Chapter 305: Ash Gets Wrecked — Is This Pikachu Even Legal?
"Wait, what is he doing?"
Watching Ash send out Gengar against Drapion, Platinum was flatly stunned. Drapion was Poison/Dark type, while Gengar was Ghost/Poison — that didn't add up at all. Neither Ghost nor Poison-type moves would be especially effective against Drapion; put simply, Ash had just deliberately chosen the weaker matchup on his own. Sure, Gengar was technically immune to the Toxic Spikes on the field, but that hardly made up for how brutal a fight this would be otherwise. And besides — as nasty as Toxic Spikes were, they could still be cleared with the right move — Rapid Spin, Defog, that kind of field-clearing option. Did Ash really not have a single Pokémon that knew one of those? That seemed unlikely. Even without a hazard-clearer, there had to be a better pick available — but Gengar was genuinely not the optimal choice here. Platinum was thoroughly baffled by the decision.
"..."
Misty and Brock's faces went a little awkward at Platinum's obvious bewilderment. How to put it — sure, this was a genuinely unexpected pick even by their standards, but having traveled with Ash this long, they'd more or less come to expect the unexpected from him by now.
"Ash really does have a talent for the unpredictable, doesn't he," Mammon said, unsurprised, with a light laugh — this really did feel like exactly the kind of thing Ash would do. And his team really had changed a lot, hadn't it — Mammon eyed the Gengar, mentally tallying it alongside the Dragonite; if Ash ended up catching that Lucario on top of it, his whole lineup would look genuinely different from before.
"Gengar, of all things — have you lost your mind?"
Paul, recovering, studied the Gengar across the field, brow furrowing. There was a saying — a trainer who can't handle a type disadvantage isn't a proper trainer. But that logic applied when you got forced into a bad matchup by your opponent's play, not when you voluntarily walked into one for no reason.
"What are you even talking about? I'm going to beat you!"
Ash bristled, thoroughly offended. "Lost your mind"? What kind of thing was that to say? This guy's whole way of talking was just infuriating, damn it!
"..." Paul said nothing further, genuinely starting to suspect something was wrong with Ash's judgment. Not that it mattered — might as well treat this as training practice.
But the fight that followed turned out to be genuinely surprising. Gengar was a fast, special-attack-oriented Pokémon, and Drapion had already taken a fair bit of accumulated damage from the earlier fight with Dragonite. Sure, Drapion had used Iron Defense to boost its physical bulk — but Gengar didn't rely on physical attacks to deal damage in the first place, rendering that boost effectively useless. And Ash's Gengar proved to be genuinely, unexpectedly nimble — though under Paul's steady, deliberate battle rhythm, Gengar still ended up caught by a tail-launched version of Poison Jab from Drapion. But that near-miss only made Ash more careful going forward. The two sides fought hard, and eventually a burst of Dazzling Gleam from Gengar sent Drapion crashing heavily to the ground.
"Drapion is unable to battle. Gengar wins." Platinum announced the result.
"Yes! We beat Drapion!" Ash cheered, delighted. Gengar struck a proud, adorable pose, hands on hips, chin raised high.
Seeing Ash claw the match back to even, Misty and Brock both let out a breath of relief.
"Come back." Paul recalled Drapion, brow still furrowed — though he didn't blame it. He knew perfectly well Drapion had performed admirably given the circumstances, having gone into the Gengar fight already weakened. The real issue was—
"It managed to dodge that Sucker Punch too?" Paul found the whole thing genuinely hard to believe.
Mid-fight, Drapion's Poison Jab had connected once, dealing Gengar a fairly heavy blow — and Paul, naturally, hadn't let the opening go to waste, immediately following up with Sucker Punch to capitalize. By rights, a Gengar freshly hit by Poison Jab should have had no realistic way to dodge a follow-up that fast. And yet, amid Ash's loud shout of "dodge it, quick!", Gengar had somehow, impossibly, tucked into a roll at the last instant, evading Sucker Punch by a hair's breadth.
