The daily grind continues. It's their fourth day in the Horseshoe Plains, and their training proceeds as usual.
Aurora is squaring off against Eidolon today.
The Alolan Vulpix fires an ice beam at the Beldum floating in the air.
Eidolon doesn't dodge, the ice crystals don't form on his body. He is of the strongest steel-type species on the planet, and ice doesn't affect him.
Aurora stops the beam and then shoots a dozen ice projectiles at Eidolon, who uses the rocks orbiting around his body to intercept them.
All the ice shatters against the rocks, and Aurora frowns, not sure what to do next.
She had tried the Blizzard before, which didn't work, the Ice Beam didn't work, ice projectiles don't work either.
She tries to think of a way to bypass Eidolon's defenses.
She can't.
Left with no other option, she uses as much energy as she is capable of harnessing at once and creates ice shards again.
Icy mist forms around her body as she pours all her energy into creating as many ice shards as she can. She also makes them as tough as she can.
Hundreds of ice shards hover above her. She is in no hurry to make her move. She knows Eidolon will wait for her, as he isn't allowed to move from his place, all he can do is intercept anything that comes his way with the things he is levitating.
Minutes later, she throws the ice shards at Eidolon, ten of them at once.
Eidolon intercepts the first ten shards without any problem. The speed of his levitation is faster than Aurora's shards, so he only has to use five rocks to intercept ten shards.
And then Aurora fires the next ten shards, shortly followed by another ten to break their uniformity.
Eidolon does the same thing again, but with more rocks. He also decides to make a shield out of some of the forty-something rocks he can currently levitate. The shield is nothing more than a grid of rocks closely packed together.
When the next batch of shards attacks him, he uses the shield to block their path. Most ice shards break against the rock shield, but the impact creates enough force to knock the shield out of the way.
The rocks that made up the shield scatter and fall back towards the ground.
Some shards hit and shatter against Eidolon's body.
Eidolon's left with only twenty-five rocks with him, which aren't enough to protect him from all the shards Aurora has, so he needs to pick up all of the rocks that fell to the ground.
Aurora uses this opportunity wisely and hurls half of her shard stash at him. More than thirty shards fly towards Eidolon, these shards have been made harder by her constantly reinforcing them with her energy.
Eidolon tries to intercept the ice with only the twenty-five rocks he has floating around himself.
These shards are harder than the ones from before, so as they shatter against the rocks, they knock them out of the way.
Eidolon loses control of every single rock he had floating. The five or six shards that didn't have a rock to intercept them collide against his metallic body.
He tries to pick up the fallen rocks as fast as he can, but sees that Aurora has already released all her remaining ice shards at him. He doesn't have enough time to pick up the rocks.
At this point, he can either take all the hits, which won't be a problem at all, his body is strong enough that an attack of this caliber will not hurt him, or he can pick up some of the rocks to intercept some of the shards and let the rest hit him.
But maybe there is something else he can do?
Seconds away from impact, he tries to think of a way to have none of the ice shards hit him, and manages to find one relatively quickly.
Eidolon gives up trying to pick up the rocks and instead focuses his psychic energy on the incoming ice projectiles and tries to levitate his way out of this problem.
If he had tried to do this while Aurora's energy still had an influence over the ice shards, then it wouldn't have worked, but after they were accelerated, nothing is stopping Eidolon from taking over the ice.
All the shards come to a stop in front of him, inches away from striking his body, as he takes control of the ice.
Then Eidolon flips the shards and points all of them towards Aurora.
Aurora sighs. This brother of hers is just as much of a cheater as the other brother. One can turn intangible to phase through your attack, while the other can just take over your attack itself. How is a small fox supposed to fight against these freaks of nature?
"Stop," Lazarus's voice calls out.
Eidolon drops all the shards to the ground.
"Great match." Lazarus says, "Eidolon wins. Eidolon, you did everything perfectly, even with the limitations I placed on you. Your control is much better than when we started this, and taking over the ice was a clever move. I was wondering if you would figure it out, and you did. Good job. Aurora, I hope you are not discouraged. You had a type disadvantage against him, and you can't freely control your ice as he can control his rocks. You did the best you could. That is more than enough."
Aurora nods. She has made peace with the fact that she might always remain the weakest out of the four pokemon under Lazarus's care. But she finds solace in the fact that she is the big sister, so they have to listen to her anyway.
Sol goes to give Aurora a head pat, while Kamish looks at Eidolon and feels the need to become stronger or Eidolon might surpass him.
"Kamish and Sol, you guys are up next."
Kamish and Sol nod and take positions. Eidolon comes to float next to Lazarus as Aurora takes her rightful position in her trainer's arms.
"Aurora, how would you like your ice shards to curve rather than go in a straight line?" He asks her.
Aurora has a look of interest in her eyes and eagerly nods, urging him to explain.
"There is one shape that your ice can take, which will allow it to curve back towards you. It's not super versatile, but it's something you should keep in your arsenal. Who knows when it might prove to be useful."
Aurora wants to know more.
"I'll teach you later, let's watch the match first." He says to Aurora and then turns to Kamish and Sol and gives his permission to start the match.
Kamish channels dragon force around his body and dashes towards Sol.
Sol knew this was coming, he points both his palms downwards and generates a burst of flames, which thrusts him into the air.
He has been practicing increasing the intensity of the flames he can generate from his hands and has gotten a lot better. Though still not as powerful as a flamethrower from his mouth.
Sol dodges Kamish's Dragon Dash by flying into the air. Kamish registers the miss and maneuvers his body to follow Sol in the air.
Sol sees Kamish coming towards him and points his palms in front of him and generates flames, that allows him to dodge the incoming Kamish.
As Sol falls back down, he uses a Flamethrower from his mouth at Kamish.
The flame envelops Kamish but doesn't hurt him, he is resistant to most flames.
Sol uses another flamethrower from his hands to slow down his fall.
He lands safely on the ground, only for Kamish to tackle him.
Sol is knocked away and tries to get up as Kamish prepares for another Dragon Dash.
The moment Sol gets back on his feet, he uses a Flamethrower at Kamish.
A huge torrent of flames envelops Kamish again. A few seconds later, Sol notices that Kamish hasn't come out of the flames. He assumes Kamish must have made himself intangible and is probably waiting for Sol to exhaust his energy, so he stops the flamethrower and braces himself for the impact.
The Dragon Dash impact that Sol was expecting never comes, and Kamish is nowhere to be seen.
Sol looks around in surprise, looking for Kamish. But he can't see him anywhere.
"Whoa." This surprises Lazarus as well. But unlike Sol, he knows exactly what Kamish did.
Sol looks everywhere, towards the right and the left, even the sky. And concludes Kamish must have phased underground.
He prepares a flamethrower. Kamish can't stay inside forever, he has to come out sooner rather than later.
Sol stays like that for a few seconds, waiting.
Suddenly, Kamish appears out of nowhere right next to him, which startles Sol. Sol jumps away from Kamish and stares at him in shock.
Kamish was trying to play a prank on Sol, but his invisibility didn't last long enough for that to happen.
"Kamish wins."
Lazarus approaches the two, with Aurora and Eidolon in tow.
"I'm impressed, Kamish. You learned Invisibility purely by instincts."