The opening match of the World Electric-type Expert Tournament was unfolding in a way no one could have predicted beforehand.
Iono, who had been eliminated in the first round last time, was utterly dominating Elesa, a Trainer ranked fifty places above her in the world!
And she was doing it with a completely unfamiliar strategy she had never used before!
It wasn't that the strategy itself was obscure.
Plenty of Ghost-type experts excelled at wearing opponents down with [Curse].
The problem was that Iono was an Electric-type Gym Leader whose previous battle style had always involved passionate, head-on exchanges of attacks!
No one felt the difference more keenly than Elesa, the direct victim of this match.
You're telling me the opponent I spent all that time studying before the match has turned into a sneaky schemer?
Who could possibly handle that?
Honestly, if Elesa had known about Iono's new approach beforehand, she certainly wouldn't have been in such a sorry state.
But there was nothing she could do. She had lost the intelligence war completely!
Although this was a six-on-six match, and the outcome between their opening Pokémon might not have seemed that important.
Misdreavus already seemed to be building unstoppable momentum.
While Elesa recalled Stunfisk and switched Pokémon, Iono's Mismagius boosted again with [Nasty Plot]!
Two uses of Nasty Plot, a 200% increase in Special Attack!
That left Elesa no choice but to order her Zebstrika to go all out.
If she couldn't win this matchup either, Elesa risked having Mismagius sweep three of her Pokémon, or even more!
Her ace, Zebstrika, certainly rose to the occasion. Relying on tremendous explosive power, Zebstrika first accelerated with [Flame Charge], then dealt heavy damage with [Lightning Strike].
For a while, Zebstrika actually pinned down the surging Mismagius!
"This isn't looking good.