The mood on the field grew heavier by the second. From the moment it appeared, Dragonite had been stuck on the defensive, a deeply unfamiliar sight for the people of Pummelo Island.
When had Drake's Dragonite ever been beaten this badly? Whenever Drake led with it, the result was a rout; even a stalemate was rare. Now a tiny Pikachu had it pinned, and several of the moves that Pikachu used were ones they'd never even heard of. What was Zippy Zap? What was Floating Fall? Could a Pikachu even learn those? Had they been cut off out here so long that the wider world had moved on without them?
For Drake and Dragonite, the battle was an unprecedented test. Their road had been far too smooth, without a single real setback.
Drake had become Head Trainer of the Orange Islands young and stayed undefeated, and his dream was to one day raise the Orange Islands into a true League region like Johto or Sinnoh.
There was talk of an Orange League already, but in the end the islands were only an affiliate region of Johto and Kanto. The Orange Islands weren't small, yet the level of their Trainers genuinely wasn't high.
Drake had reigned over the whole archipelago on the back of a single Dragonite, and the gap between his strength and that of the previous Head Trainer was enormous.
Because of that, his strength had stalled for a long stretch after he took the post. Not stalled exactly; it was more that he'd lost the rapid climb he used to have. He used to grow braver and stronger with every tough opponent, but once the worthy opponents ran out, his progress slowed to a crawl.
Sitting alone at the top felt great at first. Over time, having no one to test him left him bored, and the plateau in his power started to gnaw at him. That was when he heard Ash had come to the Orange Islands, and it led to this.
"Ash, you really are something. You think so too, don't you, Dragonite?"
"Wu-oh!" Dragonite nodded, its honest face lit with fighting spirit. This was the only kind of opponent worth facing. Those old crushing wins had been fine at first, but the sheer dullness of them had eventually drained even its will to fight.
This was the opposite. Far from the opponent being weak, it was Dragonite that stood on the weaker side, and that made the battle far more interesting.
"Give it everything, Dragonite. Use Outrage!" The command startled the whole arena. He'd called for Outrage.
Outrage is a Dragon-type's ultimate move, and a last resort. Using it lifts every stat, like a full-body buff, but after a while it drags the user into confusion, unable to tell friend from foe. In a duel between experts, where a single slip decides everything, falling into confusion is barely a step from suicide.
So in high-level matches a move like Outrage comes out only at the very, very end. As a trump card it can flip an entire battle, but it can just as easily be the final straw that breaks the user.
Drake's Dragonite clearly wasn't yet at that cliff's edge, so reaching for Outrage as a do-or-die gamble didn't fit his usually cool, collected nature. Maybe the battle had rattled him enough to throw his composure off. Either way, the moment Dragonite triggered Outrage, its power changed in kind. Pikachu pinning it the way it had been was no longer realistic.
"Wu-oh!"
Dragonite roared at the sky, the clarity in its eyes giving way to something savage. Its strength surged across the board even as a violent will crept over its mind. For now it could still hold, a thread of clarity surviving in the rage, enough to follow Drake's orders and think for itself.
Too much time, though, and it would tip into a full rampage. Dragonite was Drake's last Pokémon. Even if it fell into confusion, he couldn't recall it under the cover of a rotation. If Pikachu hadn't gone down by the time Outrage wore off, the battle would simply end there.
"Careful, Pikachu!"
Dragonite's state pulled a grim look from Ash too. In its Outrage state it had already passed the current Pikachu across the board. Partner form wasn't all-powerful. Even the Second Promotion stacked with partner form only lifted Pikachu's stats to the peak of his current tier. If Pikachu had reached his Third Promotion, he could have stood against an enraged Dragonite without flinching. He hadn't, so for now he had to dodge the worst of its edge.
"Dragonite, Agility!"
At Drake's call, Dragonite blurred into an afterimage and vanished from the field. Its speed, already lifted by Outrage, turned terrifying under Agility. Pikachu whipped his head around to track it, but the speed was too much, hard even for him to follow now.
"Now, Stomping Tantrum!"
"Wu-oh!"
Dragonite flashed above Pikachu and brought a massive foot stomping down.
"Pikachu, Iron Tail!"
Ash reacted the instant the attack came, but Dragonite was simply too fast. Pikachu's tail had only just taken on its metallic shine, and before he could raise a guard he was crushed underfoot.
A surge of Ground-type power poured into Pikachu, dealing heavy damage, and Dragonite's raw strength drove him straight down into the sand. The field, already loosened by all the clashing, swallowed him easily. Buried and battered, Pikachu was now pinned by the terrain itself, his limbs locked in the sand.