That... didn't add up.
If that Sucker Punch had connected, Paul had already planned to follow it with Earthquake — Gengar, with its low defense stat, being a fundamentally fragile Pokémon, would never have survived that combination. But there was no point dwelling on it mid-battle. Paul settled his thoughts and pulled out his second Poké Ball.
"Hmph~! See that? There's no way I'm losing to a guy like you." With the match tied up again, Ash immediately went back on the offensive.
"Is that so? We'll see." Paul's flat, unbothered reply robbed Ash of any real satisfaction from the comeback. Tch! This guy!
"Honchkrow! Ready to battle!"
Paul flicked out his second Poké Ball backhanded. Honchkrow let out a cry, spreading its wings as it appeared above him.
"A Honchkrow, huh." Ash studied it, then thought better and recalled Gengar. Dark/Flying-typed Honchkrow made for a genuinely rough matchup for Gengar.
"Pikachu could handle Honchkrow, but..." Ash considered. Electric-type Pikachu shouldn't have much trouble beating this Honchkrow — he trusted his little electric rat completely. But the crucial issue was the Toxic Spikes still sitting on the field; the moment Pikachu stepped in, it would start taking poison damage. He needed to clear the hazard first.
Ash's clear understanding of the Toxic Spikes threat here, worth noting, actually put his overall battle awareness well ahead of his canon anime counterpart — even as late as the Sinnoh League's Lily of the Valley Conference in the original series, Ash had initially just powered through Toxic Spikes head-on, suffering repeated losses before finally figuring out he needed to clear it.
The battle continued. Ash sent out Squirtle to clear the Toxic Spikes with Rapid Spin — but Paul immediately seized the opening, pressing the advantage relentlessly. Paul's ability to capitalize on openings was genuinely excellent. Honchkrow beat Squirtle while still holding solid condition. Ash followed up with Pikachu, which took down Honchkrow at a relatively small cost. The match evened out once more.
Paul's third Pokémon was the Ultra Beast Buzzwole. Ash sent Pikachu in to probe cautiously, charging up Thunderbolt — but Paul had Buzzwole counter directly with Earthquake. Not wanting to trade unfavorably, Ash had Pikachu leap to dodge, only for Buzzwole's follow-up Bug-type Leech Life to nearly drive the little electric rat straight into the ground.
Ash recalled Pikachu and sent out Gengar instead — but Gengar was no match for Buzzwole either, and only ended up handing it a free Beast Boost. Ash then sent in Charizard, and Paul, seeing this, promptly swapped Buzzwole out — no sense fighting Charizard with something 2x weak to Fire and 4x weak to Flying. Paul had no interest in fighting an unfavorable type matchup like that; he brought out his fourth Pokémon, Electivire, instead.
Ash chose not to swap Charizard out. His Charizard was genuinely strong, and with Ash's encouragement spurring it on, its will proved remarkably tenacious. But after a hard-fought exchange, it ultimately went down to Electivire regardless.
Ash's final Pokémon was Snorlax. Paul brought Buzzwole back in, and it beat Snorlax as well, triggering another Beast Boost.
Ash was down to just Pikachu.
"This guy..." Misty was practically sweating with tension by this point. In her view, Ash's raw talent as a trainer was genuinely extraordinary — she'd never expected this Sinnoh trainer to keep him thoroughly on the back foot from start to finish, though.
"His tactics, his read on the whole flow of the match — it's uncanny, almost mechanical," Brock said, genuinely impressed with Paul. In his assessment, Paul hadn't made a single meaningful directional error the entire fight — his tactical planning and battle logic had been essentially flawless, sidestepping unfavorable matchups almost entirely, keeping his Pokémon in advantageous positions nearly the whole way through. Ash's side of the match, by comparison, had simply been outmatched at every turn.
"Ash is going to lose." After the observation, Brock sighed, resigned.
