"Hey, Ash!" Gary called.
Ash was a bit surprised to hear his name, turned, and managed to catch something his friend had thrown for him.
"Make sure you use that," Gary added. "I kind of want to see what happens."
"What is it?" Ash asked, looking at what turned out to be a Mega Stone. "And… uh, is it okay to ask which one you are?"
"I'm the one who's been doing all the Mega Stone research," Gary told him. "Let me tell you, it is weird having yourself as a lab assistant."
"It's probably almost as weird as having yourself as a boss," Lucario said, thinking about it. "Can you imagine that? Arguments about who gets the day off for a grandparent's funeral?"
"I hope we don't have to work that one out," Gary said, looking vaguely disturbed.
"I thought it was in work contracts," Lucario replied, frowning. "You know. At least two grandmothers' funerals per year, or three for good behaviour."
"...oh, right, I forgot about this," Gary realized. "You're the one who tells all those sneaky jokes."
"Me?" Lucario asked.
"Anyway, it's a Houndoomite," Gary went on.
"Oh, right… is that going to be legitimate?" Ash asked, wondering. "Maybe I should ask Molly? If she's going to use all three of her Beasts, then maybe…"
"I'll go," Latios squeaked.
"Would you?" Ash asked, looking at the air next to him. "Thanks."
There was a flicker next to Gary, and his Alakazam appeared.
Gary-dos is wondering when we're going to be able to run the cross compatibility test, he reported.
"Oh, right, that," Gary replied. "I'll be right back, I guess."
Seeing Ash looking quizzical, he elaborated. "It's basically because there's two of us, so we're seeing if the human needs a strong bond or if the Pokémon having one is enough – or vice versa."
He ticked that off on his hand. "Also, stop calling him Gary-dos, that's a terrible pun and I didn't agree to it."
"She says it's fine," Latios reported. "And that the Beasts are looking forward to a run."
"Thanks," Ash said, already thinking about that as Alakazam teleported Gary-uno back home.
"It's just occurred to me," Dawn said, frowning. "All four of the finalists have Legendary Pokémon, this time."
"Do they?" Brock asked.
"Well, yeah," Dawn replied. "The other semi-final is Tobias against… that kid with a Heatran, whatever his name is… and this one is Ash and Molly."
"But that means he doesn't have Legendary Pokémon, just a Legendary Pokémon," Brock told her.
Dawn just looked confused.
"It's about plurals," Brock eventually said, and Dawn shook her head with a sigh.
"I don't think that one worked very well," Stantler said.
"Yeah, it didn't, really," Brock admitted.
Stantler shook his head a little, and suddenly the rest of the stadium dissolved around them. It was as if there was no crowd, except for the distant murmur of conversation, and the battle was taking place in an enormous empty field where the retaining wall was just marked in as a grey tracery.
Or, would be taking place, because it wasn't there yet.
"This is neat," Dawn told him.
"Thanks," the Normal-type replied. "I might not be able to blank out the cheering and stuff though."
"That'll be fine, don't worry," Brock said, reassuring Stantler.
"Oh, good."
As the referee called for them to begin, and both trainers sent out their first Pokémon, Flint leaned forwards to check what he was seeing.
"That's a shiny Raikou," he said. "She had one of those this whole time?"
"She has a complete team of Legendary Beasts," Cynthia corrected.
"And we've only seen the Entei?" Flint asked, then shook his head. "This is one weird Conference even by our standards."
He paused. "Great Entei though."
The battle down on the grass had already begun, with Molly's Raikou darting in with sparks trailing from his mane and Ash's Suicune flowing smoothly into a sprint to get out of the way.
A Thunder attack darted forwards and buried itself in Suicune's instantaneous overshield of isotopically pure water, making almost no headway and grounding out instead, and then Suicune whirled for long enough to shoot an Air Slash back at her opponent before ramping back up to full speed in a matter of seconds.
"I think the arena might be a bit small," Cynthia noted.
"You're not getting us to agree to a bigger one that easily, dearie," Bertha chuckled.
"I was more thinking that maybe we should have stands looking out onto the nearest lake," Cynthia replied. "But that might be unfair to the Water-types, so maybe it should be a valley…"
Down on the field itself, Suicune pelted across the battlefield.
A faint crackle reached her ears, warning her of an Electrical attack, and she conjured a spray of Brine behind herself before hitting it with a Whirlwind to spread it out further. The air filled suddenly with the smell of sea-salt, which wasn't quite the same as the smell of the sea – then the attack came through anyway, a two-stage Thunder where the first blew away the droplets by electrostatically repulsing them and the second came through to catch Suicune on the leg.
"Ouch," she called, as much from amusement as anything.
"I'd say your brother taught me everything I know, but it's not true," Raikou replied, now chasing after her and trying to overtake her on the inside. Suicune replied by using Ice Beam, creating something for her to kick off against, and reversed direction with a crash of splintering ice.
"I know!" she called back, as Raikou yelped in reaction to being peppered with ice shards. "You haven't blown yourself up yet!"
Wind coiled around her, and she crouched before springing high into the air – so high she rose above even the highest seats in the arena – and hung there for two or three seconds, the rushing wind keeping her up as it coiled and twisted, energy building up.
Then she pounced in an extremely emphatic way, all the coiled wind that had held her up for the last several seconds pushing her down at once, and she hit the ground hard enough to splinter the ground and create a dish-shaped crater.
Raikou got out of the way fast enough that Suicune didn't actually hit him, but he was still blown away and into the retaining wall by the sheer force of the impact.
"Does that count as wrecking the arena?" Flint asked. "Who had one minute?"
"Have you seen what it looked like after the last time Ash had a battle?" Cynthia retorted. "This is nothing."
Raikou picked himself up, then used Discharge, and arcs of lightning surged out in all directions before focusing in on Suicune. By the time they did, though, she was already on the move to somewhere else – blurring away, turning sharply to the left and attacking Raikou with a burst of Extremespeed.
He reacted, and the two Pokémon spent several seconds in a high-speed close-in battle which most of the audience couldn't really follow directly. The blurs of yellow-orange and white-blue showed which Pokémon was going where, at least, and then Raikou and Suicune broke apart as Suicune used Aurora Beam and Raikou fired a Zap Cannon.
In defiance of tradition, the attacks didn't hit each other. Instead the Aurora Beam detonated with an icy crash next to Raikou, knocking him bodily sideways, and Raikou's Zap Cannon attack caught Suicune a glancing blow that sent her sliding backwards and on the edge of rolling over and over instead.
"Ow," she said, shaking her head for a moment, then used Hydro Pump to deluge Raikou in pure water and knock him back down as he tried to rise. Her paws dug into the ground slightly as she compensated for the recoil, keeping Raikou off balance for as long as possible, and when he used Thunder the surge of electricity punched some of the way up the water stream but couldn't get far enough against its' innate resistance.
