A Feast for All!

There was no need to say more about her own Combusken's Ability, Blaze.

But judging from the prompt that had appeared during the battle just now, her opponent's Ability was... Speed Boost?

When in doubt, ask the chat. After thinking for a moment, Cynthia took the initiative to ask them.

"Everyone, why is his Combusken's Ability different from mine?"

The chat immediately began explaining all at once.

[Of course it's different. His Combusken has its Hidden Ability. Its Speed goes up at the end of every turn. Didn't we already tell you about Hidden Abilities back in the forest?]

[How would the streamer understand it when you put it like that? Hidden Ability is what Dream Ability means.]

[Speed Boost, Swords Dance, Baton Pass—classic setup. Streamer, you're really lucky!]

[I remember Brawly's Hariyama not carrying a Flame Orb. Why does this one have it?]

..

Reading the chat's explanations, Cynthia finally understood. In other words, the opponent's Ability automatically raised its Speed by one stage at the end of every turn, and this boost did not consume its action for the turn. It could still attack normally.

She could not help frowning.

Honestly... wasn't this Ability a little too ridiculous?

The longer it fought, the faster it became. In a game, that meant the opponent's Combusken would have absolute control over who moved first. That was manageable.

But if this Ability existed in reality...

Cynthia imagined the scene.

A Pokémon that could continuously increase its own speed in battle for no reason at all... how could anyone deal with that?

After all, in reality, a Pokémon's speed did not merely determine attack order. It allowed Pokémon to easily evade enemy attacks, strike and kite their opponents more effectively, and even seize absolute initiative!

Especially for a Pokémon like Combusken, which excelled at close combat... if it kept getting faster during battle...

Could an Ability like that really exist in the world...?

Countless thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant, but Cynthia still turned her attention back to the game.

In this battle, the opponent's Combusken was gaining Speed for free every turn. Starting from the second turn, even Diglett, the fastest member of her team, probably would not be able to outspeed it.

She could not keep dragging this out.

She immediately switched out Amaterasu Bug and sent in Mightyena.

A flash of white light appeared as Mightyena entered the field. Its Intimidate Ability activated, lowering Combusken's Attack by one stage.

But in the next moment, Combusken began dancing the exact same dance as before, and crimson light surged around its body.

[Combusken used Swords Dance!]

[Combusken's Attack rose sharply!]

Even after being hit by Intimidate, its Attack was still up three stages. Rather than falling, it had increased...

Cynthia realized how serious the problem was. Even if Mightyena used Growl next turn, Combusken could simply keep using Swords Dance, and its Attack would rise far faster than she could lower it.

There was no point in dragging things out like this. She had to attack proactively.

She immediately selected Crunch. However, on the next turn, before Mightyena could move, Combusken acted first again. This time, instead of using Swords Dance, it suddenly struck a strange pose and raised one claw.

A Baton Pass baton appeared out of thin air over its head. After a clapping animation flashed by, it transformed into a streak of white light and returned to Brawly's team.

[Combusken used Baton Pass and was switched out!]

[Brawly sent out a new Pokémon!]

The Poké Ball's light flashed again, revealing a sturdy Pokémon built like a sumo wrestler on the battlefield.

[Hariyama Lv. 24!]

...Baton Pass?

Cynthia's expression was starting to darken. Of course she knew Baton Pass. It allowed another Pokémon to inherit the stat boosts currently possessed by the Pokémon that used Baton Pass.

But in the real world, this move was extremely difficult to learn and came with many restrictions. One small mistake could render the transfer of stat boosts completely useless, and might even interfere with the Pokémon receiving the Baton Pass.

The gap in strength between the two Pokémon also could not be too large, so people generally did not train this move specifically. When it did appear, it was usually in team battles or double battles.

Even the support Pokémon of top-tier Trainers tended to use other team support moves rather than Baton Pass.

But in the game... this move had been used so easily?

And if she remembered correctly, Hariyama... was the evolved form of Makuhita, right?

Looking at the figure across from her, an ominous premonition immediately rose in Cynthia's heart.

Sure enough, in the next moment, exactly as she had expected, flames flickered across Hariyama's body, and a string of prompts suddenly appeared on the screen!

[Hariyama was burned by its Flame Orb!]

