Chapter 40: Fall of the Champion
A battered, bloodied Dragonite fell to his hands and knees out of the sky as Garchomp's powerful Draco Meteor descended from above and showered upon Dragonite's back with brutal intensity, hammering on the flying dragon's back like a jackhammer. The Draco Meteor was the final straw that broke the camerupt's back as the old saying goes, and despite the fact that the two dragons had been pummeling each others with Stone Edges, Dragon Claws, and Extremespeeds throughout Naporia Colosseum's sandpit battlefield for a good while now, in the end Garchomp remained the victor. Sir, who was watching from the sidelines, a safe distance away from the pokemon tearing each other apart, was captivated by every second of the battle. His eyes followed his Dragonite as it fell to the floor, unconscious. Sir kept his face blank, unable to be discerned by the great champion of Ilragorn, Ava, who was the master at reading her opponent's poker faces.
"Garchomp, this is a battle to the death. I expect you to know what that means." Ava said at last to her Garchomp, who was huffing and puffing, heavily worn out from taking so many hits and dishing out so energy to take down Sir's Dragonite. But he hadn't finished the job.
Garchomp moved quickly, making sure to move fast enough so that Sir wouldn't be able to intervene in time. But it was unnecessary to work so hastily as Sir had zero inclination to recall his unconscious, fallen Dragonite as Garchomp towered over it, raising one of his scythe-like arms high above the Dragonite's neck. Sir remained blank-faced and stoic as he watched his Dragonite become decapitated by Ava's Garchomp, the sharp scythe along its right arm now smeared with splattered blood.
Sir looked over to Ava, his eyes glistening, showing the beginnings of a tear sprouting out of the corner of an eye. But he held back and remained strong, unwilling to give Ava the satisfaction of seeing him break.
"You wanted to play hardball," Ava told him in a voice that implied that she didn't want to take it to this level. "I'm just playing on your terms."
Sir was appearing very much in control and calm on the outside, but on the inside he was raging and screaming like a hungry baby. He had now lost his Dragonite due to Ava's admittedly superior dragon but also his Nihilego due to his fool brother-in-law Larry/Snake taking it with him and then disappearing off the face of the earth while hunting Evan's little brother. Sir had captured many a pokemon in his lifetime, but Dragonite and Nihilego were special to him and part of the core six he had come to cherish the most. His Buzzwole and Gothitelle were also in that category, but they were unable to help him now.
"Oh, I'm completely content with the terms I've set and the implications that come with them," Sir replied, confidence restored in his voice and posture despite his Dragonite sprouting blood out of its neck like a leaky faucet while its head lay several feet away, open-mouthed and looking shocked. "This really will be a battle to the death, I'll make damned sure of it. I've waited far too long for this night to just walk out of here with anything less."
"You just had to ruin the League and destroy my beautiful home city the night before what would have been such a glorious day," Ava said. "You just had to taint it with all of your ugliness. Do you really hate the League that badly just because you could never beat it? Are you that petty still, after all these years, Miles?"
"Oh, please, Ava. Don't insult me. This is about far more than just sticking it to that ridiculous Ilragorn League, I couldn't care less about it at this point. You think I hand picked out a protege with the only steel/ground typing pokemon on Ilragorn being Mega Steelix, which happens to be the perfect weapon for taking down your Elite 4's set of pokemon just on accident, all just to interrupt the League? I trained that kid's whole team up to beyond the meer League standards that you and your Elite are used to battling. That kid's whole team is a powerful weapon that took down your entire Elite 4, and he works for me. And with the Elite 4 now out of the way, and once I dispose of you, that leaves Mt. Roland an easy target."
"Mt. Roland?" Ava furrowed her brow, caught off guard by this announcement. What would Sir want with the huge mountain towering in the center of Exeter Forest way off in the northern region of Ilragorn? Then, Ava understood. "You're trying to get at that wormhole underneath it, again? Oh, Miles. I had my Elite block it off years ago using their best mons to smash the earth around it to hide it from you. It's deep, deep in the mountain, surrounded by molten lava. Even if you did succeed in removing the Elite 4 and myself from the equation, are you capable of digging miles into Mt. Roland and finding the wormhole on the off chance you can find more ultra beast pokemon to complete your little collection? Is that what this is all about? Finding more ultra beasts?"
"I'm becoming tired of talking with you, Ava. Just like old times."
"You know the ultra wormhole only presents and opens itself once the island is in serious discord, Miles. Very few people even know about the wormhole except myself and the Elite 4, which you unfortunately were once a part of. But it's not even big enough to see if there's not serious chaos around Ilragorn."
