Spectators chattered amiably to one another as they filed into the luxurious contest hall, clutching programs and looking forward to an evening of entertainment from some of the most talented coordinators known to TCoD. This being the first contest in quite some time, anticipation was running unusually high. Juggling refreshments, people settled themselves down, all eyes turning towards the stage as people wondered what might lurk on the other side of the nondescript red curtain. When the announcer finally appeared to announce the contest's outset, his voice was easily drowned out by the yells and clapping of the excited crowd. The September Contest was underway!
Appeal Round One
Full Metal Cookies and Jin
Full Metal Cookies, a perennial contest participant, is first to appear onstage in the September competition. Floating by her side is Jin the bronzor, an enigmatic expression on its blue, metallic face. Full Metal Cookies smiles and waves to the crowd before removing herself to a back corner of the room, staying far clear of the middle as Jin floats out in that direction.
The bronzor's eyes glow blue as it taps into its psychic powers, and several of the desks around it are outlined in a pulsing blue aura. With an immense effort of will, the bronzor causes the desks to rise into the air and drift into a cluster in the middle of the room, where they stack themselves into a sort of pyramid shape about a meter and a half high.
There is a small, almost imperceptible pause as the bronzor recovers from this show of mental power before it drifts over to the desk pyramid that it's created and rises to hover above the peak. Its metallic skin sparks with silver energy as it forms a swirling, glittering ball of steel energy in front of its face and drops it to the desks below. The gyro ball comes down hard on top of the pile but merely rolls off and lands with a pronounced crash just to the side of the pile. Undaunted, Jin begins another attack, its entire body glowing with silver light before it shoots a scintillating column of metallic energy straight down. This attack has more of an effect, punching through the desks that it encounters with a concussive cracking noise, splinters flying in all directions as it rips holes through desktops. The pile of desks shudders, momentarily illuminated from within by bright white light, but remains mostly intact and is still standing when Jin breaks off the attack.
Impassive as ever, the bronzor floats down to stage level once again to receive its applause before exiting with its trainer.
6.8
A nice idea, but with some problems in the execution. First of all, gyro ball and flash cannon don't combo well. Secondly, gyro ball is a very slow attack, not something like a cannonball, and it doesn't have the velocity behind it to really punch through a pile of desks as a result.
Chiropter: 7.5
Nice utilization of the “terrain”, such as it is, and a good display of both Jin’s psychic and steel attributes. On the downside, the middle and ending attacks didn’t really flow together very well, but they were still fairly impressive.
moon-panther: 6.5
Kusarigamaitachi and Backfire
The curtain falls, allowing a team of humans and pokémon to scurry onstage and drag away the shattered desks, replacing them with new ones. They sweep up splinters and, with a little psychic assistance, erase the dimple in the floor left by the gyro ball. Trainers just can't seem to control themselves when put near destructable objects, and the stage staff has a
lot of extra desks on hand for this competition. Shortly after they finish, Kusarigamaitachi enters, pokéball in hand. It largely ignores the noise of the audience, many members of whom remember its previous appeals (whether with admiration or distress) and simply sends out its pokémon.
Backfire the cyndaquil takes shape near the center of the room, dwarfed by the desks and chairs on all sides. The little cyndaquil looks rather alone, glancing around with his squinty eyes. The fire patches on his back glow faintly, though this is hardly noticeable, given that he's facing the crowd and the lights in the classroom are much stronger anyway. Backfire finds courage somewhere, though, for despite the eyes of the crowd, he tips back his head and lets out a high, keening howl that quavers through the air, echoing around the empty room. The flames on the cyndaquil's back begin to build as the howl dies away, hissing and crackling even as they start to spread, obscuring the cyndaquil's entire body in a dancing coat of fire. As the flame wheel roars ever higher, Backfire turning his fire power up to the maximum, they bleach from red and orange to white as their power, if not their size, skyrockets. The carpeting beneath the cyndaquil's body blackens and crumbles to ash, varnish on nearby furniture bubbling as intense heat radiates from Backfire's small form. The cyndaquil twists around and releases the immense load of energy towards the teacher's desk, a hissing roar accompanying a geyser of white-hot flame as it roars towards the hated symbol of classroom power. Desks and chairs are thrown out of the way before the overheat slams into the large desk with a roar. The papers and trinkets on it burst into flame or melt almost at once; the large structure itself shudders beneath the blow but stands firm, though as the fire dissipates it is apparent that its entire front panel has been badly scorched, the carpeting vaporized in a long trail leading up to it. Small fires continue to burn at the margins of the scorched carpeting and inside student desks as the supplies inside are consumed; Backfire stands at the far end of the trail of destruction, back flames dancing merrily even as he pants. Kusarigamaitachi doesn't give the cyndaquil long to consider his handiwork, recalling him before the audience can fully recover from his appeal.