Ash was down to his final Pokémon, while Paul had only lost Drapion and Honchkrow — Electivire had taken heavy damage from Charizard, sure, but it had still been swapped out safely rather than knocked out. Could Pikachu really pull off a four-Pokémon sweep? Misty fell silent at the thought.
As Ash's most trusted ace, Pikachu stepped back onto the field to face Buzzwole once more. This time, Ash fought with unusual care, more genuinely focused than he'd ever been, using Pikachu's excellent mobility to work the fight against Buzzwole. Finally, an explosive Thunder from Pikachu connected squarely with Buzzwole — but Buzzwole's own Hammer Arm landed at the exact same instant, crashing straight into Pikachu's head.
"Buzzwole and Pikachu are unable to battle simultaneously. Ash has lost all six of his Pokémon. Paul wins the match."
Platinum, having stepped in to check the field, raised her arm and announced the final result.
Hearing the announcement, Ash stood frozen in place, fists clenched tight, staring down at his fallen Pikachu.
He'd actually lost...
"Still a little green around the edges — is that from things going too smoothly for him?" Mammon mused, chin in hand. Honestly, in his assessment, there was nothing wrong with Ash's raw strength at all. But his battle experience clearly lagged far behind Paul's, and that gap alone had been enough to see him thoroughly dismantled. Strength for strength, Ash's team was genuinely no weaker than Paul's — arguably stronger, if anything. And yet the actual result had come out this lopsided.
Clearly, precisely because his own trainer talent was so exceptional, Ash's road through the Gym circuit had never really forced much genuine growth in his battle experience. Sure, he still pulled off plenty of creative, on-the-fly tactics mid-fight, and his Pokémon fought their hearts out trying to match his energy — but it simply wasn't enough this time. Paul, by contrast, was a genuine training fanatic to begin with, and had only doubled down further since joining Team Rocket, sparring constantly with Platinum, Gladion, and others. His strength and battle experience had grown at an explosive pace. Not a serious problem, though — this kind of thing could be trained.
"..." Paul glanced once at Ash, recalled Buzzwole, and stared down at its Poké Ball in his hand, lost in thought.
Winning hadn't come as a surprise — from the moment Drapion beat Dragonite, Paul had already known he wouldn't lose this full battle. Because if their positions had been reversed, a Dragonite of that caliber should never have lost to a Drapion — which could only mean the opposing trainer's directing had gone wrong somewhere.
But the real issue was that several genuinely strange moments throughout the match had left Paul thoroughly puzzled. Attacks he'd been certain would land had somehow been dodged. Pokémon he'd judged should have already gone down by his own reading were still, somehow, standing. Pikachu especially — with Pikachu's bulk and stamina profile, it should have gone down to Beast-Boosted Buzzwole's attacks well before it actually did.
Something wasn't adding up.
Paul ran back through the fight in his memory. That Pikachu had already taken a Dark Pulse fighting Honchkrow, then a Leech Life in its first exchange against Buzzwole. In the second matchup against Buzzwole, it had eaten two hits of Superpower, one glancing Leech Life, one glancing Rock Slide — and still needed a full Hammer Arm to finally go down.
That was completely unscientific, damn it. By rights, that second Superpower hit should have knocked Pikachu out cold on its own. And yet it had kept fighting through it, wheezing and straining the entire time — and had even managed to force Buzzwole out of the fight before that. Especially that Thunder — its raw power alone had been enough to genuinely shake Paul's composure.
How exactly had this guy trained a Pikachu like this?
Is this Pikachu even legal?
As a genuine specialist in disciplined training himself, Paul's brow furrowed deeply — he seriously began to suspect Ash must have subjected Pikachu to some kind of brutal impact-resistance regimen behind the scenes. There was no other explanation for how this little electric rat could take this much punishment and keep standing. Surely it couldn't just be down to Ash's ridiculous mid-battle shouting of "hang in there, Pikachu!" and "get up, Pikachu!"
Something was off about this guy. And something was off about his Pokémon too.
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