Metallica Fanboy vs. Superbird, Round One
Pre-Round Stats
Metallica Fanboy (2/2 Pokémon Remaining)
Hawmucha Hawlucha (M) [Limber] @ Mental Herb
Health: 100%
Energy: 100%
Base Stats: +1 Attack, -1 Special Defense, 118 Speed
OT: Metallica Fanboy
Status: Fresh from the Foremost World Renowned International School of Lucha, ready to practice his way of life. (0/7 chills | 0% chance of disobedience)
Hawmucha Hawlucha's Commands:
Substitute (15%) ~ Payback (wait)/Fly (up) ~ Fly (up)/Fly (down, wait)
Superbird (2/2 Pokémon Remaining)
Quabbel (M) [Cursed Body] @ Lucky Egg
Health: 100%
Energy: 100%
Base Stats: -1 Attack, +1 Special Defense, 40 Speed
OT: Superbird
Status: Muttering darkly about the temperature as he waits for instruction. (0/7 chills | 0% chance of disobedience)
Quabbel's Commands:
Bind/Acid Armor/Ice Beam ~ Will-O-Wisp/Ice Beam/Bind ~ Will-O-Wisp/Ice Beam/Bind
Pilferbot
Health: ∞
Energy: ∞
Status: The Pilferbot came down to Asber, it was lookin' for a 'mon to steal...
Arena: Pilferbot Returns!
Round One: Begin
It's a lovely day for a battle, or at least as lovely as days ever get out in the barren wastes far from Central Asber.
Someone out there can probably see something poetic or calming in the intense heat, the flat, featureless terrain and the occasional choking dust devil, anyway. Someone. Probably. Perhaps this hypothetical optimistic person might even be able to appreciate the sharp grating and clunking noises that break the silence at random intervals as a large, mysterious contraption on a single wobbly wheel putters aimlessly back and forth across the dusty expanse. Probably.
Quabbel the frillish is not that person. He can't find a single redeeming quality in this hot, ugly wasteland, not its gusts of dry wind or the total absence of water or the fact that there isn't even any shade he can park himself in to avoid the worst of this blasted light, and that noisy rustbucket crashing away over there is not improving his mood. He doesn't know what a "Pilferbot" is, exactly, or why his trainer seemed so interested in a chance to head out here looking for one, but it had better be pretty damn exciting to make up for this awful, awful battlefield. He gives Superbird an over-the-shoulder withering glare just to make sure he's gotten his displeasure across.
There is some small consolation—
very small—in the fact that his opponent doesn't seem too enthusiastic about this place, either. Oh, sure, last he saw the hawlucha was bouncing from foot to foot, humming some sort of unfamiliar but catchy tune under his breath as he waited for orders, but Quabbel saw how Hawmucha Hawlucha would stop every now and then to fan himself with a wing. If it's too hot even for something that doesn't spend most of its time in the water then it's definitely too hot for him... and if Superbird's going to insist on staying out here waiting for Pilferbots to happen or whatever it is, then Quabbel's going to have to try and cool things down for the both of them.
Just as he's congratulating himself for that bit of sparkling wit—cool off, heh, it's a good thing all this heat hasn't gone to his head yet—Quabbel looks back at his opponent and sees that something is very wrong with Hawmucha Hawlucha. Or, well, Hawmucha himself still seems to be alert and in peak condition, still watching him eagerly, still fanning himself slightly, still humming that odd little earworm tune... it's just that there are
two of him now. A second hawlucha, a little pale and dusty-looking but still every bit as energetic, is bouncing back and forth right alongside the original. The two birds laugh—Hawmucha aloud, his doppelganger silently—at Quabbel's confusion. Why on earth
shouldn't he have brought a tag team partner to the party? Everyone knows that the excitement and entertainment of a high-stakes match can only be improved by
more luchador!
Quabbel grumbles under his breath, cursing his inattention but accepting that there's not much he can do about it at this point. He holds his tentacles out in front of him and summons a sphere of icy energy, allows himself just a moment to relish the sudden chill, and sends the energy rocketing out as a sparkling beam. The brilliant blue light shoots straight toward Hawmucha Hawlucha, but without missing a beat he tags his substitute's hand and the newcomer leaps into the ice beam's path.
Hawmucha's substitute picks itself up after the blow, its body sporting a few harsh cracks and a thick coating of ice across its chest but still largely in one piece, and once again places itself directly in front of the original. The real Hawmucha seems content to watch from behind his partner for now—and to snicker at Quabbel's mounting frustration. The frillish grimaces and conjures up another icy sphere, doing his best to tune out the hawlucha's giggling and the persistent
clink-clonk-CLINK-CLONK somewhere off to his right, and once again lets the ice beam fly. This time the blast of ice is too much for the substitute to bear, and it falls to pieces with a satisfying
snap...
...leaving nothing in Hawmucha Hawlucha's path as he charges forward, arm drawn back for a savage strike. The hawlucha slams his fist into Quabbel's body with terrible force, driving it deep into the ectoplasm and screeching a melodramatic "Iiiiiit's
payback time!" right down the frillish's ear. Quabbel goes down hard, reeling and nursing the sting of the dark energy still lingering around the site of impact, while Hawmucha skids to a halt several feet behind him and resumes his triumphant snickering.
