Ah, Karen. With Steven’s particular team composition, he’s been dreading you--and with good reason, as two of his pokemon are exquisitely vulnerable to your particular typing and while one of them has Fairy attacks to make up for it as a backup in a few particular fights, the other is only good for tanking while he Max Revives someone who can handle your bullshit much better.
Anyway, Charley and William are mostly staying out of these matches when possible, due to being very vulnerable to Dark moves, with the exception of Charley being Little Timmy’s back-up due to her Fairy moves. Like with El Diablo in the battles with Will, William will only go in as a last resort again Karen’s pokemon if everyone else is down and only so that Steven can (as mentioned above) Max Revive another battler while William tanks for a turn, only to U-turn out if he manages to survive that hit. In any case, he’ll probably be very free with the heals for this particular fight, because with two team members relegated largely to the bench, he’ll have to make the other four pick up the slack.
Starting out with Weaville, he’ll set Charlotte against it, since she’s not particularly vulnerable to any of its moves, while Weaville itself is vulnerable to the Bug half of her dual typing. Sticky Web to reduce speed, Screech to fuck up defense, and Bug Buzz to hit hard in the Bug weakness and fuck up the special defense. After that, probably a few X-Scissors before she tries Bug Buzzing again because this stupid thing has fucking Pressure, goddamn it, and X-Scissor comes with more PP.
El Diablo Verde ends up taking on Absol, even though Absol does have that one super-powerful psychic move that he’s vulnerable to… but the thing about Future Sight is that it all works on a schedule. Absol performs the move and then two turns later it happens. Which means that El Diablo can use Endure to tank the hit he knows is coming, then immediately turn around and get sprayed with a Max Potion courtesy of Steven. When not tanking Future Sight with Endure, he’ll Taunt to deny Absol access to its status moves and hit back with Fighting moves targeting Absol’s weakness to the move type.
Steven should know from Thace’s match immediately prior to this whether or not Absol is a Pressure Absol or a Super Luck Absol, which will affect his choice of moves for this somewhat: if it’s a Pressure Absol, he’ll concentrate more on moves with higher amounts of PP like Low Sweep, Brick Break, and Rock Smash. If it’s a Super Luck Absol, then he’ll feel more free to break out those moves with less PP, like Drain Punch (which he can use to heal!) and Flying Press.
And then. Then. Then there’s the absolute fucker known as Spiritomb. This utter asshole, vulnerable only to Fairy attacks, is probably the one Ghost that Steven isn’t really planning on catching and it’s one hundred percent because of how much of a pain the shithead is for strategizing against. And to top it all off? The bitch has fucking Pressure aka the worst ability an opponent can have when you’re trying to get any fucking thing done.
Anyway, when it comes to Spiritomb, there’s really only one Pokemon that Steven will send in and that’s Little Timmy, whose Fairy dual-typing keeps its Dark attacks from doing more than normal damage, even though her Ghost-typing renders her vulnerable to its Ghost attacks. Steven and Little Timmy will both have to just deal with it. Anyway, Taunt will hopefully keep it from using its Status attacks, then it’s Dazzling Gleam to hit hard, Playing Rough to also hit hard and possibly lower Spiritomb’s attack, and Draining Kiss to hopefully recover some HP when Spiritomb fucks around with its Ghost attacks, repeat all of these as often as needed. Thanks to her Disguise ability, at least she can tank the bastard's first attack without taking damage to herself, just her costume.
It’s entirely possible that Spiritomb will take Little Timmy down, at which point Charley comes in to immediately lay a Curse on the fucker and if she can avoid being taken down on that turn, she’ll lay a Mean Look to keep it there until the Curse goes off. Survive one more turn and she starts firing off those Dazzling Gleams. Of course, if the fucking asshole ghost conglomerate takes her down too, which it very well might, that’ll be their cue to send in Fail Whale who Noble Roars when he takes the stage and can at least use his absurd number of hitpoints and lack of vulnerabilities to its attack types to tank Spiritomb’s nonsense while slowly wearing it down with repeated Water Pulses, since that’s his attack with the most PP extant. Of course, if Charley goes down, there's nothing keeping Spiritomb there to take the damn Curse, so he might be going out as Fail Whale comes in, but when he comes back, the wail will be waiting.