Finally Raikou blew away all the water around him with a powerful burst of electricity, wrapping himself in lightning, and sent a Shockwave arcing around Suicune's water blast to hit her in the side. That interrupted her water jet, making her shake her head as she recovered her balance for a moment, and Raikou took advantage of the interruption to use Wild Charge – darting across the arena with a little corona of sparks surrounding every pawstep and lightning surging alongside, which first gave Suicune a severe shock from the electricity conducting across the now-wet floor and second meant he could cut through any resumption of the Hydro Pump.
Suicune's riposte was to spring into the air and out of the way of the electrical attacks again, jumping straight up with her tailwind around her, but this time she didn't use it the same way. Instead she summoned a spherical wave of water around herself – one much stronger than before, enough water to fill the whole arena at least a foot deep and which came down on Raikou as a single solid impact, then froze it all as she landed with an intense burst of Sheer Cold.
The sudden freezing of the ice made it ripple and tense like a living thing, slabs forming and shoving out of the ice layer with enough force to knock Raikou skywards, and Suicune watched with approval as Raikou twisted in mid-air to roll back upright and land on his paws.
"Any ideas, Molly?" he asked, glancing at his trainer – who was now off to his left. "She's good at this."
Both Beasts kept an eye on the other, tensed and ready to move if the other tried something, and Suicune slid ever so slightly across the icy floes making up the floor.
"Maybe just try attacking everywhere!" Molly suggested. "It'll be weaker, but harder to dodge!"
Raikou's mane fizzed as he charged up as many Shock Waves as he could, and Suicune made her move.
She rammed a paw into the ice, shattering it and creating a path down to the area underneath, then used Scald – launching a spray of hot near-steam into the arena floor. There was an almighty hiss as boiling water struck frozen ice, sending clouds of mist in all directions and hiding Suicune from view in a moment, but that wasn't even what she was aiming for – what she was aiming for was the sudden feeling of uncertainty as the ice all began to float and melt at the same time, becoming wet and slippery and making it harder for both Beasts to keep their footing.
Unlike Raikou, Suicune had been ready for it – and she'd learned some new tricks to cover her vulnerabilities. Her paws glowed blue with Aura for grip and she blurred forwards, her sheer speed generating a swirl of wind around her which made the newly-raised mist flow all at once, and she skated around behind Raikou and hit him with a Surf attack.
Raikou sent Shock Wave attacks out in rapid-fire staccato pulses, each one hitting Suicune and making her wince, and Suicune jumped into the air for a third and final time before firing a Hydro Cannon.
Straight down.
This time, Raikou had no idea which way the attack was going to come from. The impact of the compressed water attack blew a crater in the pool that briefly left the middle of it dry, sent the mist swirling away, and only the hasty addition of shields by the Pokémon protecting the crowd kept there from being a soak-zone.
"That was really good work!" Molly told Raikou as she returned him, looking at how tired Suicune was after the burst of intense combat. "Well done!"
"Does this mean he gets a cookie tonight?" her Eevee asked.
"He would anyway, it'd be bad manners to not let someone have a cookie," Molly replied. "Do you want to go next?"
"Sure!" Eevee replied, transforming into Vaporeon and jumping into the water. She vanished with only a ripple, using Acid Armour, and Molly watched Suicune to see what would happen next.
"Phew," Suicune said, shaking her head a little. "He's definitely getting good."
She looked at the sparkling clear water that had filled their battlefield, still with a few waves in it, then towards Molly. "I wonder who-"
"It's her Eevee!" Ash called. "Watch out!"
Suicune immediately started to run again, but the problem with fighting a Vaporeon in water was that you didn't really have any idea where they could be.
The sun suddenly got more intense, and Suicune noticed that Leafeon had shifted back to Vaporeon and dropped into the water. She slowed a little, firing an Ice Beam at the area and freezing it over, but it seemed that her opponent had either already managed to get out of the way or they'd simply endured the attack.
Then Vaporeon jumped out of the water in front of her, shifted smoothly to Leafeon with her tail already curling around, and used Solar Blade. The glowing sword of condensed light knocked Suicune bodily backwards, cutting through the water and leaving a trench in the ground, and as the pool drained away Suicune staggered before taking a second Solar Blade hit a moment after the first.
On top of the battle with Raikou, that proved to be too much.
Ash recalled Suicune, then paused and looked at Pikachu. "I sometimes say that a Pokémon did good work, but does that actually help? Usually if they've been just knocked out they're too unconscious, right?"
"Well, it can't hurt," Pikachu replied. "Unlike that battle."
"Good point," Ash admitted. "And… yeah, good work, Suicune."
He shrank down her Fast Ball, and reached to his waist. "I think it's going to be your turn next."
"I will do my best," Kari said, temporarily going intangible as Ash pulled the Doublade's two blades away from his belt. "This is going to be a bit strange, I think."
"I agree," Ash nodded, then threw her into the arena.
"...that's not something you normally see," Brock said.
"Even around Ash," Dawn agreed.
"I think it depends on the situation," Quilava said, considering.
The Doublade's two blades flew together at first, then crossed over so the scabbards formed an X-shape. Both blades came out at once, flourishing together and then swinging around so that one was held vertically and the other horizontally.
Molly's Vaporeon tilted her head, then vanished back into the water.
"Watch out, she could be anywhere," Ash called. "I can't tell where."
"That's unusual for Ash," Brock frowned. "Maybe it's something to do with Aura."
Kari shifted into a different stance, both her blades held horizontal and out in either direction – ready to react in at least some way from an attack in any direction.
A ripple formed in the water and suddenly surged up out of it, the purple shiny Vaporeon shifting in a blurred moment to a brown-and-tan Flareon and shooting a Fire Blast directly at Kari. The Sword Pokémon hummed around to reply, her left blade flashing up with a Sacred Sword to cut the Fire Blast attack in half and her right shooting a Night Slash aimed to catch Flareon before she dropped into the water – to no avail, as Flareon shifted back to Vaporeon and dissolved into the water with a splash.
The cut half of the Fire Blast which had gone down detonated when it reached the water, sending up a plume of spray, and Kari's blades shifted around again in consideration.
"Try a Dark Pulse!" Molly told her Pokémon.
"Cut the ground!" Ash instructed, giving the order at about the same time.
One of Kari's blades took up a warding stance, twirling around ready to interpose itself against attack from almost any direction, and the other flashed a brilliant blue before swiping downwards – a sudden blade-beam extending the length of the Doublade sword far past what it should be and cutting right through the water, leaving a deep, narrow cut for almost a second before it closed back up again and left waves going in all directions.
More importantly, though, the slice had cut into the ground beneath the water – and started to allow it all to drain out, meaning that the level of Suicune's 'lake' began to drop, and so when Vaporeon jumped out to fire a Dark Pulse at Kari as an Umbreon she landed back in a much shallower pool than she'd taken off from.
A few seconds longer as the water level dropped further, and one of the remaining pools was turning distinctly purple. Vaporeon jumped out of it, shifted to Espeon, and psionically boosted herself out of the way of an X-Scissor attack which scarred the muddy ground.
