After flames and lightning collided, the two incompatible energies quickly erupted, exploding into a cloud of thick black smoke in mid-air.
Both Salamence and Pikachu stopped their output simultaneously, and Red's voice followed immediately: "Pikachu, use Thunder Wave now!"
Taking advantage of the interference to Aiden and Salamence's vision, Red began playing little tricks, planning to catch them off guard.
However, for Aiden, he had already tasted enough of these wild tactics, so without thinking he immediately waved his hand: "Salamence, fly up and dodge."
"Roar!"
Salamence let out a disdainful snort, easily spreading its wings to preemptively predict Pikachu's move, creating a gust of hurricane.
However, Pikachu's move didn't immediately execute. The invisible Thunder Wave instead wrapped around its tail like a lasso, momentarily making Aiden unable to figure out Red's approach.
Was this a delayed attack?
A bad premonition immediately arose in Aiden's heart.
"Now, Pikachu!"
As expected, Red immediately revealed a confident smile. When he spoke, Pikachu had already leaped, easily jumping over ten times its own height!
And in an indoor environment, such terrifying jumping ability meant—
Salamence couldn't continue ascending to dodge its attack.
Thunder Wave was indeed a good speed control and field control method, but like other status-inflicting moves, it had always had the weakness of being difficult to hit when both sides were far apart.
So, for a super true newcomer skilled in wild battles, the best way to solve this problem was naturally to shove the move directly into the opponent's mouth—how could that miss?
"Use Iron Tail, deliver the Thunder Wave into Salamence's body!"
Red's next command achieved moving after yet acting first. Pikachu had already made the corresponding action before he even gave the order.
Their combination's proficiency was very high—they definitely practiced this a lot normally.
If the opponent's reaction was slightly slower, perhaps the Trainer wouldn't have time to make a countermeasure before eating Iron Tail and getting easily paralyzed.
But after all, their opponent this time was Aiden. He was equally familiar with wild battles and knew he definitely couldn't let Red succeed at this moment.
"Salamence, Protect!"
To be safe, Aiden played it safe first.
His Salamence also demonstrated an extremely quick reaction. When the opponent was already close at hand and Iron Tail was about to strike, it used its wings to fan air currents and forcefully retreat one step, creating the space to use Protect.
Bang—!
Iron Tail crashed into the barrier formed by Protect. Even using full strength, it only created some cracks. The Thunder Wave transformed into electric current also flowed out from the tail at this moment, making crackling sounds.
Truly worthy of being from Kanto—even without wild battles, they could always pull out these strange and wonderful usages—
Aiden breathed a sigh of relief while also smiling at the young Red.
Unfortunately, the risk of this move was still too great.
Relying on Pikachu's astonishing jumping ability, it indeed temporarily gained the means to attack Salamence, but Pikachu couldn't fly, right?
After losing its footing, with all its strength used in that Iron Tail just now, it was now just a sitting duck.
Still too young, to actually give away such an obvious opening.
"Salamence, consecutively use Dragon Tail and Dragon Claw until Pikachu lands!"
"Pikachu, Protect!"
Red naturally knew this was Pikachu's defensive turn, so like Teacher Azure just now, he honestly took the beating while waiting for an opportunity.
"Roar!"
Salamence's thick tail and silver-white claws launched fierce attacks in succession, striking the barrier formed before Pikachu, quickly creating some cracks that looked like they could break at any moment.
Of course, Salamence wasn't like Lucario, who through training at the Master Dojo on the Isle of Armor had learned the ridiculous Unseen Fist technique capable of ignoring Protect's obstruction.
It only needed to do four characters—
Overwhelming force!
Protect wasn't as omnipotent a defensive move as in the games. When bearing excessively strong impacts in a short time, or when there was an extreme gap in strength between both sides, being easily broken through was not impossible.
"Tsk—"
Red felt immense pressure at this moment.
Clearly from the height perspective, Pikachu should only need about one second to land, but in his eyes it felt like slow motion torture.
