The terrifying electric power in Pikachu's body crystallized, and golden lightning bloomed across his back. Pikachu was packing every ounce of his strength into the final exchange with Slaking.
The decisive moment came faster than any of them had expected. If Slaking won this clash, Norman still had a chance at the match. Even with Ash's Charizard still in reserve, Slaking had ways to recover its stamina. As long as it didn't lose its ability to battle, anything was still possible.
For Ash, the opposite. If he could take Slaking down here, the battle was over. So Norman couldn't lose this exchange. Not from where Max was sitting, anyway. He couldn't accept his father losing. In Max's eyes, his father was the strongest in the world, and would never be defeated. How could his father be beaten by someone barely older than May.
Norman stared into the arena. Pikachu's body flickered with lightning, his expression sharp with rising excitement. The feeling of meeting an evenly matched opponent was rare for Norman.
At his level, finding someone in the same weight class wasn't something that came along easily. As a Gym Leader, he rarely left his region, and to encounter a Trainer at his own level outside of seeking out the Elite Four directly was essentially impossible. So in his Gym battles, Norman had basically never gone all-out.
Today was the long-awaited full-power match. Even though Ash had had him on the back foot the entire time, this was still one of the best matches Norman had ever fought.
"Slaking, this is the last clash. Everything we've got."
"Roar!"
Slaking pounded its chest, then charged at Pikachu like a moving tank, every footfall shaking the arena. Even with the boundary barrier between them and the field, the children on the sidelines flinched backward and trembled where they stood.
Slaking's pressure was nothing to joke about. The lazy aura the species was famous for had been wiped clean off this one, replaced by raw, suffocating menace.
"Go, Pikachu!"
Facing Slaking's terrifying force, Ash showed no fear. From the moment Pikachu chose to meet Slaking head-on, he'd been prepared. Whoever won the exchange, the point was to fight at full strength. Even if Pikachu could have slipped Slaking's attack and then countered, Ash wouldn't have made that call. In a duel like this, dodging would have been an insult to himself and to Pikachu both.
Two terrifying forces, unleashed in a frenzied, destructive collision, pushed every spectator into holding their breath. Nobody dared to exhale, afraid that a single breath would mean missing the most critical moment of this fight.
In the next instant, both figures moved without warning, moving at lightning speed. Even Misty and the others, watching with locked focus, couldn't track the two figures. They collided in a blink. Flashes of light erupted across the arena. Yellow electric arcs and white explosive energy ripped outward, shockwaves rolling against the barrier in concentric rings.
Max clenched his fists, expression tight, silently trying to push his father's Slaking through, but it wasn't enough. Slaking's power was being progressively suppressed. The 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt that had started on top kept building in pressure as the exchange went on, because this was Pikachu unleashing his full power without restraint.
Under this attack, Pikachu might have been worn out by his own output, opponent's counter-force or not, but this single strike was stronger than every previous attack he'd thrown in this match combined.
Slaking's earlier Giga Impact had been knocked aside by Pikachu's Iron Tail despite Iron Tail not being a STAB move for Pikachu, and despite Iron Tail's base power being below 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt's.
Even under those worse conditions, Pikachu had managed to send Slaking flying. So now, with the disadvantage flipped, Slaking should have been at a steeper disadvantage still. Except Pikachu wasn't aiming to overpower Slaking in this one exchange. Pikachu was aiming to defeat it outright.
The level of difficulty between those two goals wasn't even close. To merely knock Slaking back was one thing. To finish it in one clash was another.
What Slaking needed to do, then, wasn't win this exchange outright. It just needed to avoid losing the ability to battle in it. If it could survive, the balance of the entire match would tip back in Slaking's favor.
As an excellent Trainer, Norman knew this perfectly. All he had to do at this moment was have Slaking pull its energy inward defensively, and the odds of Pikachu's strike landing cleanly would drop sharply. So why was Norman not making that call?
Because he knew Ash's Trainer instincts were at the same level as his own. He could read Pikachu's optimal response, and it absolutely wasn't a head-on confrontation. Yet Ash had still made that choice. If Norman backed off here, it would be an insult to the dignity of a Trainer.
"Slaking, don't hold a single drop in reserve. Give it everything!"
Norman's shout reached Slaking's ears. Slaking had been holding a sliver of strength back for defense. The expression on its face changed, and without hesitation, it released every last drop of remaining power in a single instant.
"Hyper Beam!"
With Slaking's furious roar, a column of white light surged from its body, suppressing everything else in its path, including Pikachu's electric force. The sudden reversal made Max cry out in delight.
The cry of joy lasted less than a second before it cut off. The white wave that had suppressed Pikachu flashed past like a shooting star, and the electric energy on Pikachu's body, which had only been pinned for an instant, surged back even stronger than before.
With the Light Ball plus partner form active, even a Slaking built for raw physical attack wasn't going to overpower him. If the bond between Slaking and Norman was lifting Slaking's strength, then the bond between Pikachu and Ash was an even greater multiplier.
In terms of sheer relative strength gained from a Trainer-Pokémon bond, Pikachu was convinced that his and Ash's was the strongest in the world.
"Pika! Pika! Pikachu!"
Wrapped in the lightning, Pikachu's small face grew fierce, and a massive flash of electricity spread across the entire arena. Following Pikachu's roar, the yellow thunder completely overpowered Slaking, the light flashing so bright that the spectators outside couldn't see what was happening within. Deafening explosions kept rolling through the arena, the shockwaves pounding against the barrier without pause.
