Bronzong fired at the dragon, as master ordered. Came the mechanical voice in his mind.

What the-?

"Checkmate."Cynthia's clear voice was heard from the other side of the battleground, as the apparently-illusory forms of Garchomp, none of them even registering the effect of the much-weakened Confuse ray, delivered successive dragon-claw attacks on Bronzong, who was thrown off from his position, tumbling, bruising his way through the grassy floor.

"Flamethrower." Cynthia calmly ordered.

"Gaaah!" The several illusory forms of the dragon roared, before throwing in a frightening amount of scorching flames from their maw, all of them converging into Bronzong, causing an explosion, proving that all of them were, original flames, and not mere illusions.

"But…. How?" Lucian almost stammered. "They were illusions. They have to be."

"If you say so." Cynthia mused as the apparent non-illusions faded, revealing a single Garchomp, standing in the middle of the arena, looking downright formidable and menacing. "Use fire blast."

"Chomp!" The great dragon summoned its inner flame to a superlative degree, before throwing a formidable fire blast, head-on toward the fallen Bronzong, who looked already exhausted.

Light screen. Lucian commanded hurriedly, as Bronzong created a light screen in front of itself, as the wall of fire slammed into it. Just like with a light screen, it reduced the attack power by at least fifty percent, which in the case of someone like Bronzong, became a little more than ninety percent.

"Incinerate. Don't let it get control."

And Garchomp did the same. With the efficiency and control that would send any self-respecting fire-type into a massive inferiority complex, Garchomp kept on throwing in a continuous shower of never-ending torrential flames, right ahead on the light screen, which served its purpose perfectly.

"Your flames will not burn my Bronzong." Lucian returned.

Cynthia smirked. Of course, Lucian was right. Light screen was a perfect counter to a special attack like Incinerate, and there was a little more than zero chance that it would burn someone as powerful as Bronzong. But that didn't take into account the other part of the equation.

"Who said anything about burning it?" Cynthia asked.

And sure it was. Bronzong was safe from the scorching flames, courtesy of the powerful light screen. But as powerful as the psychic defense was, it lacked certain fundamental attributes.

Like the attribute of protection against raw, overwhelming heat.

Not a good thing for a pokémon with part-psychic typing.

A thin smile twisted its way through her lips. "Sunny day."

And overwhelming sunlight descended into the stadium, increasing the power behind the Incinerate attack by another overwhelming fifty percent, enough to melt its way through the defenses.

"Enough!" Lucian bellowed. "Use payback, and return with hyper beam!"

It was a testament to Bronzong's incomprehensible innate strength that the bronze bell-pokémon was able to use Payback, doubling the remnants of his declining power reserves to form a powerful hyper beam, aiming it straight at Garchomp, who was currently using incinerate on him. The effects of Sunny day only hastened the process.

"Use substitute, and finish it." Cynthia calmly ordered.

The solar beam came in and smashed into a life-sized illusionary decoy created by Garchomp, created at the cost of his power, as the real dragon vanished again, only to appear right behind Bronzong at an incomprehensible speed, before spearing the two blades into the steel-type from behind.

"Solo meteor." Cynthia calmly muttered as Garchomp belched out an orange blob onto Bronzong, covering it with a bright, sticky orange semi-solid, before throwing it high up into the air.

"What was-?" Lucian's words remained behind inside his throat, as Bronzong exploded alongside the orange substance, as smaller Draco meteors began to fall to the ground, one of them being the form of smoking and completely unconscious and broken Bronzong.

"Bronzong is unable to battle." The commentator announced. "Garchomp wins the battle. The first point to Cynthia."

The crowd cheered madly.

One down. Two to go.

....

"And both Spiritomb and Malamar are unable to battle." The commentator roared into the megaphone, his voice now completely strained and hoarse, but no less excited. "What a battle, ladies, and gentlemen! And now, one more battle left. Should Lucian be able to defeat the reigning Champion, then the battles will continue. Should Cynthia manage to overpower Lucian, she would seal her name as the official leader of the Sinnoh Elite Four, and Ace Squad. So what will it be, ladies and gentlemen? Lucian's conquest, or Cynthia's continuance?"

"I choose you, go Alakazam!"

"And Lucian chooses Alakazam. Will Cynthia's Pokémon be able to battle against Alakazam to score another victory?"

Cynthia knew what was coming ahead. Lucian's ace in the hole. And she knew just what she needed in case that came to pass. She had been rather… conflicted about using it in public, but if push came to shove, she knew she would have no choice but to go ahead with it.

She raised her last ultra ball and unleashed her last battler, one she had complete trust in, to overwhelm Lucian's Alakazam.

"I choose you, Charizard!"

The creature that appeared in front of her, and stood, facing Alakazam was a ten-foot behemoth, with wings raised on either side, each spanning a length of over eleven feet, literally changing the status quo from being the next battler to the most intimidating presence in the entire arena. With a snort, it belched out crimson flames from its snout and stared at the pitiful excuse of a psychic that had the guts to stand and face its mighty wrath.

With an incredible roar, Charizard declared war on Alakazam.

"I'm not done, yet," Lucian uttered audibly. "Allow me, to show you my latest acquisition." He lifted his right hand, upon which stood a ring, with a spheroidal pearl-like substance glinting in the sunlight.

