Chapter 10: The Exhibition Match: Part 3

Ash's Gliscor materialized on the field balancing on her tail, and her image appeared on the screen. Gliscor proceeded to let out a large screech, causing most of the audience to cover their ears at the sheer volume.

"Alright," smirked Ash, "now that I've got a feel for your strategy, time to take things up a notch."

"What notch?" Paul taunted, though he was visibly unnerved. "That was your skill level! You can't do better than that!"

Ash simply brushed this taunt off with a smirk.

"BATTLE BEGIN!"

"Honchkrow, use Night Slash!" Paul shouted, and Honchkrow proceeded to slash with its wings glowing purple.

"Take it."

'What?'

The Night Slash connected with Gliscor, dealing a Critical Hit. When the dark sparks from the Night Slash cleared, however, Paul was utterly stunned.

Gliscor had taken no damage. She hadn't even been knocked back.

"You were saying?" Ash asked innocently.

"Wha…?"

"My turn. Gliscor, just use Steel Wing. Nothing too fancy."

Before Paul could put everything together, Ash and Gliscor counterattacked. With another screech, Gliscor used her tail as a spring to launch through the air into Honchkrow, using her glowing metallic wings to strike it. Honchkrow absorbed the impact, fainted, and then slammed into the ground.

"Honchkrow is unable to battle. Challenger, please send out your next Pokémon."

Paul was now visibly shaking. His Honchkrow was still in good condition, and Gliscor had knocked it out in one hit, not even using a Super Effective move. Not only that, but Gliscor had taken a Critical Hit from a Night Slash and hadn't even flinched.

"Torkoal, Seismitoad and Noivern were sent out to feel your strategy out and lull you into a false sense of security. Torkoal and Seismitoad where ready to be defeated, and I didn't expect knocking out Ursaring to happen. The rest of my team for today have been vigorously training with me in preparation for this battle, and they WILL NOT GO DOWN."

Paul shook his head vigorously after recalling Honchkrow. He was loosing against Ash Ketchum? Not only that, but all the progress he had made had all been a ruse? No…No Ash was bluffing. He had to be bluffing.

"Gliscor, Stand by for Battle!" Paul called as he sent out his own Gliscor.

"Gliscor?" Mused Ash, "I suspected you would send out Electivire or Torterra. Let me guess; you don't have Electivire because I beat it with Infernape in the Lily of the Valley Conference?"

Paul could only numbly nod his head.

"Shame. Infernape would have loved to show it how strong he has become. I doubt I'll even use Infernape at this point, however."

"BATTLE BEGIN!"

"Gliscor, use Guillotine!" Paul shouted.

Ash smirked.

"Just absorb it."

"Stupid move!"

As Paul's Gliscor brought his glowing claw down on Ash's Gliscors head, Paul was hoping for a one-hit KO. To his utter shock however, nothing happened.

"Guillotine only works if the target it's used on is, at most, as strong as the user. It doesn't work if the target is stronger."

"THE FUCK!?"

Ash didn't wait,

"Gliscor, X-Scissor!"

Ash's Gliscor slashed out its X shaped attack, striking Paul's Gliscor head on. Paul's Gliscor recoiled, especially surprising as X-Scissor is not very effective against Gliscor's typing.

"Knock Off!"

"Never mind it. Just use Stone Edge."

Paul's Gliscor swooped forward and slammed his claw into Ash's Gliscor's stomach. Ash's Gliscor merely brushed it off and proceeded to launch a Stone Edge into Paul's Gliscor at point-blank range. Paul's Gliscor recoiled as the stones bombarded him rapidly.

"That's it!" growled Paul, "forget you Gliscor."

Ash's Gliscor had already launched another X-Scissor, which hit Paul's Gliscor head on, with Paul not so much as ordering him to dodge. As Paul's Gliscor struggled to stand, Paul didn't order him to counterattack.

Ash knew what this was.

"You've given up on Gliscor, haven't you?"

"He's failed me for the last time." Paul simply stated.

Ash growled.

"Let's finish this off gently Gliscor. Just an X-Scissor will do."

Ash's Gliscor proceeded to launch the attack, which struck Paul's Gliscor, causing him to faint."

"Gliscor is unable to battle. Challenger, please send out your last Pokémon."

Paul merely growled, before he pulled out Gliscor's minimized Poke Ball, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it with his foot.

You could literally hear a pin drop from the silence that hung over the stadium. Even Ash was stunned.

"You're releasing your Gliscor HERE!?"

Paul merely grunted.

"He's been losing too much lately. This simply proves his weakness, and I have no need for weak Pokémon."

A brief second of silence followed, but then most of the stadium erupted into jeers and boos.

"That's horrible!"

"You have no heart!"

"That's how you treat your Pokémon!?"

Ash had recovered from his surprise with Gliscor waving her claws to get attention, and then indicating over at Paul's former Gliscor. Ash immediately understood. He proceeded to pull out an Ultra Ball, and threw it toward the fainted Pokémon, where it opened and sucked him in. The Ultra Ball dropped to the ground, barely shook, dinged, and then sealed and shrunk, as Ash already had six Pokémon on hand. Ash's Gliscor glided forward, picked up the sealed Ultra Ball, and brought it to Ash.

"That was cruel!" exclaimed Clemont in disbelief.

"Ash telling us about that was bad enough, but to actually see him throw away a Pokémon like that…" Serena trailed off.

"Was he always this bad?" Gary asked Brock.

"He was always cold-hearted and callous, and he did both release his Pokémon and give up on them in battles. But this is a new low." Brock mused, "I thought he was becoming a better person…"

Ash's expression had turned much harder.