Cynthia: ...

Just as expected.

So she was now facing a Hariyama with Guts, a Flame Orb, two stages of Speed, and three stages of Attack?

As Hariyama entered the field, Mightyena's Crunch landed on it, but it barely seemed to hurt. It took less than half of its HP.

Hariyama answered with a single punch and directly sent Mightyena away.

After that, Cynthia's team completely collapsed before Hariyama.

Every Pokémon was knocked out by a single Force Palm the moment it entered the field and selected a move. There were no exceptions.

After even her own Combusken was knocked out in one punch, Feebas was the only Pokémon left on her team. Cynthia stopped struggling and decisively reloaded her save.

..

The second challenge began quickly. This time, Cynthia adjusted her lead Pokémon and sent out Combusken.

Her reasoning was simple. Combusken knew the Flying-type move Aerial Ace, which countered Fighting-types. In theory, the opponent should not be able to withstand it.

If the opponent chose to fight head-on rather than Baton Pass, she had the type advantage. If the opponent was forced to switch out, she would seize the initiative and avoid what had happened just now.

The only risk was that the opponent might also carry Aerial Ace. But Cynthia felt that move slots were limited. Swords Dance and Baton Pass already took up at least two of them. A Fire-type move and a Fighting-type move would be more reasonable, so there should not be room for Aerial Ace.

After all, it was not a same-type move and received no bonus. It would not be a priority choice...

No matter what, she had to try it first.

The battle began again!

Cynthia sent out Combusken and immediately selected Aerial Ace.

The opponent's Combusken moved first. It neither switched out nor attacked, instead using Swords Dance as usual.

When it was Combusken's turn to act, a white arc from Aerial Ace swept across the field.

[It's super effective!]

The opponent's Combusken's HP bar began plummeting, dropping straight into the red!

Seeing how quickly its HP was falling, Cynthia immediately made a judgment, her spirits lifting.

There was a chance!

The opponent's AI had probably failed to recognize that she carried a Flying-type move. That was why it had chosen Swords Dance and planned to Baton Pass next turn, only for her to seize the opportunity.

Now, as long as she could knock out Combusken, she would establish an absolute advantage!

However, just as the opponent's HP bar was about to empty, its descent suddenly stopped, leaving it with a final sliver of health.

Two prompts appeared.

[Combusken's Focus Sash activated!]

[Combusken held on with 1 HP!!]

Cynthia: "...?"

What was this thing now??

Meanwhile, the chat's reaction was no less intense than Cynthia's.

[Speed Boost Baton Pass Swords Dance Focus Sash Combusken. Dead memories are attacking me, damn it.]

[Seeing the streamer's completely confused face, I knew she definitely had no idea what happened. Let me kindly explain. As long as a Pokémon holds this item, it is guaranteed to survive with 1 HP when hit by a lethal attack. It's a commonly used battle item, usually called Focus Sash.]

[Also, streamer, you can only get this item later on, so for now you can only watch these NPCs use it. (doge)]

..

Once she came back to her senses, Cynthia naturally noticed the chat's explanation.

She had to admit that in less than two days of playing this game, she had genuinely been unable to predict what would happen next at any moment...

Meanwhile, the Speed Boost glow flickered across the opponent's Combusken once again.

A new turn began, and the Baton Pass icon appeared again. Hariyama returned to the field.

Attack up two stages, Speed up one stage.

The good news was that it had one less stage of Attack than last time.

The bad news was that one less stage of Attack did not change the fact that it could still sweep her entire team...

Cynthia had already guessed that the opponent would choose Baton Pass, so she selected Aerial Ace again.

The super effective prompt appeared, and Hariyama was instantly heavily damaged, left with less than half its HP.

However, when the new turn began, Hariyama's Force Palm landed, and Combusken was once again knocked out from full HP.

The situation had returned to the same dead end as before.

Cynthia fell silent for a second.

Reload. Again!

In less than half a minute, she had launched another new challenge.

This time, she switched her lead Pokémon to Diglett.

This was the conclusion she had reached after thinking it over. Diglett had the Ability Arena Trap, which could restrict the opponent from switching Pokémon. Moreover, Diglett had a type advantage against Combusken. As long as Combusken was trapped by Arena Trap, it could neither switch out voluntarily nor escape through Baton Pass. Then she could directly deal with this nuisance.

