"I've got a Krabby too. It can evolve into a Kingler as well," Ash said excitedly as he snapped his Pokédex shut. He had already seen this Pokémon back home. His own Krabby was still at Professor Oak's lab, and who knew when it would evolve.
"It's not that simple, Ash. Look at that Kingler's claws. They're almost as big as its body, and its overall size is way beyond normal too," Brock said from behind him, already scribbling notes into a notebook as he analyzed it.
As a breeder, Brock had a sharp eye. One glance was enough for him to tell this Kingler was anything but ordinary.
"Yeah, you're right. Why is it so huge? It looks way bigger than other Kingler," Misty said. As a Water-type Trainer, she knew this line well enough, and this one was clearly oversized.
"That probably has something to do with how its Trainer raised it. If we get the chance, we should ask," Brock said, rubbing his chin as he thought it over. He wanted to know how someone had managed to raise a Pokémon that looked this healthy and this powerful.
"Ash, send out your Pokémon," Reiji called when he saw the three of them still whispering among themselves. He was too far away to hear what they were saying, so he just told Ash to get on with it.
"Okay. Kingler's Water-type, so I'll use..." Ash pulled out a Poké Ball and shouted, "Go, Bulbasaur!"
"Bulbasaur? So he did catch one?" Reiji looked at the Bulbasaur with the green bulb on its back. Ash actually was not going for a type disadvantage this time.
The guy was supposed to be a master of fighting uphill battles. Type disadvantage meant victory, and type advantage meant disaster. Players used to joke about it all the time in his previous life, and now he had actually run into it for real.
What was this supposed to be?
Transmigrator luck versus protagonist luck?
Come on. That was just ridiculous.
Reiji smiled helplessly and called out, "Ash, you go first."
"Got it, Rai-nii. Better be ready," Ash shouted back. Since he had the first move, he immediately yelled, "Bulbasaur, Razor Leaf!"
The instant Ash gave the order, Reiji followed with one of his own.
"Kingler, Iron Defense. Raise your claws and block it."
At the same moment, the leaves Bulbasaur launched from behind its back slammed into Kingler's claws—already hardened by Iron Defense—and dropped to the ground limply, doing absolutely nothing.
"How is that possible? Grass is supposed to be super effective. Why didn't it work?" Ash stared blankly at the field, completely stunned.
"It's not that Razor Leaf did nothing," Brock explained. "First, Bulbasaur's level is too low. Second, that Kingler's defense is extremely high, and it just boosted it again. That's why it looks like your attack had no effect at all."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" Ash blurted out, panicking like an ant on a hot pan. In a normal battle, Kingler would have already attacked by now.
"Iron Defense raises physical defense, so switch to special attacks," Brock said at once, piecing together the situation and giving advice like the Gym Leader he was. Basic battle knowledge like this was second nature to him.
"Special attacks? Special attacks? What special attacks does Bulbasaur even have?" Ash scratched at his head and racked his brain, but nothing came to him.
"You idiot, Ash. If it doesn't have special attacks, then use Leech Seed or Sleep Powder."
"Oh, right!" Ash instantly brightened, then looked toward the person who had reminded him. The burst of inspiration faded just as fast. "Gary, you jerk. I'm still going to beat Rai-nii."
"Idiot Ash. Try winning first. He's been waiting on you this whole time. Are you fighting or not?"
"Of course I am," Ash shot back. For the moment, he could not be bothered with Gary. He looked back toward Bulbasaur and Kingler and shouted, "Bulbasaur, use Leech Seed!"
"Kingler, Water Gun. Knock the seed away," Reiji said the moment he saw a seed rise from the bulb on Bulbasaur's back and fire toward Kingler.
Kingler simply opened its mouth and shot it down with Water Gun. For it, hitting something that slow was about as easy as target practice.
And then the battle turned absurd.
Ash kept shouting for Bulbasaur to use Leech Seed. Reiji's Kingler kept blasting every seed out of the air with Water Gun.
Over and over.
The whole thing was so stupid it left everyone speechless. They had never seen such a boring battle, and they had definitely never seen a Trainer this single-minded.
Yeah, that's more like it, Reiji thought. Now this felt like Ash. The kid really was kind of hopeless in exactly this way.
He nearly laughed out loud.
It was not until Gary finally cut in again that Ash snapped out of it.
"You idiot, Ash. Leech Seed isn't working. Can't you switch moves?"
