“Smash them.”

The Hariyama surged forward with one step that blasted the ground behind him.

Brian said nothing, but his Slaking gave a massive jump and knuckle-walked to meet the Hariyama. The two giant pokemon pulled their arms back. Hariyama’s massive fist glowed with a vivid bright orange, while the Slaking’s muscular arm shined grey.

The encounter between the pokemon and their moves created a powerful explosion that pushed everything away.

Snow, the earth, the trees of the forest, and even the freezing waters of Grey Lake were forced back from the two pokemon. The shockwave reached us and, if it weren’t for the Zoroark holding onto my shoulders, it would have flung me away like a rag doll.

Both teams seemed to treat that as the bell to begin the fight and every single pokemon moved, and they moved fast.

As soon as they moved, I lost almost every Pokemon.

The only ones that I could keep up with were the Slaking and the Hariyama, but even then I could only see that they were moving, and following their hands and feet was impossible. I could only see the aftermath of their exchange.

The Hitmochan and the Cacturne were fast, extremely fast. But I could almost follow and understand what was happening, and the only reason that I could was that the grass type was trying to slow down the punching pokemon by growing, from the ground, strong and thick plants and trees that tried to grab or trip the fighting type. The furious eyes of the Hitmonchan on the rare occasions where it needed to slow down were as telling about how it felt about its situation as the physical response it gave to the Cacturne.

It was pulverising entire parts of the pokemon with invisible punches.

It enraged the Hitmonchan even more when the green body regenerated.

Sometimes I saw hints of the others. A fireball was launched one second and extinguished the next. Long strokes of darkness that rose from the ground to bat away at something that moved too fast. Ghost-type energy hitting fighting type energy. Sometimes poison simply came into existence while melting snow, earth, and trees.

This reminded me of one of the first arguments that I saw when the Pokenet opened to the public. It was about whether the League should display matches above Conference level to civilians. I never had an opinion on the topic, but one argument from the people who said that they shouldn’t was that the battles at that level were too fast anyway.

I always thought that this argument was stupid. After all, we could slow down the footage, and we could bring on experts to explain what was happening on the screen. But, watching this battle, I understood.

I can’t even tell what is happening or what they are doing.

Colours glowed and transformed in split seconds. Black, orange, red, yellow, green, purple blazed as they were unleashed.

These were pokemon at the master level. I had studied pokemon training and battling. I knew what they were doing.

They were mixing their attacks by sequencing them one after the other, weaving them by combining two attacks into one, and finally, they were cutting themselves by using two or more moves of different types at the same time, the ultimate expression of a pokemon’s control over the conflicting energies and aspects inside their bodies.

My eyes narrowed, my jaw tightened, and my hands clenched.

So many years of reading, watching, and studying, and even with the fight between Slaking and Hariyama, I couldn’t understand anything that was happening.

My eyes were drawn to the river as a Machamp and Crawdaunt appeared, with the former holding both arms of the latter.

Finally.

The Machamp’s entire body glowed with orange light, probably the result of Bulk Up, while the Crawdaunt’s armoured body sparkled in bright golden light and many other colours. At least I knew it was using Sword Dance. The Machamp hit six fast punches into the Crawdaunt with its unoccupied arms until the water pokemon opened its maw and spewed a Hyper Beam right into the Machamp’s face, who dodged with an unnatural reaction.

The Hyper Beam still cut through his shoulder.

But the fighting type didn’t let go of the crab’s arms, but his hold on the water pokemon’s arm loosened enough for the Crawdaunt to pull back one arm and bash the recovering Machamp’s face with a water-covered claw.

Both pokemon then sped up and continued to brawl, now visible since the Machamp was slowing down the Crawdaunt by not letting go of one arm. The dark type now tried to pull or throw the Machamp into the Lake’s water.

I heard a thunder raging from the crater in the middle of the battlefield.

The Hariyama and the Slaking were still fighting.

Glowing punches, kicks, elbows, and knees that I still couldn’t see, flew towards the Slaking who, true to his normal typing, used various moves from across different types to dodge or deflect the invisible strikes while opening space for his own punches and shoves.

