"Light Screen!"
Togekiss hurriedly used Light Screen. Since it couldn't escape the attack, it would rely on Light Screen to reduce the damage instead. Thanks to that maneuver, Togekiss didn't take too much damage.
However, all the lightning Electivire had released was absorbed by the rain clouds overhead. The clouds grew even darker, and a low rumble echoed faintly from within, as if some monster were hiding inside them.
"End the battle—Thunder Beast!" Gary ordered.
"Vire!"
Electivire raised its right arm, golden current wrapping around it.
"Thunder Beast? What is that?"
Dahlia looked surprised and doubtful. This was the first time she'd ever heard of that move.
Was there really an Electric-type technique called Thunder Beast?
Boom!
With a muffled sound, an explosion rang out from the sky, accompanied by flashes of lightning and rolling thunder. A lion formed of golden lightning poked its head out from the clouds, gazing down at the ground below like a god.
"That... what is that?!"
Dahlia's pupils dilated. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Was that really a move?
"What the... what kind of move is that? It's terrifying."
"What is that monster made of lightning? It's horrifying!"
The surrounding audience was stunned as well. It was the first time any of them had seen such a technique.
"Vire!"
As Electivire's raised arm swung down, the thunder beast in the rain clouds descended.
Everyone present saw a brilliant white flash before their eyes, as if they'd been hit by a flash grenade.
Boom!!
With a roar, and after a few seconds, everyone's vision returned to normal—and they saw Togekiss lying on the ground, unable to battle.
"..."
Dahlia stood dumbfounded. She had been defeated so thoroughly. Electivire had beaten Togekiss in just three moves. Even with a type disadvantage, a Pokémon shouldn't go down in three moves.
The Thunder Beast that Electivire had just unleashed was simply an upgraded version of Thunder.
The move drew its inspiration from the idea of creating cumulonimbus clouds and then guiding the natural thunder of heaven and earth down onto the enemy.
Electivire released its own lightning up into the thunderclouds, then used that connection to call the accumulated thunder in the rain clouds crashing down. Not only did this give the move tremendous power, it also guaranteed a 100% hit rate. The speed of falling lightning simply couldn't be dodged—unless the opponent's speed could somehow exceed the speed of lightning itself.
However, the move was extremely costly. Electivire had essentially used up all the electricity it had stored over this period. If the battle were to continue, Electivire would basically be unable to use any more Electric-type moves.
If it had been Pikachu instead, running out of electricity would have left it with almost nothing to fight with. Electivire, at least, could still fall back on its other moves.
Among ordinary Pokémon, only Electivire could pull off the Thunder Beast, because it demanded an enormous amount of electricity—normal Electric-type Pokémon simply couldn't store that much power.
"Togekiss is unable to battle. Electivire wins!"
"Challenger Gary has won two matches first and is the winner of this Frontier battle!"
With the referee's announcement, the Battle Arcade challenge came to an end.
"Hahaha! I hit the jackpot!"
"Damn it, I should've borrowed more money if I'd known."
"No rush. The Lily of the Valley Conference starts soon—I can settle my debts then."
The gamblers in the crowd were ecstatic, especially at the thought of the upcoming Lily of the Valley Conference: win back some money, build up their credit, borrow a big sum, and then pour it all into the sports lottery and outside bets.
Gary could hear the chatter from the stands and felt a wave of contempt.
He had won the League Conference Championship three times, and this time he was entering the Lily of the Valley Conference as well.
The League's sports lottery wasn't run by fools, so they certainly wouldn't inflate his odds. In fact, for Gary's matches, there probably wouldn't even be a win-or-lose betting option—only side bets, like how many Pokémon Gary would use in a single match.
If they offered simple win-or-lose bets on him, wouldn't that just be handing out free money?
That said, if Gary wanted to profit, he could bet on Darkrai—because Darkrai had no record of ever competing in an open tournament before.
When the time came, the competitors at the Lily of the Valley Conference would have no way to research Darkrai's information.
For the entire Lily of the Valley Conference, aside from the two Pokémon he planned to use against Ash, the only Pokémon he would use in every other match was Darkrai.
After the match, Dahlia handed the battle print to Gary.
"Congratulations. This is the Arcade Print—take it."
"Thanks."
Gary accepted the Arcade Print. It was a badge bearing a letter mark on its surface.
[Ding! Mission completed. Rewards have been distributed to the space backpack.]
After receiving the Arcade Print, Gary left the Battle Arcade and headed to the Pokémon Center, where he handed the Pokémon that had battled over to Nurse Joy for treatment.
"Next up is the Battle Castle."
The head of the Battle Castle was also the castle's butler, a man named Darach.
Moreover, Darach served as the butler of Caitlin's family.
The Battle Castle was part of the Caitlin family's holdings, and the castle in the Sinnoh region was likewise under Darach's supervision.
It wasn't clear exactly what the relationship between Darach and Caitlin was, but using an Elite-level Trainer as a butler was clearly a bit of overkill.
Then again, the Caitlin family really was extremely wealthy—only the Sasaki family in the Johto region could compare. Honestly, being a rich family's butler probably beat slaving away for the League.
Elite-level Trainers were few in number, but in the League they'd be, at best, mid-level executives. And mid-level executives always had it the hardest in any department: not only did they have to hit the performance targets handed down from above, they also had to direct the people below them to get things done properly.
And when things went wrong, the people below complained and the people above criticized—sometimes you couldn't please anyone on either side.
After waiting for his Pokémon to finish treatment, Gary went up to his room and released Darkrai.
"Dark?"
Darkrai looked at Gary, unsure why it had been let out.
"It's nothing. I just want to improve your Ability," Gary said.
In the games, the Bad Dreams Ability targeted opponents in the sleep condition, draining one-eighth of their HP every turn.
But reality was different. In the real world, Bad Dreams attacked the dreams of sleeping targets, causing them to lose one-eighth of their maximum stamina—true percentage-based damage.
If it were strengthened, the drain would grow even larger. If it became one-quarter, then against an opponent of the same level, as long as the target was asleep, even a minor follow-up move could leave them severely damaged.
Darkrai: "Dark? (O_O)??"
Abilities could be improved?
Gary reached out, placed his hand on Darkrai, and used an Ability Enhancement Stone.
[Ding! Enhancement successful.]