As the battle began, Alex could immediately tell there was something wrong with Alaric's pseudo-legendary Pokémon. They didn't have the decisive instincts of Pokémon but were more akin to puppets with mechanical movements. Without a doubt, their strength was still at Master rank, but their expertise was subpar.
Taking a closer look, he noticed they weren't fully cybernetic like Paradox Pokémon from the future. Instead, they were merely augmented with armor, guns, and extra appendages. They looked like Pokémon that had been fully encased in armor without much thought or respect for their capabilities, hence their clunky movements.
All of this was to say they weren't really fighting legitimate Master ranked Pokémon but Master ranked training dummies instead. Gardevoir understood this as she arranged the attack team's matchups.
In order of speed, Dragapult was quite possibly the greatest threat among Alaric's Pokémon, able to disappear in and out of the ghost's Shadow World, so she sent out Raticate's high-speed team to handle it. They might not be the fastest in terms of stats, but their specialty with Quick Attack, Extreme Speed, and Phantom Force ensured they could intercept it consistently. Gardevoir even requested that Alex activate Raticate's Mega Evolution to help Ceruledge fight it.
Alex obliged, turning Raticate's typing into Normal/Ghost, allowing it to follow Dragapult into the Shadow World. He grew a crown on his head and an extra two tails for a total of three, each ending in a hovering ghostly Rattata. He and his team then coordinated to lock down Dragapult and prevent it from interfering with the main battle.
Garchomp, being the second fastest, was a significant threat as well, able to both fly at high speeds and dig underground. To counter it, Gardevoir sent out Lucario's team. Like Raticate's team, they weren't the fastest, but they were more than fast enough, with Gallade's short-range Teleport allowing them to keep up. Plus, they all knew Ice Punch, which would no doubt give them the edge they needed to bring it down.
Salamence came next, which was, simply put, an easy fight. Grim's team chased it in the air and outmatched it in raw speed, with Roaring Moon's Protosynthesis and Booster Energy equipped, while Knight bombarded it with a nonstop barrage of Dazzling Gleams. Even Hydreigon joined in with Dragon Rush, knocking it around and preventing it from properly maneuvering in the hallway.
The same could be said for Hydreigon, which was handed over to Kommo-o's team. Dusknoir's Gravity nullified its Levitate, holding it to the ground, where Togekiss's Dazzling Gleam and Kommo-o's Belly Drum-boosted Close Combat dealt devastating damage.
Baxcalibur was the same, given the matchup with Urshifu's team, consisting of Azuking and Grimmsnarl. Baxcalibur, being Dragon/Ice, had a tough time breaking through Azumarill's defenses given its Water typing, while the latter matched its damage hit for each brutal hit. Then Urshifu pummeled it with Adamant Strike, guaranteeing Steel-type critical hits, while Grimmsnarl weakened it.
Lastly, there was Kommo-o, which was giving Seismitoad's team of Breloom and Raichu a hard time. They didn't have a type advantage to lean on, nor a particularly powerful member to carry the fight, and they weren't especially high in the Champion ranks. Instead, they relied on longevity to match Kommo-o's fighting style.
Breloom began by sprinkling it with Leech Seed, healing everyone in the vicinity as it siphoned energy, while Raichu slowed it down with Thunder Wave. Seismitoad moved in to tank hits directly while continuously applying poison through Poison Touch. Seismitoad and Breloom then alternated between holding it back and recovering with Drain Punch.
All the while, Raichu maintained a steady stream of debilitating moves like Charm, Eerie Impulse, Fake Tears, and Tail Whip, steadily lowering all of its stats to a manageable level. The team prioritized survival and containment while continuously stacking status conditions throughout the fight.
Despite the fact that each of these pseudo-legendary Pokémon had guns mounted on their backs that fired a constant stream of Feint and Phantom Force bullets, the attack team still managed to contain them. There was only one Elite ranked gun per Pokémon, so whoever was the immediate target simply took evasive maneuvers while firing off potshots, while the remaining two alternated between tanking and attacking in perfect sync. It made it impossible for a single Pokémon to handle all three of them when they worked together.