Negrek: 8.0
Pretty standard fire appeal; doesn't seem particularly suited to something as small and timid-looking as a cyndaquil. Howl felt a little tacked on.
Chiropter: 8.0
Yes, burn it, burn it all! Well, I’m sure that many a schoolchild would be very pleased with Backfire’s actions here… Anyway, definitely an impressive appeal, though I didn’t think that the Howl was incredibly necessary; a more fire-related move might have been a better fit. It still worked, though.
moon-panther: 7.0
Grass King and Tadpole
As the curtain rises once again, it reveals a classroom returned to its innocently pristine state and Grass King entering through the door at the back of the stage. He smiles and waves to the crowd, who easily recognize him, a veteran of many an ASB contest. Wandering out among the desks, Grass King selects a pokéball from his belt and tosses it into the air, releasing Tadpole the poliwag onto the nearest desktop.
The little poliwag quakes at the sight of so many people watching him, but when a glance at Grass King finds the trainer's face encouraging, the poliwag gathers his resolve and draws water up from his inner stores. Froth bubbles around his lips for a moment before a forceful column of bubbles shoots towards the room's low ceiling. As soon as the bubblebeam is safely away, Tadpole changes tack, dropping his body temperature to drastically low levels, charging a piercing blue orb of ice-type energy in his mouth before shooting a gleaming column straight up and into the remnants of his bubblebeam attack. What bubbles are caught by the attack are frozen instantly, glittering with the pale blue light of the freezing attack. They start to fall back towards the stage, glittering beneath the cheap fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Tadpole's face scrunches up in concentration as he tries to manipulate currents of water into a raging, swirling whirlpool--but unfortunatley, there is no water around to manipulate. Some of the balls of ice drift in lazy circles as they fall through the air, faintly affected by the poliwag's power, but ultimately Tadpole has no hope of getting a proper whirlpool out of them. They rain back to earth, a few bouncing off Tadpole himself, the others smashing on the desk or floor. Tadpole looks crushed by the failure, but the crowd gives him applause nonetheless as he scurries hastily off the stage behind his trainer.
Negrek: 5.5
I think the anime's shown ice beam as freezing bubble/bubblebeam before, otherwise I wouldn't have given you that one. Ice beam's so powerful that it seems more likely to simply pop the bubbles, where icy wind would be a better choice for freezing. In any case, in order to use whirlpool there needs to be some source of standing water to create a whirlpool in.
Chiropter: 7.0
While the lack of a Whirlpool, unfortunately, lost you some points, this appeal definitely had a good start, and I liked the effect of the ice bubbles raining down, even if it wasn’t exactly what you planned.
moon-panther: 7.0
Walker and Delve
This time, there is a much shorter transition period before the stage can be unveiled again, looking as peaceful as though it had never been smashed or torched. The trainer entering is Walker, ready to try out his first contest with a new team of pokémon. From his pokéball there emerges a cloud of mist and malice, a gastly by the name of Delve who cackles with delight at the sight of the crowd gathered to watch his performance.
Almost as soon as he appears, however, the gastly vanishes again, fading into thin air and leaving the arena quiet and empty, save for his trainer's silent presence. Then, turmoil erupts in the classroom: desks are knocked about like ninepins, their contents spraying in all directions. Posters are torn from the wall and go fluttering through the air, while the chalk rises into the air and starts screeching across the blackboard, tracing mad patterns across its empty expanse.
As soon as it began, the chaos stops, levitating desks crashing back to the floor and the chalk clattering back to the lip beneath the chalkboard. Meanwhile, a dark fog starts to roll throughout the room, emanating from empty air near the center of the room. As the haze continues to expand, posters settle back to the floor and drifting papers come to rest, vanishing into the choking, chilly grey. Walker himself is almost totally obscured by the haze before a pair of eyes fades back into visibility at the center of the fog. They glow a baleful red, sweeping over the faces of the audience, who tense as they feel the chilly touch of the grave rippling over their skin.
