Of course, Raichu's electricity consumption was huge—
but Pikachu's stamina drain wasn't small either.
Did Ash really think that kind of constant high-speed movement was free?
Lt. Surge smirked inwardly.
Sure, your energy efficiency is better…
But my Raichu's got a bigger gas tank.
Let the exchange ratio favor Pikachu.
Didn't matter.
If its stamina bottomed out first,
the moment Raichu caught it, the match was over.
You've lost already, boy.
Guess I overestimated you.
Still, not the worst showing for a rookie.
The distance between them shrank.
Electricity surged more violently around Raichu.
Golden arcs wrapped its whole body, power building and building until it looked like a walking generator ready to blow.
The web of lightning began to spread,
the killing blow—Thunderbolt—coiling behind it.
It was like a boxing match.
A lightweight could tag a heavyweight ten times with quick punches,
but as long as none of them hit something vital, the big guy could walk through them.
The lightweight, however, could barely afford to be hit even once.
"Show's over, boy!" Lt. Surge let out a booming laugh.
"Your Pikachu's nimble, but this field has boundaries!"
His mouth was as foul as ever—
Lt. Surge used Taunt!
It's super annoying!
"Now!" Ash's voice cut clean and sharp through the tension.
Pikachu, just about to land from another leap, didn't hesitate.
Its front paws glowed with a dull brown light—
and slammed into the floor.
Shrrrip—
The supposedly solid battlefield broke open like soft tofu.
A small hole tore open in an instant, and Pikachu's body vanished into it, swallowed by the ground.
Only a small, unimpressive pit and a puff of dust remained.
All that time Pikachu had been darting around,
it hadn't just been running and firing Swift.
It had been quietly using Dig to loosen the ground—
softening the rock and soil beneath the arena, bit by bit.
That move hadn't come from nowhere.
Ash had only added it to Pikachu's repertoire after Brock joined the team.
Brock might be a Rock-type Gym Leader—
but Rock and Ground had a ton of overlap.
Why hadn't Ash used it earlier?
Because he was waiting for this exact moment.
Raichu wanted to use Electroweb to pin down Pikachu's movements,
so it chose to tank some Swift rather than intercept every shot with Thunderbolt.
That let cumulative damage start to build up on its body.
In other words—Ash had given Raichu a convincing illusion:
You can win if you just keep pushing.
He'd lured it into willingly trading HP to secure a chance to land a killing blow.
That was the heart of the strategy.
The lightning web flared out, engulfing the ground where Pikachu had just been.
At the same time, Raichu unleashed its Thunderbolt.
But the devastating surge of power suddenly had nothing to hit.
The raging lightning flailed in midair for a moment—then scattered, aimless and wasted.
Damn it.
A whiff.
Raichu stared down blankly at the small hole that had appeared, clearly thrown off.
Moves had pre-cast, post-cast, and cooldown.
Once you lined everything up, you couldn't just not fire.
Higher-level Pokémon could compress or stretch those windows—
but this Raichu clearly wasn't that high a level.
Being able to chain Electroweb and Thunderbolt like that had already been impressive.
Now, though, it had hit its limit.
"What?!"
Lt. Surge's eyes widened.
"Dig?!"
"Are you kidding me?!
Who teaches a Pikachu Dig this early?!"
Expanding a Pokémon's all-terrain toolkit was usually a late-game project.
Like min-maxing stats in a game: early on, you didn't build a balanced generalist.
You dumped everything into a specialty first.
But this Pikachu's movepool was all over the place—
and completely outside Lt. Surge's expectations.
Normally, he only had to worry about Rock- and Ground-types trying to Dig underneath him.
And Pikachu's earlier behavior had screamed "high-speed Lightning Rod strategy."
He'd been baited.
Completely.
For a long moment, the entire battlefield fell into a stunned silence.
Dig.
Used by a Pikachu.
Ash's lips finally curled into the faintest hint of a satisfied smile.
The equation for victory had been written a long time ago.
Now it was time to execute.
Out on the field, Raichu wobbled slightly, locked in post-move lag, nervously scanning for its vanished opponent.
Sparks flickered weakly over its fur, then faded.
Lt. Surge's wild grin froze on his face, giving way to a look of pure disbelief.
In that stillness, Ash's calm voice rang out, echoing across the Gym:
"You look surprised, Lt. Surge."
"When," Ash asked quietly, "did you get the illusion that you'd already seen through my strategy?"
"Why did you think I was playing a doomed war of attrition?"
He tilted his head slightly, looking across at the towering Gym Leader.
"The 'Lightning Rod' strategy you saw was just surface-layer misdirection."
"I never cared about that tiny edge in energy efficiency.
It wasn't about draining Raichu's stamina, either."
"That was just a nice little bonus—
bait to tempt you deeper into the trap."
His tone stayed level, as if every one of Lt. Surge's reactions had already been placed neatly on a game board.
"The moment the match started, the result was already decided."
"You firmly believe in the absolute superiority of evolution—of raw stats."
"You believe that once you compress the enemy's movement space, sheer force will crush any technique."
"So of course, you'd walk right into the line I laid out for you."
"That arrogance," Ash concluded quietly,
"is the root of your defeat."
"You ordered Raichu to tank Swift to get close and trade its HP for a chance at a decisive blow. That decisiveness is praiseworthy."
"Unfortunately for you… it was exactly what I was hoping for."
"I was waiting," he said, eyes sharp,
"for the moment after Raichu unleashed its biggest moves—
for the inevitable downtime when its power was spent."
"As for Dig?"
Ash's smile sharpened.
"Who decided Pikachu can't learn Ground-type moves?"
"Fixed thinking is the biggest shackle on a Trainer's mind."
"Now then…"
His gaze dropped to that small, ordinary-looking hole in the middle of the field.
"It's over. Pikachu!"
Boom.
Almost the instant Ash's words fell, the ground beneath Raichu erupted.
The floor burst upward.
A streak of gold shot out from below like a dragon breaching the surface of the sea, chunks of shattered rock spraying in all directions.
Pikachu.
Its paws were tensed with every ounce of strength it had—
and its body blazed with blinding electric light.
Volt Tackle.
"Pikaaaaa—CHUUU!!!"
Pikachu became a golden spear of lightning,
driving straight up into Raichu's exposed jaw, smashing into it from below with terrifying force.
Enjoy the concussion, little bro.
Big brother Pikachu sends his regards.
WHAM.
The heavy thud echoed through the entire Gym.
Raichu's round body was popped straight up off the ground, lifted for a split second by the blow.
Its eyes rolled back white,
the last flickers of electricity sputtering and dying all over its fur.
It didn't even manage a cry.
It simply fell like a cut puppet,
crashed back down onto the arena,
and didn't move again.
Silence.
The Vermilion Gym went utterly, completely silent.
As the dust slowly settled, Pikachu landed lightly beside the fallen Raichu.
It panted a little, sides heaving, but its stance was upright and proud.
Tiny sparks danced on its cheeks, popping like celebratory fireworks.
"Pika-pi! (•̀⌄•́)"
It turned, beaming, toward its Trainer.
"You were amazing, partner!"
Ash raised a thumb from the Trainer's box.
Then he looked across at Lt. Surge, who still hadn't fully processed what had happened, and said calmly:
"Lt. Surge…
how do I measure up?"
—
(Whirlpool Pikachu one-punched Hyūga Raichu.)
(Absolute clowning.)
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