Mustard froze for a moment, then immediately understood. That did make sense.
The opening [Shift Gear] was understandable enough, boosting physical attack and speed, but that [Play Rough] had been far too strange.
It was neither super effective against Bellibolt nor resistant to Electric-type moves. Why not use the Grass-type [Petal Blizzard] directly?
It couldn't have been a mistake.
Mustard hadn't watched all of Xia Chi's matches, but his performance in this battle alone was enough to tell him.
Someone as meticulous as Xia Chi would never make that kind of mistake.
Could it be...
"If this special Terastallization strengthens the first move of each type, that would explain it."
Professor Oak voiced the suspicion in Mustard's mind.
Wisdom shone in his eyes. "Xia Chi said earlier that if a Pokémon's Tera Type matches its own type, its same-type attack bonus increases from 50% to 100%!"
"And if this never-before-seen Tera Type encompasses every known type, could it combine with Floragato's [Protean] Ability to turn moves of every type into same-type attacks?"
Even someone as composed as Mustard couldn't help exclaiming after hearing Professor Oak's theory, "That really would be... ridiculously powerful!"
What did a twofold boost mean? Even without a type advantage, it would hit as hard as a super-effective attack.
And against something with a fourfold weakness to Ice or Fighting? That would be eightfold damage!
Parasect undoubtedly had it worst.
Its atrocious Bug/Grass typing already gave it a fourfold weakness to Fire, and the 1.25-fold increase in Fire damage from [Dry Skin] made Fire attacks "fivefold effective" against it.
If a Charizard with a Fire Tera Type used Flamethrower on it...
Forget Flamethrower-even [Ember], with its base power of 40, would deal tenfold damage, effectively reaching 400 base power!
It couldn't survive that even with a hundred