The eeriness can't go on forever, though; the red eyes stop glowing and the rest of Delve the gastly fades back into view, the haze slowly dissipating. It takes the audience a couple of moments to recover enough to applaud, but as soon as they do, Delve once more begins to cackle, Walker walking up to stand next to him and bowing before recalling the ghost-type.
Negrek: 9.0
Very nice. Simple but effective. Only real problem is that a gastly isn't powerful to cause a huge amount of chaos, but it worked well enough considering what Delve was able to accomplish.
Chiropter: 10.0
(wooooo, poltergeist) Awesome.
moon-panther: 8.0
Kunai and Raikage
Another miraculous makeover job leaves the stage ready for Kunai, and the somewhat rattled audience gives him a warm welcome as he steps onstage. Tossing a pokéball into the air, he calls forth Raikage, an energetic electrike who grins at the crowd and sparks enthusiastically before trotting to a central position to begin his appeal.
The little electric type doesn't stay there for long, though; almost at once he takes off running, sparks snapping and popping around his jaws as he dashes a complex pattern around the classroom. Weaving between desks and chairs, the electrike moves ever faster until nothing more than a green blur ricochets back and forth around the room, crackling with electric power.
As Raikage comes around to the center of the classroom again, he slows to an abrupt halt, stubby claws grabbing at the carpeting as he skids to a stop. He is now accompanied by three partners, identical electrike that crowd in the narrow aisleway, eyes sparkling with mischief and fur sparking with charge as Raikage prepares his next attack. Long tendrils of electricity fly in all directions as he unleashes a shock wave, shredding through his own clones and scorching furniture wherever they strike. A few branching bolts manage to knock over desks or scatter papers, but for the most part the classroom is left no more than sizzled by the electrike's outpouring of power. Nevertheless, Raikage looks plenty pleased with the applause he receives before sauntering off with his trainer.
Negrek: 7.4
Pretty standard appeal. "Make clones, then destroy them somehow," is a very common routine, and you didn't deviate from the formula here. What's more, thunder fang isn't an attack that's really visible at great distance, and shock wave is too diffuse and weak to actually hurl desks through the air, especially considering that these have stuff in them.
Chiropter: 5.5
Well… Double Team. Sorry, but adding Thunder Fang to it didn’t really make it much more interesting, and then Raikage almost immediately destroying the clones made it seem a little pointless. Not a very exciting appeal.
moon-panther: 6.5
Animorph and Beka
When next the curtain rises, it reveals the classroom much dimmer than before, all but the emergency lights turned off and the room cloaked in shadow, as though everyone has gone home for the night. A few members of the audience don't even notice Animorph as she enters the classroom, at least not until the brilliant flash of a pokéball opening heralds the arrival of Beka the growlithe. The fire type's bright red fur shows up duskily in the gloom as she runs over and jumps onto one of the student desks, raising her snout towards the ceiling and letting out a howl after she has done so. The sound the growlithe produces is deeper and more powerful than the one that Backfire earlier managed, a classic wolf-call that cuts easily through the darkness.
The growlithe then lowers her head and spits several small, blue flames into the air. The will-o-wisps illuminate the room faintly, giving off an unnatural blue glow, and start to spread out through the air in unsteady, bobbing trails.
Beka scrambles to her feet and leaps after the first of these, passing through it with a small sizzle as it blackens her thick fur. Beka hops to the next desk, moving faster and faster as she dashes around the classroom in pursuit of her will-o-wisps. Her claws scrabble and slip on the slick desktops, but the growlithe does her best anyway, swiftly gathering up and extinguishing all the fire she had produced. She then leaps down as the room sinks into darkness once more, ears perked up as she listens to the applause.
Negrek: 7.2
A pokémon can't control hidden power type unless it's an unown, no. In any case, this routine is a little obscure; I don't think I would have understood the effect that you were going for if I hadn't had your little description to guide me. In any case, sort of a cool idea, though I'm not sure how effective it would really be with the choreography you provided.
