"Huff... huff..."
Rowan's technique was a bit rough, but somehow, it felt like there was a guiding force helping him, allowing him to always hit the key spots.
Before long, Nekomi had fallen asleep. By the time she woke up again, Joy had finished the examination.
There were no issues with the other Pokémon scheduled to fight tomorrow. As usual, they just needed some rest.
After that, they returned to the hotel and rented the hotel's conference room to begin their pre-match meeting.
Originally, in the singles battle, they were only counting on Rowan. Bringing home even the runner-up was an unexpected bonus, which also meant the upcoming matches would be much easier for them.
"Coach, Brother Han, say something already."
"Yeah, last year when we were losing, you guys still managed to say so much to encourage us. Now that things are going great, why are you two staying quiet?"
A Coach and a Data Analyst stood in front of the projector for quite a while, but didn't say a word, leaving the members of the Varsity Team somewhat confused.
"There's nothing much to say... Have your Farigiraf set up Light Screen and Reflect, then Baton Pass to Skarmory.
Skarmory will lay Spikes, and from there it's all up to Meowscarada. Let the rest of the Pokémon rotate in to give Meowscarada time to recover.
Oh, and if the opponent tries to control the weather, we need to take it back; even though we don't need it ourselves, we can't let them use it comfortably."
Their tactics were extremely simple: five support one, and let the ace carry.
When there's only one "carry" in the team, this strategy is undoubtedly the best.
And while they were busy figuring out how to protect the ace, the other teams were all trying to figure out how to cut it down.
Based on the results from the previous day's battles, the conclusion they came to was... it couldn't be cut.
This wasn't the usual glass cannon with high-damage and fragile defense; it was an all-around warrior with all stats maxed out. Their own Pokémon simply didn't have the strength to complete such a difficult task.
"How about... we surrender?"
"Surrender?"
"Yeah, team battles aren't the same as singles—it's a round-robin, not single elimination. Since we can't deal with that Meowscarada, then we just don't deal with it. Let someone else fight it, we'll conserve our strength.
Let them take first, and we'll go for second. Don't forget, tomorrow's 6-pick-4 is our strong suit.
No matter how strong his Meowscarada is, it won't shine in that format. Even if they take first in both formats, as long as we secure second, we'll still have a shot tomorrow."
"I'm not saying that's wrong, but surrendering without even trying? You all know their average strength; take down that Meowscarada, and the rest are manageable. At least give it a shot first."
At the moment, there were still people in the team holding differing views. But when the next day's match began...
"Aggron Mega Evolves right from the start, aiming for a revenge match! Aggron charges forward! Uh... Aggron goes down!"
Mega Evolution brings a significant stat boost. After Mega Evolving, Aggron's metal armor becomes even thicker, turning into a heavy-duty tank with impressive boosts to both defenses.
But that couldn't change the result. The overwhelming damage dealt was still too much to withstand. If it couldn't survive before, it still couldn't now.
After the failed revenge attempt, the observing teams quickly changed their strategies. Many of them, with similar thoughts, began fighting for second place in the team battle, leading to a series of passive battles during the team battle.
"Congratulations to the East Campus for winning the team competition in the most effortless fashion. This is the closest this team has ever come to championship. [TN: Author uses a word which can be translated to Toho or Dongbao before East Campus. I don't have full context here what it means, so for now I will use East Campus. In later chapters when there is context, I will change it.]
And they have been able to do this mostly because of Contestant Rowan and his Meowscarada. But tomorrow's matches hold the greatest weight in terms of points. We'll see what they can achieve after losing their biggest advantage..."
"Ahem, everyone, let's not celebrate too soon, we can't be popping champagne at halftime. But it seems they've forgotten that our strongest event was always the 6-pick-4 format."
Though saying not to celebrate early, Jia Qiong's smile was harder to suppress than an AK. The two toughest Kanto events were already behind them, and the remaining event was one they were already fairly good at. As long as they performed normally, securing a good ranking wouldn't be a problem.
Compared to their past results, this was already a major breakthrough.
"What kind of Pokémon will the officials provide?"
"No idea. Until we get the Poké Balls tomorrow, it's completely confidential. But don't worry, this is the fairest segment of the competition. At the very least, the Pokémon's strength is about the same, there's no ridiculous level gaps. It's all about command.
And our biggest opponent in this event… is our old acquaintance, that little girl from the southern district."
As Jia Qiong spoke, he clicked the remote and pulled up a person's profile.
"Is she special in some way? Exceptional theoretical knowledge?"
"No. The contestants who commands in 6-pick-4 matches are all pretty similar in skill, there's no huge gap. Her advantage is… she's a Psychic."
"You mean like Saffron City's Sabrina?"
When Jia Qiong mentioned Psychic, Rowan's first reaction was the Gym Leader of Saffron Gym, Sabrina—the one who could shrink people or even turn them into dolls with her powers.
"No, no, not that ridiculous. She can just communicate with Pokémon through Telepathy."
Psychics!
People like that aren't a secret in this world. Due to certain special reasons, some humans possess these kinds of supernatural powers, though their abilities vary widely.
Sabrina is undoubtedly in the top tier; her psychic powers can even affect the real world.
"Telepathy... I remember in Hoenn's Battle Frontier, there was a Frontier Brain with that ability, right?"
"Not quite the same. You're talking about Anabel, the leader of the Battle Tower. She shares an incredibly close bond with her Pokémon, treating them as her dearest friends, much like how you are with your Meowscarada.
It's said that when her emotions run high, she can sometimes achieve perfect sync with her Pokémon, transmitting her thoughts directly to them and giving commands without even speaking.
But this little girl is different, she can establish Telepathy directly with any Pokémon, which is a huge advantage in battles using unfamiliar Pokémon."
Trainers sometimes establish secret signals with their Pokémon. They might shout Protect, but the Pokémon actually uses Hyper Beam, throwing off the opposing Trainer's judgment.
But you can't do that with unfamiliar Pokémon. Psychics can skip that whole step. Not only can the Pokémon receive commands more directly, but the opponent has no idea what you're planning and can't react in time.
"Meow~"
"Coach, Nekomi says she has a plan. What if we let her be the one to command?"
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