This was Dreidyn’s first contest in Zatao and Cactus’s first contest ever, so she had a legitimate reason to be worried. Competing with a Joltik was risky enough because the Pokémon was so small and hard to notice. That’s why the routine she made for him compensated for that disadvantage, although it was a difficult performance to pull off for an inexperienced show Pokémon. She hoped that all the time, sweat, and patience she and Cactus poured into practice would be worth it. But she knew that whatever happened today, the little Joltik would be shining like a star.
As her and Cactus’s names were announced, she stepped onto the stage in her dazzling golden dress. The cloth was embroidered with blue and purple patterns and lace that matched her Pokémon’s markings and the fabric shimmered in the spotlight, making the dress look like a fountain of light. The most startling thing about Dreidyn was the fact that her Pokémon was nowhere in sight. The audience applauded for her arrival but she could see their confused faces. Well not to worry. That will be fixed soon.
As she took a bow and left, the auditorium grew darker until the room was pitch black. She needed the lights to dim for their routine to work. At first, the stage continued to be cloaked in darkness, but then the faintest speck of light seemed to descend from the ceiling. The light grew stronger as it slowly moved into view, until it was bright enough to illuminate the stage and reveal what was causing the strange phenomenon. Cactus the Joltik hung in the air with a single strand on webbing connected to the rafters above, and he seemed to be grinning despite the fact that he had no lips. He gave a mischievous wink towards the audience and started moving his legs to the left, then to the right, making his glowing body swing like a pendulum of light. This spectacle did not last for long, because as soon as he reached maximum velocity, he cut his Flash to a fraction of its strength and left the stage dark again, save for the maniacally swinging speck of light.
The speck of light continued to swing, then without warning it broke off from its path and flew in an arc across the stage. It seemed like the light was going to crash into the ground, but it instead bounced off of an invisible object in the darkness and soared across the stage again. This time, as Cactus touched an obscured object, he released a surge of electricity to expose a web that was thickly spun over some props and glimmered in sudden burst of light. The web acted as a trampoline and with it, and his Bounce technique, he flew into the air at an odd angle and managed to careen towards the curtains behind him, spinning another electrified web to jump off of. He kept on bouncing around the stage, appearing a gleaming bullet that revealed a hidden web with a shock of electricity. His erratic directions kept the audience on their feet and sometimes he didn’t land where they expected him to, using a hastily made string of webbing that dangled from the ceiling to change his course.
Dreidyn soon thought that the audience had enough of his bouncing act and that it was time to move onto the next part. Giving a silent signal that only Cactus could see, the Joltik bounced from his current position, a web on the back right corner of the stage, towards one of the strands that hung in the middle of the stage. He clung to the line for a moment to catch his breath, his glowing body pulsing as he did so. But he didn’t want to leave the audience in suspense for too long and let himself fall towards the ground by detaching himself from the web. A fall from that height would severely injure him, but only if he actually crashed. An intricately spun web seemed to suddenly appear under him to catch him just in time, and as he landed on it he discharged waves of electricity to reveal the grand structure. No way could the little bug Pokémon have spun that at the last minute, and he didn’t. The giant web was connected to the smaller webs that Cactus had made during his rapid-fire bouncing, showing that he was spinning the thing that would save him while he jumped around the stage.
Cactus’s landing caused the web to bounce up and down, though he managed to stay on and continue to emit static electricity that caused the strands to glow with lightning in an irregular pattern. Eventually, as the web settled down, he slowed the trickle of electricity to a halt but used Flash again to appear as a ball of light. Even without the hair raising action, the strands of the web beneath him, around him, and hanging from the ceiling caught the light and made the stage into a glittering cavern.
The audience began to clap but he wasn’t done with his performance. Using his pause to catch his breath again, he then started crouching up and down like he was going to bounce but he didn’t actually leap into the air. The giant web was undulating with Cactus, sparks of electricity occasionally cackling and lighting up the stage. It got to a point where the Joltik was almost touching the floor with each swing downwards, and stood taller than a person with each swell upwards. Once he got a steady motion going, he disconnected himself from the web and launched himself up with blinding speed. He was flung so far up, he was out of view for a moment or two. And when he came down again, he looked like a meteor, with his body glowing and enveloped with electricity. The tiny Joltik missile struck the center of the web, which heaved under the impact. Some of the strands that held the web up started to snap and it looked like Cactus was rolling around and squirming in the webbing. The web eventually gave way and he plummeted down, covered in webbing. He twirled and twisted in the air to wrap himself in the silky substance so that when he slammed into the ground, he had made himself a cocoon of web that absorbed most of the impact. The ball of web bounced once, twice, and then rolled to a stop on the stage floor.
It remained motionless for a moment or two and the audience held their breath to see what would happen next. Something seemed glow underneath the surface, but unlike Cactus’s Flash, the light was of every color of the visible spectrum. The cocoon also started pulsing with electricity that took on the colors of the mysterious light and casted its colors everywhere. The spectacle was flashing faster and hummed with power before a multicolored beam exploded out of the top of the cocoon, splitting apart and dispersing in every direction as it made contact with the remains of the broken web. The fountain of colors was quickly overshadowed by another explosion of light, one that bursted so much intensity that it obscured the view of the stage for a moment or two.
When the bedazzling flash died down, the lights that hung above the stage were on again to showcase Cactus, safe and sound from his Electrically Amplified Signal Beam Finale. He ‘smiled’ at the audience and waved a leg, which sent the crowd into a roar of applause and onto their feet. Dreidyn stepped out to stand next to her Pokémon, who made his way up her dress and onto her shoulder. They both continued waving as the audience cheered and the curtains fell on the duo.
