[X] My Assistant

[Kamaitachi]

The Preliminaries and First Round Match of Jill Laurent and Taggarty Lee.

[Kamaitachi]

As soon as Jill's Pokemon appeared, the heat swept into the field, something Tag had been ready for. His opponent's Vulpix's rare ability was what made or broke Jill's team, and Tag had to neutralize all threats immediately.

Having wanted the first move, Tag grumpily acquiesced to Jill's faster barking. On the fly, he shifted his strategy immediately to accommodate for the string of words.

Tobi! Imprison! Suzu! Encore! Bachi! Earth Power on the Ponyta!"

While Vinyl was undoubtedly the fastest Pokemon on the field, Sleep Powder was not an aerodynamic move. Tobi closed his eyes for a moment, essentially placing a psychic barrier on the field. His eyes glowed a fierce blue as Imprison took hold, locking off all of the techniques that he and his opponents shared in common. To Tag's knowledge, this would be all of the moves that Flare possessed. Unless she had an egg move genetically passed down to her, or any moves that Jill had taught her via tutor or TM, Flare would be locked into "Struggle" until Tobi was removed from the match. Pele, the Ponyta, would have a few moves blocked off as well, but very few that Tag was particularly interested in.

The series of events that followed seemed to blur together for a moment, due to the extreme rapidity of Pokemon moves exploding all over the field. The powder settled over Tobi, gently sending him off to sleep. Pele charged forward, slamming into Suzu with the powered-up Flame Charge. Why Jill had chosen that over the more powerful Fire Wheel or Flare Blitz was beyond Tag; perhaps she'd forgotten that her Pokemon had learned new attacks? Suzu shrugged off the painful damage before floating over to Vinyl and clapping her hands happily. Vinyl, the speed-demon Weepinbell, was now stuck to using the low accuracy Sleep Powder on repeat. Suzu buzzed back to Tag's side of the field, but with Tobi's Imprison in place, the Flamethrower from Flare never came.

To round out Tag's debilitating first round, Bachi raised a glowing fist, slamming it into the ground. The terrakinetic energy shifted through the island field, causing a ripple into the ocean area, until it burst up from the ground in a pillar of power, aimed at an angle at the Ponyta. Tag had chosen a supereffective move, but it operated off of Bachi's lower, but still good, special attack. Once the attack subsided, Suzu shifted positions, placing herself between Bachi and the sleeping Tobi, ready to take cover from the next fire attack behind one of her allies.

The tattooed trainer crossed his arms, smiling. Whether or not the Earth Power actually hit home, he felt a surge of confidence from the first round of battle. How was Jill going to respond to this?