If Fail Whale does end up being brought in to deal with that son of a bitch, he can probably just stay on the field after that, since Steven’s chosen him to deal with Houndoom, which luckily has reasonable abilities that don’t make you waste PP. Anyway, if Steven’s lucky enough that he didn’t have to bring him in to finish off Spiritomb or if Spiritomb got pulled back immediately to avoid Curse problems, he’ll have Fail Whale immediately Water Spout before anything, to take advantage of the move’s full power, before moving on to Rain Dancing and Noble Roaring, before swinging into Hydro Pumping and then Brining once Houndoom is down under half HP. If he already had to deal with Spiritomb? Well, then Steven skips the Water Spout but otherwise proceeds as planned. Luckily, there’s only one attack in Houndoom’s arsenal that Fail Whale is vulnerable to and Fail Whale does have a lot of HP himself. With some judicious healing, Steven has this.
Anyway, he’ll probably end up having to bring Charlotte back for Honchkrow, who thankfully isn’t vulnerable to any of its nonsense. She’ll reduce its speed by flinging an Electroweb at it and go straight to hurling Thunderbolts, which ought to take it down before she goes down, but in a pinch we can have Fail Whale shoot it with some Ice Beams.
When we get to Umbreon… well, that probably depends on who’s up and who still has enough PP left after that fucking travesty known as Spiritomb and the lesser menace Absol. It’ll probably be either Little Timmy or El Diablo Verde, even if Steven has to send in William as a sacrificial healstall while he Max Revives or Full Restores one or the other of them. Either way, neither should be vulnerable to anything Umbreon has. If Little Timmy’s the lucky one and she’s still got a decent number of Dazzling Gleams and Draining Kisses, she’ll be using those. If it ends up being El Diablo, which is probably the better choice all things considered, Feather Dance will lower Umbreon’s attack, Swords Dance will raise El Diablo’s, and then it’s all Flying Presses and Drain Punches until Umbreon’s down.
AND NOW WE HEAL AND RECOVER OUR PP. But no, seriously, Steven isn’t going forward until the PP for those Fairy attacks has been restored and for very good reasons. Those reasons being his next opponent...
LANCE
… who, as we all know, is the Dragon guy. And we all know what Dragons are unexpectedly vulnerable to as well.
Anyway! We’ll start out with Little Timmy against Salamence, because Steven’s good little Fairy-Ghost is not vulnerable to anything in its arsenal (and is in fact immune to pretty much half of the moves) and after using her Baby-Doll Eyes to reduce Salamence’s attack, she’ll swing right into smacking down with Dazzling Gleam and Play Rough, and recovering HP when needed via Draining Kiss.
After Salamence comes Gyrados, who is sort of a cheat, because it’s not actually Dragon type, even if it’s a Dragon-shaped Pokemon, but whatever. This is why Charlotte is here, so she can take advantage of that lovely double vulnerability to Electricity, by throwing an Electroweb onto it to slow it the fuck down and then hurl Thunderbolts at it until it goes down.
El Diablo Verde takes Garchomp because he’s immune to its Ground attacks, resistant to its Dark attacks, and isn’t particularly vulnerable to anything else it has. Feather Dance lowers its attack, Swords Dance raises El Diablo’s, and then… well, thanks to a kindly move tutor in Blackthorn, El Diablo has Dual Chop now, which means it can hit Garchomp in the Dragon weakness until it runs out of chops. Hopefully that won’t happen… but if it does, we’ll just bring Little Timmy back with her Dazzling Gleams, Play Roughs, and Draining Kisses.
Fail Whale comes in with Altaria, since the cloudbirb dragon doesn’t have anything he’s vulnerable to and he’s got some nice, useful Ice attacks to ruin its day with. He’ll Noble Roar as is his wont when he takes the field, then starts firing off Ice Beams and calling up Blizzards.
Charizard is another cheater who isn’t a Dragon type even as he’s Dragon shaped, but no matter. In the interest of letting everyone have a go against Lance, Steven can send William out against him, since William isn’t vulnerable to anything it's got and does have an Electric attack up its sleeve to use against Charizard’s vulnerability to the attack type. After invoking Calm Mind to up his specials, William swings right into repeated Shock Waves--and should he go down, Steven can bring Charlotte back to Thunderbolt or Fail Whale back to Hydro Pump and Surf or possibly Brine if Charizard’s HP is low enough.
Finally. The last match of all. The one to decide everything. Dragonite. Steven’s been saving his bestest, most special girl for this one, because Charley deserves to deal his final blow against the Elite Four pending, of course, that he makes it through the rest including fucking Karen. She's got no vulnerabilities here and Steven's willing to heal as needed to keep her up to give the final blow. Anyway, after invoking Calm Mind to up her specials, she’ll Dazzling Gleam and Icy Wind until Dragonite’s down, with all the relentless brutality in her darling Rocket-chipped heart.
