The Noctowl hadn't moved.
That was the thing that kept catching at Kai. Snubbull, on the other hand, was already low to the boards.
The elder folded his hands back into his sleeves, looking confident. "Whenever you're ready."
Kai breathed in and let out a deep breath through his nose.
Ice Fang. Thunder Fang has both type advantages, hard hitters, fastest thing we have... Kai thought, knowing he had to make the first move.
"Alright, Snubbull — Ice Fang, get in close!"
She was gone before the order had finished leaving his mouth.
Low, fast, claws scrabbling for purchase on the worn boards — Snubbull tore across the floor with her ears pinned flat, jaws cracking open. Cold spilt out of her throat in a pale rush, the air around her teeth dropping in a sudden, biting plume. Kai could see it. The mist of her breath, the white frost crusting fang by fang in real time, the floorboards going dull under her feet as she went.
She closed the distance in three bounds.
"Noctowl. Dodge."
That was all the elder said.
The Noctowl spread its wings.
And Kai's breath caught — half a heartbeat — just half, because something was wrong about it. There was no rustle of feathers. No soft thump of air. The sun was still spilling through the screen-windows in long warm strips, and the bird should have made some sound, some movement of air across the boards—
Nothing.
One blink, the owl was there.
The next, it wasn't.
A blur of brown and silver rose straight up — clean, vertical, impossibly smooth, like gravity had quietly let go for a second and put it back down once it was finished. Sunlight rolled along the curve of its wings, catching at the edges. Snubbull was already lunging in with a savage snarl, frost crackling around her jaws—
"SNUB—!"
CRACK!
Her bite slammed shut on splintering wood. Ice exploded outward in a spray of white shards and frosted dust — a chunk of floorboard the size of Kai's hand spun loose, skating across the room. A puff of cold mist hung where Noctowl had been a half-second before.
Five feet above her, the owl drifted.
No flap. No correction. No wasted motion.
Just hanging there — like something painted onto the air.
Kai felt the chill go down his spine before the cold even reached him. The Noctowl's deep amber eyes glinted down through the dust-motes, calm, unreadable, already moving onto whatever came next while Snubbull was still skidding through her own miss below.
Snubbull scrabbled. Spun. Hackles up, ears flicking, head twisting left, right — searching.
Move, move, move—
"Up there, Snubbull — Thunder Fang!"
Her head snapped up, and she found it instantly.
Snubbull launched.
Sparks crackled blue-white round her open jaws before her feet had even left the boards — and she got high. Higher than Kai expected. A clean, snarling leap, fangs forking with electricity, the kind of strike that would've taken any Hoothoot he'd seen in Johto so far straight across the throat—
But this wasn't a Hoothoot.
The Noctowl tilted its body. Two inches. Maybe less.
Thunder Fang snapped shut on empty air.
Snubbull dropped and hit the boards hard — thump — rolled with it, came up snarling, fur bristling, breath fogging in pissed-off little puffs.
"Noctowl, use Confusion."
The owl's amber eyes brightened — a faint, slow warming behind the irises, like a coal turning over.
And the air around Snubbull shuddered.
Kai felt it, in his back teeth, behind his eyes — a wrongness, a press, like the pressure dropping before a storm. The sunlight pooling on the boards rippled like the surface of a heated pan. Snubbull's legs left the floor. Just lifted. Her little body suspended, paws kicking at nothing, her face going from snarl to wide-eyed startle in a single beat of confusion.
And then she flew.
Sideways. Hard. Slamming into one of the heavy wooden support pillars with a hollow, gut-deep thoom that ran up through the floor and into Kai's boots.
The whole pillar shook. Dust drifted down out of the rafters in a slow, sunlit curtain.
Snubbull dropped. Hit the floor. Lay there panting.
"Snubbull!"
Kai was already a step forward before he caught himself. His hand was halfway to his belt. Sandshrew's claws were tight in his shoulder — that small, anchoring grip that had become a thing he relied on without knowing it.
She got up. Slowly. Shakily. One paw, then the other. The side of her face was dusty, one ear bent the wrong way, fangs still bared — a low, guttural growl rolling in her chest that said no, no, I'm not finished, get me back in there.
Kai's stomach turned as he watched.
That hurt her. That properly hurt her. And he barely moved.