As Diglett entered the field, the battle began. Cynthia immediately selected the move "Magnitude."

This was a new move Diglett had learned while leveling up. Every time it was used, a random Magnitude level determined the power of the attack, with one being the lowest and ten apparently being the highest.

Under normal circumstances, as long as her luck was not too bad, it could deal considerable damage.

The opponent's Combusken still used Swords Dance.

On Cynthia's side, Diglett's body trembled.

[Magnitude 9!!]

[It's super effective!]

As the screen shook violently, Combusken's HP bar rapidly fell again. But Focus Sash activated as usual, locking its HP at the final sliver.

At the end of the turn, its Speed Boost Ability activated, raising its Speed by one stage.

But Cynthia did not even look at the prompt before selecting Magnitude again.

Even after one Swords Dance boost, Combusken did not have the power to knock out Diglett in one hit.

Trading Diglett's condition to take down this troublesome Combusken would definitely be worth it!

The next moment, as the turn began, the Baton Pass icon appeared above Combusken's head once more.

[Combusken used Baton Pass!]

Seeing this, the corners of Cynthia's lips lifted slightly.

Baton Pass could not escape Arena Trap.

However, in the next moment.

Combusken transformed into a streak of white light and vanished from the battlefield, while Hariyama entered the field again!

Cynthia froze.

Baton Pass had succeeded?

Wasn't Arena Trap supposed to prevent switching?

Not only that, Diglett desperately shook its body at the newly arrived Hariyama and used Magnitude.

[Magnitude 1...]

The ground trembled slightly, and Hariyama lost less than one-eighth of its HP.

Cynthia: "..."

The chat was still having a grand old time.

[Ahahahahahahaha!]

[Streamer, Baton Pass isn't affected by Arena Trap. Remember that.]

[My god, Magnitude 1. Sure enough, luck is always conserved.]

[Streamer, Mightyena can actually learn a move called Roar that can forcibly make the opponent switch Pokémon. But it looks like you skipped it while training Poochyena, so you can't relearn it for now. Hahahaha.]

..

The battle continued, but Cynthia had already leaned back in her chair, her gaze sweeping across her team interface.

It was obvious that if she let the opponent successfully boost like this, she had no chance in this battle either.

The biggest problem now was that she had no way to stop Combusken from boosting and using Baton Pass.

If it were merely an Attack boost, she would at least have room to respond. After all, Hariyama was not known for its Speed. Mightyena, Combusken, and Diglett on her team might all still have a chance to move first.

But the Baton Pass from a Combusken with Speed Boost... happened to solve Hariyama's Speed problem as well.

That made things extremely troublesome.

Cynthia began thinking seriously. Setting up defensive screens would not work. The route of forcing a knockout was blocked by Focus Sash, and Arena Trap could not lock down Baton Pass.

Having Shroomish use Stun Spore on Combusken... would not work either. If she led with Shroomish, the opponent would most likely skip Swords Dance, blow Shroomish away in passing, and gain another stage of Speed...

Thinking back, she had assumed that the AI had misjudged her Combusken as not having a super effective move and had therefore chosen Swords Dance. But the truth was that Combusken simply could not possibly one-shot its opponent...

So what should she do now?

Give Quick Claw to Combusken and gamble on moving first on the second turn to take out the opponent's Combusken?

From what she had seen while grinding levels earlier, this item had an extremely low activation rate. But theoretically, this was already the best method available.

However, just as Cynthia was preparing to carry out this plan, a huge red frame suddenly appeared in the livestream, accompanied by brilliant firework effects. It was impossible to miss.

This was the effect for a paid message, and it was the highest-tier thousand-yuan paid message!

The sender was the same viewer who had sent the rocket earlier!

[Red's Pikachu: Streamer, let me remind you that Baton Pass also makes the Pokémon switched in inherit all negative statuses and stat drops. Think carefully about it.]

Cynthia stared at that message and froze for a moment.

Negative statuses...

In other words, if Combusken had a negative status, Hariyama would inherit it after Baton Pass.

After a brief moment of thought, her gaze landed on her team panel, and her eyes lit up.

There's a way!