The force of Flare Blitz drove Annihilape backward across the field, feet carving trenches through scorched earth. Arcanine stayed locked in, pressing its flame-wreathed body forward, grinding Annihilape toward the boundary line.
Annihilape's heels hit the edge of the arena markings. Nowhere left to slide.
"Annihilape, use Drain Punch!" Ash's command was instant.
Annihilape's left arm was still braced against the wall of flame, holding Arcanine's charge at bay. Its right fist ignited with a sickly green glow and drove forward, burying itself into Arcanine's ribs through the Flare Blitz inferno.
The effect was immediate. Emerald tendrils of energy siphoned out of Arcanine and flowed back into Annihilape's body. Colour returned to its ghostly frame. The trembling in its legs steadied, just slightly.
Arcanine yelped and broke off the Flare Blitz, leaping backward to create distance. Recoil damage from the sustained charge was already eating into it, and the Drain Punch had stolen health on top of that.
"Don't give it breathing room! Flamethrower, blanket the field!" Gary switched to ranged pressure immediately. Arcanine reared back and unleashed a sweeping torrent of fire that rolled across the arena like a wave.
"Stomping Tantrum!" Ash called.
Annihilape raised one foot and slammed it into the ground with enough force to split the earth. A shockwave of seismic energy ripped forward through the arena floor, tearing a jagged fissure directly toward Arcanine.
The Ground-type move punched through the carpet of flame and detonated beneath Arcanine's feet, launching it off balance.
Arcanine howled as the ground erupted under it, chunks of rock and dirt pelting its underside.
"Recover with Morning Sun!" Gary snapped. Arcanine landed on four legs, wincing, and a warm golden glow enveloped its body. Under the stadium lights the healing was reduced compared to actual sunlight, but it still knitted together the worst of the Stomping Tantrum damage and the Flare Blitz recoil.
"Close the gap and use Thunder Punch!" Ash wasn't about to let Arcanine heal for free. Annihilape shot forward, right fist crackling with electric energy. If this landed, the paralysis chance could cripple Arcanine's speed permanently.
"Dodge it. Wild Charge!" Gary countered aggression with aggression. Arcanine cut its Morning Sun short, sidestepped the incoming Thunder Punch by a hair, and threw itself into Annihilape shoulder-first, its entire body sheathed in crackling electricity.
The collision was brutal. Both Pokémon absorbed Electric-type damage, but Arcanine's Wild Charge carried more force behind it. Annihilape was knocked sideways, tumbling across the scorched ground.
"Don't let up! Crunch!" Gary pressed the advantage. Arcanine lunged, jaws glowing with dark energy, and clamped down on Annihilape's arm before it could recover. The Dark-type move wouldn't hit for super effective damage, but Crunch's secondary effect shredded the target's defence, and Annihilape's physical bulk was already paper-thin.
Annihilape snarled and grabbed Arcanine's head with its free hand.
"Annihilape use Ice Punch."
Frost erupted from Annihilape's palm directly into Arcanine's face. The hound released its bite with a howl, staggering back with ice crystals clinging to its muzzle and eyes. Super effective again. Fire-types crumbled against Ice, and at this range there was no dodging it.
Both Pokémon stood ten metres apart, heaving. Arcanine was shaking ice from its face, burns and bruises visible beneath its singed fur. Annihilape was somehow still upright, running on pure willpower and whatever scraps Drain Punch had returned.
"Enough feeling each other out." Gary's eyes hardened. "Extreme Speed!"
Arcanine vanished. Afterimages scattered across the field like heat mirages.
"Now, Flare Blitz!" Gary roared.
The fusion technique. Arcanine materialised mid-charge, wreathed in blue-white flame, moving at four times the speed of sound with the full force of Flare Blitz behind it.
Up in the stands, Professor Oak leaned forward with quiet pride. His grandson's custom technique. Extreme Speed layered with Flare Blitz. A combination so demanding that most trainers couldn't even conceptualise it, let alone execute it.
