After three days of training, the day has come for Lazarus and Kamish to find out if the fruits of their labor will yield them a successful victory against their previous foe or not.
Lazarus stands and watches the dome as Kamish and Nuzleaf are released inside. And just like last time, Nuzleaf disappears inside the flowerbed while Kamish floats in the sky.
The announcer announces the contestants and rules of the match, "This is a rematch between trainer Lazarus's Dreepy and trainer Alicia's Nuzleaf. At their request the arena for this match is a flowerbed. The match will last the standard fifteen minutes and will being in two minutes."
"Do exactly what we talked about." Lazarus says into the mic, "Last time we were on the defensive, this time we will do the exact opposite and attack first. I want you to end this match as soon as you can. You have spent hours training for this match. There is no way you will lose to it."
Inside the dome, Kamish nods and waits for the match to start and the moment it does, Kamish channels dragon force throughout his body and starts spinning in its axis like a fan blade and hurls itself towards the flowerbeds.
The spinning dragon cuts through the flowerbed at a remarkable speed, demolishing everything that comes in contact with his body. Inside the tall flowers, the hiding Nuzleaf panics and starts running through the forest of color.
Lazarus doesn't fail to notice the withering of flowers this time and says, "It's going to do the same thing again, but you are ready. Cut through everything that is green and dodge anything infused with darkness."
Vines erupt from different parts of the arena and shoot towards Kamish, trying to grab onto him, but Kamish cuts through these vines just as easily as he cut through the flowers.
The vines keep coming, they multiply in numbers as Nuzleaf scatters more and more seeds throughout the arena and siphons energy from the flowers.
Kamish keeps cutting through the vines and keeps advancing forward. He stops spinning from time to time to get a visual on Nuzleaf who is easy to spot cause of it running around the flowerbed and starts cutting through the flowers again, destroying the chances of Nuzleaf being able to hide for much longer.
After Kamish stops spinning to get a visual again, a barrage of dark leaves shoot out towards him. This storm of leaf blades is not comparable to the one Nuzleaf used in the last match, this one is smaller and much less potent in its darkness.
Kamish doesn't try to power through the leaf barrage like he did last time, instead he uses his nimbleness and swiftness to pass safely through the gaps between the leaf blades.
A few sharp leaves hit and shatter against Kamish's body but it's no big deal, the pain is manageable.
After the leaf barrage ends, Nuzleaf is now out in the open as most of the flowerbed is either destroyed or withered, turned into energy for the grass and dark pokemon.
And the arena is filled with vines as they keep multiplying every second.
Kamish spots Nuzleaf and commands his body to release as much dragon force as it can, and dashes towards it.
Nuzleaf sees this and commands the vines to gather in front of it to create a shield. The smaller and thinner vines all twist and weave against each other to create a thick wall of vines to protect Nuzleaf from the incoming dragon.
Creating the wall of vines took half of the energy Nuzleaf had gathered from the garden, and then it uses the remaining half to conjure a claw of darkness on both of his hands.
And there it is. Their plain laid bare in front of Lazarus, Kamish will take at ten seconds to tear through the wall which will be enough for Nuzleaf to use its shadow claw on Kamish.
But Lazarus smiles, "On my cue. Kamish. You know what to do."
Nuzleaf waits behind the wall of vines. Its shadowy swirling claws threaten to finish the dragon in one hit.
"Now."
Less than a second before Kamish's body makes contact with the vines, he turns his body intangible. His serpentine body phases through the vines without any sort of resistance and arrives in front of Nuzleaf, ten seconds earlier than it was ready for.
Before Nuzleaf could register the surprise, Kamish's body collides against Nuzleaf so hard that the grass pokemon is knocked straight into the acrylic shield of the dome.
"Take him in the air. Spin and throw."
Kamish quickly reaches the Nuzleaf, who is hurt but still isn't ready to give up the fight, and uses his tail to grab onto Nuzleaf's ankle, careful to avoid the two shadowy claws in its hands and flies upwards.
There in the air, with his tail grabbing onto Nuzleaf, Kamish spins like a blade again and then throws Nuzleaf.
The grass pokemon slams against the shield of the dome again and gets knocked out, and the match ends in Kamish's victory.
—
"Wow. I am actually impressed with how that match went. I thought I had a pretty good strategy designed for the rematch but clearly I was wrong. Ghost pokemon are such a pain to deal with. Maybe I should get one of my own." Alicia says thoughtfully as she reaches for Lazarus's hand and shakes it.
"Honestly, you still might have won if Kamish couldn't turn intangible and phase through those vines." Lazarus says.
"Agh, I don't know. You don't need to comfort me, my plan was going awry from the start, with that spinning nonsense you guys did. What even was that? I have never seen anyone do something like that before. How did you guys get so strong this fast anway?"
"It's all thanks to you actually. If your Nuzleaf hadn't defeated Kamish then he wouldn't have become as motivated to train as he did."
Alicia pouts, "So are you saying it's out fault we lost?"
"No, I'm saying I am glad I met you as an opponent. You being such a good trainer made both me and my pokemon more motivated to get stronger, we couldn't have done it with without having crossed paths with you."
Alicia giggles, "Aww does that mean we are rivals now?"
Lazarus laughs as well, "If that's what you want to call it. I'd be more than happy to give you a rematch if you can keep up with us."
Alicia sighs, "I would love to have another rematch with you but I am gonna be leaving for the gym circuit today. But I know we will meet again somewhere along the way and when we do I'll have become a better trainer than I am right now, we will have another match then. Until then don't slack off."
"Good luck on your journey, know that I am rooting for you. And I look forward to our next meeting."
After exchanging their contact information and saying their goodbyes, Lazarus retrieves Kamish's pokemon from the arena pokecenter and goes to the audience seating area to meet up with Mike.
Aurora is sitting in the seat next to Mike, she excitedly yips when she sees Lazarus approaching.
Lazarus grabs Aurora and puts her in his lap as he takes his seat.
"Not bad, Not bad." Mike says to Lazarus, "It's not everyday a new trainer surprises you with stuff like this. Don't think I have seen anyone else do that spinning thing before. Especially not a Dreepy, you might be the first one."
Lazarus smiles as he reaches for his belt and unclips kamish's pokeball, "I got the idea for it while we were training Kamish's intangibility."
Then he releases Kamish from his pokeball. The first thing Kamish does after being out is Lazarus with his body, and then he hugs Aurora, who like always gives him a head pat.
"You did good Kamish. You were phenomenal out there." Lazarus says as he caresses Kamish's head, which makes Kamish squeal in delight.
Mike turns to Lazarus and says, "I want you to watch the next match, it should be pretty interesting. Who knows? You might get to see something surprising."
"Oh really? That makes me pretty curious now."Lazarus looks towards the arena and sees the the previous flowerbed floor recedes into the ground and it's replaced by another one. This one has cracked stone and concrete everywhere with a few pillars, some fully erect while some are half collapsed. It looks like the site of an ancient ruin.
While Aurora and Kamish play with each other, the announcer introduces the contestants of for the next match, "The next match will take place between trainer Steve's Piplup and the lone Chimchar. Standard rules apply for the match, it will last for fifteen minutes…"
"Lone Chimchar? What does that mean? Does the Chimchar not have a trainer?"
"Yep, I'll tell you more after the match."