This time, the tall boy stepped up, showing that he was Kai's next opponent.
He hadn't said much yet—quieter than the other two, observational. His Poké Ball was on his belt and hadn't moved. He unclipped it slowly, turning it over in his hand, and looked at Kai with that measured assessment.
"Hoothoot," he said before he threw it.
The Hoothoot materialised in a rush of white light and settled on one leg with the perfect, slightly uncanny balance that its species managed as a default state. Its eyes were enormous, amber, turning independently in that alien way. Its feathers ruffled once, settling, then went smooth.
Kai had remembered when Ethan had managed to capture one, helping them get through the forest.
Still, Kai scanned it with his Pokedex anyway.
[Hoothoot. The Owl Pokémon. It always stands on one leg and changes legs so fast that the movement is invisible. It has a perfect internal clock, keeping exact time. It stares at its target without blinking while preparing to use Hypnosis.]
Moves flagged: Tackle. Growl. Peck. Hypnosis.
Hypnosis. That was the one to worry about. Peck was a threat against Fighting types, but none of his Pokémon in consideration here were Fighting. The real danger was the gaze-lock and the sleep—get caught in that, and the match was functionally over.
Kai already knew who was the best match-up against a flying-type Pokémon right now.
"Snubbull," he said. "You're up." Throwing his Poké Ball.
Snubbull burst out of its Poké Ball, looking eager to battle as it locked its sight on the Hoothoot.
"Snub."
Hoothoot tracked it with those amber eyes, rotating slowly.
"Alright, let the battle begin!" Marcus yelled.
"Hoothoot, use Growl!"
Hoothoot opened its beak, and the sound came out—low, resonant, the kind of sound designed to rattle confidence, to make muscles feel slightly less reliable. Snubbull's ears went back from the noise.
And then its expression did something that Kai had come to recognise. A deepening. A settling. The Intimidate ability didn't announce itself—it wasn't a noise or a flash—but you could see the moment it landed, because the thing on the other side of it changed. Hoothoot felt it. Its Growl faltered. The sound didn't stop exactly, but it lost its certainty, a note going slightly flat, as if Hoothoot had abruptly remembered it was standing in front of something that had been in real fights.
"Hoothoot, dont just stand there, use peck!"
Hoothoot dropped from its hover and came down beak-first, fast and precise. Kai had been expecting fast. But he'd also been expecting this.
"Snubbull, counter it with an Ice Fang."
Snubbull's jaw dropped open — and you could see it before you felt it, the cold building at the back of its throat, the way its breath suddenly clouded in the morning air as the temperature at the point of its teeth plummeted.
"Oh crap—Hoothoot, dodge it!" The trainer tried to call out.
Snubbull caught Hoothoot's wing instead of the beak, because the Peck vectored sideways at the last second, but it caught it solidly, nonetheless.
Hoothoot cried out and pulled back. The wing where the bite had landed was stiff—not frozen solid, nothing so dramatic, but robbed of its flexibility, the feathers standing at an unnatural angle. It rebalanced on its one leg, the other wing spread to compensate, its gaze going slightly wary.
"Hypnosis!" the tall boy said, his voice was steady, but the urgency was there. "Put it to sleep, Hoothoot!"
Hoothoot's eyes went still. Both of them. That disturbing, amber lock that stopped wandering and fixed. Kai felt it even from the sideline, that weird tugging quality, like the eyes were exerting a gravitational pull. Snubbull felt it more. Its step slowed, and its eyelids started to grow heavy.
"Snubbull," Kai said, firm, cutting through the effect it was having."Use Thunder Fang now!"
The word hit like a switch.
Snubbull's eyes snapped back into focus. And the Hypnosis, which had been a thread and not yet a chain, snapped with them. It charged forward — not elegant, not fast, but with the absolute conviction of a Pokémon that had been told what to do and had every intention of doing it — Hoothoot had half a second to beat its wings before Snubbull was on it, Thunder Fang closing around the already-chilled wing.
"No way, it can use Thunder Fang and Ice Fang," Marcus said, watching the battle with the others from the sidelines, knowing this battle was already over.
The crack of electricity was sharp enough to make everyone in the clearing flinch back a step.
Hoothoot hit the grass and didn't land cleanly — one wing folded wrong, the other scrabbling for purchase, its perfect internal balance finally broken. It lay on its side for a moment, chest rising and falling, the enormous amber eyes blinking rapidly, the Paralysis making its movements short and stuttering.
"Hoothoot return," the tall boy said quietly. He stood still for a moment after recalling it, looking at the grass where his Hoothoot had been. Then he looked up.
"Man... I guess with two super effective moves, we didn't stand a chance." The boy said, watching as Kai rushed over to Snubbull and picked it up in excitement.
"Amazing job, buddy!" Kai said, Snubbull wearing a large smile on her face, happy to be picked up by Kai.
The tall boy nodded, committing this to something inside his head. "Thanks," he said, and stepped back.
The girl of the group was already stepping forward now, having seen what Kai could do.
She'd been watching both matches with folded arms and a quiet focus, and where the other two had been open — all grin or all question — she was more compressed, the kind of person who processed first and responded second. Kai had a feeling the matches he'd just had were appetisers and she'd been treating them as data.
"Alright," she said, her hand moving to her belt.
From beside Kai, Marcus made a small, involuntary sound. Kai glanced at him.
"What?"
"Just—" Marcus pressed his mouth closed. "Just watch."
She threw her ball.
The Pokémon that came out was small. Woolly. A long pale neck with a rounded, lamb-like head at the top of it, big dark eyes, and all down its body, the fluffy yellow-tinged fleece that looked soft as a pillow and was the most misleadingly gentle exterior in the Johto region.
A Mareep...
Kai managed not to laugh. He genuinely, genuinely managed it — because he remembered what was underneath that fleece. He remembered the stat distributions. He remembered that Mareep's Special Attack was the only real number that mattered on its card, and that the fleece itself built up static electricity through movement, and that as a Pokémon got angrier or more excited, its static charge got worse, not better.
He also remembered, with particular clarity, that the type matchup was all in his favour right now.
The girl met his gaze steadily. "Your pick," she said.
Kai reached for his belt.
"Sandshrew," he said. "Looks like it's your turn."
The Poké Ball opened, and his Sandshrew appeared in the morning light, blinking once to orient itself, ears turning. It took in the clearing, the watching faces, the small woolly Pokémon standing twenty feet away — and then looked back at Kai with an expression that said, clear as day, seriously?
"I know," Kai said quietly. "We will make this quick."
Sandshrew turned back to face the Mareep, a nod coming from its head as it got ready to battle.
The girl's expression hadn't changed. Whatever she'd been expecting, she hadn't blinked. Kai respected that, even as he quietly felt the momentum of this particular match already shifting.
"Mareep," she said, setting her stance. "Thundershock."
Blue-white static crackled up through the fleece, and the air between them tasted briefly of lightning.
Kai smiled, knowing this would be an easy win.
"Sandshrew, use Magnitude!"