Metagross's expression didn't change. Its thick blue forelimbs were coated in a thin silver film, the metallic surface catching the light in a cold, quiet shimmer.
The Meteor Mash hit Aerodactyl with everything behind it. The force was staggering — like being struck by something enormous and immovable. Aerodactyl's body buckled under the impact, twisting at a sharp, wrong angle before it was sent hurtling downward.
"Boom!"
It hit the arena floor like a cannonball, carving a wide crater into the ground. The shockwave rolled outward through the spectator area.
One hit. That was all it had taken.
Bryant's Aerodactyl lay at the bottom of that crater, barely moving. Both Pokémon were operating at a quasi-Champion level of strength — but there was a gap between them, and the gap had just been made very plain. The crowd was stunned into silence.
Bryant's face had gone ashen. He stared at Jacob, his expression no longer composed, and said slowly, "Who are you? Someone with your strength shouldn't be walking around unknown."
"Who I am doesn't matter," Jacob replied. "All you need to know is that today, I represent the Qi family."
Bryant drew a slow breath. He held Jacob's gaze for a long moment, then let the anger drain from his expression — visibly, deliberately — and spoke with something that almost resembled calm. "This is an internal matter of the underground world. Whatever Erick offered you to get your help today, I won't ask. But I hope you'll reconsider getting involved in affairs that aren't yours." He paused. "Withdraw from this match, and I'll make it worth your while. You have my word."
Jacob's lips curved slightly — not quite a smile. He didn't answer Bryant. Instead, his eyes moved past him to Erick, standing outside the arena boundary.
Erick felt his chest tighten the instant their eyes met.
He was trying not to show it, but the truth was he was nervous. Jacob — Priest-6 — had no binding reason to stay loyal to him. God's Coffin operated on profit, and if Bryant's offer was high enough, there was nothing stopping Jacob from walking away and leaving the Qi family with nothing. Their arrangement was not exactly ironclad.
Erick's expression, just for a moment, carried a trace of something that looked very close to pleading.
"Sorry," Jacob said, turning back to Bryant. "There's nothing you can offer me that I want."
The breath Erick had been holding came out quietly.
Watching Jacob's Metagross had only deepened his certainty — this was not a partner he could afford to lose.
Bryant absorbed the refusal without visible irritation. His gaze remained on Jacob, measured and unhurried. "Don't decide too quickly. Think it over. Whatever happens in this match, I'd still like us to part on good terms." He raised his right hand slowly, the Z-Ring on his wrist catching the light. "Aerodactyl!"
He closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke the incantation with deliberate weight.
"The giant rock bathed in the light of the Cerulean Moon Z-Crystal."
"Forever seal this world heading towards destruction!"
"Continental Crush!"
Aerodactyl responded with a cry. It forced itself upright, wings beating hard as it climbed rapidly into the sky. Rock-type energy surged from its body in visible waves, and then the rocks came — dozens of them, materializing out of thin air above the arena, drawn toward Aerodactyl as if magnetized, closing around it, swallowing it whole. In seconds, Aerodactyl had been completely encased inside a massive sphere of stone, blotting out the light above the arena like a small island suspended in the air.
Then it fell.
It descended toward Metagross with the weight of everything behind it.
"Metagross — Iron Defense!"
Jacob's voice was calm. He was already working through the situation. This Metagross had been captured only recently; its moveset was limited, and it didn't yet know core utility moves like Protect or Substitute. Iron Defense was the best available option — and in this case, it was the right one.
Metagross's body responded immediately. Its Steel-type frame, already formidable in physical defense, tightened further as the Iron Defense took hold. It became something close to immovable — dense, rigid, a wall of living metal. And Steel-type Pokémon take reduced damage from Rock-type moves by nature. Even a Z-Move like Continental Crush would find it difficult to deal decisive damage to a Metagross that had layered Iron Defense on top of that resistance.
"Boom!"
The great rock sphere came down and swallowed Metagross entirely. The arena shuddered. Debris scattered in every direction. And then there was silence — the kind that follows something massive — broken only by the slow patter of falling rock fragments.
"Did it work? Is that what a Z-Move looks like?"
"No way. That Metagross was clearly at a completely different level — one Z-Move isn't finishing it."
"And it used Iron Defense. Rock-type, halved damage, stacked defense — it would take more than that to seriously hurt it."
The murmuring spread through the spectators. Then, before it could settle —
Cracks.
Thin at first, then spreading rapidly across the surface of the boulder like a spiderweb drawn in stone. The fractures deepened, multiplied, and then —
"Boom!"
The sphere exploded outward. Through the cloud of shattered rock, a blue metallic shape burst free. Metagross emerged from the rubble, scarlet eyes fixed on Aerodactyl, and surged forward without slowing.
Aerodactyl felt it before it saw it. Something in the way Metagross moved — the sheer focus of it, the absolute lack of hesitation — pressed down on Aerodactyl like a physical weight. It let out a fierce, rasping roar, shaking off the feeling through sheer will. Rock-type energy erupted along its body, crystallizing into sharp rock blades as it drove itself forward to meet Metagross head-on.
A faint purple glow pulsed across Metagross's frame. Agility. Psychic energy channelled inward, feeding its speed, and Metagross accelerated — threading through the falling debris and drifting dust, closing the distance to Aerodactyl with sudden, startling swiftness.
They were nearly on top of each other.
Then Metagross turned.
In the space of a heartbeat, it executed a sharp rotation — a full 360 degrees in the air — and Aerodactyl's rock blades carved through empty space where Metagross had been a fraction of a second before. The timing was exact. Not a moment too early, not a moment too late. Any sooner and the dodge would have wasted the opportunity to counter; any later and the blades would have connected.
Metagross had already calculated all of it.
It came around behind Aerodactyl before Aerodactyl had finished processing what had happened. The silver-filmed forelimbs drew back and drove forward.
"Boom!"
The blow landed squarely on the back of Aerodactyl's neck. The impact sent it spinning, completely out of control, and it dropped toward the ground in a tumbling arc before crashing hard into the arena floor — another crater, another cloud of dust rolling outward across the field.
The room held its breath.
When the dust cleared, Metagross stood at the centre of the crater, massive and still, all four metallic limbs planted in the ground like iron pillars driven into stone. Beneath it, Aerodactyl lay pinned — pressed flat, completely unable to move.
It had nothing left.
"Stop! I forfeit!" Bryant's voice cracked across the arena. He stepped forward, one hand raised, eyes on Metagross — watching to make sure the order would be followed before Aerodactyl took any more damage.
"Metagross, stand down," Jacob said, his tone unchanged from the moment the battle had started.
Metagross held its position for one second longer. Then, without ceremony, it stepped back and straightened, scarlet eyes dimming to their usual cold quiet.
It was over.