Then she shifted to Jolteon, threw a Shock Wave at Kari, and went right back to Espeon to keep her dodging options open.
Molly frowned. "Hmm…"
She put her hands around her mouth. "Espeon, come back!"
The rules said that she couldn't just pull Espeon out of a fight when she might be about to lose, her Pokémon had to in some way show that she wasn't just about to be defeated. So Espeon continued to move at speed through the arena, changing from Espeon to Umbreon when a Night Slash whistled through the air at her and then changing again into Glaceon – then into Flareon to soak a Fire-typed attack.
"Time out for the change-off!" the referee called, and Flareon jumped gratefully back into the box as Molly sent out her Girafarig instead.
"Are you okay?" she checked with Flareon.
"I'm okay," Flareon replied, shaking her fluff out, and Molly smiled at her before turning her attention to her Girafarig.
Girafarig gave a quick little quadrupedal bow. "Hi, it's nice to meet you."
"Your manners are refreshing," Kari informed him politely, then took up a ready stance again. One of her blades – the one with the nicked tassel, Kari – spun lazily in a flat circle, as if it were attached to a vertical pole, while Burn twitched up and down a little on a vertical arc.
The Normal-type trotted back and forth for a moment, then broke into a canter. His eyes glowed – both sets – and he fired a trio of Shadow Balls from his tail-head which curved around before shooting towards Kari at speed.
Advancing with her scabbards trailing behind her, Kari's first blade cut one Shadow Ball apart with a Night Slash. The second missed entirely, but the third caught her a glancing blow – because her second blade was busy, whirring into a combination that sent three Fury Cutter attacks towards Girafarig in quick succession.
Girafarig's horned-head lit up with witchfire, and the first two attacks hit a Reflect screen which hadn't been there a moment before. The third broke through, but it was weakened by the need to do so, and Girafarig grunted before having his tail-head launch a barrage of Thunderbolts.
The Thunderbolt sequence crackled and crashed as it earthed through Burn, through Kari, into the ground, and she endured it for a moment – then brought her blades together into a defensive formation, one sword edge grinding against the other as they twisted around with increasing speed before uncrossing and hurling the attack back towards Girafarig.
Girafarig pranced out of the way with a Bounce, landed, and both his heads looked at her warily.
"So… how many Pokémon are in this battle?" Lucario asked.
"More than one," Pikachu retorted.
"Girafarig is an odd Pokémon, isn't it?" Caroline asked, looking away from the television for a moment.
"Well, it is a Psychic-type that I'm allowed to use in gym battles," Norman agreed.
He shrugged. "It actually works out quite well for them. They don't have to worry about Ghost type attacks, which is useful in this sort of battle, and they're pretty well suited for dealing with Fighting type attacks compared to the typical Normal-type."
"So quite a good Pokémon to send out to deal with a Doublade, then," Caroline summarized.
"I think I'd do better!" Kirlia announced, then winced as one of Kari's blades sliced through Girafarig's telekinetic shield and the hilt clouted him about the head. "Ooh… that looks painful."
"Don't forget that a Doublade is Steel-type, dear," Gardevoir reminded her.
"Your mother's right," Norman nodded.
"Really?" Kirlia asked, shocked. "But I thought they were Fighting-type."
"It's an easy mistake to make," Gardevoir told her with a smile.
There was a sudden bang, and all four of them went right back to watching the battle.
Burn blocked the incoming Thunder Wave as Girafarig tried to get Kari paralyzed again, jumping into the air for a second Earthquake to go with the first, and Burn's tassel wrapped around Kari's to pull the Doublade's other sword out of the ground.
Girafarig sighed slightly, disappointed, and landed with a faint tak instead of a ground-shaking impact. "That's a pity."
"It was a good trick, but I will not fall for it again," Kari said, rising into the air a little.
"Time for the next trick, then!" Molly called out.
"Oh, yeah, good point!" Girafarig agreed, and orbs of light formed around both his horned-head and his tail-head.
Kari swept both blades across to use X-Scissor, projecting the strike out as a pair of blade-beam attacks that rushed across the arena and carved furrows in the ground. Girafarig replied by suddenly forming an intense shield, abandoning the attack he'd been charging with his horned-head to do so, and Kari was about to follow up with a vertical Night Slash when Girafarig unleashed the move he had ready.
The orbs of light burst into flame and surged towards Kari as her opponent revealed he had a Fire-typed Hidden Power, and Kari had to abandon her attacking move for a deflecting strike with Ice Blade to rob the attack of some of its force. Much of it still made it through, though, and Burn was knocked back by the explosion of the attack while Kari opted to whirl once and press the attack before Girafarig could prepare another Hidden Power strike.
"Agility!" Molly ordered, and the Psychic-type blurred. He charged past Kari, then his tail-head used Bite and grabbed her tassel – and swung her around to fling her with all the force he could manage at her other half.
Burn blocked Kari, the crash belling around the arena, and both halves of Ash's unusual Doublade spun through the air before sheathing themselves and joining forces more sedately.
"That was a nasty trick," she said.
"Actually it was Foul Play," Girafarig informed her helpfully.
"Now try the next one!" Molly called out.
Girafarig started to canter forwards again, looking down to make sure his footing was secure around the slash marks and mud, and his tail-head watched Kari carefully. Then he launched himself in on the attack, and Kari cloaked one blade in Sacred Sword and the other in Ice Blade so that no matter what it was that Girafarig was trying she would be ready to defend.
This, as it turned out, was a poor decision – though largely one resulting from insufficient information.
"Foresight and Rock Smash!" Girafarig announced, the eyes of his tail-head suddenly lighting up, and he brought his hooves down with a smashing impact that jarred both of Kari's blades and forced a violent energy release.
The blade with the damaged sash fared worse, as that had been the one carrying the Ice Blade, but Kari countered with blurring speed as she did what she'd been planning on doing anyway – sweeping around with the attack on her blade changing from Sacred Sword to Night Slash and knocking Girafarig clear across the arena to smash into the ground.
"Ouch," Lucian said faintly.
"I think we can definitely call that arena at least quite badly damaged," Cynthia noted. "It's kind of funny, in a way."
"How so?" Aaron checked.
"Well, with some of these trainers with Legendary Pokémon, I'd be saying that their other Pokémon must be strong because that's how they got their legendaries," Cynthia explained. "Ash's Suicune, for example, was a capture in the normal way – battle her and then throw a Pokéball."
Girafarig vanished into his Pokéball as Molly recalled him, and Cynthia kept going. "But Molly did it the other way around, really. Any of her normal Pokémon she captured that way would have been because of the Legendaries."
"That is funny," Aaron agreed. "Wonder what we're going to see next – Entei?"
Molly sent out her next Pokémon.
Quite by coincidence, Pikachu started giggling before hastily stuffing his paw into his mouth.
"I don't see what's so funny," Ash said, looking at the Dunsparce Molly had sent out.
"I do," Lucario informed him solemnly. "And it is funny."
"Okay, Dunsparce!" Molly called. "You know what to do!"