"All right already, I know, I know," Ash said, looking mortified as he saw the seeds scattered all over the ground and heard the laughter around him. He forced himself to focus back on the match and stopped looking at the crowd. "Bulbasaur, use Sleep Powder!"
"Bulba, bulba..." Bulbasaur looked like it had a headache. What kind of Trainer was this? Honestly, it would have been smoother if it had just battled on its own.
"Kingler, finish it with Ice Beam," Reiji said. He had seen enough and decided to end it right there.
Kingler raised one massive claw. Frosty energy gathered fast inside it, then a white beam burst out and struck Bulbasaur just as it was about to release Sleep Powder.
There was no surprise in the result.
Bulbasaur froze solid instantly and rolled all the way back to Ash's feet like a lump of ice.
"Bulbasaur? Bulbasaur!" Ash cried as he hurriedly scooped up the frozen Bulbasaur, hoping for some kind of response.
But Bulbasaur could not even speak, let alone blink. There was no way it could answer him.
"Ash, hurry up and use Charmander to melt the ice," Brock said when he saw Ash panicking uselessly.
"Right, right! Charmander, quick, use Ember to melt the ice!" Ash shouted, hurriedly sending Charmander out to thaw Bulbasaur.
So he really had caught that Charmander. Reiji watched Charmander quietly. It was pretty cute before it evolved.
If Charizard had obeyed him later on, Ash probably would not have crashed out in the top sixteen at the Indigo Plateau Conference. A Charizard that listened could have steamrolled Ritchie's team all by itself.
"You lost, Ash. My turn now," Gary said with a smug grin as he walked up, casually tossing a Poké Ball in one hand. He was here to wash away his earlier defeat and win this rematch properly.
"You jerk, Gary," Ash thought, grinding his teeth, but he did not say it out loud. A loss was a loss. There was no point whining about it. Raised under the League's standard Trainer education, he was not that petty.
But he still wanted Gary to lose.
No special reason.
He just wanted to beat him.
That stubbornness was practically carved into his bones. Against Gary, he had to win. He would always have to win, even if it took everything he had.
"Gary, Gary, he's our man! Gary, Gary, yes he can!" Gary's cheer squad immediately started yelling in support, egging him on to win.
"Oh, Gary. Long time no see," Reiji said with a smile, raising a hand in greeting.
"Come on. I lost to you last time, but I'm winning this one back," Gary said, full of confidence. He truly believed he could beat Reiji this time. The last loss had only happened because he had just gotten Squirtle then. After all this time growing stronger, he was sure things would be different.
"All right," Reiji said.
He recalled Kingler and sent out Poliwhirl instead, then looked up and waited to see what Gary would use.
"Tch. So you're switching Pokémon," Gary muttered under his breath. He did not care much either way. Whatever Reiji used, he was going to beat him.
"Go, Wartortle!"
"What? Squirtle evolved already?" Ash yelped the moment he heard Wartortle's name. That was way too fast.
"Ash, you've got one of the starter Pokémon too, but none of yours have evolved yet," Gary said with a grin over his shoulder. Then he turned back and focused on the match.
"Damn it," Ash muttered, clenching his fists as he looked at Bulbasaur and Charmander. Right now, he would have been happy if even one of them had evolved.
"Wartortle, huh? You take the first move," Reiji said, just like last time, waving Gary on.
"Heh. Still as arrogant as ever. Fine, I won't hold back," Gary said immediately, then shouted, "Wartortle, Water Gun!"
"Wartortle! Water Gun!"
Wartortle fired three sharp bursts in quick succession, and every one of them hit Poliwhirl cleanly.
But Poliwhirl casually batted them all away with its hands.
Those weak little streams were not doing any damage.
"Gary, don't bother with attacks that soft. Let me see whether you've improved at all," Reiji said.
His attitude toward Gary was completely different from how he treated Ash.
Ash was hard-headed and slow to adapt sometimes, but that made him oddly entertaining.
Gary, on the other hand, was too proud. He had never really suffered a setback, and with his background and family, that confidence had naturally hardened into arrogance.
That was also why Reiji had switched Pokémon.
Against Ash, it did not really matter what he used. Winning or losing there was not important. Ash was still just a kid.
Gary was different.
Against Gary, he was using a main battler.
He would never underestimate Gary, and bringing out a stronger Pokémon was his way of making sure nothing stupid happened.
"Tch. Soft?" Gary clicked his tongue at that. Being told his move was soft—especially in that older, lecturing tone—immediately rubbed him the wrong way. Reiji was not his elder, so he had no interest in being talked down to. He shouted, "Wartortle, Withdraw, Iron Defense, then Skull Bash!"
