In the stands, the group had opinions.
"Something's off about him," Nathan said, watching Lenny take his position. "His composure shifted the moment Ash named his terms. That's not the look of someone who just decided to take a risk. That's someone who thinks they already have an answer."
"Enhancement?" Sam asked.
"My guess." Nathan adjusted his glasses. "Something that won't show on standard screening. The Rowan family has resources and so does Koizumi independently. It's the only explanation for why he agreed so quickly after that reaction."
"Does it matter?" Blake asked.
Nathan considered. "Against Ash? No. But it matters for the post-match review."
...
"The wager has been officially registered," the commentator announced, voice carrying a barely contained excitement. "Lenny Koizumi's life contract against Ash Ketchum's complete self-created technique set! Both parties have signed! This match is officially underway!"
Lenny reached for his belt. "Let's see how you handle this. Go, Typhlosion!"
White light burst across the arena and a Typhlosion landed in a low crouch, the flames around its neck collar blazing at an intensity that was immediately, visibly wrong. Too bright. Too stable. The heat rolling off it pushed outward in visible waves.
The enhancement was already active.
Ash read it in half a second. "Ninetales."
Ninetales materialized with her usual unhurried elegance and regarded Typhlosion across the arena floor with calm ruby eyes.
"Interesting choice from Ash!" the commentator called. "Ninetales carried the previous match on her own. Is Ash planning a repeat performance?"
"Flamethrower," Lenny said immediately. "Full output."
The Typhlosion's Flamethrower was noticeably stronger than it should have been at its level, the beam wider and hotter, the color shifting toward white at the core.
"Psychic."
The barrier absorbed it cleanly.
"Again. Don't stop."
Typhlosion poured everything into a sustained stream, the heat building until the arena floor began to crack along the fault lines from the previous match's damage.
Ninetales held the Psychic barrier without visible strain.
"Typhlosion's output is extraordinary," the commentator said, something uncertain entering his voice. "But Ninetales isn't moving. She's just... holding it."
In the stands, Nathan was already writing something in the small notebook he'd started keeping for exactly these situations.
"The enhancement is real," he said. "Typhlosion is performing above its registered level by a significant margin."
"Can Ninetales hold it?" Blake asked.
"She's holding it right now," Sam said.
"Extrasensory," Ash said.
Ninetales released the barrier and fired the psychic pulse forward in the same motion, driving it directly into Typhlosion's sustained Flamethrower. The beam split apart, and the Extrasensory punched through the gap and hit Typhlosion square in the chest.
Typhlosion skidded back three meters, flames flickering.
"Incredible counter! Ninetales used the split second of the barrier release to fire through the opening in the Flamethrower!"
Lenny's expression tightened. "Eruption!"
The ground around Typhlosion cracked open as columns of superheated flame erupted in a wide radius, turning the arena floor into a field of fire geysers. The technique covered the entire far half of the arena.
"Ninetales, up." Ash said it quietly.
Ninetales leaped, clearing the eruption entirely, and hung in the air for the fraction of a second that was all she needed.
"Flamethrower vortex. Maximum spread."
Twenty-five meters of spiraling fire fell from above the eruption field and swallowed it whole, the descending vortex and the rising geysers meeting in a catastrophic exchange that the Eruption simply couldn't outlast.
When it cleared, Typhlosion was on one knee, burns visible across his shoulders, the enhanced flames around his collar stuttering.
"Get up!" Lenny's voice had an edge of desperation now. "Blast Burn!"
Typhlosion reared back and gathered everything he had left into the most powerful Fire-type move in existence.
"Psychic. Full output. Now."
The Blast Burn never launched.
The Psychic hit Typhlosion during the charge-up phase, while his output was concentrated inward for the technique, and the disruption cascaded through the entire move's structure. Typhlosion was thrown backward by his own interrupted power surge and hit the arena wall hard.
He didn't get up.
"Typhlosion is unable to battle! Ninetales wins!"
The crowd erupted.
Lenny stared at his Pokémon for a long moment. Then he reached for his next ball.
Three more Pokémon followed. Each one enhanced, each one performing above registered level, each one handled by Ninetales before the match crossed the fifteen-minute mark.
When the fifth ball hit the floor and the light resolved into a Magmar that was visibly struggling to maintain its enhancement effect, the crowd had already stopped cheering match by match and shifted into a continuous rolling noise.
"This is unprecedented," the commentator said, no longer trying to maintain professional distance. "Ash Ketchum's Ninetales has defeated five consecutive opponents without switching, without taking a single clean hit, and without appearing to be under any meaningful pressure whatsoever!"
"Final one," Ash said to no one in particular. "Let's finish it. Fire Blast."
The five-pointed star of concentrated flame crossed the arena and hit Magmar before the enhancement could compensate.
"Magmar is unable to battle! The winner is Ash Ketchum! He advances to the Silver Conference final!"
In the silence that followed the announcement, before the crowd noise fully arrived, Lenny Koizumi stood on his side of the arena and looked at the unscathed Ninetales across from him.
"How," he said. Not angry. Genuinely asking.
Ash recalled Ninetales. "You enhanced your Pokémon's output but not their stamina or structural integrity. Every technique they used above their natural ceiling was burning through them from the inside." He looked at Lenny evenly. "You won the first thirty seconds of every exchange. I won the next two minutes."
Lenny had nothing to say to that.
In the stands, Nathan closed his notebook.
"Post-match drug screening is going to be interesting," he said.
"Very," Sam agreed.