Rocks, soil, ice, and lightning, I recognise as they slammed into the massive Hariyama in an attempt to stop him. I also noticed flashes inside the crater and around both titans, ghost, grass, and fighting energy flashing about in one breath and being snuffed in the other, all along broken ground.

My eyes widened as I realised both teams were trying to help their heavy-weight fighters, probably because there was no one else who could stop the opposing titan from getting to the trainer.

Their fight did not just dictate the middle of the battleground, it dictated the battle itself.

I remembered at that moment that these pokemon were supposed to have trainers and I looked at both Brian and Basil and my eyes widened as I saw they were being attacked.

Orange and green colours appeared and disappeared near Brian as something green tried to hit him again and again and was stopped each time by pure dark energy, sometimes he flinched when it seemed like the strike was going to connect, but he seemed to treat it more like a nuisance than a life-or-death situation. He also appears to survey the battle, trying to piece something together.

On the other side of the battlefield, near the snow-covered trees, the fighting master named Basil took a more direct approach and jumped or rolled from one side to another, each time a flaming attack or pieces of flying metal got near him.

I couldn’t see Houndoom or Bisharp, but they were attacking, and by how some more physical attacks, such as dark covered blades and slashes were deflected, Hitmontop and Hitmonlee were there to protect Basil.

Brian turned around, dismissing the destructive battles happening behind him. He pulled his sleeve to look at his watch and then shouted at me.

“Scott, look at Corviknight’s head!”

A laughing squeak sounded from my left. I turned to look at Corviknight and on his head was Weavile. It looked as if it was resting as it lay down on the uninterested Corviknight with both arms behind its head. It turned its head to me when it noticed the attention and winked one eye.

“Now that you’ve had your fun, can you come and help, you useless cat?”

The cat in question rolled its eyes and disappeared. What the hell was that?

Seconds later, a boom brought me back to the fight.

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The Hitmonchan who was trading blows with the Cacturne, and winning by the nasty colours on the green type’s body, was suddenly bouncing through the ground, creating little fissures each time it hit the soil until it landed on the lake’s water. A Breloom crashed from the sky and hit the ground hard, breaking a leg. The Toxicroak appeared and looked around, confused, just to receive a hit on his face which sent him flying, but not far enough as he was hit again, from above this time, which smashed him into the ground.

All three were automatically and silently returned to their Ultraballs, one of the many advantages of having these very expensive pokeballs.

“Take down the tower and give me Basil.”

Now free from their battles, Cacturne and Skuntank disappeared toward the Hariyama.

A lance of poison flew into the flank of the massive pokemon who, in exchange for taking a silver punch in the gut from Slaking, rebounded the lance with a strike from his palm. From his other side, he didn’t have a choice and was forced to tank an Energy Ball followed by two Solar Beam in the span of two seconds, courtesy of Cacturne.

The duo of Cacturne and Skutank continued to batter the fighting pokemon from behind while the Slaking pressed him with the melee, forcing the heavy pokemon to focus on him.

That continued for an entire single minute that seemed to stretch for an hour by the sheer number of attacks that appeared to be launched at the fighting pokemon, they fitted more attacks in one minute than most pokemon would learn in their lifetime, and finally, the Hariyama faltered. It was subtle, but was there.

Since the beginning, the colossal fighter showed no sign of fatigue, pain, or even one second of indecision, and now I saw.

A twitch of its head, a sloppier step than normal, and a laborious punch all crammed into one movement exposed his condition.

At that single moment of vulnerability, a single slash cut both tendons of the giant Pokemon. Blood spilled onto the damaged ground and a snickering Weavile appeared holding onto the shoulder of Slaking.

The Hariyama didn’t flinch from the attack. He didn’t fall. He didn’t even frown, but he wouldn’t be able to walk, and when a fighting pokemon couldn’t use his feet, that was when it knew it had lost.

Even though his Ultraball didn’t return him, it was over.