And the instant before Pikachu's feet touched the ground, Salamence's tail simultaneously broke through the defense, swinging with full force toward the unprepared Pikachu!
"Pikachu, grab its tail, don't get knocked out of the field!"
In panic, Red forced himself to calm down and continued giving commands.
Given the huge weight difference between Pikachu and Salamence, if this tail hit solidly, Pikachu would definitely be forced to withdraw.
So, the best solution now was to use its tail as leverage to temporarily stay on the field—
Red's Pikachu indeed reacted very quickly. The instant it was hit, it actually endured the pain with gritted teeth, using all four limbs to wrap around the base of Salamence's tail.
"Roar?!"
Feeling the subtle entangling sensation on its tail, Salamence immediately began wildly swinging its tail, trying to shake it off.
"Well done, Pikachu!"
Seeing his clever idea work again, Red couldn't help excitedly throwing an uppercut toward the air, then quickly continued speaking.
"Now, use full power Volt Tackle!"
"Pikachu!"
Pikachu's electric sac made crackling sounds, and soon its body began generating electricity with full force, its body also beginning to turn completely golden, covered in electric light.
For it, this electricity was like blood flowing through its body—it couldn't harm itself at all.
But Salamence, whose tail was being held, clearly suffered.
"Roar!!"
Electric current spread from its tail throughout its body at terrifying speed. That tingling, needle-like pain made Salamence let out a wail.
At this moment, the offensive and defensive positions had reversed!
For how difficult Red was to deal with, Aiden gained practical understanding for the first time.
This guy completely didn't play by the rules!
However, if he thought he could defeat Aiden just by relying on these—
He was still twenty thousand years too early!
"Salamence, use Double-Edge, slam your tail into the ground!"
Knowing there was no good way to stop Pikachu, he simply gave up on defense entirely, instead choosing the same approach as Red.
Then let's hurt each other!
"Roar!"
Salamence, already seeing red, didn't care about anything anymore. Even enduring the electric current attacks bursting from Pikachu, it kept swinging its tail, continuously and fiercely slamming toward the ground.
Every slam was accompanied by a heavy muffled sound and Pikachu's grunt.
Clearly, this had become a contest of endurance.
Aiden and Red very tacitly didn't have any unnecessary commands, silently waiting for them to determine a winner.
This continued for nearly a minute.
Until Salamence swung its wings once more, finally the exhausted Pikachu lost all strength and means, loosening its four limbs that had been tightly wrapped around Salamence's tail and flying backward.
Then, it was steadily caught by Red.
"Pikachu—"
Pikachu used its remaining strength to barely open its eyes, seemingly wanting to say something to Red, but was stopped by his hand.
"It's okay, you've already done very well, Pikachu."
"Leave the rest to the other partners."
Red's gentle smile quickly relaxed Pikachu, then its head tilted and it lost consciousness, temporarily losing combat ability in his arms.
After losing the first battle, Red's emotions remained stable. He looked up at Salamence that had just been fiercely fighting with Pikachu.
Teacher Azure's main force, the powerful pseudo-legendary that had crushed several students' Champion dreams today, under his and Pikachu's efforts, was now covered in wounds.
Not only was its entire body covered in burn marks from the wild Volt Tackle bombardment, with occasional electric currents crackling from its wings and chest, but even standing on the ground it was swaying left and right, clearly somewhat exhausted.
Although they won, they didn't win by much.
Aiden also noticed this point, so he decisively pressed the button at the center of the Poké Ball, recalling the exhausted Salamence.
"Very impressive Pikachu. It seems you must trust it very much."
"And it didn't disappoint your expectations, displaying an aura not inferior to Salamence."
"Your bond must be very deep, for it to spare no effort to secure victory for you?"
Aiden habitually gave some commentary, his eyes toward Red full of expectation and praise for an outstanding student.
If Nemona was the top student who received his true teachings and led other students in actual combat and tactical development, then Red was the legendary "top student from the neighboring class."
His playstyle was clearly Kanto's wild battle approach, but it could still make people's eyes light up, making them want to praise him.
"The battle isn't over yet, Teacher Azure."
