Antoinetta's facade may have cracked earlier, but it now broke completely as Troy's Shuckle put the plan into action. Stomach plummeting, she stared, watching Shuckle use Mellona's Gust against her - and miss. She breathed a sigh of relief. If that Defense Curl and Gust-bolstered Rollout had hit, the battle would have been over in one turn.

She pulled herself together right away. The crowd must have seen that mini freak-out, but she faced Troy with her usual prideful smirk as if it had never happened. [color=7cff30]"Did you really think that was going to work?"[/color] she taunted, while making a mental note to call a move that wouldn't give Shuckle so much leverage. [color=7cff30]"Mel, prepare yourself with Struggle Bug!"[/color]

A sparking, shimmering red aura built up around Mellona, just as it had in the previous battle. Holding her ground and keeping a safe distance, the Combee unleashed the energy in a firework-like burst.

Shimmering red sparks flew out of Mellona before transitioning to green missiles and curving towards Shuckle. Troy was impressed. Although it probably came down to training with Combee, everything she did was pretty flashy. Shuckle can use struggle bug as well, so it was easy to see how the Combee's struggle bug was more brightly colored and bombastic than usual. Frankly, Troy was out of his depth. It was hard to even think of ways to make Shuckle's current moveset be more flashy. Just using Rollout over and over again wouldn't really be in the spirit of a contest, he would think, since they usually have a short timer. That being said, going for a knockout with rollout is probably the best option in a contest as well...

In any case, he doesn't need to give the most impressive performance, he just needs to be more impressive than his opponent. [color=yellow]"Return fire with Infestation."[/color]

Shuckle begins to generate tiny black particles around Mellona, swirling into Mellona from all around her like a vortex. The particles move in currents, giving the appearance of flower petals curling inward or eldritch tentacles reaching for Mellona, depending on your point of view. They'll cling to Mellona on contact, producing an unpleasant stinging sensation continuously. Ideally, her performance will suffer under duress, though residual damage doesn’t hurt either. Shuckle is likely too weak to beat Mellona in the first hit of Rollout anyway, even with the extreme type advantage. Some Infestation damage might remedy that.

More or less at the same time, the red sparks of Struggle Bug begin to crash against Shuckle. They converge onto Shuckle, forcing him into his shell and battering it in small bursts of light.

Mellona's graceful flight patterns gave way to frantic squirming as she tried to flap away the black specks. It was no use. The particle cloud kept converging in, threatening to overwhelm her. Netty's ribs clenched. From what she knew of this particular Bug move, it restricted opponents' movement - not good for a dance based contest battler.

[hider=Result]
Struggle Bug and Infestation from both opponents hit. Shuckle’s Special Attack dropped, although considering the pokemon was mostly sticking to Defensive moves, it didn’t seem to matter too much. All the while, Mellona was infested with the tiny black particles that would sap away at her HP slowly.
[/hider]
There was only one possible counter. [color=7cff30]"Another Gust!"[/color] Netty called. [color=7cff30]"Blow them away!"[/color] Mellona, her twirling much more urgent and rather less agile, whipped up another whirlwind, aiming it at Shuckle while trying to dislodge as many particles as she could in the process.

As the insectoid dust ‘clears’, Troy presses the attack. [color=yellow]”Now, rollout through anything in your way.”[/color]

[hider=Result]
Mellona was not as swift or evasive as she had been prior with the Infestation hindering her movement. While the Gust helped to dislodge some of the damaging particles, it didn’t blow away the Infestation attack completely so it would continue to sap Mellona’s health while also interfering with her movement. Her evasiveness was not what it had been at the beginning of the battle either. But the Gust did help once more in blowing the Shuckle off trajectory, resulting in Rollout narrowly missing Mellona. Once again, the students were whispering to each other; Would the Combee fall to the damage of Infestation, or a Rollout attack? Or would the Shuckle’s tough shell crack under the pressure of the battle? Who would faint first?
[/hider]

[@LuckyBlackCat] [@Ryik]