A/N: I'm going to start doing the footnote thing that the real Death Battle does, which should allow me to impart way more information without overwhelming you (hopefully). Keep a lookout for numbers like these: [1], [2], [3]. When you find one, feel free to scroll down to the "Special Notes" section of that particular analysis (just below "Weaknesses") to find out what more there is to be said about the topic that was just mentioned!
Also, Happy Halloween! Given that's it's been well over a year since my last episode and this is a noticeably short one, I wonder if you'd consider this more of a trick than a treat. Regardless, it was a crazy one for me, and tons of work (and math, you have no idea how much math) was put into working this battle out. I do hope you enjoy.
This episode was requested by Shadowjab17. Previous requests were: Harley Quinn VS Juliet Starling by DB-19, and Ultron VS Cell by Shadowjab17.
Comment with your requests and they may become future episodes.
Episode 19: Groudon (Pokémon) vs. Ignosaurus (Fossil Fighters)
The primedial age was a time of chaos. Of destruction. Of fire. Good thing we humans weren't there to see it, or we would have been caught up in the flames and become consumed. But what if one wanted to bring that era back? What if there was a way to take the greatest of fire-based dinosaur monsters that happened to also equally fight their elemental opposite from that age, and bring them into our own to wreck havoc as they pleased? And what if a ten-year-old kid could trap and train them into their own personal slaves?
Groudon, the Pokémon of the Continents, and Ignosaurus, the greatest fighter ever borne from a fossil.
I'm LittleZbot, and it's my hobby to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle.
Groudon:
The world of Pokémon is...well, insane. Mountain-breaking monsters roam the Earth, and for some reason we're dumb enough to capture them and raise them as our pets. While simultaneously using them in dogfights. But don't forget what the word pokémon means: pocket monster. And monsters they are, some more than most. Legendary Pokémon are unique, powerful monsters that performed great deeds in the past. Dialga, the creation pokémon, represents the flow of time. Mewtwo, the psychic pokémon, was created in a lab to be the most powerful creature of all. Nebby, the cosmic pokémon, can transform to wield the heat of the sun or the dark of the moon. But if everything came from pokémon, then there had to be one responsible for the very creation of Earth itself. That, my friend, would be Groudon.
Millenia past, the world was mostly formless ocean thanks to this fish pokémon called Kyogre. Groudon, a mystical dinosaur beast with crazy lava powers, would wander around to seek out something called "natural energy" that powered him up, and along the way, form volcanoes, set off earthquakes, and create new land with every single step he took. Because, yes, he may only be less than twenty feet tall, but his natural state of being kept trying to bring the world into balance, and when fate says you gotta make continents, you usually don't have much of a choice. Kyogre didn't like that a whole lot, plus Groudon was eating up all that sweet delicious "natural energy" for himself, so the two clashed a few times with varying results.[1] Those results became a lot less varying when they finally up and released their full power on each other, locking the planet into constant battle as they matched power, dead even. Over the course of this struggle, they burned through almost all the "natural energy" on the planet, eventually weakening them and causing both to retreat to their own personal hideouts. Hideouts they remained in for thousands of years.
And then Team Magma and Team Aqua of Hoenn decided "Hey, you know those human people? Screw 'em! Let's awaken the ancient powers of earth and water and leave the world a nice breeding ground for pokémon exclusively!" It, uh, didn't work out so well. When Team Magma awakened Groudon, they found him WAY more powerful than they imagined. Even in his weakened state, the heat he produced was already enough to burn the skies and nearly kill all life just by being nearby! Their intentions may have been pure...actually, no, they weren't. These guys are awful. But anyway, their plan sucked and failed and Groudon is awesome.
With his natural abilities, Groudon can summon and manipulate lava at will, along with lava rock. His spikes, teeth, and claws are deadly weapons, but, as a Ground and Fire-type Pokémon, physical attacks aren't exactly his forte. Instead, he can cause giant earthquakes, form magma spikes from the ground beneath you, create and erupt volcanoes, and raise the temperature of the atmosphere itself with a searing heat that can burn away rainstorms and tsunamis![2] As with all pokémon, he has a variety of special attacks and techniques, and, as a legendary pokémon, his have all sorts of extra powerful-ness. Using Ancient Power, he throws rocks at people and has a neat 10% chance to boost all his physical and elemental abilities. He can catch foes in mud with Mud Shot, scare them into not wanting to attack with Scary Face, and boost his physical attack and defense with Bulk Up. Hm. Maybe the developers of these games should put a thesaurus on this year's Christmas List.
He can cause earthquakes just by roaring, spew fire and flaming rocks for a long-range attack, or just crush his opponent under his super-strong arms. Arms strong enough to topple skyscrapers and pull islands around! He also has one of the strongest fire-type attacks: Fire Blast. Wow. Yeah, again with the whole thesaurus thing. Anyway, Fire Blast has him shooting out fire in the shape of a kanji that loosely translates to "big and/or powerful." It's cute; looks like a little stick guy fleeing for his life. This hits the opponent and engulfs them in an explosion of flame that's only a little less powerful than Groudon's full-strength Eruption move. That move forms a volcano under his foe and blasts them with its, uh, eruption. The less damage Groudon has taken, the higher the damage of this attack. But among his most powerful special techniques is the Solar Beam. This kamehameha of solar energy can destroy most opponents in just a couple of shots, but takes a long time to charge up. Well, for most pokémon. But not for Groudon! His natural heat gives the Solar Beam extra charge, so he can use it twice as fast as anyone else! And, just in case all this isn't enough and he still somehow ends up taking a beating, he has the move Rest. This move instantly heals all of his wounds and restores his stamina whenever he wants! The only downside is that he has to fall asleep for some seconds afterwards, giving those he's fighting a chance to make up for the healed damage.[3]
But it has to be tough to damage his prehistoric dinosaur monster when he can survive thunderbolts that split the skies, an onslaught of blows by the move-mountains-with-one-hand Machamp, Magnitude 10-level earthquakes, and, at his most powerful, even a hit from Rayquaza, who busted through an asteroid that could have destroyed the surface of the Earth! He's capable of dodging electricity from Pikachu, whose electricity has caught up to natural lightning and provided power to electronic devices. To do that last bit, it would have to be moving at the speed of light! And, since Groudon can also dodge attacks like Doom Desire and Power Gem, which are actual beams of sunlight, putting this as his reaction speed is hardly an overestimation.
And, being a Ground/Fire type, he's made even more effective against the likes of Electric, Poison, and Rock-type opponents. On the flipside, however, he has great trouble against more natural monsters that live in grassy areas. And he has a pretty big weakness against fighters who use water or cold-based attacks. It's to his credit, then, that he fought so well and hard against Kyogre, even completely equaling him, despite his supposed weakness. And Kyogre has created a massive thunderstorm way bigger than the island of Hoenn in just a couple of seconds! Hoenn is based extensively off of the real-life island of Kyushu, which has a landmass of 14,202 square miles. Assuming a conservative condensation speed of 1 mile per second, Kyogre would be summoning clouds with a power of 114 Gigatons of TNT! Which does seem crazy and overscaled, but is actually reasonable given the feats of other pokémon. For example, Groudon is definitely more powerful than the Pikachus of the world, and one of those guys once dispersed a similarly-sized storm with a single blast of electricity!
And most of this was accomplished in his weakened, modern state. In his prime, known as Primal Groudon, he not only looked cooler, kind of like modern Groudon went Super Saiyan, but he was way more powerful. His physical abilities are at least 20% stronger, and his firepower is at least 50% more potent. And it's likely greater still; those are just the stats of his Primal form that was regained artificially by some psuedo-science and a magic orb. His original clashes with Kyogre, when he was full-charged on that special energy that was all around the planet back then, nearly wiped out a continent![4]
Groudon is unstoppable. Except against frogs. And ice cream. And twelve-year-old kids with pokémon teams that can't even yet compete with Hoenn's Elite 4. To be fair on that last one, they WERE using a magic ball that severely weakened Groudon's powers, but even so, the amount of things this monster has accomplished is ridiculously low. Every single time he tries anything cool, it's stopped by some hero or other legendary pokémon. It's dumb. He even got caught in a Pokéball, which are basically small balls that hold enslaved Pokemon in their own little dimension and brainwash them into loyalty to their owner. This was the Pokéball of that 12-year-old kid, Brendan.
