With a flash of light, a huge monster appeared on the field.
[LV48 Cetitan / Quasi-Elite]
Cetitan's body was enormous—nearly five meters tall and about eight meters long, bigger than a heavy transport truck.
Grusha didn't dare let Annihilape make the first move, so he gave his command first. "Cetitan, use Ice Spinner!"
"Waooo!"
Cetitan rapidly spun its body as ice energy gathered around it. Using the momentum to accelerate, it charged straight toward Annihilape.
Watching the charging Cetitan, Gary gave his order calmly. "Use Stone Edge."
Annihilape punched the snow-covered ground, and with a bang, a rock blade pierced up from below. Then, a continuous stream of rock blades kept erupting out of the ground one after another.
Cetitan wasn't intimidated—they were just rock blades, after all. Its massive body barreled straight into the Stone Edge. But just as it smashed through one of the blades, the ground beneath it trembled, and another rock blade burst upward, launching the spinning Cetitan into the air.
"Waooo!!"
The sudden weightlessness immediately broke Cetitan's rotation.
"Shadow Punch!"
Annihilape threw a punch, and a dark, shadowy fist shot through the air, striking Cetitan as it fell.
"Waooo!!"
Cetitan cried out. After taking two attacks in a row, it was starting to struggle.
"Close Combat," Gary ordered.
Annihilape rushed toward Cetitan.
"Use Icicle Spear!" Grusha hurriedly counterattacked.
Cetitan opened its huge mouth, and icicle spears condensed and launched forward. But the barrage posed no real threat to Annihilape. Smashing through the icicles with its fists, it quickly broke past the attack's range and closed in on Cetitan, hammering its body with both fists.
Cetitan had no strength left to resist. Under Annihilape's beating, it collapsed straight to the ground.
"Cetitan is unable to battle," the referee announced. "All of Gym Leader Grusha's Pokémon have been defeated. The winner of this Gym match is the challenger, Gary!"
The Gym battle was over.
The audience around the arena was still savoring the match they had just witnessed. Even though Grusha had been thoroughly crushed, the fierce, heroic image of Annihilape had been burned into their minds.
"Brother, are you okay?" Luna rushed over to Grusha and asked worriedly.
"Don't worry, I'm fine. It was just a Gym battle. There are always winners and losers—I can handle losing a match," Grusha said with a forced smile.
Seeing that her brother could still smile, Luna felt much more at ease.
After comforting Luna, Grusha walked over to Gary and handed him the badge.
"This is the Glaseado Mountain Gym badge. Take it."
The Gyms in the Paldea region didn't give their badges individual names—they were simply called badges. All of them shared the same basic design, differing only in the emblem engraved on them. The Glaseado Gym's badge bore an icy mountain pattern.
"Thank you."
Gary accepted the badge.
[Ding! Mission completed. Rewards have been sent to the space backpack.]
"Goodbye."
With the badge in hand, Gary was ready to say his farewells and leave.
"Wait a minute!"
Just as he finished speaking, Luna suddenly stood up.
Gary and Grusha both looked at her in confusion, not knowing what she was about to do.
"What's the matter?" Gary asked.
Luna took a deep breath, pointed at Gary, and declared, "Gary, I'm challenging you here and now. Sooner or later, I'm going to defeat you!"
Gary couldn't help but laugh. Luna's words were just like the kind of thing a child says when they're little—"I want to be a scientist when I grow up." You could only listen and not take it too seriously.
"That might be difficult. You should qualify for the World Championships first," Gary said.
"What's the World Championships?" Luna's face was full of confusion.
Gary glanced at Grusha and saw that he looked visibly embarrassed—clearly mortified by his little sister's question.
"You can ask your brother about that. I'll be going now," Gary said, quickening his pace to leave before Luna could pester him further.
After leaving the Gym, Gary checked what the rewarded Pokémon item was this time. When he saw it, he was shocked.
"Huh? An Ability Expansion Stone? The item rewards can include these too?!"
Gary had always assumed that the rewarded Pokémon items would all be items he already knew of, just with slightly stronger effects. He hadn't expected that even the system's item rewards could roll something like this at random.
"Should I use it on Annihilape?"
Gary thought over the Pokémon he had with him, and Annihilape was clearly the most suitable candidate for the Ability Expansion Stone.
Gary's Annihilape had the ability Defiant, and its other two potential abilities were Vital Spirit and Inner Focus.
Inner Focus prevented flinching and blocked Intimidate—it could still come in handy at times.
Vital Spirit prevented the Pokémon from falling asleep, granting immunity to any hypnosis-based moves, but it wasn't especially useful in practice.
Gary tried to imagine what those two abilities might become after being strengthened, but he couldn't picture it. Still, he wanted to find out.
He returned to the Pokémon Center in Frost Village.
After waiting for Annihilape to finish being healed, Gary went up to his room and prepared to strengthen it. First, he used one Ability Expansion Stone to expand Annihilape's abilities.
[Ding! Ability expansion successful.]
Looking at Annihilape now sporting three active abilities, Gary felt a shiver of anticipation.
"Let's strengthen Defiant first." Gary started with the most useful ability.
[Ding! Strengthening successful.]
[EX Defiant (When any stat is lowered by an opponent, physical Attack sharply increases by three stages, and physical Attack cannot be lowered by the opponent through any means.)]
"Attack up by three stages, plus it comes with a built-in immunity like Hyper Cutter. If this triggers even once, it could basically sweep an entire team. Not bad at all."
Gary was quite satisfied with this ability. The only downside was that it was passive—it required the opponent to use a stat-lowering move or effect on Annihilape first.
"Next, strengthen Inner Focus."
[Ding! Strengthening successful.]
[EX Inner Focus (Will not flinch from the opponent's attacks. Immune to Intimidate, confusion, flinching, pressure, and tension-based conditions.)]
"That's incredible... immune to every negative mental condition." Gary looked at Annihilape and felt that with this enhanced ability, it had been completely transformed into a fearless, reckless brawler.
Now thoroughly excited, Gary immediately strengthened Vital Spirit as well.
[Ding! Strengthening successful.]
[EX Vital Spirit (Cannot fall asleep, and the power of attack moves without additional effects is increased by 20%.)]
Gary hadn't expected that after strengthening, Vital Spirit would gain an effect similar to Sheer Force. The difference was that Sheer Force worked on moves with additional effects, boosting their power by 30% at the cost of nullifying those effects entirely.