you"

Eventually the others filed out of the room, though I stayed behind for a moment longer. Cassandra had never gotten this passionate before. She was lazy and content to coast and so I was curious what about Nemona spurred her to push this hard.

"You're not going to make any friends acting like this" I dryly state. Cassandra just laughed, the notes sharp and clear. It was the first time I had heard her laugh.

"You're not my friends" Cassandra responded "Why waste time with trash when I can befriend Nemona instead?"

"That's what this is all about making friends with a girl your age?" I fired back, not letting the insult get under my skin "I get that you're excited to have a talented classmate your own age but isn't this a bit much?"

"Nemona's actually a bit older than me" Cassandra responded before tutting.

"Atticus, Atticus, Atticus you really don't get it do you?" She mocked "Friendship is a phenomena that observably makes pokemon stronger and thus makes trainers stronger vice versa. Casting it aside is just making yourself weaker"

Cassandra deliberately stepped into my personal space as her eyes lit up with delight.

"Nemona beat me so she's worth becoming friends with. Prove yourself and you can be friends as well and I'll make you stronger. Fail or disappoint me and I'm sure I can help some other friend take your position as well" Cassandra happily threatened "Do we have an understanding?"

"Crystal" I responded. The meeting had not gone how I thought it would but this sort of shake-up could only be good. I didn't think Nemona was worth all the fuss but if Cassandra was going to start throwing around resources to satisfy her fixation then I'd be more than happy to take her for all she was worth. Far be it from me to teach a spoiled little girl about the real world.


A/N: Hello, I'm very excited to see where this goes. This latest arc holds a lot of potential in my mind and as I was reading the latest chapter, I saw we had an antagonist called Cassandra. She's very different from the Cassandra I write in the crossover omakes so I thought it would be fun to play with that a bit and write this. Hope you enjoy!