At least there are far worse fates for pokémon than ending up in this guy's crew. It's not everyday you meet a little kid who has bested all of the best Pokémon Masters in a row, taken out a small army of highly trained pokémon with just his own little team, and saved the entire planet from an asteroid heading towards it. Brendan is a top-tier strategist, looking at the science and math behind his team and putting every fighter where they belong when they need to be there. He's also really good at sewing. Under his guidance, Groudon might be deadlier than ever.
Yet even without the League Champion to direct him, Groudon is still one of the most powerful pokémon you're ever likely to see. Whether he be exploding volcanoes with a roar or scorching the oceans away with his mere presence, Groudon is one prehistoric creature you don't want to meet. If you see him heading towards your island, do yourself a favor and run. You might survive long enough to see the ground catch fire and the oceans boil.
Might as well see something cool before you die, after all.
Groudon emerges from the sea. The sky turns orange, and heat begins to envelop the world. He roars, allowing the island he has his eyes on the knowledge of what caused this apocalyptic event. He slinks back into the water and slowly approaches his new stomping grounds.
Groudon:
Name: Groudon
Species: Groudon
Height: 16'5"/500 cm (in Primal form)
Weight: 2,204 lb/1000 kg (in Primal form)
Age: 2000+
Occupation: Groudon
Type/Class: Ground/Fire
The Continent Pokémon
Likes the Lava Zone because it reminds him of good old days in the PokéPark
Arsenal/Abilities:
Pyrokinesis
Lava Creation/Manipulation
Earth Manipulation
Claws
Spikes
Teeth
Scary Face
~Type: Normal, PP: 10, Accuracy: 100
Ancient Power
~Type: Rock, PP: 5, Accuracy: 100
Hammer Arm
~Type: Fighting, PP: 10, Accuracy: 90
Bulk Up
~Type: Fighting, PP: 20, Accuracy: N/A
Rest
~Type: Psychic, PP: 10, Accuracy: N/A
Mud Shot
~Type: Ground, PP: 15, Accuracy: 95
Precipice Blades
~Type: Ground, PP: 10, Accuracy: 85
Fire Blast
~Type: Fire, PP: 5, Accuracy: 85
Lava Plume
~Type: Fire, PP: 15, Accuracy: 100
Solar Beam
~Type: Grass, PP: 10, Accuracy: 100
Earth Power
~Type: Ground, PP: 10, Accuracy: 100
Eruption
~Type: Fire, PP: 5, Accuracy: 100
Earthquake
~Type: Ground, PP: 10, Accuracy: 100
Fissure
~Type: Ground, PP: 5, Accuracy: 30
Feats:
Ancient cave painting depicted Primal Groudon as setting off six volcanoes around him just by roaring
Equalled Kyogre's durability, who rested at the bottom of ocean where, according to the very game he's from, the pressure "can reach even tens of thousands of tons on a small area"
Commonly bathes and sleeps in lava
Vaporized entire oceans
Created the continents, later destroyed some
Tabitha, Archie, and League Champion Steven all claim that Groudon's awakening would kill everything on the planet
Erupted two volcanoes just by taking a step
Mere presence near an island was capable of potentially killing the inhabitants
Aura turns the atmosphere of the entire planet orange
Survived a Magnitude 10 earthquake
Incredibly more powerful than Machop, who can throw pokémon weighing over 2,000 lbs into outer space just by stomping the ground
More powerful than Charizard, who can burn down mountains
More powerful than Dragonair, who incinerated an entire city with one attack
More powerful than Pikachu, who dissipated an island-sized storm with a thunderbolt
According to Mystery Dungeon, roar alone triggers "huge earthquakes"
Equaled Kyogre despite type advantage, who caused a 114 Gigaton thunderstorm
Took powerful hits from Rayquaza in-canon, who is stronger than an asteroid capable of breaking the planet's crust
Fought equally with Kyogre for multiple days without rest
Walked through skyscrapers without noticing
Dodged Thunderbolt, Doom Desire, Power Gem, Quick Attack
Weaknesses:
Not particularly intelligent on his own
Technically never won a one-on-one fight
Can be captured and enslaved by magic pool balls
Requires outside help to reach his peak potential
Weak to Water, Grass, and Ice-based attacks
Special Notes:
[1] This special energy powers the life force of the Earth, and of Groudon and Kyogre specifically as well. When the two burned through it, there was still enough to sustain life, but not to allow the two dueling monsters to reach their fullest potential. What remained in the general atmosphere was later collected into two orbs that would be used to return Groudon and Kyogre to their natural power levels. No, this energy is never named. Yes, that is dumb.
[2] According to Steven, this heat would eventually kill every living thing on the planet, including Magcargos, whose body temperature has a natural heat of 18,000 degrees fahrenheit! That's hotter than the surface of the sun, and yet Groudon's mere presence would be enough to burn all of these creatures away!
[3] The amount of time Rest has the pokémon fall asleep for varies in the movies, TV Shows, and manga, usually conforming to the needs of the plot. It has been suggested that it depends on the skill or strength level of the pokémon using it. In the Super Smash Bros. series, Rest lasts approximately 3 seconds. This time fits in with other attacks in fighting game series and the TV Shows that take one full in-game turn.
[4] An ancient cave painting in the Hoenn region showcases Primal Groudon setting off six volcanoes with just a roar! That would make just the shout of this ancient beast equal to AT LEAST around 50 Megatons of TNT! However, this should be taken somewhat lightly, as it has no direct proof or evidence, and was nothing more than an ancient artist's interpretation of the creature.
…
Ignosaurus:
The world of Fossil Fighters is one that seems deceptively normal at first glance, but the deeper you go, the stranger it gets. We have ghost pirate captains, ancient magicians stealing bodies through cursed skulls to live thousands of years with the ultimate goal of canceling an inconsequential tournament, and an ancient alien species that created the humans of this planet millions of years back. Aside from all that, things are pretty standard. Until you reach Vivosaur Island, that is. The island is a resort featuring all the classic amenities: hotels, hot springs, giant active volcanoes, and endorsed dinosaur dogfights to entertain the masses. Through the power of technology, fossils of long-extinct species can be revived, given superpowers, locked into medals to be worn by highly-trained tamers that can bring them out at any time, and forced to fight other similarly-revived creatures in a big old colosseum. But nature has its reasons for what lives and what dies. Not everything from the past is meant to be brought into the future. For you never know what terrors you might unleash.
Millions of years ago, the two most powerful dinosaurs on the planet were locked in an everlasting stalemate. Both could not be bothered with any other creature; they were all pottery to them. Only these two could satisfy each other's desires for true combat. Frigisaurus, the 100-foot-long brachiosaurus-like monster who could freeze any creature with a mere touch, and Ignosaurus, the lion-maned tyrannosaurus with pure firepower to outmatch all. The battle between these two lasted for decades, stirred the seas and wrought storms. The only reason it ever ended is because, well, age happened. Regardless of which one died first, both Frigi and Igno were eventually brought down by nature's greatest killer and became fossils to be excavated in the future.
Then Dr. Diggins invented a machine that could bring dinosaurs back from the dead using the technology of secret aliens that want to destroy- you know what, it's complicated. To make a long story short, Frigi's fossils were found, the monster was revived and given even more power, then the Medal it was contained in was stolen by Sheriff Bullwort, who was secretly the leader of the Team Rocket-esque BB Bandits, an organization that was gathering idols in order to- hold on. Hold on. I'll skip it. Sorry, this series' lore is WAY more complicated than it appears at first glance. Bullwort kidnaps a kid, releases Frigi, and everything got way out of hand when it was revealed that Frigi was significantly stronger than anybody could have predicted. There was only one creature that could possibly match its strength, one that was buried far away within a volcano.
Meet Hunter. This teen trained harder than almost anyone else to be the best Fossil Fighter (the tamers and owners of various revived and superfied Dinosaurs, known as Vivosaurs) in the league. His bond with his animals is something to behold and his strategy and creativity is nothing to sneeze at, either. He can even read the thoughts of his dinos! To some extent, anyway. At different points in his life, he defeated nearly every other Fossil Fighter on the island (including Dr. Diggins himself) in Vivosaur Battles, made peace with a hyper-aggressive alien race, and defeated a planet-munching space monster. Naturally, he and his friends fought Frigi, lost badly, and set out to find Ignosaurus' skeleton and revive him. After a number of mishaps and a lot of failed plans, they succeeded, and Hunter revived Igno personally.[1] And he destroyed EVERYTHING.