"Endure!" Ash's command was absolute.
White energy flared across Annihilape's body as it planted both feet and crossed its arms.
Flare Blitz hit like a meteor. A pillar of fire erupted skyward, turning the arena into a furnace. The shockwave scorched the ground in a ten-metre radius and forced the front rows to shield their faces.
The inferno raged for two full seconds. Arcanine skidded to a halt on the far side of the field, panting hard, recoil damage compounding on top of everything it had already taken. Smoke rose from its battered body.
And in the centre of the blackened crater, still standing, arms still crossed, trembling violently...
Annihilape held on. One hit point. Maybe less. Its aura was a dying ember. But that ember refused to go out.
"Now!" Ash's voice exploded across the field. "Close Combat!"
No more conserving energy. Close Combat burned the user's own defences in exchange for the most devastating Fighting-type assault in existence. For a Pokémon with one hit point left, the defence drop meant nothing. There was nothing left to protect.
Annihilape uncrossed its arms and launched itself at Arcanine.
The first punch caught Arcanine in the jaw before it could react. Then a knee to the ribs. An elbow to the temple. A spinning backfist that whipped its head sideways. Annihilape wasn't throwing single strikes. It was unleashing a complete martial arts assault, fists and feet and elbows flowing from one impact to the next with zero pause between them.
Arcanine tried to counter. "Extreme Speed, get out of there!" Gary shouted.
Too late. Annihilape's final blow, a devastating overhead axe kick wreathed in ghostly black fire, hammered down on Arcanine's skull and drove the Legendary Pokémon into the ground so hard the arena floor splintered beneath it.
BOOM.
Smoke and debris swallowed the impact zone. Annihilape stood over the crater, chest heaving, fists still clenched. Its legs looked ready to give out any second.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds
If Arcanine had any fight left, it would have burst free by now.
"Arcanine is unable to battle. Annihilape wins!"
Gary raised the Poké Ball with numb fingers. The red light pulled Arcanine in and he held the ball for a long moment.
Why?
It had been right there. The closest anyone had come to knocking out one of Ash's Pokémon. Arcanine had been fresh. The fusion technique had landed clean. Annihilape had been on literally its last breath. And somehow, somehow, that was still not enough.
The powerlessness hit like a wave. Not anger. Something quieter and worse.
Across the field, Ash's mouth twitched. He wanted to say something. Encouragement, maybe. Acknowledgement of how close it had been.
He stayed quiet. Gary didn't need comfort right now. He needed to find his own footing.
And he did.
Gary exhaled slowly, closed his eyes for a beat, and when they opened, the spark was back. He still had four Pokémon. The match wasn't over. Drowning in what-ifs while the fight was still live was something amateurs did, and Gary Oak was no amateur.
"Pidgeot, let's go!" The Poké Ball sailed upward and burst open. A magnificent raptor with a flowing crest of red and gold plumage spread its wings and let out a piercing cry as it caught the air.
Pidgeot. Gary's aerial ace.
In its base state it could hit Mach 2. With the training Gary had put it through, bursts of Mach 3 or even Mach 4 were within reach. Three to four times the speed of sound. Among all Pokémon species, very few could match that raw velocity.
The type matchup was decisive too. Annihilape's Ghost-type moves couldn't touch a Normal-type like Pidgeot. Meanwhile, Pidgeot's Flying-type attacks hit Annihilape's Fighting side for super effective damage. Complete one-sided coverage.
In hindsight, Pidgeot should have been the second Pokémon out, not Arcanine. The matchup was cleaner, the type advantage was absolute, and Pidgeot's speed made it virtually impossible for a grounded, wounded fighter to touch it. But Gary had been too hungry. Too eager to use the fusion technique to crush Annihilape with overwhelming priority.
He'd let ambition override tactics. He wouldn't make that mistake again.
Still, a part of him couldn't shake the wariness. Even though Annihilape looked like a flickering candle in the wind, he still felt it possessed the power to turn the tables.
