"Magnezone is unable to battle! Aggron wins!"
Watt's voice echoed across the battlefield.
The shock on Wattson's face hadn't faded; his eyes were glued to Mega Aggron, refusing to look away.
"Just one hit and it was..."
At this stage, Mega Stones and Key Stones weren't standard-issue equipment for Gym Leaders yet. To Wattson, this was a rare phenomenon—something he'd heard of but never truly experienced up close.
He hadn't expected the power of Mega Evolution to be this staggering!
For a moment, Wattson's emotions were a messy cocktail of excitement at facing a powerful foe and sheer bewilderment that his Pokémon had been folded like a lawn chair in one go.
It felt less like he was the Gym Leader testing Kashiwagi, and more like Kashiwagi was the one giving him a lesson.
And looking at the lineup he had prepared this battle, that trend seemed likely to continue.
"Return!"
Wattson recalled Magnezone and forced out a few booming laughs.
"Wahahaha! You've got some skills, kid! Looks like I'll have to get serious!"
He tossed his next Poké Ball.
"Go! Electrode! Use Magnet Rise!"
Pop!
The flash of light materialized into a waist-high, red-and-white sphere. Two beady eyes and a wide mouth full of gleaming white teeth replaced the standard central button.
"E-lec-trode!"
The moment Electrode hit the ground, sparks danced across its surface. As its body began to levitate, the current spread across the battlefield.
In an instant, the ground began to crack, and boulders of all sizes were unearthed, creating a jagged, rocky terrain.
Are you crazy? Giving Mega Aggron a terrain advantage?!
If Kashiwagi wasn't currently busy suppressing the chaotic noise in his head, he definitely would have started roasting the old man by now.
However...
For some reason, he was actually sharing the mental burden caused by the overflow of energy within Mega Aggron.
This sensation had appeared during their very first Mega Evolution, but now it had become a sharp, direct experience.
Do other Trainers go through this?
In the anime, when Korrina's Lucario was learning to master Mega Evolution, the focus was on Mega Lucario going berserk while Korrina herself was fine.
On his end, Mega Aggron was perfectly under control, but Kashiwagi's own head was throbbing. His mind was filled with nothing but the word "BATTLE", leaving zero room for witty commentary.
This feeling of having your brain "overclocked"... honestly, it was a terrible user experience.
"Stone Edge!"
"G-R-O-N!!"
Mega Aggron clenched his claws and roared at the sky. Countless grains of sand and jagged rocks swirled into the air, forming two rotating rings of stone around him.
With a sudden flick, they launched toward Electrode like artillery shells!
Whiz—whiz—whiz—!
The stones pierced the air with ear-splitting shrieks.
Wattson yelled frantically,
"Dodge it! Roll and use Electro Ball!"
"Tro-de!"
Electrode spun with incredible agility. Its spherical body allowed for 360-degree high-speed movement, and by using Magnet Rise to manipulate electromagnetic forces, it could pull off sudden stops and mid-air turns that defied inertia.
Most of the sharp stones launched by Mega Aggron were evaded by Electrode's frantic rolling.
The few it couldn't dodge were weakened by the lingering Reflect barrier; when they hit, the sphere barely even winced.
Magnezone might have gone down fast, but it had at least contributed a defensive screen for its teammate.
Once the Stone Edge barrage ended, Electrode twisted its body, tracing a sharp "7" shape through the air as it lunged toward Mega Aggron like a pinball.
Its speed was absurd. Even with Kashiwagi's sharpened dynamic vision, he barely reacted in time, instinctively leaning his body to the side.
Mirroring his Trainer, Mega Aggron also shifted his weight to dodge.
Whoosh!
The rolling Electrode grazed Aggron's shoulder and flew behind him, slamming—BANG—into a floating rock held up by Magnet Rise.
It shattered the rock halfway and immediately ricocheted back like a billiard ball hitting the cushion!
At the same time, tiny bolts of lightning began to crackle and jump across its surface. In a heartbeat, Electrode was enveloped in a halo of thunder. It was a terrifying sight!
Clearly, it never intended to attack Aggron head-on. It planned to use the rebound force to deliver a vicious blow to his back!
And Electro Ball was the perfect move for this—the faster the user was compared to the target, the higher the damage. Against a slow-moving tank like Mega Aggron, it should have been devastating.
But Kashiwagi wasn't about to let it have its way. He roared: "Rock Tomb!"
"A-G-G-R-O-N!!"
Mega Aggron stomped his right foot violently. Massive pillars of rock erupted from the earth right in front of the incoming Electrode.
Electrode hadn't expected the behemoth to be so quick on the draw. It slammed head-first into the stone wall.
BAM! CRACK!
Sizzle—!