Ignosaurus is a monster in attack and durability. This flaming hunched vivosaur with a golden mane can tank literal whirlpools of deadly poison, release fire hotter than the space-metal-melting fire of the Vivosaur T-Rex, and is faster than V-Raptors that run on walls.[2] With a single bite, he can take out most vivosaurs, and tear through pretty much any material. His claws are stronger than others that can shred metal, and he can shoot fire from his mouth. This fire can come out in fireballs, vapors, and streams. Inferno Blast is particularly strong, being a souped-up giant fireball that can hurt the strongest Vivosaurs out there. Inferno Breath, meanwhile, is your standard dragon-like flamethrower attack, which, even by itself, is so intense, just looking at the attack terrifies anyone who sees it beyond reasonable thought. His strongest fire breath attack, however, is his final move: Inferno Breath Roaring Flame, a kamehameha of pure firepower that takes a short bit to charge, but puts everything else he's got to shame. And just in case none of that sounds powerful enough, at any point he can stop and charge up the flames surrounding his body to increase the strength of all his fire attacks.
And this fire is intense. Forget space-metal, the heat Igno's body alone produces is enough to counter Frigi's own cold effects. This brachiosaur's aura and body's cold is insane, capable of one-shotting powerful Vivosaurs down to their Medal just because they accidentally touched him. This cold aura has encased entire cities in ice just by being nearby. It froze a power generator to the Fossil Center from three hundred meters away! Taking this as a radius, accounting for the likely temperature and humidity of the area, countering this aura would take enough energy to power the entire state of Wyoming for more than two weeks. And Igno produces this level of heat every second, just by existing! His fire breath attacks have equaled and even overpowered similar attacks by Frigi. Frigi is capable of using his freezing breath to reduce the temperature of creatures and objects to absolute zero.[3] He once did this to a Goyle, a Lambeo, a Brachio, a Hypsi, and a Megalo, at once, with one blast. That would have taken a reduction energy of 13.25 Quintillion Joules!
The fully-revived and super-powered Igno is better than Frigi in almost every way. As such, it makes sense to compare the two. Like how the V-Raptor's claws, which cut straight through steel, literally bounce off of Frigi's eyeballs, just because he's that tough! Or how Frigi in its prime could dodge almost any attack Hunter could throw at it, including attacks from Shoni, a Vivosaur that swam at the bottom of the ocean fast enough to create a 54-ft diameter whirlpool stretching 2.3 MILES high! That'd be thousands of times the speed of sound! Even better, he can dodge artificial lightning and Igno is capable of outspeeding vivosaurs that can dodge Dinomatron's light-speed lasers! Igno is physically stronger than a T-Rex that headbutted another vivosaur above the height of a nearby mountain, and Igno himself knocked Frigi over 300 feet away. Keep in mind that Frigi is over a hundred feet long himself!
Comparing Igno to other vivosaurs is hardly an overestimation, by the way. According to Bullwort, who had lived on Vivosaur island his entire life and seen every single Vivosaur known to man at that point, Frigisaurus' power is incomparable to others; in an entirely different league than any other vivosaur. So it's fairly reasonable to assume that Igno, who is even stronger than Frigi, can compare to the power of all these other vivosaurs. This includes the robot-tearing Tricera, the run-fast-enough-to-create-holes Stego, and...ghosts. Aureos defeated Stego with nothing but a shout, and its upgraded form, Teffla, survived channeling all the electricity of the densely-populated Calisteo Islands through its body!
Hunter's T-Rex, meanwhile, was strong enough to take down the alien King Dynal, who could defeat three vivosaurs just by moving his arm slightly! The T-Rex also evaporated a massive lake which, judging by its size (the measurement of which was more annoying and complicated than you will ever know) would have taken over 180 Kilotons of TNT. Also, Teffla was able to shatter an entire island with a single attack, which would have taken an explosive energy of over 740 Kilotons of TNT. And, if Frigi is anything to go by, Igno's stronger than a thousand of these guys put together! Also, the combined energy of 106 vivosaurs was able to push a space station that, accounting for an 80% hollow interior, had a mass of 23.8 Billion Tons! That's like shoving around four Great Pyramids of Giza at once![4]
Igno's power was greater than ever, and he proved it by defeating Frigi once and for all. Even though he left Hunter's group immediately afterward, it wasn't too long before the two encountered each other again, Hunter finally taming Igno and gaining his respect. After saving the planet and becoming a Master Fossil Fighter, of course. Although Hunter's name was remembered for years to come, Igno's was forgotten. But be careful; lurking legends step out of the shadows every once in a while. And when they do, they prove exactly why they're known as legends.
When the only thing capable of killing a giant dinosaur is old age, you know it's something you'll never want to see on the horizon.
As Frigi is held still by a hoard of loyal vivosaurs, Igno charges up his ultimate attack.
"Come on, Igno!" Hunter shouts out. "Ultimate Attack! Inferno Breath: Roaring Fire!"
A laser-like beam of pure fire shoots out of Ignosaurus's mouth and strikes Frigi, full force. After a number of seconds under this intense heat, Frigisaurus falls, defeated.
Ignosaurus:
Name: Ignosaurus
Species: Ignosaurus
Height: 35'9"/1090 cm
Weight: Approx. 43,000 lbs/19,500 kg
Age: 10+
Occupation: Ignosaurus
Part Lion
Part T-Rex
Part Lava Rock
All Awesome
Arsenal/Abilities:
Pyrokinesis
Claws
Teeth
Tail
Flaming Mane and Spikes
Heat Aura
Solo Power
~More powerful if fighting alone
Roaring Fire
~ Increases firepower by 100%, 100% success rate, minor defense decrease
Inferno Breath
~ Flamethrower-breath attack, lights target on fire and magically frightens them, 100% success rate
Burning Bite
~ Sudden flaming bite, faster than most vivosaurs can see
Volcanic Combo
~Stomps, swipes, and bites all producing shockwaves of flame to consume the enemy
Inferno Blast
~ Full power of Inferno Breath contained into one fireball, can be fired in spurts
Inferno Breath Roaring Flame
~ Finishing move, all power goes into one giant fireball
Feats:
Erupted Mt. Lavaflow by accident while fighting Frigisaurus
Potentially leveled an entire island in a single battle
Leaves a trail of scorched victims wherever it goes
Heat aura alone perfectly countered Frigi's cold aura, which froze a generator in ice 300 meters away
Inferno Blast overpowered Frigi's frost breath
Physically capable of hurting Frigi, whose eyeballs alone are harder than steel
Tanked two blasts that should have reduced his temperature to absolute zero
Faster than Frigi, who dodged every attack from Tricera, which can dodge Dinomatron's light-speed lasers
Headbutted the 400 lb Frigi through a city
Far Superior to Shoni, who swam at Mach 3,027 at the bottom of the ocean
Superior to T-Rex, who evaporated a Dinomatron and headbutted Dynal above a mountain
Superior in firepower to Teffla, who shattered an entire island with one attack
Endured a literal whirlpool of pure poison
Far superior to Aureos, who stopped a powerful Vivosaur's attack with just the force of a shout
Faster than Stego, whose speed creates craters in the ground
Absorbed "all the heat" of a volcano, possibly around 23 Sextillion Joules
Defeated Frigi, who is stated to be the most powerful of all Vivosaurs, becoming the definitively most powerful Vivosaur of his age
Weaknesses:
Works best alone, doesn't like to rely on others
Relatively low on evasion and accuracy compared to his other stats; he's a heavy-artillery tank, but moves like one, too
If using fire moves too freely and rapidly, can run out of firepower and must wait to recharge
Still a wild animal; doesn't strategize beyond instinct
Looked really stupid in the first game
Extra Notes:
[1] The strength of a vivosaur is generally dependent on how clean or altered the fossil in question is. Because of this, Hunter's vivosaurs tend to be the best of the best, as his skill in excavating and cleaning fossils is so great, he transformed a giant rock into a house, heater, and suitable living area for a dinosaur without disturbing any of the bones of the complete skeleton found within. With a jackhammer. In less than a minute.
[2] The fire of Hunter's T-Rex evaporated a metal Dinomaton, and Igno's fire breath is clearly at least a little hotter. The temperature required to turn iron into gas is around 5,200 degrees Fahrenheit, and given the relation between this metal and titanium, plus the speed of which the metal was vaporized, the heat of this attack likely exceeded 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit!
[3] Frigi's cold breath is stated in English to be a temperature of absolute zero, but his breath is clearly colder, as it froze Hunter solid, and Hunter has survived the absolute zero-cold of the vacuum of space. The original Japanese is a little more blurry in this reference, and it seems likely that the text is actually saying that the breath can reduce things to absolute zero, rather than being absolute zero itself. That makes Frigi's breath significantly more powerful than the English Translation declares.
