Discussion filled the battlefield.
"…So in my opinion, we should first notify President Chen Mo and let him make the final decision. As for this match, we can discuss postponing it with contestant Wan Yushu for now."
The bald team leader, standing under the blazing sun, spoke until his mouth was dry.
Just as he was about to pull out his phone and call Chen Mo—
A pair of short purple-black arms suddenly reached out in front of him, holding an ice-cold bottle of soda that still emitted faint wisps of chill air.
"gengar!"
gengar gently shook the soda bottle, signaling for the team leader to take it.
"I…"
Before the team leader could refuse, gengar had already stuffed the soda into his hands.
Immediately afterward—
gengar moved with astonishing speed. Its tiny arms worked nonstop, continuously pulling out bottles of soda chilled using gengar's unique ghostly body and handing them to the event staff one after another.
After finishing all that—
gengar clasped its little hands together in front of its chest and stood obediently before the event staff, waiting for their judgment.
Its expression even carried a somewhat pitiful, pleading look.
One young staff member wearing black-rimmed glasses held the ice-cold soda in his hands while looking at gengar's posture, and couldn't help feeling a bit soft-hearted.
"Team Leader… since there doesn't seem to be any problem with the procedures, why don't we just let gengar battle first?"
"..."
The team leader felt speechless.
Good lord.
You people got bribed by a single bottle of soda just like that?
If we really let gengar participate and contestant Wan Yushu ends up objecting and taking the matter to Chen Mo, none of us are getting out of this alive.
At the end of the day—
Who the hell gave one of those old test accounts to gengar anyway? That's way too messed up!
The team leader gritted his teeth in frustration. The preliminary tournament schedule was already complicated enough and had kept him busy nonstop, and now this happened too.
Exhausting.
Right then—
After watching for a while and finally understanding the situation, Wan Yushu saw the team leader pull out his phone and suddenly became restless.
"Um… actually, I don't have any objections. Since gengar technically isn't late as a trainer, I'm willing to have a fair and proper battle with it."
"Huh?"
The bald team leader was full of question marks.
"You're sure? About the match…"
"It's fine. No matter the result, I'll accept it."
Seeing that the team leader seemed somewhat persuaded, Wan Yushu quickly stated his thoughts.
"To be honest, I've always had a dream of having an official Pokémon battle with Teacher Mo. That's one of the reasons I signed up for the Pikachu Cup."
"But…"
"Although I'm confident that Bull and I can get through the preliminaries and make it into the main tournament, I know myself well enough to understand that winning the championship is basically impossible."
"To say nothing else, I watched the battle between Oddish and Banette earlier from start to finish. Xiao You and Banette are seriously strong. Honestly speaking, I'm not confident I can defeat them."
"So now that Teacher Mo's Pokémon is standing right in front of me, I have to consider whether this might be the only chance I'll ever get in my life."
"Please. I want to battle Teacher Mo's Pokémon. I hope the event staff can give me that opportunity!"
After speaking—
Wan Yushu gave the team leader and the others a slight bow.
Everyone fell silent for a long while before turning toward the highest-ranking decision-maker present—the bald team leader.
After a moment—
The team leader let out a helpless sigh.
"Prepare to begin."
At the same time, both Wan Yushu and gengar's eyes lit up.
"Thank you!" "gengar!"
Cheers erupted from the audience outside the battlefield.
The bald team leader shook his head, twisted open the soda bottle, and took a sip.
Mm.
Still nice and cold.
——
"Ah, what a pity. Contestant Xiaocong's Sandshrew has gone down, while contestant Mo Ji's Raticate ultimately remained standing. Teacher Mo, what are your thoughts on this battle?"
Anping City Television Station.
After the match shown on-screen ended, the host instinctively tossed the topic over to Chen Mo, the resident expert.
Since he was already here specifically as a commentator, Chen Mo didn't hesitate and calmly shared some thoughts with the livestream audience.
"Sandshrew is a Ground-type Pokémon, while Raticate is a Normal-type Pokémon. There's no type advantage between them, so this can be considered an even matchup."
"However, as a fully evolved Pokémon, Raticate naturally possesses greater advantages over Sandshrew's unevolved form under normal circumstances."
