The battle broke open all at once.
The King-level Metagross hit the cave floor before it had time to process what had struck it. Iron Valiant stood over it, blade at its side, its expression carrying the particular cold composure it always had after ending something quickly. It turned its gaze to the two remaining Metagross without hurry, the posture of something that had not yet been challenged.
Jacob watched from behind and felt the familiar reassurance settle over him.
A Champion-level Iron Valiant against two King opponents was never going to be a close contest. The gap in raw strength was too wide. The only real variable was time.
He retrieved the downed King-level Metagross in a Poké Ball and turned his attention to the remaining two.
"Iron Valiant — take down the Crystal Metagross first, then back up Darkrai. Move quickly."
Iron Valiant acknowledged this without a word and shifted its focus to the Crystal Metagross.
Jacob's eyes drifted to the other side of the cave, where Darkrai and the Giant Metagross were already circling each other.
That one was the variable.
Both were Peak King level on paper. But the Crystal Metagross had shown visible wariness toward the Giant Metagross from the moment it appeared, and Pokémon didn't show wariness without reason. Whatever the Giant Metagross had done to earn that reaction, it had done so within the Underground World — meaning it had beaten or thoroughly dominated the Crystal Metagross at some point. Its combat power was clearly a tier above what its level suggested.
"Darkrai — hold position. Stall until Iron Valiant is free to help."
Darkrai tilted its head slightly in acknowledgment. But Jacob caught something in the way it held itself — the Dark-type energy already building around its frame, the fixed, intent look it was giving the Giant Metagross.
Jacob understood immediately.
Darkrai had the pride of a Legendary Pokémon. Being told to stall, to wait for backup against an opponent it considered its equal — that wasn't something it was going to accept quietly. It wanted to win this on its own terms.
Jacob started to say something else, then stopped himself.
If he kept qualifying the instruction, kept hedging, kept reminding — he would be telling Darkrai, in plain terms, that he didn't trust it. And right now, with Iron Valiant available as a safety net, this was exactly the kind of high-pressure situation Darkrai needed to grow through.
He made his decision.
"Darkrai — since you want to fight, then let's win it together." Jacob smiled. "Dark Void."
Dark-type energy erupted from Darkrai's body like a tide pulling toward open water, vast and pulling, surging across the cave floor toward the Giant Metagross.
The Giant Metagross didn't move. Its expression didn't change. Metagross were never rattled easily — their Steel and Psychic typing came with an intelligence and a calculation that most opponents underestimated — but this one in particular seemed to exist in a category of its own. It watched Darkrai's attack approach with flat crimson eyes and showed nothing.
Then Psychic energy wrapped around its body, thin as a film, barely visible unless the light caught it at the right angle.
It moved.
The speed was absurd for something of its size. It cut a sharp Z-shaped path through the air, each directional change precise and immediate, threading through the expanding Dark Void with margins that looked, from where Jacob was standing, almost deliberately narrow. Not fleeing the attack — navigating it. Each dodge was calculated to use the minimum space necessary.
Jacob's eyes narrowed.
He wasn't certain which move was producing that acceleration — it had the look of Agility — but the specifics mattered less than what the movement itself was telling him. Once could be instinct. Twice could be fortune. But every single dodge grazing the edge of the Dark Void without being caught — that was precision. The Metagross had calculated Darkrai's release timing, the expansion rate of the move, and its own velocity, and was executing within those margins deliberately.
The Psychic energy coating its body was equally telling. Most Pokémon using Psychic energy made it visible — it radiated outward, announced itself. This Metagross kept it so contained that it was nearly undetectable. Not a trace of waste.
One exchange, and Jacob was genuinely unsettled.
The Giant Metagross closed the distance as it wove between the Dark Void spheres. Fighting-type energy gathered along its right foreleg, coating the thick blue metal in a wash of deep red.
It raised the limb and brought it down.
Hammer Arm.
"Darkrai — Double Team, now!"
Jacob's voice cracked out urgently. As a pure Dark-type, Darkrai had a double weakness to Fighting-type moves. Against Metagross's physical attack power, taking a direct hit from Hammer Arm wasn't something he was willing to allow.
Darkrai responded instantly. Normal-type energy spread across the cave, and a dozen copies of Darkrai materialised across the space, each one identical.
The Giant Metagross didn't hesitate for even a second.
Psychic energy flooded into its eyes, turning them a deep, glowing purple. It stared across the field of copies — and in an instant, it had found the real one.
The logic was clean: Double Team used Normal-type energy to generate illusions. Dark-type Pokémon were immune to Psychic-type moves. A Psychic scan across the field would affect every Normal-type illusion and leave the real Darkrai untouched — making the genuine one visible by absence.
Metagross had worked this out faster than Jacob could have said it aloud.
The red-wreathed foreleg swung toward the real Darkrai.
"Darkrai — Substitute!"
At the last possible moment, Normal-type energy burst from Darkrai's body. A Substitute formed in its place, taking the impact squarely.
Boom.
The force of it drove the Substitute into the cave floor. The ground cracked in a spiderweb pattern from the point of impact, dust and rock fragments scattering in every direction. The whole chamber seemed to shudder.
Jacob and Darkrai both held very still for a moment.
If Jacob hadn't thought ahead to set Darkrai up with Substitute, Toxic, and Protect before this mission — if Darkrai had taken that hit directly — the outcome would have been very different.
He stared at the crater left by the impact.
If this battle kept going at this scale, the Underground World itself was going to start coming down around them.
What a Metagross.