It didn't take long for the Metagross to understand this. They were losing most of this fight from the onset. Even when it tried to bring them together for a coordinated bombardment, they were still shoved away by the attack team, taking their devastating fight to the flanks.
Meanwhile, Alex's defense team, consisting of over 20 Champion ranked Pokémon, was joined by himself and Rotom, which added 5 gatling cannons, overwhelming the remaining Pokémon consisting of Goodra, Dragonite, Tyranitar, and Metagross. Simply put, they were outnumbered and unable to properly maneuver, especially since Gardevoir wasn't easy to fool with strategy and tactics. She knew she had the advantage in numbers, and she wasn't shy about using it.
Unfortunately, Metagross had an advantage that Gardevoir didn't. The fact that all their Pokémon except itself were disposable meant they could still pull a win so long as they managed to get rid of Alex.
Immediately, all the guns on each of their Pokémon swiveled toward Alex and opened fire, sending tens of thousands of Elite ranked rounds his way. The defense team moved to block, clumping in front of Alex, but even with their numbers, Champion ranked strength, and triple bombardments, they couldn't stave off the intense concentrated fire. One by one, Alex's Pokémon started fainting before being retrieved by Rotom, healed with Max Revive, and sent back into the fray. They were bleeding inventory and stamina too fast for it to be sustainable.
On the bright side, the pseudo-legendaries were taking an inordinate amount of damage as they ignored their opponents and focused on Alex, meaning they couldn't keep this up for long either. Even so, if this continued, Alex would without a doubt win the battle, but at what cost.
Unwilling to sacrifice his Pokémon any longer, Alex decided to draw their attention away while having his Pokémon focus fully on taking the pseudo-legendaries down as fast as possible.
"Gardevoir, split to the sides and move to eliminate both flanks before converging on the center," Alex commanded.
"Gar-Gardevoir!" Gardevoir objected, but Alex insisted, so she had no choice but to follow orders.
Like the Red Sea, the defense team split to the sides and charged at the Pokémon on the flanks, aiming to bring them down as fast as possible.
Metagross was caught off guard by such a reckless tactic and recalculated with suspicion, but with the king exposed and ripe for the taking, it couldn't resist sacrificing everything for the gamble.
Alex stood against the rain of bullets heading toward him, but before even a single one could land, he released Guzzlord in front of him with its mouth gaping. Like a black hole, it swallowed all the incoming fire while healing through the ones that hit it. Being at peak Champion rank, even with a dozen gatling cannons firing at it, the sparse amount of bullets that hit it wasn't enough to overwhelm its use of Swallow, so it tanked far beyond what any normal Pokémon should.
Realizing its mistake, Metagross tried to split the guns back onto their targets, but it was too late. Dragapult and Garchomp were focused on and knocked out. Max Revives were automatically administered by the armor, but the focused fire destroyed their armor, knocked them out, and killed them outright, freeing up Alex's attack team to pile onto the others.
Like dominoes, each of the attack team's opponents fell in sequence, collapsing into the next until only Goodra, Dragonite, Tyranitar, and Metagross were left, with Alaric standing right behind them with a nervous expression.
He didn't consider, even for a second, that his Metagross and its empowered disposable pawns could lose to even a Master ranked trainer, so the outcome of the battle shocked him. It drove deep into him the reality of his own mortality, his weakness, and ultimately his failure to accomplish his goals.
"I never thought it would end like this, but so be it," he said with finality.
He took out a remote and pressed a series of buttons, triggering the reinforced doors behind him to slide open.
Inside was a laboratory filled with computers, thick wires, and cooling systems, and at its center stood a containment chamber of reinforced glass. Within it was Mewtwo, tightly bound by heavy Psychic-resistant shackles, its face covered by a mask.
Through the mask's eye slits, it opened its reddened eyes and immediately unleashed a wave of psychic energy, shattering its restraints and sending shards of glass and metal exploding outward as it broke free from containment.
It took one look at Alaric and, in an instant, his head exploded under an unseen psychic force. Blood misted the air as fragments of skull and tissue burst outward, scattering across the floor in a violent spray before the body collapsed in on itself, abruptly still.
It then turned toward Alex and his Pokémon, who were finishing their fight with Metagross, and unleashed another powerful wave of psychic energy directly at them.