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Don't Give Me Diamonds

Diamond 106: Give me Might

The six on six pokemon battle between Ash and Giovanni continued with both in command of their third pokemon. To battle against Ash's Primeape, Giovanni sent out Rhyperior. Seeing Primeape eager to charge forward, Giovanni called forth another earthquake to slow him down, followed by an attack of "mega horn!" Rhyperior dashed forward trying to stab Primeape with her horn.

The collision between the two pokemon was inevitable and thus dodging alone would be ineffective. "Quick Primeape, use focus punch!" Primeape reacted rapidly and his fist collided with the side of Rhyperior's face, but his opponent was no where near defeated.

Without pausing, Rhyperior retaliated with her horn. Primeape tried to protect himself, which resulted in the horn being stabbed painfully into his right paw. Freeing herself from the perforated appendage, Rhyperior continued the relentless mega horn attack, while Primeape used thrash, his reaction to most intense emotions, be it excitement or pain.

"Primeape, you have to concentrate, don't lose your cool, use brick break!" Ash watched his pokemon intensely, wondering if he should be recalled, he didn't want any permanent damage to come to him. Yet Primeape didn't look like he would go back into his pokeball even if Ash tried to call him back. The fighting pokemon was still immersed in the heat of battle, with no intensions of stopping the fight. Using his left hand instead, Primeape unleashed a powerful brick break attack, succeeding it with two more brick break attacks with the use of kicks.

Rhyperior shielded herself, the impact being mostly absorbed by her armored body, though she still felt the aftershock in significant discomfort. "Rhyperior, use hammer arm!" Following her trainer's order, Rhyperior performed a series of rapid hits hammering away at Primeape with her heavy arms. Primeape made a valiant effort, pushing Rhyperior to the limit with his own flurry of hits. With one last solid hammer arm attack, Primeape stumbled backwards unsteadily and fell to the ground knocked out.

"That was a great fight, return Primeape!" Ash finally called Primeape back into his pokeball. Rhyperior tried not to show it, but Ash could tell the fight did tire her out, though she would still be a dangerous opponent for which a different strategy would be required. "Staraptor, I choose you!" While Rhyperior had a tough armor, it might not be so easy to fight against a speedy flying opponent. "Use aerial ace!"

Staraptor began his attack, flying towards Rhyperior and trying to get a solid hit that would affect her despite her armored body. "Rhyperior, hit him with hammer arm!" Though the attack was powerful, the move turned out to be ineffective, as Staraptor quickly dodged all the hits.

"Staraptor, use steel wing!" Staraptor levitated in mid air flapping his wings strongly. His feathers turned metallic as they were launched like razors from his wings.

Rhyperior defended against the attack, but she could seemingly do little else than that, since Staraptor remained out of reach. Giovanni had a different strategy to try. If Staraptor didn't come down, Rhyperior would just have to knock him out of the sky. "Attack with rock wrecker!" The landscape at the edge of the forest-like area near the mountain was full of loose boulders that would make excellent projectiles to be thrown. Rhyperior hurried to pick one up and threw it at Staraptor like a cannon ball.

"Be careful Staraptor!" Ash urged his pokemon to watch out. Staraptor was dodging, but it didn't seem like Rhyperior would get tired of throwing boulders any time soon. Besides, a pokemon battle could not be won by dodging alone. "Use brave bird!"

Staraptor dove past the most recently thrown boulder, narrowly dodging it. He courageously collided with Rhyperior, just as Giovanni called out for a last minute, "mega horn attack!" Staraptor was able to get back in the air, only losing a few feathers in the encounter.

It looked like Rhyperior could no longer hide her fatigue. She was irritated, which might make her lose her concentration. The observation gave Ash an idea, "Staraptor, use uproar!"

The loud attack was most uncomfortable even for the trainers. Wanting to make Staraptor shut up just as badly as Rhyperior did, Giovanni called forth his only option to reach Staraptor in the air, "Rhyperior, keep using rock wrecker!"

Rhyperior gladly obeyed with her temper flaring. She tossed one bolder after another at Staraptor until she had to stop to catch her breath, nearly collapsing from exhaustion. "Now Staraptor, use steel wing and brave bird!"

