The next two rounds of the pokémon martial arts tournament passed in a blur. With the number of trainers and pokémon rapidly being diminished by the single-elimination battles, there was less and less time for Roy, Jesse, and their pokémon to rest between bouts. Antonia was always a happy face in the audience, but it seemed as though there was hardly any time to talk with her before the tournament's organizer announced the start of the next series of contests. The constant stream of battles was wearing on Roy and his charmander, who he had decided to leave out of his poké ball for the sake of convenience. Even Jesse and his wartortle were showing some signs of strain, though they had proceeded through their matches with ease. The wartortle's thick shell had served it well in its battles, allowing it to absorb hit after hit before retaliating. By contrast, Charmander had relied more on the element of surprise and his ferocious attacks to bowl over any opponents before they had the time to adequately respond.

Antonia had watched the brothers' matches with great interest since she had been knocked out of the tournament in the first round. She had cheered when Jesse's wartortle had knocked out the mankey which had pinned her bulbasaur with a solid punch to the face, and had held her breath when Charmander had faced off against a stony geodude which reminded her of Roy's loss against Brock. But Roy and his charmander seemed to have learned from that battle, and from the other matches going on around them. With a burst of speed, Charmander had charged the geodude and seized a hold of one of its arms. While the craggy-skinned pokémon had batted against Charmander's back with its free hand, the orange-scaled pokémon had begun spinning in place, picking up enough speed that the geodude's heavy body was first lifted off the surface of the mat below it, and then was soaring through the air. With gritted teeth, Charmander built up more and more speed until he finally launched his alarmed opponent outside of the confines of the arena. People in the audience had scattered just in time to avoid being hit by the dazed pokémon and Roy and Charmander had been declared the winners by the referee.

Jesse had been waiting in line for his own battle, so Antonia and Bulbasaur had been the chief witnesses to Roy's victory. She had had to work to keep from cheering for Roy and hugging him when he climbed down from the stage. Instead, Antonia had simply congratulated him and reached out to do the same for Charmander, only for the orange-scaled pokémon to draw back from her touch with a hiss.

"I'm sorry," Antonia said, "is he still worked up from the battle?"

Roy shook his head. "No, I think he hurt his arm pulling that stunt." To his pokémon, the boy said with mock reproach, "That wasn't what we planned, Charmander."

"What was your plan then?" asked Antonia.

"Well, we didn't have one, actually!" Charmander laughed at that in a series of hisses, and Roy and Antonia joined in as well.

The two of them walked over to where Jesse's match was taking place just in time to see Roy's brother climbing into the ring. "Hey, Jesse!" Roy called through the hands cupped around his mouth. "They said they're taking a break for lunch after you win this battle!"

Jesse looked back at Roy and he shook his head wryly before letting the rope which he had been holding for his pokémon drop. Across from Jesse and his wartortle were their opponents: a muscular teenager with a white sweatband tied around his forehead and a blue-skinned machop with an identical piece of headgear. The older boy swaggered around his side of the stage with his lips pursed tightly together and his chest puffed out, and his pokémon mimicked its trainer perfectly.

The display did nothing for Jesse who merely looked to the match's referee to say the single word, "Begin!"

The machop advanced with its fists curled and held up in a boxer's guard. Evidently, its trainer had witnessed enough of the other fights Jesse's wartortle had taken part in to know that the blue-scaled pokémon preferred to deliver haymakers directly to opponent's jaws.

"Soften him up, Wartortle," said Jesse almost lazily, but his pokémon was quick to heed the order. With one clawed appendage curled to deflect counterattacks, Wartortle peppered the opposing pokémon with light jabs to its body and the occasional punch aimed at its head. The machop absorbed the softer blows and maintained its defenses until Wartortle's offensive passed. Then, the muscular pokémon delivered its own onslaught and the actions of the two blue pokémon were reversed, with Jesse's wartortle trying to guard his sensitive eyes and bushy ears from the machop's swinging fists.

Unlike his opponent, Wartortle's shell provided a strong defense for his midsection and he did not have to even bother with guarding it from the machop's stray blows. Still, the sustained ferocity of his foe's combinations caused Wartortle to back closer and closer to the corner where Jesse stood watching. Both fighters were breathing heavily, and the machop's trainer was shouting encouragement to his pokémon. The words came and were replaced so rapidly that they hardly registered for the dueling pokémon. By contrast, when Jesse spoke his tone of command impacted his pokémon immediately.

