Pokemon Alternate Universe Adventures

Altaria's mastery over its weather-neutralizing ability really messed with Manami/Lapras's battle style since it took away her recovery bug, which would have allowed her to fight without any concerns. I was sure that Manami could have taken on and potentially worn down any other dragon at the (low) platinum stage relying on True Water Absorb in combination with her Freezing Rain, and even against some (mid) platinum dragons I would have put my money on her.

However, without that recovery bug her chances were much lower, though I still believed that she still had a shot at beating Altaria due to its major weakness to ice energy. Anyway, after blocking Manami's weather combo move, Altaria released the Dragonbreath it had been building up. Manami quickly countered that with an Ice Beam, and thanks to its typing the Ice Beam still managed to block the Dragonbreath despite the minimal execution/charging time Manami had, which weakened it to a certain degree.

Following that initial exchange, both Pokemon happened to use Safeguard, protecting themselves against possible status conditions, but I was pretty sure that this helped Altaria much more than it did Manami since she could have applied as many as 4 status conditions on Altaria if given the chance. We had to give up the Confuse Ray Manami would have released next, so she first released a volley of Ice Shards instead to interrupt Altaria's next move by forcing it to dodge, before blasting Altaria with a Freezing Pump.

Sadly, they reacted in time and directly blocked Manami's Freezing Pump using Protect. Not minding the failure, we ignored the Protected Altaria. Manami began to release a Mist that covered a major part of the battlefield, obscuring her from sight. She followed that up with a Psychic, which she used on herself to change her position without being seen. She unfortunately got "caught" in the act by Altaria who let its Protect fade away and used Defog to get rid of the Mist.

There were some happy/awed exclamations from the audience at the flying Lapras, even if it was barely a meter above the ground, but Altaria did not hesitate at all and fired off a Dragon Pulse. A bunch of options to deal with it ran through my head, and I had Manami cease Psychic, which had her plop to the ground and forced Altaria to adjust its head. Manami began to charge a Freezing Pump as soon as she let go of Psychic, and once she had plopped onto the ground, she fired it off.

Dragon Pulse met the Freezing Pump at roughly the midpoint between them, and there was some excitement at the beam struggle that began. What seemed to surprise nearly everyone but us was that Altaria's Dragon Pulse was slowly losing ground to Manami's Freezing Pump. I understood that they expected the platinum-stage dragon's attack to overpower ours. However, Freezing Pump was not only a more powerful move but also had a type advantage.

Honestly, if not for Altaria being at a higher stage than Manami while she had only recently broken past the regular limit, Manami's Freezing Pump would have blasted through Dragon Pulse with ease instead of gradually pushing through it. Either way, Altaria noted its disadvantage and immediately disengaged by interrupting its Dragon Pulse. Its early reaction allowed it to swerve out of Freezing Pump's way. Manami reacted swiftly and tilted her head, altering the Freezing Pump's path, which forced Altaria to abandon the Hurricane it was attempting to set off in favor of dodging.

The little gust/whirlwind that had formed dispersed as the Freezing Pump passed by it while Altaria further opened up the distance between Manami and itself. Seeing Altaria retreat to the rear of the battlefield, I had Manami cease her attack to deal with our mobility issue instead. It was clear that we would be unable to deal with Altaria if we did not ensure that Manami was able to move freely without having to use Psychic since she was unable to use any other moves while she did that.

So, Manami flooded the battlefield with Surf, though she did not bother releasing more than necessary to dampen the whole battlefield or at least the majority of it. I believe I saw Altaria initiate Tailwind while she did that, and I was pretty sure it followed up with Agility as Manami began a Blizzard. The Blizzard was not a real risk to Altaria since it became weaker the further away from Manami one was, but it was enough to freeze the damp ground and add a slight layer of ice/snow on top of it while also preventing Altaria from approaching Manami as she set up the stage without hurting itself in the process.

Not that Altraia seemed to plan to do that since it ignored the Blizzard in favor of completing Agility. It became clear why it did that when a few moments later after it finalized Agility, Altaria released a Heat Wave. The Heat Wave clashed with Manami's Blizzard, which had already begun to abate since Manami had been about to move to the next step. Yet, seeing Heat Wave first thaw the ice layer close to Altaria before expanding further in Manami's direction as it began to overpower the Blizzard that Manami had let go forced my girl to retake control of the Blizzard and feed/supple it with more energy.

The moment she did that, Heat Wave stopped spreading any further despite the elemental/type advantage. In fact, thanks to my elevated senses/eyes, I was able to notice that Manami's Blizzard was slowly expanding towards Altaria. This once again showed the advantage of using moves that matched one's type. It appeared that Ryujin noticed that detail as well since she ordered her Altaria to fly around while keeping the Heat Wave up. I had Manami follow suit to prevent Altria from undoing the majority of Manami's work.

