"He's scummy beyond belief—this is next-level underhanded!"
"Hold up, I just got hyped and now it's over?"
"Was this guy born evil or what!?"
By all logic, Hitmonlee should've made a dramatic comeback after being cornered. That's how these stories usually go, right?
But somehow, this just turned into a one-sided beatdown. He couldn't even land a decent hit!
Still, as a professional commentator, no matter how chaotic the match gets, you gotta stay on the job.
By now, Caleb's strategy was crystal clear.
First, pretend to be at a disadvantage. Then, when backed into a corner, use the Egg Bomb as bait to sneak in Toxic. Once the poison hits, follow up with Charm to lower the enemy's attack…
At this point, it barely even qualifies as a battle anymore—it's pure social revenge.
What kind of grudge does he even have with Green?
Green herself was starting to panic. Time was running out.
Hitmonlee's attacks were completely ineffective, and the toxic damage was stacking up fast. Honestly, the outcome was pretty much sealed.
But with that 180,000 prize on the line, she couldn't just give up: "Hitmonlee, one last High Jump Kick!"
If it hits a critical spot, there's still a chance!
[Critical hits deal 1.5× damage and ignore stat debuffs.]
"Chaah!"
Just as Hitmonlee made its move, a flash of deep purple flickered across its body—dark blotches crawling up its skin again.
The poison struck sooner than expected.
"Hitmonlee!"
Green's face changed dramatically.
Overwhelmed by the sudden burst of toxic pain, Hitmonlee's movement froze. It squinted, trying to hold back the agony...
Boom!
Its legs finally gave out. Hitmonlee collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
But that eerie, chilling glow of poison didn't fade.
Another wave of Toxic damage hit, and Hitmonlee's eyes turned into dizzy spirals.
"Hitmonlee is unable to battle! The final winner is Caleb!"
The referee stepped forward to confirm and raised his flag.
"Oh my god, Hitmonlee's down! The final champion has been crowned!" shouted Kodo.
Just like that, the battle was over. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe it ended this way.
Especially Green, who stood frozen in disbelief.
The poison hit way earlier than she'd expected, cutting off her final hope before it even began.
The sudden turn of events left her feeling all kinds of mixed emotions.
The audience sat silent, watching Caleb recall his Chansey.
He really won, just like that?
But then silence turned to chaos.
Sure, during the match, no one was allowed to interfere—but after? All bets were off.
Someone in the crowd shouted something, and suddenly the whole audience erupted, surging toward the stage like a lit powder keg.
Not that Caleb cared.
The moment the match ended, he took Chansey straight to the Pokémon Center.
That match had taken a decent toll, after all.
Nurse Joy frowned a bit when she saw Chansey in perfect condition.
"She looks perfectly fine… does she even need healing?"
After a brief thought, she pulled out a PP multi-recovery spray from the medkit and gave Chansey a quick spritz on the forehead.
A cool liquid misted out instantly.
"Lucky~!"
Chansey chirped happily, feeling her strength fully restored.
A little while later, a tournament staffer showed up.
Apparently, the crowd at the venue had gotten a bit out of hand, so they were moving the awards ceremony and prize handout offline.
Caleb didn't care much. He wasn't in it for the prizes anyway.
His name was already out there—his gym was bound to blow up for a while now.
...
"He didn't even use Protect once and still tanked Hitmonlee's High Jump Kick with pure bulk?"
Yellow couldn't help but admire him.
She finally remembered who that guy was that had battled Green.
That infamous name blowing up in the dirty-tactic community lately.
The one who made "Protect or not-Protect" such a meme it sparked a whole wave of copycats.
Even someone like Yellow, who wasn't part of that scene, had heard whispers about him.
In this match, Caleb hadn't used Protect a single time and still shrugged off Hitmonlee's attack. If he had used it, who knows how dirty it could've gotten?
Just thinking about it gave Yellow the chills.
Blue, face expressionless, reached into his pocket and pulled out a shining Fire Stone.
Without a word, he tossed it onto the table in front of Red.
The motion was smooth and silent, like it had been rehearsed.
Red glanced at the Fire Stone and smiled. "You don't have anything to say?"
Blue snorted, arms crossed, speaking calmly: "If you look at the whole match, Green was completely led around by the nose. She didn't lose unfairly."
"That guy's clearly in a whole different league."
"True. His sense for tactics and timing was flawless," Red nodded in agreement.
Blue suddenly pulled out his phone. "With someone this skilled, there's no way we haven't heard of him before. But according to the data, he's just some gym leader from a small town in Sinnoh."
"Other than being from a rich family, there's nothing special about him on paper."
"Is that so?"
"Come on, identities are easy to fake. Plenty of trainers have done it before."
"I'll log into the League system and run a deep check." As he spoke, Blue summoned a Porygon from his phone.
As a former League Champion, Blue had high-level clearance. Once he logged into his champion account, with the League's massive database behind him, digging up someone's background would be a piece of cake.
But Red stopped him. "Let it go. If he's hiding his identity, he probably has his reasons."
"But since he's a gym leader, next time we're in Sinnoh, let's go challenge him."
Seeing Red say that, Blue reluctantly stopped.
After all, learning the truth now or later didn't make much of a difference.