"Headbutt."

Wartortle grinned toothily as he let another of his opponent's blows land uselessly against his hard shell then he seized the machop's shoulders to hinder attempts to bring the pokémon's swinging limbs back up into a guard. With only that as preamble, Wartortle slammed his forehead into the center of the machop's face, causing the other pokémon to scream its pain and back away from the savage blow and the pokémon which had inflicted it.

"What a cheap shot!" complained the machop's trainer. "Sweep his legs!"

The machop was rapidly moving away from Wartortle, but at his trainer's words he started to rally, only pausing to shake his head free of some of the lingering pain.

That was enough time for Wartortle to prepare for what was coming. When the machop shot its foot out at Wartortle's lower limbs, Jesse's pokémon was prepared for it. He leapt over the wild attack and then delivered a sharp kick at the unbalanced pokémon's outstretched limb. The machop stumbled and tried to balance itself with its arms, which only left it open for Wartortle to deliver a concentrated series of hooks to the machop's exposed head. One blow sent the unready pokémon staggering, a second had its desperately clinging to the ropes on the ring's barrier, and the third left the machop falling limp to the mat.

Roy, Antonia, and the other onlookers gasped and held their breath as the referee started his count. But he did not get more than a few numbers out before a flash of red engulfed the unconscious machop as its trainer returned it to its poké ball.

"You've got a lot of nerve, kid!" Jesse's defeated opponent spat, but he couldn't close more than a yard of distance between himself and Jesse before the hulking referee interposed himself between the two boys.

"Accept your loss like a man," he growled, "or get out of my sight."

The teenager puffed out his chest again, but then his challenge faltered and his shoulders slumped and he departed through the ropes muttering, "Whatever," sullenly under his breath.

To Jesse, the referee said, "You and your pokémon are advancing to the semifinals, congratulations." Then, he turned to the crowd which had been watching the battle and announced, "There will be a break for lunch before the tournament resumes! Come back in thirty minutes to see which pokémon and trainer will be crowned the martial arts champion!"

"And see what the pokémon they're giving away as a prize is," Jesse said to Roy and Antonia as he and Wartortle joined them.

"Hey, Jesse, I just realized," said Roy eagerly, "you're in the final four and I'm in the final four. I bet one of us is going to win this thing!"

Jesse smiled and said, "I bet you're right," and as Antonia caught his eye, she thought that he was thinking the same thing as her. "But we'll see what happens when it happens," added Jesse. "Let's go get some food. Our pokémon have really worked up their appetites, don't you think?"

"Yeah!" Roy said. "What do you say, Charmander?" His pokémon yapped his approval and the two of them set off towards the street by the park where a few enterprising vendors had set up stations selling food.

Antonia and Jesse were left to follow them, with Wartortle and Bulbasaur bringing up the rear of their party. "Um, that was a really intense battle, Jesse," said Antonia softly. When Jesse looked at her, she became very interested in making sure that her feet were still attached to her legs. Still, she continued, "I mean, you hardly have to tell your pokémon what to do and he does it, and he does it really, really well."

"That's what good training can do," replied Jesse casually.

Roy and Charmander had found a cart with a grill incorporated into its design and, with Jesse's help, paid for an armful of food, mostly warm meat and vegetable held in tortillas all contained within a foil wrapper, but also including a few snack items to compliment the feast. After he passed some of the food over to his brother and Antonia, Roy and his pokémon wasted no time in tearing into their own food. Soon both of their faces were smeared with the grease and sauce which had escaped the lunch and the man who had sold them the food offered some napkins at what he claimed to be a reasonable price.

Antonia, Jesse, and their pokémon were more intentional with their meals. While Antonia unrolled the foil covering of her wrap bit by bit as she nibbled at her lunch, Jesse focused on making sure that his wartortle did not follow the example which Charmander had set. Before starting on his own food, he remarked, "It looks as though everyone else had the same idea."

Sure enough, while there were a few people hanging around the park besides the tournament officials working at breaking down three of the four arenas, most of the participants and spectators either had gone to go get food or had simply just left.

"I feel bad for the people who organized the tournament," added Jesse after he had taken a few bites. "Whether they're a real pokémon gym or not, it hasn't been that impressive of an event."

"You mean compared to all of the tournaments you've been in?" Roy asked. When Jesse did not have an answer ready, Roy laughed and continued, "I've been having fun, and I think Charmander has too." His pokémon snorted at the mention of his name but otherwise continued to lick the savory taste of his meal from his claws. "You can't drop out either, not before I take you down in the final round."

