Rotom, who had been a levitating backpack in the middle of the battle while retrieving Alex's fainted Pokémon, immediately released Rhea's 3-meter (10 ft) tall humanoid robot. It was fully plated with armor rated for Champion rank and armed with four gatling guns mounted on its shoulders and forearms.
The backpack hid in the Mauler's main chassis as it sparked to life under Rotom's control. Neon blue light coursed along the exposed circuitry before a pair of blue lightning-shaped wings erupted from its back. The plating shifted from dull black to Rotom's signature orange, and on the Mauler's helmet appeared Rotom's pair of diagonal ellipsoid eyes.
The guns on the forearms and shoulders started spinning to life, aiming at every direction as they tested their tracking sights. The behemoth rolled its shoulders once, turned toward the woman responsible for the chaos, and went stiff as a low buzzing hum of energy built up before it suddenly bolted forward with powerful momentum.
It charged straight at the Champion ranked Tropius with a devastating shoulder tackle while its four guns automatically aimed and fired at any nearby enemies. All the while, more of Alex's Pokémon were quickly retrieved by the backpack inside the Mauler as they fainted.
Gardevoir wasn't idle during the chaos of the ambush. She had been busy relaying orders as the situation devolved into a melee, fending off sudden attacks from four different directions. Now that the rear was being handled by Rotom alone, she finally had some breathing room to reset their formation.
Immediately, Alex's main group split into teams of five, turning their single united front into half a dozen smaller units, each deploying the standard Protect rotation. The two groups in the rear turned to face the Abomasnow and Ferrothorn, since the Tropius and the half dozen Elites under the woman were all being handled by Rotom. The rest split up, with Lucario's team teleporting to Alex to prevent him from being caught by the Elites sent after him, while the others joined the Champions in the chaotic melee.
The Champions were far from idle as well, taking down one Elite after another once they were given breathing room. Grim's team in the sky, freed from interference by the flying Water and Grass type Pokémon, turned their attention to the mansion and began focusing fire on the gunmen. Raticate's team joined Kommo-o's team to relieve some of the pressure before joining hands and bulldozing through the two dozen opponents holding their rear line at bay.
Alex, meanwhile, found himself relatively free now that the mansion was under bombardment, the main enemy formation was crumbling, and he no longer had to dodge the Pokémon sent after him. So he turned his attention to the juiciest target he could find, the woman giving orders atop Tropius.
No offense to her husband, but the woman was clearly more dangerous in comparison. Not only was she a Team Dominion leader who was likely in charge of the base in Nacrene City, she was also a flight risk, considering the fact that she hadn't dismounted from her Tropius during its entire fight with Rotom. It was more like playing a Delcatty and Tandemaus chase rather than engaging in combat.
Rotom would charge at it and try to deal damage, but the slippery little banana would slip away and try to maintain distance while pelting Rotom with Magical Leaf. When Rotom tried to disengage and handle the other Champions, it would charge back again and try to help Abomasnow and Ferrothorn with their battles, forcing Rotom to fend it off once more. Worst of all was the fact that Rotom couldn't chase too far from the main battlefield, otherwise it would be too far away to rescue Alex's fainted Pokémon.
Alex briefly considered helping but ultimately shook his head. He wasn't the most mobile combatant. It was better to leave them to Grim's team, who specialized in aerial chases. So, he had to pick a new target.
The Elites on the enemy's side were now scrambling in a chaotic melee, so it was pointless to target them with Stormline since they were no longer clumped together in a tight defensive formation as before. The gunmen in the mansion, meanwhile, were all but wiped out now that the main defensive formation had fallen, allowing Grim and the other Champions to eliminate them with a few targeted attacks. That only left the Champions as potential targets, as well as the drug lord himself.
Alex thought about it briefly and decided to let him live for now. He would rather give the drug lord's wife a reason to stick around. That left only the Champions, which meant either Ferrothorn or Abomasnow, and since Ferrothorn was much slower, it was the obvious choice.
'Gardevoir!' Alex called out through telepathy. 'Prepare to send Grim and Raticate's teams to hunt that Tropius down. I don't want her to get away once they realize they have no hope of winning.'
After getting confirmation of his orders, Alex charged back to the main line while leaving Lucario's team to clean up after him. They had Gallade's special teleport anyway, so they would never be caught out of range.
Once Alex arrived near Ferrothorn, who was harassing Gardevoir and Espeon, he immediately rushed in close before opening fire, bathing it in a stream of Feint and Phantom Force rounds mixed with plenty of weak Elite ranked attacks. In no time, Ferrothorn fell, having already suffered heavy damage from Gardevoir's retaliation.