[4] Two vivosaurs initially attempted to push this station, with one having the combined aura of two. More were added later, and then certain Fossil Fighters gave their vivosaurs' energy to those pushing the station, effectively granting only a few vivosaurs the total power of at least 106. The number is likely significantly higher, but this is unfortunately unprovable.
…
All right, the combatants are set. Let's end this debate once and for all. It's time for a Death Battle!
…
It was the off-season for the Fossil Stadium, the dome where Fossil Fighters battled it out for supremacy, and besides that, it was quite late at night, far beyond the dome's closing time even during the prime season, but you would never have known any of it on this day. Every seat was packed, all refreshments were not just available, but sold out, and although the players hadn't even made an appearance there was already cheering and hissing alike. Most notably for the average onlooker (and the Center's checkbooks), half the audience were foreigners. Most had never attended the Stadium before today, but all conducted themselves with equal degrees of decorum. None.
The reason for this, of course, was that this was the single greatest day in monster-fighting history. The two greatest Champions the world had to offer, battling in this very arena, all day long, each to claim the title from the other. The event had been advertised worldwide for months, and was now not only in front of the eyes of those in the stadium and the half a million or so others perusing the still-open newly-built theme park around the island, but, thanks to the dozens of arena cameras and helicopters flying around, was also being seen by every house on the planet with a television and an interest in monster battles.
Those turning on the television right now had these words spoken to them:
"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, only ten more minutes until the final battle begins here at the Fossil Stadium here on Vivosaur Island. For those just tuning in, welcome to the Master of Master's Battle Tournament! We're your hosts, Slate Johnson-"
"And Gabby Garcia! We're here at the eleventh hour. Events have been running all day, and while many seem to be enjoying the festivities below us, it seems those in the stands would rather not run the risks of losing their seats."
"Nor should they! This is, after all, the greatest event in the history of Fossil Fighting!"
"And of Pokémon battles. For those who don't know, all day today, the two top creature-training legends known throughout the world have been competing in a series of challenges to win the title of Master of Masters."
"Vivosaur Island's very own Hunter, Master Fossil Fighter and Official Ambassador to Dinauria!"
"And Brendan of Hoenn, League Champion and the World's Savior!"
"Oh, uh, Hunter saved the world too. Yeah."
"Right. These two have been competing in various summon-based events all day!"
"Ranging from Wheel of Fortune to a bout in the boxing ring."
"And rounding it out with these latest two events, a three-on-three simultaneous battle between Vivosaurs and Pokémon, and a ten-on-ten tag-team battle of similar conditions. The score is now tied between all events, 5-5."
"Which, of course, means we can't leave you hanging! That last event was big and powerful, a fitting end to the official contest, but we're here at nearly midnight to bring to you a special FINAL TIEBREAKER EVENT!"
If possible, the roar of the crowd grew louder.
"No rounds or time limits! Both Trainers bring their single strongest creature and guide it with verbal commands. A newly-built PokéCenter is on location ready to attend to the wounded when it is all over. And there WILL be wounded!"
"The battle will not end until one Trainer concedes or their pokémon-"
"Or vivosaur."
"-or vivosaur is unable to continue fighting. The regular ten-count has been extended to a full minute-"
"Just to make sure that monster is actually down and out! No way to tell if they've got a power-up up their sleeves, right?"
"All healing items, TMs, and armor are banned. This will be a fair fight to establish not just the greatest Master, but the greatest pok- er, monster of all time!"
Far below, down in the stadium, Brendan heard what they were saying and nervously adjusted his glasses. His opponent, Hunter, was no slouch in terms of strategy, and had a unique gift involving insight towards the creatures they both carried with them. It'd been a struggle to reach this stage of the competition with so much as a tied game, and now he had to rely on the superiority of his best pokémon to win the whole event. It'd be close. But he didn't come here to lose.
Hunter was stepping onto the arena now. Even though he was younger than Brendan, he boasted great confidence in his team and his own leadership. Although he didn't appear worried, Brendan had gotten pretty good at reading his tells by now. The guy was putting up a good front while trying to calm his nerves.
Hunter noticed Brendan stoically staring at him, and stuck out his tongue.
"FIGHTERS!" came Slate Johnson's voice booming across the field. He shared the announcement booth with Gabby Garcia, but he was the only one of the two also qualified to referee the match. "ARE YOU READY?!"
Hunter and Brendan turned towards each other, their hands dropping to their belts as if they were waiting to draw guns. The cheers of the crowd blasted to new heights. If you paid careful attention, you heard Hunter breathe out an unsteady "Ready."
Both hands whipped forward, a red and white ball flying through the air at the same time as a gold medal did. There were two simultaneous cries:
"I choose you! Groudon!"
"Let's go! My trusty partner, Ignosaurus!"
Both objects turned into light mid-air, and then into dinosaurs. Large, fiery, lavaborne dinosaurs.
Two powerful roars immediately caused the eruption of Mt. Lavaflow on the other side of the island, and the battle truly began.
"AAAAAND..."
-FIGHT!-
"Groudon, use Scary Face!" Brendan shouted. This was one match only, no switch-outs, no potions or restores. If Groudon could intimidate the other creature first thing, he'd be at an advantage all fight long.
"Let's show 'em what we got, Igno! Inferno Breath!" Hunter was thinking similarly. By using a powerful no-charge-required attack to get in a big hit early, he could pile on the damage with opportunities that never would have shown up otherwise. The fight would be his.
Both obeyed their masters. Groudon charged with an evil scowl, informing his prey just how much higher he was on this food chain. Igno blasted him with an unexpected wave of fire, skidding him back a few feet, and leaving him shocked and a little frightened. Igno, meanwhile, having seen the magical gaze while blasting his attack, appeared to almost enter a cold sweat. What had he done? His insolence of drawing first blood could only make things worse!
"Shake it off, Groudon," Brendan commanded. "You've faced worse. Are you going to let him just blast you like that?"
Groudon shook his nerves out. That's right. He was proud, the primary predator of this entire region of the world. The gaunt dinosaur should be afraid of HIM, not the other way around!
"Hey!" Hunter shouted at his vivosaur. "Is that any way for the greatest vivosaur in history to look? Come on, you're better than that guy!"
Igno shook his head worriedly.
Hunter's voice grew a little softer. He could read Igno's thoughts, and sense what he sensed. "Igno, don't you trust me? You can do this."
Igno felt the reassuring voice of his tamer as if it was a hand smoothing out his wrinkles. He shook, halted, and then bellowed out a fireball at Groudon.
Groudon took the attack and nearly tripped.
"That's it! Keep on the pressure! Don't let him recover!" Hunter shouted. Igno obeyed, continuing to pepper Groudon with fireballs as he closed in on him.
"He's backing you into a corner! Don't give him an inch!" Brendan commanded.
Groudon grunted, but when Igno took his next step, he found his foot pierced on a group of igneous stalagmites. He stopped and shouted in pain, which Groudon pressed him on by slamming into him with two giant boulders, smashing them over Igno's head and roaring in accomplishment himself as he felt his muscles tighten and increase in strength. Pushing his advantage, Groudon summoned a pillar of lava where Igno's foot was stuck, forcing him to go flying into the air while being bathed in molten rock.
Groudon shouted at his bleeding foe, but had unknowingly given Igno the perfect chance to strike back. The lava was practically ice on his hot body and already-healing minor foot wound, and the blast of the geyser let him set his sights on a better prize.
Igno landed squarely on top of Groudon, snapping off one of his spikes and driving him into the ground hard enough to form a small crater. Not getting off, Igno charged up his firey breath and blasted at his feet, driving Groudon further into the stadium's ground. However, both were shoved back onto the stadium floor when a miniature volcano sprung up below Groudon. Groudon smashed his back into the volcano as soon as he could, knocking Igno off. Groudon immediately bull-rushed him into the volcano side, breaking through it and dousing Igno in hot lava before the volcano exploded on top of him. Igno roared as both cheers and boos from the crowd rose high. Through the smoke, he let loose sound-like shockwaves of fire aimed at Groudon. Three stomps, a headbutt against nothing, and a swipe of the tail all produced this powerful ranged attack, but when he himself ran outside the smoke to see if he'd done any real damage, he was annoyed to see Groudon had protected himself with a solid wall of lava rock.
Hunter called to Igno, now some distance away. "He's too good at defending what he can see coming! Don't overpower him! Outmaneuver him!"
