Pokemon: Master of tactics

Milo quickly ran over to his Pokémon and checked her condition.

After confirming that Drifblim was merely unconscious, he sprayed it with a healing medicine before returning her to her Poké Ball.

He gave a small smile and said, "You did well."

Only then did he stand up and walk back to his side of the battlefield.

Alex glanced at Crobat and quickly evaluated his condition. Although Phantom Force had landed cleanly, the damage wasn't particularly significant.

Crobat still had well over three-quarters of his HP remaining and appeared completely unbothered, as though he had merely taken a light hit.

The referee raised his flag and announced, "Participant 10 has 30 seconds to send out his next Pokémon."

Milo lowered his head slightly and began thinking. His expression remained calm, but Alex could tell that he was carefully reconsidering his strategy.

The level gap was larger than Milo had expected. More importantly, Alex's Crobat was stronger than he had anticipated.

A few seconds later, Milo reached for another Poké Ball.

He tossed the Poké Ball forward and a flash of white light erupted across the battlefield as his second Pokémon appeared.

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Pokémon: Chandelure

LV: 56

Type: Ghost/Fire

Abilities: Flash Fire

Gender: Male

Potential: Deep Gold (3%)

Moves:

- Astonish, Ember, Minimize, Smog, Fire Spin, Confuse Ray [E], Night Shade, Will-O-Wisp [E], Flame Burst, Imprison, Hex, Memento, Inferno,

- (Innate Talent) Shadow Ball [M], (Innate Talent) Imprison [E], (Innate Talent) Fire Blast [M]

-(TM) Protect [E], (TM) Dark Pulse [M], (TM) Toxic [E], (TM) Energy Ball, (TM) Sunny Day [E], (TM) Psychic, (TM) Calm Mind [M], (TM) Rest, (TM) Sleep Talk

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Alex looked at this information and felt nothing in particular.

Although Chandelure is a very powerful Pokémon with a Special Attack stat of 145, combined with the move Calm Mind, it needs time to set up before it becomes truly dangerous.

The referee raised his hand and shouted, "3, 2, 1, Go!"

Alex quickly said, "A2."

Milo said at the same time, "Use Calm Mind."

Hearing this, Alex thought, 'Is he stupid? Did he forget that my Crobat knows Shadow Ball and needs at most two hits to defeat his Pokémon? If I couldn't read the information on his Pokémon, I'd assume he wasn't actually setting up Calm Mind.'

In moments like these, Alex felt that his system wasn't quite as bad as he'd always claimed.

The ability to see a Pokémon's moves—especially their mastery levels—as well as their abilities and potential, was pretty useful.

Although he felt he could have easily outplayed most trainers' tactics even without these abilities, the system certainly made things much easier for him.

Yet, even though he was slowly starting to view his system as less "weak" after all this time, he didn't exactly consider it particularly powerful either.

Compared to all the "starter abilities" he'd read about in novels, his system looked extremely weak.

The ability to read potential sounded very strong, but considering there was already a machine capable of doing that, this ability was really only useful for making money—provided one could come up with a way to monetize it.

Alex, whose mind was elsewhere, had already played out the entire match in his head. Knowing the match was effectively over, he began thinking about all sorts of other things.

Crobat, who was preparing a move while flying toward Chandelure, finished preparing it.

He used Shadow Ball and hit Chandelure, which had tried to dodge.

Chandelure, left with less than 40% of his HP, used Calm Mind.

Without waiting for a command from Alex, Crobat immediately began preparing a new move after using Shadow Ball.

Milo called out, "Use Fire Blast."

Alex looked slightly bored when he heard that. The battle was proceeding exactly as he had predicted.

Crobat used Shadow Ball, and because he executed his move ealier, Chandelure didn't even have time to finish preparing Fire Blast.

Chandelure staggered for a moment, and Alex even thought for an instant that he might barely withstand the hit before Chandelure collapsing unconscious to the ground.

Milo ran over to his Pokémon with a slightly embarrassed expression and healed it.

He even whispered, "Sorry, Chandelure. That was my fault."

Alex looked at Milo and thought to himself, 'What a terrible battle. He seems to be a trainer who is very good at training his Pokémon but bad at commanding them in battle.'

Milo returned Chandelure to his Poké Ball and stood silently on his side of the battlefield for several seconds.

His expression was somewhat awkward as he looked at Crobat, who was still flying calmly in the air and appeared almost completely unaffected by the battle so far.

More than three-quarters of Crobat's HP remained, while Milo had already lost two of his strongest Pokémon without accomplishing anything meaningful.

He glanced down at the Poké Balls attached to his belt and quickly realized that there was no realistic path to victory.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Milo let out a sigh and raised his hand. "I surrender."

The referee looked slightly surprised before asking, "Participant 10 is surrendering?"

Milo nodded with a bitter smile. "Yes. At this point, continuing would just be wasting everyone's time."

The referee waited a moment to make sure Milo wasn't changing his mind before raising his flag. "Participant 10 has surrendered! The winner of this match is Participant 3, Alex!"

A wave of applause spread throughout the arena. However, Alex immediately noticed that the spectators weren't particularly enthusiastic.

The applause was polite rather than excited. Many people had clearly expected a much closer battle.

After all, Milo had been considered one of the strongest participants outside the top eight and possessed several powerful Ghost-type Pokémon.

Instead, the match had ended after only two battles. For the average spectator, it had been somewhat disappointing.

The only people who didn't appear disappointed were Milo's fans.

"Milo! Don't worry about it!"

"You're still amazing!"

"Ghost-types forever!"

"You're the coolest trainer in Hoenn!"

"Darkness never loses!"

The small group of girls and women dressed in black continued cheering enthusiastically from the stands.

Milo looked toward the stands and showed an embarrassed smile. Even from a distance, Alex could tell that he wasn't quite sure how to react to such passionate support after a defeat.

He eventually raised a hand and waved at them. That simple gesture immediately caused another round of cheering.

Alex watched the scene with mild amusement.

Milo had just suffered a crushing defeat, yet his supporters seemed just as excited as if he had won.

As Alex headed toward the exit tunnel, he could still hear Milo's supporters cheering from the stands.

For a brief moment, he couldn't help but feel slightly impressed.

Very few trainers could lose so badly and still have fans cheering for them with that much enthusiasm.

*******

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