Alex then turned his attention toward the Abomasnow, who was having a far better time taking down the barely surviving Wishiwashi as it repeatedly bashed them with Wood Hammer. Fortunately, with Gardevoir and Espeon locking it down with Psychic for a few seconds, Alex was able to finish it off as well with a continuous stream of attacks from Stormline.
With two more Champions on their side taken down, the woman finally decided she had had enough. She retrieved her fainted Pokémon, flew over Alex's recovering main formation, and landed near the entrance of the mansion right next to her husband.
Before either of them could understand what was happening, Grim dove from the sky, opening with Breaking Swipe, with Knight riding on its back and firing Dazzling Gleam. From the left came a Quick Attack from Raticate, and from the right flank an Extreme Speed from Arcanine. From the front came Hydreigon, tossing out Draco Meteor, and finally from behind came Ceruledge with Phantom Force.
BOOM!!!
The pair didn't know what hit them before they died, along with Tropius, who firmly believed they would survive with just a single Protect shield.
With the death of both Champion ranked trainers, the rest of the fight was child's play as Gardevoir systematically brought down each and every one of the rampaging Elite ranked Pokémon.
Still, it was far from a clean victory once Alex received Rotom's damage assessment. The Mauler had taken heavy punishment after repeatedly tanking Magical Leaf from the Champion ranked Tropius. One of the forearm gatling guns was completely destroyed, a knee joint had locked in place, and a dangerous hole had been carved straight through the center of the Mauler's chest plating.
The structural damage report made it clear that the fight had come dangerously close to ending with the Mauler's destruction. Fortunately, the repairs were within Rhea's capability given enough time, and the robot had secured them the win. From a cost-benefit perspective, the damage was acceptable.
The near-fatal injuries on Alex's Pokémon were more sobering. The entire water team had gone down, along with Zoroark, Tsareena, Weezing, all three Maushold, a Chandelure, a Vikavolt, both Rhyperiors, Dusknoir, Togekiss, Altaria, and Frosmoth.
Without Rotom constantly switching between frontline combat against a Champion and multiple Elites while also retrieving every fainted Pokémon before they could be finished off, Alex would have lost nearly half of his away team in that single engagement. Although they technically held an advantage in Champion ranked numbers, they had simply been heavily outnumbered at the Elite rank, which placed enormous pressure on their formation throughout the battle.
"Should I get more Pokémon?" Alex considered before shaking his head. "Quality over quantity now that I have 50 exceptionally trained Pokémon. Although I do want two more sets of three for the attack team in case I'm forced to face a Master ranked trainer with no fewer than six Master ranked Pokémon."
The trouble with having too many Pokémon was that they would inevitably start dying if simply thrown at any problem that came Alex's way. Instead, it was better to maintain the status quo, in which he had to carefully consider whether to attack, retreat, or risk mutually assured destruction. It truly put into perspective the weight he carried while fighting with his and his Pokémon's lives on the line. He also liked being needed to fight, just like this time.
"Gardevoir," Gardevoir reported, stating that the crops had been destroyed, the houses demolished, the mansion buried by Earthquakes, and all the bodies collected.
"Excellent, let's go. We have one more stop before finally finishing this long set of missions."
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Today officially marks 1 year since the day I started posting my writing, and to celebrate, I'll be releasing an extra chapter, so enjoy.
I started out writing because I got tired of all the stories I read that took the plot in a different direction than what I had expected. Granted, in hindsight, it would have made the story far more boring and predictable, but at the same time, the payoff would have been amazing.
As a consequence of this thought or habit, I would pull away from the computer and start pacing around my room, deep in thought about how I would have written it, how I wanted the story I was reading to go. Some months later, I tried writing with zero prior experience. Fortunately, I had enough of an education to at least be able to write in English properly, although my prose comes off far more technical than necessary since I was used to only using it for technical papers.
Some more months later, I had 125 chapters on an ambitious crossover fanfic with way too much exposition and not enough action. I ended up stopping because I had no idea how to finish it and simply tossed it aside.
One night, as I was falling asleep, the idea for this story hit me. The idea was simple, an MMA fighter inserted into the body of an orphan child in the Pokémon world. I jumped out of bed, unable to sleep out of pure excitement, and just started writing, and 24 hours later, without sleep, I had 10 chapters written. For the next month, I kept writing and reached 40 chapters that were released on Pātreon before releasing 10 chapters on Web,novel on March 22, 2025.
Since then, I've kept releasing a chapter every day until today, having not missed a chapter since. I know I've improved as a writer over the past year, but it's really hard to tell since I'm not even a good writer to begin with.
In any case, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far and will continue to enjoy it in the future because I plan to keep going at this same pace until I finish this story, whose ending had already been decided the night I started writing it.
As always, let me know what you think, leave reviews and ratings, and thank you for reading.
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