Welcome to Gaia! ::

Back in the waiting room, Parn was sprawled on the bench like a discarded plushie. Lore shook an Ether spray bottle nearby, building up the pressure within it. The Galvantula had a tendency to exhaust herself on every foray onto the stage she made; without PP restoration, she'd probably need a week to recharge in between.

<As expected,> the spider said in pokemon language, reading their scores of the screen with her presently sideways vision. <I am a geniuS-> "TUuuLaaaA!!" She hissed, suddenly cold and wet on the back of her head. She bounced back up and shook away the rest of the dissipating mist, leering with disbelief at Lore.

"Sorry, sorry! Shoulda warned ya." The trainer tried not to chuckle as she stashed the Ether spray back onto the shelf. A potion had also been provided, and she was reaching for it now. "It's not bug spray, you know. Aaand here's your potion."

<Ah, yes.> Parn carefully took the potion between her claws when Lore handed her the item; she hadn't forgotten that singed feeling on her backside from that close brush with a fire pokemon. After dipping her tiny, invisible mouth onto its edge, there was an endless, drawn-out sipping noise. A minute passed, and she hadn't stopped yet.

"You know you drink really slow, right, Parn?" Lore asked.

sssssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppppppp

"...Oh look, there's the signal!"

The suspensefully long sip finally stopped.
<Then let us commence the final step of this operation.> She scuttled back up onto Lore's shoulders, apprehensive. This would be the most difficult part. The other finalist... what were they like? Surely a worthy opponent. She must be swift in her analysis, and accurate in her predictions.

The bright-hued team emerged onto stage, ready to meet their last opponent. The gray-haired trainer could not help but feel somewhat anxious. Her lil' baby Parn, whom she still remembered all-too clearly as a tiny, adorable Joltik, had worked hard to get here. The time she'd spent practicing, to go up against these show pokemon in their craft... it was moving to witness such determination. Right now, she couldn't take it easy as she was always prone to do; winging it was out of the question. For Parn, she'd shoot for the win.

Lore smiled and waved back at her opponent, her hood casting a thick shadow on her face. Did she just, uh, adjust a wig? ...Also, of all the pokemon one with Parn's abilities could go up against, it would be difficult to out-showy the moves of this one in particular. Aw dang, it's a Vaporeon. Glorious. And... I wanna see the two shows I missed!

"Watch out, Parn. It can turn into water." She warned the fluffy spider on her shoulder, who was rubbing her pedipalps together in concentrated thought. Water, ice... what else? Usually, electric pokemon had the advantage over water types, but she'd have to keep her output high to outshine one in a coordinating match.

The spider was ingenious. She would find a way. The bell rang, Lore shouted "Let's do this!" and Parn leapt off her shoulders into a pirouette, landing with a flourish. A foreleg swept up to point at the fish-cat-thing. It was her declaration of war.
<Rejoice, to have made it this far! Because you're about to experience the most extravagant battle of. Your. Life. GET READY!>

With that, she put her foreclaws together. A globe of electricity grew between them, bright and pulsing with energy, and she shot it like a cannonball... towards the crowd. That was sure to rile them up. Before the Volt Switch could hit them, however, a net suddenly snagged it from behind; the Galvantula had shot an electro-web at the same time.

The explosively charged ball swung, pear-shaped, by its thick tether of silk held fast in her mandibles. A Hitmontop would be proud of what they saw next.

The spider flipped and spun with all of her strength, swinging the improvised flail with the aid of angling and momentum. It was very light as things made out of spider's silk tended to be; but so was she. She had to maintain absolute focus, recalculating its trajectory as she moved; fighting off the dizziness that accompanies a chain of somersaults, and clinging to the ground with tenacity whenever she landed. She swung it once, twice, three times as she approached the Vaporeon... and finally brought it down towards the water type, now with a slightly more practiced aim.

[Move used: Volt Switch, Electro-web]
[Moves available: Bug Buzz, Electro-Web, Round, Volt Switch]
[HP: 1000/1000]

After Parn brought her Volt Switch Flail swinging down, it burst open in contact with the ground. Its discharge leapt into the air in all directions in a satisfying show of power. Parn was also pleased to see the Vaporeon at least partially caught up in the attack. Her opponent might not have thought much of her at first, but by the end of this, she wondered if they would still dare to think the same.

The electrified cord was still tense when water began to curl around it, snaking up towards her along its length. It was fast, but not as fast as if it'd gone right for its target instead of weaving around. Parn had more than enough time to react... but she didn't, not yet. This was a show, after all. There had to be suspense. Only when the tendrils of water were on the verge of reaching her did she let the spent flail go limp (it only had one usage in it, after all.) The furry yellow spider spat its loose end aside with a toss of her head and rolled sideways, dodging the Vaporeon's attack at the same time as she shot a grapple of web right past it. It stuck onto the ground and snapped taut beyond the blue pokemon while water splashed down in a missed attack, wetting the floor.

