Amid cheers and cries of excitement, Wen Xu's Dusknoir was battling a Honchkrow on the field, and was getting the worst of it.
That was only natural. Dusknoir was slower than its opponent and at a type disadvantage. What was more, it had already been fighting for a very long time. Now it was an arrow at the end of its flight.
"Gengar!" Gengar Teacher, who stood beside Wen Xu, suddenly called out.
Dusknoir's single pupil instantly widened. The Honchkrow flying in midair seemed to have caught fire, thick smoke rising from its body. Some of Dusknoir's wounds began to heal slowly.
"Pain Split?" Cheng Tian murmured.
The opposing trainer rattled off a string of words. Cheng Tian blinked in confusion as Honchkrow's presence suddenly surged several notches. It fixed Dusknoir with a look of unprecedented rage and charged fiercely downward.
"Revenge," Cao Min said. "It's perfectly normal to encounter languages you don't understand while battling here. Pay close attention to changes in the Pokémon so you can work out what moves your opponent is using."
Cheng Tian nodded earnestly. Encountering this sort of situation in a Pokémon League competition was perfectly normal, and translators were of limited use. If an opponent spoke a dialect or had some sort of accent, it would be difficult to translate their meaning accurately. That was why the competition rules did not prohibit translators: there was no concern about encountering such situations.
"But... compared to speaking a foreign language, isn't Coach Wen Xu breaking the rules even more blatantly...?" Cheng Tian stared somewhat speechlessly at Gengar Teacher beside Wen Xu.
Gengar Teacher was giving every single command. Wen Xu stood with her hands in her pockets, looking utterly unruffled. How did she look anything like a Trainer?
Seeing Honchkrow charging down, Dusknoir's fist began