Paul's semifinal had revealed a nasty surprise. Besides his Torterra, he'd fielded a Electivire that nobody had seen coming. Online scouting reports still listed his Electabuzz at High level at best. In reality, it had evolved and climbed to high tier. Anyone who walked into a match trusting community estimates was walking into a trap.
His quarterfinal opponent, Travis, had at least forced the Electivire into the open, giving Ash a better read on Paul's roster. Small consolation for Travis, whose team was swept clean. Unlike Torterra, which won through raw power and durability, Electivire was deceptively fast for its size. The usual approach of trading blows against a slow wall simply didn't apply.
Paul's run from Top 16 to finals told its own story. Two matches. Two six-zero sweeps. He hadn't lost a single Pokémon, and the two he'd actually used had barely dipped below half stamina.
The online discourse was predictable. Half the community was crowning Paul as the favourite for the title. The argument was straightforward: Ash's tournament run looked messier. He'd had a Pokémon go down against Gary. He'd needed Mega Evolution repeatedly. The much-hyped Annihilape had debuted and fainted in the same match. Compare that to Paul's clinical efficiency, and the conclusion seemed obvious.
The other half tore that argument apart with equal conviction.
Ash's "underperformance" looked a lot less damning when you considered which Pokémon he'd been using. Blastoise, Lucario, Annihilape. None of them had appeared in his prior Elite-level battles. His actual heaviest hitters, Pikachu, Charizard, and the Venusaur that veterans still whispered about, had either stayed in their balls or appeared so briefly they'd one-shot their opponents before anyone could gauge their real power.
And Mega Gardevoir's Psystrike had nearly required the League's emergency barrier to protect the crowd. Conveniently, nobody calling Ash the weaker finalist seemed to mention that.
If anything, Ash was just better at keeping his cards hidden.
The two camps raged at each other online. Ash and his friends ate dinner.
Delia and Mr. Mime had laid out a full spread to celebrate Ash's finals berth. Gary showed up despite his loss. As he saw it, Ash reaching the finals was partly thanks to their semifinal. No loss, no finals spot. So he ate without an ounce of guilt.
After the meal wound down, Professor Oak and Gary headed out, promising to return tomorrow to cheer from the stands. Brock was on dish duty. Delia had settled in front of the television. The house was warm and quiet.
Outside, Ash and Misty sat in the yard under the moonlight. Togepi dozed in Misty's lap. Pikachu was curled up at Ash's side, ears twitching in half-sleep.
"Tomorrow's the final." Misty tilted her head toward him. "How do you feel?"
She'd been there since the beginning. She'd watched the clueless kid who once asked her to explain type matchups become someone about to stand on the biggest stage in Kanto.
Ash leaned back on his hands and stared at the moon. "Excited. Thrilled." A pause. "And a little like none of it's real."
Six months. That was all it had been. Six months ago he'd set out from Pallet Town with big dreams and almost no idea how to achieve them. He loved Pokémon more than anything, but his theoretical knowledge was a disaster, and his only real physical edge was stamina, which he'd assumed was useless in battle.
He'd shouted about becoming a Pokémon Master to anyone who'd listen, but privately, he'd had no roadmap for getting there.
Then the Chat Group had changed everything. Eight badges. A Conference finals berth. Real battles against two Elites and a Champion, at fifteen years old, when he'd assumed that kind of stage wouldn't come until he was eighteen at the earliest.
The distance between who he'd been and who he was now still didn't feel real.
"If I hadn't been standing right next to you the whole time, I wouldn't believe it either," Misty said quietly. "A complete rookie reaching this level in half a year."
She'd had a front-row seat to the entire journey, and even she felt like she'd been watching the lead of a movie. Ash had risen from nothing and powered through almost every obstacle in his path.
His only two real defeats had come from Lorelei and a Champion, trainers who operated at the absolute ceiling of competitive battling. Lorelei in particular held the Elite Four title but fought at Champion calibre. Losing to opponents like that wasn't failure. It was tuition.
