Chapter 313: She's the Strongest Trainer of Her Generation in Sinnoh!
Ho-Oh could only feel its heart go cold as ice.
When Ash came to stand before it, Ho-Oh really was happy.
But Ash had come here with Mammon, and that took a good chunk of the joy right out of it.
Was this human even human? Was that a thing that was allowed?
First meeting: cheated it out of Suicune, and walked away with three favors owed on top of it.
Second meeting: dragged it into a fight with Black Rayquaza. Third meeting: dragged it into a fight with Complete Kyurem.
And now, the fourth meeting — not only had he forcibly carried off its Marshadow, now he was coming for a member of its guardian order too.
But for the sake of keeping up appearances in front of Ash and the others, Ho-Oh forced the curse words already halfway up its throat back down.
The one small comfort was that this girl's heart seemed clean too — so it could just tell itself it was finding an excellent trainer for one of its guardian-order members. That was all this was.
Ho-Oh gazed at Platinum's happily glowing face and thought to itself, quietly.
There was no other option, after all. This was simply the price of preserving Ash's purity of heart.
Having talked itself into that much, Ho-Oh gave Platinum a smile and a nod, gesturing for her to choose between Raikou and Entei for her challenge.
"Raikou or Entei, huh—" Platinum's gaze bounced back and forth between the two, torn between delight and genuine indecision.
Picking one out of Raikou and Entei was, frankly, a genuinely difficult call for her.
Purely in terms of typing, she had no Electric- or Fire-type mainstays on her team either way.
And as for looks — well, how to put it. Honestly, purely on appearance, Platinum actually preferred Suicune out of Ho-Oh's guardian trio. But Suicune had already been caught by Mr. Mammon.
Besides, Suicune's typing overlapped with her Empoleon's anyway, so it wouldn't have been the best fit regardless.
"Mr. Mammon, do you have a recommendation?" she asked after a moment, quietly.
"Raikou leans more toward Special Attack. Entei's more of a physical attacker, though it's close to a mixed sweeper."
Mammon answered her. If it'd been him choosing, there wouldn't have been any hesitation involved at all.
"But here's the important part, Dawn — Entei can learn Sacred Fire. That's a Fire-type move only Ho-Oh itself normally knows."
"And as one of Ho-Oh's guardian order, Entei learned it directly from Ho-Oh. You get what I'm saying, right?"
Sacred Fire!
Originally Ho-Oh's own signature move — but Entei had since learned it too.
No question who'd taught it that move.
Suicune might've been the most popular member of Ho-Oh's guardian trio, and Ho-Oh's favorite besides, but Fire-type Entei's affinity with Ho-Oh ran deep too, deep enough that it had earned "usage rights" to Sacred Fire from Ho-Oh itself.
"I understand." Platinum's beautiful eyes lit up.
"I choose to challenge Entei!"
Her clear voice rang with resolve.
Hearing her choice, Raikou shot Entei a sympathetic look and took two steps back.
Entei stepped forward with an air of grim, tragic resignation, coming to stand opposite Platinum.
"Sure, she's got the right to challenge it, but she still has to actually win the battle to catch it. Can Dawn really beat Entei?" Misty asked, admiring the opportunity but not without her doubts. This was the legendary Entei they were talking about, after all.
Ash pulled out his Pokédex and pointed it at Entei.
Beep. Entei, the Fire-type, Volcano Pokémon. When it roars, volcanoes erupt. Said to run back and forth across the land, unable to fully contain the swelling power inside it.
The mechanical Pokédex voice rang out, and Ash couldn't help but marvel at how impressive Entei sounded. Roaring hard enough to trigger volcanic eruptions — that was genuinely ridiculous.
"Please don't underestimate Dawn. She should honestly be our organization's seventh top-tier executive."
Caitlin said with a light, elegant smile, her beautiful eyes fixed on Platinum's back.
Truth be told, Caitlin had a fair amount of goodwill toward Platinum. After all, whatever else, the two of them shared a hometown in Sinnoh, and both were young ladies from prominent families.
Not to mention Platinum had received an excellent education from childhood and carried herself with reserved, courteous grace in how she treated people — so Caitlin genuinely approved of her.
And really, if it weren't for the strict requirement that a top-tier executive's whole team be Champion-caliber mainstays, Platinum would already qualify for the position outright.
"Seventh top-tier executive?" Brock looked puzzled. He'd heard Team Rocket had "senior executives" as a rank.
But top-tier executives too? Sounded like something worth looking into once they got back — after all, whatever else, he was technically a provisional member of Team Rocket now too, wasn't he?
"This'll be a good chance to get a read on how strong Dawn actually is. She's gotta be pretty good, right?" Ash said, genuinely intrigued.
Paul was already seriously strong — much as Ash hated to admit it, he flat-out wasn't a match for Paul as things stood right now.
So what about this Platinum? Sounded like she might even be stronger than Paul?
"Ash, when Dawn and Paul first joined the organization, they had a battle. Paul lost, badly, to Dawn."
The corner of Mammon's mouth curled up as he said this, clearly implying something to Ash.
At that, all three of them startled. Paul lost badly to Dawn?!
"Whoa! Is Dawn really that strong?!" Ash was shocked — and thoroughly excited.
Someone that strong — he wanted to battle her too.