The remaining pokemon, Primeape, Machamp, Hitmontop, and Hitmonlee. retreated and returned to shield their trainer. Seconds later, Houndoom, Crawdaunt, Sableye, Cacturne, Skuntank, and Bisharp surrounded them.

Brian vanished from where he was just thirty meters away in front of me and seconds later appeared on the other side of the battlefield behind his Crawdaunt, with Umbreon by his feet.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the talk didn’t last even a minute.

Basil’s remaining pokemon, even the Hariyama, who seemed ready to continue the lost fight, returned. Basil fell like a puppet that had his strings cut and a red light left his body.

The light smashed into the ground away from us and near the treeline. It grew, and grew larger, and then grew a little more until it took the shape of an almost three-meter-high Nidoqueen.

There was a quiet moment as the poison and ground pokemon took the destructive scene before her.

She first looked to the left, at me, Corviknight and Zoroark, then at the middle, the crater where Slaking and Weavile were, and finally to the right, at the group of pokemon around Basil’s body.

Her eyes narrowed on Basil’s unconscious body.

She raised her head, opened her massive mouth, and roared to the skies before smashing her way toward the pokemon around Basil. Halfway through the massive poison pokemon stopped and turned her head to the side.

At me.

“Well, that’s an annoyance.” I looked to the side and Brian was there, Umbreon at his side, and Basil, tied up and unconscious, on the ground.

The humongous poison pokemon that dwarfed the Hariyama gave a single step in our direction and Brian flung out three Ultraballs toward the Nidoqueen. From one surged a mountain of muscles, a Tyranitar, from another a raging beast with three voices, a Hydreigon, and from the last one, the almost comically small disaster pokemon, Absol.

The Tyranitar, smaller than the Nidoqueen by one entire meter, held onto her body to stop the giant pokemon. She pushed him back ten, twenty, thirty meters towards us. I doubted he could stop her.

And then he stopped her.

Pillars and columns of rock rose from the ground to support the Tyranitar in halting Nidoqueen. He used ground and rock to give him enough leverage enough to stop her.

The purple pokemon flexed her muscles and all the rocks summoned by the Tyranitar broke away from them.

The Tyranitar, surprised, took a quick backhand blow that tossed him away.

Corviknight raised a wing to shield us from random rocks.

Before she could continue her march, Hydreigon fell from the sky to deliver an extremely powerful full-body Giga Impact to the pokemon’s head. This shockwave travelled all the way from the head of the Nidoqueen to the ground and shook the ground all around. I had to kneel.

The dragon didn’t stop and hacked at the Nidoqueen’s back with bites and strikes of different types. Tyranitar came back running and punched the front of the pokemon of the distracted pokemon with a roar.

I gaped as the pokemon ignored all of that. She used one hand to push away the Tyranitar and reached to her back with the other to pick up the Hydreigon’s main head and smash him on the ground.

The Absol stood up and looked around as Brian’s pokemon encircled the Nidoqueen.

“If he had that thing, why didn’t he release that before!?”

“It’s a rocket failsafe, one of many.” He gestured to Basil. “Basil was a Rocket Executive, and every executive has a pokemon personally trained by Giovanni with them. Their pokeballs only open if the executive gets knocked unconscious. These pokemon’s orders, given by Giovanni himself, are to kill every witness and secure the executive until Team Rocket can retrieve him or her. That’s what made a pain in the ass for even master-level trainers to capture an executive.”

I glanced at the Nidoqueen that was being attacked by the surrounding pokemon. “Are you going to win this?”

“Two years ago, I would have just bailed.” Brian stopped to nod at Umbreon and Zoroark as both were called by the Disaster Pokemon to help. The Corviknight stepped up and secured Basil with one claw. “But since then, we’ve created an approach to deal with these situations. Tell me if you can spot it.”

I turned back to observe the fight.

Tyranitar, Hydreigon, and the tired Slaking worked together to share the burden of going toe-to-toe with the brutal poison pokemon, and the other pokemon worked by delivering precise attacks when openings presented themselves. The only pokemon that was not fighting was the calm and still Absol.

