Hyper Beam's power was enormous, and it carried tremendous impact. Caught off guard, Lilligant could only block with its arms. Under the force of the impact, it felt as though both its arms were about to snap.
Its body was pushed back continuously, crashing through trees and rocks before slamming violently against the cliff face of a small mountain. For a brief moment, its body came to a halt.
But immediately afterward, accompanied by crackcrack sounds, the cliff behind its began to shatter and cave in. The next second, the entire cliff face exploded with a thunderous crash.
BOOM!!
With a deafening roar, the Hyper Beam blasted straight through the cliff, carrying Lilligant along with it.
It wasn't until it had been pushed over a dozen kilometers away that the power of the Hyper Beam finally weakened. With a forceful upward thrust of its arms, Lilligant finally managed to deflect the now-diminished Hyper Beam off to the side.
"Huff... huff... huff!!"
Lilligant breathing was now noticeably labored, and its arms, which had borne the brunt of the Hyper Beam, were a mangled, bloody mess, with fresh blood continuously dripping down.
"Gen~"
Hundreds of meters away, Mega Gengar reappeared. Compared to Lilligant's sorry state, Mega Gengar seemed to be in much better shape—at least superficially, it showed no injuries.
But only it and Julian knew just how much that relentless series of attacks had drained its stamina.
Lilligant let out a cold smile. Although its arms were trembling slightly, it could also sense that Mega Gengar's aura had weakened compared to before.
Emerald-green leaves swirled around it. With a sharp cry from Lilligant, the leaves, glowing with a dark green light, transformed into a long serpentine dragon.
Wherever it passed, the air was torn asunder, accompanied by an immense pressure.
"Protect! Cut straight through it!"
Against a sure-hit move like Magical Leaf, dodging was not an option.
A translucent, green protective barrier enveloped Mega Gengar, and the next instant, it charged headlong toward the Magical Leaf without hesitation.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Magical Leaf slammed relentlessly against the Protect barrier. Leaf after leaf shattering explosively—each leaf possessed enough power to instantly take down an Elite-level Pokémon.
And there were "thousands" of these leaves.
As Mega Gengar advanced, cracks began to appear across the barrier under the onslaught of Magical Leaf, multiplying until it seemed the barrier would shatter at any moment.
Watching Mega Gengar charge toward it, Lilligant raised one of its long legs and brought it down in a powerful axe-like chop.
It was using its leg to execute Brick Break.
Normally, Brick Break was a move that could only be used with hands. But for some exceptionally powerful Pokémon, the execution of moves was no longer limited to a fixed form.
Brick Break—I could use my hands, I could use my legs, I could even use my head.
Crack!
Brick Break struck Mega Gengar's Protect. This time, the barrier shattered completely. Though the power of Brick Break had diminished somewhat, it still landed squarely on Mega Gengar's head.
Bang!
"Ow! That hurts!"
Celebi couldn't help but cry out in pain.
Julian shot it a sidelong glance. It didn't even hit you—what are you hurting for? Had you gotten too immersed in the show?
Having landed a hit, Lilligant slightly lifted its body, its left leg replacing its right as it unleashed another Brick Break. This one was even sharper and more powerful than the last.
A milky-white aura coiled around its leg.
"Gengar, go!"
A flicker of ruthlessness passed simultaneously through Julian's and Mega Gengar's eyes.
Mega Gengar didn't dodge or evade. Instead, it crossed its arms, using Shadow Claw in an attempt to block this devastating kick.
A trace of contempt flashed through Lilligant's eyes. Compared to using Brick Break with its hands, the power was greater when it used its legs—and its left leg was even stronger than the right.
Just as it expected, when Brick Break met Mega Gengar's Shadow Claw, it broke through the claws in mere moments and slammed into Mega Gengar's head once more.
The tremendous impact force pushed Mega Gengar straight into the ground.
"Now!" Julian roared.
Before Lilligant could even feel a moment of triumph, a deep sense of foreboding surged from within. Just as it tried to retreat, it realized that Mega Gengar was gripping its long leg in a death hold.
'Trying to take advantage?'
Definitely not.
That thought had barely surfaced before Lilligant dismissed it. What replaced it was shock, as it realized that its left leg, the one gripped by Mega Gengar, was actually sinking into its body.
At the same time, a tremendous suction force emanated from within Mega Gengar, causing its body to be drawn in little by little.
It absolutely couldn't let itself be sucked in.
Anyone could tell that being sucked in would mean nothing good.
An Energy Ball condensed in its hand.
"Gengar, Lick!"
The purpose of Lick wasn't to paralyze—that wouldn't work on Lilligant anyway. The main goal was to disgust it.
As Mega Gengar extended its long, wet, and slimy tongue—dripping with saliva toward it, Lilligant immediately panicked. If that thing licked its face, how could it ever show it again?
If Lilligant threw the Energy Ball in its hand now, it could actually hit Mega Gengar and resolve the crisis of being sucked in.
But it had a cleanliness complex.
Seeing the disgusting tongue coming at it, Lilligant's first instinct was to cancel the Energy Ball and encase itself in a Protect.
Mega Gengar's tongue was naturally blocked outside by Protect.
This made Lilligant let out a huge sigh of relief, but seeing the tongue licking the barrier nonstop like someone licking a popsicle—although it couldn't damage the barrier in the slightest—it left far too much sticky saliva on it.
If it canceled the Protect now, wouldn't all that drool fall right on it?
So it absolutely could not cancel it.
Never! Even if it meant death!
Thinking this, Lilligant briefly forgot that it was currently being sucked in by Mega Gengar. By the time it reacted, Mega Gengar had already pulled its entire left leg inside, and the suction force suddenly multiplied several times over.
Under Lilligant's horrified gaze, its body was instantly sucked into Mega Gengar. At the same time, Mega Gengar vanished from the spot.
Both of them simply disappeared right before Julian's eyes.
"They're gone! Julian, where did they go?" Jirachi asked curiously.
Julian said with a solemn expression, "Gengar pulled Lilligant into its dimensional space. They're both in there now."
Mega Gengar could freely traverse the interdimensional space, but once another living being besides itself entered that space, the spatial energy inside became incredibly chaotic.
This energy didn't distinguish between friend or foe—even Mega Gengar itself had to be extremely cautious when dealing with it.
This was an extremely dangerous approach, because if something went wrong, it wouldn't just be Lilligant—Mega Gengar itself might also lose its sense of direction due to the violent spatial energy and become completely lost within the chaotic layered interdimensional space.
[T/N: I know Gengar is immune to Fighting-type moves, but as we have seen more than once before, immunity doesn't seem to work the same in this world the way it does in games. Atleast when level difference is not much the Pokémon are not totally immune.]
*****
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