Is that what a psychic attack actually looks like?
He could feel his pulse in his throat. Knowing that psychic Pokémon in the anime were considered extremely powerful.
"Snubbull, get back in! Ice Fang, this time go low — under the wings!"
Snubbull moved, shoulders flat to the boards, claws clicking on the wood, jaws frosting up all over again as she dropped into that fast, ground-eating charge.
Kai watched, wondering if he should have used Scary Face to try to drop the Noctowl's speed first, knowing that it was too late for that.
"Noctowl, use Hypnosis."
The elder's voice didn't lift. It didn't need to.
The owl's eyes opened — fully — and Kai felt his stomach go cold.
Two amber discs, growing wide, luminous, drinking in the daylight and giving it back wrong. Two slow concentric rings expanded out across the irises, pale and ever-shifting, like rippling water in golden light.
Snubbull's legs went from under her mid-stride.
She skidded. Ten feet, on her own momentum. Jaws still parted, the cold still curling out of them in a thin, dying wisp — and then she just... folded. Front paws splaying out. Chin sliding forward onto the wooden boards. Breathing slowing. Slowing. Settling into the deep, steady draw of something that wasn't sleep — something deeper than sleep, the way a tide pulled out.
"No — Snubbull, wake up, come on — Snubbull—" Kai yelled.
His voice didn't reach her.
He'd known deep down the second he saw the rings.
But the terror wasn't over yet.
"Now, Noctowl. Dream Eater."
A thin, dark shimmer crossed the air between them — like a heat haze, but the wrong colour. Wrong direction. Something being drawn rather than given. Snubbull's body twitched once. A small whine, less a sound than a feeling, leaked out of her chest, looking like a nightmare was being ripped out from the small Pokémon's mind and fed on by the Noctowl.
Kai's hand was already on Snubull's Poke Ball.
"Snubbull, return!"
The red light pulled her back almost too late. He felt it close round his fingers, warm — too warm, the kind of warm a Ball got when something inside it had taken more than it should have — and his stomach turned over properly this time.
He stood there a moment with the Poké Ball in his palm.
Sandshrew's claws didn't loosen on his shoulder. If anything, they tightened, with the small Pokémon giving him a worried look.
Across the floorboards, Noctowl drifted slowly back down to where it had started. Silent. Crimson-amber eyes settling on him. Watching and waiting.
The elder folded his hands back into his sleeves.
"I did warn you, young man," he said quietly. "I wouldn't make it easy."
The elder watched him with that same calm, unreadable face. No triumph. No pity. Just attention.
"A difficult opponent, isn't it?" He then said, wondering how Kai would respond.
"Yeah..." Kai's voice came out thinner than he wanted. "Yeah, it is... Amazing."
He clipped Snubbull's Ball back to his belt.
"I guess its over..." Kai then said, knowing that he had lost with two Pokemon.
However, the elder had a questioning look about him.
"Over, so soon?" He asked.
"Yeah, you have beaten both of my Pokemon, two on two right?"
The elder simply smiled as he closed his eyes.
"I don't remember there being a rule on how many Pokémon you could use... I only have two, but you may use all six if that's what it takes." He then said, breathing a spark back into the air.
"Unless you wish to forefit."
Kai was shocked, but then guessed that this was a test, not a fair battle or a tournament.
"Well, in that case..." Kai said, trying to think what his next play was.
Noctowl is a Flying type... It's big, smart, and silent. It knows Confusion — and Hypnosis. Which is the real problem? Once it's got eyes on you, you're done... Kai thought.
Totodile had the longest range with its Water Gun attack.
Let's try you then, buddy...
"Alright, Totodile — let's go!" Kai yelled as he threw Totodile's Poké Ball into the air.
Totodile burst out of the red light, already snapping his jaws on reflex, low and crouched. He saw Noctowl and immediately puffed himself up — chest out, jaw set, the way he did when he wasn't sure how big the other thing was and had decided to be bigger anyway.
"Toto!" he barked, voice cracking with the bravado, looking slightly behind him at Kai and then back toward the Noctowl.
Kai felt a small, helpless smile pull at his mouth.
"Alright, get it together, Totodile, this isn't going to be easy!" Kai yelled before giving his Totodile a command.
"Dile!" The small crocodile said, a serious look appearing on its face.