What followed was a period where a red-blue streak/heat front in the air rushed around with a white-blue streak/cold front on the ground following after it. Unfortunately, the speed difference between Altaria and Manami showed here. Due to its high speed, Altaria was able to cover more area in its Heat Wave, steadily shrinking Manami's frozen ground. Within just 2 minutes of this chase, the frozen field had been reduced by a third despite Manami's effort to stop Altaria.

In fact, it could have been worse but Altaria had to stop its Heat Wave once since it could no longer keep it going. The few seconds where it had to "rest" before it was able to start a second round, allowed Manami to recover some lost territory. Had it not been for that, Altaria would have likely melted close to half the frozen field instead of "just" a third. It was clear that this was a losing game for us, so we switched strategies. If we could not counteract Altaria's melting efforts, we would force it to abandon them.

I knew that Altaria was too fast and too far away for either Hydro Pump or Freezing Pump to pose a real risk, so I had her go with something else. Manami stopped sliding after Altaria and began to generate a Whirlpool. Ryujin/Altaria apparently saw no need to interfere seeing how Altaria continued to circle the battlefield, melting the frozen ground. Altaria had an uninterrupted 15-20 seconds, while Lapras grew her Whirlpool to nearly double its usual size, to reduce the frozen area to a mere fourth of its original size.

Still, that was a price that was easily paid for the next bit, which began with Manami hurling it in Altaria's direction before immediately taking control of it using Psychic. Well, it was more like she covered it in a psychic membrane that allowed her to move the giant Whirlpool through the air without it losing its integrity and force. The only reason she could do that was that both moves were created through her energy. Otherwise, the Whirlpool would have clashed with the Psychic, which would have disrupted both moves.

Anyway, the giant Whirlpool flew toward Altaria, and since it was hard to overlook a giant spinning mass Altaria attempted to simply swerve past it. Yet, unlike Altaria, Ryujin apparently did not miss that Manami had taken control of the Whirlpool. She knew that simply swerving to the left or right would not be enough to dodge, so she ordered Altaria to do a hard left and rush away as quickly as possible.

The idea was sound, but it would not prevent the next step since I had already considered the possibility of a failed direct hit, so once Whirlpool was close enough, just as Altaria had flown for just a few meters after giving up the Heat Wave to make a hard left turn, Manami had the Whirlpool burst apart. That weakened the damage the move could cause drastically, making it barely stronger than a Water Gun, if even that, but it also made it impossible for Altaria to dodge the water, which was the main goal.

A good amount of the Whirlpool water hit Altaria, dousing it and its wings. That slowed Altaria down enough for the Ice Beam that Manami followed up with to graze its wings, causing nearly a fourth of its left wing to freeze solid. It even lost control of its flight for a moment, and even though it regained control very fast, it still slowed it down by another notch. That was enough for Manami to close in some more, making her long-range attacks stronger/more effective since they did not have to cover as much of a distance.

This allowed her to use Blizzard to perfectly balance out the Heat Wave that Altaria tried to use to thaw and dry out its wings. Well, actually we could not stop Altaria from thawing out its left-wing, since the clash between Blizzard and Heat Wave created water and a bit of steam. Yet, even though that allowed Altraia to unfreeze its wing, it also caused its wings to become more bogged down due to the new water/moisture they soaked up.

The only point in its favor was that the warm water in its wings prevented the wet/damp wings from freezing up during the moments that Altraia could not keep up the Heat Wave and had to pause for a few moments before starting another Heat Wave. It was a minute into their Heat Wave-Blizzard clash that I realized what Altaria's partly frozen wing symbolized, but I did not immediately follow up on the apparent loss of Safeguard but waited for another minute until Altraria had just begun its third Heat Wave to order Manami to switch to Confuse Ray followed by Sing.

Altaria was barely able to twist out of the Confuse Ray's way, and it produced a Round as it did, which intercepted Manami's Sing. It then set up another Safeguard, and Manami used that opportunity to nail Altaria with a Freezing Pump. That finally had Altaria pummel out of the air, but they actually made use of that, and Altraia, following Ryujin's order, performed a Dragon Rush. Manami used Protect to block the Dragon Rush, but that actually turned out to be a ruse.

Altaria did slam into Protect, but that barely caused a crack in the shield, and Altaria then simply sat down on the shield with a plop before performing a Perish Song. While that was definitely not good, I was pretty sure that Manami could weather the Perish Song if we played things right, so I had Manami charge Life Dew in preparation for the moment the song took effect. While we did that, Altaria actually began a second Perish Song, which was pretty redundant since it did not cause the move to cause any extra damage, though it did push the trigger juncture forward, so it was not entirely useless I guess.

Still, that did not affect our plan, unlike what Altria did next. With not much time left until the perish trigger, Altaria actually released a Hyper Beam, which clashed with Manami's Protect. The shield cracked open, though it reduced Hyper Beam's power significantly in the process. Yet, that weakened Hyper Beam was enough to interrupt the Life Dew Lapras was charging, leaving no time to start another one as the Perish Song finally triggered.

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