Gary's Pidgeot sat at Peak Level. Compared to the Alakazam and Arcanine it was replacing, that was a step down in raw power. But it was still his fourth-strongest Pokémon and a core member of his roster. More importantly, it was the perfect counter for what was standing across the field.
In hindsight, Pidgeot should have come out second. But Gary had wanted the kill with Arcanine's fusion technique too badly, and now he was paying for it. At least the matchup was clean.
"Pidgeot, huh?" Ash muttered, studying the raptor circling overhead. This was a problem. Normal-type immunity meant half of Annihilape's strongest attacks would phase right through. And in its current state, Annihilape couldn't afford a drawn-out fight.
The smart play was a recall. Save that last ember of health for later, send in something with a better matchup.
Ash looked at Annihilape. Annihilape looked back.
No words were needed. The answer was in its eyes.
Ash nodded. "Then let's keep going. Show Gary what we're made of."
"Still fighting with that?" Gary called across the field, one eyebrow raised. "If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were throwing the match." His expression sharpened. "But I know you, Ash. I won't hold back. Pidgeot, Air Slash!"
Because this was Ash. Until the absolute last second, his Pokémon could always pull something impossible out of nowhere. Even flat on the ground, one hit point from oblivion, they could suddenly rise up and end you. Gary had seen it too many times to ever drop his guard.
Pidgeot banked hard and swept its wings in a vicious downward arc. Dozens of crescent-shaped blades of compressed air rained down from above, each one razor-sharp and glowing white. They fell like a monsoon, saturating the ground around Annihilape with overlapping kill zones.
"Detect."
Annihilape's eyes blazed with a preternatural focus. Detect didn't create a barrier like Protect. Instead, it sharpened perception to an inhuman degree, letting the user read the trajectory of every incoming attack and find the gaps between them.
But for Annihilape right now, "minimal damage" wasn't good enough. One stray blade catching its shoulder, and it was done. Every single Air Slash had to be dodged clean.
Annihilape moved like water.
Its body flickered between the falling crescents, each dodge precise to the millimetre. No wasted motion.
It wove through the storm of blades like it could see them in slow motion, twisting, ducking, sidestepping with the fluid economy of a martial artist who had transcended panic entirely.
Air Slashes hammered the ground all around it, kicking up plumes of dust and carving deep gouges in the arena floor. For over ten seconds, the barrage continued. Not a single blade touched Annihilape.
Pidgeot finally relented, wings aching from the sustained output. Dust and smoke billowed across the field, swallowing Annihilape's silhouette.
Gary squinted into the haze. Was it down? Had the strain of Detect been enough to finish it?
"Shadow Claw, climb!" Ash's voice erupted from the far side of the field.
Annihilape exploded out of the dust cloud vertically, one hand wreathed in jagged violet energy. It drove the spectral claws into the arena wall, used the grip as a springboard, and launched itself skyward toward Pidgeot.
"It can't reach you up there! Brave Bird, meet it head on!" Gary recovered instantly. Pidgeot tucked its wings and dove, its entire body igniting in a blazing blue-white aura. The most powerful Flying-type attack in its arsenal, aimed straight at the rising ghost.
"Thunder Punch!"
Annihilape cocked its right fist mid-flight. Electricity crackled across its knuckles, arcing between its fingers. It met Pidgeot's dive with a single upward strike.
The collision was cataclysmic. Electric energy discharged in every direction as Thunder Punch connected with Brave Bird's aura. Both Pokémon were blown apart by the impact, spinning in opposite directions. Pidgeot shrieked as the electrical current jolted through its body, feathers smoking. Annihilape tumbled through the air, the Brave Bird's force having shattered what little defence it had left.
But neither hit the ground yet.
"Hurricane! Blow it down!" Gary shouted. Pidgeot stabilised first, the natural advantage of wings, and beat them in a single devastating downstroke. A spiralling vortex of wind erupted beneath it, a tornado in miniature that caught Annihilape mid-tumble and spun it like a ragdoll.
