Golden electricity sliced through the sky, aimed straight at the Dragonite in front of Drake. Pikachu's Thunderbolt wasn't a little stronger than Electivire's earlier one. The two weren't even in the same class.
As it tore out, the Thunderbolt swept up the sand and gravel across the field, forming a kind of stone-and-lightning cannon. Dragonite, relaxed and composed a moment ago, watched the strike close in, and its expression turned solemn. This opponent was nothing like the ones before it, not something it could brush aside. It had been a long time since it had faced anyone of this caliber.
"You feel it too, don't you, Dragonite? Answer with Dragon Pulse!" Drake gave the order without a trace of fear.
Dragonite loosed a clear, ringing roar as pale purple dragon energy gathered in its chest. Borne on a biting wind, the energy twisted into a dragon-shaped shockwave and surged forward to meet the golden current.
The two moves collided in the center of the field and burst apart, flinging dust and pressure into the sky. The shattered sand around them trembled with the shock. Purple Dragon Pulse and golden Thunderbolt ground against each other, neither giving an inch, trading force back and forth in blinding sparks and low rumbles.
Before long, Pikachu's Thunderbolt showed the higher class of power. The golden current moved as if alive, eating along the energy patterns of the Dragon Pulse and squeezing the purple dragon into a smaller and smaller space.
Dragonite poured more of itself in, and the pale light flared several shades brighter, but it only slowed the current's advance. The tide wouldn't turn.
A moment later the Dragon Pulse split open. The Thunderbolt, still dragging sand and gravel, broke through and shot straight at Dragonite.
"Dodge it!" Drake's call was fast. The Thunderbolt was faster. It punched through the last of the Dragon Pulse and slammed into Dragonite's body.
Dragonite groaned and stumbled. Part of its left wing was scorched from the burn, and the muscles in its shoulder buzzed faintly, but nothing was seriously hurt. The Dragon Pulse had cushioned the blow, and as a Dragon and Flying type it had no weakness to Electric moves.
"Pikachu, Quick Attack!"
"Dragonite, Extreme Speed!"
Ash went with Quick Attack, so Drake answered with Extreme Speed, a move faster still.
Both Pokémon dissolved into afterimages, streaking across the field. The crowd caught only two yellow blurs flashing through the arena, their movements impossible to follow.
Bang, bang, bang
The collisions came one after another, the clashes audible even when nothing was visible but flickering afterimages and trembling sand.
Even the seasoned announcer couldn't track the two clearly, seeing only a little more than the crowd did. The only ones who truly followed the movements were the two Trainers on the field.
A strong Trainer doesn't just own strong Pokémon. Their own eyes and reflexes have to keep pace, or they become dead weight. Trainer and Pokémon climb together, and a Trainer who can't match their partner's stride drags that partner's growth to a halt. That was part of why reaching the top was so hard.
Ash and Drake were both clearly powerful Trainers, so of course neither lost sight of his own Pokémon.
For the moment, Dragonite had the upper hand. With every collision a few more scars opened on Pikachu's body, and little by little he fell behind Dragonite's speed.
Pikachu's raw speed could outrun Dragonite's, but Dragonite was using Extreme Speed, a tier above Quick Attack, and that built-in acceleration was enough to erase the gap between them, even tilt it the other way.
"Iron Tail!" Ash shouted. Almost the instant the word left him, Dragonite and Pikachu crashed together once more, and this time Dragonite was the one sent flying back.
When the crowd's eyes caught up, they saw Pikachu had spun its back to Dragonite, its lightning-bolt tail gleaming with a metallic sheen.
So fast. The instant Ash's voice landed, Pikachu had answered with Iron Tail as if the two shared one mind. Most Pokémon, even hearing an order, couldn't react in so short a window, yet Ash's Pikachu both heard it and executed it.
After a beat of shock, the announcer's training kicked in and he started calling the action again. The clash a moment ago had moved too fast for even him to follow, and at that speed Pikachu had still caught Ash's command and acted on it in an instant.
