"Damn, this is truly defying the heavens!"
"526 points! In past editions, that would have been enough to win the championship!"
Upon seeing the number on the testing device, all the spectators were left stunned.
Patrick Mills's 436 points were already incredibly powerful, but compared to 526... they were utter trash!
Clink.
At that moment, Patrick was completely dazed.
The Poké Ball in his hand suddenly fell to the ground.
A flash of light shone, and Arcanine's figure appeared.
"Arrcaaaan!"
Realizing it had been released, Arcanine immediately let out a powerful roar, standing tall and full of vigor.
After achieving 436 points, this dog was more than proud.
It looked toward the field and suddenly saw Ethan's figure; its eyes lit up. It seemed that its trainer had released it to show off a bit.
Then its gaze fell upon Litwick, and the smile on its face grew even wider. Such a weak Pokémon... how could it possibly be its opponent?
Finally, it looked at the number displayed on the testing device, and its entire body froze on the spot.
It rubbed its eyes in disbelief.
What was it seeing?
526 points?
Was it sure it wasn't 256?
"Arrcaaaan!"
Arcanine felt as if its entire world had collapsed!
"Arcanine, come back immediately."
Patrick also saw his Arcanine completely petrified and hurriedly picked up the Poké Ball from the ground to recall it.
Then he let out a slow sigh and looked at Ethan with a complicated expression.
He had originally wanted to regain his pride here, but he hadn't expected to lose so crushingly... and on the very field he excelled at the most!
"Good job, Litwick."
Ethan smiled faintly and patted Litwick, who looked somewhat exhausted.
That final attack, combining the move Substitute, the Flash Fire ability, and the move Inferno, was truly powerful. However, the consumption for Litwick was also enormous. After using that move, its physical stamina was already nearly depleted.
"From now on, the most important thing for Litwick is to increase its endurance. Perhaps finding a way to make it evolve would be a good option."
Ethan reflected silently. During this time, he had thought of many methods to make Litwick evolve, but it seemed that Litwick had exhausted much of its potential by training the move Substitute, which gave him quite a headache.
"The next evaluation..."
After Ethan stepped down from the stage, the evaluation continued.
As the tests went on in the arena, news about Pokémon and trainers who had achieved extremely high scores began to spread, even reaching the backstage workroom of the Cross Cup.
"Damn, this Magmar has brutal attack power! One punch and it already scored 368 points!"
"As expected of Charizard! The power of that attack is truly terrifying—it reached 371 points!"
"This Patrick Mills is from the Mills family, right? The development of his Arcanine's Flash Fire ability is impressive. He's already able to nullify and absorb the side effects of the move Flare Blitz, strengthening himself in the process."
The staff, looking at the reports coming in from the front, discussed animatedly, expressions of astonishment on their faces. The Fire-type trainers in this edition were truly strong.
"Is this... Litwick?"
Suddenly, a worker picked up a document and frowned in confusion.
A Pokémon like Litwick could also make the list?
In the next instant, his eyes widened in shock.
That Litwick's score was 526 points!
He shuddered and hurried off to report to his superiors.
...
As the first round of the preliminary eliminations came to an end, many scores had already been compiled.
"Huh? What relationship does this trainer named Naira Cross have with Champion Leo Cross?"
"She owns a Ninetales, an extremely rare Pokémon that is strictly controlled by the League!"
"And what's more, Ninetales's score reached 550 points—even higher than Litwick's Inferno, which had been pushed to the limit through the move Substitute and the Flash Fire ability!"
As Ethan looked over the score table along with the information on trainers and Pokémon, his expression grew serious.
Besides this trainer named Naira Cross, another trainer named Laura Thorne also caught Ethan's attention, because the Pokémon she used was none other than Chandelure.
"This time, there are really many strong opponents. It seems that standing out in the Cross Cup and obtaining guidance from Champion Leo will be quite difficult."
Ethan sighed softly. However, he hadn't come this time with the intention of winning the championship, so he didn't feel too much pressure.
While Ethan was reviewing the participants' information, Naira Cross and Laura Thorne were also reviewing Ethan's data.
When they saw that the Pokémon he had sent out was Litwick, Laura Thorne couldn't help but widen her eyes in surprise. As a Chandelure trainer, she paid special attention to Litwick's combination of the move Substitute and the Flash Fire ability.
She also realized that if her Chandelure could master that technique of using Substitute and summoning fire, its strength would increase significantly.
...
Once the sixty-four finalists had been determined, the competition officially began!
In this Cross Cup, the early matches were fought in a 1 vs 1 format.
Only from the quarterfinals onward would the rules change to a 3 vs 3 format.
With the start of the first round, from 64 to 32, the giant screen began to spin, selecting the opponents for each matchup.
Very soon, Ethan's opponent was revealed: a trainer who used Flareon.
"A Flareon with the Flash Fire ability?"
"In that case, when both sides possess Flash Fire, we'll have to rely on moves of other attributes."
Ethan pondered slightly. In this situation, Litwick's weakness—only having mastered a move like Inferno—was fully exposed.
While training Fire-type moves, moves of other types also could not be neglected; that was precisely the spirit the Cross Cup sought to convey.
If one focuses only on training Fire-type moves, then in internal battles between Fire-type Pokémon, one is at a clear disadvantage, since the Flash Fire ability is extremely common among them.
The reason Champion Leo Cross had reached his position was precisely because, although all his Pokémon were Fire-type, they also excelled in other attributes.
Such as Charizard's Flying type, Blaziken's Fighting type, or Camerupt's Ground type—these were all attributes in which Champion Leo Cross excelled.
The rules of the Cross Cup were established precisely based on this principle.
In the first round of the preliminaries, the power of Fire-type moves with type bonus was evaluated; no matter the time, fire was still the foundation of Fire-type Pokémon.
But from the start of the main stage onward, what would be evaluated was the comprehensive combat capability of Fire-type Pokémon.
(End of chapter)