Bab 103: Gary vs. Liam 3

The next battle went underway as Gary sent out his fire-type Pokémon, Arcanine. Arcanine came out, roaring his name, and eyeing his opponent. Shadow didn't even put Arcanine in his eyes as he knew that he was a fire type, so he sent up some water attacks like a water gun. Arcanine saw that it was a weak attack and didn't even try to dodge it as he sent out a flamethrower. When the two attacks hit each other, they both evaporated as the place steamed up.

Arcanine showed up in front of Shadow and sent a crunch towards him. Arcanine was able to hit Shadow, but Shadow simply brushed It off and used his crunch attack, which sent Arcanine flying back. Arcanine quickly recovered and sent out a fire blast, which blew all the steam away. Due to the sheer power, Shadow could feel the heat coming, so he used shadow movements to dodge by sinking into the ground and making his way behind Arcanine.

Arcanine, who was so focused on the attack that he was sending towards Shadow that he did not notice that Shadow had come behind him. Shadow used an aqua jet as he ran straight into Arcanine, causing significant damage to Arcanine. Everybody thought Arcanine had fainted, but he was seen struggling to get back up. He barked, signaling he was okay to continue. Shadow flew in the air.

Arcanine had no clue how to get Shadow down, so Shadow used a hydro pump sending a powerful blast of water towards Arcanine. Arcanine knew that if he got hit, he'd be in trouble, so he used agility and then extreme speed to dodge the attack and run straight up the hydro pump and hit Shadow square in the face. Shadow came crashing down as Arcanine followed up with a slam attack slamming his whole body into Shadow.

Shadow had transformed into his devil form level two trying to withstand that attack because he knew that Gary had one more Pokémon left, and he needed his energy to have a battle with him.

After withstanding the attack, Arcanine was still on top of him. Shadow used absorb to absorb some of Arcanine's energy until Arcanine broke free and used flamethrower. Shadow dodged the attack and used an ice beam on Arcanine's feet. As he was frozen in place, Shadow used a hyper beam to knock Arcanine right off the stage, making him the winner.

Gary could only shake his head as he summoned his last Pokémon, Blastoise. Blastoise had gotten a lot stronger since the last time Liam had seen him, and Liam could tell that Blastoise had leveled up quite a bit. The announcer announced the start of the battle. As the two Pokémon just stood there staring at each other, Gary quickly gave a command for Blastoise to use an ice beam. Shadow also used an ice beam, causing the attacks to crash into each other.

Shadow unleashed a thunderbolt along with his ice beam. As the currents started going over, they hit Blastoise square in the body. Blastoise was in a lot of stinging pain but was able to shake it off as smoke was coming off his body. He quickly used a hydro pump to blast the pain away and sent Shadow flying. When Shadow got hit, he was about to fall off the stage, but he quickly caught himself and flew up to the top of the stage.

He stared at Blastoise, who looked just as dangerous as he did as they both got ready for another round. They were going back and forth with water and ice moves until Liam ordered Shadow to use sheer cold. Shadow gathered his energy causing his eyes to shine as he mixed a little bit of dark energy to give it more attack strength, He then unleashed it covering the whole stage with ice, but before he could trigger it, Gary had whispered something to Blastoise. Blastoise's water aura started to grow as he also gathered water energy and blasted with a move called waterspouts.

Soon, the whole stage was filled with ice, and it started to break down. As it seemed like an earthquake was happening, a vast water attack had come and destroyed the whole ice paradise. This shocked Liam and Shadow. At the same time, Shadow was breathing heavily as he watched his attack being killed by a strong water pressure move. After everything was blasted away, Blastoise could be seen on his knees, breathing heavily as he was trying to catch his breath.

Shadow was surprised by this as Gary said, "I saw you use that move in the championship, and I was trying to think of an attack to combat that one, and this is what we came up with. After doing a lot of research and with Grandpa Oaks help, he was able to find one of the ancient moves from a legendary Pokémon as we worked extremely hard to learn it. Even though it's not perfected yet, it's still something that was able to hold Shadow back from his severe attacks."

Liam was surprised and had more respect for Gary as he knew not a lot of people could survive Shadow's attack. The battle continued, but it wasn't as fired up as before because they were both tired now. Shadow decided to finish this by pushing his devil form to level three. He got angrier and more powerful. His shape started to change, and his aura was brimming with energy. He began to form a beam in his mouth, and he unleashed it as it went towards Blastoise, who was not prepared for such a fast attack. He quickly used a hydro pump to blast himself out of the way as he dodged the attack by a short length.

Shadow did not let up as he charged at him once again, this time using a shadow ball. Blastoise tried to fight the attack by using a hydro pump and blasting it at the shadow ball. They were at a standstill as Blastoise was working hard not to get hit by the attack. Just as he was about to blast the shadow ball away, Shadow used a hyper beam and blasted through both attacks hitting Blastoise and knocking him on his back as he slowly slid towards the edge of the stage.

He was just about to fall, but with Gary's commands, he blasted right back onto the stage. At this point, Liam was annoyed with Blastoise's tenacity. Blastoise had used iron defense to take in much of the damage, slowing down his pace as he had withdrawn into his shell, taking minimum cost. Shadow was tired at this point after spending so much energy. He could not keep his devil form for long, so he wanted to use the last attack that he had just learned, which was an aero blast. He used aero blast, and it blasted Blastoise right off the stage, and Shadow had also fainted right after that. And as such, the match came to an end. Both Liam and Gary had lost, but Liam still had two Pokémon left, so that made him the winner.