"You always were a prick Paul. But I never thought you would stoop so low."

Paul didn't hear this. He was way to busy shaking with rage, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. He was down to his LAST POKEMON. Against ASH KETCHUM, who was so weak that even his friends LEFT HIM! And to top it off, Ash still had four Pokémon left, and he hadn't even unveiled two of them.

'I can't lose,' Paul thought to himself, 'I. WON'T. LOOSE. Not to HIM! NOT TO HIM!'

"I'll CRUSH you Ketchum," Paul roared as he threw his sixth Poke Ball, sending out his Torterra, with Torterra's image appearing in his last spot on the screen.

"BATTLE BEGIN!"

"STONE EDGE!" Paul called out quickly.

"Leap into the air," Ash called back.

As Torterra proceeded to launch a barrage of large rocks at Gliscor, Gliscor used her tail to leap into the air once again, avoiding the attack.

"Leaf Storm!"

"Block them first with X-Scissor, and then launch the X-Scissor at Torterra."

Torterra proceeded to charge up and launch the barrage of leaves into the air toward Gliscor. Gliscor slashed the air with an X-Scissor, using the attack as a shield cutting up and absorbing the Leaf Storm. Once the leaves stopped launching, Gliscor proceeded to launch the Super-Effective attack and Torterrra. Torterra endured the hit, but even with her high defense, the attack appeared to do considerable damage.

"GRR, Stone Edge!"

"Launch another X-Scissor, use it to deflect the rocks back." Ash countered.

Torterra launched the Stone Edge into the air, but Gliscor responded by launching a rather large X-Scissor toward Torterra. The large attack slammed into the stones, vaporizing the smaller ones, and deflecting the larger ones back toward Torterra, who was then struck with the force of the Rocks, immediately followed by the X-Scissor. When the dust that had kicked up had cleared, Torterra was clearly panting, just about down.

"Let's end this," Ash commanded, "Earthquake!"

Gliscor swooped up into the air, did a circle mid-air, then flew down, and impacted her glowing claws into the ground, sending out a massive shockwave through the ground, which erupted around Torterra. When the slabs of earth eventually crumbled back, Torterra was clearly shown to be unconscious.

The stadium was silent as everyone watched in utter awe. Adrian waited four seconds, and then made the call.

"Torterra is unable to battle. The winner is the Kanto Champion Ash Ketchum."

Another second of silence passed, before the crowd erupted into a mass of cheers and applause that may have very well shook the planet. Ash recalled Gliscor with words of thanks, and then smiled as he raised his arms, as the crowd began to chant:

"CHAMPION ASH! CHAMPION ASH!CHAMPION ASH! CHAMPION ASH! CHAMPION ASH!"

Paul sank to the ground, not even recalling Torterra. He was in complete and utter shock.

'I can't fucking believe this…I…lost to…Ash Ketchum…I was going to become…the next…Kanto Champion…I don't fucking believe this...I WON'T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS!'

Paul reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small round object. This Poke Ball had previously been sealed, as he already had six Pokémon on hand at that time. But since he released Gliscor, he now had an extra space…

"DRAPION!" Paul called out as he threw the Poke Ball as hard as he could, "KILL HIM! KILL THAT WEAKLING!"

The crowd gasped as Drapion emerged, and proceeded to launch itself at Ash, it's claws glowing with a Poison Fang…

Ash swung around suddenly, raising an arm. What appeared to be a shockwave of blue erupted from it, and knocked the Drapion way back, knocking the wind out of it as well. Drapion managed to get back on its feet and lunged again, only to sink its teeth into something else. Jack Soong had jumped down and used his left arm to intercept the attack, which now had Drapion biting into it.

The crowd gasped again as Drapion sent another Poison Fang through its fangs, and into Soong's arm. The sleeve of Soong's windbreaker blew into pieces…

…revealing the grey of metal.

Jack looked at his windbreaker, then back up to Drapion.

"This was brand new, damn it!"

Suddenly, two metal cables appeared and wrapped around Drapion, pulling it back, and causing it's fangs to rip out of Soong's arm, pulling out what appeared to be wires and artificial muscle. The cables were revealed to be coming out of Alex Parker's sleeves, who had jumped into the arena. Parker swung Drapion into the wall of the arena, where an Shield Forme Aegislash, thrown in like a frisbee from Anderson, knocked Drapion out.

While all this was happening, Adrian had left the referee stand, and had moved to grab Paul.

Paul would not go down without a fight. He pulled out a hunting knife and proceeded to stab Adrian in the eye.

No blood came out. Just a blue liquid and a metal screech. Adrian did not even react in pain.

Paul's shocked look was interrupted as Adrian proceeded to knock Paul out.

With Drapion and Paul both Knocked out, Ash waited a moment, before he addressed the crowd with a mic.

"THAT WAS…SURPRISING."

He cleared his throat and continued.

"APOLOGIES FOR THAT SCARE. BUT NOW THAT THE SITUATION HAS BEEN DEALT WITH, ALLOW ME TO DECLARE THE OPENING OF THIS YEARS INDIGO PLATEAU CONFERENCE WITH THE REVELATION OF OUR NEW STADIUM!"

The recovering crowd was confused. New Stadium?

That's when the roar of massive engines became noticeable. Above the whole Indigo Plateau and Indigo Village, a massive saucer-shaped airship flew over, easily eclipsing Indigo Plateau and beyond, with an massive army of lights from the ship lighting up the night sky.

"LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND POKEMON, MAY I PRESENT OUT KNEW FACILITY, THE INDIGO CITADEL!"