Chiropter: 7.0
This one started out fairly well, the Howl and Will-o-wisps creating a good, spooky atmosphere, especially with the lights dimmed (nice touch). The ending Agility, however, seemed rather out of place. Finding another way for Beka to put out the Will-o-wisps without having to move would have worked better, I think.
moon-panther: 6.0
MurrMurr and Purr
The classroom is bright again as MurrMurr appears to replace Animorph, pokéball at the ready as he moves onstage. His pokémon choice proves to be Purr the gible, the chubby sand-dragon grumbling out a happy chirp as he sees he has an audience.
Eager to impress, the gible spreads his arms to the sides, channeling dragon power through the air and getting it moving into a large, swirling column. Posters are sucked off walls and pencils off desks as the twister grows in strength, flashes of blue and green energy shooting through its twirling column as it gathers power. Even a chair or two is ripped from the ground and sent spinning through the air, until Purr is almsot invisible in the center of a raging tornado of energy and refuse.
As the twister starts to wind down, the desks crashing back to earth and its brilliant coloration fading, Purr works quickly to get another attack in before it vanishes altogether. Tipping his body back, he spits a concentrated beam of blue and green dragon power towards the ceiling. It punches easily through the flimsy layer of plaster, but unforutnatley dislodges no more than a few small chunks of material. Purr concentrates, the skin on his head tightening and taking on a metallic sheen as he hardens it to the strength of metal, all the while watching the falling plaster and preparing himself. As the largest chunk nears the ground, he leaps straight up beneath it, headbutting it with an iron head attack and causing it to explod in a small puff of white dust.
Purr lands easily, head fading back to its normal coloration as the crowd applause and he gurgles happily, basking in the praise as long as he can before his trainer shepherds him away from the limelight.
Negrek: 7.3
Twister's not really a multi-action attack, so holding it while performing something like dragon pulse is more than a little tricky. Similarly, dragon pulse isn't really good for carving out large chunks of stuff; it will punch a hole through something, but that doesn't leave a lot of debris to work with. Finally, I'm not sure how twister really gelled with the rest of this routine.
Chriopter: 6.0
Hmm… Nothing incredibly bad about this appeal, Purr performed all his moves correctly… it just wasn’t very exciting or impressive. The moves that Purr used really didn’t flow together well.
moon-panther: 7.5
Shadowstar and Moonshine
After the stage has once again been cleaned up, Shadowstar steps out of the door, carrying Moonshine the eevee with her. She sets the brown-furred little pokémon on the ground and watches with a smile as she scampers away through the desks, looking around for one that is just right.
Having found a desk with a fair amount of loose paper on it, the eevee jumps up onto its chair and then onto the desktop itself, scattering crayons before seizing the paper up in her jaws and giving it a vicious shake. Somewhat shredded bits of scrap float out in all direction, and Moonshine then starts to turn in hurried circles, pulling a couple of papers closer to her as air swirls around her spinning form. Most, though, just keep making their sedate way towards the floor and, a little panicked, Moonshine jumps down from the desk and through the heart of the paper cloud, pulling a few pieces of scrap along in her wake before she hits the floor. As the rest of the paper settles, the eevee trots back to her trainer, bushy tail wagging and a scattering of confused applause following her.
Negrek: 6.0
It was cute but at the same time a bit anticlimactic. You've got stuff like charm and captivate to work with when it comes to adorableness; while not every action you use needs to be an official action, you need to consider when it's in your best interest to go without or when an attack of some kind would work better. I like the direction, though.
Chiropter: 4.0
Eh. Not using actual attacks for maybe one action can work for an appeal, but runs the risk of losing the observers’ interest. With two actions lacking attacks and only the rather lackluster Tackle for the finale, this one was, to be honest, pretty boring. Cute, though.
moon-panther: 4.0
Flareth and Pearl
Only minimal cleanup is required to reset the stage after Moonshine's appeal, and so it is not long before Flareth has her shot at glory. She smiles as applause follows her entrance and throws down a pokéball, releasing Pearl the spoink onto the stage.
The small psychic-type hops forward, enthusiastic bounces easily carrying her above the level of the desks before she reaches a central spot she likes. Turning to face the audience, she extends a wave of psychic power into the air around her, forming a faint green bubble intended to defend her from all attacks. No attacks being forthcoming, however, the protect shortly dissipates.