And Misty had her own quiet suspicion that Ash hadn't been fighting at full power in either of those matches. She'd seen what he could really do.
The battle against Mewtwo was burned into her memory. A god-tier Pokémon had been pushed to the brink by Ash's team, yet he'd later lost to an Elite Four Peak? The math didn't add up. Whatever Ash's true ceiling was, she hadn't seen it yet.
"If you win tomorrow..." Misty's tone shifted. Lighter. Almost playful. "Go on a date with me."
Ash went very still.
'Date. She said date. Is that the kind of date I think it is?'
Before Ash could ask what she meant, Misty was already on her feet. Hands behind her back, she skipped around the corner and disappeared into the house without looking back.
Ash sat there, mouth half-open, staring at the empty space where she'd been. He looked down at Pikachu. Pikachu looked back at him with wide, equally baffled eyes and gave a helpless shrug. Togepi, understanding nothing, just beamed at everyone.
Even Pikachu, who had been quietly trying to nudge the two of them together for weeks, hadn't seen that coming. Since when did Misty go on the offensive?
Ash tilted his head back and stared at the half-moon hanging in the clear sky. For some reason, a phrase drifted through his mind unbidden.
The moon is beautiful tonight.
Nine o'clock the next morning. Indigo Stadium was full beyond capacity.
Every seat was taken. Standing room in the back rows had sold out at prices that would have been absurd a week ago. Some scalpers had stopped selling entirely, not because demand had dropped, but because they wanted to watch the match themselves.
Two rookie prodigies in the final. A matchup like this might be rarer than an actual Championship bout. Across the arena and in front of television screens worldwide, the audience waited.
"Let's welcome our two finalists! From Veilstone City in the Sinnoh region, Paul! And from Pallet Town in the Kanto region, Ash!"
They entered from opposite ends of the tunnel. Ash wore his usual easy grin, waving once to the crowd. Paul walked out stone-faced, eyes already fixed on the far side of the field. Complete opposites. Mirror images.
"The Indigo Plateau Conference final officially begins! Trainers, send out your first Pokémon!"
"I choose you, Monferno!"
"Prepare for battle, Magmortar!"
Both Poké Balls hit the field at the same time. The crowd's reaction to Magmortar was a murmur of interest. Their reaction to Monferno was open confusion.
Monferno wasn't weak. But it was nowhere near the level the finals demanded. Ash had owned it for barely over a week, and while raising it from Low to Mid in that time was genuinely impressive, Mid was still a tier below what anyone expected to see on this stage.
Even accounting for Ash's special ability to enhance his Pokémon, the gap was enormous.
Yet here it was. Not just on the roster, but leading. First pick in the biggest match of Ash's career. Up in the VIP section, even Lance couldn't figure out the logic.
Paul could.
"Monferno?" He blinked once, then his expression settled into something unreadable. He'd expected Ash to lead with Venusaur, the one major Pokémon that still hadn't seen competitive play. Ash had a pattern of debuting unused Pokémon in high-stakes matches. Blastoise, Annihilape, Lucario, all first appearances on the big stage.
Monferno broke the pattern. It wasn't a hidden ace being unveiled.
Paul's mind connected the dots quickly. This was about him. Monferno had been Paul's Pokémon once. He'd discarded it because it couldn't meet his standards. That rejection had left a scar, a knot in Monferno's heart that hadn't fully healed even after finding a new home with Ash.
Ash was using this match, this stage, in front of the entire world, to let Monferno face the trainer who'd abandoned it and prove it was worth something.
But proving your worth required winning. And Paul wasn't the kind of opponent who'd let sentiment override strategy.
"With Monferno as it is now, it can't beat Magmortar." Paul's voice carried across the field, flat and clinical. "Take it back."
The stadium went quiet. Even Ash looked surprised.
Paul was telling him to withdraw his Pokémon.