"What do you call Team Anonymous invading Naporia City the night before the Ilragorn League starts? What do you call me having my agents infecting wild pokemon with Rage Berries all year? What do you call my titan of battling, my protege who single-handedly beat your Elite, currently infecting all of the Isle of Naporia's luscious, clean Fuji Jungle with Rage Berries as we speak? What do you call paying poachers to snatch mons from Exeter Forest or having my agents rob young, novice trainers kicked out of Lunaris Town to the Gord Woods before they can learn the survival basics? What do you call killing the Elite 4 and the Champion overnight, before anyone even knows what's going on and realizes there's no one to save them? Because I'd call that chaos."
"It ends tonight, right here in this Colosseum with you and me. I promise you that, Miles. Now are you ready to pick your last pokemon or are you going to cheat like we both know you are, and use 3 mons against my 2 despite your word it would be a 2 on 2? Because either way I'm walking out of this Colosseum alive, it doesn't matter to me that you need to cheat to win."
"I only need one pokemon and I'm going to only use one pokemon. And as a testament to that, here." Sir grabbed one of his pure black pokeballs from his belt, and he revealed his fifth pokemon to be the fighting/flying type Hawlucha, who came out with his fists pumping and ready for a fight. "No, Hawlucha. You are to sit this one out. I order you to leave the vicinity. Go find Evan and tell him to join me soon." With that, Hawlucha relented on thinking he would be fighting Garchomp and instead he bolted to the air, flying in search of Evan Hunter. "We're going to have fun dismembering your body and leaving it all over the arena for people to collect in the morning. Should make the morning news, I think. Cause quite a bit of chaos, don't you think?"
"I'm growing impatient, Miles."
"Naganadel - I choose you."
Sir unveiled his last and most powerful pokemon - the most bizarre looking of all the ultra beasts, in Ava's opinion. Naganadel was a dragon and poison type pokemon that had a metallic, insectoid looking face covered with a solid purple coat, and a huge bulbous stinger on its end that contained tons of poison just waiting to be fired off at a moments notice when feeling threatened.
"Garchomp, Dragon Claw it out of the sky!" Ava cried.
Sir retorted, "Naganadel, Dragon Pulse him away!"
Garchomp, weary from battling Dragonite, still had the energy to make an impressive bound several meters in the air where Naganadel was flying comfortably, waiting. Just as Garchomp was approaching the airborne Naganadel with his arm raised back ready to strike, Naganadel fired out a Dragon Pulse from the stinger on its lower half. The blue pulse of energy shot out with tremendous force and collided into Garchomp's chest in mid-air, sending Garchomp slamming back down to the ground on his back. The super effective hit, along with Dragonite weakening him, was all it took to take Garchomp out cold. Which once that happened, Naganadel's body began glowing and radiating fresh energy, and Ava knew it had received a beast boost in its power for beating her dragon.
But Naganadel did not stop the assault of Dragon Pulses on the fainted Garchomp, and Naganadel continued pelting Ava's pokemon with blue pulses of dragon energy until the Garchomp's body was nothing but a sizzling, charred carcass that hardly resembled a pokemon. Ava did as Sir had done, and simply watched with a pained look on her face as her Garchomp was murdered before her eyes. But she would ensure it would not be in vain.
"For my last pokemon - I choose Mega Metagross!" Ava reached inside the folds of her robe and yanked out one of the oldest pokeballs I'd ever seen. She threw it straight up into the air, where it opened itself up at the peak of its toss, and a slew of red vibrant energy pooled out and rushed to form a gigantic, ice cold blue, metallic behemoth of a pokemon.
Ava's Mega Metagross had four powerful-looking arms dangling off of its body, each coated with some of the thickest, hardest steel Sir had ever seen on a pokemon. But his Naganadel has already gotten a boost to his special attack, and Sir was ready to deal with even the toughest steel.
"Naganadel - Fire Blast!"
Before M-Metagross could barely settle out of his pokeball as his huge body levitated several inches off of the sandpit floor, Naganadel used the bulb at its end to once again fire off an attack, though this one was a roaring hangman-shaped blast of fire that came speeding toward M-Metagross at six miles an hour.
What followed over the next few minutes was a series of ballet-like movements by both pokemon as they weaved and danced throughout the sandpit battlefield, both of them using their abilities to take to the air to their advantage. Naganadel was capable of firing off 8 Fire Blasts, but he only really needed to land one or two to take down the bulky tank that was M-Metagross, and both Sir and Ava were aware of that.
M-Metagross had dodged the first Fire Blast with literally an inch of space between the fire and his head as it whooshed directly over and exploded with a loud burst of sparks as it cooled into the sand and diminished. Immediately after, it was a barrage of M-Metagross attempting to use all four of his arms to land Meteor Mash's anywhere along Naganadel's frail body.
Ava was screaming for M-Metagross to focus and land just one Meteor Mash, but the Naganadel moved at speeds that always surpassed the steel monster with just enough time to put plenty of space between himself and those four dangerous arms swinging wildly away through the air, all of them with surprising more reach than one would expect. And then Naganadel would fire off a Fire Blast, but M-Metagross always ducked or leaped or sidestepped just in the nick of time, with the fire's edges barely scraping along his steel coat as it passed by, doing minute damage.