Moving on to phase two, Pearl directs her psychic powers to enfold her own body, eyes glowing blue as a similar aura grows up around her form, outlining her clearly in blue light as she slowly rises off the floor and into the air, floating almost at a level with the desks. The maneuver is very psychically taxing, and it is only a few seconds before Pearl is forced to let herself fall--and fall she does, hitting the ground hard but springing up with incredible force, soaring nearly up to the ceiling before retuning to earth with a solid crack, damaging the stage's floorboards. The bouncy pokémon remains where she is for a moment, recovering from the shock of impact and enjoying the applause, before bouncing back over to her trainer, clearly pleased with herself.
Negrek: 5.8
Not sure what was going on with protect there. I was generous and made it colorful at least, while I ordinarily ref it as being colorless. Also, psychic levitation is a popular technique but ignores how few pokémon are strong enough psychics to do it effectively. Overall, this appeal lacked coherence and the first action was more or less entirely wasted.
Chiropter: 6.5
Fairly impressive finish, but the opening Protect didn’t seem connected to the final two moves at all.
moon-panther: 4.5
shadow_lugia and Fern
Involuntary Twitch is shortly replaced by shadow_lugia, who brings with her a well-recognized starter pokémon. Fern the bulbasaur trundles in front of her trainer, looking shyly out at the people who have come to see her appeal.
Waddling between the desks, the bulbasaur selects a central location before settling down and getting ready to appeal. The bulbasaur's bulb glows a brilliant green before spitting a cloud of blazing leaves made of pure energy into the air. These continue to fountain up out of Fern's bulb even as the bulbasaur begins a crazy dance back and forth across the stage, veering dangerously close to desks as she goes. The whirling green leaves of energy form a flickering curtain around her as she weaves back and forth, and brightly colored blossoms join the mix as Fern shakes these free of her bulbs as well. Eventually, the fountain of leaves cuts off and Fern winds down her dance, returning roughly to center stage before settling down again, a last few petals drifting in the air around her. Soon after she does so, the crowd becomes aware of an entrancing, powerful scent wafting through the air. The sweet scent soothes nerves and dulls the senses, leaving the crowd too lethargic to do much in the way of applauding as Fern gets off again and trots over to where her trainer is waiting, scattering petals as she goes. Even after the two leave, it is several seconds after they disappear backstage before the audience is able to muster a suitable ovation.
Negrek: 7.0
Pretty basic flowers and petals appeal; it's been done. The sweet scent felt a little tacked on; it would have been better as part of the combo. Not much to say about this one, really.
Chiropter: 7.0
This appeal didn’t really fit the setting, but despite that, it worked quite well. The Sweet Scent might not have been such a good choice, however, seeing as it dulled the audience’s perceptions, making it harder for them to appreciate the appeal.
moon-panther: 6.0
o_0 and Psycho
o_0 is the next to take to the stage, bringing with him Psycho the ralts. The little psychic-type blushes in the face of the crowd's applause, lowering his eyes in the face of their enthusiasm. Nevertheless, as o_0 sets him on the floor and then backs away, the ralts gathers himself, mustering all the courage he can and plastering a smile on his face as he raises his eyes to the sea of faces watching him.
Nothing much seems to happen for several seconds. Psycho's eyes glow a bright blue, but as the crowd can't see inside the psychic-type's mind, they have no idea that he is in fact preparing a carefully-crafted future sight attack that will detonate sometime in the near future. Therefore, the first thing that the audience realizes Psycho is actually doing is charging up a shadow ball.
The ralts turns towards the teacher's desk, a blob of black and purple energy growing between his hands as he masters unstable ghost-type energy and molds it into a rough sphere. Tossing it towards the desk, Psycho watches as it bursts with a sizzling hiss against the wood, blackening it and leaving jagged patterns of corruption all across its front. The ghost attack is far from powerful enough to flip the heavy piece of furniture, however, and aimed at quite the wrong angle to do so anyway.
Psycho bites his lip upon recognizing this failure, but nevertheless soldiers on, ancitipating the return of his future sight attack. Multicolored lights blink and dance in the air around Psycho as he charges up his next attack, holding it at the ready for when the future sight should reappear--and then it does, a loud ripping noise heralding the ball of shimmering psychic energy as it rips through the fabric of reality. Psycho releases the magical leaf; although firing from well below the future sight attack, the flurry of energy orbs, which flatten and transform into the shapes of jagged leaves as they fly, bend their trajectory to follow after the future sight, cutting straight through it and dissipating it into no more than a haze of glittering sheets, like ethereal gauze.
