High-Speed Crush Claw

"Bai Shi, until we meet again!"

"Goodbye, Mr. Nando. Take care!"

Through their battle, Bai Shi and Nando had made peace.

As trainers, they had earned each other's respect.

After a brief conversation, they said goodbye and resumed their separate journeys.

Nando was in a hurry to compete in Hearthome City's Pokémon Contest.

Bai Shi, meanwhile, wanted to spend more time training his Pokémon in the wild.

He had a Bicycle to get around, after all.

And Hearthome City's Double Battle Tournament wasn't scheduled until after the Pokémon Contest.

Bai Shi still had plenty of time to make the trip.

Nando's Kricketune might not be as strong as it will be by the Lily of the Valley Conference, but it's still one of his main Pokémon. I can't underestimate it.

Zangoose beating it proves how strong he already is.

But Zangoose's attacks are still too one-dimensional. Relying entirely on his claws leaves him with a glaring weakness.

If Nando had sent out Roselia instead of Kricketune, Zangoose might not have won.

Bai Shi reviewed the battle and drew his conclusions.

Zangoose knew several claw-based moves, but they largely served the same purpose.

An opponent only needed to neutralize his claws to take away more than eighty percent of his fighting strength.

For the long term, Zangoose needed another way to attack.

Bai Shi had tried getting him to practice ranged moves such as Swift.

Unfortunately, the results hadn't been promising.

They would need more time to work that out.

Bai Shi had also overlooked another of Zangoose's moves: Hone Claws.

He hadn't combined it with Zangoose's other claw moves to make them more effective together.

If only Zangoose could use Hone Claws and Agility together.

Then he could move faster while boosting his attack and accuracy at the same time.

The idea suddenly struck Bai Shi.

Since a new move wasn't within reach yet, he could only put more work into the moves Zangoose already knew.

As Bai Shi saw it, Hone Claws and Agility both had plenty of untapped potential.

Asking Zangoose to use two moves at once might be too much.

I can make it easier by having him switch between them repeatedly until the transitions get faster.

Once he can switch at will, this might actually work.

I might even be able to use the same trick with my other Pokémon.

Bai Shi's eyes lit up. The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.

So he took Zangoose aside for special training.

At first, Zangoose struggled to switch between the two moves.

He could barely use them in succession, with an obvious pause between them.

An opponent could easily exploit that opening and interrupt him.

As Zangoose gained practice, the pauses gradually shortened.

The transition between the moves grew smoother and smoother.

After using Agility, Zangoose could quickly follow it with Hone Claws.

He had taken the first step toward linking the moves.

But he was still a long way from what Bai Shi had envisioned.

In a battle, an opponent would never give Zangoose that much time to use both moves.

If Zangoose was interrupted, all that effort would be wasted.

To cut down the time, Bai Shi came up with a method.

He had Zangoose switch to Hone Claws midway through Agility.

In effect, Zangoose used only half of Agility.

He split the move into two stages.

The first half was still acceleration; Hone Claws took over for the second.

And the results proved Bai Shi's method could work.

Thanks to the practice he had already put in, Zangoose picked it up quickly.

While moving, he could abruptly switch from Agility to Hone Claws.

That let him gain the effects of both moves in a short span of time.

The only drawback was a slight loss of speed after the switch.

But it was nothing serious. The combination was ready for battle.

Bai Shi named it High-Speed Hone Claws.

Of course, this was only the first version.

There was still plenty of room to improve it.

Bai Shi spent more time refining High-Speed Hone Claws.

Its power and reliability improved considerably.

Bai Shi could now treat it as one of Zangoose's standard moves.

"Zangoose, use High-Speed Hone Claws!"

Bai Shi pointed to a huge boulder in the distance as he gave the command.

Zangoose stood on his hind legs and lowered his center of gravity, shielding his head with his left paw while holding his right behind his back.

In that stance, he broke into a sprint toward the boulder Bai Shi had indicated.

As he accelerated, he scraped his claws against the ground to sharpen them.

In the blink of an eye, Zangoose reached the boulder.

"Zangoose, use Crush Claw!"

Bai Shi immediately followed with another command.

Zangoose raised his claws and slashed at the rock, tearing through the air.

Boom!

The boulder, nearly two meters tall, shattered in an instant.

It was the greatest result of their training so far.

But Bai Shi's ambitions went further.

His next goal was to fully combine High-Speed Hone Claws with Crush Claw, creating the final version: High-Speed Crush Claw.

He would turn a two-stage combination into a three-stage one.

Just as he had cut Agility short, he would cut Hone Claws short and follow it with Crush Claw.

In one swift sequence, Zangoose would go from Agility to Hone Claws to Crush Claw.

With High-Speed Hone Claws as a foundation, Zangoose took to the new combination easily. It didn't take him long to master High-Speed Crush Claw.

Bai Shi based the full sequence on a trailing-blade strike from his previous life.

It gave Zangoose a massive boost in explosive power.

If an opposing Pokémon was caught off guard, the combination could knock it out in a single blow.

Against an unprepared trainer, it was a devastating opening move.

The creation of High-Speed Crush Claw also gave Bai Shi an idea.

If Zangoose could get so much out of Agility, why couldn't his other Pokémon?

Staravia knew Agility too.

If High-Speed Crush Claw worked, then High-Speed Wing Attack or High-Speed Aerial Ace ought to work as well, right?

Bai Shi followed the same approach, putting Staravia through special training to combine Agility with another move.

The results were mixed.

The high-speed combinations really were more powerful than the original moves on their own.

But they didn't benefit Staravia nearly as much as they benefited Zangoose.

The main reason was that Staravia lacked a boosting move like Hone Claws.

Agility increased Staravia's speed, but unlike Hone Claws, it did nothing for his attack.

High-Speed Crush Claw, for example, was nearly twice as powerful as ordinary Crush Claw.

High-Speed Aerial Ace and High-Speed Wing Attack, on the other hand, weren't even one and a half times as powerful as their original versions.

At best, they were alternatives to Brave Bird.

Still, Bai Shi was satisfied with the improvement.

He now felt fully confident about Hearthome City's Double Battle Tournament.