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Ah, Karen. With Steven’s particular team composition, he’s been dreading you--and with good reason, as two of his pokemon are exquisitely vulnerable to your particular typing and while one of them has Fairy attacks to make up for it as a backup in a few particular fights, the other is only good for tanking while he Max Revives someone who can handle your bullshit much better.
Anyway, Charley and William are mostly staying out of these matches when possible, due to being very vulnerable to Dark moves, with the exception of Charley being Little Timmy’s back-up due to her Fairy moves. Like with El Diablo in the battles with Will, William will only go in as a last resort again Karen’s pokemon if everyone else is down and only so that Steven can (as mentioned above) Max Revive another battler while William tanks for a turn, only to U-turn out if he manages to survive that hit. In any case, he’ll probably be very free with the heals for this particular fight, because with two team members relegated largely to the bench, he’ll have to make the other four pick up the slack.
Starting out with Weaville, he’ll set Charlotte against it, since she’s not particularly vulnerable to any of its moves, while Weaville itself is vulnerable to the Bug half of her dual typing. Sticky Web to reduce speed, Screech to fuck up defense, and Bug Buzz to hit hard in the Bug weakness and fuck up the special defense. After that, probably a few X-Scissors before she tries Bug Buzzing again because this stupid thing has fucking Pressure, goddamn it, and X-Scissor comes with more PP.
El Diablo Verde ends up taking on Absol, even though Absol does have that one super-powerful psychic move that he’s vulnerable to… but the thing about Future Sight is that it all works on a schedule. Absol performs the move and then two turns later it happens. Which means that El Diablo can use Endure to tank the hit he knows is coming, then immediately turn around and get sprayed with a Max Potion courtesy of Steven. When not tanking Future Sight with Endure, he’ll Taunt to deny Absol access to its status moves and hit back with Fighting moves targeting Absol’s weakness to the move type.
Steven should know from Thace’s match immediately prior to this whether or not Absol is a Pressure Absol or a Super Luck Absol, which will affect his choice of moves for this somewhat: if it’s a Pressure Absol, he’ll concentrate more on moves with higher amounts of PP like Low Sweep, Brick Break, and Rock Smash. If it’s a Super Luck Absol, then he’ll feel more free to break out those moves with less PP, like Drain Punch (which he can use to heal!) and Flying Press.
And then. Then. Then there’s the absolute fucker known as Spiritomb. This utter asshole, vulnerable only to Fairy attacks, is probably the one Ghost that Steven isn’t really planning on catching and it’s one hundred percent because of how much of a pain the shithead is for strategizing against. And to top it all off? The bitch has fucking Pressure aka the worst ability an opponent can have when you’re trying to get any fucking thing done.
Anyway, when it comes to Spiritomb, there’s really only one Pokemon that Steven will send in and that’s Little Timmy, whose Fairy dual-typing keeps its Dark attacks from doing more than normal damage, even though her Ghost-typing renders her vulnerable to its Ghost attacks. Steven and Little Timmy will both have to just deal with it. Anyway, Taunt will hopefully keep it from using its Status attacks, then it’s Dazzling Gleam to hit hard, Playing Rough to also hit hard and possibly lower Spiritomb’s attack, and Draining Kiss to hopefully recover some HP when Spiritomb fucks around with its Ghost attacks, repeat all of these as often as needed. Thanks to her Disguise ability, at least she can tank the bastard's first attack without taking damage to herself, just her costume.
It’s entirely possible that Spiritomb will take Little Timmy down, at which point Charley comes in to immediately lay a Curse on the fucker and if she can avoid being taken down on that turn, she’ll lay a Mean Look to keep it there until the Curse goes off. Survive one more turn and she starts firing off those Dazzling Gleams. Of course, if the fucking asshole ghost conglomerate takes her down too, which it very well might, that’ll be their cue to send in Fail Whale who Noble Roars when he takes the stage and can at least use his absurd number of hitpoints and lack of vulnerabilities to its attack types to tank Spiritomb’s nonsense while slowly wearing it down with repeated Water Pulses, since that’s his attack with the most PP extant. Of course, if Charley goes down, there's nothing keeping Spiritomb there to take the damn Curse, so he might be going out as Fail Whale comes in, but when he comes back, the wail will be waiting.
