The Aura Sphere detonated against Blastoise's shell with a concussive boom that sent tremors rippling through the arena. Blastoise bellowed in pain, its body pitching forward, the Water Pulse it had been channelling sputtering and dying mid-stream.
Gary's face went white. Lucario's Aura Sphere hadn't lost that opening clash at all. It had eased off deliberately, letting Blastoise think it had won the exchange so it would drop its guard. The whole thing had been bait.
How Lucario had appeared behind Blastoise without a sound, Gary couldn't explain. It moved like Teleport, instantaneous and untraceable. Whether Lucario had actually learned the technique or was simply moving faster than the eye could follow didn't matter. The result was the same: Blastoise had taken a clean, unguarded Aura Sphere to the back, and it showed.
No time to dwell on it.
"Blastoise, Water Pulse!" Gary went back to his bread and butter. Under Mega Launcher, Water Pulse hit with top-tier force and came out fast. It was his best shot at tagging something that moved like a ghost.
Blastoise's triple cannons locked on and fired. Three converging jets of pressurised water screamed toward Lucario's position.
"Aura Sphere." Ash's voice was calm.
Lucario vanished mid-motion. The Water Pulse tore through empty air, not even clipping an afterimage. A heartbeat later, Lucario materialised behind Blastoise again, Aura Sphere already formed and glowing between its palms.
Gary had expected it this time.
"Protect!"
The green barrier snapped into existence around Blastoise just as the Aura Sphere connected. The sphere detonated against the shield and dispersed harmlessly. Lucario was pushed back by its own rebound force, launching it skyward.
"Rain Dance, now!" Gary pounced on the opening. Lucario was airborne and couldn't close distance for a follow-up. Instead of chasing damage, Gary invested in weather. Under rain, every Water-type attack Blastoise threw would hit harder, and the downpour would disrupt Lucario's footing and visibility.
Blastoise raised its cannons skyward and roared. Storm clouds churned into existence overhead, unnatural and fast, blotting out the stadium lights. Lucario spiralled once in the air, stabilised, and began its descent.
Too late to stop the weather. The rain was coming regardless.
"Lucario, Bullet Punch!" Ash pivoted to speed. Weaker than Aura Sphere but far faster, the Steel-type priority move sent Lucario streaking downward the instant its feet grazed the ground. Afterimages trailed in its wake as it closed on Blastoise and drove a metallic fist into the turtle's jaw.
The hit connected clean. Blastoise flinched, its head snapping sideways, but it held its ground and kept channelling the rain. Droplets began to fall, light at first, then heavier.
Lucario didn't stop. The opening punch flowed into a second, a third, a rapid chain of Bullet Punches hammering Blastoise's shell and shoulders in a relentless rhythm. Steel-type energy flashed with each impact, and the sound of metal on armour rang across the arena like a blacksmith's hammer.
Blastoise's expression twisted with pain. Its body skidded backward under the sustained assault, unable to find a gap to counterattack.
"Blastoise, Iron Defence!" Gary clenched his jaw. Watching his partner get battered stirred the same helpless feeling he'd had watching Pidgeot absorb Annihilape's Outrage. But Blastoise wasn't Pidgeot. It could take punishment. It just needed the right tool.
A metallic sheen rippled across Blastoise's shell and limbs as Iron Defence activated. The reinforcement was immediate. Mega Blastoise's defences were already fortress-grade. With Iron Defence layered on top, its physical bulk became virtually impenetrable.
The Bullet Punches that had been driving it backward now bounced off like rain on stone. Blastoise straightened, the pain draining from its face, and planted its feet.
"Aura Sphere." Ash didn't miss a beat. Iron Defence only bolstered physical bulk. His Lucario was a mixed attacker, equally deadly on both sides of the spectrum. Whichever stat you reinforced, Lucario would hit the other.
The punching flurry ceased. Lucario planted both feet, formed twin Aura Spheres in its palms, and drove them both into Blastoise's shell simultaneously.
The double detonation blasted Blastoise off its feet and sent it skidding across the rain-slicked field, coming to rest at Gary's feet. Water splashed around its prone form.
"Blastoise, are you okay?" Gary dropped to one knee beside his partner. Blastoise groaned, pushed itself up on trembling arms, and nodded.
It was still fighting. But half its stamina was already gone. Three Aura Spheres, a barrage of Bullet Punches, and the constant energy drain of maintaining Mega Evolution had taken a brutal toll. That was the hidden cost of Mega Evolution: it amplified every stat except endurance, and it actively consumed stamina to sustain the form. The longer the fight went, the faster the clock ran out.
Gary had one more card to play, but it was unreliable. A last resort in the truest sense. Not yet.
Blastoise hauled itself upright, water streaming down its shell, eyes still sharp.
"Good. Then it's our turn." Gary's voice hardened. "Water Pulse!"
This time was different. The rain was pouring now, heavy drops hammering the arena, and every Water-type move Blastoise threw drank from the storm. The triple cannons levelled at Lucario and fired.
