Khan stood confidently, Gligar's empty pokeball in his left, Electabuzz's in his right. He faced off against Wild, who now leaned slightly forward as his massive Rhydon cracked its knuckles with a thunderous pop. The armored beast slammed its fists together, releasing a burst of dust that clouded the air around its feet. Its sharp eyes locked onto the pink, winged scorpion circling high above, tongue lolling out in mockery
Gligar buzzed through the air with ease, spinning playfully as if the battle meant nothing to him. Rhydon snorted, a puff of hot air curling from its nostrils as it awaited its trainer's command.
"Gligar!" Khan called, thrusting his hand upward toward the full moon that hung like a watchful eye above the battlefield. A sly grin played across his face, "Start with Poison Sting from the sky go!" He shouted as the crowd echoed with anticipation.
Gligar squealed in glee and instantly launched into a rapid spiral. The edges of its wings shimmered with violet energy as tiny venomous spikes formed. It streaked through the night air like a fighter jet, leaving a faint purple trail behind it.
Wild thrust a hand forward. "Not again! Rhydon, use Rock Blast! Cut off its path!"
With a roar, Rhydon slammed its feet into the ground. Jagged stones erupted from the earth, floating for a heartbeat before it punched them one after another, launching them like missiles toward the incoming Gligar.
But the scorpion like Pokémon was already weaving through the barrage, flipping and twirling with aerial grace. It dodged each stone by inches, letting out playful chirps as if mocking the brute's effort. It gave one last midair spin, catching the moonlight along its wings, and locked eyes with Rhydon.
Rhydon roared, stomping again to raise more stones. Its muscles rippled, blood pumping with rage, but Gligar's attack was already in motion.
Khan didn't miss a beat. "Now! Attack!"
The command rang out as Gligar dove like a fighter jet. More rocks launched toward it, but it twisted through the chaos, letting gravity help it descend faster and faster, Poison Stings flicking from its wings like deadly darts.
Rhydon raised its arms in defense, but some of the stingers pierced through its thick hide, injecting toxic venom into its system. It grunted, face contorting in discomfort, and shook its arms violently to fling the needles out. The crowd gasped as small splotches of black-purple seeped through the skin on Rhydon's arms, a sure sign the poison had taken hold.
Above, Gligar twirled once in midair and laughed. A mischievous, high-pitched cackle that echoed across the battlefield like a jester mocking a king.
"Hey, Wild! I've got a question for you!" Khan called out, lowering his hands, the cocky grin on his face refusing to fade.
Wild tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
"Why don't you use that Electivire? Or even the Pikachu?" Khan continued, his voice laced with mockery as he gestured lazily toward the sidelines. "I mean, this Rhydon isn't exactly doing you any favors, right? You haven't landed a single Rock Blast, and Gligar's immune to Thunder Punch. I'm guessing Rhydon's last move other than RockPolish is Ground-type too. Ehich, surprise, surprise, Gligar's also immune to."
The crowd murmured at first, but as Khan's words settled into the air, the terrain beneath their feet shimmered brighter, thickening with lush, vibrant grass. The Grassy Terrain responded to the audience's energy.
Wild's jaw tensed. He said nothing at first, just turned slowly toward his Rhydon, who stood breathing heavily, its body riddled with glistening purple welts where the Poison Stings had landed. Its eyes met his wounded, but still burning with an inner fire.
"Why doesn't he use Electric types anyway?" someone in the crowd called out.
"Yeah, isn't Vermilion a Electric type Gym?" another added, louder now. "He never actually fights with them, right? He just watches. Weird..."
Wild's hands curled into fists at his sides. He bit his lower lip, eyes flicking across the crowd, then back to his Rhydon, who was slowly weakening under the poison's constant drain. The once commanding energy on the battlefield had shifted entirely, the crowd turning, the Grassy Terrain blooming around Khan like it belonged to him.
Rhydon's gaze shifted upward, meeting Wild's for only a moment pain mirrored in both of their eyes, though came from very different things. It let out a slow, heavy breath, then closed its eyes.
And for a heartbeat, everything else faded. The noise. The moonlight. The match.
Only memory remained....
The air was thick with smoke, and the once-sweet scent of blooming flowers had long since been choked out by the acrid stench of gunpowder. Most of the buildings had collapsed into heaps of broken concrete and steel, and voices echoed through the city's skeleton.