If Fail Whale does end up being brought in to deal with that son of a bitch, he can probably just stay on the field after that, since Steven’s chosen him to deal with Houndoom, which luckily has reasonable abilities that don’t make you waste PP. Anyway, if Steven’s lucky enough that he didn’t have to bring him in to finish off Spiritomb or if Spiritomb got pulled back immediately to avoid Curse problems, he’ll have Fail Whale immediately Water Spout before anything, to take advantage of the move’s full power, before moving on to Rain Dancing and Noble Roaring, before swinging into Hydro Pumping and then Brining once Houndoom is down under half HP. If he already had to deal with Spiritomb? Well, then Steven skips the Water Spout but otherwise proceeds as planned. Luckily, there’s only one attack in Houndoom’s arsenal that Fail Whale is vulnerable to and Fail Whale does have a lot of HP himself. With some judicious healing, Steven has this.
Anyway, he’ll probably end up having to bring Charlotte back for Honchkrow, who thankfully isn’t vulnerable to any of its nonsense. She’ll reduce its speed by flinging an Electroweb at it and go straight to hurling Thunderbolts, which ought to take it down before she goes down, but in a pinch we can have Fail Whale shoot it with some Ice Beams.
When we get to Umbreon… well, that probably depends on who’s up and who still has enough PP left after that fucking travesty known as Spiritomb and the lesser menace Absol. It’ll probably be either Little Timmy or El Diablo Verde, even if Steven has to send in William as a sacrificial healstall while he Max Revives or Full Restores one or the other of them. Either way, neither should be vulnerable to anything Umbreon has. If Little Timmy’s the lucky one and she’s still got a decent number of Dazzling Gleams and Draining Kisses, she’ll be using those. If it ends up being El Diablo, which is probably the better choice all things considered, Feather Dance will lower Umbreon’s attack, Swords Dance will raise El Diablo’s, and then it’s all Flying Presses and Drain Punches until Umbreon’s down.
AND NOW WE HEAL AND RECOVER OUR PP. But no, seriously, Steven isn’t going forward until the PP for those Fairy attacks has been restored and for very good reasons. Those reasons being his next opponent...
LANCE
… who, as we all know, is the Dragon guy. And we all know what Dragons are unexpectedly vulnerable to as well.
Anyway! We’ll start out with Little Timmy against Salamence, because Steven’s good little Fairy-Ghost is not vulnerable to anything in its arsenal (and is in fact immune to pretty much half of the moves) and after using her Baby-Doll Eyes to reduce Salamence’s attack, she’ll swing right into smacking down with Dazzling Gleam and Play Rough, and recovering HP when needed via Draining Kiss.
After Salamence comes Gyrados, who is sort of a cheat, because it’s not actually Dragon type, even if it’s a Dragon-shaped Pokemon, but whatever. This is why Charlotte is here, so she can take advantage of that lovely double vulnerability to Electricity, by throwing an Electroweb onto it to slow it the fuck down and then hurl Thunderbolts at it until it goes down.
El Diablo Verde takes Garchomp because he’s immune to its Ground attacks, resistant to its Dark attacks, and isn’t particularly vulnerable to anything else it has. Feather Dance lowers its attack, Swords Dance raises El Diablo’s, and then… well, thanks to a kindly move tutor in Blackthorn, El Diablo has Dual Chop now, which means it can hit Garchomp in the Dragon weakness until it runs out of chops. Hopefully that won’t happen… but if it does, we’ll just bring Little Timmy back with her Dazzling Gleams, Play Roughs, and Draining Kisses.
Fail Whale comes in with Altaria, since the cloudbirb dragon doesn’t have anything he’s vulnerable to and he’s got some nice, useful Ice attacks to ruin its day with. He’ll Noble Roar as is his wont when he takes the field, then starts firing off Ice Beams and calling up Blizzards.
Charizard is another cheater who isn’t a Dragon type even as he’s Dragon shaped, but no matter. In the interest of letting everyone have a go against Lance, Steven can send William out against him, since William isn’t vulnerable to anything it's got and does have an Electric attack up its sleeve to use against Charizard’s vulnerability to the attack type. After invoking Calm Mind to up his specials, William swings right into repeated Shock Waves--and should he go down, Steven can bring Charlotte back to Thunderbolt or Fail Whale back to Hydro Pump and Surf or possibly Brine if Charizard’s HP is low enough.
Finally. The last match of all. The one to decide everything. Dragonite. Steven’s been saving his bestest, most special girl for this one, because Charley deserves to deal his final blow against the Elite Four
pending, of course, that he makes it through the rest including fucking Karen. She's got no vulnerabilities here and Steven's willing to heal as needed to keep her up to give the final blow. Anyway, after invoking Calm Mind to up her specials, she’ll Dazzling Gleam and Icy Wind until Dragonite’s down, with all the relentless brutality in her darling Rocket-chipped heart.Game. Set. Match.