Staraptor's metallic feathers collided with Rhyperior once more, their effect improved due to her defenses being lowered by exhaustion. "Rhyperior, use hammer arm!" Just as Staraptor dove in for the finishing blow, Rhyperior swung her heavy arm at the flying pokemon, but she missed and the momentum worked against her as Staraptor's attacked collided with her directly. Due to the strong momentum and aftershock, Rhyperior spun around as she was pushed into unconsciousness. Her tail collided with Staraptor as she collapsed, though the hit was not particularly hard since it was driven by momentum without the contribution of willing muscle, it was just enough to make Staraptor stagger in his ascent.

Rhyperior's tail went down on Staraptor's tail feathers as the unconscious foe pulled her opponent into an uncomfortable sitting position on the ground with his tail feathers trapped under her heavy tail. Staraptor complained and pecked at Rhyperior's tail, trying to pull his tail feathers loose from their entrapment. Ash stared at the scene, his face twitching slightly to withhold the upcoming laughter. At last he could no longer hold it in and burst out in a fit of laughter, which Staraptor loudly protested to. "I'm sorry Staraptor," Ash managed to cease control of his expression, albeit still laughing a little. "You did great, don't worry, you'll be free in a moment." He glanced at Giovanni, waiting for him to recall Rhyperior into her pokeball.

Giovanni didn't move, "maybe I should leave that loud mouth pokemon trapped like that." His ears were still ringing from the uproar attack.

Ash pouted, further becoming caught up in the enjoyment of the pokemon battle and momentarily forgetting the reason for which it started. "That's not fair; you should call Rhyperior back to rest." Annoyed at his entrapment, Staraptor accentuated Ash's request with his own loud complaints in the shape of another uproar.

"Alright, fine, I'll call Rhyperior back if it'll make Staraptor shut up," Giovanni finally recalled Rhyperior into her pokeball, thus freeing Staraptor's tail feathers. The bird pokemon seemed to let out an undignified huff before returning to flying a few feet above the ground waiting for his next opponent. Giovanni released his next pokemon into battle, it was one of his newer ones, "Flygon, knock out that annoying bird, sand storm!" With the rapid flapping of his wings Flygon brought forth a massive sand storm from the land.

In a matter of seconds the visibility of the battle was lost. Ash coughed and covered his mouth and nose as best he could, his eyes now closed. "And you thought uproar was annoying? Staraptor, try using steel wing!" Staraptor obeyed, but the metallic feathers were lost in the storm becoming as normal feathers once more and being carried harmlessly by the wind.

"Hyper beam!" At Giovanni's order, Flygon let out a powerful beam of energy at his target.

"Be careful Staraptor, don't stop moving, use aerial ace!" The attack might, and probably would, miss Flygon, but it's purpose was to provide some defense for Staraptor by the constant movement that would hopefully allow him to dodge Flygon's attack despite the lack of visibility in the midst of the sand storm that Flygon continuously maintained between hyper beam attacks. With the sand storm making movement difficult, it was only a matter of time until Flygon's attack was effective in knocking out the target.

Staraptor's pained voice was heard and Flygon's sand storm relented to reveal the fainted opponent covered in sand on the ground. It was going to take some time and effort to get all that sand out of his feathers. "Staraptor return, that was a brave effort, well done." Both Ash and Giovanni had sand sticking to them, adding much more to the bits of dirt that had reached them before. Flygon was clearly very strong and Ash knew he needed one of his strongest pokemon to take him out. Saving Pikachu for the final round, Ash sent out another of his closest friends, "Charizard, I choose you!" With a mighty roar, the powerful fire pokemon emerged from the red beam of his pokeball.

"Flygon, use sand storm again!" The new round started off with a repetition of the previously effective strategy.

"Charizard, break through the storm with fire blast and charge in with air slash!" Ash was counting on his pokemon's skill and power to be able to overcome the obstacle that was before him. The strategy resulted effective as Charizard's powerful fire blast dissipated the sand leaving sparks to rain with some vegetation catching on fire, though it was ignored by the combatants. Charizard rapidly charged through the falling sparks slashing at Flygon in mid air.

