When Giratina vanished again, all the Trainers present took their Pokémon and ran toward Giovanni.
As for Pryce… the League had already issued a wanted order for him. Aside from a few Trainers who were too far from Giovanni, no one went near him.
Ash found himself in quite an awkward situation.
During Beedrill and Giratina's earlier battle, Giovanni had kept moving around, and as a result, Ash had gone from being the one closest to him to the one farthest away.
Almost without thinking, Ash recalled his Infernape, scooped Pikachu into his arms, and planned to run past Pryce to get to Giovanni's side.
But after only a few steps, Ash suddenly felt Pikachu's fur stand completely on end, as if it had sensed some enormous threat.
"Pikachu, you…"
Ash had just started to ask what was wrong when, right in front of him, the air began to ripple, like flowing water.
Before he could react, Pikachu had already leapt straight toward that rippling space.
Almost instinctively, Ash shouted his command, "Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!"
"Pikaaa!", Pikachu nodded, electricity bursting from its cheeks and tail. The tiny body became enveloped in a raging storm of Electric-type power.
The dense lightning filling the air lit up half of Lily of the Valley Island.
The air was thick with the smell of burning, like the end of the world descending as thunder.
"Huh?", Giratina blinked hard at the sight of Pikachu unleashing Thunderbolt.
'What the hell is this?'
The Beedrill and Swinub before this were terrifying, sure. But at least they were high-level Pokémon, still within the bounds of the laws Arceus had established at creation.
'But this Pikachu, what the hell is going on?'
He had just seen clearly, this little thing's level was only a bit over thirty. So how was it producing lightning this powerful?
Just like Giratina, the contestants who had recently battled Ash were equally stunned.
They all stared blankly at Pikachu, eyes blinking again and again, their shock even greater than Giratina's.
"Guys… if I said I just beat that Pikachu, would you call me a liar?"
"I don't care if anyone else believes it, because I sure do…", said a Trainer beside him with a Swampert.
He had almost beaten Ash's Pikachu earlier.
He'd thought he was a prodigy, Heaven's chosen one, able to fight an even match against such an opponent.
But looking at this now, it was obvious that Pikachu had been holding back.
All those years of training, all that effort… and in the end, it was just a pity match?
"Pikaaa!", With a sharp, childish cry, Pikachu finally released its Thunderbolt. Violent arcs of electricity surged forward, striking Giratina's ghostly, energy-shrouded body head-on.
The instant the two forces clashed, Giratina's expression twisted sharply, paralysis, pain, and disbelief contorting his face to the extreme.
He couldn't understand. How had things suddenly turned out like this?
Back in the Battle Frontier, before James and Malamar made their move, everything had been normal.
No, he had to win one.
He needed at least one victory, to reclaim the dignity he'd lost.
Seizing the brief moment when Giovanni and Pryce weren't attacking, Giratina braced himself against the Thunderbolt's power and lunged straight at Pikachu.
"Pika!", Pikachu's tiny body was struck head-on, letting out a cry of pain as it was sent flying backward.
Ash leapt high into the air and caught Pikachu in his arms just before it hit the ground.
"Pikachu, are you okay?"
Giratina: "..."
'Wait, kid, what?'
'You just caught the Pokémon I slammed into the air, and you still have the nerve to ask if it's okay?'
'Your hand doesn't hurt? Your bones didn't break?'
In the Giratina's imagined script, Ash's entire arm should've gone flying off.
Yet before his eyes, Pikachu acted completely unfazed, using Ash's body as leverage to spring back to the ground. It landed on all fours, glaring fiercely at Giratina.
Giratina felt a stab of frustration. So he'd just hit them with a full-force attack, and neither of them was even injured?
'Arceus above, just what kind of evolution have you secretly given humans and Pokémon in this world?'
"Pikachu, use Quick Attack!"
Seeing Ash order Pikachu to counterattack, Giratina narrowed his eyes, exhaling through his nostrils.
Then, dense Ground-type energy gathered around his legs, he stomped heavily, unleashing an Earthquake, the move that countered Electric-types most effectively.
Despite his constant setbacks, Giratina was still a god. And when it came to battle, he knew his stuff.
Otherwise, his combat power would never have far exceeded that of Dialga and Palkia without divine authority.
Under Giratina's precise control, the earthquake's shockwave compressed into a narrow line, spreading swiftly toward Pikachu's path.
The ground before Pikachu split open instantly, forming a massive chasm, not especially wide, but so deep that no bottom could be seen. Pikachu's small body was swallowed up in an instant.
["HAHAHAHA!",] Giratina's telepathic laughter echoed across the entire island.
Since his reappearance in the world, this was the first time he had actually held the upper hand in battle.
He quickly manipulated his Ground-type energy, intending to seal the fissure completely and trap Pikachu underground for good.
But just then, he felt his energy falter slightly.
It was as if some tremendous force within that fissure was resisting his control.
Giratina looked up instinctively, and froze completely.
At some point, Pikachu's Trainer had jumped into the crack himself, holding Pikachu in one arm, while his other hand pressed firmly against the cliff's edge.
It was his strength that was resisting the Earth power of the Renegade Dragon, Giratina.
Realizing that, Giratina was utterly dumbfounded.
'Who the hell is this boy?"
'Holding back a Legendary's power with one hand?'
'Is he… Arceus's descendant?'
Stunned, Giratina instinctively increased his force.
Crack!
A sharp sound echoed, the earth itself shattered under the clash between Giratina and Ash.
Fractures spread like spiderwebs across the ground. The once-solid earth turned soft, completely unable to swallow Ash and Pikachu.
Even Giovanni and Pryce looked at Ash in disbelief.
'With his body alone, he resisted a god pokemon?'
'Then what is the point of raising a Pikachu?"
If he'd trained even one Fighting-type Pokémon to learn just a fraction of his strength, he'd already be Champion level.
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