Okay, that tears it. Quabbel springs up from the ground, pain momentarily forgotten in lieu of an intense desire to wrap his tentacles around Hawmucha's throat and squeeze, squeeze,
squeeze until he's throttled the mocking laughter right out of the feathery prick. His tentacles lash out, groping madly for his opponent's neck, but they circle around only empty air and feel nothing but a brief downdraft from the bird's wings.
Each wingstroke moves Hawmucha Hawlucha further and further away from the frustrated flailings of the hapless frillish on the ground. He smiles and allows himself a little joke as he watches Quabbel's shape shrink into an indistinct blue smudge, then an ant, then almost nothing.
I must go, he chuckles mentally.
My lucha planet needs me.
But Pilferbot needs him more.
The robot, content to sputter and stagger back and forth on the battle's periphery until now, screeches to a halt in a cloud of dust. The door on its chest snaps open, and a robotic hand, twitching with barely-restrained, itchy-fingered anticipation, rockets toward the sky. Up, up, up it shoots, reaching higher and higher on a stretchy, springy arm that seems to have no end, until...
One moment Hawmucha Hawlucha is imagining just how glorious an actual lucha planet would be, and the next five cold, metallic fingers have clamped around his body, pinning his arms to his sides and bringing his majestic soaring to a sudden stop. Then Pilferbot's arm retracts just as quickly and Hawmucha goes plummeting toward the earth, feeling the familiar rushing and swooping of freefall in his stomach but terrified that, this time, he's not in control. Just before the ground rushes up to meet him he's yanked sharply to the left and disappears into the opening in Pilferbot's chest. The hand releases him abruptly and leaves him to tumble in a dark, featureless void, the only sounds the clanking of half-rusted gears and the pounding of his own heart.
Outside, Quabbel's wide-eyed stare of disbelief quickly changes to one of horror as Pilferbot's hungry hand launches out of the opening and barrels right toward him. The frillish panics and fades into intangibility, hoping desperately that the attack will pass straight through him, but Pilferbot will not be deterred—somehow, perhaps via some strange technology or just sheer, scrappy determination, the fingers lock tightly around Quabbel's tentacles and drag him backward into the darkness. The chest hatch slams shut behind him, his panicked cries are drowned out by the sudden loud whirring of intense processing and decision-making from somewhere deep within the robot's mechanical brains, and both trainers are left to wait on tenterhooks for what happens next.
Espeon is not particularly nervous as he stands beneath the challenge board in central Asber, scanning the posted challenges and notices for anything that looks interesting. It's been a very long time since he's had a good match, and he knows his team is eager to get back into the swing of things, too. He reaches out to move an ad about dance lessons away from a proper challenge posting, one that, based on what he can see, might be a nice, watery battle to help him evolve Astaria. A metallic hand closes around his own before he can touch the flyer.
Pilferbot's iron grip, springy arm seemingly stretching out of the empty space above the challenge board, heaves Espeon clear into the air. Oblivious to his shout of surprise or his desperate struggling, Pilferbot shakes him violently by the wrist, swinging him around in midair like a rag doll. The first few nearby trainers to recover from their shock reach instinctively for their pokémon, but before they can send out any help the assault has its desired effect. Two poké balls shake free of the clips on Espeon's belt and tumble toward the ground, then are caught by a second disembodied robot hand just before they hit the grass. The hand clutching the poké balls retracts into nothingness and, moments later, so does the first, leaving Espeon and his badly-bruised wrist to fall to the earth with a
thud.
Back out in the wastes, Pilferbot's processing whirr stops abruptly and its chest door clanks open again. Out shoots a metallic hand, its fingers still wrapped tightly around two poké balls. The hand pauses briefly to open one of them over the spot where Quabbel had once hovered, then launches itself straight upward almost as soon as the white light fades into the shape of a very confused skrelp. Albus shudders for a moment, trying to adjust to the sudden dry heat and to keep himself upright in the absence of any water. There's nothing out here at all, in fact, just arid, dusty flatness as far as he can see. How did he even get here? Where's Espeon? Who are these people? And one more question springs to mind just as Pilferbot's hand reaches Hawmucha Hawlucha's original height, opens the second poké ball and then lets it drop back to the ground: who's doing all that yelling?
The skrelp looks up just in time to see a red blur come hurtling out of the blue, screaming at the top of its lungs until it comes to an abrupt stop several meters away from where Albus sits. Everyone present flinches at the impact (except Pilferbot, currently patting itself on the back for a pilfering well-pilfered), then again as, half a second later, the open poké ball bounces off the head of the pokémon currently pancaked on the ground. A charmeleon can be seen levering itself up on one shaky arm as the dust clears, and Albus does a double-take—Mars? Is that
Mars? What in the name of Davy Jones's Locker is
Mars doing falling out of the sky? He glances around wildly again, desperately hoping that their trainer might appear and provide an explanation for this madness, but the only trainer around who seems to be paying him much attention is Superbird.