The show stadium's floor was already smooth. Now, it was slippery. It was just what she needed to be, for a few moments, a surskit. The points of her legs slid across the floor, leaving sprays of water in their wake as she reeled in towards her opponent. Oh wait, this surskit has an engine! She revved the tufts on her abdomen and sped up further, propelled by the disruptive waves of a Bug Buzz attack- which, incidentally, was what would be grating against the Vaporeon should the Galvantula hurtle by too close. What would happen if there was a head-on impact? If her opponent didn't dodge, they would soon find out.

[Move used: Bug Buzz, Electro-web]
[Moves available: Bug Buzz, Electro-Web, Round, Volt Switch]
[HP: 1000/1000]

Parn braced herself for the impact, lowering her body close to the ground to swipe the Vaporeon off their legs when they slammed into each other. Having slid past the point she was tethered to, Parn swung in an arc, the fur of her legs getting wet from the water spray. She cut loose her wire and shot another strand of web back the way she'd come, intending to keep on with the direct attack- sparks flew from beneath her toe-tips as she started to speed up again in the other direction.

But as surely as she watched her opponent land, they had melted into water right before her six blue-violet eyes. Lore hadn't been kidding. A mist bloomed from the now opposite side of the stage, and Parn did not intend to enter it and lose the audience's gaze as she searched uselessly for a target. She leapt off the ground into a pirouette, cutting her silk loose once more. She landed lightly, still outside of the cloud's vapor.

<Pathetic trick!> She bit, albeit with a kind of fascinated pleasure- she rarely fought against anything with such interesting abilities, after all. I suppose they have become mist, as well. But surely they move as a cohesive unit, no matter what form they take. With my spider senses, I should be able to detect them.

She began to focus all of her senses on the vibrations passing through the ground and air, but was suddenly lifted off her feet and buffeted by a strange, wet impact that left her feeling like she'd just squeezed through jelly. She landed and scrambled back into position, and stared up. There was another one of those coming, and it looked like a giant human hand composed of fog. Angrily, Parn leapt into a spinning roundhouse kick as she unleashed a Bug Buzz on the apparition. The kick was just for show; the disruptive sound waves are what shredded her target back into harmless particles.

And with that, the Galvantula decided that there was no time for spidey-senses. She'd draw back out her opponent. You can't hide forever. She mused, and let loose a continuous Round of glowing ethereal notes into the mist, lighting up as much of its obscured area with sound and color as she could. Let's see how long the Vaporeon could withstand having the attack ring through its very body!

[Move used: Round, Bug Buzz]
[Moves available: Bug Buzz, Electro-Web, Round, Volt Switch]
[HP: 900/1000]

The appearance of glowing eyes within the mist were either an illusion, or a sign that her sound-based attacks had succeeded in corralling her target back into condensed form.

The beginning signs of their retaliation, however, had Parn stumped on how to attack next. She shouldn't be so sure what to expect- after all, it was just the wind picking up. Since her opponent could also control the mist- and furthermore, they were purely water type!- it was unlikely to be the same move as the Volcarona's she had fought earlier. Regardless, if a cyclone did form- she would have to tether herself to the ground to avoid being picked up by the wind, making it difficult to avoid whatever came next. That, or go sailing up on a strand of web again, only to have her attacks rendered ineffective from being within the midst of the strong wind.

Lore was thinking much the same, except that she'd identified the move; Blizzard. And that brought an idea to mind. "Hey Parn! S'time to show 'em some winter sports!" she called merrily from across the field. Lucky for her pokemon, she'd shared her love of winter with them through various... activities.

If there had been a lightbulb over the Galvantula's head, it would have lit up. She welcomed the idea. Parn sprang into action, spinning a growing spool of electric web between her claws while ignoring the tornado of ice and snow making its way around the stage. By the time it reached her, she kicked off the ground with a light touch... and rode it.

The snowboard was a thing of beauty; it resembled an expertly crafted, flattened cocoon, and glowed with electricity. Trails of sparkling dust and lightning curled and rose behind her as she sailed on the outer surface of the blizzard. She cried out with joy, feeling the adrenaline rush. It was so incredibly fun that she let the moment carry her, almost forgetting that they were in battle. She leapt off horizontally, letting the board spin midair before she and it landed back onto the rotating surface of the cyclone. The crowd roared, having just witnessed a fluffy yellow spider perform a snowboard trick on the equivalent of an avalanche. In her next trick, she clung to the edges of her board with her two forelegs and let go with her back ones, making her look like she was doing a handstand while really, she was hanging on by her toetips, and would be flung away if she let go.

