This is the second of two chapters today.
With care, the Gym Leader took a simple Pokéball from her belt. "Rusty, let's do this!"
In a flash, Jasmine's Steelix materialized in the Gym. He took up a fairly large amount of the floor at full stretch, and he reared up to roar at Keldeo.
Unfazed, Keldeo set his stance.
Jasmine then shook out her wrists, and held up a bangle. She slipped it onto her right wrist, and held it up.
Ash blinked. "What's – wait, is that a-"
The small red bow on Rusty's head began to glow, matching the bangle Jasmine had just put on.
"That's a Mega Stone!" Brock said, blinking. "I didn't know Steelix had one!"
As he said that, Rusty flashed orange as the Mega Stone activated.
When the glow had died down, the friends saw through the gathering sandstorm how Rusty had changed.
He was a little bit longer – a few feet. His lower jaw had expanded, forming protrusions either side of the chin, and his head had flattened down a bit.
Most of the changes, however, had happened to his body.
A rotating ring of glowing crystals girdled the base of his neck, flashing irregularly as the energy of the Mega-Evolution jumped between them. There were pairs of similar iridescent crystals growing out of alternate body-boulders, with the other body segments smaller than before and marked with glowing blue hexagons.
"That's pretty cool," Ash admitted. "I didn't know you had a Mega Stone – or a Key Stone."
"You're well informed," Jasmine said, with a smile. "Most people haven't heard of it – this is for special occasions."
"I'll say..." Misty muttered. "Wish I had a Mega Stone."
"You know what to do, Rusty," Jasmine told him. "Begin!"
Keldeo squinted through the sandstorm, and dodged aside as Rusty's head came slamming down with Thunder Fang crackling.
Horn glowing, he lashed out with a Sacred Sword which splashed off Rusty's armoured carapace.
"What?" he said, blinking. "That should have done at least some-"
Rusty's head came forward again, lightning-fast, and slammed home with an Iron Head attack which knocked Keldeo backwards.
The Colt Pokémon kicked out with his rear legs, hitting the wall with a clang, and arrested his movement that way. Charging up another Sacred Sword, he tried to get a bead through the sandstorm.
He saw Rusty coming just a little too late.
The Steelix slammed into him at high speed, and this time there was nowhere to shed the force before hitting the wall. Keldeo cried out at the impact, fired his Hydro Pump more-or-less randomly, and went shooting off across the gym – his Sacred Sword fizzling as he lost control of it.
Landing one-hoof-first and staggering, he turned to look into the core of the sandstorm. Aiming his forehoof somewhere into the cloud, he fired a burst of water.
There was a brief sound of water drumming on metal, and then Rusty's tail came sweeping out of the sand at about knee height.
Keldeo was able to dodge that sweeping Iron Tail with another burst of water from his hooves, jumping barely over the appendage, but one of the crystals clipped his rear left leg and destabilized his landing.
Capitalizing on that, Rusty swung his tail back again to hit Keldeo before he recovered. This time, the Water-type was too slow, and Rusty sent him slamming into the wall.
Staggering a little, Keldeo lit off his horn and built up one more Secret Sword. He worked out where Ash and his friends were, and where Jasmine was, and then sent it shooting off into the clouds of sand midway between the two trainers.
Rusty roared in surprise and pain, and Keldeo felt a fierce triumph that he'd scored – then the Mega Steelix retaliated with a large rock at high speed, and knocked Keldeo out.
Ash held his arm up to shield his eyes. "This sandstorm is really annoying... okay, let's see if this works."
He reached for another Pokéball. "Okay, here goes – Charizard!"
The big Fire-type erupted into the air, and snorted at the sand as it reached for him. His wings hammered as he hovered near the roof, sending great gales into the swirling sand and driving it towards the floor.
A rock flew up at him from the cloud, and he smashed it aside with a Metal Claw before retaliating with a huge blast of flame – not especially potent, but hot enough and broad enough to drive most of the sand to the floor.