Amid the devastation, a lone boy rode through the rubble on the broad back of a Rhyhorn. His dusty skin and tattered clothes bore witness to weeks perhaps months of unrelenting conflict. He tore a loaf of bread with calloused fingers and offered half to his steadfast companion, whose horned mouth crunched the crumbs gently.
The boy's eyes were dull, yellow irises scanning the devastation with a kind of numbed indifference, the way one looks at a painting they've seen too many times.
Another explosion sounded in the distance. It was from an Electrode. He could tell by the rhythm of it. It happened every hour or so, like some twisted clock ticking down to nothing. At first, the noise had terrified him. Now, it was just background noise, no more alarming than a cough.
"Hey, Rhyhorn," he murmured, voice rough as gravel. His yellow eyes searched the distant skyline for some sign that this war might one day end. Rhyhorn turned its broad head, growling softly in response
But before they could continue their quiet talk, Rhyhorn's stopped. With a sudden, sharp intake of breath, the great Pokémon whirled and ran towards the relative shelter of a narrow alley. The boy tumbled from its back, scraping his knee on broken bricks, but recovered quickly since his concern was sharper than the pain.
"What is it buddy?" he whispered, slipping off the Pokémon's back and creeping toward the edge of the wall.
He peeked around the corner.
A squad of soldiers in green camouflage crept through the wasteland, their rifles ready, Pokémon partners at heel. The intruders moved with deadly precision, scanning every shadow.
The boy's blood ran cold. He slipped back to Rhyhorn's side and vaulted onto its sturdy back. "Let's go," he breathed, pressing close to the creature's warm, coarse hide.
Rhyhorn grunted, then deftly backed out of the alley. With a graceful pivot that belied its massive form, it charged down a side street, its steps astonishingly silent. Most of the squad passed by, unaware, their boots thudding on cracked concrete.
Theboy and his Rhyhorn made their way deeper into the heart of the ruined city, the sound of Rhyhorn's heavy footsteps crunching over broken glass echoing off the hollow shells of buildings. Ash still floated gently in the air, and every gust of wind carried the scent of scorched concrete and distant smoke. They moved in silence like ghosts passing through a forgotten world.
Eventually, they stopped in front of a narrow, nondescript building, its windows shattered and its doorway half-collapsed. A flash of movement caught the boy's eye. A scraggly Rattata darting from a shadowed corner and vanishing through a hole in the wall.
The boy climbed down from Rhyhorn's back and crouched beside the same hole, brushing aside a piece of hanging tarp that concealed the entrance. He ducked inside, and Rhyhorn followed slowly, lowering its massive head to squeeze through the opening. The narrow passage gave way to a small room carved out between crumbled walls and debris. It wasn't much, but it was theirs.
Sunlight filtered through makeshift holes in the roof. The same ones that Rhyhorn had pierced intentionally to let in light during the mornings. A battered gas lamp stood on a crate in the corner, waiting to be lit once darkness fell. Against one wall lay a mattress, worn thin and stained by time, but still soft enough to collapse into.
With a small sigh of relief, the boy threw himself onto the bed, the thud of his body stirring a bit of dust into the air. He ran a hand through his messy white hair, pushing it back as he closed his eyes for just a moment, letting the weariness drain from his limbs.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze fell on the poster pinned to the wall. An old, torn image of a smiling singer named Wild in the middle of a performance. The poster had been rescued from the ruins of a music store and was now the only color in the room besides black,white and gray. He raised a hand to it, stretching out his fingers as if to touch a dream.
"Look, Rhyhorn," he said, his voice softer now, filled with a quiet fire.
The Pokémon stirred from where it had been settling into a corner, lifting its head with a low grunt to listen.
"When this war ends… I'm gonna be the biggest singer the world's ever seen," the boy declared, his golden eyes shimmering in the light of the dying day. "And I'll make music so powerful that it stops every war before it even starts. No one will have to hide in holes like this anymore. But to do that, I need you to protect me from everything until the very end! Okay?"
For a moment, the light through the roof caught his face, painting his expression in gold, like the sun itself was listening. Rhyhorn let out a deep, rumbling growl, a sound of support, of shared belief. The boy turned and grinned at him.
