Multiscale ability?
That didn't make sense, Magnus's Dragonite had already been hit by Dragon Claw once, meaning the Multiscale ability should have already been negated.
"Heh," John chuckled. It didn't matter whether Dragonite possessed Multiscale or not.
Because his current Garchomp was no longer the same Garchomp from his battle against Hank!
"Dig!" John commanded.
The surrounding area was blocked, the sky filled with avalanche, and the entire battlefield would soon be transformed into ice and snow. Mega Garchomp immediately crouched down, his twin scythes working like twin shovels, effortlessly breaking through the ground.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished from the battlefield.
Using the simplest move to dodge what appeared to be the most destructive attack.
Rumble.
Subzero Slammer wasn't so easily evaded, however.
The avalanche was vast and carried extremely low temperatures. The moment it struck, it would directly freeze the soil of the battlefield, even the Dragon Storm Vortex wasn't exempt. This wasn't pure snow either, but flowing energy. As Mega Garchomp burrowed into the earth, Subzero Slammer's icy power followed him down.
It had enough force to blast through the very earth itself.
"Earthquake!" John snapped his fingers.
The battlefield immediately erupted with violent tremors. The frozen tornado shattered instantly, scattering across the ground, while the cold wave attempting to invade underground was lazily severed by the Earthquake.
As the ground fractured, Dragonite quickly took to the sky.
But Garchomp's Earthquake was just the beginning.
His next move was "Sand Tomb!"
After Earthquake had ravaged the earth, the ground became extremely fragile. The shattered terrain transformed into a sea of sand in moments. A massive vortex in the center acted like a millstone, devouring and grinding everything that fell into it, including the frozen tornado fragments and the lingering cold wave.
Unfortunately, Dragonite possessed the Flying-type, making Ground-type moves ineffective against him.
Otherwise, this would have been a one-sided massacre from the very beginning, relying solely on the Dragon Fang that Garchomp carried!
Magnus's eyes flickered as he gained understanding of John's Mega Garchomp's combat capabilities.
Not counting the evasive Dig maneuver, the combination of Earthquake and Sand Tomb had completely destroyed both his original Dragon Storm Vortex technique and his Z-Move "Subzero Slammer."
This clearly demonstrated Garchomp's mastery of Ground-type moves.
"Rock Pledge!" John called out, employing a move he'd developed himself.
Immediately, massive rock spheres shot forth one after another from the battlefield's vortex, trailing khaki flame streamers as they launched straight at the airborne Dragonite.
Rock Pledge, a Rock-type move inspired by Fire Pledge, Grass Pledge, and Water Pledge.
This technique wasn't difficult for Garchomp, being a Ground-type Pokemon. After all, the essence of this move was transmitting power into the ground, then launching attacks from below at the target. So in addition to being a Rock-type pledge, it could also be a Ground-type Earth Pledge or Dragon-type Dragon Pledge.
Fire Pledge, Grass Pledge, and Water Pledge, when combined in succession, could achieve battlefield-changing effects.
Of course, Garchomp's Rock Pledge hadn't yet been developed to combine with other pledges for terrain modification effects.
"Evade!" Magnus commanded.
Unable to locate Garchomp, he could only direct Dragonite to dodge for now.
But there was no need to worry, battle regulations stated that if a Pokemon remained off the battlefield for too long, it would be judged as a loss.
The conceptual range of this battlefield extended 20 meters from ground to sky.
This prevented Pokemon like Ground-types and Flying-types from remaining airborne indefinitely or staying underground permanently, which would reduce battle entertainment and could even cause passive combat or forced draws.
Dragonite tilted slightly sideways, his rotund body easily and gracefully avoiding boulder after boulder.
But just when Magnus and Dragonite thought they'd evaded this technique...
One of the rocks in Rock Pledge suddenly exploded in the air above Dragonite's head.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the sky was covered by a layer of green!
Countless dark green meteors the size of basketballs fell from above, as if a natural disaster was about to destroy the entire battlefield.
"Draco Meteor!" Magnus immediately recognized the attack and shouted his response. "Protect!"
Dragonite immediately crossed his arms, covering his body with an invisible barrier while quickly maneuvering through the air, trying to avoid as many of the Dragon Stars as possible.
Seeing this scene, John's lips curled into a slight smirk.
Developing this Rock Pledge technique hadn't taken Garchomp even two months. The real time-consuming part had been learning to wrap the already extremely unstable Draco Meteor inside Rock spheres without any energy overflow that might alert his opponent.
Only this way could it achieve the effect of surprise attack.
Rock Pledge? No, the real name of this technique should be "Meteor Pledge!"
It possessed both Rock Pledge and Draco Meteor damage effects, and,
"Dragon Rush!" John called out in a low voice.
The final rock shot into the sky exploded behind Dragonite.
The apex hunter, Mega Garchomp, revealed himself in the air. His dragon eyes boiled with killing intent as his massive soul-reaping scythes gleamed with icy light under the hot sun. He was just five meters away from Dragonite!
Sorry, not only were Dragon Stars hidden within the rocks, Mega Garchomp's true body was concealed there as well.
You thought it was a double attack? No, no, no, it's a triple strike!
Whoosh.
The extremely subtle sound was the tremor of Mega Garchomp's twin blades tearing through space.
In the blink of an eye, a black and green dragon roared toward his target.
Dragonite's battle instincts sensed Mega Garchomp's arrival and instantly exploded into action. Abandoning all attempts to dodge the meteor shower, he immediately spun around and struck with "Dragon Claw!"
CRASH!
A muffled impact echoed.
Mega Garchomp took Dragonite's Dragon Claw head-on, carried him straight upward, smashed through two falling dragon stars, and slammed him into the battlefield wall.
After the tremendous crash, the wall cracked inch by inch as smoke and dust filled the air.
A black shadow flickered through the smoke as Mega Garchomp slowly returned to John's side.
Everyone quickly focused their attention on the smoke.
When it cleared, the wall was shattered enough to reveal the energy barrier at the battlefield's edge. Dragonite's body was embedded against the energy shield, his eyes having become spirals.
The referee quickly confirmed Dragonite's condition and announced the result. "Dragonite is unable to battle! Garchomp wins!"