"I'll kill you!"
The enraged voice of the young trainer, Mark, rang through the clearing. Her face was contorted with fury, tears glistening in her eyes as she charged toward Ash Ketchum. Her Venusaur lay defeated, unconscious from the previous attack, and the sting of loss was too much for her to bear.
But just as she got close, her brother Steve grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks.
"Mark, calm down!" Steve said firmly, his tone serious. "Take Venusaur back into its Poké Ball and get it to a Pokémon Center, fast."
Steve's words finally reached her through the haze of anger. She clenched her fists, trembling, then pulled out Venusaur's Poké Ball and returned the unconscious Pokémon with a flash of red light. Without another word, she turned and began to walk away.
"Hey, hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?" Ash called out loudly, stepping forward with a mocking grin. "Trying to run away just because you lost? That's not how this works."
Mark paused mid-step, her back stiffening.
"If you dare run away now," Ash added coldly, his voice dropping an octave, "I'll make sure your two buddies here get beaten half to death. Believe it or not."
With his unshaven face, confident posture, and sharp tone, Ash didn't look like the type to bluff. His threat hung in the air like a blade.
Mark stopped walking.
Seeing that he had their attention, Ash's intimidating demeanor shifted, and a smug smile crept back onto his face. "Of course, if you're willing to admit defeat on behalf of your team and wire the prize money to me right now, I wouldn't mind letting you leave."
The three trainers—Mark, Steve, and their companion Elm—looked at each other uncertainly. None of them wanted to lose. But none of them wanted to face the wrath of Ash's mysterious Pidgey again, either.
"Don't let him scare you," Elm finally said, stepping forward, trying to bolster his team's confidence. "We've still got Charizard and Croconaw. There's no way we're going to lose that easily."
He turned to his teammates and spoke quickly, "It's just a Pidgey. It hasn't even evolved yet. It's not a Legendary Pokémon, and it's definitely not some mythical beast. There's no way it can keep using Hyper Beam like it's a Quick Attack."
He was trying to reason it out loud, perhaps more to convince himself than the others.
"No matter how good it is, no matter how talented or well-trained, it's still a Pidgey. There are limits. It's already used Hyper Beam twice. I doubt it can manage a third one. And even if it does, it can't possibly be at full strength anymore. Charizard's Flamethrower will roast it."
Despite his confident tone, sweat was running down Elm's forehead. Steve and Mark noticed but didn't argue. They didn't want to end this 3-on-1 only to admit they couldn't beat a single unevolved bird Pokémon.
The battle continued.
"Croconaw, fall back. Let Charizard take over," Elm ordered, his tone sharp and decisive.
Croconaw grunted and stepped aside, retreating to a supporting role. Against a Flying-type like Pidgey, most of Croconaw's Water-type moves would be ineffective. Charizard, however, was another matter entirely.
"Charizard, let's go! Get close to Pidgey and hit it with Wing Attack!" Steve called.
Charizard roared, its wings slicing the air as it launched into the sky. It soared toward Pidgey with speed and power, the air shimmering from the force of its wingbeats.
Ash remained calm. He watched the incoming attack, then gave a simple command. "Pidgey, Steel Wing!"
With a soft metallic hum, Pidgey's wings shimmered and hardened like silver blades. It didn't flinch. Instead, it met Charizard head-on in the air.
Clang!
The sharp crack of metal-on-metal rang out as the two Pokémon collided mid-air. Pidgey's smaller form held firm against the massive Charizard.
Spectators gasped.
"No way! It's using Steel Wing too?"
"Is that really a Pidgey?!"
"I don't care what happens next—I'm catching a Pidgey for my next team!"
The awe in their voices echoed around the field. Even Mark, Steve, and Elm stood stunned.
A Pidgey—just a slightly bigger-than-average bird—was trading blows with a Charizard, and it wasn't backing down.
"Charizard, Smokescreen!" Steve called out, his voice slightly panicked.
Charizard opened its mouth and belched out a thick cloud of black smoke. The smog swirled in the air, filling the battlefield and cutting off visibility.
"Fool," Ash muttered under his breath, smirking. "You're trying to blind a Flying-type?"
In reality, Smokescreen only made things easier.
"Pidgey, execute Tactic No. 1!" Ash commanded with a snap of his fingers.
"Tactic No. 1?" Elm repeated nervously, the name alone making his stomach twist with unease.
Steve's eyes widened. "Charizard, pull back from the smoke and get Flamethrower ready!"
Charizard flapped its wings and exited the thick cloud, preparing to unleash a blast of fire. Flames began building in its throat.
Then—whoosh!—three Pidgeys shot out from the smoke, each holding glowing orbs of destructive energy in their beaks.
"Wha—? Three of them?!" someone in the crowd shouted.
"It's Double Team!" another called out. "Only one is real!"
"Charizard, Flamethrower! Hit all of them!" Steve yelled.
Charizard responded immediately. A column of fire erupted from its mouth, incinerating the first Pidgey clone with ease.
The second vanished in a puff of smoke.
That left just one.
"There! That's the real one! Hit it with everything you've got!" Steve shouted again, eyes wide.
Charizard redirected the full blast of its Flamethrower toward the last remaining Pidgey. The flames engulfed it...
And it disappeared.
Another fake.
Steve's face drained of color.
In that exact moment, from deep within the smog cloud, a massive beam of black energy burst forth—Hyper Beam.
The real Pidgey had never left the smoke.
The beam struck Charizard directly in the chest, launching the Fire-type across the battlefield. It tumbled through the trees, breaking branches and snapping trunks before finally crashing to the ground, unconscious.
Silence.
Then, from the shadows of the fading smoke, Pidgey soared forward, wings spread wide and eyes glowing with power. It hovered above the battlefield like a conquering champion, its gaze fixed on the only opponent left—Croconaw.
Croconaw, upon meeting Pidgey's eyes, froze. The ferocity it once displayed was gone. Instead, it trembled.
This Pidgey had just taken down Venusaur and Charizard.
And now it was staring at him.
With a yelp, Croconaw turned and fled behind Elm, refusing to battle.
Ash called out across the battlefield, his voice cutting through the tension. "So? Are we still battling, or are we done here?"
Elm, Steve, and Mark all looked toward Ash with clenched jaws and bitter frustration.
They didn't answer. They didn't need to.
Their final Pokémon had refused to fight.
It was over.
Ash smirked and walked toward them confidently, hands in his pockets. His companion, Mew, floated back to his shoulder, purring and using Confusion to speak directly into Ash's mind.
"Master, how was my strategy?"
Ash reached up and scratched Mew's head affectionately.
"Perfect. You executed Tactic No. 1 brilliantly."
Tactic No. 1 wasn't anything fancy. It was a strategy they had quietly agreed upon while the opposing team debated whether to continue the match. A simple illusion: keep the real Pidgey hidden in the smoke while the Double Team clones baited out Charizard's attacks. Then, strike with a surprise Hyper Beam from behind the veil.
It had worked flawlessly.
As Ash turned away, victorious, the other trainers could only stare in disbelief. How could a regular Pidgey defeat not one, but three strong Pokémon? It wasn't just talent—it was experience, strategy, and trust.
Ash Ketchum, once seen as a wandering trainer with a strange bird, had just crushed three opponents in a single battle.
And as the crowd looked on in awe, a new question began to rise in their minds—
Was this really just a Pidgey?
Or was it something more?
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