"Just you wait," he whispered. "We'll get there together."
....Rhydon opened its eyes.
For a fleeting second, it looked over its shoulder and in the haze of the battlefield, through the flickering lights and shifting terrain, it saw him.
A small boy, caked in dust and soot, glowing like a shard of sunlight in the ruins of a forgotten city.
Then the vision vanished.
Rhydon's gaze turned forward once more, its eyes now glowing a fierce, unwavering red. It locked onto Khan and Gligar without a shred of hesitation. Slowly, it raised its arms, steam hissing from the holes along its armored hide as it expelled the poison from its bloodstream forcing it out through the very wounds it had entered. The toxins evaporated into the air, sizzling against its body.
For a moment, the stadium froze.
Then the crowd erupted.
A thunderous roar swept through the audience, wave after wave of voices howling in disbelief and awe. The entire stadium shook not from the poison, not from the terrain but from Rhydon's next action.
It let out a roar.
A roar that split the air like a cannon blast, shaking the very foundation of the arena. Even Khan instinctively flinched, his body taking an involuntary step backward before he caught himself with a sharp breath.
He drew Electabuzz's Poké Ball close to his mouth, muttering something only the two of them could hear. Then he snapped his head toward Gligar, voice booming once more.
"Gligar, U-Turn!"
The pink scorpion shimmered with lime green energy and launched forward in a spinning dive. Rhydon stood tall and unmoving, as if the chaos around it no longer mattered.
Wild's voice cut into the battle. "Rhydon, don't let it get away!"
He clutched his hair in frustration, desperately trying to find a way to win.
Gligar slammed into Rhydon, then vanished into a burst of red light as Khan recalled it. The Poké Ball barely had time to close before Electabuzz burst from another in its place, one fist glowing bright blue with compressed energy.
"Now—FOCUS PUNCH!"
Electabuzz struck with brutal force, the blow reverberating across the field. But Rhydon didn't fall.
Its legs trembled, sure but it stood.
"Electabuzz, return! Gligar—U-Turn again!"
The cycle began anew.
Green energy flashed. A strike, a switch. Another flash. Another hit.
"Electabuzz, FOCUS PUNCH again!"
Again and again, the two Pokémon traded places. From the stands, it looked like there were three Pokémon on the field instead of two. The hits were relentless. Blows rained down on Rhydon like a merciless drumbeat.
"How the hell is he landing Focus Punch without the charge time…?" I muttered under my breath, eyes wide as I watched Rhydon absorb every blow, its armor cracked but unbroken.
Sammy let out a quiet sigh beside me and pointed toward Khan's Poké Ball.
"He's charging Focus Punch inside the Poké Ball," he explained. "Electabuzz builds the attack while it's in there, and releases it the moment it comes out."
I turned toward him in disbelief.
"That's actually very impressive!"
Sammy nodded. "But honestly?" He tilted his chin toward the battlefield. "I think that Rhydon's more impressive. That monster's tanked who knows how many Focus Punches and U-Turns by now."
I shifted my gaze back to Rhydon. The way it staggered, the way it braced itself even now it was still fighting to stay on its feet.
"That Rhydon… it's doing everything it can not to fall," I whispered.
Sammy chuckled. "It might sound corny," he said, brushing his bangs out of his eyes, "but that's the power of a Trainer and a Pokémon who really love and trust each other."
He stood up from his seat.
"Where are you going?" I asked, raising a brow. "Don't tell me you're leaving before my match."
He gave me a light punch to the shoulder, grinning. "Do I have to stay? You're just gonna use the same combo you've used ever since you battled me, aren't you?"
I snorted. "That predictable, huh?"
He shrugged. "Besides, Professor Cherry said she wanted to talk to me about something. Figured I'd check in."
That made me pause. "Huh. Weird. She hasn't said anything to me. Not since we saved Oddy and Vex."
Sammy raised an eyebrow. "Well, to be fair, you've only known her for what two weeks? Maybe give her a call."
He adjusted his bag, turning toward the exit. "Good luck with the challenge, though."
We shared a nod before he walked out of the backstage hallway, disappearing into the corridor.
I turned my focus back to the field.
Rhydon was still standing under the unending assault. Gligar and Electabuzz blurred across the stage like shadows trading places. But Rhydon didn't give in. It couldn't.