Jesse chuckled at that. "Who said anything about dropping out? I want that pokémon they're offering for a prize more than anyone!"

"Even though you don't know what it is?" Antonia wondered as she absentmindedly stroked her bulbasaur who was sitting in her lap, but that just set the brothers off on a sequel to their previous night's discussion about what kind of pokémon either of them would win. She let them offer up one theory after another before Antonia said, "I don't think that you should get your hopes up. Instead of hoping for a rare pokémon to fall into my lap, I'd rather have the sure thing."

"And that's why you caught a weedle and a magikarp," teased Roy.

Not long after that exchange, all the pokémon and their trainers finished eating. They threw their trash into one of the park's waste receptacles and headed back to the tournament and its final stages.

They were not joined by many other people. There were the two other trainers which had made it to the semifinals, a slight young man in a red track suit with a condescending smirk marring his otherwise attractive features and a teenage girl whose hair was dyed a striking neon green and who was dressed in attire which seemed to be best suited for the fitness studio rather than being out and about. Both of her choices seemed to designed to attract attention, but the exotic look paled in comparison to her pokémon, a burly electabuzz with two massive fists and yellow and black stripes which warned off any potential challenger.

The other finalist's pokémon looked downright in comical in comparison. A spindly pokémon with long thin limbs and hair curled into jaunty blue spikes, it was a wonder to Roy, Jesse, and Antonia alike how a Mr. Mime had made it this far in a contest of physical power.

Even though the remaining competitors were assembled, the lead organizer held off on resuming the tournament in hopes of attracting more interest from passersby in the park, but this failed to replenish the ranks of the fatally depleted audience.

"Come on, let's get on with it," said the young man with the Mr. Mime. "We already gave up our morning to be here, do we have to spend the whole day to get through, what, three more of these simple battles?"

The leader of the martial artists, Kenji, glared at the upstart trainer, but he still acceded to his demands. "You and you," he said, pointing at Jesse and the electabuzz's trainer, "your pokémon will battle next. Now, step into the ring before anyone else decides that his time is more valuable than his honor."

The exchange between Kenji and the rude young man left Roy and Antonia exchanging uncomfortable glances, but the other trainers ignored it in favor of clambering into the sole remaining arena. Without other spectators to contend with, it was easy for Roy to drag Antonia after him so that they were standing right next to the raised platform to watch as Jesse's wartortle and the other trainer's electabuzz squared off.

The latter pokémon was a full head taller than Wartortle, but neither Jesse nor his champion betrayed any signs of fear. The other trainer in the ring was smirking and said, "It's too bad we can't use any of our electric attacks, otherwise you wouldn't last a second against my pokémon. Without them, maybe you'll last a minute instead."

One of the corners of Jesse's mouth curled upwards into a smirk of his own. "We'll see," he said, and then any signs of amusement fled from his face just in time for Kenji to bellow, "Begin!"

The electabuzz charged Wartortle with surprising speed for one so large, leading with its fists in wide arcs directed against the smaller pokémon's head.

Wartortle ducked under the blow and tried to tackle the larger pokémon's yellow midsection, but it did nothing to slow down the electabuzz's charge and Jesse's pokémon was sent backwards. Just when it looked as though Wartortle would be trapped against the ropes of the small arena, he darted out to the side, diving past his opponent's grasping hands. That gave Wartortle more room to maneuver, but Jesse could see that his pokémon was tired.

The break from fighting, rather than reinvigorating Wartortle's fighting spirit, seemed to have been an invitation to let the exhaustion caused by the morning's battles wash over him. Wartortle was still faster and nimbler than his foe, but he was not as quick as he had been in earlier matches. As a result, one of the electabuzz's swinging fists managed to connect with the blue pokémon's head. The punch delivered to Wartortle's sensitive furred ears sent him reeling, although he still maintained his footing.

That looked certain to end as the electabuzz aimed another haymaker at the same spot on Wartortle's head. Then, Jesse shouted, "Pull back, now!" and his pokémon's head disappeared back into the safety of its shell. The incoming blow passed fruitlessly over the spot where the electabuzz's target had just been to land ineffectually on the rope barrier which Wartortle was using to support his weight.

"Playing hide and seek isn't going to help you, kid," sniffed Jesse's opponent, but the words had hardly left her mouth when Wartortle's head shot out of the safety of his shell and he clamped his sharp fangs around the electabuzz's outstretched forearm.