Lore joined into the applause, grinning- aww darn, that did look like fun. Though she had to ask herself what had come over her pokemon. Showing mercy against her previous contender, and now, favoring showmanship over fighting... maybe it wasn't 'not like' Parn, after all. Maybe she just hadn't realized that she'd had a natural performer on her hands, all along. The spider did have a dramatic Machiavellian streak, after all.

When the cyclone began to lose force, Parn took the opportunity to use its momentum and fling her electrically charged snowboard at the Vaporeon below. It shot into the stage like a divine arrow: With a deafening crackling noise and a big flash of light, releasing the last of its electricity in a final discharge. All that was left after was a splatter of tangled silk.

Parn's concern, however, was landing. She shot another grapple of her silk at the ground as far as she could and began to draw herself in along it; the more she could turn her fall into a horizontal motion, the more she could roll off the force without getting hurt.

[Move used: Electro-web]
[Moves available: Bug Buzz, Electro-Web, Round, Volt Switch]
[HP: 900/1000]

Parn's eyes could not widen by much. However, when the Aurora beam bounced off huge ice mirrors which were dangerously spinning about the stage from seemingly every direction, she understood that the glowing, freezing attack would finally and inevitably be directed straight towards herself. She froze. No, not because she had been hit, even though that was bound to take place soon while trapped in this deadly chamber. She was still in motion, watching the cold, blinding source of her sudden and enormous anxiety as her calculations for angle and speed of rotation gave her two seconds before she would land... frozen as a block of ice.

Time stretched to infinity as she contemplated her last conscious moments; but as if through a thick sludge, the voice that had been shouting at her from across the stage finally made it through her exoskeleton.

"-DON'T GIVE UP! SPEED UP!!"

Stupid human. Of course she wouldn't just give up. Still, it was good to have some... reliable inspiration. Parn's own ideas were better, of course. She swung her two front legs together, pinprick claw to pinprick claw, and unleashed a Bug Buzz behind her like none she'd ever done before. As a result, she rocketed into a drill-like spin, which would have been a really bad idea had there been nothing to break her fall. Bugs weren't known for the toughness of their bodies; she had been trying to slow down before so as not to crash, after all.

But now, the situation had reversed.

She shot through one of the ice mirrors, piercing it with the points of her pinprick claws. As she passed through it, the buzzing vibrational sound waves emanating from her body shattered the rest of the ice into stardust, which was carried off by the wind. The fluffy yellow spider was, as always light as a feather and vulnerable to being blown away without a tether, so she only made it a few more feet before she too was picked up by the fresh, new, and somehow gentler hurricane. Perhaps on account of its lower density of particulate matter. She cut her line and drifted up, body tossed into the air; and let loose another thread to balloon upwards.

She was high above the crowd when she cut her line again and proceeded to shoot multiple wide, fully formed electro-webs from her mouth, all in quick succession. At first she held fast to the ends with her pedipalps, but as the weave spread and began to behave like a parachute, she used the safety of her stabilized fall to move and attach these ends to the tips of her back legs. Thus, with her front body dangling forward, she was able to keep a good watch on the field below.

And even attack during her slow downwards drift.

Without any further ado, Parn spun drop-shaped clumps of charged web and tossed them down at the Vaporeon, managing to fling about one every few seconds. Upon contact with the ground, the sticky bags burst noisily into small zones of electric discharge. The lightning was much less spectacular than that of her electric flail's from the start of the battle, since it had been charged with Volt Switch; but she preferred to dish out more attacks than one big, scary one, given the situation. She was playing the role of one of those 8bit aliens from Space Invaders, to reference the old console game. It was as fun to carry it out as it was fun to watch. Hilariously enough, the sound effects matched, too, somehow.

Parn glowed (inwardly) with self-satisfaction, savoring her remarkably adorable parachuting finale. After today, however, she probably wouldn't be taking to the skies anymore for a long time. While her adrenaline rush ebbed, a sense of the outrageousness of her actions was beginning to settle in. There was frost on her face, and a wetness to the fur on her legs, and she could've been carried miles into the sky if her spidery instincts weren't as reliable as they were. The blame for all of this, of course, wasn't herself. It was the Vaporeon. Lore was right, they were something to be reckoned with. Perhaps mainly in their ability to make her do the most ridiculous things!

She tossed another ball of web at her target, with perhaps a little vindictive pleasure in its weave this time. That'll teach them to mess with me! Mwahaha.... mwahahaahhahahahaha!

[Move used: Bug Buzz, Electro-web]
[Moves available: Bug Buzz, Electro-Web, Round, Volt Switch]
[HP: 900/1000]