Although Protect had temporarily blocked Wash Rotom's Will-O-Wisp, Qingyu still needed to adjust his strategy quickly to stop the next one.
After all, Will-O-Wisp could be used repeatedly, but Protect couldn't.
Gambling on his opponent's move missing clearly wasn't Qingyu's style, either.
His solution was very simple-
"Swampert, Substitute!"
Having already undergone Mega Evolution, Swampert's ability had changed from the largely irrelevant Torrent to Swift Swim.
In the rain, Swampert was now a blue flash, moving almost fast enough to leave afterimages when going all out.
Soon, Swampert used a portion of its energy to create a Substitute that looked almost exactly like itself, placing it in front of its muscular body.
Wallace couldn't help marveling inwardly at the sight.
Teacher Yu reacted that quickly?
He had stumbled upon Rotom's ability to use a dirty trick like Will-O-Wisp while looking through the Pokédex for ways to improve his Rain Team.
Normally, no one would expect a Water-type Pokémon to suddenly pull out a move like that.
But his clever little trick clearly hadn't fooled Qingyu, whose decisive command had allowed Protect to block it with ease.
He had even taken advantage of Swampert's speed to put up a Substitute first, preventing Wallace from using Will-O-Wisp again to cripple his main attacker.
Substitute was an excellent defensive move, blocking almost all status conditions and most status moves while taking at least one attack in the user's place.
Although its drawback was that it cost roughly a quarter of the Pokémon's own stamina, it was clearly worth the price.
Now, Wallace would have to break through the Substitute before he could threaten Swampert again.
So he decisively chose to switch.
He had a "mirror-match god" of his own, and its speed wouldn't necessarily lose out to Qingyu's Mega Swampert!
"Go, Ludicolo!"
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