"It's always a bad sign when someone says that," Lucario added.
Dunsparce's tail drill began to spin, and Kari shifted to hold her blades ready in anticipation. Then the little Normal-type poked the drill into the ground, and Ash's side of the arena unleashed a roaring blast of fire which engulfed both of Kari's blades completely.
"Whoa!" Ash gasped, holding his arm up reflexively, then slowly lowered it to see that – even after the firestorm – both blades were still on fire. "What was that?"
Lava Plume, Dexter identified, as Kari hurled a Sacred Sword back at Dunsparce and the Normal-type countered with an Ancientpower – giving it a reddish, glowing aura.
"That must be Serene Grace at work," Ash decided, then winced as Dunsparce's drill launched a drilling Air Slash and knocked Kari away from Burn with a clangorous din.
The moment of inattention was enough that Dunsparce could exploit it, and an Eruption attack completely surrounded the whole of Ash's Doublade for about eight seconds before finally fading away.
Neither sword was still moving when the flames cleared.
"Can I get a time out, please?" Ash called. "I need to pick her up..."
Ash healed Kari after retrieving her, at least enough that he could be sure she was all right – as she didn't have a Pokéball, he couldn't just return her for a rest – then sent out his next Pokémon, Houndoom.
"All right!" Houndoom said, landing on a relatively intact patch of grass with a soft thump. "I was wondering if we'd get a chance to try this out!"
He reached up to his collar and toyed with the Mega Stone that rested there, making it jingle softly. Then Ash started to concentrate, and the Mega Stone flashed a brilliant gold before letting the transformation flow out across Houndoom's body.
Most of the changes had the same basic theme, and golden energy focused on parts of Houndoom's body one by one before changing the shape of his bone armour there. The rings on his forelegs expanded and the ones on his hind legs dissolved, his horns rose up instead of curling back, and solid, continuous bony plates formed across his throat and armouring his shoulders and back.
Also, his tail-tip split slightly.
"I heard that the Houndoom with horns that go backwards is the leader," Pikachu said. "What do you take from how his horns went from going backwards to going up?"
"Have you ever seen a Houndoom without those horns?" Ash asked.
"Good point. Well, two of them."
"Water Pulse!" Molly ordered, which served as a reminder that it was time to mostly focus on battling.
Mega Houndoom dodged left, right and up all at once as well as staying in one place, splitting off shadow-clone Beat Up doubles to confuse the issue, and all four Mega Houndooms burst into flame with a pulse of Inferno.
The Water Pulse evaporated into a wisp of steam, and Molly frowned for a moment before coming to a new decision. "Ancientpower!"
Mega Houndoom's red claws glittered with a silvery overlay as he used Metal Claw, not to attack but to give him better traction on the ground surface, and he sprang from one place to another to avoid the rocks Dunsparce had launched his way. His tail snapped forcefully and conjured Beat Up doubles again, half-a-dozen Mega Houndooms all moving at once like more-solid Double Team duplicates, and they moved together in a hunting-pack behaviour to spread out – ready to attack Dunsparce from all sides.
That plan was ruined a few seconds later when one of the Ancientpower rocks smashed into a Beat Up duplicate, then another two hit each other and sprayed shrapnel across half of the arena – disrupting three more Beat Up doubles and striking the real Mega Houndoom in the chest with a crack that splintered the rock fragment but also revealed which one the real one was.
Embers whipped across Mega Houndoom's fur as he used Flamethrower, and Dunsparce whipped up a Twister which he hurled towards Mega Houndoom – one which was narrow and focused at the base but widened rapidly as the funnel cloud rose, until it was half as wide as the stadium up near the roof.
It sucked in air from all around it, and especially pulled in the Flamethrower – stretching the stream of fire until it was a kind of spiralling ribbon which climbed the Twister as if it was a spiral staircase, venting it into the sky where it was far too far away from Dunsparce to do him any harm. Then the Normal-type launched some of his own Water Pulse attacks into the same Twister, where they formed a counterpoint to the fire going up on the other side.
"Houndoom, watch out," Ash called. "That's going to do a rising dragon!"
Mega Houndoom tilted his head for a moment, then visibly remembered what that meant and bolted for the side of the arena.
What Dunsparce had been trying to do was probably to make it so that giant blobs of water began landing all around the arena, giving Mega Houndoom something to dodge, but instead the cooled air and the heated air mixed together to form a sudden and powerful intensification of the Twister.
Despite running for it, Mega Houndoom didn't manage to get far enough away in time. He got sucked into the vortex, along with Dunsparce, and the two Pokémon both found themselves riding the winds as fragments of ground tore up and whirled around them – and as the energies of the Twister itself, dispersed by the sudden massive influx of air but still made up of potent, glowing splinters – crackled between them with sudden discharges of stunning energy.
Mega Houndoom shook his head, refocused, and began creating Beat Up doubles again. One of them shifted after a moment into a copy of Lucario and threw him, dispersing as it did so, and he used the next without reshaping it to kick off from and move closer to Dunsparce.
For his part, the Normal-type got what he was trying to do back together as well and used Psychic, reaching out into the tornado to grab anything that was available and use it as a shield. He conjured a Moonblast as well and hurled it straight at Mega Houndoom, and the Dark-type blocked with a sacrificial Beat Up clone before spitting a Dark Pulse past Dunsparce's shield.
"Houndoom!" Ash called, both hands over his mouth to make him louder. "Use Sunny Day and try to finish this quick!"
Mega Houndoom did just that, emitting a pulse of energy which swept away the clouds and dispersed most of the smaller debris picked up by the Twister, and his fur shone with an unearthly light in the newly-stronger sunlight as his Solar Power activated. The Sunny Day didn't disperse the Twister itself, though, and Mega Houndoom jumped from one piece of debris to another before hurling a Fire Blast at Dunsparce – one which detonated with a smoky bang on the first rock of a Rock Slide Dunsparce had pulled from thin air, tail whirling overtime.
Two more of the rocks hit Mega Houndoom, who replied with a Solarbeam, and the roaring of the now self-sustaining Twister thrummed through the air.
"It seems to be taking them both an awfully long time to come down again," Lucario observed. "I wonder why that is."
"Maybe it's the powerful Fire-type sitting in the middle of the tornado," Ash said absently, and winced as Mega Houndoom took a rock to the head. "Houndoom – Overheat!"
Mega Houndoom went off like a small volcano, a wave of shimmering heat pushing aside everything else in the area, and the blast bounced back off the crowd shields before being sucked into the insatiable whirling force of the Twister.
Then there were several long seconds in which nothing happened apart from the twisting, whirling smoke. Ash squinted to see through it, but the only thing he could tell was that Mega Houndoom was jumping from rock to rock… until Dunsparce fell out of the flames, trailing smoke, and bounced once before rolling to a stop.
"I guess that means he's out," Molly decided, returning her Normal-type.
Houndoom landed a moment later, his Mega Transformation reverted and his legs trembling.
"Are you okay?" Ash called. "You look tired."