It cooled quickly, fused a little by the heat and made sticky and cohesive.
Charizard smirked, satisfied with his solution to the Sandstorm – then yelped, ducking out of the way as a blizzard of rocks flew in his direction.
Rusty's crystalline spines glowed as he levitated more rocks for a particularly dramatic Stone Edge, then flung them too at Charizard.
Flying out of the way, Charizard quickly came to a conclusion – the indoor gym, large as it was, was too small for a Pokémon his size to properly fight in the air.
Grumbling about that, he dove for the floor – managing to reach it quickly enough to avoid all the rocks, though one was a close thing – and roared defiance.
Rusty considered Charizard, spines flickering with multicoloured light, and then his tail slammed into the floor – shattering the glass there into smaller pieces.
Through the gap, more rocks came rumbling up to hover around him – ready for use.
While Rusty was preparing, Charizard had not been idle. He began with a shot of fire, aimed not towards the Mega Steelix – but to his left, towards the wall. It burst with a loud crack, releasing clouds of thick smoke, and he took a half-flapping leap into the concealing darkness.
The smoke drifted for a moment, and then rippled as Rusty sent the first half-dozen rocks into it.
There were a loud series of clangs as they struck the armour plate on the other side of the cloud of smoke.
Jasmine frowned. "That didn't quite sound right... I hope that doesn't mean that bit of the armour's unsound."
Rusty sent pattern after pattern of rocks into the smoke, producing loud clangs with a monotonous regularity – and no grunt of pain from Charizard.
It didn't sound like any of the rocks were hitting flesh, either.
Finally, after a couple of minutes of this, Rusty tired. He came forwards in a grinding, slithering motion, pivoted about a third of the way down his body, and whipped his tail through the smoke.
It hit something with a clang – and stopped.
Rusty blinked, clearly confused. He tried to bring his tail back, and found it was being held still.
"Inferno!" Charizard roared, punching out a lance of blue flame from the smoke cloud. It splashed off Rusty's head and side, heating it to cherry-red and even orange in some places.
The blast also sent the smoke away in coils, and everyone could see what had happened.
Charizard was standing up, refurling his wings – which had, until that moment, been shielding him in tough, hard-to-damage Steel Wings. And his tail was unwrapping from his legs, still shimmering with the Iron Tail which had made it, too, too tough for Rusty to damage easily.
Shaking his head and recovering, Rusty snatched his tail away from Charizard's grip. Rather than be dashed into the wall by it, Charizard let it go – instead, he took off once more, and fired a Draco Meteor at the pile of rocks which was most of Rusty's ammunition.
One flash of orange and a roar of overlapping explosions, and all Rusty had to work with was gravel.
Undaunted, he switched approaches. Coiling briefly, he launched himself forwards for a powerful physical headbutt.
Charizard was caught wrong-footed, coming down to land, and the headbutt hit him in the chest. He slid backwards several feet, then managed to dig his clawed feet into the ground and halt his backwards movement just short of the wall.
"Charizard!" Ash called.
Charizard looked over, then turned back to Rusty as the Steel-type's fangs began to crackle with energy. Using his head, he slammed the mouth closed again with a headbutt of his own. "Kind of busy here!"
"Whenever you want, use-" Ash began, then Rusty pushed forwards again with a grinding cacophany of metal on rock.
Charizard roared, putting one foot on the armourplate of the wall, and shoved. He drove Rusty skidding backwards a few paces, then unleashed a point-blank Fireblast and got clear in the explosion.
"-Blast Burn!" Ash completed.
A grin crossed Charizard's face. "Sure thing!"
He hit the ground arms-first, rolled, and came to his feet as Rusty turned towards him. The big armoured faceplate of the Steelix was shimmering faintly with heat as he cooled, and he looked a little more sluggish than he had done.
Charizard began to inhale, and an eerie light built in his throat.
Correctly interpreting this as terrible news, Rusty lunged forwards in an Iron Head attack to try to interrupt him.