Seeing as the battle would inevitably turn into a close combat, Giovanni countered the new turn of events. "Flygon, use dragon claw!" The two mighty pokemon continued slashing at each other with their claws in a massive display of power. They growled and batted their wings as they relentlessly searched for an opening to attack, one's claws often colliding with the other's.

Despite the close distance of the two pokemon, both trainers took a chance and called out for their next attack, "fire blast!" It once again turned out to be coincidentally the same, their voices echoing as one to be silenced by the loud roars of the two warring pokemon. The opposing blasts of fire collided between the two beasts, pushing them back with the force of the scorching energy. They pushed forward as they continued to breathe fire, with flames falling in every direction, spreading a growing fire among the vegetation.

Unwilling to wait for the two pokemon to exhaust themselves, Ash tried to think of a strategy that could work. At times a strong and fast offense was what was needed to tilt the battle in his favor and this was perhaps no exception, he had to bravely charge in. "Charizard, use fire blitz!" Allowing the fire to surround him, Charizard went on an unstoppable rampage landing one hit after another.

"Get out of the way Flygon, use dragon claw, then hyper beam!" Flygon tried to defend himself with dragon claw, but it was not sufficient to buy him enough time to back away and fire a hyper beam. Charizard didn't relent for a second until Flygon had been knocked out. "This battle is slowly coming to a close." Giovanni recalled his unconscious pokemon into his pokeball and eagerly sent out the next opponent, Garchomp.

"Intermission! Take a break while I fix the battle field." Delia arrived at the scene by surprise, having left her position watching from the window. Persian and Purry, who had been at the Viridian Rocket base, had been brought over to the mansion minutes before and curiously joined Delia at the window. They did not stay there for long, as she noticed the flames were growing dangerously. The mansion staff feared Giovanni's disapproval if they activated the security system to take action, rather than just to protect the structure. The Rocket boss would not be pleased if he ended up drenched in abundant water and more so if the process of putting out the fire that consumed the trees behind the mansion interfered with his battle.

Thus Delia resolved to take matters into her own hands and was followed by the two Persian. "Cloyster, Kingler, put out the flames with water gun!" The pair of water pokemon hastily jumped into action, giving it their all to drown out the fire that consumed the trees in the area behind the mansion. At least they didn't need to worry too much about it spreading in all directions since there was little to burn on the side which led to the rocky terrain at the edge of the forest area. "Honestly, if I leave you two unsupervised you'll burn the world into nothingness and not even realize it until after the battle is over."

Giovanni took a moment to examine his surroundings while Ash voiced an automatic and rather carefree sounding, "sorry about that," which clearly disregarded the danger as if it were not at all present.

The mansion wasn't very hidden anymore, but it didn't really matter to Giovanni. "It's alright, the fire hasn't spread too far and this area is better off without so many obstacles in the way, it can be a place to train and battle."

Ash took the opportunity to further reassure his mother, "yes, exactly, now it's better than before!" He looked at the battered land and smiled sheepishly, "if seen from a certain perspective." A lone frail tree was the only one in the immediate area that survived.

Delia let out a breath as Cloyster and Kingler finished getting the flames under control. "Thank you, you two have really saved the day." She gently caressed both pokemon in appreciation for their efforts before recalling them into their respective pokeballs. "Now that it's safe again, you can continue your battle. Don't even try to tell me to go back to the mansion because I'm not going back inside. I'll watch from a safe distance." Knowing that Ash and Giovanni understood that she would not change her mind, Delia ran off to give the battle some space. From her new distance, she could not only perceive the battle itself, but also get a better image of the atmosphere between the two trainers and their expressions. As the fight entered its last few rounds, the tension had lessened considerably, even if an urgent uncertainty hung in the air in relation to what the battle's outcome may bring.

Once Delia was at a safe distance, the battle continued with Giovanni commanding the opening move of the round, "Garchomp, dragon rush!" Making good use of his speed, Garchomp hurried to tackle Charizard, clearly eager for a fight.

Charizard was knocked back, fighting to keep his balance and withstand the powerful attack. "Use fire fang!" Ash quickly reacted, taking advantage of the close proximity of Garchomp to have Charizard take hold of him between his flaming fangs.

"Poison jab!" Garchomp defended himself fiercely against the pokemon whose scorching fangs pressed against his throat. He jabbed at Charizard repeatedly until he was released from the fiery bite.