"Contestant Xiaocong likely understood she was at a disadvantage, which is why she had Sandshrew immediately use Rollout at the start of the battle, hoping to overwhelm Raticate with a high-speed offensive and secure victory quickly."
"But clearly, contestant Mo Ji saw through that strategy. Rather than letting Raticate clash head-on with Sandshrew, he first used Scary Face to lower Sandshrew's speed before boosting Raticate's attack power with Swords Dance."
As one side weakened while the other strengthened, the outcome had long been decided.
Faced with Raticate's relentless assault, Sandshrew lost cleanly.
The livestream chat exploded.
[Mo Ji's tactics are filthy. Raticate was already stronger than Sandshrew to begin with—normally Sandshrew probably only had a twenty percent chance of winning—but even then, Mo Ji still used Scary Face to weaken the opponent and Swords Dance to buff himself. That's downright inhuman.]
[Sandshrew: So you're really not giving me even the slightest chance, huh?]
[Being cautious is normal. The preliminaries are a race to collect ten Shining Stars first. Spots are limited, so on the first day of preliminaries, Mo Ji obviously wants his Raticate to defeat opponents as efficiently as possible while avoiding injuries so he can keep battling more matches.]
[As expected of an official staff member—Mo Ji trained his Pokémon really well. During the Garbodor incident, wasn't it still just a Rattata? Now it's already evolved into Raticate.]
The livestream chat was especially lively.
Compared to the previous few matches, that battle had already been considered extremely exciting.
As an official staff member, Mo Ji displayed excellent battle awareness, and his teamwork with Raticate far surpassed that of ordinary rookie trainers.
Chen Mo's preliminary judgment was that Mo Ji and his Raticate had a high chance of making it through the preliminaries and entering the group stage or even the knockout rounds.
He counted as a seeded contestant.
As for his opponent, Xiaocong—the Sandshrew trainer—her in-battle decision-making and Sandshrew's displayed strength showed she also had the qualifications to enter the group stage.
She was simply unlucky enough to run into Mo Ji in the first round.
However—
For talented losing contestants like Xiaocong, the event staff present at each battlefield would assign hidden ratings based on performance during battle, which would influence future matchmaking.
So unless something unexpected happened, Xiaocong would most likely be matched against a much weaker trainer in her next battle.
This wasn't rigging.
It was simply a method to ensure more talented and promising contestants could smoothly enter the main tournament and make future matches more exciting.
"Now let's take a look at the next battle."
The host beside him changed topics the moment the screen switched.
But after seeing the image displayed on the giant monitor, his smiling expression instantly froze as he shouted in disbelief:
"Isn't that gengar!? Why is there a gengar standing in the trainer's position on the battlefield!?"
"Huh?"
For some reason, Chen Mo suddenly felt a very bad premonition and raised his head.
With just one glance—
Even from the back, he could recognize that purple chubby figure.
That was definitely his family's gengar!
"This…"
Suddenly realizing something, Chen Mo whipped his head around and stared at the Pikachu on his shoulder.
Pikachu, who had been happily licking a lollipop, instantly stiffened before quickly putting on an innocent expression.
"Pika pika."
(This has nothing to do with me. I know absolutely nothing.)
Listening to Pikachu's defense, veins bulged on Chen Mo's forehead.
Like hell I'd believe you!
This is rebellion! Absolute rebellion! The Pokémon at home are about to turn the house upside down!
Meanwhile—
Just as Chen Mo sat inside the TV station livestream room boiling with rage, gengar on the battlefield seemed to sense something and suddenly shivered violently.
It shrank its neck and cautiously scanned the surrounding audience seats with its crimson eyes.
Mm.
Safe.
After taking a deep breath, gengar suddenly produced an orange-yellow Poké Ball as if performing magic. It skillfully opened the latch while mentally recalling its trainer's movements and lines.
"gengar gengar!"
(I choose you—Gible!)
Along with a flash of white light—
A Pokémon with a gigantic mouth and shark-like appearance appeared directly in front of Snubbull.
"So gengar isn't battling personally… it's using Gible…"
Wan Yushu muttered inwardly.
Honestly, after all the bizarre things gengar had done just now, Wan Yushu had fully expected gengar itself to battle.