"Wartortle!"
Wartortle immediately pulled into its shell. A metallic gleam flashed across it, and then a jet of water blasted from the rear of the shell, launching it straight at Poliwhirl.
"Poliwhirl, end it."
"Big talk. Wartortle's shell is tough," Gary said with a scornful snort. Wartortle's level had caught up quite a bit by now. There was no way Poliwhirl was ending this in one hit.
"Poli."
Poliwhirl knew exactly how much force to use the moment it heard Reiji say to finish it.
White light flashed around its fist.
The ground exploded under its feet.
It shot forward even faster than Wartortle was charging and slammed a single punch straight into the shell, driving Wartortle deep into the muddy ground in one hit.
"What?" Gary blurted out in shock.
A massive crater had appeared where Wartortle landed, and the Wartortle half-buried inside it was already unconscious.
The defeat had come too fast.
Fast enough that Gary could barely believe what he had just seen.
"Gary, you've still got work to do," Reiji said as Poliwhirl returned to his side.
Poliwhirl had already held back.
If it had used its full strength, the entire clearing would have split apart and the terrain itself would have been wrecked.
At that point, Wartortle would not have merely been knocked out in one punch.
It might have died.
After all, Poliwhirl's full-power strike was the same terrifying burst that had once blown away an Elite Four-tier Pokémon's arm—Rhydon's strongest attack.
"Hahaha, Gary, you lost too!" Ash burst out laughing the second he saw Gary go down.
Brock immediately threw an arm over Ash's shoulder and told him to stop.
The atmosphere around them had gone strange.
"What? What's wrong?" Ash asked, completely baffled. He could not see the problem at all.
"He held back," Brock said quietly. "And he's terrifyingly strong. He's stronger than I am. Honestly, my dad might be the one who'd have to deal with him."
He kept replaying Poliwhirl's burst of speed in his head.
Two craters.
One from the launch.
One from the impact.
That was not normal.
He could tell what he had seen, but not fully explain it.
"No way. He's that strong?" Ash stared in disbelief.
At first he had not had any real sense of how strong Reiji was, but he did know how strong Brock was. And because he knew Brock's level, he could guess what Brock's father's level had to be.
If even Brock was saying it might take his dad, then that meant Reiji had been going easy on him the whole time.
"Well, obviously. If he hadn't gone easy on you, do you really think you'd have lasted that many turns?" Misty shot Ash a flat look. She had almost misjudged Reiji herself. She had not expected him to be this strong, and from the look of it, he was a Water-type Trainer too.
She was a Water-type Trainer herself, so of course she wanted to compare them.
But after what she had just seen, she knew there was no chance.
The sheer strength Poliwhirl had shown left her almost breathless. It had ended Wartortle in an instant, and she was only a beginner herself. She did not think she was much stronger than Gary.
"Ah, Young Master Gary lost again..."
"This is the second time. How could Young Master Gary lose to the same person twice?"
"So I lost," Gary said quietly.
Just like Ash, he had assumed before that Reiji was only some ordinary Trainer from a small place like the Orange Archipelago. He had never had a clear sense of the gap between them.
Now he finally understood how strong this guy really was.
If he was on the level of Brock's father, then he was at least a quasi–Elite Four Trainer.
So who exactly was Gary Oak to keep talking about beating someone like that?
A Trainer of this level was not someone he could beat right now.
Maybe not even by the time the Indigo Plateau Conference came around.
But he would never back down.
If he gave up before even trying, then he would not be Gary.
"You're strong. Not just strong—really strong," Gary said, clenching his fist as he faced Reiji again. "But I'm not giving up. I'll beat you at the Indigo Plateau Conference."
This time his challenge was firm, serious, and respectful.
All the flippant arrogance from before was gone.
Reiji was a real powerhouse, and Gary understood now that someone like that deserved proper respect.
"I'll be waiting," Reiji said with a smile.
Gary's true peak had always been Johto in the second generation.
Ash's peak had been Kalos in the sixth.
That was just how it was.
Gary dropped out early and moved into Pokémon research instead of dedicating himself fully to battling.
Ash, on the other hand, made being a Trainer his path. He was a born battler, and his peak still extended into the later Masters Tournament.
As for Reiji's own peak—Who knew?
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
[Check out my Patreon to read 20+ chapters ahead]
[[email protected]/BellAshelia]
[Thanks for your support!]