The next thirty seconds were a nightmare.
Pika bounced around the arena like lightning given form, each contact point serving as launch for the next attack. She struck Landorus's shoulder, then its back, then its legs, then its neck, a dozen hits in the time most Pokémon could manage one. Every blow was precise, every impact targeting joints and pressure points that maximized damage despite the size differential.
Landorus spun, trying to track her, but the Legendary's bulk worked against it. By the time it oriented toward one attack, three more had already landed from different directions.
"Landorus, defensive posture! Guard your..."
Too slow. Pika struck again, this time landing a Double Kick to the back of Landorus's knee that buckled the massive Pokémon's stance. Another Quick Attack caught its descending head, snapping it backward.
The crowd was counting now. Fifteen hits. Twenty. Twenty-five. Each individually insignificant against a Legendary's constitution, but accumulating into something more dangerous.
Sasuke's mind raced through options. Earthquake was useless if Pika could simply dodge it. Stone Edge required targeting she wouldn't allow. Even Sandstorm, his prepared strategy, needed Landorus to survive long enough to establish it.
He needed to change the dynamics immediately.
"Landorus!" His voice cut through the chaos. "Primal Reversion, now!"
The transformation began instantaneously.
Light erupted from Landorus's body, ancient power responding to Sasuke's command. The Legendary's form shifted, streamlined, became something more aerodynamic without losing its fundamental power. Primal energies that predated human civilization flowed through muscles and sinew, enhancing speed and reaction time alongside raw strength.
Primal Landorus rose from the transformation like a force of nature reborn.
Pika was mid-attack when the change completed, her Quick Attack aimed at where Landorus's head had been. But Primal Landorus wasn't there anymore. It had moved, for the first time in the battle, with speed that nearly matched its opponent's.
The Electric-type's eyes widened slightly, surprise, perhaps the first she'd shown.
"Interesting," Sakumo observed. "Primal Reversion to counter speed disadvantage. A reasonable adaptation."
Pika landed on the arena floor, and for the first time since the battle began, both Pokémon stood still, Primal Landorus towering above, Pika small but utterly unintimidated below. They assessed each other with the calculation of veteran warriors.
"Now," Sasuke said..."we fight properly."
The exchange that followed was different from the opening assault.
Pika still moved with blinding speed, but Primal Landorus could track her now, not perfectly, but enough to anticipate, to react, to respond. When the Electric-type launched her next Quick Attack, the Legendary was already turning, its massive arm sweeping through the space Pika had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
She dodged, but closer than before.
"Earth Power!" Sasuke commanded.
Primal Landorus directed energy downward, and the ground beneath Pika erupted. The Electric-type leaped clear, but the attack had forced her into the air, into a predictable trajectory that Landorus was already targeting.
"Stone Edge!"
Crystalline pillars exploded upward, creating a cage of rock that limited Pika's dodging options. She wove between them with supernatural grace, but her movement was constrained now, channeled toward openings that Sasuke had anticipated.
"Good," Sakumo said, genuine approval in his voice. "You're learning mid-battle. Adapting. That's rare."
"Thunder!"
Pika's counter came from between the Stone Edge pillars, a bolt of lightning that screamed toward Primal Landorus with killing intent. The Ground-type didn't bother dodging. The attack struck, electricity cascading across Primal Landorus's form in spectacular display,
And dissipated harmlessly.
Type immunity remained absolute.
"That's why you chose Ground-type," Sakumo observed. "You knew Electric attacks wouldn't matter. You built your entire strategy around survivability."
"Among other things."
Primal Landorus pressed its advantage. With Thunder neutralized, Pika was limited to physical attacks, powerful, but requiring her to enter close range where the Legendary's superior mass became relevant. She darted in for another Quick Attack, but Landorus was ready.
Hammer Arm.
The massive limb swept through Pika's approach vector with crushing force. The Electric-type tried to redirect, but the attack caught her glancing blow, the first solid hit she'd taken. She tumbled through the air, recovered, landed in a defensive crouch.
The crowd erupted. First blood against the gym leader's legendary Pikachu.
But Sasuke didn't celebrate. He'd seen how Pika landed, controlled, balanced, showing no sign of significant damage. That hit would have devastated a normal Pokémon. Against forty years of conditioning, it was barely a scratch.
"You're doing well," Sakumo said. "Better than most challengers manage. But Pika hasn't shown you everything yet."
"Neither has Landorus."
"Then let's see." Sakumo's expression shifted slightly, still kind, still warm, but carrying an edge now that hadn't been there before. "Pika. Stop playing."
The small Electric-type's demeanor changed.
Where before she had moved with fluid grace, now she became something else entirely, a predator that had finished assessing its prey. The electricity crackling across her form intensified, red cheek pouches glowing with power that seemed impossible for her small body to contain.
"Extreme Speed."
Pika disappeared.
This was faster than before. Faster than Quick Attack. Faster than Agility-boosted movement. This was speed that bent physics, that crossed the arena in the space between heartbeats, that struck from angles that shouldn't have been geometrically possible.
Primal Landorus took hits from three directions simultaneously.
No, not simultaneously. So fast that the gap between impacts was immeasurable by human perception.
"Extreme Speed to Volt Tackle!"
Electricity erupted. Not the crackling Thunder that Landorus's typing would ignore, but electricity as a physical phenomenon, Pika's entire body becoming a living thunderbolt that slammed into the Legendary with concussive force.
Primal Landorus crashed backward, carving a trench through the arena floor.
The Ground-type rose, but slower than before. Damage was accumulating despite type immunity. Pika's pure physical power, enhanced by four decades of training, was bypassing the type chart entirely.
Sasuke's jaw tightened. His Primal Reversion advantage was being countered by moves he hadn't anticipated. Sakumo was showing him exactly why forty-three consecutive challengers had failed.
Time to implement the actual strategy.
"Landorus," Sasuke said quietly. "Sandstorm."
The Legendary's eyes met his, understanding passing between them in that single moment.
Then the sand began to rise.