Psycho bows, almost overbalancing, as the crowd applauds, but doesn't tarry on the stage any longer than he absolutely needs to, practically running back to his trainer as the boy turns to leave.
Negrek: 7.4
The delay for future sight created some "dead air time," which is definitely something you want to avoid in appeals, but at least you did something interesting with it when it reappeared. Shadow ball, though, is in no way powerful enough to flip something as hefty as a standard teacher's desk, especially coming from a ralts.
Chiropter: 7.0
Ooh, pretty… I really liked the ending of this one. Future Sight isn’t a common technique in contests, so I liked that, though the long time it took for the appeal to actually move forward hurt you a little. The Shadow Ball, however, seemed very out of place and unconnected with the rest of the appeal.
moon-panther: 6.0
Kratos Aurion and Schrödinger
Next to appear is Kratos Aurion, a contest regular and well-liked by the crowd. He smiles to himself as he listens to the audience's applause and holds up a pokéball, calling forth a pokémon. The burst of energy that accompanies the pokéball's release, though, doesn't call forth a creature anywhere that can be seen. As Kratos Aurion leans up against the wall, smirking, the audience waits, wondering what could be going on.
For a couple of seconds the appeal is lost on the audience, as they crane their necks in search of the pokémon that's been released. At last they catch sight of something sparkling in front of the teacher's desk: a small, swirling ball of glowing energy. Twisting streamers of light wind on themselves, weaving a hollow structure that slowly takes the shape of a small, feline pokémon--a meowth. Those members of the audience familiar with standard pokémon battles no doubt recognize the construct as an ordinary substitute as silver lights glow in the creature's eye sockets and it starts to wander aimlessly about in front of the desk.
The substitute isn't left to roam unmolested for long, though. As it blankly totters towards a pencil that's fallen to the classroom floor, a cream-colored blur shoots out from under the teacher's desk and tackles the hapless avatar, hissing and snarling. Schrödinger the meowth shows herself at last, pummeling her own substitute as the charm on her forehead gleams brightly. Coins ooze from between her fingers, clattering to the floorboards around the hapless substitute, which bears the abuse patiently. Once Schrödinger judges that her point has been made, she seizes the substitute by the tail and, hefting the light and airy construct over her head, proceeds to stuff it into the open front of the nearest desk. The substitute struggles weakly, only its paws and tail visible as they hang out of the desk's front, but it is tightly wedged between textbooks and miscellaneous supplies. Wearing a smirk at least a broad as his trainer's, Schrödinger sweeps up the glittering coins her attack has generated and, carrying the armful of them, precedes Kratos Aurion off the stage. As soon as she leaves, the substitute crumbles away to dust in the face of the audience's applause.
Negrek: 9.3
Very good as always. Substitutes can't really be created remotely, though, so the phantom meowth showed up pretty close to the teacher's desk to begin with. Also, the "punching money from the substitute" trick would be pretty hard to accomplish, but Schrödinger was able to pull it off well enough. I was kind of envisioning the kind of desks we had at my old elementary, which were crappy the kind with open fronts rather than lift-up tops. It didn't really make much of a difference, though. Good job.
Chiropter: 9.0
...is it wrong that I found this so funny? Anyway, this was a clever idea that worked very well with the given setting.
moon-panther: 7.0
Involuntary Twitch and Ganteiana
Involuntary Twitch enters the classroom grinning broadly, Ganteiana the torchic riding on her shoulder. For a second the torchic freezes in the face of the sea of people out in the audience, but as Involuntary Twitch bends down to put her closer to the floor and gives her a little nudge, the torchic regains her composure quickly enough and jumps down to the floor.
Skittering around behind the teacher's desk, she leaps first onto the large chair and then up to the desktop, where she ruffles her feathers, face screwed up in concentration. The tuft of orange feathers on her head stand up straight, glowing with golden light before spewing a flurry of energy stars in all direction. At the same time, flames dance, barely-controlled, around the torchic's beak. Snapping her head up, she spits a few short bursts of flamethrower into the heart of the cloud of stars, which are spreading out in a wide cone as they travel towards the far wall, the occasional straggler scattering in a different direction. Though the flamethrower does not burst the swift stars where it strikes, the normal-type attack slices the streamer of fire into several dancing streamers while itself glowing a deep red as it absorbs fire-type energy from the flamethrower. Several of the swift stars fade away before reaching the far side of the stage, but those that don't slam into a tackboard with considerable power, shredding a map of the Sinnoh region.