A meganite stone. Cynthia confirmed. Just as I expected.

Now that she noticed, even Alakazam had a similar pearl, on one end of the spoon in its right hand.

"Alakazam," Lucian commanded in a high tone, bright light emanating out of the pearl. "Time to exterminate that Charizard. Mega-Evolve!"

And Alakazam roared.

Its mustache increased by copious amounts, as its overly large head magnified in size. Its arms and legs atrophied considerably, as it now sat, cross-legged, levitating in the air, with five spoons of pure silver, floating in a half-corona above its head.

And the audience went mad with hysteria.

hysteria.

"Oh, my word. It seems that the conspiracy theories were true! The second form of evolution, mega-evolution, is actually, a possibility. Alakazam has indeed, evolved into a further and higher advanced stage, Mega-Alakazam." The commentator yelled himself hoarsely.

Above the glass-walled balcony, several of the spectators were watching the entire thing with a varying range of expressions. From interest in Steven's face to outright scowl in Lance's, to pleasantly surprised in the case of Diantha. Lorelei, who had yet to see a mega-evolution in the face, seemed dead curious.

"What is that idiot thinking?" Lance muttered furiously. "Demonstrating the power of a mega-evolution in such a public event? Does he even want to give away every card we have up our sleeve?"

Diantha, who was standing just next to him on the right, seemed to be more understanding of Lance's fury. "I can understand. This will attract all sorts of negative attention on meganite research."

"Lucian must have been pushed if he has resorted to this," Steven muttered. "But you are right, this will have a greater impact on the state of affairs."

Meanwhile, a person sitting far, far away from Hearthome city, far from Sinnoh as a whole, couldn't help but smirk at Steven's words. "My word, you are more right than you know, Deputy Champion." His lips twisted. "You are more right than you know."

Cynthia observed the Alakazam, now Mega-Alakazam, levitating in the air, its psychic aura giving her slight creeps. Now, she wasn't a psychic by any accord, but judging by what she knew about Mega Evolution and Alakazam in general, there was a high possibility that the Mega-evolved psi was scanning her Charizard, inside out, and the more she allowed Charizard to be in its direct psychic gaze, the more his secrets would be milked out.

I need to end this quickly.

"Charizard, use dragon pulse."

Charizard lifted his maw, before releasing a powerful burst of spectral energy, which automatically shifted into the shape of a large, spectral dragon before shooting toward Alakazam, who didn't seem at all concerned.

Rip control, and send it back. Lucian commanded.

"Kazaam!" The psi type muttered as the five silver spoons floating above it shone with eldritch power, forcibly containing the dragon's pulse back into a sphere of compressed energy, before propelling it back to Charizard.

Charizard raised his left arm, the claws elongating as draconic energy seeped in, before swatting away the incoming attack to the right. The redirected dragon pulse slammed into the ground, creating a terrific explosion.

"Take to the skies," Cynthia warned, as Charizard flapped his wings, pushing himself into the air.

Use psycho cut. Lucian commanded.

Instantly, several psycho cuts appeared in front of the Mega-evolved creature, who sent them towards the fire-type, said fire-type easily dodging them, and if not, countering them with dragon claw. Not that it mattered to Alakazam, it had all the psychic energy in the universe to harness and use for this battle.

Analyze. Precision set. Successive fire. Came the next command.

Instantly, a dozen psycho cuts reappeared in front of Alakazam, as the psi-type instantly calculated the possible flight patterns as demonstrated by Charizard, depending upon its analysis of Charizard's height, weight, body movement, move sets, shape, and length of wingspan, and hundreds of other statistical data that Alakazam had gathered via its psychic scan on the fire-type. In less than a second, all that information was matched with the flight patterns that Charizard had just demonstrated, and the trajectories were created, and set, taking wind movement and probability distribution into account.

Set. Fire.

All twelve psycho cuts shot into the air, and despite all of Charizard's weaving through the air, several of them slashed into the great behemoth, making him fall to the ground, roaring in pain.

"And Mega-Alakazam makes the first strike. Will this mean the defeat of Charizard?"

"Don't stop," Lucian ordered. "Repeat fire."

"Kazaam!"

Another set of psycho cuts appeared in the air, their trajectories now taking into account Charizard's injury and position on the ground, before being projected towards the pseudo-dragon.

"Incinerate," Cynthia ordered calmly, as the fire-type lifted his maw, to unleash hellish flames towards the psi type, directly in the face of the psycho cuts, creating an explosion that destroyed nine of them. Two of them moved away, one to the right, and one to the left, spinning like a boomerang, as they attacked Charizard from both angles.

"Slash them away with dragon claw."

And then the third and remaining psycho cut slammed into Charizard from amidst the smoke, scoring another head-on strike.

"And Lucian scores another." The commentator roared madly. "Mega-Alakazam is playing with Charizard."

"No one plays with my Charizard," Cynthia whispered, as she cast a sideways glance toward the glass balcony. "No one."

She touched the tear-drop ornament on her neck, as she cupped it with her palm, before beginning to whisper, what sounded like chanting. "Keystone, respond to my heart. Beyond Evolution… Mega-evolve!"

And the arena was inundated with overwhelming, bright light.