Regarding Aiden's praise, Red only shook his head, then looked down again at Pikachu in his arms.
"Pikachu, rest for now."
After recalling it into its Poké Ball, Red took a deep breath and took out a second Poké Ball from his pocket.
"Teacher Azure, in Paldea's Champion Road rules, there shouldn't be a 'no Mega Evolution allowed' clause, right?"
"Of course not."
Aiden immediately understood his meaning and nodded knowingly.
"Except for not being able to directly attack the Trainer, use whatever moves you have."
"Alright!"
Red's gaze became sharp, immediately throwing out another Poké Ball.
"I choose you, Venusaur!"
Red light flashed, and Red's "starter" Pokémon Venusaur appeared on the field.
From its size exceeding ordinary Venusaur, and the huge flower blooming and emitting a unique floral fragrance, Red had definitely put considerable effort into raising it, managing to cultivate a "musclehead" within half a year.
If you added Mega Evolution, its strength naturally couldn't be underestimated.
However, compared to the Mega Charizard Y he used when battling with him in the game previously, this Venusaur's oppressive feeling was much smaller.
"Venusaur, show the results of our training!"
While Aiden was still observing this Venusaur, Red had already revealed the Evolution Keystone on his wrist, his expression becoming fierce.
As for how a Kanto native like Red obtained a Mega Stone, anyway it wasn't far from the Hoenn region—perhaps like him, he randomly encountered some rich guy on the road who gave him a newbie gift package? (laughs)
Just like his good friend Blue.
Blue seemed to have been noticed by Giovanni after he unintentionally mentioned something, and his arduous "Champion" training had just ended.
Speaking of which, these two boys' worldlines seemed to have been somewhat affected by him as a transmigrator. Their current strength might even be stronger than their original timeline counterparts?
In the manga, Red should have taken a little over a year to become Champion, and now it hadn't even been half a year—
Aiden suddenly realized that he seemed to have unintentionally cultivated two more "little monsters."
Wait, the focus now wasn't on these irrelevant things!
Noticing Red's whole body emitting light and beginning mental synchronization with Venusaur, Aiden immediately reached out and took out his second Poké Ball.
"Since it's Venusaur, then use this as the opponent!"
"Go, Lucario!"
As Mega Venusaur's outline gradually became clear, Aiden's ace Lucario also appeared on the field.
To be honest, normally Aiden would try to avoid such extremely difficult disadvantageous matchups as much as possible. After all, Venusaur's Grass and Poison were almost completely useless against Lucario—the battle was already lost from the start.
But Aiden loved interesting little geniuses like Red too much, so he wanted to comprehensively test his current level.
If this were a normal student, they would probably be scared to tears by now.
And Red was indeed different from others. In his dictionary, the word "fear" didn't exist for this newborn calf. Instead, he became even more excited upon seeing Lucario.
He probably figured out that Aiden wanted to use this rare matchup opportunity to see if he could perform brilliantly under high pressure, right?
"Venusaur, Sleep Powder!"
The instant the light on Venusaur disappeared, Red immediately gave the command, using the playstyle he learned at the Celadon Gym.
Opening with naked sleep powder?
So you're also this dirty?
Aiden raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised by his choice.
However, playing sleep powder in front of Teacher Azure—wasn't this a case of the apprentice trying to outdo the master?
"Lucario, use Extreme Speed to dodge."
"Lucario!"
Lucario activated with zero frames. Its long-hammered sturdy body allowed it to use Extreme Speed as a normal attack, perfect for dodging moves.
It could maintain flexibility to observe the opponent's situation, and when necessary instantly close the distance to catch the opponent off guard.
But soon, Aiden realized Red's idea didn't seem quite right.
Venusaur's Sleep Powder didn't seem to target Lucario, but rather—
The entire room???
"Wait—retreat first and use Protect, make the range as large as possible!"
Aiden immediately adjusted his command, while simultaneously gaining new understanding of Red in his heart.
Truly worthy of being from Kanto—even Sleep Powder could be played as a large-scale indiscriminate field control move???
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