Igno grunted and listened to his tamer. He roared out more fire, but into the air this time, creating a thin firewall that shielded him from view.
The moment he saw this, Brendan gave his own call. "He's rounding about! Groudon, protect yourself!"
Groudon stamped the ground and, like magic, four massive stalagmites made of igneous rock sprung up and formed makeshift walls around him. Groudon crossed his relatively thin arms and gathered power for a Bulk Up, but was interrupted. Igno had ignored the walls completely and just jumped at him from behind, spewing flaming rocks the moment his mouth peeked over the top of the structure. Groudon roared, again attempting to frighten his foe, but Igno's mind was set, and he would no longer scare so easily. Igno landed on the ground outside of the structure, and again attempted to jump over it. Groudon felt the shift in temperature and slammed one clawed foot into the interior of the structure, forcing it to rise up much higher very rapidly. The edge caught Igno's neck as it shot up, sending the volcanic dinosaur plummeting, the first few drops of blood being spilled upon his craterous impact with the arena.
Igno struggled to stand up with his short arms, but managed well before the referee reached fifteen on the countdown. Cheers rose as his body did. He whipped around, now quite angry at the red and black creature that had embarrassed him like that. HIM. The king of the dinosaurs! Igno growled and backed up a few dozen feet. When he had reached what he considered sufficient distance, he rammed ahead as fast as he could, head pointed at the stalagmites that now easily reached over ten stories tall.
He headbutted them.
And reeled back in pain as they remained untouched.
What? How could this be? He was a mighty dinosaur, capable of breaking through all manners of stone, and, since Hunter had brought him back, he was even stronger than that. How could this feeble wall hold back so much force?!
Of course, what Igno had no way of knowing was that, from inside the structure, Groudon had been consistently reinforcing and hardening the material, forming miniature volcanoes within and pressurizing the structure until it was reduced to carbon, and then diamond. A trick he never would have come up with himself; but Brendan had invented the technique and trained the primordial entity in the act just the week before.
Groudon sniffed out more lava. Much of how his mind saw the world was in terms of power, hierarchy, and respect. He did not know much else. Brendan had earned his respect.
The bygone fossil he was facing had not.
Igno slammed into the structure again, a small crack appearing around the rock surrounding his ear, from which boiling-hot blood began to slowly drip out. Nonetheless, he was still gearing up for a third try when he heard Hunter's voice.
"Remember what I said! Don't overpower. Outmaneuver. Think about what you can do, and get creative!"
Igno realized immediately that his tamer had an idea in store, but wanted Igno to figure it out himself. Adapt and improve. Well, Igno wasn't built like that, so instead he tried to focus on his and Hunter's psychic connection to read his mind.
It took a lot of brainpower, probably more than it would have taken to reach the idea on his own, but Igno eventually got the message. When he did, he couldn't believe it. Would something like that actually work? Well, if Hunter thought it would…
Igno geared up, turned his back to the structure, and leapt into the air with all his might. But not just that; when he jumped, he belched out a powerful explosion of fire from his mouth, instantly rocketing himself upwards at speeds he'd never reached before, as well as heights beyond normal.
Igno didn't even bother to look as he passed over the top of the hollowed structure. He didn't want to have to deal with an annoyance like this ever again. He practically screamed out his ultimate attack: the Inferno Breath Roaring Flame, all his firepower spent in one monstrous fireball.
Groudon only felt the heat for a split second before it consumed him.
With hissing, cracking, and a mighty explosion that could be heard across the island, the structure was blasted into thousands of pieces, tiny diamond shards rocketing out everywhere and striking the near-invisible barriers that protected the spectators from what occurred in the arena. Hunter and Brendan, well-experienced in battlefields, were able to nimbly dodge the few shards that came their way.
When the diamond turned to dust and the smoke cleared, there was Groudon, badly burned, his right arm missing, and Igno's teeth sunk into his other arm.
Igno pulled, obviously intending to remove the appendage, but Groudon's hide was tough, and Igno was weakened. He had spent too much firepower early in the fight, and that Roaring Flame had taken what was left. He had to rely on his teeth and claws now, and that wasn't going as well as he had hoped.
Decidedly less so when Groudon recovered and struck back.
A strong headbutt and Igno was off his arm. A backhanded punch and he was on the ground. Groudon turned around and stepped on the vivosaur's tail, cratering it into the arena floor. Igno struggled to get back up, but without the balance his tail provided, he couldn't even manage one limb. The referee began counting. Groudon drove his good arm into the floor, returning with a large boulder, which he slammed into the already-bleeding crack in Igno's skull. The boulder shattered, and both dinosaurs heard a crunch that meant something else had likely broken, too. Beyond that, Groudon felt renewed strength enter his body as some of his Hidden Power activated.
"Don't let up!" Brendan shouted. "Now's no time for gloating. Knock 'em out while he's down!"
Groudon roared, mostly in victory, though with a tinge of disappointment. He stamped the foot that wasn't keeping the tail down onto Igno's neck, and smashed it even further into the arena than his tail was. As he did so, large fissures began to erupt in the nearby area of the two dinosaurs, opening wide into rumbling, dangerous holes full of bubbling lava. The referee count now reached fifteen.
"You're down, but not out, Igno!" Hunter shouted. "Think, my trusty partner! How can you turn this around?!"
"Don't give him any more time, Groudon!" Brendan commanded. "End this, now!"
Groudon realized that, for some inexplicable reason, Brendan thought he was in danger. He didn't understand why, but he'd learned to trust it when his trainer said things like this. End it quick. End it forever.
Groudon jumped once, slamming both feet down with renewed force, and summoning a volcano. A massive one, bigger than even the stalagmite structure he'd created before. And he did it right underneath both of them.
As the volcano widened, the opening at the did, too, until it consumed both monsters. Igno let out something akin to a deep-throated scream as he was plunged into the depths of the lava, while Groudon menacingly kept his teeth set until the vivosaur was fully submerged. Then, without losing a second, he jumped off, landing on the ground, and opened up the fissure the volcano had come from, instantly collapsing the structure into itself, crushing Ignosaurus inside it like a metal can in a factory, and it fell through, forming a giant caldera spanning half the arena, a sea of burning lava fifty feet deep in its center.
The crowd at this point had absolutely lost their minds; it didn't much matter who they had been rooting for, except for the few who were sobbing at how much money they had clearly just lost. The spectacle in front of them all was beyond anything before seen in this arena.
"Yeah! Groudon, great job!" Brendan cheered. At that, the primordial continent-builder released himself into Rest, slowly healing his wounds and restoring his lost arm.
There was a silence that filled the stadium as Slate Johnson (who had been narrating this entire battle for the folks at home, though, naturally, nobody in the arena could hear his commentary) began to finish his countdown.
"55…"
"56…"
The crowd began to fidget intensely.
"57…"
Brendan and Hunter both glanced at each other, nervous.
"58…"
At this point, the crowd finally accepted the winner. Whoops and warcries went from scattered to almost immediately universal.
"59…"
And then one guttural, piercing screech overtook the loudest of cries from the arena. Most shocking of all was where it came from.
Groudon.
Groudon staggered back, uselessly trying to stop the blood flow, as half his throat rested within the mouth of one Ignosaurus, several feet behind him.
Gabby Garcia's next words reached even the two master's ears. "Ladies and gentlemen, Ignosaurus is NOT down and out!"
The crowd again began to scream and shout, but with a very different tone and flow.
Igno steamed, all his wounds healed and power fully restored from that little magma bath. The lava that had rested within the caldera was now solid rock, all its heat absorbed into Igno's raging body. And he was RAGING.
Igno stopped and inhaled deeply, gaining more energy as he tapped into the heat inside himself. This Roaring Fire technique would increase his firepower, enough to smite this bleeding monstrosity in front of him with one blow.
The heat in the air suddenly gathered. While Igno had previously remained in control of it, this maddening unleashing of energy meant he was sacrificing such delicate abilities, as well as the mental strength needed to care about them.
Groudon took the time given to him to Rest, quickly restoring his throat and revitalizing him further.
"Groudon!" Brendan called out. He sounded hoarse. Groudon was furious. He burned with justified anger. He wanted to kill the vivosaur, regardless of what happened around him or who it hurt. It took all he had just to look at Brendan.
Brendan was sweating badly, and already Groudon saw burns appear on his skin. The amount of power Ignosaurus was unleashing was devastating; looking around, even the creature's own tamer was suffering.
