The power of earth and flame collided, the two forces detonating in mid-air. A visible shockwave spread outward, and a powerful gust of wind blew in every direction. The surrounding crowd instinctively wanted to step back, but the area was packed too tightly to move.
People in front wanted to retreat, people behind didn't know what was happening, and no one could budge an inch. Finally, the ones in the front row just raised their arms in front of their faces and squeezed their eyes shut, bracing for the shockwave that was about to hit them.
When the shockwave reached the boundary of the arena, though, it vanished without a trace. To say it vanished wasn't quite right. It was more like the wave struck something invisible at the edge of the field, and the energy bled away there. In the end, none of it reached the crowd.
May had braced herself to take the shockwave too. Even in a Low-level duel or above, she'd already been prepared. As a Trainer, she'd endured countless aftershocks from Pokémon battles in her time.
Otherwise, how would she have built up the kind of toughness she had now? In short, if a Trainer was weak, never mind commanding a powerful Pokémon, they could be knocked out just from watching one of these matches. That was where the saying came from. Powerful Pokémon needed powerful Trainers to match.
A Trainer didn't necessarily have to reach the same raw level as their Pokémon, but they at least had to be able to weather the aftershocks of their Pokémon's battles. Not every battlefield had protective equipment, especially out in the wild. May had taken plenty of beatings from collateral wind alone.
Today, though, she'd just noticed something strange. The shockwaves from the field weren't reaching her at all. What was going on?
Inside the arena, Blaziken flipped three times in mid-air before landing gently in front of May. The flame attack had seemed to neutralize the Earth Power on impact, but the second Blaziken touched down, it dropped to one knee. Still not enough to fully cancel it out.
"It still couldn't fully cancel out the Earth Power. But that's not the main thing. The main thing is, why was Venusaur able to use Earth Power right after Frenzy Plant? Ash, doesn't your Venusaur have the rigid state? It should have been locked up." May couldn't keep the question to herself until the end of the match. It was simply too unbelievable.
Even with training, the rigid state after Frenzy Plant could only be shortened, never eliminated. Even for a Champion-level Pokémon, no matter how much you trimmed the duration, the rigid state existed. Yet Venusaur had shown no sign of one at all, and that was where May's read of the situation had gone wrong.
"My Venusaur is a little different. A skill like Frenzy Plant doesn't affect him afterward. Besides, you should have figured out that the moment I used Frenzy Plant, I also used Giga Drain. You weren't paying close enough attention." Ash said it with a faint, smug edge.
May didn't snap back. Instead, she replayed the exchange in her head. She had missed it. The strength of Frenzy Plant had far exceeded what she'd expected. Ordinary flames hadn't shifted the vines a centimeter, and she'd only barely managed to escape by leaning on Flare Blitz.
Even if Venusaur was Elite-level, it shouldn't have been able to use a Grass move to that degree of suppression against a Fire-type Blaziken. That was what she couldn't wrap her head around.
And because she was tied up in the disbelief, she'd missed the second move layered into the first. If she'd caught it, she certainly wouldn't have charged in the second time the way she had. In the end, the unexpected opening attack had thrown her enough to lose track of the details.
"Let's settle this in one more blow. Venusaur, Frenzy Plant!" Ash didn't bother harassing her further. Seeing Blaziken panting hard, he had Venusaur set up its ultimate move again to finish the match.
May's expression turned serious. Blaziken's stamina was already gone, Flare Blitz had its own recoil, and the Earth Power hit was still grinding away at it. If this attack landed clean, Blaziken was going down.
"Run at it! Blaziken, Flare Blitz! Aim straight for the core!"
Even Flare Blitz might not be able to plow through a forest of Frenzy Plant. But there was no rule that said you had to break it head-on. Slip past the plants and hit Venusaur directly. Blaziken's biggest asset was its agility. If it gave the run everything it had, it might be able to thread through the entire field of hardened roots.
As long as it could close the distance to Venusaur, it had a chance to take Venusaur out.
Venusaur called up Frenzy Plant again, and countless green plants surged up out of the ground. Blaziken ignited from head to toe, and its body shot forward like a bullet, hurtling through the towering green forest. It scorched the smaller offshoots in its path with the trailing heat of Flare Blitz, smaller, less-reinforced roots burning to ash on contact.
Venusaur's Frenzy Plant was extraordinary as a defense, but the unbreakable toughness was something only the main roots could achieve. The smaller offshoots were just ordinary thick green plants. Against pure Flare Blitz pressure, they couldn't hold.
In under two seconds, Blaziken had punched all the way through the outer layers and was nearly on Venusaur. Just as it looked like Flare Blitz was about to land, and just as May's eyes lit with anticipation, two thick green vines crossed in front of Venusaur.
Flare Blitz crashed into the vines with a deafening roar. The flame instantly seared the two sturdy green roots, the orange fire licking hungrily at their outer surface and sizzling against the wood.
Thick black smoke and sparks rose into the air, and a sharp, acrid burn-smell flooded the arena. Blaziken's flames blazed even harder, every ounce of strength shoved into pushing Flare Blitz forward, the heat continuously eating into the hardened outer layers of the vines.
The "unbreakable" green roots cracked under the heat of the closing fire, and after a few seconds they burned away too.
Seeing this, May's face cycled from tension to half-elation. Even with all its mystical reinforcements, Frenzy Plant was at the end of the day still a Grass move. Fire was its genuine counter. Just because Blaze Kick hadn't gotten through didn't mean Flare Blitz couldn't.
