Standing close to the edge of the stage, Todd follows the battle intently, and sees that the third and last rental Pokémon Emerald possesses is a Sceptile. The boy prepares to command a leafblade, but Noland has Golem attack first with a rockslide, and the barrage of crashing boulders instantly stir up dust and smoke to fill the room, blurring the view of everyone watching the fight.

Through the thick cloud of dust, Todd gasps in surprise when he spots Sceptile rampaging and furiously lashing out at Emerald. The reporter is completely baffled as to why a rental Pokémon will start attacking its trainer, and wants to ask Noland what is going on. However, the dust shrounds all over the place, and it appears that he is the only one aside from Emerald who is aware of oddity.

Narrowly evading Sceptile’s powerful strikes, Emerald without warning sends out his gun with his magic hand extensor. Todd recognizes it as the same one the boy used to calm Sudowoodo, and quickly snaps a few shots with his camera as Emerald fires off the mud and thread bullets. Like before, a diamond shaped pattern is carved out on the ground underneath Sceptile, and a mysterious glow emits from it which immediately calms the angry Pokémon.

Scott and the four Frontier Brains standing on the balcony notice the glow through the dust and smoke as well, and wonder what it could be. Just then, the air clears, and Noland quickly spots the whereabouts of his opponent. He resumes his attack, but Emerald is prepared and charges forward together with Sceptile. Todd is surprised to see the grass Pokémon obeying Emerald once again, and realizes that the fierce look in its eyes a moment ago was gone. Up on another balcony, Anabel watches everything in silence, and remains expressionless towards the drama on the stage.

Knowing that something must have happened between Emerald and Sceptile when the smoke and dust shrouded the room, Noland states that he doesn’t care what Emerald did, but any sort of trick is not going to work against him. Emerald assures Noland that he is aware of the fact, and has Sceptile pull off another leafblade which succeeds in fainting Golem in one hit.

Down to his last Pokémon as well, Noland calls out a Glalie, and Todd starts to get worried while the other Frontier Brains are elated, as ice is the greatest nightmare of grass. Lunging forward, Glalie delivers a crunch, and clamps its teeth hard on Sceptile’s left elbow, freezing the limb by the cold air emitting from its body. Sceptile struggles to stand its ground by munching on its handheld leftovers, but Brandon and Tucker smirk that such a strategy won’t last too long.

Even as a layman in Pokémon battles, Todd realizes the critical situation Emerald is in, and resorts to his information book on the Battle Frontier. He reads that the signature move of Noland’s Glalie is sheer cold, a powerful attack which knocks out the opponent instantly if hit, and wonders how Emerald prepares to deal with that.

Glalie releases its grip on Sceptile, and the grass Pokémon tumbles back in pain. Glalie’s eyes then glow with a cold blue, and Todd gasps that it is unleashing the sheer cold. But to his surprise, it fires off icebeams from its eye sockets instead, and Sceptile quickly evades the blasts with detect. Noland states that detect is a skill which accurately anticipates the movements of the opponent, and thus allows the user to dodge. However, the move loses its effectiveness with successive usage as it wears out the Pokémon, and it is in fact the reason why he is saving up Glalie’s sheer cold which has a relative lower accuracy. Just as Noland predicted, Sceptile soon gets exhausted from the consecutive dodging, and begins to react slow to Glalie’s assaults. Noland states that Emerald seems to have bad fortune on his side this time, and grasps the chance to order a sheer cold.

Glalie gurgles out a surge of cold air from its mouth which hits its foe square-chested, and sends it crashing back onto the ground after rolling over a few times. Todd sulks and gets disheartened that Emerald has lost, and Noland grins that the match is over. However, to everyone’s surprise, Sceptile regains its stance, and Emerald says it is still too early to judge. Noland cannot understand how a Pokémon being hit by sheer cold directly could still manage to get up, and starts to wonder if Sceptile has evaded afterall. Just then, he notices Glalie suddenly going weak, and quickly spots vines from a leech seed intertwining between its many hollow cavities.

Emerald giggles that Sceptile has secretly unleashed the move while Glalie held it close by crunch earlier, and says the leech seed has been constantly draining away the ice Pokémon’s strength all this time. Without another word, Emerald commands an irontail, and Sceptile balances itself on the ground with its right arm, and swings its heavy tail brutally into the face of Glalie, knocking it out instantly.

Anabel turns around silently to walk away the moment Glalie gets defeated, while Lucy, Tucker, Brandon, Greta and Scott have trouble believing what they see. Todd rejoices that Emerald has won, and Noland remains stunned for a moment before peeling off his hat and exclaims at the fascinating battle they just had. Emerald, on the other hand, simply deems it an interesting combat, and prepares to dash off after putting on his signature mischievous grin, but Noland stops him, and hands over the golden Knowledge Symbol to him, a recognition of his knowledge in Pokémon.

The slumbering reporters start to wake up as the match draws to an end, and make preparations for their interviews. Back on stage, Noland begins evaluating his own performance, and wonders if he should have made Golem use explosion instead. Emerald disagrees, and says it wouldn’t have been able to utilize its handheld hard stone in that case. The reporters start gathering around the stage in hopes of an interview, but Emerald and Noland continue to engage themselves in a long discussion on tactics and attack combos, and end up getting yelled at by the press who have been sitting patiently with them throughout the 42 battles for 15 hours.

That night, under the calm evening skies, Emerald spreads himself comfortably on the grass, and Todd is relieved that the boy survived his first challenge. The reporter wants to know, however, what exactly Emerald did to Sceptile, and Emerald wonders what he is talking about. Todd states that after Golem stirred up the dust clouds with a rockslide, he saw Sceptile rampaging on the stage, and although Noland and the other Frontier Brains didn’t see it, he has managed to take a few snapshots of Emerald calming the furious Pokémon with his gun like he did with Sudowoodo. He pulls up the few photos he took to show Emerald, and says it is actually weird in the first place that rental Pokémon would go out of control in the middle of a battle.

Keeping his indifferent attitude, Emerald says he shall reveal a little if Todd really wants to know, and shoots out his magic hand extensor which holds the Pokéball of Sceptile. Todd immediately freaks that Emerald has stolen a rental Pokémon from the Battle Factory, but the boy simply states that he took it away for investigations. Todd demands an elaboration, and Emerald sighs with a frustrated look that Todd has been too consumed in taking photos, and failed to notice what really happened that made the grass Pokémon rampage. He explains that someone in the audience stand has secretly hit Sceptile with poison sting when it was sent out from its Pokéball, and thus made it furious. Sharing a grin with Sceptile, Emerald says he took it away from the Battle Factory simply to help it, and Todd is left speechless for a moment thinking of what the boy just said.

Emerald then calls out the names Latias and Latios into the sky, and the two mythical dragons soon materialize out from the moonlight. Emerald proudly shows them the Pokéball of Sceptile, and Latias, who addresses Emerald as Rald, tells the boy telepathically that they shall land to join him.

Meanwhile, at the Battle Pike, Lucy receives an intercom from Greta, and the Arena Tycoon informs her that Tucker and Brandon are frantically gearing up their own facilities after Noland was defeated, both preparing for the possibility that the boy will challenge them next. Sitting comfortably in the coils of her Seviper, Lucy takes a sip from her glass of red wine, and tells Greta to pacify the two. She suggests making the boy come to the Battle Pike the following day, and grins that she is more than ready to be challenged...

Thanks To Coronis For Writing this for us