"Alakazam, Teleport!"
Dragonite arrived like a bolt of lightning, but Fu Xuan didn't gamble on a physical trade. She chose the path of absolute safety, blinking Alakazam out of reality to ensure the highest success rate for her next move.
"Don't let it slip away! Dragonite, pivot—Dragon Pulse!"
To escape the sheer velocity of an Extreme Speed, Alakazam had only one logical exit: appearing directly behind Dragonite's blind spot. Silver Wolf knew this. Dragonite understood it. Before the dragon could even fully rotate its head, draconic energy began surging in its maw. The moment Alakazam materialized, the beam was already firing, Dragonite micro-adjusting the trajectory with a sharp tilt of its neck.
"Dodge! Psychic!"
Alakazam was fast—faster than most—and it blurred to the side, the Dragon Pulse grazing the air where it had stood.
"Dragonite, ignore the discharge! Extreme Speed, full throttle!"
Silver Wolf had abandoned the textbook. She knew that to defeat the Grand Diviner, she had to drag Fu Xuan into a frantic, gutter-level grappling match where calculations were drowned out by pure reflex.
The mental shockwave of the Psychic hammered into Dragonite's brain. The dragon winced, its eyes flickering for a second as it battled the vertigo, but it gritted its teeth and slammed into Alakazam with the force of a falling meteor.
Fu Xuan had anticipated the impact. She used Confusion to act as a kinetic anchor, stabilizing Alakazam's body as it took the hit so it could retaliate instantly. "Now, while it's close! Ice Punch!"
"Fire Punch!"
Silver Wolf's command was practically fused with Fu Xuan's.
"Waaah!" "Alakazam!"
The Fist of Flame met the Fist of Frost in a shower of steam and sparks. For several heartbeats, the two were locked in a stalemate, but the tide quickly turned. Alakazam was a special attacker; being forced into a physical slugfest with a pseudo-legendary dragon was a losing proposition.
"Teleport!"
Seeing the disadvantage, Fu Xuan ordered a strategic retreat. Alakazam vanished, and the sudden loss of resistance caused Dragonite to stumble forward.
"Dragonite, Extreme Speed—backwards!"
Silver Wolf was waiting for this. Before Dragonite could even regain its balance, it flapped its small wings and leaped into the air, reversing its momentum in a blur. Its "Lock-On" was perfect; it was in Alakazam's face before the psychic could even finish its breath.
Fu Xuan smiled a small, chilling smile.
Alakazam sidestepped with an elegance that felt scripted. An Ice Punch materialized in its hand as it slipped the dragon's charge, delivering a punishing blow to Dragonite's flank that sent the beast skidding across the grass.
Dragonite struggled to its feet, gasping. Had Alakazam possessed any real physical strength, that hit would have been the end.
"How is that possible?" Silver Wolf gasped. She didn't understand. Without specific directional coordinates, a Trainer and Pokémon need a fraction of a second to reorient themselves after a Teleport. She had timed her attack to that window of disorientation.
She had been set up. Fu Xuan had been waiting for her.
"Don't understand?" Fu Xuan asked, her voice airy. "This is basic arithmetic for me. Kun—Ice Punch!"
The next moment, Alakazam used Teleport to appear with surgical precision behind Dragonite.
"Dragonite, Protect!" Silver Wolf screamed.
The shield flickered on just in time, the ice-covered fist bouncing off the green dome. Silver Wolf felt cold sweat down her back. If she hadn't reacted on pure, animal instinct, the match would be over.
What the hell was that? 'Kun'?
She didn't know the specifics, but she realized Fu Xuan was using a special encrypted command—a shorthand for the Eight Trigrams (Bagua). By using a single syllable, she could give Alakazam a precise coordinate and an attack command simultaneously, bypassing the lag of normal speech.
In the stands, Julian Reed sat bolt upright. She's actually using the Bagua formation as a spatial grid? He knew the Divination Commission used the trigrams for everything from stellar navigation to fortune-telling, but applying it to a 3D battle grid to minimize command latency was genius.
Silver Wolf looked at Fu Xuan. There was only one way to win now. She had to outpace the Trigrams. She had to enter a state of mind where her subconscious moved faster than the Diviner's mouth.
"Dragonite, stay focused! Don't let me leave you behind! Extreme Speed!"
"Waaah!"
Dragonite's eyes blazed. It shot forward.
"Zhen—Ice Punch!" Fu Xuan countered.
Alakazam appeared behind Dragonite, slightly to the left.
"Fire Punch, LEFT!" Silver Wolf roared.
Dragonite spun with the momentum, its flaming fist meeting Alakazam's face before the psychic could even extend its arm. Alakazam was sent flying.
"Extreme Speed, follow it!"
Dragonite didn't stop. Alakazam had barely hit the ground when the dragon's shadow loomed over it.
"Qian—Psychic!" "Extreme Speed—Dragon Rush!"
Dragonite banked mid-air, gathering a massive aura of draconic energy that shaped itself into a phantom dragon. It lunged, jaws open.
"Alakazam, get out of the way!" Fu Xuan shouted, her composure finally slipping. She could calculate that Psychic wouldn't finish Dragonite, but the fragile Alakazam would be pulverized by a Dragon Rush.
"Extreme Speed, don't stop!"
Silver Wolf gave the order before Dragonite even reached the target. The moment Dragonite passed Alakazam's dodge-path, it performed a high-G maneuver and crashed into the psychic.
"Psychic... Ice Punch!"
Fu Xuan tried to find an opening, but the cadence of the battle was now so fast that her "Teleport" cooldown was the bottleneck. Alakazam took the hit head-on, its thin frame rattling.
"So, you're using pure experiential reaction to counter my Bagua? Let's see!" Fu Xuan's eyes glowed. "Kan—Psychic!"
Alakazam vanished and reappeared to the right of Dragonite. Dragonite's weight was currently shifted left; it was the "Perfect Trap."
"Extreme Speed! RIGHT!" Silver Wolf shouted the instant Fu Xuan opened her mouth.
Dragonite sensed the shift. It used its own tail as a rudder, spinning its body around its center of gravity. Its tackle landed on Alakazam just as the psychic energy gathered.
BOOM.
The mental feedback of the Psychic hit Dragonite's brain at the same time the dragon's mass hit Alakazam. Dragonite fell, shaking its head, its breathing ragged. It was on the verge of fainting.
"Dragonite, pull yourself together... one last time... Dragon Rush!"
Silver Wolf knew she had zero room for error. She was gambling the entire championship on this single, final breath.
"WAAAAAAH!!"
Dragonite let out a sky-shaking roar. The dragon-shaped phantom around it grew to twice its size, glowing with a blinding, incandescent blue light. It charged, a literal god of the sky descending upon the fragile mage below.
Fu Xuan's eyes widened. For the first time, she saw a future she couldn't calculate her way out of.
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