The relief didn't last. It froze on her face the instant Venusaur's petals trembled, a rich emerald light radiating from its leaves, and the ground began to shake violently. Countless pale green roots surged out of the dirt, denser and stronger than before, as if they'd been gathering strength and waiting for exactly this moment.
As Blaziken's limbs and torso were swallowed into a fresh tangle of vines binding it to Venusaur, it sensed something was off and tried to muscle its way free. The leftover Frenzy Plant behind it twisted, cutting off its retreat. There was only one option left. Punch straight through whatever stood between it and Venusaur's main body, and end this in one strike to save itself.
Blaziken didn't hesitate. It unleashed everything in its tank without holding anything in reserve. The flames around it shifted from red to blue, a qualitative jump in heat. Under that intensified blaze, the hardened plants blocking the path to Venusaur burned away rapidly.
Blaziken broke through to Venusaur's front and slammed its blazing strike directly into Venusaur's body.
A massive cloud of dust erupted across the arena, and layered waves of wind and sand rolled outward. This time, for whatever reason, nothing slowed those waves at the boundary. The swirling sand blinded the surrounding spectators. Even May couldn't see for a moment.
About ten seconds passed. As the dust on the field slowly thinned, the situation inside came into view.
"How is this possible?"
"Oh my god. Is that Venusaur made of iron? Even if it were iron, it shouldn't be intact after taking that kind of heat."
"Wow. Is this what Ash's strength looks like? Frightening. If a Venusaur of his is already this strong, how strong is his Legendary?"
The scene in the arena pulled all eyes back in and set off a wave of excited chatter through the crowd.
Just as predicted, Venusaur had taken the full force of Flare Blitz, and the impact had broken him out of the rigid state. Blaziken, on the other hand, was now trapped in mid-air, limbs and torso bound by a fresh tangle of Frenzy Plant roots, pain twisted across its face.
A little ahead of it, Venusaur had a faint patch of scorching on its forehead and across the petals on its back, but otherwise had taken only minor burns from a direct hit.
That level of resilience defied belief.
In this exchange, Venusaur didn't merely have the upper hand. The match was over. Blaziken, locked in the hardened plants, didn't have a single flame left on its body. The pain on its face was deepening into difficulty breathing. Just watching it was enough to make the spectators feel a real edge of fear.
"Blaziken, break out of there! Flare Blitz!" May's anxious cry reached Blaziken's ears, but no matter how desperately she shouted, it couldn't move. After repeated assaults plus the recoil from Flare Blitz, Blaziken's strength was already gone. Counterattacking simply wasn't on the table.
In the next instant, the light in Blaziken's eyes faded entirely. Its tightly clenched fists loosened. Its lifted head dropped. It went completely still.
"Vena."
Venusaur eased the Frenzy Plant open, stopped draining Blaziken's strength and life force, and let it fall to the ground. It landed face-down and didn't move. Clearly out of the fight.
"And that's the call. Felt like we barely got one round in."
"Right, it's a little unsatisfying. But this is Ash, after all. His strength is the strength."
"Honestly, Ash didn't even use his full power this time. If he'd fought at the level he showed in his last big exhibition match, Blaziken would've been lucky to last a single round."
"Even with how intense that was, it's still a long way short of his battle against the Champion-tier opponent."
"But I have to say, the girl on the other side looks about Ash's age. To have that kind of skill this young, she's a real prodigy too."
"Right, right. Compared to those two, the rest of us would barely last a round against any other Pokémon."
Now that Blaziken was down, the spectators, who had been holding their breath for the whole fight, started chattering again. The intensity of the match had left them speechless mid-way.
Speaking had been impossible too. Open your mouth even a crack and you'd catch a face full of dust. Now that it was over, they could finally start spitting it out.
May recalled Blaziken and walked off the field through the wave of discussion still rolling through the crowd. On the way out, a number of spectators came down trying to find Ash. Some wanting to challenge him. Some wanting photos and autographs. Ash politely refused them all.
Fortunately, while the crowd was enthusiastic, they weren't completely without manners. After Ash repeatedly turned them down, they stopped pressing and cleared a path for him and his group to leave.
After the post-arena commotion, the natural destination was the Pokémon Center. The Center was still packed, but the chaos was concentrated around the registration desk. In preparation for the Silver Conference, the recovery wing and equipment had been moved to a separate entrance.
After handing Blaziken off to Nurse Joy, May and the rest of them found an out-of-the-way spot to sit, and then she asked the question that had been gnawing at her since the start of the match.
"Why..."
"Why didn't Frenzy Plant get affected by Fire-type moves? Grass is supposed to be hard-countered by Fire, isn't it? Even if my sister's Blaziken isn't as high-level as your Venusaur, the type counter shouldn't be erased entirely just because of a level gap. What exactly is so special about your Venusaur?" Before May could finish, her younger brother Max jumped in and asked the question himself.
Don't underestimate Max just because he was only in his early teens. His Pokémon research wasn't a step behind seasoned Trainers. He just wasn't old enough yet to set out and own his own team. For now, Max stuck close to his older sister.
"What was happening on the field was extremely strange. A level gap couldn't reverse type matchups like that. There's no way."
"Because my Venusaur is a little different. All of his Grass moves are charged with massive life force. Because of that life force, his Grass moves aren't only powerful, they're also resistant to Fire moves. When the Grass-type material gets burned, the life force inside refills it.
In theory, unless you wipe out the entire Grass move in one shot, you keep running into the same problem. The grass grows back. The same principle is what makes Frenzy Plant resistant to Fire."