Three columns of pressurised water split in diverging arcs, sealing off every dodge angle. Each individual stream carried more force than the combined blast from the opening exchange. Mega Launcher's boost stacked with the rain's amplification, and the result was devastating. The arena floor where the streams touched was gouged clean through.
"Aura Sphere!" Faced with Water Pulses that left no escape, Ash calmly had Lucario continue with Aura Sphere.
Lucario vanished the instant Ash's command left his lips. Teleport. Just as Gary had predicted.
It was a move Lucario had no business knowing. Teleport existed in the natural order as compensation for Pokémon that lacked the speed or mobility to close distance on their own. Slow psychics, fragile supports, bulky walls. The universe balanced the scales that way.
A fast, agile close-quarters fighter with Teleport was fundamentally unfair. But Ash had learned the technique himself, and what Ash could do, he could teach. Lucario's repeated use of it throughout this fight was all the proof anyone needed.
Lucario reappeared behind Blastoise, Aura Sphere already glowing between its paws. The same angle. The same approach. The third time in a row.
Gary was counting on it.
"Even a fool learns after the second time. Blastoise, now!"
Blastoise pivoted on the spot as if it had been coiled and waiting. Its triple cannons were already aimed at the space behind it before Lucario fully materialised.
Three jets of rain-boosted Water Pulse erupted point-blank into Lucario's startled face.
Lucario reacted on instinct. It hurled the Aura Sphere forward, swatting aside two of the three streams in a spray of scattered energy and water. But the third, the largest, punched through clean and caught Lucario square in the chest.
The impact launched it backward. Lucario hit the ground hard, skidding through puddles and leaving a trench in the rain-soaked arena. For the first time in the fight, real damage showed on its body.
Ash's jaw tightened. He'd anticipated that Gary would eventually predict the Teleport destination. That was inevitable after the second repetition. What he hadn't accounted for was the first Water Pulse being a complete feint.
Those three streams that had sealed off every dodge angle moments ago? They'd been paper tigers. Impressive-looking, threatening in theory, but fired with barely any force behind them. Their entire purpose had been to bait the Teleport. To make Lucario think it needed to reposition, to make it appear at the same anchor point one more time.
The real attack had been held in reserve, charged silently while Blastoise pretended to be committed to the spread shot. No verbal command. Just pure trainer-Pokémon synchronisation.
"You and Blastoise are something else, Gary." Ash's praise was genuine. "That whole sequence without a single spoken order. Perfect sync."
The underlying problem was now exposed. Lucario's Teleport wasn't fully mastered. It required a fixed anchor point, set behind the target, that moved with the target's position. Until Lucario set a new anchor, it would always appear at the same spot. Against an opponent who didn't know that, it was devastating. Against someone who'd figured it out, it was a trap waiting to be sprung.
Gary allowed himself a sharp grin. "You're not the only one with a bond, Ash. We can Mega Evolve together. You think Blastoise and I aren't in sync?" The grin vanished, replaced by steel. "Blastoise, Hydro Pump. End this."
Hydro Pump was a different beast from Water Pulse. Heavier, slower, but carrying enough raw force to end the fight in one shot. And with Lucario still rising from the ground, the timing was perfect.
Blastoise roared. Rainwater pouring from the sky changed direction, pulled inward by the sheer force of the attack's formation. Streams and rivulets flowed across the arena floor and converged on Blastoise's body, wrapping it in a churning shell of water that swelled larger and larger.
This wasn't a standard Hydro Pump. The rain was feeding it, amplifying the volume and pressure far beyond normal parameters. Blastoise lowered its head and charged, barrelling toward Lucario like a battering ram wrapped in a tidal wave.
The ground shook under its stride. The sheer wall of water bearing down on Lucario would have frozen a lesser Pokémon in place.
"Detect!"
Lucario's eyes flashed. The world slowed. Blastoise's charge, the swirling water, the trajectory of every droplet, all of it crystallised into readable data. Optimal dodge paths illuminated in Lucario's mind like lines on a map.
It moved with fluid precision. A backward flip to create a sliver of space, then a lateral roll that carried it past the roaring Hydro Pump by centimetres. Water tore at its fur, close enough to sting, but the core of the attack passed harmlessly by.
Blastoise thundered past, committed to the charge, unable to redirect.
"Close Combat!"
Lucario planted its feet the instant the dodge completed, pivoted, and lunged at Blastoise's exposed flank. No restraint. No defence. Close Combat burned every scrap of defensive energy in exchange for maximum offensive output, and Lucario poured it all into the opening.
The first punch cratered Blastoise's shell. The second drove into the gap between cannon and shoulder plate. A knee to the midsection folded the turtle forward. An elbow strike to the back of the head snapped it down. Each blow punched through the residual water still clinging to Blastoise's body, sending spray in every direction.
A complete barrage delivered before Blastoise could even begin to slow its momentum from the missed charge.
Blastoise was knocked clean out of its Hydro Pump's remaining water envelope and sent tumbling across the rain-slicked field. It came to rest at Gary's feet.