The Fire-type opened his wings and beat them with a fiery crackle. Flame sprung from his tail, surrounding him and his wings, and then rocketed forwards in a bright orange-yellow pulse to spring up in a column of fire between him and Rusty. The same flap of the wings also sent Charizard into the air, out of the way when Rusty broke through the Fire Pledge.
Rusty turned in on himself and launched over half his body length into the air, jaws opening to try and grab Charizard's tail and pull him down that way.
Diving to gain speed, Charizard snatched his tail away from the clamping Thunder Fang, and pulled up just before hitting the cracked-glass floor in a wingover.
At about that point, he charged up as much as he was intending to.
A pulse of incandescent flame and plasma erupted from his mouth, slamming into Rusty's first thick body segment a little left of centre and driving him backwards into the armour-plating of the wall. Steel armour ablated off in a plume of golden radiance, and Rusty's body was nearly white hot by the time the second or so of the attack ended.
A little of the Blast Burn had missed Rusty's body itself, instead striking the armour plate of the walls directly. As the glow of overheated metal began to cool down, the spectators saw – with not a little awe – that there was a deep dent melted into the steel plate, and the whole section around it was deformed.
Rusty flashed orange and slumped forwards, revealing that the armour plate he'd been driven into was itself deformed and softened by the burst of intense heat. He was back to a non-mega-evolved Steelix by the time he hit the floor.
Charizard smirked. "Mine was better."
"Nice one, Charizard!" Ash called, after a few seconds of silence. "That was awesome!"
He glanced over at Jasmine. "One left, right?"
"...my poor gym..." Jasmine said, softly. Then she shook her head. "Right. Sorry about that... okay."
She raised a Pokéball, and returned Rusty. That done, she raised another.
"That's a Lure Ball," Ash said, recognizing it. "Back here, Charizard, that's going to be a Water-type-"
"No!" Charizard said immediately.
Ash blinked.
"I want to do this," Charizard told him. "If I faint, then fine – but this is the last one, and you don't need me to conserve my strength."
"Sure, then," Ash shrugged. "I'm going to leave Charizard out."
Jasmine blinked. "Fine, then. Empoleon!"
"Good day," Empoleon said, with an elaborate bow towards his opponent. "I am Empoleon, and I will be your opponent today."
"Yeah, I gathered," Charizard agreed. He slammed one fist into the other palm. "Let's do this!"
"Very well." Empoleon nodded. He stood up straight, clicking his heels together, with his flippers straight down at his sides.
Charizard blinked. "What's-"
"Aqua Jet!"
Empoleon took off, gouts of water erupting from the base of each flipper and sending him into the air.
When he was about halfway to the roof, he stopped there for a little – and then tilted forwards, sweeping his flippers up behind him and jetting towards Charizard.
The bigger Fire/Flying type sent a blast of flame towards Empoleon, which was met by a precise Water Pulse – both attacks detonating in mid-air – and Empoleon then swept past him, flippers coming out to his sides to slow down and perform a wingover.
As he did, water sluiced over the wall, producing a great cloud of steam from the still-hot metal.
Ash blinked. "I thought penguins couldn't fly..."
"Ash," Pikachu pointed out. "Keldeo flies. The same way, even."
"True," Ash agreed with a nod.
Empoleon banked around, flippers shifting again from beside to behind as he accelerated, and fired a string of Water Pulses at the dodging Charizard.
By dint of luck, skill and a judicious blast of Dragonbreath, Charizard managed to avoid being hit by all but one of them. That one hurt, though, slapping into his chest and knocking him backwards.
Growling, Charizard tracked Empoleon's next turn. There was definitely a weakness there... he just had to work out how to use it.
First, though, he had the attack run to deal with.
Empoleon rolled as he came in, accelerating hard, and opened fire with a Bubblebeam. The glowing white bubbles hit the ground in front of Charizard, tracked across it towards him, and then locked on.