Badly poisoned, Charizard was pushed back in anger. Ash knew that he couldn't wait before making another move and quickly directed Charizard, "fire blast!" Pushing himself to react quickly, Charizard unleashed a powerful flame.

Garchomp backed away and to the side trying to dodge, but despite his speed, the fire blast had been sent out at too much of a close range to be avoided. "Garchomp, use stone edge!" Despite his burns, Garchomp struggled to fight back, digging into the ground with his sharp fin-like appendages and throwing a rain of stones at his opponent.

The heated battle left no room for a pause, Ash responded rapidly, calling out for "fire blitz!" Against the avalanche of sharp rocks, Charizard allow the fire to cover him once more in a multitude of agile hits, making his way through the curtain of stones and towards his rival. "Don't stop, Charizard!"

"Garchomp, use dragon rush!" This was the second to last round and Giovanni knew the advantage could be obtained at any moment. The close combat continued with both pokemon fighting on the same level for the most part. However, Charizard's poisoned state kept worsening and it was taking its toll. In the midst of an intense exchange of fire blitz and dragon rush, Charizard finally fainted, leaving a dizzy Garchomp struggling to stay on his feet.

"Good job Charizard, come back and rest," Ash recalled his fallen pokemon and wasted no time in sending out his final ally. "Go Pikachu, let's finish this!"

Despite not being evolved, Giovanni knew that Ash's Pikachu was very powerful as he witnessed at the Viridian Stadium. "Garchomp, body slam!" The larger pokemon dashed forward threatening to flatten the smaller one.

"Pikachu, use thunder!" Before Garchomp could reach him, Pikachu unleashed his massive attack putting extra energy into it. This caused the already dizzy Garchomp to stumble in place and fall backwards with a loud thud.

This was the moment of truth; each combatant was down to his final pokemon. Before Giovanni could even say anything more, Persian rushed forward intent on fighting despite Purry's protests, or perhaps to annoy her. "Persian?" He had been acting oddly as of late, perhaps that female Persian's wild behavior was rubbing off on him. In spite of the fine ruby upon her forehead, she would be a bit difficult to properly train.

"I knew it," Ash exclaimed with excitement in his eyes. "I knew it would come down to this, my main pokemon versus your main pokemon." Caught up in the excitement of the battle, Ash was all too eager to begin the final round. "Pikachu, use volt tackle!"

'Are you just going to stand there? Go tare him apart! Fight like I would!' Purry paced around Giovanni in the sidelines, tempted to jump into the battle even if it was not her fight.

'Shut up!' Persian growled back in pokemon language, he found that he often bickered with Purry, but also couldn't simply ignore her when she ignited his competitive spirit.

The fight had already begun before Giovanni could even begin to voice that Persian was more so a show pokemon than anything else. None the less, he had witnessed many battles and knew how to fight, despite mostly sitting in the sidelines the majority of the time. Furthermore, there was simply no stopping the action that had started, plus Giovanni too was caught up in the battle and Persian's determination to fight was clear. "Use iron tail!"

Persian spun to bat Pikachu away with his tail, but was unable to get out of the way before the volt tackle reached him. The electric pokemon tripped over Persian's glowing tail, which caused both to roll several feet back in a tangled heap. That of course, didn't stop or even slow down the battle as Ash followed up with "thunder!" an attack that hit Persian hard.

"Use night slash, Persian!" Shaking away the dizziness, while his fur was still full of static, Persian went on the offensive with a series of repetitions of his night slash attack.

Ash knew he had to counter immediately, but Persian wouldn't let Pikachu get away from the rapidly succeeding slashes. "Fight back with wild charge!" Tackling right away under such a relentless attack would be close to impossible, but being covered in electricity would solve that problem. Attacking became more difficult for Persian as Pikachu was shielded by his own electricity; it was painful to further slash at him. Taking the opportunity to fight back, Pikachu tackled Persian.

"Get up Persian, retaliate!" Twitching from the electric shock, Persian stubbornly pushed himself to fight back, finding that perhaps battling wasn't so bad after all. He didn't like getting all messy, but he did like the rush of excitement that came with battle and thought that maybe he should do this more often. With such thoughts in mind, he fought back with everything he had.

