Alphamax's thrusters went silent after the two dragons and rider touched down. The only line Josh heard after he took his earplugs out was an inquiry for his visit. "My appointment?" Josh shrugged. "I thought I had an appointment with you for about this time. Your Gym is open, right?" he asked, a bit confused. "I know I made my appointment pretty quick after the signups went live on the League's website. It didn't kick me out of the system, did it...?"

The Garchomp next to Josh let out a war cry as soon as all his riding gear had been removed, the racer leaving it on the end of the picnic table's near seat. "Pretty impressed. Reminds me a lot of my old Racing Grounds back at Trainer Hill. Did I tell you I used to be in the Minor League too? If you work really hard, they'll promote you to the majors. I'll have to put in the good word for you if I'm impressed with you, win or lose. Anyway, my Pokémon." Sidewinder floated around Andrea with a grin on his face, ready to bombard the new Leader's Pokémon with Dreepy missiles. "Alphamax and Sidewinder. When I noticed how dragon-themed your Gym was, I couldn't help but bring two of my own loyal dragons."

When directed, Josh would take his spot in the Trainer's Box. Whether it was as technologically advanced as his own Gym was to be determined, but if it was functional, that was what mattered. "I hope you're ready for me to lock on and shoot you down!"

Rage incident and the Radio Tower takeover incident being related. He knew that while there was no inherent strength to the recessive gene combination that caused the Shiny phenomenon, they were rare enough to be prized by trainers fortunate enough to own them. This Gyarados was as special to Andrea as Josh's Manectric was to him.

Andrea's quip reiterated that dragons weren't just known for their speed; they also possessed great power. While they were nowhere as nimble as Josh's duo, the Leader's team could still put on quite a bit of speed. "Throttle up, Alphamax! Use takeoff power!" Josh cried once he heard the enemy Leader's command to give chase. He could faintly hear the hum of Dragonite wings vibrating. That meant only one of two things: EXTREME SPEED, or HURRICANE. Neither of those were particularly pleasant. His thrust, to Josh's dismay, was insufficient to avoid the potent column of wind that attempted to ground the creature's flight. The intense wind was buffeting him backwards, forced to dive close to the ground to recover from a stall and get back in the air. While the Garchomp was able to avoid a crash, he would need to get back up to speed before going back on the offensive.

Sidewinder's superior speed and prepared DRAGON DANCE let him swerve out of the way of the worst of the WATERFALL, though a glancing blow still hurt quite a bit. Unlike Huggles, Sidewinder was a stealth fighter, and had very little in the form of defenses. "Missile lock... and fire!" Josh commanded of the ghost-type, keeping him away from the Gyarados and directing the DRAGON DARTS that were heat-seeking Dreepy-missiles to launch themselves at Huggles.

Despite the danger posed by the Gyarados' ICE FANG, Alphamax kept charging toward the Gyarados. Perhaps if the Garchomp were fast enough, he could interrupt the mist-laden fangs before they got down to the temperature needed to properly use the Ice-type attack. When it was apparent that even with full thrust, the dragon wasn't going to be able to get to the Gyarados in time, he opened his marge mouth and belched DRAGON BREATH all over the red serpent's face in an effort to lock up his foe's jaw and prevent him from clamping down on him. It was too late, though; whether by the frigid mist or the ice crystals that would have formed on Whiskers' fangs, the Garchomp was destined to fall.

"Take evasive maneuvers, Sidewinder!" Josh commanded, Sidewinder entering a sudden barrel roll in an attempt to evade the crippling electric shock. While his barrel roll let him avoid the brunt of the attack, the Dragapult's flight became more labored and awkward, the power with which the THUNDER WAVE struck his wing contaminating its flight surface and forcing him to compensate for a tendency to roll to the left. It nullified any speed advantage the DRAGON DANCE had bestowed on him and made it much easier to see his blistering fast attacks coming. "Now, fire another volley of missiles, this time at the Gyarados!" the Mauville Leader shouted, launching a second volley of DRAGON DARTS toward the red serpent with intent to dispatch it and make this a fair fight with the Dragonite alone.

Normally, Dragapult was at a huge advantage against Dragonite. Being able to phase through EXTREME SPEED despite it being something too fast to react to eliminated the greatest perceived weapon the dragon cosplayer had against Josh. With Whiskers' AQUA TAIL enhanced by the torrential downpour, the slowed dragon-type took a huge body blow, needing full takeoff thrust to avoid a battle-ending crash.

Sidewinder was running on fumes. He was out of missiles and low on stamina, ghostly wisps trailing from his tail like smoke. This was going to end, and soon. Whether it would be in victory or defeat was still unclear. As much as Josh didn't want to issue the command to the tired phantom, the only way he saw to a win was to order a DRAGON RUSH. While it was far from the full speed the dragon-type was normally capable of, the Master of Faster judged that it would be more than enough to land a heavy blow on, if not dispatch entirely, such a clumsy flying-type.

Both of the dragons were in serious trouble. The impact of the DRAGON RUSH had sent both of them hurtling toward the ground, Sidewinder in a dangerous right roll that he was losing the strength to overcome. The ghost-type's more aerodynamic frame meant he was falling a lot faster than the meatier Dragonite. In this case, speed was working against the Mauville Leader. There had even been enough separation that he was out of melee range of the small-winged dragon, forcing the Dragonite to use his breath weapon to deliver the finishing blow.

Or what would have been the finishing blow, if Josh didn't have one last trick up his sleeve.

"Sidewinder, activate your stealth mode with your PHANTOM FORCE!" Just before the Dragapult would have crashed into the ground on his side, he disappeared in a small cloud of smoke. There was no telling where he would reappear!