Switch it out?
No.
Steelix was still in decent shape. There was no need to switch.
Baimu shifted his gaze to the newly appeared Metagross and gave the first command. "Sandstorm!"
Pokémon of its kind were exceptionally rare, so this was his first time battling a Metagross. In the animated battles he had seen, Metagross tended to use both Physical Attack and Special Attack.
To be safe, he needed to lay some groundwork.
"Rrrgh!"
Steelix let out a low rumble and resumed roaming through the air. As the horizontal segments of its steel body rotated, sand poured from the gaps between its joints, swirling around it before spreading outward.
A Sand Tornado that obscured the arena formed in an instant, casting a hazy yellow veil over both sides' view.
They could just make out what was happening, but not clearly.
Tetsuya's heart tightened at having lost the initiative by switching. He might have been able to deal with a concentrated Sandstorm, but even Metagross lacked the power to disperse one spread this widely.
He could only let it swirl around the arena.
Then again, if he could not see clearly, Baimu probably could not either. They were in the same position.
The thought eased Tetsuya's mind, and he called out, "Bullet Punch!"
"Meta!"
Metagross blurred forward, its bronze-cast, disk-shaped body moving so fast that its four limbs were barely visible. In a blink, it crossed more than ten meters and closed in on Steelix.
"So fast!"
The spectators cried out. Through the Sandstorm, Metagross seemed to teleport.
In animated battles, priority moves were generally depicted as bursts of speed. One reason the animators never replaced Pikachu's Quick Attack was that they treated it like Agility: a way to close in on an opponent.
Baimu thought Metagross was fast too, but