AoR31

***Ride Like the Wind*** is the thirty-first chapter of *The Angel of Reckoning*. It primarily concerns Olivia Mistbloom's battle with Clair, the Gym Leader of Blackthorn Gym.

## Plot summary

The morning after Anabel Mistbloom's battle with Renzo Milos, Nekou Lalume helps Olivia Mistbloom review strategies for her imminent battle against Clair. Olivia expresses bitterness about Renzo's hatred towards her family, and Nekou comforts her, telling her that he will have to handle his own problems.

Meanwhile, Finansielle brings Renzo to meet with Father in the Polaris Temple. Polaris's leader expresses sympathy with Renzo despite the latter's anger, then brings Colress Antimony into the conversation. Colress details his plans to enhance the power of Pokémon and reveals that he has created a Dragonite as part of this experiment, which Father offers to Renzo as a gesture of good faith.

At Blackthorn Gym, Fran introduces Olivia and Clair so the battle can commence; Matt Chiaki, Nekou, Amanda Chiaki and Anabel watch from the stands. As Olivia possesses four badges, each side will use four Pokémon in the battle. For the first matchup, Olivia and Clair send out Stoutland and Dragonair, respectively. Dragonair initially gains the upper hand, using Rain Dance to whip up a windy rainstorm and Scale Shot to deal damage while also boosting her speed. Olivia manages to turn the tables by having Stoutland dodge Dragonair's attacks, luring her into moving in close with Dragon Rush. Stoutland catches Dragonair and knocks her out, giving Olivia an early lead.

Clair sends out Gyarados as her second Pokémon, and Gyarados's presence prompts Olivia's Flaaffy to force herself into the battle; it is revealed that prior to releasing her, her original trainer promised her that she would battle Clair's Gyarados. The two clash bitterly and both land powerful blows, but Gyarados begins to overwhelm Flaaffy. Stubbornly refusing to forget the promise from her original trainer, she calls on all of her strength and pushes herself to evolve into Ampharos. The power boost from her evolution allows her to overpower and knock Gyarados out.

As her third Pokémon, Clair sends out Aerodactyl; Olivia considers selecting Samurott before choosing Kingler instead. Though he fights tactically, Kingler ends up cornered by Aerodactyl's Rock Tomb and defeated by Thunder Fang. Olivia tries to send in Ampharos, only for Samurott to force his way in, fueled by his rivalry with Ampharos. He manages to knock Aerodactyl out by jamming one of his seamitars into Aerodactyl's mouth.

Now down to her final Pokémon, Clair sends out her ace, Kingdra. Olivia, feeling that she needs to save Samurott for later, recalls him and sends Stoutland back out. Kingdra rises to Olivia's challenge to fight on dry land, creating another storm with Rain Dance and using the weather to both enhance the power of her Scald and render her far more agile while in the rain. Stoutland fails to land more than one hit before Kingdra knocks him out. Olivia brings Ampharos out next, and uses the new moves Ampharos gained upon evolving - Dragon Pulse and Fire Punch - in an all-out assault on Kingdra's defenses. Ampharos draws close to Kingdra and deliberately gets thrown into the air by Hurricane, offering her a clear shot at Kingdra from above. The two Pokémon strike each other with Dragon Pulse and Draco Meteor, both scoring powerful blows. However, after landing, Ampharos falls.

With the battle now down to its final matchup, Olivia returns Samurott to the action. Samurott and Kingdra engage in a violent final showdown both above and below the surface of Blackthorn Gym's water tank. By jamming his seamitar into the curl of Kingdra's tail, Samurott forces her to use Hurricane just to fling them both out of the water. Kingdra, growing desperate, uses Draco Meteor again. However, Samurott deflects the blows with his seamitar and rides Kingdra's subsequent Hurricane to get above her, in similar fashion to Ampharos. Combining Liquidation and Revenge, Samurott lands the decisive blow, defeating Kingdra to secure the victory for Olivia. Clair, having enjoyed the battle, awards Olivia the Rising Badge and expresses a hope to see Olivia face Renzo at the Pokémon League.

At the Polaris Temple, Mercury meets with Finansielle to file a report on her operation at the Ice Path. Mercury, deciding to pin the failure of her mission to recapture Genesect on Colress, tells Finansielle that the prototype Meteonite weapon did make her Bisharp stronger, but its performance could have been better. Finansielle, aware of Mercury's motives, accepts this and promises to pass Mercury's notes on to Colress, mentioning that she has also given him a stockpile of old files from Cipher's Shadow Pokémon development.

To celebrate Olivia's victory, Matt prepares an extensive dinner based on recipes from one of famous Kalosian chef Siebold's cookbooks. The group's Pokémon also share a meal of Galarian curry, and Nekou reveals to Matt that she has given her Pumpkaboo and Zorua the nicknames Madeline and Camille, respectively. She attributes this to wanting everyone to have names if they're going to consider themselves a family, a notion Matt finds himself happy with.

In his laboratory, Dr. Zager completes his analysis of the data stolen from the Adenosine Base and asks Pierce to bring him to see Giovanni. In that data, he has found that Team Rocket has not been slowing down Polaris's plans as they believed, and the Oracle is predicting the imminent completion of the "Laphicet Prophecy".

## Characters

* Matt Chiaki
* Nekou Lalume
* Olivia Mistbloom
* Anabel Mistbloom
* Amanda Chiaki
* Clair
* Fran
* Renzo Milos
* Father
* Finansielle
* Mercury
* Colress Antimony
* Dr. Zager
* Pierce
* Flaaffy's former trainer

## Trivia

* This chapter's title comes from the song of the same name by Christopher Cross.
* *Ride Like the Wind* was originally planned as the title of a later chapter. Prior to its adoption for this chapter's title, this chapter was to be titled *Shelter*, after the song of the same name by Porter Robinson.