"I think I need to practice with Solar Power a lot more," Houndoom admitted, panting. "It's really… really… tiring."
Molly sent out her Entei.
"And I don't think I can help there," Houndoom admitted. "Do you mind if I go and have a lie down?"
"If you think that is best," Entei counselled.
Since Houndoom did think it was best, Ash switched him out, then sent his next Pokémon onto the field.
Up in the audience, watching from the Reverse World (a convenience to make sure they didn't take up too many seats), Raikou nudged Entei.
"Well!" he boomed. "Look at that!"
"I don't have a clue what you mean," Ash's Entei replied, rumbling slightly.
"Come on, now, surely you can see what's going to happen!" Raikou replied. "Or have you forgotten what Goodra's speciality is?"
"I know what's going to happen, I'm just not sure why you're letting me know," his brother clarified. "I got annoyed by that happening because it kept happening to me. I don't have Entei solidarity to the point that I get annoyed when it happens to another Entei."
"Well…" Raikou floundered slightly, then laughed. "That's me told!"
Goodra stretched, leaning to one side and then the other, then reached behind him to stretch out his tail. That done, he turned to face Molly's Entei and gave him a cheerful little wave.
"I trust you are ready?" Entei checked. "I would not want to rush you."
"Yep, I'm good," Goodra agreed. "On three?"
He bounced his tail on the floor. "One, two, three!"
The moment his tail hit for the third time, Entei surged into sudden motion. His paws dug into the ground and kicked up a surge of dirt behind him as he used Extremespeed, covering the distance between himself and Goodra in considerably less than a second, and pounced to slam Goodra bodily and knock him over.
Entei didn't have it all his own way, though, as Goodra's tail glowed blue from a quick Aqua Tail. The tail in question whipped around to hit Entei in the side, less forcefully than it could have been because of the harsh sunlight still lighting up the arena but still enough to knock Entei away.
Goodra followed up with a Rain Dance, then looked straight down as the rain began to fall and used Dragon Pulse. Green energy blasted out of his mouth and launched him into the air, vanishing into the stormclouds overhead, and Entei looked up before shooting a Fire Blast into the air overhead.
Another Dragon Pulse came down as Goodra kept himself airborne with a jet of crackling green fire – and, because Goodra believed in multi-tasking, the Dragon Pulse came down so close to Entei that he had to dodge to the side rather than get hit.
"Sunny Day!" Molly called, as Goodra Dragon Pulsed again – this time nowhere near Entei, as he corrected his angle so he didn't fly straight into the crowd shield. "He's hiding in the rainclouds!"
Entei shook out his mane and used Sunny Day, but Goodra had heard the instruction as well and was already re-using Rain Dance. The clouds spread and shattered, rippling without dissolving, and then formed back together into a single layer.
A moment after that Goodra emerged through the bottom of the clouds, used Hydro Pump, and blasted Entei with a single massive torrent of water.
Fur lighting up, Entei used Eruption. The Fire-type attack sparked up a corona of flame around him which evaporated much of the incoming water, filling the air in a trice with steam, and also resulted in a powerful hissing bang which knocked Entei sideways and knocked Goodra completely off course.
Instead of using his Hydro Pump to rise back into the air like he'd planned Goodra's jet sent him sideways, then down, and he shut it off when he realized the raindrops falling in the ground were getting too close too quickly – twisting around instead and using a Fire Blast of his own to soak up much of the force of the impact.
Feeling Entei coming, Goodra whirled with his tail shimmering with the layer of water that betokened another Aqua Tail. This time he spun faster, and hit Entei in the flank just as the Fire-type was about to reach him – knocking Molly's Pokémon away, and giving him just enough time for another takeoff blast.
"Fire Blast at him!" Molly called. "Or – no, actually, Lava Plume and run around a lot!"
"That's kind of funny," Max observed.
He pointed at the TV screen. "Look. It's kind of like it's a video game."
May looked closely, and she could kind of see what Max meant.
The layer of artificial rainclouds created by Goodra's Rain Dance was much lower than it would have been normally, giving Goodra an advantage by letting him use his raindrop-sense to tell where Entei was while Entei couldn't do the same to him. It effectively divided the view from this particular camera in half horizontally, and on the bottom half Entei was running back and forth periodically sending up spikes of orange flame through the cloud layer – while on the top half Goodra was shooting down Dragon Pulse blasts to both steer and attack Entei.
"It's 3D, though, don't forget," she pointed out. "Not 2D."
"Good point," Max admitted.
Goodra rose to the very top of the arena, right below the point where he would technically become ring-out, and twisted.
He used Dragon Pulse pointing up, this time, and boosted his fall back towards the ground. The raincloud layer got closer and closer, then just as he reached it Goodra spun and clenched his fist and lashed out with a massive Focus Punch.
He didn't quite land the blow on target. Entei had seen him coming and dodged away at the last moment, despite the speed Goodra had accumulated. But his Focus Punch hit hard enough to shake the earth in what amounted to an Earthquake in its own right, tearing up the ground in all directions around his impact point, and that meant Entei was vulnerable for just a moment.
"Outrage!" Goodra shouted, slamming into Entei with all the strength he could muster just as Entei used Fire Blast to ward him off. The energy of both attacks combined into a mighty explosion, one which sent wisps and embers raining down around them, and when it faded the one standing in the crater was Goodra.
"Someone remind me why we haven't tried recruiting Ash as a member of an Elite Four yet?" Lucian requested. "Possibly not even ours."
"I don't think he'd like being tied down, is my guess," Cynthia replied. "Besides, what would his Pokémon type be? 'Everything'?"
"That's what your type is, dear," Bertha observed.
Cynthia nibbled on some pocky. "That's different. I'm the Grand Champion."
Flint started sniggering.
"I just thought," he explained. "He could send out his fist – it'd probably win a lot of battles."
Down in the arena, Molly recalled her shiny Entei and looked at the two remaining Pokéballs she had.
One of them was for Eevee, who'd already battled once today, and she could send Eevee out… and the other was for Suicune, who hadn't fought yet today.
"It's your choice, Suicune," she said, holding out the Pokéball, and Suicune promptly burst out and landed on the muddy ground of the battlefield.
"Thank you, dear," the Water-type smiled, then turned her attention to Goodra.
Goodra waved. "Hi. Um… should I be worried?"
"I would point out that you're facing a Legendary Pokémon, so being worried is a perfectly natural response," Suicune told him pleasantly. "But that might sound a bit egotistical. So you should decide for yourself."
"I think, on balance, that I'll be worried," Goodra told her. He put his paws together and bowed, tail waving a little for balance, then slid his feet into a fighting stance.
"Aurora Beam!" Molly called, and Suicune promptly fired out her Aurora Beam.
It shot straight at Goodra, who sprang into the air to avoid it, then Suicune's attack tracked upwards and Goodra used Dragon Pulse to blast himself higher into the air.
"Blizzard!" Molly decided, as Goodra vanished upwards into the clouds that still hovered overhead. "And Gust!"
