Tokiko laughed, hands on her hips, watching the small fireballs vanish harmlessly into Emboar's Flame Wheel.
"Thought so! Not so impressive after all!"
In the stands, Blake shook his head slowly.
"She's reading the surface," Nathan said, pushing his glasses up. "Hasn't noticed what the fireballs were actually doing."
"She'll notice in about three seconds," Blake said.
Two seconds later, the Flame Wheel stopped.
Not slowed, not faltered. Stopped completely, the rotation collapsing from the inside, flames extinguishing like a switch had been thrown. Emboar stumbled out of the technique looking genuinely confused.
Tokiko's triumphant expression froze.
"What just happened?" the commentator said. "The Flame Wheel has completely stopped! Is this a technical failure? Or something deliberate from Ash's side?"
"Psychic."
The blue pulse hit Emboar square in the abdomen at point-blank range and sent him skidding hard across the arena floor.
"Emboar!"
Ferb Ignatius leaned forward in his seat, eyes sharp. "He used Will-O-Wisp against the rotation, not against Emboar. Constant small impacts in the opposite direction, gradually bleeding the spin's momentum until the whole technique collapsed."
"I knew the principle when he started it," Nathan admitted. "I still wasn't certain it would work cleanly."
"That's the difference between knowing and doing," Ferb said.
...
Emboar dragged himself back up, half-kneeling, breathing hard. The level gap between him and Ninetales was making itself felt now, attribute disadvantage stacking on top of it.
Tokiko read the situation clearly enough. She wasn't giving up, but she wasn't stupid either.
"Come back, Emboar. Go, Unfezant!"
The new arrival spread its wings and caught the arena air, climbing fast. Unfezant, Normal and Flying type, clean of any attribute weakness Ninetales could exploit directly.
"Not bad," Ash said quietly. "She adapted."
"Smart substitution from the Tokiko player!" the commentator called. "Unfezant removes the Psychic-type disadvantage entirely. Can she turn the match around?"
"Air Slash."
Unfezant's wings snapped forward and a blade of compressed air screamed across the arena toward Ninetales.
"Flamethrower."
A steady stream of fire met the Air Slash dead center. The techniques ground against each other for a half-second before the Flamethrower won on sheer output, dispersing the blade and continuing forward in a wide burst.
"Use the smoke. Wing Attack."
Smart. Tokiko had been watching Ash's tendencies. She'd clocked that he used cover as a tool and decided to use it herself first.
Unfezant dove into the expanding cloud of smoke and combustion residue, wings glowing metallic, cutting toward Ninetales's last known position.
"Ash Flame."
A thick wave of grey smoke erupted from Ninetales's muzzle, merging seamlessly with the existing cloud, doubling the coverage.
Tokiko's chin came up. A flicker of satisfaction. "Finally. Wing Attack, straight through!"
Unfezant locked onto Ninetales's position by sight memory and drove the Wing Attack home.
The wings connected.
"Boom Pheasant!"
"Flamethrower. Ignite."
Ninetales exhaled directly into the smoke cloud still surrounding her.
The whole thing went up at once.
The explosion that followed wasn't massive, but it was everywhere, filling every corner of the obscured space simultaneously. Unfezant, positioned at the heart of it, took the blast from every direction.
When the smoke cleared, Unfezant was down and not getting up.
"Unfezant is unable to battle! Ninetales wins!"
The crowd roared.
Tokiko recalled Unfezant with a slightly trembling hand, lips pressed together tight. For a moment she looked genuinely close to tears, not from sadness, from sheer frustrated pride.
"That's mean," she said, looking at Ash with wet eyes and a stubborn set to her jaw.
"It's a Pokémon battle," Ash said flatly. "There's no mean and not-mean. There's tactics and there's results. If you think every battle should be face-to-face, you might want to reconsider the trainer path."
Tokiko stared at him.
Then she squared her shoulders, wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and threw her third Poké Ball.
"Fine. I still disagree about Kami. Emboar, back out!"
"The Tokiko player recalls Emboar for a second appearance! Bold choice given the current matchup!"
"Sister who?" Ash said.
"Don't play dumb!" Tokiko pointed at him, voice cracking slightly with indignation. "Emboar, Wild Charge!"
Flame and electricity erupted simultaneously around Emboar as he launched forward, the hybrid technique scorching shallow craters into the arena floor in his wake.
Ash looked at Ninetales.
"Three fireballs. End it."
Ninetales opened her mouth and three massive fireballs launched in sequence, each one the diameter of a small car.
The first one met Wild Charge head on and cancelled it clean.
The second and third hit Emboar before he'd recovered his footing.
"CABO!!!"
"Emboar is unable to battle! Ninetales wins! Ash Ketchum advances to the semi-finals!"