Azure flames burned on Infernape a second time. In the VIP section, every expert in attendance wore the same expression: total bewilderment.
Infernape's stamina was gone. The fact that it was conscious at all defied every known metric of Pokémon endurance. Standing was a miracle. Fighting was impossible. Using Flare Blitz was out of the question.
Infernape used Flare Blitz.
It stamped the ground and shot forward, a streak of blue fire carving across the field. The arena floor ignited in its wake.
Paul recovered half a second later. "It's bluffing. Fire Blast."
He didn't believe Infernape had the capacity to dodge while maintaining a Flare Blitz charge. A healthy Infernape could manage it. This one couldn't.
Magmortar raised both cannons and began to charge.
Infernape vanished.
The blue streak cut upward, reappearing above Magmortar's head in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Magmortar's barrels were still aimed at empty ground when Infernape came down on top of it like a falling star.
The full force of Flare Blitz drove into Magmortar's body. Blue fire washed over the cannon Pokémon and, for the first time in the match, Magmortar flinched. It was a Fire-type, built to resist heat, yet the temperature pouring off Infernape's attack exceeded its tolerance.
Its skin blistered under the azure flames. The same reversal that had defined the early fight, Magmortar's fire overwhelming Monferno's resistance, was now playing out in the opposite direction.
The collision detonated. A shockwave of blue and crimson fire ripped outward from the impact point.
An azure figure shot out of the smoke, tumbling through the air, and landed on the far side of the field. Infernape had used the recoil to launch itself clear, avoiding Magmortar's reach.
The moment its feet touched ground, arcs of crackling energy rippled across its body.
Infernape dropped to one knee.
Paul watched, ignoring the smoke behind him where Magmortar was recovering. This was the moment. Recoil from a Flare Blitz of that magnitude, on top of everything else Infernape had taken, should have been fatal to its remaining stamina. It should be down.
Infernape stood back up.
The stadium didn't cheer this time. It just stared. Even the fans who'd been roaring support a minute ago had gone quiet, not out of disappointment, but because what they were seeing had stopped making sense.
"Is this guy hacking?" someone in the upper rows said, loud enough to carry.
In the VIP section, Lance rubbed his temple. "What is Ash's Infernape? Does Flare Blitz not apply recoil to it? No, that's wrong. The pain on its face was real."
"Don't look at me," Lorelei said. "I am an Ice specialist."
"Same," Bruno added. "Fighting specialist."
Steven resisted the urge to say "Steel specialist" and instead offered something useful. "Infernape's Blaze is different from the standard version. Before it evolved, those flames were pouring off its body uncontrolled. After evolution, they vanished. But watch when it uses Flare Blitz. That same fire resurfaces, compressed and channelled into the attack. I think the Blaze is doing more than boosting power. It's sustaining the body."
He paused, working through the logic. With Blaze pushing Infernape's fire output beyond normal limits and some kind of willpower override keeping its body functional past the point of collapse, the result was something close to a permanent Endure state. As long as the will held, the body kept moving.
Lance and the others considered this. It fit what they were seeing. Blaze as both sword and shield, amplifying attacks while burning hot enough to keep Infernape on its feet through sheer thermal feedback.
They were half right.
The missing piece was Ash.
Infernape's will was extraordinary. But willpower alone couldn't generate stamina from nothing. The reason Infernape could still move, still attack, still channel Flare Blitz, was that Ash was feeding it power through Aura Fusion. A constant stream of life energy, just enough to preserve that final thread of consciousness.
Infernape's role was to stay awake. Blaze kept the fire burning. Ash's aura kept the engine running. Together, the three elements created something that shouldn't have been possible: a Pokémon fighting past the point where its body had shut down.
But there was a cost.
Normal Pokémon fainting was a safety mechanism. When damage exceeded a threshold, the body forced a shutdown to protect the Pokémon's life. Unconsciousness preserved vitality. It was the difference between losing a battle and losing something permanent.
Infernape had turned that switch off.
What nobody in the VIP section caught was that the second Flare Blitz had been stronger than the first.
