The Price of Freedom

[Isabelle]

vs. Gengar

Gengar lunged forward, fists outstretched. With a swift movement, Lopunny stepped aside and kicked him in the back of the head, planting his face into the solid white ground. Lifting himself up, she gives him another resounding kick that plants him into the ground once more. She presses her foot against his back to hold him down.
‘I can’t let this monster hurt anyone else…’ She thought to herself as her foot dug deeper into his back.
She pulled her foot away and then proceeds to kick him repeatedly. He began to make unusual pained noises, but she ignored it, hoping to be rid of him by any means possible. However, one of her feet brushed against his hand, which prompt grabs hold and yanks hard; causing her to fall over flat on her back.
While Lopunny struggled to get back on her feet, Gengar takes this moment to float back up straight and throws a punch into her stomach. She buckled under the force of the hit, wincing in pain. She felt her energy draining with the hit. She senses him throwing another one, but she can’t bring herself to move out of the way, thus taking another Drain Punch to the chest. She both sees and senses Gengar reeling up another punch. This time, his fist was being encased in shadow. She sees the punch flying at her like a freight train. She closes her eyes in anticipation.
Nothing happened.
She opened her eyes, to see Gengar’s fist going through her face. He pulled it out, and then throws another punch. His arm just keeps phasing just as it impacts with her face.
“Ghost type move, huh?” she said.
Gengar, confused and frustrated, he started throwing punches left and right, but every single one phased through her like it was nothing.
“And now that I’ve pointed it out, you can’t stop doing it?” She said, snickering under her breath.
He throws another punch, but this time she catches it.
“Let me show you what I’ve learned.” She said confidently.
She does a roundhouse kick to Gengar’s face, launching him backwards several steps. Dashing forward, she sent a really fast punch into Gengar’s chest, so fast that is sends electricity through his body.
‘Thunder Punch!’ she thought to herself gleefully, ‘You’ve returned to me in the end!’
She felt her body feel a lot more exhausted from the move, but she didn’t care. Gengar was moving really slowly. From the looks of it every muscle in his body didn’t quite want to budge at full capacity. Taking the opportunity, Lopunny sent a volley of kicks and punches, bashing the ghost in many different places. A kick to a face there, a punch to the stomach here, a good ol’ fashioned knee to the groin; if you can do it quickly, she did it. After beating Gengar senseless, Lopunny reeled back her arm again.
‘Time to cool you down a bit.’ She thought
With focus, her fist started encasing in ice. However, what she doesn’t know is that the effects of Thunder Punch had worn off. Gengar takes advantage of the pause by sending another Drain Punch into her chest. The sudden shock from the pain causes her to lose focus, as the ice gets out of control, freezing her arm solid.
As she attempts to move her arm to no avail, she started to feel sleepy. She looks up to see him waving his arms, sending a wave of energy her way.
Hypnosis
She tried to move but her body started to feel heavy, pressing her toward the white floor of the Nexus. She gradually descended onto the ground. She knew that falling asleep around Gengar was a death sentence, but even with that thought in her head, she could feel her eyelids drooping.

Then her eyelids shot open. Her vision blurred, she saw something was fighting the Gengar. As she came back into focus, she saw that the mysterious figure was none other than Medicham.
“Get up and go! I’ll hold him off!” He yelled.
Without thinking, Lopunny slowly climbed to her feet. She started to run, but she turned back, worried about Medicham.
“Don’t worry about me, go get a second wind or summon something!” He called, dodging another punch from Gengar, “Anything to turn the-”
He suddenly took a Shadow Punch to the chest. He reels back, yelling in agony. Lopunny, heeding his orders, ran off.

Sitting beside the other end of the fountain, her arm began to thaw, but her mind was still in a spiral from the events that unfurled.
“Please Omni,” she prayed, “Please give me the strength to defeat Gengar.”
She focused on that thought.
‘Something to make me stronger.’
She breathed in.
1…2…3…4…5
She held.
1…2…3…4…5
She breathed out
1…2…3…4…5
Then suddenly, that familiar ball of light appeared in front of her. Much to her surprise, it formed to encapsulate her whole body, until it faded into herself. Suddenly, she felt something change inside her. She had never felt it there before, but at the same time, it was incredibly familiar, like she was always meant to have it.
“Thank you, Omni.” She said with a smile on her face.

She arrived back at the site of the battle. Medicham was lying on the ground, barely conscious. Gengar was moving in, about to use his Dream Eater on him.
“Hold it!” Lopunny yelled.
He looked over at her, and gave a bit of a chuckle. Ignoring Medicham, he crossed passed him and started moving towards his old opponent.
A ball of light encapsulated her, causing Gengar to stop and shield his eyes. She felt her body change. She felt light as a feather on her feet, but strong enough to punch through stone. She even felt her personality change as any reservations melted away. A fire was burning in her. The light faded and she stood before a shocked Gengar.
“Let’s wipe that smile off your face!” She said with a malicious grin.
With a kick, she launched herself forward and gave Gengar a solid punch to the face. Not even getting the chance to dodge, he is sent flying, crashing hard against the Earth several times like rocks skipping against the water. He quickly floated himself to his feet. He looked worse for ware before, but now even his dark purple skin couldn’t hide the damage anymore.
He dashed forward and tried to hit her with a Drain Punch, but she easily ducked out of the way and gave him a cheap shot to the ribs (or at least the closest thing to ribs in this case.) He buckled in pain from the hit. She reeled back, her fist burning with fire and sent another punch, this time to the face. The force launched him back, falling flat onto the ground.
He floated back onto his feet again, but this time with a bit more weight to it. He puts up his up dukes again, hoping to at least get one hit in but it was no use. As soon as he did so, she did another dash, this time swinging an uppercut his way. He is launched high up into the air. Then she jumped high up and kicked him straight down into the ground.

She landed next to the ghost pokemon. He was barely conscious, fighting to stay awake. She looked down on him, her eyes fierce, but slightly reluctant.
‘I can’t let him go…’ she thought, ‘He’ll hurt people again.’
She plopped down onto her knees. She grabbed onto his chest to hold him in place and proceeded to pull her arm back in preparation for the final blow. Tears started wetting her face.
‘This is not about me… this is for the good of everyone.’
Her fist ignited in fire. She was crying buckets; every muscle of her body was fighting against what she as about to do. Gengar wasn’t even looking at her. He was so helpless.
‘I must… for the good of…’
Suddenly, without even realizing it, the fireball that made up her fist propelled forward, colliding with the ghost’s face. His body caved in to the force of the punch. He popped like a balloon and his body dissipated into gas.
Lopunny breathed heavily as she just sat there, taking a moment to realize what she had just done.
“I did it.”
She felt her body transform back. As her adrenaline leaves her system, the exhaustion that had been building up the whole fight suddenly hit her like a train.
“I did it…”
She lay down against the cold floor of the Nexus. Tears dropped onto the ground as she slowly fell into a deep sleep.
“I’m a monster…” She thought as she drifted into unconsciousness.

To be continued in The Astral Realm.