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Sucker Punch was one of the Egg Moves Sprigatito had inherited at birth. The mechanics were straightforward: if the opponent commits to an attacking move that turn, the user of Sucker Punch strikes first, landing the hit before the opponent can follow through.
Sprigatito hadn't yet evolved and didn't naturally carry the Dark typing. But her Hidden Ability, Protean, changed her type to match whichever move she was about to use. The moment she committed to Sucker Punch, she became Dark-type — and with that, the move received STAB. On top of that, the Femme Fatale trait granted her Dark-type moves a fifteen to twenty-five percent damage bonus.
The resulting hit landed with far more force than anyone watching would have expected from a Pokémon that small.
Slugma opened its mouth to launch Ember. Sprigatito vanished from where she had been standing and reappeared directly in front of it, claws wrapped in dark energy, and raked across its molten head in a clean, hard strike.
The Double Magician trait activated immediately. Before the first impact had even finished, her other forepaw filled with the same shadowy force and followed through with a second slash — Slugma still airborne from the first hit.
Across the field, the green-haired Trainer stared.
"That kitten just hit twice in one turn. Is that even allowed?"
Nova could have explained, but chose not to. The short answer was: yes, it was allowed, and if anyone wanted to dispute it, they were welcome to take it up with the current Gym Leader of Luma Gym, since the cat had been a gift from Charlie Tucker.
Slugma, for its part, had soaked up both hits while already in the process of executing its own order. It was a slow Pokémon by nature, which meant it had a great deal of experience being struck first in battles. It had been hit before. It had learned to finish what it started regardless.
Even dazed from the double Sucker Punch, Slugma completed the Ember.
A burst of concentrated flame the size of a frying pan launched across the field. Fire moves from Slugma burned hotter than standard — a natural consequence of a Pokémon that lived in molten rock. The base power of Ember wasn't impressive on paper, but against a newly hatched Grass-type, it was a serious threat.
Nova's instinct was to meet it head-on.
This wasn't always the obvious play. Common sense said to dodge a type-disadvantaged attack. But there was another option: answer with a move powerful enough to overwhelm it outright. Energy collisions weren't symmetric — a strong enough Grass-type attack would bulldoze through a weak Ember rather than cancel evenly. The same way a roaring blaze can vaporize water thrown at it rather than simply go out.
"Sprigatito, Petal Blizzard!"
The kitten, however, had already formed her own read on the situation.
Sprigatito was not a Pokémon that followed commands like a machine. She listened, processed, and then made adjustments when she saw something her Trainer hadn't. Nova had given her an order — she fully intended to carry it out — but first, she had spotted something better.
She tapped the ground. A surge of Psychic energy pulsed outward.
In the span of a blink, both Pokémon's positions swapped. Sprigatito now stood where Slugma had been. Slugma stood where Sprigatito had been — deeply confused — with an Ember already halfway across the arena that it had no way to stop or redirect.
Ally Switch.
The fireball it had launched arrived right on schedule and hit Slugma squarely in the face.
And then Sprigatito completed the original order.
She planted her paws and drew on the Grass energy around her. The Wild Growth trait amplified it far beyond what anything at her level should have produced. Petals of dense, condensed energy scattered outward in every direction — not a gentle shower, but a storm.
The first wave from Petal Blizzard crashed into Slugma. Double Magician triggered, and a second wave followed immediately behind it, with no gap between.
Slugma went down. It hit the ground with a heavy, slow slide, spirals in its eyes, entirely unable to continue.
Sprigatito turned and walked back toward her half of the field with the measured calm of someone who had done this many times before, despite the fact that this was her first battle. She let out a string of self-satisfied "Meowscarada, Meowscarada"s in Nova's direction, then cut a sharp look sideways at Growlithe.
The message was clear enough.
One Fire-type down. Fire-types are easy.
Growlithe, who had not said or done anything, looked mildly offended.
Nova crouched down and gave the kitten a patient scratch behind the ears before she could escalate further.
"All right. That was very good. Stop picking on Archie — he wasn't even competing."
He kept his voice even, but inwardly he was recalculating. He had already tried to account for Sprigatito's talent when he thought about what she was capable of. He had thought he'd been generous.
He hadn't been generous enough.
The Ally Switch into Petal Blizzard sequence — improvised mid-battle, in her first real fight — was not something most Pokémon could execute cleanly even with months of dedicated training. The timing, the spatial awareness, the decision to deviate from the command and still honour it immediately after: all of that required a level of battle intelligence that he associated with Pokémon several evolutionary stages and years of experience ahead of where she currently stood.
She had done it as if it were obvious.
Nova rubbed the back of his neck and quietly admitted to himself that his cat might be a little bit extraordinary.
It was also clear that the two of them hadn't actually coordinated yet — Sprigatito hadn't fully calibrated to how Nova gave commands, and Nova hadn't fully calibrated to how far ahead of those commands she was already thinking. They had won the round cleanly without ever quite being in sync.
The thought of what they would be able to do once they were in sync was something he set aside for later.
Across the field, the green-haired Trainer had been standing completely still for about thirty seconds. The crowd's noise eventually registered, and he slowly recalled his fainted Slugma.
He looked at the two remaining Poké Balls in his hand.
The type read had been correct — she really was Grass-type. He had been right about that. It hadn't helped at all.
He turned the Poké Balls over in his hand, looked at the kitten sitting calmly on the opposite side of the field, and said nothing for a long moment.
"Can I just forfeit?"
He looked around. Nobody answered.
"Someone give me my bag. I want to go home."