The reaction and execution were almost too quick to believe, as if the move never traveled from ear to brain to body at all, as if Iron Tail simply fired on instinct the moment Ash spoke. Iron Tail wasn't a STAB move, but in Pikachu's hands it might as well have been.
"Pikachu, Thunderbolt!" Seeing Dragonite knocked back, Ash pressed the attack at once.
Pikachu landed light on the ground, sparks flooding across its body. The next second golden lightning loosed like an arrow, straight at the grounded Dragonite.
"Dodge it!" At Drake's call, Dragonite pushed through the pain, beat the small wings on its back, and lifted off the ground just in time to slip the Thunderbolt.
"Volt Tackle!" Ash had counted on the dodge. The real attack waited behind it. As his words faded, Pikachu vanished. A streak of golden lightning slashed across the sky, the crowd catching only a single bolt before thunder rolled overhead.
A dragon's anguished cry rang out with the crack. Volt Tackle had landed. Brilliant light flared in midair as Dragonite's whole body turned gold, its face twisting with the pain of the damage tearing through it.
Only then did Drake catch up. He hadn't been able to follow Pikachu's speed at all, and by the time his senses returned, Dragonite had already taken the hit. The move's name circled in his head, and he realized he couldn't dredge up a single scrap of information on it.
Drake had known Ash's Pikachu would be different in the hat. He hadn't known the hatted Pikachu carried its own exclusive moves, and this one in particular was nothing short of broken.
It came with the same acceleration as Extreme Speed but hit harder, because it was guaranteed to strike a vital point. On its own the move was only a shade stronger than Quick Attack, but a guaranteed critical turned it into a true finisher.
The cost to Pikachu was tiny, and it carried none of the recoil a strike of that force would normally demand. Add the acceleration on top, and it was easily the most versatile of Pikachu's four special moves.
Hit out of the sky, Dragonite's barely airborne body finally gave out and plunged.
Ash wouldn't waste the opening. "Pikachu, Bounce!"
"Pika-Pika!" Pikachu flipped head-down and dropped like a stone, its small body wrapped in pale yellow energy until it resembled a falling meteor. The wind gathered around it and fed the descent.
"Another one? Dragonite, Dragon Claw!" Yet another move he'd never seen. Drake didn't waste a thought on it and countered first.
The falling Dragonite forced one eye open, fixed Pikachu's line of descent, and crossed its arms as emerald light stretched from its claws.
Pikachu slammed down through the wind pressure and pale energy and struck Dragonite's crossed Dragon Claws like a meteor hitting earth. Emerald dragon energy and pale gold burst apart on contact, the shriek of tearing energy mixing with the dull crunch of jarred bone until the sound stabbed at the crowd's ears.
Dragonite was already numb from Volt Tackle's critical hit, and the Dragon Claws it had braced with everything it had began to crack under the weight of Bounce, splitting inch by inch. The emerald light scattered like broken glass. The Dragon Claw shattered. With the guard gone, Pikachu's leftover force drove into Dragonite, and the two figures overlapped and plunged toward the ground as one.
Dragonite crashed onto the sand, gouging a pit several meters across. The blast threw sand dozens of meters into the air, and it rained back down like a storm. The field was soft only next to ordinary ground, not a trampoline, and sand driven hard against the body still hurt. A fall from that height with that force left real damage.
Pikachu kicked off the impact and bounced clear, landing a short distance from Dragonite, its chest heaving. The chain of attacks had taken its own toll. From Iron Tail onward the assault hadn't stopped, Thunderbolt into Volt Tackle into Bounce, near-flawless links that gave Dragonite no room to breathe. They gave Pikachu none either.
Still, the result was good. Dragonite had been pinned the whole time and had to be running low on stamina, while Pikachu had taken damage only at the start, against Dragonite's Extreme Speed.
But a pseudo-legendary doesn't earn the title for nothing. A few seconds later Dragonite slowly pushed itself up from the pit. Wounds covered it, yet the fire in its eyes hadn't dimmed.
If anything it burned hotter. It had been so long since it met an opponent at this level. Down for the moment, sure, but that suited it fine. This was only the warm-up. The real fight had just begun.