"Magnezone! Take it!"
"Then use Explosion!"
There was a desperate edge in Darren's eyes.
He knew his Pokémon could not beat Aaron's, but he had to take down at least one of them. If he got swept three-to-zero by a freshman without scoring a single knockout, he would never hear the end of it.
This had been his fallback plan from the beginning: get Magnezone close, let Sturdy keep it standing through one of Snorlax's attacks, then use Explosion and take Snorlax down with it.
BOOM!
Snorlax's Armament: Mega Punch came crashing down like Garp's Iron Fist.
The blow slammed into Magnezone and caved in part of its metal body—but a mysterious force held it together.
Sturdy activated.
Because Magnezone had been at full strength, the attack could not knock it out in one hit. A sliver of stamina remained.
"Magne... zone..."
Magnezone groaned in pain as brilliant light began pouring from its body.
Explosion.
"Snorlax! Full-Body Conqueror's Haki Armament!"
Aaron reacted immediately.
He had not expected Darren to commit this decisively, but he had been wary of Explosion from the moment Magnezone entered the field.
"Snor... lax!"
A red-black metallic coating spread across Snorlax's entire body a split second before Magnezone detonated.
BOOOOM!
The blast shook the campus.
A mushroom cloud surged skyward, and the shockwave tore across the battlefield like hurricane-force wind. Hats went flying. A few unlucky wigs followed them.
Students grabbed the railings to keep themselves from being blown backward.
Smoke and dust swallowed the entire arena.
For more than ten seconds, nobody could see a thing.
Then the smoke slowly thinned.
Magnezone lay at the bottom of a huge crater, blackened and smoking, completely unable to battle.
But another massive figure was still standing inside the crater.
Snorlax.
Its body was black as steel beneath the full-body Haki coating. The outer layer was scorched in places, but Snorlax itself looked completely unharmed.
"Snor... lax!"
It threw back its head and roared in victory, the force of its presence kicking dust away from its feet.
The stands went dead silent.
Was that even a Snorlax anymore?
That thing was Snor-God.
It had taken Explosion at ground zero and was still standing there like nothing had happened.
How was that remotely fair?
"That was like setting off a nuke in the middle of campus. My brain just shut down."
"Snorlax hits like a truck and can turn into Iron Man too? How the hell are you supposed to fight that? That's straight-up cheating!"
"This is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous."
"A freshman did this?"
"That thing's basically a raid boss!"
"What's his name? I think I'm already in love. Somebody pull me out of this."
"I can help with that. I'm pretty experienced with the whole in-and-out thing."
"A freshman just swept all three of a sophomore's Pokémon. This guy's going to be famous."
...
The crowd continued staring at the gleaming, steel-black Snorlax in disbelief.
Aaron, meanwhile, calmly took out its Poké Ball.
"Come back, Snorlax."
Then he turned toward the tousle-haired referee.
"I won. You can call it now."
The referee was covered in dust and looked as though he had crawled out of a demolition site. He swallowed hard before finally raising his flag.
"Magnezone is unable to battle! All three of Darren's Pokémon are down!"
"The winner is Aaron!"
The freshmen erupted.
"SNOR-GOD!"
"WOOOO!"
"I love you!"
"I want to have your babies!"
"I can give you little Munchlax too!"
...
Darren walked over, still looking dazed.
"Who... exactly are you?"
ROOOAR!
A roar rolled down from the sky.
A massive Charizard descended beside Aaron and Darren, its wings kicking up loose stones and dust.
A handsome young man in a Pokémon League University uniform jumped down from its back. A Student Council badge gleamed on his chest.
...