Blowing Bubbles

Chapter 29: A shocking trial!

I went to the trial site, Hokulani observatory the next day. I had spent the rest of yesterday training with Gabe, since he was a bit weaker than the rest of my team, but now we were ready to fight whatever totem pokemon was waiting for us.
Just then, I heard someone running behind me. I pulled out Bubbles pokeball and turned around, thinking the person was another Team Skull grunt. It turned out to be Yvonne, and she was running up to me with two pokemon I didn't recognize. One pokemon was small and gray, with huge ears and a long, fluffy tail. The other one was a bit taller than Yvonne, and it looked like something from robinhood.
"Hey, Millie!" Yvonne greeted. "How's your island challenge coming along? Oh, you're about to do the electric trial. Haha, I already completed that one." "Hey, no fair!" I teased happily. "Who are those two pokemon?" "Oh, this is my newly caught Minccino." With that, Yvonne scooped up Minccino in her arms and showed it to me. "Min! Minccino!" It complained, flailing around and wanting to be put down. "Oh, Minccino, don't be so grumpy," Yvonne sighed with a smile. "Millie won't hurt you. Anyway, as for the other one, Dartrix evolved into a Decidueye." Dartrix, now Decidueye, stepped forward and greeted me. "Decid."

Pretty soon, it was time to start the trial. I went inside the observatory with Yvonne, who had decided to watch my trial. I was greeted by a short, chubby boy with a white T-shirt and golden yellow hair. "My name is Sophocles," he introduced. "I'm the trial captain here. Oh, hey there, Yvonne!" "Hi!" As Yvonne greeted Sophocles, a small, round pokemon jumped up onto his shoulder. "Toge!" "That's my Togedemaru," Sophocles chuckled. "Now, follow me."

Yvonne and I followed Sophocles into a room in the back of the building, with plenty of weird gadgets around. One in particular was shaped like a vikavolt, and I recognized it because I knew that Ms. Chancellor had one. It was originally just a Grubbin, but she evolved it into a Charjabug, then a Vikavolt, when she was teaching us about evolution.

"For this trial," Sophocles explained, "I have nine Charjabug here. Three of them are on a machine on a table, and you need to arrange them so they form a line. You need to do this to power up the Vikavolt robot. The robot will power up a gadget called the pinger, which will call the totem pokemon. Here, I'll do the first one for you." With that, Sophocles went up to the table, pressed a button on the left side of the table, then went over and pushed another button on the right side of the table twice. The three charjabug formed a line at the top, producing electricity and powering up the vikavolt robot a little.
"Hm...there doesn't seem to be enough power..." Sophocles muttered. "We need more." He then placed three more charjabug on the table, this time closer to the bottom. "Here, Millie, you try." I tried lining up the charjabug so they formed a horizontal line in the middle of the table, but nothing happened. A little confused, I tried lining them up at the bottom instead, which worked and powered up the vikavolt robot a bit more. It still wasn't fully powered, though. "What the heck...?" Sophocles muttered again. "Why won't it work? Here, Millie, I'll put the last three charjabug on the table."

I tried lining up the last group of charjabug in a few different ways, but nothing really seemed to work. A little frustrated and confused, I lined them up in a diagonal line, making it so that the top of the line was connecting to the top right corner. It was a success, but the vikavolt robot started to overflow with power. It turned around, facing the Charjabug, then released a huge bolt of electricity. Before the bolt could hit the Charjabug, Sophocles' Togedemaru jumped in and absorbed the electricity, making me figure out that Togedemarus ability was Lightning Rod.
"Oh no!" Sophocles shouted in distress. "The robot powered up too much! I-I don't think Togedemaru will be able to absorb that much electricity! Gah! What do we do, what do we do???!!! This didn't happen during Yvonnes trial!" Worried, I desperately tried to think of a solution to the problem, when suddenly I heard something on the ceiling break. "Millie, look out!" Yvonne warned.
Just then, a much bigger Togedemaru jumped down and absorbed the rest of the electricity, saving Sophocles' Togedemaru from getting hurt.

When all of the electricity was absorbed, the big Togedemaru jumped down and looked at me determinedly. I knew right away that this was the totem pokemon.