Charizard used the moment's warning well. Sweeping his wing up – once more glowing with Steel Wing, as he'd done against Rusty – he used it as a shield, reducing the impact of the Water-type attack and protecting his tail.
Behind the wing, an eerie green glow built up.
As Empoleon reached his closest approach, he had to stop firing – and Charizard whipped his wing back down, opening fire with a gout of Dragonbreath that swept across the flying penguin from front to back.
Empoleon staggered in the air from the influence of the Dragon-type attack, then recovered. Sweeping his flippers back to their outer position to increase his manoeuvrability, he slowed and banked-
"Look out!" Jasmine shouted-
And Charizard arrived.
As soon as his dragonbreath blast had done its job, the Fire-type had pushed off from the ground with all the strength in his powerful legs. Wings snapping out, he hammered them against the steamy air and leaped after Empoleon, aiming to grab him and physically prevent him from using his unorthodox flight method.
This approach got him a faceful of water from the water-jets as they shifted position, but he powered through it and his grip slammed home on the banking penguin.
"Seismic Toss!" Charizard explained, another flap of his wings carrying him towards the wall – holding Empoleon out in front of him to take the impact.
This did not go as planned.
Jasmine's jaw dropped as the two fully-evolved starters slammed into the wall – and tore an irregular section of the steel off.
A rough circle about eight or nine feet across parted company with the rest of the armoured steel with a horrible screeching of rent metal, leaving a jagged hole in the side of the gym and admitting both Pokémon into the open air outside.
"What the-" she began, staggered.
Through the hole, she saw Empoleon struggle free of Charizard's grip and take off – soaring into the sky at the head of a plume of water.
Roaring, Charizard followed with a crack of leathery wings, and she lost sight of him too.
"What just happened?" Ash asked, looking over at her. "I thought you said this was battleship armour!"
"It is!" Jasmine replied. "Or – well, was? But..."
She blinked. "Oh! I know what it is!"
"What is it?" Ash asked, as the Gym Leader and challenger both hurried over to the hole to see where their Pokémon were.
"Steel expands when it's hotter. Your Charizard's attack heated that section of steel to..." Jasmine trailed off for a moment, calculating in her head. "About a thousand degrees? More?"
"Oh, right," Ash nodded. "I get it. So he heated it up, then your Empoleon cooled it down, and that made it weaker?"
They reached the hole, and picked their way carefully over the jagged edges of the torn steel.
"Pretty much," Jasmine agreed. "When it cooled down, that bit suddenly shrank – and it had expanded before, so there must have been cracks all through it as it changed size."
She looked skywards, searching for the combatants. "There they are!"
Charizard unleashed a Fire Blast, aiming it at Empoleon. The flying penguin's flippers tilted, letting him dodge away from the direct line of the attack, but Charizard had planned for that – it detonated near Empoleon, knocking him sideways a little in the air and making his flight path a bit unstable.
Water jets traced a path in the sky as Empoleon regained control, and then shot off at an increasing speed.
Charizard followed, losing ground steadily as Empoleon's jets pushed him faster and faster, and then kept a careful eye on his opponent as he began a wide, high-speed circle.
Empoleon didn't use Bubblebeam this time, as he steadied down on his next attack run. His trident glowed as he prepared an attack, but this time it was a single watery sphere striated with white lines.
Charizard recognized it, and slipped sideways in the air away from it. He had to get as much distance as possible, before-
The Hydro Cannon detonated.
The huge amount of high-pressure water still had the speed it had started with, and spread in a watery cone whipped by the wind and pulled down by gravity. By the time it reached Charizard, the slowing effect of air resistance on the leading edge had made it pile up into a kind of saucer-shape, the rim reaching for him as he tried to get out of the attack basket.
He almost made it. The edge of the disk of water slapped into his side, and only a quick tail-curl managed to keep his flame from being hit by the it was, though, his right wing was forced against his body by the impact, and he began to tumble. The ground went right-below-left-behind-above, and he fought the disorientation it produced.