"Be careful Pikachu!" Pikachu backed away trying to avoid Persian's attack. To fight close range with him would be risky, even if it might speed up the progress of the battle. "Use electro ball!" Gathering his electricity, Pikachu formed it into a sphere, which he threw at Persian. Ash correctly guessed that Persian would dodge the first one, but that could be changed if there were too many attacks to be dodged. "Keep going Pikachu, use electro ball again!" Following Ash's strategy, Pikachu continued throwing electro balls at Persian one after another as fast as he could.

At their current distance, Persian seemed to be at a disadvantage, "charge in and use night slash!" Giovanni knew he had to get close to effectively attack. Through the multitude of electro balls that filled the battle ground, Persian used his agility to dodge them and approach Pikachu. Close to the electric pokemon, an electro ball hit him and knocked him to the ground. He painfully pushed himself to get up and slash at Pikachu whose automatic response was to shock Persian without having to wait for Ash's instruction to do so. "Use last resort!" Giovanni urged Persian to react, which he did, standing on the power of stubbornness alone as most of his energy had been surrendered to the intense battle.

With Persian lashing out at him without rest, Pikachu resorted to releasing all his electricity as Ash called out "thunder!" The massive electric wave filled the area, shocking the opposing pokemon as well as the trainers. Bright light invaded the atmosphere and a line of yellow lightning took to the skies as if being drawn to the clouds above. When the light finally cleared, Persian was no longer moving, his consciousness lost to exhaustion. Pikachu followed a split second later, his energy having been drained away as it was released into the atmosphere. "Pikachu!" Ash called out to his favorite pokemon, but he did not respond. "It's... over..."

Recovering from the sparks of electricity that reached her, Delia took a deep breath and approached the battle ground where each trainer was walking towards the center of it where their respective pokemon lay. They each checked over their pokemon along with a concerned Delia who expressed, "both your teams will need a good rest to recover, but I'm sure they'll be fine."

Once again the two trainer's eyes met, their battle having ended, but before any words could be spoken, a loud noise made their heads turn to where a lone surviving tree stood. In excitement, anger or perhaps just battle-lust, Purry abused the poor tree into falling to the ground with a horn attack. She then made her way to where the group was and hissed as if wanting to pick a fight. "This one will really take a long time to train." Giovanni finally voiced. "The battle is over; I'll call you out to fight next time."

At hearing that, Persian's ears twitched in semi-alertness as he unsteadily got on his feet. Pikachu had since been picked up by Ash and awoke in his arms. Persian spoke something in pokemon language, to which Purry replied and an argument ensued which other than them, only Pikachu could understand.

Delia laughed, feeling as if the atmosphere had been significantly lightened by the battle. "Aw, those two make such a cute bickering couple." At her comment, both the male and female Persian turned red and hissed, which only cause Delia to laugh more.

For a blissful moment all seemed to be alright, but as the excitement of the battle faded into memories, the inevitable moment arrived. "About Mewtwo..." Giovanni began, pausing after bringing up the subject that was the cause of the battle in the first place.

Ash nodded, as if the uncertainty in the air, albeit still once more perceptible, no longer afflicted him. "I'll tell you about him."

"You don't have to," time seemed to stand still for a moment as Giovanni himself could hardly believe what he was saying. "Pikachu stayed awake for a second longer then Persian." None the less, despite the close loss, Giovanni somehow found that he did appreciate Persian's effort. "This battle is your victory; we'll battle again some time later. For now, you can go do what you wish, I won't give up on my goals, but I won't expect you to give me any information or stand aside."

Ash paused, taking in all that was said, "I still want to tell you, if not about Mewtwo, then more so about my adventure with him." It was something that would not reveal anything particularly useful towards the quest to find Mewtwo, but Ash felt that he wanted to tell the tale of those happenings either way. "Will you listen to my story?"

Giovanni couldn't hide his interest, though without realizing it, this was something more than just about Mewtwo. He wanted to know what Ash had done, "I will."

To be Continued

Disclaimer, I don't own Pokemon. As in other battles, some creative license was used for the attacks. At the time in which I came up with the plot of this story, what would happen to Ash's Unova pokemon was not yet known. I'm assuming that the mentioned pokemon stayed with him and evolved.