Tacticians Are All Scheming Bastards, Ptui!

Maybe someone else would have panicked at this sight, not knowing what to do, or simply considered surrendering.

But Clair did not.

It was not as though she had never faced an opponent with recovery moves before.

"Yawn."

Clair flicked her whip, and Kingdra in front of her took advantage of the opening just after Scizor had recovered. It blew a puff of mist at Scizor. The mist dispersed extremely quickly, yet Scizor, more than twenty meters away, let out a yawn!

Had Yawn, after changing form at Level Six, gone from visual contagion to using water vapor as a medium? Or was that merely a feint, with the visual contagion still at work?

Heiduo did not know, but he knew Clair wanted to use Yawn to put Scizor into a drowsy state, then attack it without giving it a chance to resist or recover.

It was a wonderful idea.

But she had underestimated Scizor's move pool.

Yawn did not put Pokémon to sleep immediately, so Scizor still had a brief window of consciousness. And during that time...

"Swords Dance."

Scizor raised its pincers high, crossing them before its chest. Five tiny swords mysteriously appeared above its head. After circling once above it, they collided with one another with a sharp metallic clang, then mysteriously vanished!

It had not used boosting moves in the previous two battles because it wanted to end things quickly. Now that this was clearly turning into a prolonged fight, boosting moves became extremely important.

Once Swords Dance was over, Scizor uncontrollably closed its eyes and fell asleep.

It had been said long ago that negative statuses in reality differed from those in games—they could stack. For example, Scizor had fallen asleep despite its body still being paralyzed. Paralysis had not been replaced by Sleep; it