"Good, Dragonite! Use Bulldoze!"
Drake threw out an arm, riding the momentum.
Stomping Tantrum and Bulldoze were both Ground-type moves, both super effective on Pikachu. With Pikachu's thin stamina and Dragonite's Outrage-boosted attack, three super-effective hits at most would finish him. There was a path to victory here after all.
"Iron Tail!" Ash didn't flinch, calling the next command evenly.
Pikachu's eyes narrowed in the sand, and the tail buried deep in the soil whipped out. Sand erupted into the air, throwing up a screen that blocked Dragonite for a moment as it dropped from the sky to deliver two more stomps.
By the time Dragonite shook off the daze from the sand screen, the Pikachu on the ground was already gone.
"Gone? Where?"
"Zippy Zap!"
While Drake was still hunting for him, Ash's voice cut in again. Thunder crackled overhead, a golden arc flashed through the sky, and Pikachu, sheathed in lightning, was already in Dragonite's face.
Zippy Zap drove straight into Dragonite's soft belly. Its eyes bulged for a moment, and the wings beating on its back stalled.
"Don't give up, Dragonite! Ice Punch!" There was no retreating now. The opponent hadn't bothered to stall out Outrage and had come at them head-on instead. They couldn't let the chance slip. Taking a clean hit was no fun for Dragonite, but it felt its Trainer's desperate resolve. It wouldn't fold here.
"Wu-oh!"
Dragonite swallowed the pain and clenched a chubby fist. Ice-blue light bloomed as a cold aura gathered, even as Zippy Zap kept grinding its stamina away. The shock had its body half-paralyzed, yet through sheer will it forced the Ice Punch into being.
The punch caught Pikachu's small frame and flung him across the field, breaking the chain of damage Zippy Zap had been dealing and landing a hit of its own.
Pikachu spun twice through the air and came down clean on his feet. With Zippy Zap's electricity still wrapped around him, and with the Ice Punch only barely formed, the blow had done little real damage. Had Dragonite not been in its Outrage state, it likely couldn't have managed Ice Punch at all.
"Wu-ao!"
Having knocked Pikachu away, Dragonite didn't pursue. After a brief stillness it threw back its head and loosed a savage roar at the sky.
Drake's face changed. That roar meant Dragonite was nearly at its limit. If the match didn't end soon, Dragonite would tear itself apart without Pikachu lifting a finger.
"End it with this! Dragonite, Dragon Rush!"
He couldn't wait any longer. This move had to put Pikachu down. If it didn't, there was nothing left to say. It was over.
His voice clawed a thread of sanity back into Dragonite's near-spent mind. Eyes all but drowned in rage fixed on the Pikachu below. A terrifying killing intent gathered around it, and in a heartbeat Dragonite was wrapped in a mass of blue energy, dense not only with Dragon-type power but with every ounce of killing intent it had stored.
Outrage already deepened that intent, and channeling all of its hostility and energy into Dragon Rush made this the most powerful Dragon Rush in its history.
The whole field shook with it. Pikachu could feel the sand and stones around his feet trembling without pause. If not for Mewtwo's barrier covering the stands, the audience would long since have been unable to breathe under the pressure.
Ash drew a deep breath and called out. "Pikachu, let's bring out our strongest too."
"Pika-pika!" Ash had no thought of dodging, and neither did Pikachu. If they'd wanted to slip the attack, a single Zippy Zap would have carried them clear, and once Dragonite lost the last of its sanity it would be meat on the block, theirs to finish at leisure. They simply wouldn't. This was a choice of will and pride, an answer to Dragonite's full-power strike. They would meet it head-on.
"Pikachu, use 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt!"
"Pika-pika!" Pikachu threw his head back and cried out, his fur snapping on end as golden lightning poured off his body like boiling lava.
The blaze of electric light outshone the sun overhead, as if a second golden sun had risen over the field. The glare nearly forced the crowd's eyes shut, but they pried them open and bore the sting to watch the whole thing. Miss this one live, and who knew when a spectacle like it would come again. Even at the cost of dazzled eyes later, they had to see this final collision through.
By now Dragonite had dived into mid-air, blue Dragon-type energy and heavy killing intent braided into a sharp torrent that bore down on Pikachu like a falling meteor. The air ripped apart with a piercing shriek, and the sand below blasted outward in a ring.
Golden lightning and blue dragon breath detonated in mid-air, and the roar rolled across all of Pummelo Island.