Empoleon dropped into a shallow dive, following his foe down, and then hissed in disappointment as Charizard's right wing extended again and he corrected his spin. The yaw was corrected next, and Charizard pulled up and out of the dive – going low enough that he went sweeping past the glass windows of a skyscraper.
No Bubblebeams shot at him, despite his vulnerability, as Empoleon's Hydro Cannon had nearly spent his element. He was recovering fast, but during that period Charizard was most in danger Empoleon was having to use all the water he could just to stay flying.
Wings working, Charizard pulled back up again, and didn't stop climbing until he had a good few thousand feet under him for safety. Empoleon followed him up, and the two Pokémon circled warily for a moment before diving back in.
"This seems unusual," Brock said, shading his eyes to watch the battle overhead. "Is the water raining down all over the city going to be a problem? I know Pewter occasionally complained when Onix made the ground shake too much."
Jasmine frowned. "I'm not sure, it's never really been a problem before... oh, I'm going to have so much paperwork. I need to see if the naval yard has enough armour for replacing the gym wall..."
The two Pokémon flew at one another, rolling and passing at a distance of just a few feet. Steam exploded as their attacks collided, and Charizard wrenched himself around in a turn to try and get on Empoleon's tail.
The sound of Bubblebeams told him that Empoleon had had the same idea, as they whipped off in the direction of where he'd been going before the turn. That also gave him a target, and he slammed out a Dragon Rage which hit home with an explosion which rocked the dissipating cloud of steam.
Continuing to turn, he caught sight of the dark form of Empoleon. Water jets shot out erratically as he tried to regain level flight, and Charizard grinned before launching down a Fire Blast.
Unfortunately for Empoleon, the blast detonated just as he managed to recover, and threw him off all over again. The penguin seemed to stagger in the air, slowing, and Charizard dove hard.
Flame crackled in his mouth, then roared forwards and encircled Empoleon in a Fire Spin. It hissed as water blasted out into it, and Charizard pumped more power into it to keep it up.
He had a plan. Empoleon couldn't steer if he didn't know which way the ground was, and with the fire circling him-
There was a huge blast of water, erupting out in all directions and extinguishing the entire Fire Spin. Empoleon appeared from inside it as it fell to the ground below, pointing both flippers straight down with huge torrents of water flowing out to try and avoid crashing.
The lower he dropped, the slower he was moving as he shed speed. About fifty feet above the ground, and barely ten above the roof of the nearby gym, he finally bottomed out.
Charizard used Overheat.
The potent, hoarded Fire-type attack slammed into Empoleon, blowing away his water-jets and slapping him to the ground just outside the gym. As he landed, Charizard swept down on top of him and slammed his fists down in a Rock Smash.
Empoleon twitched, and finally went limp.
Charizard panted, watching Empoleon for any sign of a recovery, and when he was sure that the Water-type wasn't going to get back up again he roared his triumph. "Hah! Take that, Water-types!"
Ash came around the corner of the gym. "Charizard – that was awesome!"
He glanced over his shoulder. "I think you broke the gym, though..."
"You've certainly earned this badge, Ash," Jasmine said, a few minutes later. "Twice over, if you count helping Amphy. But now I really feel I should have insisted you take it just for helping him."
Ash chuckled nervously. "Sorry about the wall..."
"Hello, and welcome back to the breakfast hour," the presenter said, smiling into the camera. "Now, we have a very special guest joining us today – the powerful, mysterious Pokémon Mewtwo. Hello, Mewtwo."
Mewtwo nodded. It is nice to be here.
The presenter nodded, then frowned. "Oh, sorry, I'm being told that there's a few technical-"
Allow me. Mewtwo raised a hand, which glowed. "Sorry for the inconvenience."
"That's – er..." Her hand went to her ear for a moment. "That's fine now. What did you do?"
"Before, I was speaking using my psychic powers," Mewtwo explained. "I'm using psychic energy to create sound, so it appears I am speaking out loud. Your cameras can pick it up."