Mars, for his part, can only whimper as he tries to get to his feet. Later, he, too, will probably have many questions—where is he, where's Espeon, what's Albus doing here,
what happened—but for now all he can think is that Espeon really
does need to get him to another battle soon. He could've been a charizard by now, you know. This sort of thing wouldn't happen to a charizard.
Round One: End
Post-Round Stats
Metallica Fanboy (2/2 Pokémon Remaining)
Hawmucha Hawlucha Mars (M) [Blaze]
Health: 80%
Energy: 81%
Base Stats: +1 Special Attack, -1 Defense, 80 Speed
OT: Espeon
Status: Just three measly experience points and this tragic charmeleon-shaped hole in the ground could've been avoided. (0/7 chills | 15% chance of disobedience)
Superbird (2/2 Pokémon Remaining)
Quabbel Albus (M) [Adaptability]
Health: 84%
Energy: 89%
Base Stats: 30 Speed
OT: Espeon
Status: If someone could kindly explain to him where he is and why it's raining his friends, that'd be awesome. (0/7 chills | 15% chance of disobedience)
Pilferbot
Health: ∞
Energy: ∞
Status: Two flawless filchings right off the bat! Back in top form already, baby.
Arena Status: The flat, empty wasteland is largely unchanged, although there is a shallow indentation in the ground that Mars is currently peeling himself out of.
Calcs
-Substitute: 8 energy
-Ice Beam A1: 14 damage, 5 energy
-Ice Beam A2: 14 damage, 5 energy
-Payback: 16 damage, 6 energy
-Fly up: 5 energy (upkeep of 2 energy/action on all subsequent airborne actions... not that it matters now)
-Bind: 0 damage (missed), 1 energy
-splatmeleon: 5 damage
Ref's Notes
-Sorry for the inexcusable delay—I was cramming in work for a project, and then oops somehow the post-action stuff ended up being the length of a reffing in and of itself? And then somehow after getting the calcs and the post-action done it stalled for months????? But seriously, please, please don't hesitate to remind me sooner next time!
-Because there was such a large gap between the calcs/the ending and the rest of this actual write-up, it's possible I've overlooked something or messed up somewhere. I did give this a proofread and give the rules another scan just to make sure I didn't miss anything important, but it was
quick so I could get this out to you guys. Feel free to give a holler if something is in fact wrong.
-Calcs available above, since I guess all the cool kids are doing it now. Feel free to ask if any actions need further clarification or if you need to see a more detailed breakdown or whatever. Still not sure what all's worth going in there.
-(I... wasn't actually sure how much to take off for the ask-and-you-shall-receive splatmeleon, though. I figure 5% is fair for now.)
-Since I do apply base stat modifiers in my reffings, and since we're all being transparent anyway, I decided to add my base stat modifiers to the battler status as well. Those modifiers add/subtract the stated amount from damage given/dealt after all other calculations (so, for example, ice beam normally does 14% to a hawlucha instead of 13%). Skrelp has no bonuses or penalties because its non-speed/HP stats are all the same, just fyi.
-Frillish's XY sprite doesn't want to work for some reason. Not that it matters anymore, but yeah, that's why it's different.
-It's just a TCG coin. Although I do have a metal lugia coin lying around somewhere. Still TCG, but even fancier. ...I should find it.
-There were somewhere under 1750 pokémon registered in the DB as of when I first randomized the pilferees, according to my URL-fiddling. Somehow, both of this round's replacements were within 30 IDs of one another and thus belonged to the same person. This next round brought to you by a very generous donation from Espeon, I suppose. (I'm tempted to increase the disobedience chance because why hurt frans? :(, but... eh.)
-Pilferbot was too busy being satisfied with its work to attack... this time.
-
Metallica Fanboy attacks first next round.
Earth Dragon the male Shelgon <Rock Head> @ Life Orb
Daremyth the female Igglybuff <Cute Charm> @ Moon Stone
Scorpicore the female Skorupi <Sniper> @ Lansat Berry
Swing Shark the female Carvanha <Rough Skin> @ Scope Lens
Fort the male Shieldon <Sturdy> @ Jaboca Berry
Kanine West the male Snubbull <Intimidate> @ Red Card
Reaper the female Phantump <Harvest> @ Enigma Berry
Hawmucha Hawlucha the male Hawlucha <Limber> @ Mental Herb
My Lips Don't Lie the female Smoochum <Forewarn> @ Lucky Egg
Garage Wolf the female Eevee <Adaptability> @ Thunder Stone
Firestrike the male Combusken <Blaze>
Gorouna the female Graveler <Sturdy> @ Eviolite
Natalie the female Xatu <Synchronize>
Drilbud the female Ferroseed <Iron Barbs> @ Moon Stone
Jonathon the male Togepi <Serene Grace>
Quabbel the male Frillish <Cursed Body> @ Lucky Egg
Deru the female Houndour <Flash Fire> @ Choice Specs
Meta the genderless Ditto <Limber> @ Metal Powder
Megabird the male Rufflet <Sheer Force> @ Lucky Egg
Bill the male Quilladin <Bulletproof> @ Insect Plate