That was Blaze at its most extreme. The closer Infernape came to the edge, the hotter the fire burned. A firework at the moment of detonation, brightest right before it goes dark.
Under any other circumstance, Ash would never have allowed this. Paul's read was correct: Ash wasn't the type to grind a Pokémon into dust for a tactical advantage.
But this wasn't Ash's decision. It was Infernape's.
Through Aura Fusion, Ash felt everything Infernape felt.
The pain, the exhaustion, the weight of a body that had long passed its breaking point. And underneath all of it, a will so intense it burned hotter than the flames on its head. Infernape wasn't fighting because Ash told it to.
It was fighting because stopping was unthinkable. This battle, It would give everything or nothing.
Ash answered that resolve with his own.
If you want to go all the way, then so do I.
The safety net was real. Tokiwa Power. Venusaur's life energy. The rainbow feather's power of Nirvana. Mewtwo on standby. Infernape's life was never in true jeopardy, not with that many failsafes in place. That was the only reason Ash could match his partner's recklessness without flinching.
Paul studied Infernape with an expression that had gone past frustration into something colder.
He'd known this monkey since it was a Chimchar. He'd put it through the worst training he had, pushed it harder than any Pokémon on his roster, and Chimchar had taken every bit of it without breaking. In terms of raw willpower, Paul had never encountered anything that came close.
But this was beyond willpower. This was a Pokémon that should have been unconscious three exchanges ago, standing upright and ready to charge again. It didn't feel like determination anymore. It felt like a cheat code.
"Flare Blitz!" Ash's voice rang out.
Azure flames erupted across Infernape's body for the third time. Paul and Magmortar had gone numb to the sight. This Pokémon treated Flare Blitz like it was free.
"Scorching Sands!" Paul shifted tactics. A Ground-type move, generated through superheated sand rather than earth, fast enough for a Fire-type specialist like Magmortar to execute without delay. Burning sand materialised around Magmortar's body and fired outward in a shotgun spread.
Infernape didn't dodge.
The flame crowning its head flared higher. The blue fire wrapping its body deepened, darkening at the edges, almost black. The Scorching Sands struck the Flare Blitz aura and melted on contact, dissolving into glass before the fragments hit the ground.
Infernape came through the barrage without slowing and slammed into Magmortar at full velocity. The impact was so violent that a pillar of blue fire erupted skyward and struck the barrier above the arena.
The flames splashed outward across the ceiling shield and cascaded down the walls of the protective dome, turning the entire field into a cage of blue light.
For three seconds, nobody could see inside.
The blue faded. The flames receded.
Infernape stood behind Magmortar. Electric arcs crackled across its body. Recoil.
But this time, it didn't drop to a knee. Its body trembled. Its posture dipped. Then it straightened and held.
Magmortar turned. Its eyes found Infernape, and the look it gave was something beyond rivalry or anger. Something complex and quiet and final.
That was the last thing it did.
Magmortar fell forward and hit the ground like a toppled tower. The sound echoed across the silent stadium.
Then the silence broke.
The half of the crowd that had been holding its breath for Infernape released everything at once. The roar shook the stadium structure, a wave of noise so intense it was almost physical.
Even the Ash supporters hadn't believed this was possible. Infernape had been knocked down, counted out, written off, and it was the one standing at the end.
"Magmortar is unable to battle! Infernape wins!" The referee brought his flag down. Even his voice carried a note of disbelief, though professionalism kept it in check.
The moment the words registered, the wire holding Infernape together snapped.
Every nerve it had kept taut through sheer force of will unravelled at once.
Pain from every hit, recoil, every step it had forced its broken body to take flooded its brain in a single wave. Even Ash's Aura support couldn't hold it upright once the will behind it released.
Infernape swayed.
Ash already had the Poké Ball in his hand. He recalled Infernape before it could hit the ground.
Inside the ball, the priority was immediate: Tokiwa Power to stabilise, Venusaur's healing after the match. Infernape had pushed so far past its limits that even a few extra seconds of exposure could mean lasting damage.
"You were incredible." Ash spoke to the ball. "Leave the rest to the team."
He clipped the ball to his belt and looked across the field at Paul.