Suicune broke into a run, her crest glowing as she poured Ice-type energy into the air around her and crystals froze out of the humid air. Then she used Gust, re-directing all the wind that had been gathering around her into a coiling upwards surge just as Goodra used Dragon Pulse, and Goodra found himself abruptly having to deal with a stream of chill wind and ice shards that smacked into him from first one side and then the other.
The wind also blew away the clouds, and Suicune fired an Ice Beam up to strike Goodra as a bonus – one which meant that, when the attacks faded, Goodra was dusted with frost down both arms and up his tail.
He landed with a heavy splat, wobbled once, and fell over.
"Is Goodra okay?" Molly called, leaning forwards a bit.
Ash recalled him with a flash, then cupped his hands around his mouth. "He'll be fine!"
Molly smiled. "That's a relief!" she said. "And good work, Suicune!"
Ash's fifth choice for the battle was to send out Metagross, and unlike Pokémon like Suicune who had landed with lithe grace on the increasingly damaged terrain Metagross just sort of went splat and sank six inches into the mud.
"Ah," Molly's Suicune said, contemplating her new opponent. "I think we've only met once?"
"We remember meeting you four times," Metagross told her. "But before you become embarrassed, that was the same meeting, just four slightly different perspectives on it."
Suicune nodded, and started pacing in a circle around Metagross. Her gait flowed smoothly, forepaws stretching out and landing in suddenly-clear water before the rest of her caught up and she sprang again, and her ribbons whipped in the air as she accelerated and it swirled around her with a greater and greater intensity.
Metagross considered their options, then raised a foot and slammed it into the ground. A burst of psychic pressure accompanied the footfall, raising slabs of ground like ramps, and Suicune jumped with preternatural grace as the top end of one barred her way.
If that had been all Metagross was planning on doing it wouldn't have been much of an attack, but the Psychic-type's metal glowed silver as they focused their psychic power. Gravity in the arena suddenly altered, going from normal to a tiny fraction of normal, and Suicune's next jump saw her floating into the air as she suddenly had much less weight to overcome.
Metagross raised a limb and Thunderpunched out. Their whole body blurred as they pushed off from the ground with the other three legs, and Molly yelped.
"Look out!" she called.
Suicune twisted in the air and used Hydro Pump, an explosion of pure water in the same way as her non-shiny counterpart had used earlier in the battle, and while some of the charge made it through to her the rest had nowhere else to go and either fed back into Metagross or blew the water bubble apart.
Paws glowing, Suicune froze some of the water she'd conjured and pushed off from it to get back to the ground. Then Metagross reversed the change they'd made to the gravity, drastically amplifying it instead of reducing it, and Suicune landed on her feet hard enough to crater the point of impact.
Water hammered down around her with amplified force, some of it the debris from Suicune's shielded Hydro Pump and the rest of it the rain that had condensed out from the overhead rainclouds during the low-gravity phase, and Metagross crashed down as well with a metallic bang.
Suicune rolled her neck, legs not even quivering as she supported three times her normal weight, and her tailwind scudded and coiled around her as she contemplated her next move.
Her gaze lifted to the retaining wall, and she smirked slightly before breaking into a sprint. The blur of ice-blue and sea-blue reached the wall before Metagross had time to react, and she began sprinting around in a circle along the curve of the wall – moving so fast that it was centrifugal force which was holding her down, not gravity and not air-driven downforce, and so she no longer much cared what Metagross did with the direction of gravity in the arena.
Now in a more stable situation, Suicune began throwing out little splashes of ice along both sides of her 'racetrack'. Metagross countered by throwing blasts of psychic energy at her, but Suicune dodged and weaved both up and down to avoid taking more than a glancing blow.
Then she used Signal Beam, reflecting it off the ice mirrors, and a maze of lambent Bug-type energy filled the arena.
"Sandstorm!" Ash called, wincing as Signal Beams filled the air like a laser-light display. Some of them were going wild, hitting the ground or the audience shields or in some cases even Suicune, but most of the energy of the beam was hitting Metagross and the big Pokémon didn't appreciate that sort of thing.
They used Sandstorm as Ash had ordered, with the rain clouds dissipating entirely as Sandstorm took over. The dense cloud of sand immediately helped by absorbing the light and force of Suicune's Signal Beam, and Suicune stopped firing them at all a few seconds later once she could see that the attack was no longer helping.
"Ash, Metagross is asking what they should do now," Pikachu told him. "Maybe you should take your hat off?"
"Oh, right," Ash realized, taking the hat off.
I am not particularly adept at dealing with this precise situation, Metagross explained.
"Right," Ash agreed, frowning. "Okay, so she's moving around the walls really quickly, and Gravity isn't helping… right, I know. Metagross! Expand your Sandstorm!"
Metagross duly did as Ash had told them, and the sandstorm expanded out to cover the whole of the arena.
"Okay, now-"
You have to admit, it's not great for the viewers, Mewtwo observed, taking a drink. You can't see what's going on.
"I think that's the point?" Meowthtwo guessed.
I'm sure it's the point, it's very good tactical thinking, Mewtwo said. It's just that we don't know what's happening.
His straw slurped. At least it's not like those psychic battles which all happen in the mind. Those aren't very interesting to watch either.
"Where did you get that?" Riolutwo asked, looking away from the television and up at what his boss was drinking. "I didn't know we did coconut drinks."
Alola, Mewtwo replied. Want me to get you one?
"No thanks, I was just curious," Riolutwo said.
Ooh, look! Mew said, bouncing up and down on her tail and pointing at the television.
The sandstorm had dissipated all at once, fragments of sand pattering down all around the arena as the concussion from some intense blow wore off.
Suicune was sliding across the floor, and Metagross was lowering their fist from where they'd apparently managed to land a Thunderpunch.
See what I mean? Mewtwo asked. You can't. That's the point.
"Are you okay, Suicune?" Molly called, leaning forwards a bit.
"That hurt," Suicune admitted. "But I'm not done yet."
She burst into motion again, this time with stronger footfalls, and the ground surged up around her paws. They built up a pressure wave which travelled with her, a Bulldoze, and she turned aside just before running into Metagross to let the attack go on without her and hit them.
Metagross jumped and didn't come down, levitating in the air to avoid being hit, and Ash cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Earthquake!" he called.
Metagross used Earthquake, slamming their legs into the ground in sequence, and Suicune slowed for a moment to wonder what Metagross was trying to do – and the ground below her suddenly turned to soup.
Molly may have been studying Pokémon with Gary, but she hadn't run into the idea of liquefaction.
It was sort of obvious something weird was going on when you saw it, though.
"Jump!" she called, and Suicune pushed off with all her might – using Hydro Pump as well, and trying to purify the muddy mixture developing around her so she could stand on top of it.
There was a sort of muddy splash, as Suicune forced herself to the top of the water. Then Metagross used Hyper Beam, as they'd finally had a chance to target her for one now that she'd been immobilized for a second too long.
"Are you good to keep going?" Ash asked.