He never imagined gengar was genuinely acting purely as a trainer while sending out Gible instead.
As a fan of Chen Mo who had never missed a single stream, Wan Yushu knew Gible's situation very well.
Although Gible was the youngest and weakest Pokémon on Chen Mo's team, after witnessing its battle against Nidorino, Wan Yushu absolutely didn't dare underestimate it.
"Huu…"
Taking a deep breath, Wan Yushu nodded toward the referee.
Meanwhile, gengar let out an excited cry as well.
Seeing this, the referee no longer hesitated. He swung down the flag in his hand and shouted loudly:
"Battle begin!"
Almost instantly—
Wan Yushu issued his first command.
"Scary Face!"
This was the same move Mo Ji had previously used with Raticate against Sandshrew.
The effect of Scary Face was simple.
By using a special type of energy to intimidate the opponent, it sharply reduced the target's speed.
In the blink of an eye—
The opening attack was especially crucial. Snubbull, having trained alongside Wan Yushu countless times, had already gathered the necessary energy for Scary Face before Wan Yushu even fully finished speaking.
"Bull!"
A terrifying blood-red ghostly face appeared above Snubbull's head.
Combined with Snubbull's naturally fierce appearance and glaring eyes, the effect was extraordinary.
Standing not far away, Gible froze stiffly in place.
"gengar!"
(Snap out of it!)
Acting as the trainer, gengar shouted loudly toward Gible.
At that instant—
Gible finally regained its senses somewhat.
But having already fallen behind by a beat, when Gible looked up again, Snubbull had already charged over with its jaws wide open.
"Ice Fang!"
Dense white mist spewed from Snubbull's mouth as astonishing energy condensed rapidly within its open jaws.
Brilliant white light eventually transformed into a row of icy, freezing fangs.
"Garchomp!"
Gible reacted quickly.
Its previous battle experience against Nidorino at the Countermeasure Bureau training grounds still lingered vividly in its memory.
Gible knew exactly what it needed to do right now.
Its four limbs instantly became the perfect digging tools.
Just as Snubbull closed to within one or two meters—
Gible burrowed underground.
"Bull?"
Seeing its target suddenly disappear, Snubbull immediately panicked.
But at that moment—
Wan Yushu's voice rang out from the side.
"Bull, don't panic! Listen carefully!"
Although Wan Yushu knew Gible had once used Dig together with Sand Tomb to defeat the far stronger Nidorino—
After carefully reading the tournament rules, he already knew Gible couldn't remain underground for extended periods like before.
And within just a few seconds—
It would be impossible for Gible to create enough underground space to use Sand Tomb again like it had previously.
So—
It had no choice but to emerge and attack.
BOOM!
The ground shook violently.
Immediately afterward—
Gible burst out from the earth behind Snubbull.
"Bull!"
Although Snubbull had vaguely sensed the warning signs, its hearing was nowhere near as sharp as Nidorino's had been.
The instant Snubbull turned around—
Gible's claws had already slammed into its side.
"Garchomp!"
Dig's power was considerable.
The direct hit caused Snubbull's expression to twist violently in pain as its body uncontrollably flew sideways.
Wan Yushu's heart sank.
He had long expected Chen Mo's Pokémon wouldn't be easy to handle—
But Gible's current performance still shocked him.
"As expected of Teacher Mo's Pokémon…"
On the other side—
"Bull…"
After its feet carved deep trenches into the battlefield, Snubbull slid backward several meters before finally stabilizing itself through sheer force.
When it looked toward Gible again, a trace of fear had already appeared in its eyes.
But right then—
Wan Yushu's voice sounded once more.
"Bull, don't panic. Take it slowly. The advantage is ours."
Although Gible was clearly incredibly talented despite only recently being born—
Compared to the well-trained Snubbull, it still possessed major disadvantages.
Not to mention—
Snubbull held the type advantage.
Fairy-type completely sealed away Gible's strongest move, Outrage.
Combined with Ice Fang, as long as Snubbull could land a hit, Wan Yushu was confident he could take Gible down in one combo.
Which meant—
The advantage should belong to them!
A blazing fighting spirit ignited within Wan Yushu's eyes.
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