The blazing flames died out.
Magmar's figure slowly emerged from within the fire.
Shiko's Flamethrower had hit it so hard that it went straight into a coma.
Magmar's entire body was charred black, covered in large patches of burn marks.
It was hard to imagine.
A Fire-type Pokémon with such powerful flames could end up burned this badly.
Joji recalled Magmar.
He handed the Poké Ball to a staff member nearby, telling them to take it to the Pokémon Center for treatment.
"Beep!!"
The huge screen overhead let out a sharp electronic sound.
Everyone looked up.
Behind Joji's portrait, five Poké Balls had already been marked with X's.
His Pokémon lineup had been beaten down to a single remaining Pokémon.
Now—
the situation had returned to a fair 1v1.
When the spectators in the stands saw this, they erupted into thunderous cheers.
When the match first began, no one had imagined it would end up like this.
Himeko had actually seized the advantage in an unfair matchup!
Maybe she really could turn it around and take the championship!
This kind of desperate comeback—
everyone loved to see it.
"So strong!"
In the VIP seats, Aisa's eyes shone brightly.
This battle had completely refreshed her understanding of Shiko.
It wasn't just that his physical strength training had reached perfection—
even his control, application, and accumulation of Fire-type energy had become masterful.
No matter which angle you judged from,
he was unquestionably perfect.
"As President Sun said, just this one Charmeleon deserves an S+ rating."
Smiling, she took out the evaluation sheet.
Next to Himeko's name,
she wrote down an S+ rating.
The vice principals from the Pokémon universities sitting behind her
also silently pulled out their own evaluation sheets.
Just like Aisa,
they re-rated Himeko.
Without even needing to speak, everyone gave the same outrageous S+ rating.
There was no exaggeration in that rating at all.
To raise that Charmeleon to such perfection,
and to have it possess such powerful independent combat capability even away from its trainer—
all of it was proof enough
of how outstanding Himeko was at training and battling.
"Huh?"
All of a sudden,
everyone noticed something changing on Shiko, who was standing on the battle arena.
A layer of white light enveloped him,
wrapping his entire body inside it.
"Is he evolving?"
The crowd gasped.
That was obviously evolution light!
Evolving during a battle wasn't especially rare.
But—
Shiko starting to evolve at such a critical moment
made the entire stadium even more excited.
He was already absurdly strong as a Charmeleon.
If he evolved into Charizard now, how insane would that be?
It was locked in!
Today's match was definitely going to be a win!
Himeko also let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
She had thought Shiko's earlier talk about evolving was just him joking with her.
She hadn't expected it—
he was really evolving.
And at the exact key moment of the final showdown.
Himeko stared at Shiko within the white light, his body becoming blurry as his shape began to change.
Her heart pounded with excitement.
Watching her starter Pokémon evolve to this stage
filled her with a deep sense of accomplishment.
From Charmeleon to Charizard—
that was a massive qualitative leap.
Not only would his strength rise by an entire tier,
but after gaining the Flying attribute and being able to fly,
his effective attack coverage would widen a lot, too.
Himeko clenched her fist, her eyes flickering with excitement.
This match was absolutely secure!
After Shiko evolved into Charizard,
she would be even more confident about taking the win!
"Good thing I prepared early and considered this possibility."
From the opposite side of the arena,
Joji's voice suddenly rang out.
It was nothing like the gloomy, tense expression everyone expected.
There was actually a smile on his face.
That look of complete control—
his confident aura somehow seemed even stronger than before.
What was wrong with him?
Had the pressure broken him?
Himeko looked at Joji, puzzled.
He'd been forced from 6v3 all the way down to 1v1—
where was this confidence coming from?
"Go! My last Pokémon!"
Joji's voice cut off Himeko's thoughts.
He unclipped his final Poké Ball
and hurled it into the air, drawing a perfect arc.
A red beam of light fell into the stream terrain on the battle arena.
A blue Pokémon surfaced,
showing half its body above the water.
Himeko took one look at it
and instantly understood
why Joji was so confident.
His last Pokémon was a Lanturn!!
Water/Electric dual typing—
perfectly countering Charizard's Fire/Flying typing!
And—
this Lanturn's level was as high as forty-nine!
An exaggerated peak of Gym-level strength!!
No wonder, after seeing Shiko begin evolving,
Joji wasn't nervous at all.
Instead, he looked this confident—
he had already found the answer!
"Shyuu~~!"
Lanturn let out a piercing cry
as it swam back and forth through the stream.
On its forehead,
a clear, cross-shaped scar could be seen.
It looked like it had once fought a brutal battle,
leaving behind a wound that refused to fully heal.
In the VIP seats,
Izo, the city lord, saw the conspicuous scar on Lanturn's head—
and sprang to his feet.