I will be fine, Metagross said, as the shaking subsided and they pulled their limbs out of the quagmire. Either I will win, or I won't, and if I do not then that means that it was a good battle.
"Well, don't say I didn't give you the chance," Ash shrugged.
"Most Pokémon probably don't have this kind of relationship with their trainer," Lucario mused. "Of course, I've never met a normal trainer."
"You mean you've never had a normal trainer, right?" Pikachu checked.
"I mean what I said," Lucario stated simply. "I mean. Name a normal trainer."
Pikachu was silent for several seconds.
"I'm sure we must have run into one or two," he said eventually. "You know. On basic balance of probability, if nothing else."
"Have you met our trainer?" Lucario said. "Probability went home for a stiff drink and a lie down years ago. Want to guess whether I mean personal timeline or calendar timeline?"
"You've made your point," Pikachu decided.
As his Pokémon bantered back and forth, Ash watched as Molly sent her Eevee back to the battle. She blurred into the form of a Leafeon, landing daintily with her paws resting on the muddy ground
I would like some advice, Metagross stated.
"The best thing I can say is, well… don't use anything that any Pokémon are immune to?" Ash tried.
Understood.
Metagross considered for a moment, then used Icy Wind. Leafeon immediately switched to Glaceon, darted through the ice attack, then blurred into Flareon and hit Metagross with a Flare Blitz that echoed around the stadium.
Undaunted, Metagross changed tactics. They fired out a Signal Beam of their own, copying what Suicune had done already, and Flareon took a glancing blow from the attack before shooting a Fire Blast back.
"Smokescreen!" Molly called, and the next attack Flareon fired produced a faint snap sound along with a cloud of thick black smoke. It hid her form completely, and a Dark Pulse flashed out of the cloud to strike Metagross in the face.
Metagross used Psychic to clear the cloud, and Umbreon darted away in a different direction to the psychic pressure. Another Signal Beam flicked down at her, and she switched right back to Flareon to endure the impact.
"Sizzly Slide!" Molly ordered, and Flareon tensed up before pouncing and landing a second Fire-type physical attack that knocked Metagross back a step.
It also set them on fire, which was quite a sight.
"Now, Veevee Volley!" Molly continued, and Flareon shifted back to Eevee. This time she lit up like the sun, and hit Metagross such a strong blow that they flipped entirely upside down and hit the ground with a crash.
I think I would like to come back now, Metagross requested.
Ash returned Metagross, then switched the Pokéball out for Latios' Cherish Ball.
"Just so you know, you don't have to," Ash told him.
Latios replied by emerging from the 'ball in a flash. "I kind of want to, though," he said, tilting his head a little. "But if you're having second thoughts, I can always ask Eevee for a battle later – I know this is an important part of your League challenge."
Rather than brush that off, Ash did actually think about it.
For at least four whole seconds.
"Nah, go ahead," he decided.
Latios smiled, then zipped out onto the battlefield backwards before flipping around to face Eevee.
"Careful!" Molly warned. "He's got to have at least some psychic and some dragon moves, so watch out!"
Eevee nodded, paws shifting slightly, then switched to Umbreon and inhaled.
She paused, looking back at Molly. "Have we started yet?"
"I'm good to get started when you are," Latios told her.
"Great!" Umbreon said. "Dark Pulse!"
Latios dodged to the side, his feathers flashing blue for a moment as he stealthed, and fired down an Ice Beam attack. The beam of bluish-white energy splashed off where Umbreon had been a moment before, and Molly pointed. "He's up there!"
Umbreon switched to Glaceon, and fired up a volley of Ice Shards. They didn't hit their target, though, because Latios had moved after firing so that he didn't just immediately come in for a counterattack.
"She's not immune to anything at the moment," Ash reminded him, and Latios fired out a Psywave. He got lucky, because Glaceon had heard the reminder but had switched to Sylveon instead of Umbreon, and that meant she skidded sideways a bit before changing to Umbreon to negate the rest of the attack.
"Which way did that come from?" Umbreon asked, half to herself and half to her trainer.
"Use a move where it doesn't matter," Molly suggested. "Swift!"
Umbreon's rings flashed, and she fired off a stream of Swift stars before breaking into a run. Her head tilted to the side a little so she could see which way the attacks were going, and she flickered back and forth between Umbreon and Sylveon to hedge her bets.
The Swift attack rose into the air, curved a little, then began going in circles around the arena.
"That's funny!" Sylveon said, thinking, then gasped as she realized what it meant. "Oh! He must be running away!"
"Magical Leaf in the other direction!" Molly told her.
Umbreon skidded to a halt, switched to Leafeon, and used Magical Leaf before switching again into Glaceon. The multicoloured Magical Leaf attacks went clockwise around the arena, the Swift stars went counterclockwise, and then the two attacks impacted at once – leaving distortions, like ripples on the surface of water, that outlined the shape of an ovoid shield.
Glaceon used Blizzard, a stream of ice surging upwards to completely coat Latios' shield, then changed to Sylveon and spread her tendrils.
"Moonblast!" Molly ordered.
"Moonblast!" Sylveon agreed, firing a blaze of intense sparkling pink-and-blue light. It smashed right through the ice and lit up the whole arena, beams of both colours of light splitting off like they'd gone through a prism and scattered around by a mirror ball, and Molly shaded her eyes and squinted to see what had happened.
When Sylveon's attack finally came to an end, they saw the result.
Latios' wings had a metallic shimmer, reflecting everything around them as the mark of his Steel Wing move, and the Dragon-type was spinning like a top – then slowing down, his high-speed spin returning to a more normal rate, until he finally came to a halt and his wings returned to normal.
"He used his wings to reflect the attack!" Molly said, impressed. "That just means we'll have to try something else! Sappy Seed!"
Sylveon switched to Leafeon and spat out a glittering brown-and-yellow seed, which curved slightly in the air as it flashed towards Latios.
Latios, who was after all not exactly stupid, decided that being hit by it would be an extremely bad idea. He used Psychic, snatching up all the fragments of the ice-cage he'd been briefly encased in, and threw them right at the incoming seed with enough force to slam it into the ground.
Then he shot a Dragon Pulse at Leafeon, too. Just to keep things moving.
"Professor, there's something I've been wondering," Tracey said, leaning back on the sofa.
"There is?" Oak replied. "How long have you been wondering it?"
"Not very long, really," Tracey replied, as they watched the battle.
Latios was darting around at speed and fading in and out of visibility, shooting off Dragon Pulse and Psywave attacks mixed in with a wider range of moves that kept his variety up – like Thunderbolt, or Ice Beam, or once a Shadow Ball which passed straight through Molly's Eevee in Normal-typed mode.
For her part, Eevee was changing forms as fast as possible, trying to catch everything Latios was doing on the best possible type to avoid it, and firing back whatever attacks happened to fit with what she was at that moment.
"What I was wondering was what counts as a new move," Tracey explained. "So that Veevee Volley move that Molly's Eevee performed earlier, is that a new move or just a different name for an existing move?"