Time passed. The lightning slowly faded. The crowd lowered the arms they'd thrown up to shield their eyes and looked toward the field. Slaking's massive form stood in the center, locked together with Pikachu, the two of them practically back-to-back. Pikachu was panting hard, his body trembling involuntarily. Slaking didn't move at all.
Less than a second later, Slaking let out a low groan and finally collapsed. Time seemed to stop in that moment. The outcome was decided.
"Slaking is unable to battle. Pikachu wins! The final winner is Ash, from Pallet Town!"
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Ms. Lily decisively announced the result of the match. Her voice acted like a switch being thrown. The entire arena erupted into a stream of noise. The children were marveling at the duel they'd just witnessed.
May felt a flicker of regret over her father's defeat, but the spectacular match itself had left her with plenty to think about. She'd benefited from it too.
May felt that her father's defeat was a respectable one. It wasn't that her father wasn't strong enough. It was that Ash was outrageously strong. That kind of abnormal Pikachu was absolutely one of a kind in the world.
Setting aside Pikachu's exclusive moves, just the raw strength and the willingness to go head-on against Slaking was extraordinary. With that kind of physique squaring off against Slaking, who could have predicted that Pikachu would actually come out on top in the end? That alone proved how abnormal Ash's Pikachu was.
So even though her father had lost, May only felt a measure of regret, not much disappointment. The result was within expectations, even reasonable.
From the moment Pikachu's Iron Tail had sent Slaking flying, the situation on the field had already been fairly clear. In a direct clash, Slaking was no match for Pikachu, let alone in the final exchange, where Pikachu had used 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt, a stronger Electric-type move than Iron Tail and a STAB move on top. Unless something unexpected happened, Slaking losing the duel was a foregone conclusion.
Max wasn't taking it nearly so well. He stared blankly at Slaking's fallen figure in the middle of the field, his face full of disbelief.
"How could Dad lose like that. How could Dad lose. It can't be" Max couldn't hold his emotions back any more and shouted.
Norman, who had been about to recall Slaking, looked over from across the field, Ash's hand still in his. Max's outburst drew everyone's attention.
May frowned, placed a small hand on Max's head, and spoke gently. "Wins and losses are common in battle. No one can avoid failure forever. Even if Dad lost this time, that doesn't mean he won't rise again. Losing isn't shameful. The shameful thing is not being able to stand back up after losing. If you don't even understand that, how are you going to become a Trainer stronger than Dad?"
Norman had been ready to walk off the field, but when he heard May's words, he gave a small smile. It seemed he didn't need to worry about Max's education anymore. His daughter was already a mature Trainer.
Norman recalled Slaking, walked onto the field, and offered Ash his hand. "That was a great match. I hope we get a chance to fight again in the future."
"Knowing you, Mr. Norman, I'm sure we'll get the chance." Ash shook his hand with a real smile.
This battle, which from the outside might have looked like just another Gym fight, had actually paid off significantly for Ash. If given the chance, he'd happily fight Norman again. Pikachu had reached Elite Four Mid from this match. Lucario had broken through to Elite Four. Charizard was on the verge of his next promotion too. The experience gained from a battle against a powerful Trainer was something you couldn't reproduce in a hundred thousand matches against ordinary opponents.
For Norman's side, this evenly matched fight had given him a lot to think about too. He'd never had a battle of this caliber back in Petalburg City. Becoming a Gym Leader visiting another region for the Conference really had been worth it.
"This is proof of victory against the Petalburg Gym. The Balance Badge. Take it, Ash." Norman pulled out a slightly scuffed eight-pointed badge from inside his jacket. The Balance Badge.
"I got the Balance Badge!"
"Pipika!" Ash and Pikachu struck a victory pose, celebrating together.
Off to the side, Max, still a little downcast, accepted the reality under May's coaxing. He knew his father wasn't invincible, but he simply couldn't accept that his dad had been defeated by someone close to May's age.
If someone had to beat his dad, in his head it should have been another top Champion, someone his father's age or older. Now his father had been beaten by someone so much younger. The humiliation was hard to describe. Even so, May's words pulled him out of the worst of the spiral.
Ash and May, though peers, weren't on the same level in raw power. Even though Ash and May's Blaziken had fought to what looked like a close finish earlier, Ash hadn't actually shown his real strength in that match. The closeness was only an artifact of how intense the battle was. In reality, Ash's Venusaur had walked through May's Blaziken without even leaning on a type advantage, and Ash still hadn't been close to his ceiling. Imagine the actual gap between them.
"When I become a Trainer one day, I'll definitely take revenge for Dad!" Max declared.
Ash just smiled. "Okay. I'll wait for you."
Up until now, he'd always been the one chasing and challenging others. Now, in just half a year, he'd become the one being challenged and chased. The feeling was a little strange.
The challenge to the Petalburg Gym ended with Ash's 3-0 victory over Norman, a battle known to only a small handful of students. The match wouldn't be made public. If word got out that a Pikachu had gone head-on with Slaking and won, it would cause an enormous uproar.
With the Balance Badge in hand, Ash and the others also wanted to accompany Serena to collect the local Violet City Gym badge. Serena only had one Pokémon right now, and they weren't sure if the Violet City Gym would be willing to fight her one-on-one.
Hearing that Ash was heading to the Violet City Gym, May and Max asked if they could come along to watch. Although they lived in the same city now, they'd never actually been to a match at the Violet City Gym. At most they'd exchanged a few words with the Gym Leader when they first arrived in Violet City, and not much after that.
The more the merrier. Ash happily agreed, and the group of four became a group of six, all heading to the Violet City Gym. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought they were going to wreck the place.