High-Speed Crush Claw

"Bai Shi, may we meet again!"

"Goodbye, Mr. Nando. Take care!"

Through their battle, Bai Shi and Nando had reconciled.

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

After a brief conversation, they said their goodbyes and resumed their respective journeys.

Nando was in a hurry to enter the Pokémon Contest in Hearthome City.

Bai Shi, meanwhile, wanted to spend a little more time training his Pokémon in the wilderness.

After all, he had a bicycle to get around on.

The Hearthome City Double Battle Tournament would take place after the Pokémon Contest.

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

Even if Nando's Kricketune isn't as strong as it will be at the Lily of the Valley Conference, it's still one of his main Pokémon. It's not to be underestimated.

The fact that Zangoose could beat it is proof enough of its current battle strength.

Still, Zangoose's offensive options are a bit limited. It relies entirely on slashing with its claws. That's far too one-sided.

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

Bai Shi reviewed the earlier battle and took stock of it.

He realized that, although Zangoose knew several claw-based moves, their functions overlapped somewhat.

An opponent's Pokémon only needed to restrain Zangoose's claws to neutralize more than eighty percent of its strength.

For the sake of its long-term development, he needed to have Zangoose learn new ways to attack.

Bai Shi had already tried having Zangoose practice ranged moves such as Swift.

Unfortunately, the results had been less than ideal.

They would need more time to figure it out.

Beyond that, Bai Shi had also overlooked another of Zangoose's moves—Hone Claws.

He had failed to link Hone Claws with its other claw-based moves to produce an effect greater than the sum of its parts.

If only Hone Claws could be used together with Agility.

That would boost Zangoose's movement speed while also raising its attack power and accuracy.

The idea suddenly popped into Bai Shi's head.

After all, with no progress on new moves for the moment, he could only put more work into the moves it already knew.

In Bai Shi's view, both Hone Claws and Agility still had considerable untapped potential.

Asking Zangoose to split its focus and use two moves at once seems a little too demanding.

I could lower the difficulty and just have Zangoose switch repeatedly between the two moves, speeding up the transition.

Once it can switch between them at will, perhaps this idea of mine will become possible.

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

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

And so, he began a special training regimen with Zangoose.

At first, Zangoose was extremely clumsy at switching between the two moves.

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

That gap would make it easy for an opponent to interrupt Zangoose.

Only as it grew more proficient did things improve, with the pause gradually shortening.

The transition between the two moves became smoother and smoother.

Zangoose could now follow Agility with Hone Claws in rapid succession.

It had achieved a basic "link" between the moves.

However, it was still a long way from what Bai Shi had envisioned.

In battle, an opponent simply would not give Zangoose that much time to use both moves.

If Zangoose was interrupted, all its efforts would go to waste.

To shorten the time required, Bai Shi came up with a specific solution.

He had Zangoose switch to Hone Claws midway through Agility.

In effect, it would only perform half of Agility.

He divided Agility into two stages.

The first half still involved accelerating, while Hone Claws was grafted onto the second half.

Practice proved that Bai Shi's method was indeed feasible.

With the proficiency it had built up through its earlier training, Zangoose quickly got the hang of it.

Zangoose could now abruptly switch from Agility to Hone Claws while on the move.

It could achieve the effects of both moves within a short span of time.

The only drawback was a slight drop in speed after switching moves.

Still, that was a minor issue. The combination was already ready for use in battle.

Bai Shi named this combo "High-Speed Hone Claws."

Of course, at this stage, High-Speed Hone Claws was only an initial version.

There was still plenty of room for improvement.

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

Its power and consistency both 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 large boulder in the distance as he gave Zangoose the command.

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

Maintaining that stance, it broke into a sprint toward the boulder Bai Shi had indicated.

As it accelerated, it scraped its 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 up with another command.

Zangoose raised its sharp claws and slashed at the rock before it, its strike whistling through the air.

Boom!

With a thunderous crash, the nearly two-meter-tall boulder shattered under Zangoose's blow.

This was the greatest result of its special training during this period.

But Bai Shi's ambitions did not end there.

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

The combo would change from two stages to three.

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

In a brief span of time, it would flow from Agility to Hone Claws, then straight into Crush Claw.

With High-Speed Hone Claws as a foundation, Zangoose was on familiar ground. It mastered High-Speed Crush Claw in no time.

For the full combo, Bai Shi had drawn inspiration from the dragging blade slash of his previous life.

It gave Zangoose's explosive power an enormous boost.

One careless moment, and an opponent's Pokémon could be taken down instantly by Zangoose's combo.

For unsuspecting Pokémon Trainers, it was practically an instant knockout on first contact.

The creation of High-Speed Crush Claw also gave Bai Shi some inspiration.

If Zangoose could put Agility to so many creative uses...

Then why couldn't his other Pokémon?

Staravia, for instance, had also learned Agility.

Now that High-Speed Crush Claw existed, surely a High-Speed Wing Attack or Fast Aerial Ace would make sense too?

Following the same approach, Bai Shi had Staravia undergo special training to combine Agility with another move.

The results, however, were mixed.

The high-speed combos were indeed more powerful than the original standalone moves.

But the improvement for Staravia was nowhere near as great as it had been for Zangoose.

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

Agility could increase Staravia's speed, but it could not raise its attack power the way Hone Claws did.

To put it in perspective, High-Speed Crush Claw was nearly twice as powerful as the original Crush Claw.

Fast Aerial Ace and High-Speed Wing Attack, however, did not even reach one and a half times the power of their original moves.

They could only be considered budget alternatives to Brave Bird.

Still, Bai Shi was more than satisfied with that level of improvement.

He was now brimming with confidence for the Hearthome City Double Battle Tournament.