"We...can't stay out here," Brendan struggled to say. He held up a small red orb. "You take care of the rest! You can do it!" He dropped the orb on the arena and ran off, pulling Hunter off the stage with him and into one of the nearby booths leading outside.
Groudon watched until he was sure they both were safe. Or, at least, out of the splash zone.
In that time, Igno had fully powered up. He roared, and the mere force of this shout rocked the arena and cracked the rock within the caldera.
Without hesitation, Groudon repeated the move he had done a few minutes earlier, forming a series of ten-story stalagmites to surround himself with. This time, he didn't harden them, hoping that Igno would assume they were just as tough as the last one was and take the time to get around them.
That time was better spent on something else.
Groudon quieted and felt the yearning within him. For power. For order. For Natural Energy. He felt the orb that contained it, and his soul that consumed it.
The red orb glowed as Igno sailed over the structure, blowing it to pieces with a regular old Inferno Blast.
And this time, the smoke cleared to reveal the golden, glowing form of Primal Groudon.
If the temperature was dangerous before, it was quite literally apocalyptic now. Even the magical barriers surrounding the arena and separating it from the rest of the Fossil Stadium struggled to hold in the heat. Spectators began to feel as if they'd prefer snowcones to hot dogs. But inside the arena was a much more intense story. The arena itself began to melt down, dripping onto the ground in white-hot sludge. Artificial red clouds began to appear, each more heat-inducing than the last. The lava that rested in the veins of the earthquakes turned to gas. If any human had entered into this room, they'd have been reduced to ash within a few seconds.
But there were no humans in this room.
Just two monsters of lava and flame.
The creatures shouted with enough energy to erupt a dozen volcanoes and smashed into each other.
The next few seconds were a flurry of teeth and claws. Any scratches or bites never locked on for long, and whatever damage was dealt was quickly covered over with a bath of lava. Igno threw out many fireballs, but Primal Groudon always blocked them with some sort of rock manipulation or just deflected them with his own. Primal Groudon tried to gut him many times with his claws and even his back spikes, but Igno always managed to evade him just barely in time. Igno would go for a shockwave attack, and Primal Groudon would power through. Primal Groudon would try to catch him off-guard with a new fissure, but Igno, having learned since even just the beginning of the fight, would use his fire breath to rocket himself out of the way. And with so much heat, flame, lava, and death around them, neither was running low on energy.
Primal Groudon finally managed to trip up Igno by forming a fissure and then slashing through with his Precipice Blades when Igno jumped back. Embracing the first real advantage in over three minutes, Primal Groudon quickly launched a Fire Blast. The kanji swept through the battlefield, incinerating every piece of land and metal it touched along the way.
But with a Burning Bite, Igno launched forward with the force of a space shuttle, collapsed the Fire Blast, and embedded his teeth into Primal Groudon's head.
Primal Groudon howled in pain and humiliation as Igno's mouth began to alight.
Primal Groudon realized he had to respond instantly or die. He readied up his fist and unleashed a Hammer Arm so fast and deadly, it looked less like an arm and more like a pure energy beam of fire.
The Hammer Arm struck Igno's head, forcing him off of Primal Groudon's while leaving behind several teeth.
Igno wouldn't let it rest. He finished charging, even from his new position, and let loose his ultimate Inferno Breath Roaring Flame.
Primal Groudon formed six volcanoes and that old wall of stalagmites, and the fireball containing all of Igno's power tore through them each.
When it finally bore down on him, Primal Groudon made the only move he could think of, and met it with two Hammer Arms at the same time, each with all the strength and flaming energy he could muster.
The resulting explosion covered the arena and caused a single panel of the barrier to crack slightly, immediately leading to that entire section of the stadium running in a mad scramble out the door. Everyone else, though, watched intently.
As the flames died down, both dinosaurs were revealed - alive.
But not by much.
Ignosaurus had spent all his energy on that attack, and was now sitting, tongue out, soaking up the heat in the atmosphere around him.
Primal Groudon was still standing, but was similarly wiped out. In addition, he had lost both arms.
At first, the winner seemed clear, but the going-wild crowd had forgotten that one of the monsters had something the other lacked.
Primal Groudon closed his eyes.
He focused his energy.
He Rested.
And his arms regrew.
Igno looked up and saw Primal Groudon's Scary Face.
And this time, he was, indeed, Frightened.
Igno jumped up and tried to run off, but fell flat on his face. Looking down at his feet, he was terrified to see them stuck in a mud pit; some sort of Mud Shot that creature- no, that god before him had gotten off.
Primal Groudon reached the helpless vivosaur cowering in front of him.
He grabbed his head, brought it up, and opened the fossil-fighting dino's mouth.
And he charged up with energy from the sun.
Igno tried to escape, but Primal Groudon held on with an iron grip, and he didn't have long to wait.
In just a few seconds, the Solar Beam was ready. It shot straight into Igno's mouth and through the rest of his body. His stomach, intestines, lungs, and even his heart were first cut, then turned to dust under the power of the Solar Beam.
As the beam erupted through Igno's back, he felt the pure, radiating heat reach his brain.
The last thing he ever saw was the face of the primedal monster, frightful and powerful, yet piercing and respectful.
If he was to die, at least it was to a creature like this.
With that thought, his brain shriveled and the rest of his body, down to the bones, turned to ashes and scattered in the wind.
-KO!-
The crowd was silent.
The air cooled off.
The magic in the barriers recompleted itself.
The cracks fixed themselves.
From a nearby airship, dozens of speakers, and every major electronic device across the world, one voice was heard.
"Tell your friends, tell your friends' friends! In possibly the greatest upset in the history of televised sports-"
"Or the most expected outcome imaginable, depending on how you view it-"
Slate Johnson interrupted his co-host's interruption. "GROUDON HAS WON THE BATTLE! THE WINNER OF THE MASTER OF MASTER'S BATTLE TOURNAMENT AND THE WORLD'S FIRST MASTER OF MASTERS IS...Brendan!"
The crowd gave one, final, thrilling wave of complete excitement, mourning, acceptance, money exchanges, and every other emotion that often came when seeing an event like this.
Brendan was escorted back onto the arena (now cooled off and mostly solid rock) as Groudon exited out of his Primal form.
Brendan ran up to Groudon and lifted his hand into the air.
Groudon let this be for a few seconds before stepping forward and howling in victory, with a tinge of regret.
After all, in the end, Ignosaurus had proven worthy of his respect.
…
Well, I guess Igno's now a ghost-type. That's how pokémon work, right? And, I mean, there are ghosts in the Fossil Fighters world, so it should theoretically- actually, let's just get to the Conclusion.
Ignosaurus kept up in a lot of ways, was possibly smarter than Groudon, and had the better trainer, but really didn't stack up against Groudon's crazy power once the two got serious. Both were powerful superfied dinosaurs in their own right, but Groudon held the edge in basically every way. The one exception being speed; Igno and Groudon have both consistently dodged attacks that definitely move at the speed of a lightning bolt and attacks that could be argued fairly decently to move at the speed of light. So both equalled out there. In fact, it's possible Igno has the edge in this category given that he can keep up with Frigi, who has canonically dodged vivosaurs that also dodge these light-speed attacks.[1] However, the same could be true for Groudon: we'd just have to rely on one's gameplay mechanics over the other's story events. Even so, slightly better reaction speed wouldn't be enough to take this win.
Let's take the other categories one at a time. How about strength? A minimum of 106 vivosaurs could push a space station weighing 23.8 Billion Tons. Here's the thing, though: for all his crazy firepower, Igno isn't that much physically stronger than the average high-quality vivosaur. A combined three were able to hold down Frigi, and while Igno is stronger than him, it's hardly by much. So, theoretically, Igno could push around, at most, 897.4 Million Tons. Still a pretty crazy amount, but Groudon's base strength is higher than Machamp's, and Machamp can move an actual mountain with one of his four hands! The average mountain weighs around 260 Billion Tons, making Groudon a minimum of 290x stronger than Igno, physically speaking. And that's being very generous to Igno, since Machamp is even stronger than that and the space station feat isn't so reliable for reasons we'll get to soon.
How about temperature? After all, a lot of Groudon's powers and attacks rest in his control over lava, and that's basically an ice cube to something as hot as Igno. It's true; given the speed at which the titanium-like dinosaur melted under a lesser vivosaur's fire breath, it would be reaching temperatures of 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to lava's 2,200 degrees. It's not unreasonable to assume Igno has at least this much heat emanating from his body, since it counters everything Frigi does, and it covers a 300-meter radius! That's crazy!
