"..."
Staring at the glaring red word "Defeat" before her, Sabrina let everything she wanted to say dissolve into a sigh.
This "Teacher Yu" was exactly as she'd heard: a battling expert well versed in all sorts of tactics, and a renowned Gym Leader in the Paldea Region.
Amateurs watched the spectacle; experts saw the finer points.
Perhaps only Sabrina, as his opponent, truly understood what Qingyu's victory had rested on.
From the very beginning, this hadn't been a battle fought on equal footing.
Qingyu knew her strategy far too well, as though he'd faced the same lineup a thousand times before.
So well, in fact, that in less than a minute, he'd completely predicted her tactical choices while selecting his leads.
That was why he'd decisively anticipated Trick Room right from the start, using the same move to cancel out her lockdown while ordering the Pokémon called Annihilape to use Taunt and restrict her support Pokémon, Clefable.
She hadn't understood the thinking behind Qingyu's team, yet he'd already seen through her every move.
With such absurd predictive ability, his victory was only to be expected.
That was why Sabrina wasn't particularly upset.
Rather than losing an ordinary game, she cared more about the strategy Qingyu had just used.
This Beat Up strategy developed by Qingyu might prove far more effective in actual combat than in the game.
As everyone knew, the Indigo Plateau still retained its old No-Rules Brawl format.
Rather than the Single Battles or Double Battles people were now more familiar with, it was a wild format where all six Pokémon on each side took the field, Trainers could come under attack while directing their Pokémon, and there were no battle rules whatsoever.
Though it was reportedly switching to the world's current standard Master Rules next year