With a furious expression, he strode up to Akio.
"Are you out of your damn mind?! You can actually do something like this?!"
"You actually gave your own Pokémon to your son to fight with—do you have any idea that violates the rules?!"
Izo grabbed Akio by the collar and roared.
This bastard had already exploited a loophole once—changing the long-standing 3v3 finals rule into 6v6 just to ensure his son's victory.
And now he was shameless enough to lend his own Pokémon to his son for the match?!
"I didn't break any rules."
Akio's face was dark as he forcefully shook off Izo's hand.
"I already released this Lanturn. I also deregistered its information from the League Association. I had the Association help me release it, so it could return to the wild."
"So my son captured a wild Pokémon and used it to enter the tournament—there's no problem with that, right?"
Akio spoke brazenly, without the slightest hint of embarrassment.
"You—!"
"You're really insane!"
Izo stared at Akio, and for a moment he couldn't even find the words to condemn him.
Strictly speaking, in terms of procedure,
what he did didn't directly violate any explicit rule.
The tournament requirement
was that you could only battle using Pokémon you had personally caught.
Akio had clearly taken advantage of a loophole with despicable methods.
But if you truly tried to pin responsibility on him,
you couldn't find any concrete handle to grab.
"I really don't understand why you'd go this far!"
"Has your Amano family decided you don't even want your reputation anymore?!"
Izo glared at Akio in fury.
After leaving those words behind,
he suppressed the anger in his chest and returned to his seat.
No matter what,
the match was still in progress.
Akio's abnormal behavior would have to be investigated again after the match ended.
No one noticed—
in Akio's eyes,
a flash of bitterness and helplessness swept through.
It wasn't only Izo who recognized where that Lanturn came from.
Quite a few spectators in the stands
also recognized it as a Pokémon that had once belonged to Akio.
"Damn it! This is cheating!"
"Are you serious?! You people have no shame!"
"From now on, I'm never setting foot in any Amano family shop again!"
"It's over! I already spent fifty thousand betting on Himeko for champion—now I'm going to lose badly!"
"Hell, me too! I bet a hundred thousand!"
"..."
Curses surged through the stands like a tide.
Joji and Akio—
father and son—
became the targets of everyone's anger and insults.
Inside the white light,
Shiko felt a powerful energy surging through his body again and again.
The System's panel reappeared before his eyes.
Staring at the images displayed further down the evolution chain,
Shiko considered which one he should choose as his evolution form for this stage.
And it was exactly while he hesitated—
he suddenly saw Joji send out a peak Gym-level Lanturn.
Shiko was startled.
He hadn't expected
this guy's final hidden trump card would be something like this.
So—
without hesitation, Shiko directly ruled out the "Charizard" option on the evolution chain.
Evolving into Charizard in this situation—
wouldn't that be the same as turning himself into a target for Lanturn?
His gaze shifted.
It locked onto a branch of the Greymon evolution line.
Greymon, Greymon (Blue), Greymon (X-Antibody)...
Got it.
This one.
Shiko's eyes instantly fixed on one of them,
satisfaction flashing in his expression.
The Greymon that shatters the earth—GeoGreymon!
Dragon/Ground dual type!
Immune to Electric-type attacks,
and Water-type attacks wouldn't be able to do much damage either!
A perfect counter to the Lanturn in front of him!
After making his choice,
Shiko felt the cells inside his body begin reorganizing.
Two streams of energy—
one blue, one gray—
slowly began to emerge from within him,
growing denser and stronger.
"I'll wait for you to finish evolving, and then I'll hand you a fatal blow! How about it—am I not a gentleman..."
Joji smugly taunted Himeko, radiating confidence.
Halfway through his sentence,
he suddenly stopped.
Staring at the white sphere of evolution light that was swelling and surging larger and larger,
the smile on his face froze solid.
What the hell?!
What was going on?
Wasn't he supposed to be evolving into Charizard?
Then why did the silhouette inside that evolution light
look so tall?
A normal Charizard was about as tall as an adult, roughly 1.7 meters.
Even a particularly large one
was at most around 2 meters.
But the silhouette inside the light in front of them—
just from its outline alone, it was already over 4 meters!
A massive bulk had abruptly appeared on the battle arena!
Everyone in the stadium—
including Himeko—
noticed it.
All of them looked like they'd seen a ghost.
No one had any idea what had happened to Shiko
to make his evolved body grow so tall, so imposing.
"ROAR!!"
The next second,
the white evolution light finally vanished completely.
Fully evolved,
Shiko stepped out of the light
and revealed his brand-new form!
The moment that upright dinosaur Digimon appeared,
the world itself seemed to fall silent.
(End of Chapter)
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