Not as crazy as Groudon, though. HIS aura and special nature produced heat on a global scale. And not just any heat: according to League Champion Steven, who you can rest assured knows his stuff about pokémon and especially Groudon, the heat would eventually kill every living thing on the planet - humans, bacteria, and pokémon alike. This includes a pokémon from this very generation titled Magcargo, which has its body at a natural resting temperature of 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit! And this heat from Groudon would be enough to scorch it off the face of the Earth! So, which do you think is better, a city-wide 11,000+ degree heat pool, or a planet-wide 18,000+ degree heat pool? The answer is a little obvious.
Then there's firepower, the granddaddy of them all. And this is a troubling one; Groudon's power level has a nice open door in the form of Kyogre's 114 Gigaton rainstorm, but Igno's is significantly more confusing. He's obviously better than the T-Rex that unleashes 180 Kilton explosions, and the Teffla that blows up islands with 742 Kiloton attacks, and his fire breath has even overpowered Frigi's 3.17 Gigaton ice breath, but none of that approaches Kyogre's feat, and likely isn't quite on Igno's top-tier level. So, what is his top-tier level?
Well, we can get an estimate by looking at his power back when he and Frigi fought in the prehistoric age. See, all these guys used to be relatively normal dinosaurs. It's the Fossil Center that empowers them and makes them capable of blowing up islands. So, given the perfect fossil Hunter presented, how much more powerful did it make Igno? Let's compare another of Hunter's main vivosaurs to its original form: the T-Rex. This is one of the 106 vivosaurs that moved that space station, and it did so basically by continually ramming it at full speed. Given the real T-Rex's ramming power, and the fact that moving this station only took more force than it itself weighed as friction wasn't a factor, and the potentially perfect vivosaur could maybe end up over 18.6 Million times better than they were originally. We don't know much about the battles between prehistoric Igno and Frigi aside from what an old guy who loves making up stories says, but we do know that their might in one of their bigger battles caused the volcano on the island, Mt. Lavaflow, to erupt. Given its shallow and diminutive nature and how close the lava already is to the top, this isn't as impressive as it would be if it were a normal volcano, but it would still take close to 13 Kilotons of TNT to erupt it. Plug that in, accounting for the fact that it was two dinos of equal power, and...Igno's full potential is around 121.4 Gigatons of TNT, 6.5% greater than Kyogre's feat and Groudon's scaling. So, point for Igno, right?
Wrong.
First, let's address the major issue: the space station feat. From what we're directly shown in the manga, the power of 106 vivosaurs moves the space station. AT BARE MINIMUM. I stress this, because we are only shown a select handful of Fossil Fighters that had their vivosaurs give up their energy to the vivosaurs pushing the thing in the manga. The way sharing energy from vivosaurs works is much like a Genki-Dama (or Spirit Bomb, if you prefer) from Dragon Ball. Willing vivosaurs offer up their energy to other vivosaurs, which increases their power. However, the call for strength was worldwide, with hundreds of Fossil Fighters listening. We're only shown a couple of main characters that offer their vivosaurs' energy, but it is strongly implied that far more than those few did. And, most dangerously, shared energy does not always work as an addition to the current energy. As the manga shows, during certain instances with particular vivosaurs, the scaling from an energy share increases power exponentially, not additionally, and we have no idea how many times this happened in this energy share. Because of this and the total lack of material supporting any vivosaur physically moving anything else this big, this entire feat being used as a measuring stick reaches the realm of, well, completely ridiculous.
In addition to that, there are three major additional details that STILL give Groudon the edge here. The first is that Groudon and Kyogre clashed equally despite Kyogre having the type advantage. To clash equally with a pokémon that has a type advantage, you have to be better than them in all ways, including firepower. We could easily add on a solid 20% bonus onto this Kyogre feat as Groudon's base just because of this one detail, putting it at 137 Gigatons right away.[2] The second is that the eruption happened as a result of the combined firepower between the two monsters over the course of an entire battle, while the 114 Gigaton rainstorm was summoned in less than two seconds! There's no way of knowing how long Igno and Frigi's battle took, but even if it was only one minute, only accounting for this one difference, that still leaves Groudon 28x more powerful than Igno.
And, finally, completely ignoring all of this, that small advantage Igno would have is obliterated as soon as Groudon goes Primal. Every single thing that has been mentioned about Groudon thus far has been in his base form, but in the Primal state, everything shoots up a notch, including a neat 50% boost in firepower, even if we're only talking modern Groudon with that artificial boost. Combining all this, even with Igno's big, questionable scaling, Groudon is still AT LEAST fifty times as powerful as Igno. Even if we account for the crazy old man's stories and assuming a short (say, five-minute) battle between prehistoric Igno and Frigi could level the entire island (which, measuring from the volcano that we can explore thoroughly in-game, comes out to around 2.7 Megatons of TNT), Groudon would still be more powerful. And that's only scaling from that singular 114 Gigaton storm summon. A Pikachu once unleashed an insanely powerful thunderbolt that erased a massive storm; a feat worth, by my estimation, at least 430 Gigatons of TNT, if not more, and Groudon is very likely capable of outputting more power than a single Pikachu.[3]
Oh yeah, and taking out the space station scaling number totally destroys any chance of Igno matching up to Groudon in durability. This leaves Igno's best durability feat at "took two of Frigi's 3.17 Gigaton Ice Breath attacks and was wounded, maybe could have taken a few more" while Primal Groudon survived attacks from a pokémon that could potentially shatter the Earth's crust, reaching well into the Teraton range and possibly even Exaton.[4]
"But Mr. LittleZbot," you say, because you're an enormous Fossil Fighters fan and are seething that I haven't yet put Igno at star-level, "what about Gunash?"
Oh, boy.
This is the part where, if I've fully convinced you and you aren't crazy about this matchup, you can just skip to the end. Because this whole spiel is something that would ideally be saved for the Extra Notes, but is way too complicated and too important to place there. This is a big thing that should be addressed for anyone who cares enough to read it.
So, here's a super-quick background. At the end of the first Fossil Fighters game and manga, Hunter fights a bunch of aliens that originally seeded humans to begin with in order to- nope, not important, moving on, why is this lore so deep, and all that jazz. He makes friends with one, Duna, and then some mistakes happen and an idol tells a giant alien creature named Gunash to come and consume the Earth. This same alien creature is known as a planet-eater, and even consumed Duna's home planet. There are some really cool, surprisingly well-done calcs that show that this creature unleashes star-level power just by closing its mouth. Anyway, Hunter and Duna and a bunch of vivosaurs fight and kill it, therefore, every single Fossil Fighters character is multi-star-level. What little part of the Fossil Fighters fandom there is that's into VS Battles spends a good 90% of any write-up they do focusing on this one feat and lists it as the sole reason every Fossil Fighters character solos the entire universe of whatever character they're fighting and all that.
There are a lot of problems with this.
Let's list the most minor issue first. That calc putting Gunash' jaw snap at star-level is great, but based on a faulty assumption: that Gunash is as big or bigger than the Earth. Initially, this seems a safe bet. How does one eat an apple without being bigger than the apple?
By being a worm.
We see Gunash pretty expansively up-close in the manga, and he's nowhere near the size of a planet. We are literally given a side-by-side with a two-person pod that we know the dimensions of. Using this as a measurement, we can easily estimate Gunash to be less than five miles long using official material, nowhere near the 57,500 or so miles long these calcs have him at. It seems much more likely that Gunash consumes planets like a worm consumes an apple, by delving in and eating through all the flesh until the structure breaks apart due to instability.[5] This one change immediately reduces the power of Gunash from star-level to continent-level, or perhaps up to planet-level depending on how we scale that tier. This is still higher than anything Groudon has done or scaled to, however, so despite this drastic crushing of assumptions and vast lowering of scale, it actually doesn't matter much here. What does matter is the method by which Gunash is defeated.
See, a lot of Fossil Fighters VS Battle bios and debates like to leave out one little detail: Gunash isn't defeated in a straight-out brawl. Duna and Hunter allow themselves to be swallowed...and destroy its brains from the inside. This is crazy important. Yes, these brains can channel the energy required to destroy Gunash's body...but so do ours. You talk to any brain surgeon and he can tell you a hundred ways a single touch to your brain in the wrong spot will ruin you for life or send the wrong electrical signals to your heart. By bypassing conventional defenses like this, Hunter, Duna, and the vivosaurs are more or less acting as maggots getting into your ear, hatching into worms, roaches, earwigs, what have you, and carving your brain from the inside. A bodybuilder has a chance of surviving a truck ramming into him at top speed. This does not make every worm and earwig capable of also surviving this, or says that they themselves have the strength of the bodybuilder they entered the body of, just because they could potentially kill him in this very specific manner. Oh, yeah, and brains have nowhere near the durability of the rest of the body. A single bump to an open brain will kill you when a car crash won't - without certain fluids surrounding the brain in our heads, the whole thing would be paste by the time you turn eight just from the general, everyday movement of your head.