"Water Gun! Don't give it room!" Kai yelled.
Totodile hit the floor running.
His claws scraped across the boards as he skidded sideways, whipping his head up mid-slide. Water suddenly exploded from his jaws in a pressurised blast — a roaring surge that tore splinters from the floor where it passed. The recoil shoved his whole body backwards, tail lashing furiously to keep its balance.
"Noctowl, Gust." The elder said, not flinching.
Noctowl moved one wing, and the downbeat cracked through the room.
Air slammed forward in a visible shockwave. Totodile's Water Gun collided with it head-on and burst apart into white spray.
Kai threw an arm over his face as cold mist blasted past him, droplets of water soaking him and the gust that followed nearly ripped off his cap.
"Again! Full power, Totodile!" Kai said, not bothered that he was soaked.
"TOOOO!"
Totodile planted both feet and unleashed another spiralling torrent, charging behind it with reckless energy. Water corkscrewed through the mist like a launched cannon as Totodile sprinted low behind the attack, jaws glowing blue with pressure.
Noctowl drifted backwards lazily, unleashing another wingbeat.
The Gust peeled the Water Gun sideways instead of stopping it outright, smashing the attack into the floorboards in violent sprays that soaked the battlefield even further.
Range isn't working... Kai thought, watching the battle unfold.
"Totodile — rush it! Get underneath!"
Totodile launched forward instantly.
He hit the slick boards low, almost in a crawl position, then sprang upward through the mist with a wild snap of his jaws—
"Confusion."
Suddenly, the air warped, and Totodile froze mid-leap.
For one incredibly stupid second, Totodile's face went completely blank, as if its brain had just disconnected from reality. One eye drifted slightly outward, and his limbs paddled at absolutely nothing in the air.
Then gravity seemed to forget which direction it was supposed to work.
Totodile rotated sideways in the air with a startled "rrraaaoo?" expression, tiny arms windmilling furiously as if he could somehow swim out of the psychic force.
Kai had the horrifying realisation that it almost looked like Totodile was trying to run in midair.
Then the spin accelerated.
Totodile's eyes widened in pure betrayal right before he was hurled downward.
CRACK.
He slammed shoulder-first into the floorboards hard enough to bounce once across the wet wood.
"Totodile!"
Totodile lay there for half a second, face down, twitching slightly from the impact.
Then one little claw lifted weakly into the air like he was demanding a rematch with physics itself.
Kai nearly laughed from sheer relief that Totodile was alright.
Totodile rolled over with an angry snarl before forcing himself upright, soaked, dizzy, and glaring murderously at Noctowl with one eye still slightly unfocused.
Still fighting... For now.
With a furious roar, he snapped his head upward and unleashed another Water Gun straight overhead.
The blast tore through empty air.
Noctowl had already drifted elsewhere, silent as smoke.
"Noctowl, use Hypnosis."
The owl's eyes glowed at the command.
"No— Totodile, don't look at it!"
Totodile reacted instantly. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his snout low against the soaked boards, claws digging into the wood as though he could physically anchor himself awake.
For a second—
Two—
Kai thought he'd managed it.
Then the pale rings spread anyway through the drifting mist and reflected across the puddles scattered around the battlefield.
Totodile stiffened.
Trembled.
Then slowly sagged forward, jaw tapping softly against the floor as it dropped to the ground asleep.
"No... Return, Totodile!"
Kai pulled Totodile back before the elder could use Dream Eater. He wasn't going to watch that happen again and allow Totodile to get hurt for nothing.
His hand was shaking a little when he clipped the Ball. Something he hoped the elder didn't see.
The elder didn't say anything. He simply waited for Kai to choose his next Pokémon.
Snubbull was unable to close the gap, and Totodile couldn't capitalise on the range. Both were struck by Hypnosis the instant they committed to an approach. Rattata possesses Quick Attack—if any of my team can bypass that Hypnosis, its sheer speed alone might be enough. Kai thought as he was left three Pokémon down, staring into the eyes of the Noctowl, trying to think of what to do next.
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That's the end of that chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! I really tried to make these battles as dynamic as I could, wanting to really feel the pressure of battling a fully evolved Pokémon with training compared to his other battles so far.
Please drop a review if you are enjoying the story so far! Anyway have a great day and thanks for reading.