Journeys: Red, Green and Blue//ON HOLD//

Chapter 12

So, the Murphys had insisted on Red spending the night at the ranch. Well, mostly just Grannie Murphy and the two teens who weren't probably dying a painful death (Shelly wanted to keep Serra in the infirmary overnight just in case), and boy were they good at insisting. The two adults who lived there, who Red had been correct in assuming were Ed's parents, didn't have much of an opinion in the matter. To celebrate, Grannie Murphy had made cookies, which Ed had felt the need to mention were completely normal. It had been nice, if a bit odd at times. They seemed to be a strange family in general. At the moment, it was mid-morning of the next day, and Red and Riza were watching Kendrah and Ed battle against each other. The current matchup was a Jolteon named Citron on Kendrah's side and a Gliscor on Ed's. Although, Red wasn't entirely sure if he'd heard the Gliscor's name right considering the fact that he could've sworn he'd heard Ed call him Count Murderla. If that was correct, it was a very odd nickname indeed.

Due to Count Murderla's Ground-type, Citron very clearly had the disadvantage. Still, the electric Pokemon seemed to be holding her own fairly well, relying mostly on her superior speed combined with a few low power Normal-type moves done in quick succession. It was a smart strategy, but it wouldn't hold up forever, since faster Pokemon tended to tire out more quickly as well. However, Kendrah soon grinned a very evil looking grin as the battle progressed.

"Check out this new trick we learned while training. Citron, use Hidden Power!" she called out. The Pokemon quickly gathered bright, pale blue energy around herself before unleashing it towards Count Murderla in wide rings. Unlike most attacks, it remained in that energy state rather than condensing into some recognizable form, and the energy hit the scorpion bat Pokemon harder than the other attacks that Citron had tried before. It was an odd thing to watch, with Count Murderla having been hit with the force of a supereffective move. Red didn't know much about Hidden Power, but apparently, it had to be supereffective against Ground or Flying-types. Or maybe both. It could be an Ice-type move for all he knew.

"They're in training to become Elite Four members someday,"

Red almost jumped at the sudden voice from behind him, definitely at least moving enough to annoy Riza because she hissed in his ear. Whoops. He turned around to see that Serra had snuck up behind him, grinning widely like she tended to do. He wondered if she did that to everyone else because she was really good at it.

"Really? They don't fight like Elite Four members," Red decided to give her a reply. Elite Four battles were often televised, so he knew their strategies fairly well. While Ed's team somewhat fit the narrative of a brutal, hard hitting team, Kendrah at least was completely different, seeming more to rely on various strategies that were more suited to the individual Pokemon. An example would be what Citron was doing, or what she'd done with her Togekiss, Song, earlier, paralyzing one of Ed's Pokemon and then taking advantage of the Serene Grace ability to flinch her opponent multiple times. Though Song hadn't been much of a hard hitter either, she had tanked through Ed's hits like a boss.

"That's the issue with the Elite Four right now. They all fight the same, hitting hard and looking pretty," Serra grumbled, making a motion as if to cross her arms, but one of them was now in a sling, making that act very difficult to achieve. What she ended up with was one arm across her chest and the one in the sling shifted over slightly to the right. To keep from staring, Red looked at Soren, who was circling around her feet with his ears twitching anxiously. He must've been worried about her. The worry made a lot of sense, though. It was already pretty obvious that Serra wasn't going to heal as fast as Green had. This place probably didn't have the advanced equipment a real hospital had.

"I guess you have a point," Red looked back to the battle, with Citron doing surprisingly well against her opponent, persevering through the rather brutal type disadvantage she had. Any type with an immunity is going to automatically do crazy well, but she kept going. He couldn't really imagine the current Elite 4 being able to deal with something like that quite so well. Particularly Bruno, who was the one who relied on powerful STAB attacks the most out of all of them. His Fighting-types would wilt against any powerful Ghost-type.