"Purely speaking of Sinnoh's up-and-coming generation, Dawn is the best of them, no contest."
Mammon looked over at Platinum, a note of unmistakable pride creeping into his voice.
Well — he had put in some real effort to bring her into the organization, after all.
Sure, the methods hadn't exactly been the most honorable. But forget "honorable" — the real question was whether it worked.
"She's that strong—" Misty and Brock both clicked their tongues, impressed. The strongest new-generation trainer in the entirety of Sinnoh.
"Garchomp! I'm counting on you!"
Platinum looked at Entei settling into its battle stance, her pretty face turning serious, and decisively made her call.
RAAWR!
A low, commanding dragon's roar sounded out as a powerful, fierce-looking Garchomp landed heavily in front of Platinum.
"So cool!" Ash's eyes lit up instantly.
"That's a Garchomp — an incredibly precious Pokémon from Sinnoh. I heard the Sinnoh Champion Cynthia's own ace is a Garchomp too," Brock said, rattling off the details like an encyclopedia.
"Using a Dragon/Ground-type Garchomp against Entei — that's actually a really solid matchup," Brock added, analyzing further. Purely by typing, at least, that checked out — Dragon resists Fire, and Ground beats Fire outright.
"Garchomp!"
But Platinum wasn't done yet. She raised her right arm high, revealing a crystal bracelet on her pale, slender wrist, a beautiful gem dangling beneath it.
"Is that—?!" Brock's eyes went wide.
As Garchomp let out a commanding roar, the Key Stone flared to life, syncing with the Mega Stone on Garchomp's own body, and a dazzling burst of evolutionary light blazed up.
When the light faded, a Garchomp with an even fiercer, more menacing form unfurled its two chilling blood-red scythes and let out a furious howl at Entei.
Mega Evolution!
"Garchomp evolved again??" Misty gaped.
"This is—" Ash tilted his head, puzzled, like he was trying to place something.
"Mega Evolution — a step beyond ordinary evolution. Some professor over in Kalos published research on it a while back, but as of now, it's still a technique only a small handful of trainers have actually mastered."
"This is the first time I've ever seen Mega Evolution in person," Brock said, awed.
"Amazing—!" Ash was thoroughly pumped.
"You can redeem Mega Stones through the organization's app, Ash. If you're interested, once you've saved up enough merit points you can redeem one, or you could just ask Professor Oak to sort you out with one."
Mammon said with a smile.
"Really? Awesome! I'll work hard and save up merit points!" Ash said, fired up.
As for just asking Professor Oak for one — honestly, if Ash actually brought himself to ask, Professor Samuel Oak would probably just hand one over out of sheer fondness for him.
After all, Ash was one of his own, a rookie who'd started out under him — and Oak's patience and generosity toward the younger generation were well known besides.
But even though Ash was a pretty easygoing, loud sort of guy, he still had his pride.
Something he could earn through his own effort — how could he bring himself to just ask an elder to hand it to him?
And with that, Platinum's capture battle against Entei officially got underway.
There was no question that, as a member of Ho-Oh's own guardian order, Entei's strength was genuinely beyond doubt — easily Champion-caliber.
That in itself was already quite formidable — most wild Legendary Pokémon actually only sit around Elite Four-caliber strength. Things like the Legendary Birds, the Legendary Titans, the Lake Guardians — all of them, generally speaking, only Elite Four-tier.
Of course, "Elite Four-tier" wild Legendaries are still genuinely powerful in absolute terms — it's all relative.
But Platinum's current ace, Mega Garchomp, had already reached Champion-caliber combat strength in its own right — and Mega Evolution pushed that even further, especially on the offensive side!
Worth noting: Entei opened with a genuinely impressive Flamethrower right out of the gate — and Mega Garchomp answered with a straight-up Dragon Ascent, tanking straight through the flames head-on.
After that single exchange, Entei more or less understood: going toe-to-toe with this thing directly probably wasn't a fight it could win.
So Entei shifted to a mobility-based strategy instead — Mega Garchomp's speed clearly couldn't match Entei's, especially with Entei also packing Extreme Speed.
Still, under Platinum's excellent, steady command, the battle wore on — and in the end, a final Earthquake brought Entei down.
Platinum decisively hurled an Ultra Ball. The Ultra Ball sucked Entei in, wobbled just a couple of token times, and clicked shut.
"I caught Entei!"
Even Platinum couldn't contain herself in that moment — she hugged the Poké Ball to her chest and hopped up and down a couple of times, beaming.
Oh my gosh! Her first ever Legendary Pokémon catch!
"That's insane—!"
Misty stared, stunned, looking at sweet, delicate-looking Platinum, then over at that terrifyingly fierce Mega Garchomp.
This was Sinnoh's strongest rookie trainer of her generation?
That was seriously insane.
Even Ash, up against Platinum as she stood now, would probably only manage a crushing defeat. All he could really do was hope for future growth.
"Yeah, that's genuinely a little frightening—" Brock said, resting his chin in his hand. Right now he was feeling, in a very visceral way, what it meant to be steamrolled by sheer raw talent.
Sometimes the gap between people really was bigger than the gap between a person and a dog.
He wondered — did Kanto's own new generation have anyone who could hold a candle to a monster like her?
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