Anyone who's ever argued with an AI knows one thing—AI may be powerful, but it still has its limitations.
For instance, it can't answer unanswerable questions, it lacks human emotion and intuition, and its intelligence doesn't fully mimic the depth of a human mind.
But what if that "AI" was a real artificial intelligence, one with even more advanced thought processes and cognition than a human?
Edward's chosen strategy: high-intensity disinformation.
The plan was to flood the internet with semi-credible messages—things that sounded true but were actually fake. If someone uninformed looked them up, they'd find seemingly professional sources confirming them. Why? Because behind those lies were professional teams crafting those narratives to look as real as possible.
It's like being in an online argument and someone says:
"Do you even know who I am? I'm famous!"
A normal person would scoff and say, "Who cares?"
But then the other party drops a search engine link. You click it—bam, turns out the guy is a well-known figure. There are articles, pictures, old headlines, and even dated news segments to back it all up.
The credibility shoots up instantly.
That's exactly the effect Edward was going for.
"But Mewtwo… that guy doesn't really care about many things," Edward muttered. "If I want to trick it, I'll need something special."
He had a few ideas, but now wasn't the time to think about them. For now, he'd leave it to Zoroark to get in touch with a few professional disinformation teams. Once contact was established, Edward would hand over the material he had prepared and let the team turn it into something believable.
Could he fool Mewtwo? Edward wasn't overly confident… but he had a sliver of hope.
After all, unless Mewtwo could crawl through the internet cables and punch someone in person, it could only argue online like the rest of them.
Edward turned his attention back to the giant screens inside the venue, where contestant after contestant stepped up with confidence. Those who succeeded received a badge that qualified them for the upcoming one-on-one elimination rounds.
The structure of the Tom Tree Contest was pretty streamlined. Despite the massive number of entrants, the League had deployed a large number of Psychic-type Pokémon as referees, enabling simultaneous matches across multiple arenas and quickly cutting down the competition.
"…What's with this cameraman?"
Edward's gaze was fixed on the screen showing the Unova Region. At this moment, it felt like half the male audience had locked their eyes on the same screen.
Why?
Because a beautiful woman wearing a bunny-girl outfit, complete with black stockings and long legs, was commanding a similarly dressed Tsareena to prepare for the signature Crotch-Splitting Tree Smash.
Edward wasn't too worried about whether Tsareena could split the tree—after all, she had the moves and leg strength for it. What he was curious about was what sort of performance this trainer would deliver.
After watching over an hour of this Contest, Edward had come to a conclusion: the Tom Tree Contest wasn't just about breaking trees. For Pokémon, unless you're particularly weak, splitting a tree isn't that hard.
The real challenge was to entertain the audience—to make the judges find it interesting.
That's why creative contestants were showing up left and right.
Unfortunately, perhaps because it was still the preliminaries, the bunny-girl just had Tsareena cleanly split a tree—no more, no less. Just enough to qualify.
"I thought she'd have something more exciting up her sleeve," Steven said as he sat down beside him. Diantha had just left after finalizing a new TV drama collaboration with Edward and was all smiles.
"Maybe she's saving her tricks for the finals," Edward replied calmly, turning his attention to another screen.
This one showed the Johto Region.
And then—he saw it.
A muscle-bound hulk dressed in a Psyduck costume. His arms were as thick as Edward's head, and he was mimicking Psyduck's signature headache pose, wearing a "confused" and "vacant" expression as he stared into the camera.
"Psy?"
For a moment, it felt like the entire stadium went dead silent.
"…Holy sh*t," muttered Lance, unable to hold back.
"…Bro," Edward said after a pause, turning to Steven. "What do you think of that little act?"
Steven, elbows on the table, chin in hands, looked dead serious.
"Not quite enough," Steven said analytically. "There are already plenty of contestants dressed as Pokémon. In fact, there are many. So, with just this level of performance…"
Beside him, Cynthia shot him a strange look. She had just seen that burly man with a full beard trying to act cute as a Psyduck and had been so stunned that her fists clenched reflexively. For a moment, Cynthia genuinely wanted to disqualify the guy on the spot.
But the camera wasn't done yet.
Suddenly, the screen showed another Psyduck—this one wearing normal clothes with eight Johto Gym Badges pinned to its chest. The clothes clearly didn't match a Psyduck's body, and with its unusually intelligent eyes, the whole image just felt… wrong.
Then, the Psyduck threw a Poké Ball.
It dropped to the ground with no reaction.
The camera naturally followed the motion. The Poké Ball rolled slightly.
Then—WHAM! A huge face slammed into the frame—it was the Psyduck muscleman again.
"Psy? Psy Psy duck?"
The hulk picked up the Poké Ball and knocked it against his head. Then, he assumed a battle stance.
Steven covered his face with a hand. Cynthia took a deep breath. Lance crushed his water bottle.
Eight Gym Badges. Was this man planning to enter the Johto League?
"Psy?" The Psyduck Pokémon seemed just as confused. But the man appeared to have heard a battle command. He suddenly charged forward, leapt into the air, and hugged the tree, climbing it at lightning speed—so fast that the camera had trouble keeping up.
He reached the top.
Then he shouted, "PSYYY!!"
With a blank expression, he stomped the tree trunk, jumped high, then did a midair split.
"…Now that's creative. I, Steven, officially acknowledge your standing in the performance scene," Steven declared, completely serious.
"…" Edward stared at his brother with a complicated expression.
So Steven had finally lost it, huh?
Still… that guy probably could land an endorsement deal for Iron Crotch Underwear.
(End of Chapter)