The torchic fluffs up her feathers again, and when she opens her beak, several small blue balls of fire drift out into the air, wavering and dancing erratically through the air as they drift lazily towards the far side of the arena. Ganteiana watches them go with a grim and foreboding expression on her face, but fortunately they fail to strike anything before fizzling out, leaving the potential for an uncontrolled fire unexplored.
Ganteiana jumps down from the desk and runs back over to her trainer as the applause begins, the two of them exiting together.
Negrek: 7.2
A pretty display, but one that didn't go quite to plan. First of all, swift is a very difficult to work with, as it tends to scatter and moves very fast, so shooting stuff into it is generally problematic. Also, flamethrower isn't really a scattery sort of attack; ember or something would have been better for short burts. Swift stars generally don't explode until they strike something solid. And finally, will-o-wisp is very difficulty to control and is pretty linear; getting it to dance around something usually works only momentarily if there's no psychic manipulation involved.
Chiropter: 8.0
The Flamethrower/Swift combo definitely had a cool effect. Will-o-wisp...well, it was already used in a fairly similar manner in Animorph's appeal, and I'm not sure the "school spirit is coming" symbolism came across very well, but it still looked good.
moon-panther: 7.0
Espeon and Potato
When Espeon takes his place onstage, he doesn't delay before releasing a small, blue bird into the air over the desks--Potato the swablu twitters exuberantly as she settles out of the cloud of energy that accompanied her release. Drifting downstage, she sets up a powerful safeguard veil that shimmers a brilliant green as it surrounds her body.
The next part of her appeal is less simple. Opening her beak, Potato lets a glowing ball of blue energy grow at the back of her throat. The swablu releases it as a sparkling beam that slices through the air and strikes--nothing, merely fading away into a cloud of glittering particles of ice. As fast as she can, Potato prepares a second attack, this time calling on flame rather than ice and forming a ball of swirling blue and green flames that she fires into the heart of what is left of the ice beam, scattering glittering shards in all directions.
Rather tired out by the taxing series of attacks, Potato is quite happy to drift back over to her trainer and alight on his shoulder as he acknowledges the crowd's applause before leaving the classroom to make way for the next trainer.
Negrek: 6.8
Unfortunately, ice beam doesn't really combo with dragon pulse. Also, safeguard, while pretty, didn't really do much for this appeal.
Chiropter: 6.0
Hmm... The individual attacks were fairly impressive, but the appeal as a whole was lacking in originality. I just couldn't get excited by this one.
moon-panther: 7.5
Icalasari and Ribbon
That trainer would be Icalasari, accompanied by a dragon of his own--Ribbon the gible trots by his side, calm in the face of the crowd. The gible trundles out to center stage, a stern glance at the audience demanding silence before she begins her appeal.
Spreading her stubby arms, Ribbon begins to spin in place, body glowing green as she calls up draconic power. As she spins faster and faster, streamers of glowing energy are flung out from her form and into the air beyond, which is even now starting to swirl around the gible in a roaring column. Small items left out on desks and posters on the wall are inevitably sucked up into the building twister, and even a couple of chairs go airborne as the powerful cyclone spins on.
After appreciating the twister she's created for a couple of moments, Ribbon throws herself forward and into its wall, letting it pick her up and spin her around. As she swirls wildly around in the air, she does her best to get a swords dance going, but while she would ordinarily be leaping and spinning around, she finds herself largely unable to do so without any ground to push off from and with the wind carrying him with its will. The energy contained in her own attack works against her now, buffeting her skin in painful waves, and collisions with other objects that the twister has pulled airborn don't help.
Nevertheless, Ribbon puts on a brave face and waits for the twister to spit her out again. Soon enough it does, catapulting her sideways through the air. The gible recovers well, twisting around in midair as a haze of brilliant flames starts to build around her claw. This she brings down on the desk she otherwise would have crashed into, ripping a large chunk out of its top before his trajectory sends her spinning and bumping across its top. She topples off the far side and, regaining her composure at the last moment, manages to land on his feet.
