Chapter 42: Money Power
Luna had been yawning since she sat down in the stands.
"We finally have half a day off from training. Why couldn't we do anything else? Why did we have to come watch your little hottie?"
Bella rolled her eyes. "If not that hottie, then should I watch you?"
Luna chuckled a few times, her dead fish eyes completely devoid of energy. "So you've completely admitted that you came to see a hot guy?"
Bella's face froze.
"Cough, let's forget about that and just watch the match! Watch the match!"
Luna looked at her sideways.
"You've obviously exposed yourself already, why pretend you're here to watch the match? Is that match even worth watching?"
Setting aside the banter between the two professional players in the audience, the match down below was about to start.
Arthur's opponent this time was a fashionable young woman in her twenties, with a beautiful face and light makeup. Her expensive formal dress was a stark contrast to Arthur's casual wear, highlighting elegance and luxury.
Correspondingly, the Pokémon she had were also very fitting for her taste: so far in the main competition, she had shown off two Pokémon, Dratini and Arcanine.
Both Pokémon combined were probably enough to buy a villa in this city.
Other players' abilities were unknown, but this woman was clearly swimming in money.
In this match against Arthur's Froakie, the opponent chose to use the Dragon-type Dratini.
Dratini is a long snake-like Pokémon with a pure white abdomen and a teal back, and two pairs of white wings on both sides of its head.
As a mythical Dragon-type Pokémon, they are born with the ability to levitate and can freely roam the sky.
Dratini's own combat power wasn't weak, and more importantly, one more evolution would turn them into the famous Dragonite, one of the strongest regular Pokémon under the mythical beasts, with the reputation of being a pseudo-legendary.
Seeing Dratini appear, even the originally sleepy Luna sat up a bit.
"Who would have thought to see a pseudo-legendary's unevolved form in a regular amateur arena like this."
Honestly, she started to have a little bit of expectation for this match.
Immediately after, the referee blew the whistle.
The money power woman took the initiative to attack.
Her first words almost gave Arthur a heart attack.
"Dratini, use Thunder!"
Crap!
Arthur was subconsciously shocked.
Ma'am, why is your style so different from everyone else?!
In the matches so far, all the opponents Arthur had encountered were relatively fitting for the identity of beginners and amateur enthusiasts. The Pokémon and moves they used were generally more common.
Even though the main competition was noticeably higher level than the preliminary selections, everyone's skills were still limited to moves like "Scratch," "False Swipe," and "Low Kick."
But suddenly, from the very beginning of this match, the opponent used a big move!
Thunder!
One of the ultimate Electric-type moves!
Aside from some mythical beast-exclusive moves, this move's power is easily in the top three among all Electric-type moves!
This opening really changed the style of the competition.
"Smokescreen!"
Arthur quickly ordered Froakie to spew out smoke for avoidance.
On the one hand, he wanted to use the move to change his own type.
On the other hand, he also wanted to use the smoke to obstruct the enemy's aim as much as possible.
"Thunder" works by drawing in lightning from the sky and punishing the enemy with the might of natural lightning!
Unlike moves like "Thunder Shock" or "Thunderbolt," which can target a specific direction, lightning strikes from above, and the Pokémon using this move can only roughly define a range, unable to lock onto a specific target. So it's common for this move to miss.
Now Arthur could only gamble on this probability.
Hiding his position in the smoke, he was betting that the opponent's accuracy would be off.
The rest was up to fate.
But after issuing the command, Arthur counted silently for a little over a second and suddenly noticed something.
The charging time of this move seemed longer than expected.
It seemed that this Dratini wasn't as proficient in using "Thunder" as he had thought.
But even if it wasn't proficient, a big move was still a big move.
About two seconds later, the lightning struck as expected!
For a moment, the entire audience went wild.
About eighty percent of the viewers cheered excitedly.
Ignoring everything else, just the sight of a lightning bolt as thick as a bucket falling from the sky right in front of them, the blinding light filling their vision, this spectacular visual effect was worth the ticket price.
Not to mention, they rarely got to witness a Pokémon's powerful move of this scale in an amateur match.
Big moves weren't even common in professional matches.
However, as the lightning fell, Luna and Bella on the stands frowned involuntarily.
When the light faded, the grass and some plants on the field had turned to charred black, and the ground was emitting faint smoke and mist.
This mist came from the small pond on the field, which had been completely evaporated.
But amidst this devastation, Arthur's commanding voice remained calm.
"Quick Attack and charge! Find an opportunity to use Pound!"
Froakie wasn't knocked out directly by that hit.
As Arthur had anticipated, the lightning strike failed to hit Froakie directly in the smoke.
However, the aftershocks still inflicted significant damage on Froakie, but he retained enough fighting ability.
On the opponent's commanding platform, the money power woman frowned slightly, clearly dissatisfied with this result.
Watching Froakie recklessly charge in for close combat, she coldly commanded, "Dratini, use Aqua Tail!"
At this point, Arthur was speechless.
The opponent's fighting style was still as extravagant as ever.
Although "Aqua Tail" wasn't a big move, its power was at least in the upper middle tier of Water-type moves, still significantly stronger than the moves commonly used on this stage.
But despite her commanding presence, Dratini seemed unable to keep up with her pace.
The Thunder move at the beginning had clearly consumed too much of her energy, and now she was visibly gasping for breath.
Then, when Froakie's "Quick Attack" hit her neck, Dratini's condition didn't seem much better than the injured Froakie.
The equally stamina-intensive "Aqua Tail" couldn't even gather properly at her tail for a while.
For a moment, even though the owner had given the command, Dratini was unable to execute it.
Seeing this, Luna on the stands finally couldn't hold back and said, "This is... quite an unsightly match."
Even Bella, who was initially focused on Arthur's handsome face, frowned at this point.
"The commanding is really hard to watch."
However, Luna then suddenly said something intriguing.
"But you know, the club might actually prefer a newbie like him."
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