Chapter 027

"Mankey!"

Arthur rushed towards Mankey as he saw him crashing at the tree. When he inspected him, he saw that there were many bruises on his body and he won't be able to continue the battle for sure.

Metapod's tackle was like a missile and despite Mankey's reinforced defenses, it had managed to injure him quite badly.

Part of it was because Mankey had already gone through a battle with Pinsir, but it can't take away anything from that hard-hitting tackle.

"You did well today. Now rest in your Pokeball!"

Arthur said and called Mankey back in his Pokeball.

Then, he looked back at Samurai and his Metapod.

'I was right about him. That Metapod isn't an easy opponent.'

Arthur had underestimated Metapod since it was a cocoon Pokemon and was stationary — which means he can't move without external help.

He had never imagined that Samurai would come up with such a tactic of moving through string shot and utilize Metapod's every move to develop a hard-hitting tackle.

It was certainly something amazing.

At the same time, there was another thought in Arthur's mind.

'He is using the same Pokemon, but his tactics and battle style are completely different.'

In the anime, Samurai's Metapod only knew harden and as Ash's Metapod was the same, it resulted in a fairly comedic moment of a 'harden vs harden' battle.

It was probably done to showcase a funny moment.

But it was completely different now.

Samurai was a real trainer now and he was using tactics to overcome Metapod's natural disadvantage and was even using it as his strength.

Not only him, the trainers that he will face in the future would also be different even if they used the same Pokemon they used in the anime and games. Their tactics and way of battle can be completely different.

At that moment, Arthur realized once again that the world he was in was completely different from anime despite being similar and it was on him as to how he deals with it.

"Did you get so scared of Metapod's strength that you are not even bringing out your second Pokemon?" Samurai mocked as Arthur was just standing without doing anything.

His voice brought him out of his stupor and he finally brought out his second Pokemon.

"I was just thinking that your Metapod is quite good," Arthur said.

"Well of course he is. You can just forfeit the battle if you want to. After all, there's no way you would be able to win against him."

"No, I think I can easily win."

"Huh?"

Samurai was surprised at the sudden confident words and let out a confused voice. Till now, Arthur had avoided many conversations, but he suddenly seemed a little changed.

While Samurai was tilting his head, Arthur threw the Pokeball in his hand, revealing Charmander who came out with a cry.

"Charr!"

"Charmander, let's finish off this battle and win."

Arthur said and Charmander nodded his head while glancing at Metapod who seemed ready for another go.

Noticing Charmander looking at him, Metapod glared back and the fighting spirit rose in his heart. He knew that a fire-type Pokemon has a massive advantage over him and he wanted to overcome it and defeat Charmander.

"Your Charmander looks strong, but you won't be able to defeat Metapod," Samurai said, showing confidence in his Pokemon.

"We will see that."

Arthur replied back and amidst that banter, the battle resumed.

Both Charmander and Metapod glared at each other and Arthur was the first to send out the command.

"Use dragon tail and break his shell."

The start of the battle was the same as before. Arthur decided to go with a close-quarter offensive move and Charmander rushed at Metapod hearing the command.

Seeing that, Samurai smirked.

"You don't seem to learn from your mistakes. Metapod, use string shot and bind him!"

He shouted and like he was prepared for it, Metapod aimed and shot the white sticky string directly at Charmander, wrapping it all over his body.

"Charr!"

Charmander tried to dodge, but Metapod had long since perfected string shot. The attack was too fast for anyone to dodge and the string around Charmander's body was too strong to break.

The string was too tight and it easily wrapped itself all around Charmander's body, not even leaving his tail out.

Charmander tried to cut through the strings by using his sharp claws, but he found that those were ineffective. The strings were just too strong for him to do anything.

Watching Charmander struggle, Samurai smiled and mocked Arthur, "It looks like I will take the win."

He thought that Arthur would be anxious seeing that Charmander was completely in Metapod's grasp, but when he glanced at his face, he found that it was calm.

There was not even a trace of panic or anxiety on his face.

'Why is he not even panicked? Is he acting?'

Samurai wondered and the next moment, he finally understood the reason why Arthur was so calm.

"Charmander, use flame burst and burn up all the strings."

He commanded and Charmander immediately opened his mouth.

A stream of fire released from his mouth and burned up all the strings that were holding his body. Then without stopping, the fire directly spread to the string that was attached to Metapod.

"No! Metapod, get out from there!"

Samurai screamed seeing the change of events, but it was already too late.

The fire was too fast for him to dodge and it directly hit Metapod, engulfing his whole shell into flames. Metapod screamed under the heat, but it was of no use.

"Charmander, use dragon tail and finish it off."

At that moment, Arthur again swiftly commanded and Charmander rushed at the burning Metapod. His tail glowed and got covered by a dragon shell, then he directly crashed it into Metapod.

"Poood!!"

Metapod screamed as he was thrown away. He crashed into the ground and lost all the strength in his body.

That's how Arthur's first battle ended.

A feeling of great accomplishment spread through his body as he took in the fact that he had won his first Pokemon battle, but he didn't know that he would soon be left shocked.