The wounded pokémon bellowed and tried to grab for Wartortle, but the smaller pokémon glided past the incoming hand and then responded with a combination of punches which landed ineffectually on the electabuzz's bulk.

The two combatants separated and worked to catch their breath while their trainers, Kenji the referee, and their audience watched and waited for the fighting to resume.

"Let's end this," Jesse said.

"So, you're giving up?" asked the girl standing opposite him.

Jesse ignored her but smiled at his brother. "We were saving this for you, Roy, but it looks like we'll have to come up with another surprise for you." Then, to his pokémon, Jesse said in a hard voice, "Wartortle, finish this, now!"

Wartortle had been swaying uncertainly on his feet, but at his trainer's order, he steadied himself and coiled his legs for a leap. The electabuzz had regained the initiative and it rapidly closed the gap between itself and Wartortle, reaching back with one of its impressive arms to deliver the knockout blow. Before it could close the gap, however, Wartortle did so first.

The smaller pokémon leapt at Electabuzz and as it did so it withdrew its head back into its shell. The result was that Wartortle's hard shell slammed into the electabuzz's chin with all the force that he could muster. The larger pokémon's head snapped backwards and it stumbled for a few steps before collapsing backwards into an ugly yellow and black heap.

The violence was so quick and sudden that even the match's referee delayed his count until he registered what he had just seen. Then Kenji began, his unsympathetic numbers interspersed with the electabuzz's trainer beseeching her pokémon to get up. But it was out cold and Jesse and his unsteady wartortle were declared the winners.

"Thanks for the battle," Jesse said automatically, but when his opponent just glared at him and returned her fallen pokémon to its poké ball, it didn't bother him. Instead, he was smiling as he helped Wartortle climb down from the arena and followed the pokémon to the ground himself.

"Wow, Jesse, that was crazy!" exclaimed Roy while Antonia and their pokémon murmured their agreement. "I mean, you weren't really going to try that with Charmander, were you?"

Before his brother could answer him, Roy's attention was called to Kenji shouting, "Will the next two trainers and their pokémon come forward and step into the ring!"

"Good luck, Roy," said Antonia.

"Thanks, Toni," Roy replied and then grinned at his brother and added, "We'll see you in the finals, Jesse."

By the time that he and Charmander took their places in the arena, Roy's opponent and his Mr. Mime were already there, looking bored rather than excited for the coming bout. When Roy called out, "Hey, I'm Roy! What's your name?" the only response that he got was a pokémon and his trainer rolling their eyes in perfect synchronization.

Roy just shrugged and turned to Charmander instead. "Listen," he said to his pokémon, "I don't know how these guys got this far, but I'm sure you can take that weird-looking pokémon. Just do your thing with your claws, and with your teeth if you have to. Oh, maybe you could try knocking it off of its feet with your tail?"

Charmander snorted hot air from its nostrils and brushed past Roy to focus his attention on the spindly pink pokémon on the other side of the small arena. He growled and snapped his jaws at the Mr. Mime, but received nothing more than a bored yawn in response.

Then Kenji shouted, "Begin!" and Charmander surged towards the other pokémon, his claws outstretched and his jaws open wide. He swung at the Mr. Mime only to have his strike intercepted by one of his opponent's large gloved hands. The blow glanced off the absurd pokémon's palm and when Charmander alternated which side he was attacking, the second slash also slid off of the Mr. Mime's waiting hand in the same way.

The Mr. Mime yawned again and Charmander snapped his teeth in frustration. He brought up his foot and tried to slash at his opponent's thin legs with those claws, but Mr. Mime reached down and blocked that attack as well. As Charmander and Roy struggled to understand what was going on, the other trainer waved his hand imperiously in the air.

"Take that Charmander out, Mr. Mime."

The lackadaisical expression on his pokémon's face turned into a fierce sneer and Mr. Mime curled one of his large hands into a fist and slammed it into Charmander's midsection. Even though Mr. Mime's limbs were little more than skin and bone, the blow caused Charmander to double over and clutch his stomach in pain. Mr. Mime linked his hands together and brought them down to hammer the back of Charmander's head and caused the smaller pokémon to topple forward.

Scarcely had Kenji begun the count when Charmander propped himself up on his forelimbs and lifted himself up from off the mat. Mr. Mime watched gleefully as his opponent struggled to his feet and then he threw another punch at Charmander.