Rocks exploded into fragments as lightning flared like fireworks. Acrid smoke billowed up. Electrode was sent flying backward by the impact, hitting a jagged boulder and bouncing off in another direction.
Though it had used the raw power of Electro Ball to smash through the Rock Tomb and technically land a hit, the move's energy had been mostly spent breaking the rocks. Even as a Special Attack hitting Aggron's reinforced armor, the leftover damage was negligible.
Sure enough...
As the dust cleared, Mega Aggron didn't have any sign of pain on his face. There wasn't even a scuff mark on the back plates where the impact had occurred.
Electrode, seeing this, kept bouncing around the perimeter, not daring to charge in again.
"What a brick wall! This is going to be trouble!"
Wattson scratched his receding hairline. He'd had Electrode pull out its best tricks, and it still hadn't made a dent in Mega Aggron.
Do I really have to play the long game and whittle him down?
On the other side of the field, Kashiwagi also frowned.
Electrode was fast—absurdly fast.
It was quicker than any opponent Kashiwagi had faced before. Using the boulders unearthed by Magnet Rise and the surrounding walls as springboards, it ricocheted back and forth in a chaotic, unpredictable blur.
Mega Aggron was having a nightmare of a time trying to pin the electric sphere down.
Should I try a wide-range move to flush it out?
No.
There was a better way.
"Return!"
Kashiwagi acted decisively, recalling Mega Aggron into his Poké Ball just as Electrode was prepping its next flight path.
The moment Mega Aggron entered the ball, Kashiwagi felt his mind instantly clear.
The mental fog and the heavy psychic burden vanished in a heartbeat—a miraculous side effect of the Poké Ball itself.
He didn't know the science behind it, just like he didn't know why he shared Aggron's strain in the first place, but he wasn't complaining.
He immediately hurled another ball, aiming for a blind spot where Electrode would struggle to pivot.
Luckily, in this world, Pokémon swaps didn't require the newcomer to appear exactly where the predecessor stood, or Porygon would have walked straight into a high-speed tackle.
"What's this?"
Wattson was genuinely surprised. From his perspective, Mega Aggron held the clear advantage. But his surprise deepened when he saw Kashiwagi's choice.
"A Porygon? Electrode, use Electro Ball!" Wattson shouted, a bad premonition bubbling in his chest.
"Tro-de!"
Mid-rebound, Electrode adjusted its trajectory, forcing a jagged, trapezoidal path through the air.
Clad in a cloak of crackling lightning, it surged toward Porygon, who had just materialized behind a large rock.
"Trick Room!" Kashiwagi commanded.
Porygon's body shimmered with a faint blue light. Suddenly, countless translucent blue cubes rose from the white boundaries of the battlefield.
Under Wattson's shocked gaze, they formed a massive, distorted rectangular dimension before vanishing from sight.
CRASH!
The boulder in front of Porygon was pulverized by the lightning-shrouded Electrode. But even as stone fragments rained down, Porygon's digital expression didn't flicker.
"Dodge it!"
"Pory!"
With a subtle slide, Porygon burst into motion with speed that was, quite frankly, freakish. It slipped past Electrode with mere inches to spare.
Electrode flew straight toward the outer wall, but as it bounced back into the arena, its speed hit a brick wall. Its rotation slowed, and its momentum became sluggish, moving like a snail through molasses.
Trick Room—a mysterious move that reverses the flow of time and space, making the slowest Pokémon the fastest and the fastest ones the slowest.
Wattson's eyes nearly popped out of his head. He had considered using Porygon for the city's smart-grid precisely because of its digital nature, but he had never studied its actual move pool. He had no idea it could warp reality like this!
Electrode was now effectively moving in slow motion.
Since Wattson, as the Gym Leader, couldn't switch out, he had no choice but to stall until the dimension collapsed.
"Use Discharge!"
"Conversion 2".
The orders were barked simultaneously.
Electrode erupted in a violent explosion of yellow electricity. Jagged serpents of lightning lashed out, covering nearly half the field in a blinding web of energy.
However, Porygon's blue parts suddenly shifted into a dull, brownish-tan hue. It glided through the intense current as if it were a light breeze.
By converting its type to Ground, Porygon had rendered the electricity useless.
Unless it ran into "The Pikachu" that could ignore the laws of physics, it was effectively untouchable.
"Nani!?" Wattson gasped.
"Isn't Porygon a Normal-type?!"
Kashiwagi was equally surprised by the old man's shock.
"You didn't know Porygon had special abilities like this? Then I won't hold back. Ice Beam!"
"Po-ry!"
Porygon's antenna-like tail whipped upward, and a spark of freezing energy ignited at its tip.
Several jagged streaks of ice-blue light shot forth, cutting through the fading sparks of Discharge and slamming directly into Electrode.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The blue light flared, followed by the sound of rapid freezing. Electrode was instantly encased in a massive, jagged sphere of ice, crashing heavily onto the floor.