Another big thing to note is that acting as these insects and destroying the brains is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Hunter states that each individual brain is the toughest creature he has ever encountered, which, yes, makes them tougher than Frigi and Igno. These brains also have auto-defenses and alien energy coursing through them, and more or less wreck Hunter and his team. So even if Gunash's bite was star-level, it would still mean nothing and you couldn't scale any other creature to it. Oh, yeah, and there's also the bit about how Hunter and Duna's universal energies interact in an extremely specific way that makes both them and their vivosaurs far, far stronger than they normally are when they battle together. It's the entire reason they're chosen for this mission. So even disregarding everything previous to this, we STILL can't scale anything to this fight, because everyone was given an unclear and ill-defined power-up during the battle that is considered unrelated to the debate we're having, and thus breaks Rule #3 of Death Battle and can't be counted.[6]
Basically, official material makes Gunash not nearly as insane as the fandom likes to imagine, and even if it is, we have no less than THREE enormous reasons for why we still couldn't scale anyone or anything to this event. Plus, no vivosaur or character has ever performed any feat close to this level during any other instance of any game or manga series in this franchise. All of this tells us that this scaling MUST be discarded.
And once it is, Groudon's victory is clear.[7]
Ignosaurus is certainly a flame-wreathed primordial monster that would make mincemeat out of most other beasts, but Groudon was too strong, too tough, and too powerful. Plus, if Igno does manage to do some damage, at basically any point Groudon can use Rest to heal all wounds. Because of this, he would outlast Igno even if the vivosaur and the pokémon were on exactly equal footing, which they are, sadly, not.
Don't IGNOre it, or be SAUR at US. Igno POKEd the bear and, MON, was he hurt for it. Groudon was too hot to handle.
The winner is Groudon.
Extra Notes (For the Conclusion):
[1] Teffla and B-Ptera once battled at speeds so great, not even their tamers could keep track of them. Past Fossil Fighters of similar standing to these tamers have been able to see light-speed beams themselves. However, going by in-game stats, both these vivosaurs are much, much faster than Igno, and as such he cannot scale to them in terms of combat speed.
[2] Although PP was taken into account, it should be noted that it is exclusively a gameplay balance mechanic. In the anime and manga, the concept of only being able to use a move a limited number of times exists in the form of a pokémon losing energy as the fight continues, but nowhere else. Many pokémon use these moves more than the maximum allotted amount of times in one battle.
[3] Although Ignosaurus can power up his fire attack with Roaring Fire, it does not directly increase the heat of the flame, only the firepower. It takes long enough where Groudon would be able to get hits in or rest during the charge, it does not last long, and it lowers his own defense in turn. The subsequent boost in power is unlikely to reach Groudon's power level, but even if it does, it is still nowhere near enough to break Groudon's defenses.
[4] According to the in-game Fossilary, Igno's firepower came from absorbing all the heat from the volcano his fossil resided in. Taking this at face value (despite it contradicting both the lore and what we see in-game), we can measure the total possible energy of all his firepower combined by measuring that of the volcano's. Comparing its size and depth directly to the Paricutin Volcano and assuming the lavaflow is similarly comparable, assuming it's been consistently flowing since Igno became a fossil, assuming that happened around 65 Million Years ago, AND assuming he drained all the energy of all the lava down to absolute zero, the complete and total highest-end energy he could have in his body is approximately 23.65 Sextillion Joules, or 5.65 Teratons of TNT. The absolute highest end of a long route of generous assumptions, and not even close to the power of the attack from Rayquaza that Groudon survived, which would have to be worth at least 240 Teratons and could possibly reach as high as 359 Exatons of TNT.
[5] While the English translation of the game states that Gunash can swallow planets whole, the implication isn't nearly as prevalent in the original text. The monster can eat planets, but how exactly it does so is left to the player's imagination. Given the official manga's depiction of the alien, my worm-in-the-apple assumption seems most fitting. In addition, the manga's flashback clearly shows him chowing through the Dunarian home planet as it is in pieces, supporting this theory.
[6] There is an additional claim that all Fossil Fighters characters must be massively faster than light, because they can react to Gunash's brain, which can make the judgements needed for the alien's flying through space. However, Gunash's flight speed is never specified and not well hinted at. Hunter and Duna go through a wormhole to meet him in another galaxy. He never appears anywhere near Earth, and, as such, this scaling does not work. This is also ignoring the universal energy power-up these characters also go through to fight these brains, which does include a speed boost, the potential of this alien brain using instinct to travel around the universe, and the complete lack of evidence for such speeds at all other points in the series. There are far too many issues to scale Igno's speed to this level.
[7] If the two's trainers and tamers are battling alongside them, Brendan could also easily win the fight by capturing Ignosaurus with a Master Ball. Vivosaurs are just souped-up versions of real animals, and pokémon are heavily implied to just be similarly-souped-up real animals of that world. In expanded material, pokéballs have caught regular animals and even certain humans by accident, so there is little reason to assume it wouldn't work on Igno, especially since other vivosaurs have faced similar capture-based technology before and fell prey to it with no real method of countering the attack. Hunter could not capture Groudon, as has no such technology, since his vivosaurs are directly revived from fossils and not captured in the wild.
...
NEXT TIME, ON THE SEASON FINALE:
In a desert canyon that, at first glance, appears empty, the camera comes down to focus on a large, open, doorless metal base with seemingly no reason for being there. After focusing on the base for a few seconds, the camera moves directly upwards until it rests on two soldier standing on top of the base. These soldiers are clad in Spartan Armor, one orange, one maroon, and cradle their guns in their arms.
After a few seconds of silence, one begins to speak to the other.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"Do you ever wonder why we're here?"
The other soldier snorts. "No, of course not." He pauses. "We're here to fight these guys."
The camera swings around to reveal another base that really should have been in view of the first shot, but wasn't. For some reason, you expect this base to be virtually identical to the one the two soldiers are standing on top of, but it's not. It's bigger, more complex. It looks more like a...fortress.
"HEY!" comes a Boston accent from the fortress. "You chumps better not be plannin' on attackin' this *beep*hole! Cause I tell ya, I'm a force'a nature all by myself!"
"What, like a bowel movement?" the maroon soldier jeers back.
The orange soldier turns to him, incredulous. "Really, man?"
"What? Bowel movements are natural!"
"I am not having this conversation with you right now."
The camera zooms in on the fortress, clearly revealing the speaker of that side. A short, lanky man in a red shirt wielding a baseball bat. "You better be listening to me! I oughta barge in there and beet the *beep* outta y'all myself!"
"Yeah, go ahead, please do," the orange one enunciates.
"Yeah, run out into an open field with a melee weapon while we have two guns pointed at you. Great plan. Do it," the maroon one declares sarcastically.
"No, seriously," the orange one makes up for his teammate's sarcasm. "Please do. I won't even shoot. I've been up here all day with nothing to do! I'm willing to try anything!"
The maroon one turns quizzically to his friend. "Grif, what are you talking about? You love long posts with nothing to do."
"Oh, yeah, I do, don't I?" Grif has clearly just been reminded of something he was too lazy to have remembered. "On second thought, kid, don't come up here."
"Nope! Too late, you asked for it!" the Boston accent somehow grew thicker as he perceived himself as a greater threat. Baseball bat in hand, the Scout sprints between the two bases.
(Red vs Blue VS RED vs BLU)
Yeah, for this season finale, I'm literally studying and writing for EIGHTEEN CHARACTERS.
Officially, the combatants are:
Team Red vs Blue:
Church (Epsilon), Tucker, Caboose, Sarge, Grif, Simmons, Donut, Lopez, Doc
Team RED vs BLU:
Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Engineer, Heavy, Medic, Sniper, Spy
It's going to be insane.
And, to celebrate Death Battle's 10-Year Anniversay, I'm going to do everything I can to get this out BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR.
Don't worry; I've been working on this a while already. Hope this makes up for having such a long break this time around, huh?
Hope you like it!