Pokemon Journeys: Masters 8 Tournament

Chapter 11 - Ash vs Paul! Full-on Battle! (Part 2)

A/N: The Q&A responses are at the end of the chapter. Enjoy the story!

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"Let's go, Gengar!" Ash pointed in front, and Gengar floated in mid-air, ready for battle.

"Gardevoir, stand by for battle," Paul threw a pokeball, and Gardevoir readied herself in front of Gengar.

Ash's fire pokemon were all cheering for Gengar. They started punching rapidly. Gengar got the note and nodded.

"Did you guys train Gengar just now?" Ash asked his fire-type pokemon, to which they nodded, "Thanks for training Gengar, buddies!"

"Show us what it has trained," Paul waved his hand to gesture Gengar to attack Gardevoir, "Gardevoir, use Shadow Ball!"

"Close in the range and do what you need to do!" Ash commanded.

Gardevoir concentrated her energy and shot a purple shadow ball at Gengar. The ghost smiled and used its ghostly movements to dodge and immediately appear in front of Gardevoir. Gengar's right hand was coated in fire as it punched Gardevoir right in the face.

"It's Fire Punch!" Ash was surprised in a way that he liked, "Good job, Gengar! Thank you for teaching that buddies!"

Gengar tried to follow-up with a second Fire Punch, but this time, Gardevoir dodged with her teleporting-like speed, so Gengar tried again and again until it hit. Paul analyzed the scene, his Gardevoir was a new capture just to train Ash, so her movements and reflexes were not as refined as Diantha's Gardevoir. His Gardevoir kept dodging Gengar's Fire Punch, he knew she would use up her stamina soon if she kept dodging like that, and eventually got hit.

"Use Psychic to control the ghost!" Paul commanded.

"Move around fast so that she cannot control you!" Ash suggested.

Gardevoir's eyes turned purple, as she concentrated and tried to control Gengar with Psychic. However, Psychic can only be used when the opponent is relatively stationary or moves in a predictable trajectory, so when Gengar was moving around the field rapidly, poor Gardevoir could not lock on to the ghost, and wasn't able to use Psychic on Gengar at all.

Ash's fire-type pokemon continued to cheer when they saw Gengar being dominant in this battle.

"Moonblast!" Paul ordered another move to try to break through this stalemate.

Gardevoir jumped up and raised her hands in the sky. A moon appeared out of nowhere, and a pink energy ball was shot toward Gengar.

"Use Psychic on the Moonblast!" Ash pointed, "Shoot it back!"

Gengar pushed its hands forward as its eyes turned purple. The pink energy ball stopped moving and glowed a purple aura, as it soon got shot back at Gardevoir. Being unable to maneuver in the sky, Gardevoir took damage from its own move and started falling to the ground.

"Great! Let's end this, Gengar!" Ash readied his Dynamax Band and Gengar's pokeball.

But Gengar apparently had a different idea other than Gigantimaxing. It charged energy in both of its ghostly hands, one hand was a Fire Punch, and the other was an Ice Punch. Gengar started spinning around with the energy punches, creating a tornado with ice and fire energy with itself as the epicentre. Gengar yeeted the energy-charged tornado at Gardevoir, who was still in the air and unable to dodge that and got thrown high up into the air by the tornado once again. No sooner, Gardevoir fell on the down with her swirly eyes.

Serena was amazed by what Ash and his pokemon were able to achieve, "Gardevoir is unable to battle. Ash 3-2 Paul. Both challengers please send out your next pokemon."