Chapter 180: The Double Battle Begins
Before the match began, the opposing players were still taunting.
"First-years? Don't worry, it won't be long before you're sent down to fight your own peers."
The meaning was that Arthur and his teammate would soon be kicked out of the seeded player group.
Arthur remained noncommittal to this, not saying a word.
Justin, at his side, was still clowning around. "Bro Arthur, want me to pull out the sword and kill him? I promise I won't stop you~"
Then, unsurprisingly, he was tapped on the head by Arthur's finger again.
This attitude of utter disregard from the two was more potent than any verbal comeback.
Because it represented a disdainful indifference.
It was extremely infuriating!
The opposing trainees' anger turned into laughter, their gazes becoming even more ferocious.
No one had expected this year's graduation tournament to start with such a thick smell of gunpowder.
Someone from the Sea Carp Club couldn't help but sigh, "That Arthur really is a man who brings his own hot topics wherever he goes. No wonder he's a top-tier internet celebrity."
Arthur felt very helpless about this.
He really wanted to throw up his hands and say that he clearly hadn't done anything…
And with that, the match began!
The two Pokémon the opponents sent out were Trevenant and Starmie.
On Arthur's side were Frogadier and Pidgeotto.
This match should provide a lot of room for Frogadier to shine.
Since players in the professional league had to register their Pokémon beforehand, there was no possibility of blind guessing.
Arthur had chosen to send out Frogadier precisely because he had seen the opponent's registered Pokémon in advance.
For this graduation tournament, Arthur had registered Frogadier, Mismagius, and Little Lapras for himself, while Specter remained benched.
This was not only to let Specter recover properly but also to give him time to mentor Mismagius, teach her some offensive skills, and incidentally, give the two Pokémon more space to be alone.
Previously, Specter had been an "iron straight man," the kind whose denseness was comparable to a Steelix!
Mismagius had wholeheartedly supported him, yet he had never once thought to teach her an offensive move.
For over a hundred years... if it had been Leafeon, Mismagius would have probably given birth to an entire ghost clan by now…
But Specter had remained completely unmoved.
In the end, it was up to Arthur to create space and conditions for him.
One could only say that being his trainer was truly not easy.
Not only did he have to manage their training, but he also had to help play matchmaker…
Additionally, Honedge was too iconic and easily led to misunderstandings, so he didn't register it.
And there was the newly born Little Eevee, who was destined to be unable to compete for the time being.
As for the two Pokémon the opponents sent out, Trevenant was also a Ghost-type, albeit a physical one, with a Ghost/Grass typing. As its name suggested, it was a tree demon from the forest.
Trevenant evolved from Phantump, had only a single evolutionary line, and was currently in its final form.
The other Pokémon, Starmie, was also a final form, evolved from Staryu, and was a well-known "newbie-friendly" Pokémon among Water-types.
In the past, Staryu lived in the deep sea and was quite rare in the human world.
However, with the popularization of artificial breeding, this Pokémon's non-picky eating habits, calm demeanor, ease of care, single evolution that could be accelerated with a Water Stone, and decent species potential led to its rapid rise in popularity!
It quickly became the lazy person's… ahem, the newbie's friend, similar to Scyther.
Of course, in non-coastal regions, the price of Staryu was still higher than Scyther's. At the Otter Club's home ground, Starmie could still be considered a high-end Pokémon.
However, Skyspire City was by the sea, so over on Arthur's side, Starmie was not uncommon.
Starmie looked like a large, sapphire-blue starfish and had a Water/Psychic typing.
Both of the opposing Pokémon had weaknesses that included Ghost and Dark types, so before the match, Arthur had instructed, "Frogadier will be the main attacker in this match."
"No problem~"
Although Justin had become more of a clown after they got familiar, he was always obedient when it came to serious business.
He would always follow Bro Arthur's lead!
The referee blew the whistle, and the match began!
After entering the official graduation tournament, the procedures were noticeably more formal. Not only was there a referee and a whistle, but there were also two large LCD scoreboards on the sidelines.
At the start, Justin gave the first command: "Pidgeotto, use Tailwind!"
Immediately, on the scoreboard on their side, a panel below Pidgeotto's picture was flipped, marked with "Tailwind."
This scoreboard was used to keep track of the skills used by the Pokémon on the field.
In professional matches, the maximum number of skills a Pokémon could use in a single match was limited. This was the same for both Double and Single Battles; the limit for each Pokémon was six skills per match.
Of course, this limit referred to the number of different skills; there was no limit on using the same skill repeatedly.
A referee on the sidelines was specifically responsible for tracking this and displaying it in real-time on the screen. When one side illegally used a skill exceeding the limit, the referee would blow the whistle and issue a penalty!
From this moment on, Arthur finally had to bid farewell to the "anything goes" style of amateur rules and gradually begin to adapt to the more formal professional match regulations.
Pidgeotto used "Tailwind," and the airflow began to blow strongly in a direction favorable for their charge!
Frogadier rode this wind, powerfully pushed off with its legs, leaned its upper body forward, and rushed towards the enemy at full speed!
However, at this moment, the enemy's attention was not on it.
"Trevenant, use Rock Slide!"
"Starmie, use Power Gem!"
Both opposing Pokémon used a move at the same time, and their targets, by sheer coincidence, were both—the distant Pidgeotto!
Rock-type skills were super effective against Flying-types. Both Pokémon targeted Pidgeotto's weakness at the start, both choosing Rock-type attack skills.
At first glance, combining output to focus fire on one target seemed consistent with double battle tactics.
But at this, an instructor from the Otter Club on the sidelines frowned.
"This year, still no improvement…" the instructor suddenly sighed.
This prompted other instructors beside him to concur.
They knew their own trainees best, so they were the clearest on the fact that the so-called "focus fire" was just a coincidence. The real reason behind this scene was still that both trainees wanted to show off!
Because although the graduation tournament arranged for double battles, the rankings and scores were still calculated individually for each person.
While this prevented slackers from getting carried to victory by hugging a powerful thigh, it also led many trainees to only care about their own performance, completely disregarding teamwork.
No, it shouldn't be said "many," but rather, a lot!
They had started implementing the "seeded player" rule in exchange tournaments a few years ago, stipulating that seeded players were not allowed to pair with each other but were free to choose their teammates.
The original intention was to reduce such "lone wolf" behavior as much as possible.
Unfortunately, in recent years, it seemed the results were still not good.
When those seeded players chose teammates, most of them still just looked at the rankings. In the end, two high-ranked trainees would team up, and on the field, they would still both be thinking about hogging the spotlight!
Just like now, both of them wanted to take advantage of the type matchup to hit Pidgeotto.
Because Pidgeotto had used a skill first at the start, it was now in a cooldown period, making it a good time to score points.
And at the same time, no one was willing to intercept Frogadier, who still had skills in reserve and was currently charging at full speed with Tailwind.
This "coordination" made Arthur laugh.
He himself hadn't expected his pre-planned strategy to have such a surprisingly smooth start!
(End of Chapter)
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