At one point, in a desperate attempt to get damage off as she witnessed her pokemon slowly get whittled as Naganadel showed complete patience dodging the Mash's with no signs of slowing up, Ava switched up tactics.
"Bullet Punch, zoom right up close and get a good jab in it's face!" Ava ordered, and Sir listened.
"Fire Blast and hold it until-" Sir said, but his Nagandel already had the hangman-shaped fire fueled and ready to be fired at the tip of its stinger. But Sir was moreso interrupted by the M-Metagross using the priority move to instantly teleport directly in front of Naganadel, one of his upper arms smacking the dragon in the wing with the force of Bullet Punch, which while not the most powerful attack, still really hurt Naganadel.
But fighting through the pain and with the target directly in front of him, Naganadel aimed his stinger directly under the M-Metagross, and unleashed the boosted Fire Blast, it connecting right into the unprotected steel underbelly of the beast. M-Metagross' eyes bulged in shock over the pain and he found himself sailing down to the ground and landing in the sand with a crash that sent dust flying everywhere for a few moments.
"Beautiful work, Naganadel, beautiful! I knew you had what it took to beat this old has-been!" Sir cheered on proudly, clapping over the obvious win to him as he looked at the M-Metagross with its face in the sand. "Now Nasty Plot up! After we're done here, we're going to torch the rest of the city and any survivors holding up in the buildings, so let's get you at maximum special attack so you can just tear the city apart yourself!"
Ava's heart dropped to her stomach and her mouth was stone cold dry as she witnessed her M-Metagross take such a powerful hit due to her getting greedy and going for immediate damage rather than waiting for an opening or for all 8 Fire Blasts to be used before sending the last chance they had up so close and personal with such a threat. She could tell he wasn't exactly knocked out, but he was close; it had been literally years since her M-Metagross had even had to take such a powerful hit, and perhaps since it had been so long, her pokemon had forgotten what such pain could feel like and it exacerbated the attack even more, making it feel like twice the damage it really was.
Ava turned to speaking to M-Metagross in her mind, a benefit of having a psychic pokemon that you bond with, and she used this private moment to give her M-Metagross one last attack to use. Even if they couldn't exactly beat Sir or Naganadel, they could at least prevent them from ensuring Naporia City goes down so quickly and easily.
Metagross. Use all the energy you got inside of you, all of it. And quickly, while that dragon's using time to boost up its attack even more! Then I want you to use Explosion! Not just to the point of knocking yourself out, either! Take them both down, Metagross, we cannot let them leave the Colosseum, both of them are far too dangerous! I know what that means, and it's the price we have to pay as Champion! Now do it, quickly! EXPLOSION!
Just as Naganadel finished his Nasty Plot, leaving the stringer on his end pulsating and glowing with enormous amounts of new energy that could barely be contained, the M-Metagross's entire body turned from the ice cold blue it always was to a pure, blinding white that glowed. Sir recognized the motions of the attack and his heart froze as he realized what Ava had ordered her pokemon to do.
"Fire Bla-!" Sir tried, but he was too late.
Mega Metagross harnessed all the power inside of his body, which was more than nearly every other pokemon on Ilragorn or the Isle of Naporia, even when he was nearly knocked out. Then after a second or two of his body turning a flashing white, an explosion rocked throughout the entire battlefield, instantly swallowing up and killing Naganadel, Sir, and Ava, as well as leveling the colosseum that had been standing there for centuries and sending it crumbling apart.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Alright, I have finally reached Chapter 40 after so many years and I couldn't be prouder. I've even started exploring the idea of a sequel in my head as I get closer to finishing this story because this story is all about Adam rising to the occasion to deal with Team Anonymous so it has a certain point where I feel this story has to end and it's very close. But I feel like there's still a lot of unexplored territory on Ilragorn for post-Rise, but I don't really know if anyone would even be interested in reading that. Even though if I write something, I do it for me. But I do know that if I do write a new story, the new featured pokemon on the team would be Medicham and Clefable, as they seem very fun to write with but I never got the opportunity in this story, you know? But yes, Sir and Ava are now out of the way, but let's not forget Sir has three unaccounted for pokemon running around Naporia and Evan is still a massive threat, as well as all the Anonymous agents. Also will Eliza be okay all by herself in the middle of this attack? And who was the mysterious female spying on Evan in Fuji Jungle? It doesn't end with Sir dying, not by a long shot. But thank Arceus the Champion actually stepped up and did something after all this time, which I know has been a complaint in the reviews in the past ha. Really doing my best here to fully complete this story and give it the full circle treatment where everything ties off nicely and you'll see things from Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 tying all the way into chapters way late in the game and even if no one else notices the details like that, I know I did good with this story and I'm honored to those still enjoying it along with me.