The twister dies out, liberating chair and eraser alike, and the gible trots back to her trainer amidst drifting pieces of looseleaf and kicking scattered macaroni from an ill-fated art project out of her way as she goes.
Negrek: 6.5
Yeah, swords dancing midair in the middle of a twister isn't happening, and Ribbon would've looked really ridiculous while trying. The ending part was kind of cool, though.
Chiropter: 7.5
Having Ribbon caught up in his own Twister was cool, though the failure of Swords Dance hurt a little. The Dragon Claw finale was nice and dramatic.
moon-panther: 7.5
Bobino and Psyduck
Bobino is the final trainer to appeal, and the crowd gives him a warm welcome, hoping that the first round will go out on a positive note. Bobino smiles as he sends out Plucky the psyduck, the chunky yellow pokémon blinking at the sight of the stage and the audience and merely cocking his head to the side.
At Bobino's urging, Plucky trots off between the desk, rolling, waddling gait picking up speed as he goes. Although he doesn't look it, Plucky is fairly fast--fast enough, anyway, that he's soon running in erratic loops around the desks and chairs, too fast for the crowd's eyes to keep track of him. The blurred form of the psyduck settles soon, however, as he slows down again, from incredible speed to a fast jog and finally to his usual shambling gait. Now, though, he is accompanied by two identical twins, psyduck clones with expressions as blank as their creator's.
Once at center stage, Plucky peers around for a moment before unleashing an incredible column of water that roars through the air with the power of a firehose. It hurls desks and chairs away, knocking a few clean off the stage, as he sweeps it back and forth. His clones do likewise, though their own hydro pumps have no effect on the solid objects they strike.
As Plucky's hydro pump loses its force and gurgles away to nothing, the water type prepares for the finale. Drawing together a dramatic wave to sweep the desks he's scattered up towards the front of the room, he raises his hands above his head, concentrating mightily--only to have nothing happen. No matter how hard he tries, the psyduck can't do more than make the small puddles left by his hydro pump ripple and surge; he simply has no hopes of conjuring a great wall of water out of the dry stage floorboards.
A little dejected, though his face doesn't show it, Plucky turns his stubby tail on the crowd's applause and lets his clones fade away as he returns to his trainer's side.
Negrek: 5.2
Surf doesn't work without an external water source, and there was none in this arena. Other than that, it was an all right appeal, although I don't really see the point of the clones, and double team really isn't a great move for something as ungainly as a psyduck.
Chiropter: 6.0
In this case, I actually thought that the Double Team worked, simply given that it's Psyduck – not a pokemon you generally expect to see running the 100-meter. That was, for me at least, the highlight of this appeal; while the Hydro Pump was impressive, it wasn’t connected with the previous move, and the failed Surf, unfortunately, caused the appeal to go out on an anticlimactic note.
moon-panther: 6.0
With the final appeal done and over with, the audience watches the blank, unassuming red curtain in anticipation of hearing the results. Murmurs run through the crowd as people discuss the first round and, most importantly, who they think they'll be seeing again in the second. After several tense minutes, the announcer steps out in front of the curtain to considerable applause. This dies quickly, however, the audience straining their ears to hear the final scores:
Walker: 27.0
Kratos Aurion: 25.3
Kusarigamaitachi: 23.0
Involuntary Twitch: 22.2
Icalasari: 21.5
Full Metal Cookies: 20.8
MurrMurr: 20.8
o_0: 20.4
----
Espeon: 20.3
Animorph: 20.2
shadow_lugia: 20.0
Grass King: 19.5
Kunai: 19.4
Bobino: 17.2
Flareth: 16.8
Shadowstar: 14.0
Check those carefully, as I've already caught a couple of mistakes and this round is close enough for a couple tenths of a point to make a difference! Thanks to everyone who's participated, and you can all claim 1 EXP for the pokémon you used in this appeal.
To those of you advancing, congratulations! The next round will see a total change of terrain and pokémon. The arena is a lush, grassy area on the edge of a forest with a deep, clear pool downstage right. You'll each be using your choice of one of the twelve traditional starter pokémon, gendered and nicknamed as you please. You've got a week, so let's see some more appeals!