"Oh, I see." The presenter nodded. "Thank you for that."
"It is my pleasure," Mewtwo said placidly.
"Well... okay." She shuffled her papers, and decided to try and push past the confusing moment. "Mewtwo, I understand that you're returning to the world of media?"
"That makes it sound all very official," Mewtwo shrugged. "I'm writing a book, that's all."
"I see," the presenter smiled. "That's a lot more than a lot of us do."
"I try," Mewtwo shrugged. "It's mainly about the relationship between humans and Pokémon. I've come at it from the other side, as it were, so-"
There was a pink flash.
Mewtwo sighed. Not now, Mew.
"That's Mew?" the presenter asked, sounding startled all over again.
Ooh, this is nice! Mew giggled, waving into the camera. Hi, everyone! I'm in your TV!
They can't hear you, Mew, Mewtwo told her. That's a film camera. It records sound and images.
Awww... Mew pouted, then hovered over to just behind Mewtwo. What are you talking about?
"We're discussing my book," Mewtwo said, out loud this time as a courtesy to the camera. "This really isn't a good time, Mew."
Nonsense! Mew said, and tapped him on the forehead. Tag!
Mewtwo shook his head. "I'm sorry about this," he said to the presenter.
She took a deep, steadying breath. "Right. I know you're – sorry, this is just a bit startling."
"I understand," Mewtwo said, shaking his hand to try to get Mew off. "She's nice, and she's given me a lot of help, but – she can be a bit of a handful."
I'm on your hand, so of course I'm a handful! Mew giggled.
"Wuffles!" Whitney wailed, as her Bidoof bounced off two walls and came to a concussed halt in the corner.
Raikou rolled his eyes, and held up another sign. Do I get the badge now?
He'd had to make a lot of signs recently.
"No you don't!" Whitney said, crossly. She put her hands on her hips. "You've still not finished the battle!"
Raikou made a sound like thunder over the horizon, and wrote another sign.
Hurry up, then.
"I will!" Whitney told him. "Miltank! Get him!"
Miltank nodded, curled into a ball and began Rolling Out towards him.
Raikou examined her, then snapped a Thunderbolt at her from his tail and loped out of the way.
Electricity crackled around the bovine Pokémon, but she continued to roll on regardless.
"Hm, that's interesting..." Raikou mused, watching her turn the corner and pick up speed. "I suspect she'll just keep accelerating, becoming more and more dangerous..."
Another Thunderbolt. This one hit home, too, but Miltank toughed it out and kept coming. Raikou had a little less leeway dodging this time.
"Right!" Raikou said, electricity building on his mane and arcing over his body. "Let's start by paralyzing you, then!"
His legs coiled up behind him, and he launched himself foewards. "Nuzzle!"
Raikou hit Miltank with a thunderous boom of impact and discharging electricity. The Normal-type went cannoning across the room, and slammed into the wall with a thud.
She dropped to the floor, residual static frizzing up her fur.
"Miltank!" Whitney said, gaping.
She turned to point a finger at Raikou. "You beastly, beastly, beast!"
"What?" Raikou asked, rhetorically. "She's paralyzed."
He glanced over. "And unconscious, I grant you... anyway."
Loping back to the entrance, Raikou held up a sign. Do I get the badge now?
"Fine!" Whitney said, sulkily. "And never darken my doorstep again!"
Raikou accepted the badge, and pinned it to a scarf wrapped around his neck.
Three down, five to go. Now, where to head next...
AN:
Looks like the gym wasn't tough enough.
Oh well. At least there is that spare armour.
Meanwhile, Mewtwo's threat level goes ever closer to "negligible" in the eyes of the public, and Raikou demonstrates an unusual interpretation of the move Nuzzle.
(Incidentally, note that she's not using her Clefairy. She's not allowed to, it's retroactively Fairy-type and always has been... unless of course her gym were the Cute gym rather than the Normal one.)
