Never Had Such a Wonderful Situation

Li Han guessed correctly. Analysts from other teams were indeed very busy right now.

Compared to veteran competitors who delayed their retirement through means like staying another year or extending their studies, newcomers like Xin Mu put them on pins and needles.

Veterans at least allowed for tactics to be arranged based on past records, but newcomers were usually a blank slate, making them difficult to target.

This wasn't an esports tournament where a single ban could neutralize a one-trick pony's hero pool.

A Pokémon Trainer's core team members were fixed, and given the time invested in raising them, the first-trained Pokémon typically held a massive advantage, yet they couldn't just ban that Pokémon.

"Zero entry records for any regional tournament!"

"Found it... Uh... it's a battle record from a Pokémon Rally. This is useless."

"I found his livestream channel! There's matchup coaching!"

"Quick, pull it up and take a look!"

Right now, the busiest people were the logistics staff of the competitors who, based on the tournament brackets, would face Xin Mu in the next round.

Their university team was clearly more formal-at the very least, larger in scale-and consisted of competitors who historically could reliably secure a top-three finish in the singles tournament.

Originally, they felt that drawing Ding Wanning, the defending champion, wasn't a good thing, but it turned out there was something even more fatal.

Aside from cursing whatever background Jia Qiong and the others had found this monster from, they were also cursing the bracket arrangement, showing obvious dissatisfaction with the Rock Field being a group of death.

So much so that while gathering intel, they didn't even notice that it was "matchup" coaching rather than "battle" coaching.

"Level two full-health Zed tower-dive... What even is this?! What's the use of finding this!"

"Found it! This time I really found it! It's a battle record from their local Blue Sky Technical Academy Gym. Although there's no Trainer identity, there's a Meowscarada! It has to be them!"

The Gym battle footage only contained highlight clips without full combat footage. Through off-site analysis, the only thing they could confirm was that Xin Mu's Meowscarada could use Rock-type Z-Moves.

This also meant that besides the Fighting-type move already used, and the Grass-type and Dark-type moves it naturally learned, it also mastered Rock-type moves.

"What do we even do about this? That Aggron couldn't even withstand that Meowscarada's attacks, let alone a Rock-type Z-Move. Even that Aura Sphere-Butterfree wouldn't be able to take it either."

Yes, if their team ran into Xin Mu, they would have to send out Butterfree to fight.

The overall appearance of Butterfree was that of a large, deep-purple butterfly. The official name was Butterfree, but many people were still accustomed to calling it Butterfree.

"There's not much we can do. Since the two of them are playing in the same round, use that plan to help our teammate."

"Yeah, that's the only way."

"Right, Coach, I understand what you mean. It's nothing, we're all teammates, I'll do my best."

His Butterfree belonged to a rather dirty playstyle, specializing in moves like Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, and Poison Powder.

At the same time, because the move Protect could be learned by the vast majority of Pokémon, the instruction manuals for it were abundant. Mature university teams basically all trained their Pokémon in methods of using Protect.

Coupled with Protect and Substitute, his Butterfree focused entirely on being annoying, but it became tricky when there was an absolute gap in strength.

In times like this, they could take advantage of a few rules.

After all, the four battle fields were adjacent with no dividing walls between them, so when unleashing wide-area moves, affecting the neighboring field counted as a force majeure factor.

And so, Xin Mu watched as the opponent's Butterfree opened the match with Tailwind, boosting the speed of the teammate on the adjacent field.

"Brother Han, is this really not considered a rule violation?"

"It's not. As long as the target isn't a Pokémon on another field, scattered attacks affecting the surroundings fall within the permitted scope of the rules. Tailwind, Sunny Day-those kinds of situations are especially common.

Sometimes Earthquakes will interfere with neighboring battles as well.

However, having two matches on the same team happen simultaneously comes down to luck. If the timing is right, we can help you set up Sunny Day too."

"No need. If I do that, I'll draw too much attention. Our goal in the first place is to secure your advancement, so don't lose the big picture over small gains."

Because opportunities to trigger this kind of friendly assistance were rare to begin with, and Meowscarada was defaulted as the main attacker, they hadn't brought this up with Xin Mu.

They hadn't expected that the teammate of Xin Mu's opponent happened to be battling Xin Mu's teammate right at that moment.

"Brother Han, I knocked the defending champion out in the first round. It's already impossible not to draw attention. Since that's the case, we might as well go big."

After ending the Bluetooth headset communication, Xin Mu looked at the Butterfree that was indirectly affecting the other field with Tailwind, and gained a deeper understanding of this match's format.

It wasn't as strict as regional tournaments. In many cases, coordination between teammates was tacitly permitted, such as switching fields before an unannounced battle, or helping a teammate drain stamina and throwing a fixed match to buy them recovery time.

Since that was the case, he didn't need to be polite.

"Meownei! Learn from that Butterfree across the way and use Frenzy Plant at full power!"

Xin Mu couldn't just shout out for them to strike together here; that would be going too far, since shockwaves and direct hits were two different concepts.

Fortunately, Meownei understood what Xin Mu meant.

"Meow~ (Understood~)"

Meownei wasn't rule-breaking enough to learn literally any move-she wasn't a special Pokémon like Mew-so she easily grasped the meaning behind "learn from the one across the way."

Seeing that the Meowscarada opposite her didn't immediately attack or make any movements, and only released a massive amount of Poison Powder-some of which flew off under the effect of Tailwind-the opposing Butterfree paused.

Right at that moment, however, Meownei clenched her fists together and assumed a charging posture.

"Meow... Ha!"

Unlike when she had casually released Aura Sphere earlier, Meownei's hands slammed directly into the hard ground. The barren Rock Field even began to vibrate with her actions, splitting open countless fissures.

From within the cracks, vines and plant stalks surged madly, transforming the Rock Field into a forest field in the blink of an eye.

Without needing any command, Butterfree instinctively flapped its wings, wanting to escape the terrifying woods below, but it simply couldn't do it.

The sky-blocking green tide swallowed the entire sky at an even faster speed. Even though Butterfree was flying high in the air, it was instantly engulfed and buried by the Frenzy Plant.

The wildly growing woods blotted out the sun, and for a moment, the gazes of all the spectators were drawn here.

"The match is decided, Meowscarada wins!!"

"'Ask not how soft green makes a blade, a flash of wild growth covers the dust.' High-tier Grass-type moves display even more terrifying power in Meowscarada's hands! It looks like the Rock Field matches will have to be suspended for a while!!"

As a commentator, saying this might be a bit inappropriate, but this was practically using an anti-aircraft gun to shoot a butterfly. It was truly giving way too much face to Butterfree!

Yet this was not the end. On the adjacent grass field, the low shrubs seemed to be affected by this side as well, causing quite a bit of trouble for the Pokémon on the ground.

This was Frenzy Plant, a high-power move that only Grass-type Starter Pokémon could learn, utilizing raging Grass-type energy to attack opponents with an entire forest.

On the contrary, Xin Mu's teammate's Charizard used its aerial advantage to further cement its lead.

Coupled with the fact that this year's drawing seemed to have some issues, after the team members adjusted their fields among themselves, not only last year's defending champion but almost all of last year's strong opponents ended up on Xin Mu's side, cementing this group's reputation as the group of death.

This also caused the competitiveness of the other fields to drop, making it seem like there really was a possibility of converging at the finals...