"That's a very good question," Professor Oak told him. "At the moment, the gold standard is whether a Smeargle can copy it with Sketch, though even that is contested."
There was a whud from the TV screen as Latios dove underground, leaving a hole, then emerged again in a fountain of mud and damp rubble before blazing away at Umbreon at point blank range – only to switch off and stealth instead as Umbreon switched to Sylveon.
"Go Espeon for a moment to tell where he is!" Molly called.
"That's quite clever," Tracey said, then glanced at Oak – who was, after all, a former champion. "Is it? It seems clever."
"I'd say so," Oak agreed. "The only way Latios could avoid that working at least a bit would be if he was wearing Ash's hat, but then Molly's Eevee could just… well… target the hat."
Latios really had to admit, he was impressed with how well Molly's partner was doing.
That wasn't something he meant in a patronizing way. It was something he meant in that she was throwing out a kind of constant barrage of attacks, using Blizzard one second and Fury Cutter the next before switching to Dark Pulse and Pin missile.
She would throw up a Shadow Ball and a Dark Pulse, aiming the Dark Pulse so it would negate Latios' shields without actually snuffing out the Shadow Ball, and then when Latios strafed out of the way of that he'd find a Moonblast charging up and ready to hit him as well.
Latios wasn't able to hit full speed in such a small arena – even with psychic powers there were limits to how much acceleration he could put on – and that meant he was doing his best to combine dodging, shield-blocking and the use of attacks of his own to counter what Eevee (currently a Sylveon – no, now she was a Vaporeon) was doing.
And then there was actually attacking back, on top of all that.
"Energy Ball!" Ash called, and Latios pulled together the energy for the attack.
He fired it, sliding sideways as he did so that a Water Pulse didn't splash onto his shield and provide extra material for an Ice Beam, then sighed internally as Vaporeon switched to Leafeon and jumped away at the same moment – avoiding even the minor impact the attack would have had if it had landed on Leafeon herself.
"Okay, you need to combine attacks!" Ash decided. "Make sure you have more than one coming in at the exact same time, so she can't hide in one form!"
"That's easier said than done, but sure," Latios replied.
He fired out a set of six Shadow Balls and dropped into stealth, taking direct control of the Ghost-type attacks instead of just letting them home in. Leafeon switched to Eevee straight away, then looked up and tilted her head a little.
Latios knew why – so long as the Shadow Ball attacks were hanging in the air, ready to strike down, Eevee couldn't just remove the threat by letting them hit her and expend themselves uselessly. They were still a threat… and that meant she couldn't switch to Espeon to check where Latios actually was.
"Swift!" Molly instructed.
Eevee flicked her tail and sent a shower of Swift stars flying up into the air, spreading out briefly before starting to home in on Latios, and Latios used Dragon Pulse.
The beam of crackling purple energy flashed down to hit Eevee, who blurred into Sylveon just as the attack was about to hit – but Latios had brought the Shadow Balls down with it, and Sylveon yelped as the Ghost attacks hit her.
"Good!" Ash called.
"Use Buzzy Buzz!" Molly ordered.
Sylveon changed smoothly to Jolteon and fired up an intense bolt of electricity, and Latios yelped as it punched through his shield.
The Electric-typed attack was weakened by having to break through, and Latios was still Dragon-type, but the move fizzed over his feathers and didn't dissipate – instead it kept crackling, half-paralyzing Latios from sheer interference.
"Earthquake!" Ash ordered.
Latios gulped, then intensified his shield and rammed himself telekinetically into the ground. The earth trembled with the force of the blow, and Jolteon switched to Vaporeon so she could just dissolve into water instead of having to endure the shaking.
"Do you think he knows what's going on?" Bianca asked.
"I'm not really sure," Latias admitted, looking at the Soul Dew. "But he's here when I sight-share, so… probably?"
The view around them tilted crazily, and Bianca swallowed slightly.
"Do you want me to exclude you?" Latias asked.
"No, I'm fine," her friend told her. "It's just a bit disorienting, but it's not that bad."
Latios was now throwing himself around the battlefield almost entirely by telekinesis, and many of the attacks he was using were being held in Counter Shield instead of fired when he needed them – all he could do to try and minimize the effects of the paralyzing Buzzy Buzz still flowing over his feathers.
It looked like Molly's Eevee was finally starting to get tired too, which was why she hadn't just blasted Latios with more Moonblasts than he could handle, but the battle was going to have to end soon one way or another.
I've got an idea! Latios told Ash.
"Go ahead!" Ash told him, trusting Latios to know what to do.
Latios reached out with his psychic powers, snatching up chunks of the ravaged earth and combining them together into a kind of defensive screen. It hid him from Leafeon's view, but also from Ash's view, and he closed one eye so he could see where Latios actually was.
He'd half expected that the Dragon-type would move somewhere the shield wasn't protecting, but instead he was just staying there – and Leafeon briefly switched to Espeon, before apparently coming to the same conclusion and deciding to open fire.
"Solar Blade!" she announced, switching back to Leafeon, and swept her tail in an X-shape. The first swipe cut through Latios' shield north-to-south, the second east-to-west, and she swapped her Leafeon shape for a Sylveon one so she could launch a Moonblast through the hole.
Luster Purge! Latios broadcast as the shield split open, a globe of energy flowing together at his muzzle.
Sylveon paused and glanced at Molly. "Um-"
"That's Psychic!" Molly told Sylveon. "Go Umbreon!"
Her Pokémon didn't need to be told twice, and her blue-white-and-pink coat became black ringed with blue.
Latios fired the Luster Purge… and, at exactly the same moment, brought down the Draco Meteor attack he'd fired while he was hidden behind the shield. Most of the audience had seen the circling golden meteorites, but neither Molly nor Umbreon had had the right angle, and both a powerful Psychic-type attack and a powerful Dragon-type attack crashed home at the same time – a combination for which Molly's Eevee simply didn't have a safe answer.
The explosion finally finished the job of turning what had once been a nice grassy arena into a complete disaster area.
"On second thought, maybe we don't want him as an Elite Four member just from repair costs alone," Aaron said, blinking. "Ouch."
"I think that means Molly's Eevee is no longer able to battle," Cynthia mused, then nodded as she saw the currently-a-Normal-type on a small peak in the middle of the central crater.
It was necessary to specify which crater.
Okay, I think I'm just about done, Latios admitted, floating slowly down towards the arena. Anyone got a Cheri Berry I can have?
He lifted Eevee with another little burst of psychic power, floating her back to Molly, then gratefully ate the berry Ash retrieved from his pouch. "Even when you're battling a Shedinja it's not that hard to land damage…"
"That was great work, Latios," Ash told him, giving him a pat – one which the sleek dragon leaned into, the little gesture pleasing him beyond words. "Really great."
AN:
And the semi-finals, with the battle against Molly.
For those interested, my current writing schedule is to do about 2,000-2,500 words of this for every chapter of Harry Is A Dragon; it seems to be working fairly well so far.
Hopefully the Molly battle is working as well.
