Froakie carefully replayed everything in his mind.
There had been almost no difference in the actual motions between the two attacks.
If there was one major difference, it was that during the second attempt, he had failed to enter that strange, almost mystical slow-motion state.
Maybe that was why he had failed.
If he could enter that state of extreme concentration again, then maybe he really could master this special force technique.
With that realization, Froakie immediately used Acrobatics again and dove straight at Fletchling.
Fletchling cautiously twisted aside once more, dodging the attack, and Froakie missed again.
The strike landed on a huge boulder, but once again only shattered one corner of it.
Still not enough?
Little by little, Froakie's mood became more and more agitated.
As his failures piled up, Fletchling regained its confidence and started to toy with him.
And those repeated attacks were not helping Froakie improve, they were actually making his performance worse and worse.
Ash did not know exactly what Froakie was thinking, but from what he could see, Froakie's state was obviously off.
His mentality was slipping, and it had to be stopped.
"Stop! Froakie, calm down!"
Froakie did not respond.
Aura!
Ash used his Aura to connect with Froakie's Aura and create a resonance.
That finally got Froakie to calm down for a moment.
He turned back and met Ash's eyes.
Just one look, seeing Ash's sincere concern and worry, and feeling it through their connected Aura, was enough to slow the turmoil in Froakie's heart.
"Froakie, getting stronger doesn't have to happen all at once. You're already much stronger than you used to be.
Now listen to me. Close your eyes. Let go of those distracting thoughts.
Then use Acrobatics one more time with your full concentration. Feel every release of the move carefully. Learn from each failure.
You'll succeed."
Following Ash's guidance, Froakie's frustration gradually settled down.
He closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, there was not a single distracting thought left in his mind.
His narrow eyes widened sharply, and his gaze turned razor-sharp, his presence like a peerless blade just about to leave its sheath.
That was it.
That strange feeling again, the sense that time had slowed and that anything was possible.
The key was absolute concentration, shutting out every stray thought.
With Ash's help, Froakie finally entered that fully focused state once more, a state of complete concentration without even the slightest distraction.
In the next instant, Froakie's legs exploded with force.
Like a bolt of blue lightning, he shot straight at Fletchling in the air.
Fletchling was ready this time and beat its wings to dodge again.
Thanks to the distance between them and its agile, unpredictable flight path, Fletchling barely managed to avoid Froakie's attack.
But the encouraging thing was that even though the attack itself missed, it had still succeeded.
When Froakie's strike landed on the giant rock below, a thunderous boom erupted.
The boulder, over fifteen feet wide and more than nine feet thick, split apart right down the middle.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Fletchling's alertness was extremely high, which meant it was not very realistic for Froakie to take it down with such direct, straightforward attacks alone.
At the same time, once Ash caught it, he certainly would not need to worry about that alertness anymore.
Ash's voice rang out.
"Again!"
Froakie, having already gotten a taste of success, did not hesitate at all.
"Croak!"
As he answered, his body shot into the sky again like a streak of blue lightning.
Rumble!
The attack missed again, but the doubled-power effect of Acrobatics triggered once more.
With Ash constantly tossing out Flying-type Pokéblocks to support him, the battle continued.
And as it did, Ash had already formed a rough estimate of Froakie's current strength.
Froakie had basically grasped the special force technique behind Acrobatics. In real combat, his success rate was probably around forty percent.
At the same time Ash made that evaluation, Fletchling had confirmed something over and over for itself.
With its speed, plus its flexible and unpredictable flight path, even though Froakie had explosive power, he simply could not hit it.
That realization made Fletchling grow even bolder.
While using long-range moves like Razor Wind to attack Froakie, it even dared to swoop in close with Quick Attack and Peck, practically provoking him at point-blank range.
That also gave Froakie the perfect chance to practice his movement, footwork, and positioning.
At first, with the level gap working against him, Froakie was pushed around badly by Fletchling and looked pretty miserable.
But as time passed, Froakie gradually came to understand Fletchling's attack patterns and habits.
With prediction added on top of his naturally strong speed, he became more and more comfortable dealing with it.
At one point, after dodging a Peck from Fletchling, Froakie spun around and launched a condensed sphere of water straight at Fletchling's back.
"Water Pulse?!"
That was not a move Froakie had known before.
It was a brand-new move he had just learned in the middle of battle.
Ash's face lit up with delight.
Froakie was still a little clumsy with it on his first use, but because it came so suddenly, it successfully hit Fletchling.
After that, Fletchling started growing cautious again and stopped approaching Froakie recklessly.
It even used Agility to boost its speed.
Then whenever Froakie tried to retaliate, it used Double Team to confuse him.
What Fletchling had not expected, though, was that Froakie possessed Aura.
And with Ash's help, Froakie's use of Aura had already been strengthened to a degree.
He easily pinpointed Fletchling's real body.
As Double Team was effortlessly broken through, that move not only failed to fool Froakie, it actually gave him an opening to land a heavy blow on Fletchling.
After fighting for so long, and getting hit once or twice here and there, Fletchling's body was growing tired and its stamina was steadily draining away.
Its speed was high, but Froakie was fast too.
Just throwing moves back and forth was not enough for either of them to decisively deal with the other.
Little by little, Fletchling's will to fight began to fade.
That should have happened long ago.
If Ash had not been constantly throwing out Pokéblocks to feed Froakie, and "accidentally" missing from time to time so that some of them ended up near Fletchling for it to snatch, Fletchling probably would have run out of stamina and flown away much earlier.
Now, though, it was pretty much at its limit.
It beat its wings and prepared to leave.
Ash, with his sharp eyes, immediately noticed that Fletchling had lost the will to fight and was planning to retreat.
He knew it was time to end this battle.
The reason he and Froakie had not defeated Fletchling yet was not because they could not.
If he caught Fletchling too early and then arranged sparring between the two Pokémon, there was always the risk of them slacking off or going through the motions. The training effect would never be as good as this.
Naturally, Ash had no intention of wasting such a perfect training opportunity.
As for the true finishing move Ash and Froakie had been saving?
That was, of course, Aura Sphere, a move that could change direction along with Aura and was effectively a sure-hit attack even in the real world.
Blue energy suddenly flared across Ash's body.
A powerful stream of Aura poured out and linked together with Froakie's own Aura.
"Froakie! Aura Sphere!"
Feeling that abundant Aura filling his whole body once again, Froakie did not even need Ash to explain.
He could already sense Ash's intent directly.
He drew both hands to his waist, and a blue Aura Sphere rapidly formed between them.
The violent pressure from the energy made Fletchling, already flying away from the area, glance back in astonishment.
There was another powerhouse here?!
Interesting, but too late.
It had already flown nearly a thousand yards away.
And with Agility boosting it so that its Speed had risen to +6 stages, it could easily dodge Froakie's attack whenever it wanted.
Froakie also realized that Fletchling was rapidly flying farther away.
So rather than maximize the move's power, he released Aura Sphere as soon as it had grown to about the size of a basketball.
Whoosh!
The blue Aura Sphere shot into the sky.
Fletchling, which had been watching the rear the whole time, abruptly changed direction and cleanly dodged its pursuit.
That's it?
You think something that obvious is going to hit me?!