- Blessed by Divinity -

Not Quite Goodbye

"Dragonite, Aegislash, are you ready to kick things up a notch?"

The two pokemon standing before me let out grunts of understanding, showing that they were ready to take the battle to the next level.

"Alright, use dragon pulse and flash cannon on the ground once more."

Following the instructions, the two pokemon directed their attacks to the battlefield, kicking up a dust cloud as expected. I could tell that Olympia and her pokemon were now expecting a direct attack to follow up, so I had to vary the battle strategy.

"That won't work again Aaron. Meowstic use your psychic power to detect their locations, then use psyshock."

Predicting that the gym leader would rely on her pokemon's sensing ability, Dragonite and Aegislash had already hidden themselves as quickly as possible to slow down their opponents. Feeling confident, the psychic cat pokemon fired blue orbs of psychic energy through the dust cloud, clearing it in the process, but the attacks missed their marks.

"Now's the chance, Dragonite use dragon rush, Aegislash, shadow sneak."

Appearing from the shadows behind the psychic pokemon, the royal sword pokemon leaped out, slashing the two pokemon with the super effective ghost move. The two psychics stumbled back, their injuries starting to add up.

Then from the skies, the dragon pokemon descended with tremendous speed toward the opponents. Unable to avoid the attack in time, the winged dragon crashed into the two Meowstic, veiled in multicoloured draconic energy.

That was enough to decide the battle, the opponents unable to withstand the powerful successive attacks. Olympia congratulated her pokemon on their valiant attempt before returning them to their pokeballs.

Dragonite, Aegislash and I were celebrating our victory as well as the winged dragon's evolution. The pair had worked well as a team and the result showed this.

"You and your pokemon battled well. I now have more confidence that humanity can be restored."

Accepting the compliment, I received the psychic badge from the Anistar gym leader, still trying to process the whole message about humanity and its last hope. Unsure what the powerful looming danger was, I thought hard about what pokemon was that large and seemingly that strong.

Elaine made her way down from the stands, congratulating us on the victory as she pulled me into a hug. Being prepared for something like this, I threw my arms around her, returning the embrace.

"Aaron."

Olympia's voice caused the two of us to part from the hug, as we turned our attention to the Anistar gym leader. Her somber expression indicated that she had something serious to say to the two of us.

"You must continue your hard work and training. Should you lose sight of why you became a trainer, your world will fall apart very quickly."

Accepting her warning, I thanked Olympia for inadvertently teaching me that battling was not about one straight forward attack after another. The battlefield was three dimensional which required trainer and pokemon to maximise in order to ensure victory.

With that, Elaine, Dragonite, Aegislash and I exited the Anistar gym, elated with the result.

---

"Young trainer."

A sudden voice nearly startled me as I had just stepped out of the gym. I looked to who spoke, my eyes falling on a tall man whose body was facing away from the four of us. His thick orange hair stuck out from all sides of his head, like a lion's mane. The man held his hands behind his back as he looked out across the cerulean blue sea. He wore a pitch black suit featuring elements of orange that matched his hair perfectly.