The Absol was a line capable of seeing the future or, better yet, one path of the future. The more clearly, reliably, and trustworthy they see the future, the more energy they need to spend, and they spend buckets of energy for just one minute of the future so, to maximise this natural ability they stay completely still and use nothing else, just their Future Sight, the real Future Sight.

That is why people associated an unmoving Absol with a future disaster. Today, people see a normal, relaxed Absol going about its day and they lose their minds. Pathetic.

“Death by a thousand cuts?” I tried. “The Absol is seeing the future and directing the group of pokemon to attack when those three give them openings.”

“Oh, sorry, I guess that’s my fault. When I say ‘we’ I was talking about the League. My team will never win this fight, at least for now.” Brian responded and then showed me something that looked like a Pokedex, but I knew it was a communication device that the Defence Department gave to Indigo masters for wide-range communication. “What we are trying to do is to buy time for someone to come and help. Depending on who responds, we can exhaust the Nidoqueen into collapsing or even faint her. We call it an R036.”

I gestured to the twelve pokemon holding back the sole Nidoqueen. Bruises were already visible in the Tyranitar’s armour and the Hydreigon’s hide. “All of this just to wait for someone to come and help.”

“Hey, don’t get it twisted. I am a master, but Giovanni was not the strongest Gym Leader of Kanto, and leader of Team Rocket for nothing. I am more on the Erika side of things. Well, it will still take some hours for someone to show up, so give me my journal and show me the Cryogonal so that I can make you go away.”

I didn’t like the way he put it, but I took the journal from my bag and gave it to him, then I released the Cryogonal.

“Hey, Popsicle. How are you doing?” The Cryogonal’s eyes narrowed and Brian laughed. “So, are you going to go with this one?”

The pokemon stopped for a full ten seconds, and when my heart had just begun to race faster, the Cryogonal shifted its whole body, approval.

“Excellent, return your pokemon, please.” I looked at the Cryogonal with a smile and returned him. “Good work on both tasks. I will sing praises to the Professor and the others… And I hope you will sing mine when you reach my level.”

“I—I don’t even know if I will get to your level.”

Brian looked at me with a strange look in his dark eyes. “Trust me, Professor Oak would not have made you his sponsored trainer if he thought you couldn’t get at least to my level.”

“You don’t know why I gained my sponsorship.”

“I don’t need to.” He shook his head and a big burst from the battlefield shook us, me way more than him. It came from a meeting of punches between the Nidoqueen and the Tyranitar, which the Tyranitar naturally lost. “Don’t be fooled by the genial and eccentric personality of Professor Oak. He does nothing for no reason. If he sponsors you, it’s because he believes, and I would take his beliefs very seriously.”

I stopped trying to beat my head against a wall. “I didn’t finish your journal. Did you get to the conference in your second year?”

He sneered. “I have more talent and focus than poor Basil here, but let’s just say that Professor Oak would not have become my sponsor… Now, I see that help is coming, so you best be on your way.”

A scream from a dragon sounded in the distance, and the distant sound of the wind being cut was unmistakable. A Dragonite was coming.

“One last question.”

“What, now?” Brian asked.

“You could see what was happening in the battle?”

“Ah. The ever-present question… Yes, yes, I could.”

“How?” He laughed at my desesperated face.

“Find out yourself. Wiggly?”

“Wigglytuff!” a pleasant voice responded and for a second, everything faded away into black. The Lake, the snow, the ground, the pokemon, Basil, and Brian all were gone in a second and I was standing on top of a hill.

I looked down and saw the giant and sprawling metropolitan city of Goldenrod.

I heard a sound from behind me and turned to find Brian’s Wigglytuff lying under a tree, laying in its shade. Her bag was resting against the tree and she was panting heavily.

“Wi­—Wiggly.”

I knew that after that massive teleport, she would need at least one hour of rest. “Do you need something to eat or drink?”

The pink pokemon’s ears stood up. She raised her head, looked at me with her big blue eyes, and beamed.