Chapter 2: The tournament

 We climbed off the bus steadily, everyone dead silent, focused on the battle that lay ahead later that day. The school day continued as normal, though nobody really focused, so I saw no point in trying to teach anyway. But hey, that's humans for ya.
 It was around 7th period when the math teacher called, " POP QUIZ!"
The students, in union, groaned. "Music to my ears." The teacher chimed. The students again broke into murmurs of disagreement, when the teacher added." Oh, I almost forgot, there's a curve to this." That shut everyone up.
The lanky teacher continued to speak and said. "Those who get 100% accuracy get to CHOOSE their first opponent."
Her words rang through the deafened room, as she  moved fluently around the room, handing out the test.

     I had faith in my master, that he would pass, after all. He was one of the smartest kids I knew! Only, he had a tendency to over worry himself and in result, cause himself mistakes.
I sat in his lap, quietly, not wanting to disturb him. A little ways into the test, I could hear soft sighs of disappointment as kids that couldn't solve the test turned it in unfinished.
 I heard my master put down his pencil. I expected to see a look of smugness or accomplishment at his work, but instead, I saw him holding his head, muttering things to himself.
"Mental break down again." I murmured, then did as I normally do when that happened, I curled up in his lap, and made a soft purring noise that made him look down at me and smile. [Score, that distracted him!] I thought to myself silently.  After that, he went back to work, having an easier time.

   After the test was complete and graded, my master had scored perfectly on his test, he did his part, now it's time I do mine. He had secured our first battle, it would be against a girl named Lilly, and her beautifly. Lilly was a pretty girl, had decent grades, kept a good clean slate, but when it came to battle, she was hopeless. I smirked to myself and told the beautifly best of luck kindly.
   After all, no need to be ugly, we're all friends here, well… all except for the other contender.. Haley and that absol of hers, Shade. If I don't find out a way to beat them.. This tournament is them.. This tournament is lost.

"Report to your assigned battle fields." Said a voice on the loud speaker. "Come on, Aneira, time to strut our stuff." Said my trainer, and together we went into the ring, for the first of many battles we would conquer in this tournament.
"Trainers," the ref shouted, "this will be a one on one battle. The battle will be over when either trainer's Pokémon can no longer battle… BEGIN!"  At once, a theme song, 'Me Against The World' sounded, with that, the trainers called forth their Pokemon.
   "Go, Aniera!" my trainer shouted, and I bounded lightly onto the battle field.
"Go, Flower!" Lily called, and in a spectacular display, the beautifly surfaced from its pokéball, surrounded by flower petals. Ugh… I hate flower petals. I blew a bit of fire at them to burn them away. I looked at the butterfly, who in turn, then  gave me the dirtiest look I've ever seen someone give another. With that, the battle began.

   "Alright Aneira lets put this to bed! Ember!" My master shouted.  I then took a deep breath and blew out the small lights of fire towards the flying insect.
"Gust!" Lily shouted back. HA! The  idiot, didn't she know gust won't do that much damage to me? But, I was mistaken, the gust wasn't for me, in fact, it was actually to protect Flower!  The gust of wind hit my flimsy flames and knocked them into nothingness. "Flower! Follow that gust up with another gust and  combine it with poison powder!" Following her trainers commands, the insect flapped its wings and breathed out its poisonous powder. The poisoned winds blew towards me at rapid speeds.  I stood there, looking around rapidly for some way to evade, and quick as a whistle my trainer shouted." DIG, ANEIRA!"  As he commanded of me, I jumped an inch in the air and dug a deep tunnel into the ground, and the poisoned winds passed over me harmlessly.
"After he–" Lilly tried to command but was cut off by the fast reaction of my trainer.
"Flame wheel that bug!" Again, following his lead, I rolled into a ball of flames rolling in place for a moment, then shot out of the hole straight at the beautifly. The beautifly saw me coming, and it swiftly evaded my attack, but got its wing burned in the process. Master smirked, then surveyed his handy work. The beautifly struggled to steady itself, so outa pity, I allowed it the chance to compose itself, then the fight continued.

 "Flower! Use mist then poison powder once more."  The beautifly nodded and threw down a ball of mist covering the surrounding area, shielding her from my view. " Aneira, special ability, drought." my trainer commanded. I gathered a ball of energy, not fire, but light and shot it upwards, then it began growing unbearably hot and the mist started to dissipate. I looked around at the now-smoking battle field. The grass, now devoid of moisture, was quickly browning and everyone broke out into a heavy sweat, everyone but my Master. I looked around, side to side, up and down, for that beautifly, everywhere but… of course! I whirled around quickly, just in time to catch a face full of poison. I wiped at my muzzle feebly with my paws, trying to rid of the vile substance, but couldn't! In a matter of moments, slowly but surely, I began to feel sick, and began swaying on my paws. "Aneira, keep it together!" my master shouted encouragingly. As his voice reached my ears, I shook my head to clear it momentarily, as Lilly called her next attack. "Flower put her to bed with gust!"
   "Aneira, counter with fire spin!"  We both charged out attacks briefly then let loose a colossal attack. The collision of cool air and heated circulating in the same pattern cause the flames merged to create one giant fire tornado. Me, being able to control fire manipulated it into the flaming vortex, and trapped her in the middle, burning her to a crisp, until Flower screamed in agony, hearing that, I  relented  the attack. She fell to the ground with a thud, her trainer returned her to her pokeball and made a hasty retreat to the Pokemon center.
     "That's my girl, Aniera." My trainer said softly, petting my head.
I, for one, was exhausted, and could barely stay upright because of the poison. I guess he noticed, for he gave me a Pecha berry, then an Oran berry, which really did the trick! I blew a little bit of fire and jumped around a bit to show my recovery had worked, then we walked over to watch Shade's battle.