THUD!
The now-frozen Electrode blinked its tiny, beady eyes behind the layer of crystal, wobbling helplessly in place like a very cold, very confused bowling ball.
Electrode was solid ice!
In the anime, Ice Beam seems to have a nearly 100% freeze rate whenever the plot demands it.
Kashiwagi, being a "luck-sack" blessed by the Lucky Scale, frequently found himself on the winning side of these low-probability secondary effects.
Today was no exception.
Wattson, seeing so many of his variables spiraling out of control, bellowed,
"Electrode! Use Sonic Boom to break free!"
Across the field, Kashiwagi moved with practiced speed.
He recalled Porygon and sent Mega Aggron back into the fray.
The mental strain hit him again like a physical weight, making it hard to breathe, but he forced the command out through gritted teeth:
"Finishing blow! Aggron, use Stone Edge!"
"G-R-O-N!!"
Mega Aggron let out a low, guttural growl and slammed his right claw into the floor.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Giant, glowing blue stone pillars erupted from the earth in a rapid-fire sequence.
They raced toward Electrode, who was desperately vibrating its body, sending out high-frequency sound waves to shatter the ice encasing it.
Just as the ice cracked and Electrode regained its freedom, the massive Stone Edge pillars arrived.
With a thunderous roar, they surged from the ground, tearing through the flickering Reflect barrier and slamming directly into the sphere!
POW!
The giant rocks exploded upon impact, turning into a cloud of jagged shrapnel that dealt secondary damage to the airborne Electrode.
It couldn't help but let out a cry of pain.
"E-lec...!"
Wattson clenched his fists, looking up at his flying Pokémon.
"Hang in there, Electrode!"
But under the overwhelming power of Mega Aggron's attack, it clearly couldn't hold on much longer.
It was likely one breath away from fainting—all it would take was the impact of hitting the ground to finish it off.
In that split second, seeing Electrode flying toward Mega Aggron, Wattson made a snap decision.
"Explosion!!"
In mid-air, Electrode didn't hesitate. It ignited every ounce of electrical energy within its core.
Its body flared with a terrifying white light, bright enough to seem like it would annihilate everything in the room.
"I've been waiting for that move! Dig!" Kashiwagi shouted.
Mega Aggron's claws became a silver blur as he shredded the arena floor, diving deep into the earth in a matter of seconds.
The next instant—
KABOOM—!!
A blinding white flash, accompanied by a colossal shockwave, ripped through the gym.
The boulders previously held up by Magnet Rise were pulverized into fine dust instantly.
The shockwave filled every visible inch of space.
The air and ground groaned under the vibration as if the very foundation of the building were giving way.
The roar was so loud that several fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickered and died.
Even wearing his Team Magma gear, Kashiwagi was forced back several steps by the sheer pressure.
Compared to Steelix's Explosion, Electrode's was arguably even more concentrated.
Due to the enclosed space, there was no mushroom cloud; instead, the dust swirled violently within the arena, obscuring everything.
Fortunately, the Gym was equipped with high-powered ventilation fans—likely a necessity given Wattson's explosive hobbies.
The dust was quickly sucked away, revealing a flat, barren floor.
Well, mostly flat. If you ignored the hole Mega Aggron had dug, it would have looked quite tidy.
Electrode lay outside the battlefield boundaries, wisps of black smoke curling off its singed surface.
Its pearly white teeth were oddly brilliant under the remaining gym lights.
"Gron..."
Sensing the chaos had settled, Mega Aggron hauled himself out of the ground.
"E-Electrode is unable to battle! Aggron wins! The Gym Leader has two Pokémon remaining!"
Watt announced from behind the safety of the referee's podium, his voice slightly shaky.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Wattson coughed through the dust, looking at Electrode with a mix of pride and regret. He'd had a solid hand, but he'd played it poorly.
"Rest well. You did a fantastic job."
He recalled Electrode and looked at his remaining two Poké Balls, hesitating.
He had checked Kashiwagi's record beforehand and specifically chose four reliable Pokémon to provide a challenge.
He hadn't expected the boy's strength to grow at such a terrifying speed. His remaining team members simply weren't at the right power level anymore.
Should I swap them?
Wattson thought it over. The duty of a Gym Leader was to ensure the challenger learned something from the battle. A one-sided slaughter wouldn't teach Kashiwagi anything.
He made up his mind.
Under the confused gazes of Watt and Kashiwagi, he walked to the wall and hit a hidden switch. A small compartment opened, revealing six different Poké Balls.
As he swapped his team, Wattson explained,
"Your strength far exceeds my expectations. I've decided to bring out my true heavy hitters to face you!"
A mid-battle roster change?
Kashiwagi blinked in surprise, then gave a respectful nod.