"Stomping Tantrum!" Ash was already planning two moves ahead.
Annihilape crashed into the ground hard but channelled every ounce of the impact through its feet. The arena floor shattered on contact, and a seismic shockwave ripped upward toward Pidgeot. The Ground-type energy wouldn't hit a Flying-type normally, but the debris launched by the eruption would.
Chunks of rock and shattered arena tile pelted Pidgeot like shrapnel, forcing it to bank hard and lose altitude.
"Now! Close the distance. Ice Punch!"
Annihilape was already moving. Frost crystallised across its left fist as it sprinted toward Pidgeot's lowered position. One clean Ice Punch on a Flying-type would be devastating.
"Roost! Then Heat Wave!" Gary made a split-second call. Pidgeot dropped to the ground voluntarily, folding its wings as a warm golden glow suffused its body.
Roost. Health flowing back, damage knitting together. It was a gamble. Grounding itself meant losing Flying-type immunity for the duration, but the healing was worth it.
The moment Annihilape closed within striking range, Pidgeot's beak opened and a wave of superheated air blasted outward at point blank. Heat Wave. The scorching gust hit Annihilape like walking into a furnace, and the Fire-type energy burned through what was left of its defences.
Annihilape staggered. The Ice Punch in its hand flickered and died, frost evaporating in the Heat Wave's residual warmth.
But it didn't fall.
Its eyes locked onto Pidgeot, still grounded from Roost, still glowing with residual healing energy.
"Annihilape." Ash's voice was quiet now. Almost gentle. "Outrage."
Gary's blood went cold. "What?"
In the VIP section, Lance shot to his feet. Outrage? From a Fighting/Ghost-type?
Outrage was a Dragon-type ultimate. The kind of move that Dragon-type Pokémon resorted to in desperation, burning every reserve in a berserk rampage. Even among actual Dragon-types, learning it was brutally difficult. Charizard and Aerodactyl had "dragon" in their very identities and still struggled to master it.
A ghost monkey had no business knowing this move.
"Could Annihilape have Dragon typing?!" Lance was practically vibrating. If this Pokémon carried Dragon-type energy pure enough to fuel Outrage straight out of evolution, the implications were enormous.
Regardless of how shocked the people around were, Annihilape's Outrage had already been unleashed. The move Outrage explodes with all of one's power in a wild, rampaging assault. It's a skill with heavy side effects but extreme power.
Annihilape's figure charged out of the smoke, its large fists slamming hard into Pidgeot's body, then switching to kicks to Pidgeot's abdomen. Its limbs seemed to turn into a combat machine at this moment, constantly striking Pidgeot's body. Due to the immense force, it even remained suspended in the air for a time without falling!
Pidgeot was hit repeatedly by Annihilape, its face showing a expression of pain. Although Outrage didn't have a type-advantage effect, the move's original power was simply too strong. Combined with Annihilape being one level higher than Pidgeot and having attack power beyond its level, it was hard to say if Pidgeot could hold out against this machine-gun-like barrage.
"Pidgeot, get away quickly! Fly up!!" Gary shouted for Pidgeot to leave, but Pidgeot was completely trapped in the vortex of Annihilape's punches and kicks, unable to pull itself out.
Now, its entire body was suffering from attacks. Unless it could find a gap in Annihilape's assault or Endure the hits to push Annihilape away, but both conditions were very hard to fulfill.
Annihilape was now fighting with a desperate, life-risking style because it knew this was its final swan song.
When a gap appeared in Annihilape's attack, it would also mean that Annihilape had completely burned out.
Boom!! With a final loud crash echoing in the air, Annihilape finally exhausted all its strength and fell from the sky.
Along with it, Pidgeot also plummeted down.
Seeing this, Ash dashed onto the field, reaching the center in the blink of an eye to steadily catch the falling Annihilape. On the other side, Pidgeot didn't have such a powerful Trainer to help it; it fell directly onto the ground with a dull thud...