"Get out of there, Charmander!" Roy shouted, but his pokémon gritted his teeth and attempted to catch the incoming fist with his injured arm.

It should have worked. Even with his injury, Charmander was fast and strong enough that he should not have had the reaction that he had: a yowl of pain as he flew backwards from Mr. Mime as though he had been hit by a truck and then a high keening whine as he fought to lift himself off of the ropes which had caught him while his arm hung limply at his side.

"Charmander!" Roy yelled.

"Roy!" Antonia shouted, but he did not look to her as Mr. Mime was advancing on Charmander while the injured pokémon fought mightily to get back on his feet and into the fight.

Roy's face flushed and his heads clenched into fists at his side without him noticing it, but instead of giving into the impotent frustration welling up in him, he tried to maintain his focus on Charmander and on helping his pokémon. An idea came to him and he seized upon it like a drowning man might clutch for a piece of passing driftwood. "Charmander! Hold his arms at his side!"

Charmander got his weight back on his feet before Mr. Mime reached him and he tried to grab for the other pokémon with his uninjured arm. He tried to close his claws around Mr. Mime's upper arm, but it did not take. The other pokémon proved to be too slippery for Charmander to get a good grip and before he could disengage from his abortive attempt at grappling his foe, Mr. Mime delivered another blow at Charmander's head.

Roy's pokémon went down again and this time he could not get back up before Mr. Mime lowered himself atop of Charmander and held down the snarling orange-scaled pokémon with surprising ease. Charmander's clawed hands and feet scrambled for purchase on the mat underneath him, but to no avail. The count had begun and each number rang in Charmander and Roy's ears. Neither of them wanted to give up without a fight, and so Charmander let his frustration, no less powerful than Roy's, lick from between his teeth and then burst forth in a single blast of fire aimed at Mr. Mime's face.

The pokémon pinning Charmander had a moment to look surprised and then he threw up his hands to shield his face, too late, from Charmander's fireball. Mr. Mime toppled off his foe who was finally picking himself up and growling in anticipation of rejoining the battle anew. But before he could take advantage of Mr. Mime's vulnerability, there arose a commanding roar which cut through the fury of the battle and the rapt attention of its audience.

"That's enough! You and your charmander are disqualified!"

The thrill that Roy had felt accompanying Charmander's comeback vanished to leave him with a hollow pit in his stomach. "Disqualified?" he asked.

Kenji nodded once. "Disqualified. Your pokémon used an attack beyond what is allowed."

Roy's opponent was helping his Mr. Mime sit up and examining the damage that had been done to the pokémon's hair and skin. "That pokémon needs a muzzle!" he shouted. "It's vicious!"

"Enough!" Kenji said. "The remaining trainers and their pokémon will step into the ring for the final round."

"You and your whole so-called 'gym' are insane!" Mr. Mime's trainer continued to rant. "This tournament has been a joke from start to finish, and now it's dangerous too."

Kenji's expression somehow grew even more stony and he said, "You're free to forfeit your place and your chance at the prize, young man. Then you can run back to Sabrina and tell her all of your complaints."

"No, we'll stay and win this thing."

"Fine."

While the others in the arena argued, Roy returned his hurt and confused charmander back to his poké ball and then climbed stiffly out of the ring. "I'm sorry, Jesse, I thought that we had it."

Jesse shrugged but Antonia said, "That's because he was cheating! That Mr. Mime was using his psychic powers to stop Charmander's attacks!"

"What are you talking about, Toni?"

"What do you mean, Antonia?"

Antonia checked to make sure that the pokémon in question and his trainer were not paying attention to her before explaining, "Mr. Mime makes invisible barriers, that's what they're known for. It was using those to stop Charmander's attacks. Every time Charmander was stopped just an inch or so from touching Mr. Mime."

"You were really paying attention!" Roy marveled.

Jesse was more impressed with his upcoming opponent. "It must have taken a lot of training to have developed that level of control, and to use it for stopping attacks as well as powering up your own punches is brilliant."

"So, what do you think, Jesse? Should we have Toni tell the scary referee guy that they were cheating?" Roy hastened to add, "Not that I'm saying Charmander and I shouldn't be given a pass, but fair's fair, you know?"

"No, that's fine," replied Jesse without looking at his twin brother. "I don't want to end this tournament like that. I want to win it outright."

With that, Jesse nodded at his wartortle and the two of them climbed into the ring for the last time, heedless of Roy and Antonia's eyes on their backs.