Viridian City.
Inside the rental room.
James Green looked at the pile of new data on the screen before him, appearing thoughtful.
Yesterday, when he was adding the plot for the Gyms, he suddenly thought of another issue.
——Originally, the starter Pokémon options in Ultra Emerald were quite numerous; you could choose starters from every generation without issue.
You could even choose two if certain Easter egg conditions were met!
Since his current game was even harder than the original Ultra Emerald, he naturally had to be more lenient regarding the choice of starter Pokémon.
Combining this with the newly launched voice system, he simply designed an Easter egg directly. As long as the player expressed to Professor Birch that they wanted a starter Pokémon of another Type when choosing, this Easter egg could be activated. This would allow them to receive a random Pokémon of that Type from Professor Birch (excluding Psuedo-Legendaries and Legendaries).
Furthermore, the Base Stats of this Pokémon would not be lower than 500. In a sense, this was a good thing for players, as they could freely choose their desired starting Type instead of being forced to pick one from Fire, Water, or Grass.
Correspondingly, to achieve balance, once a player activated this Easter egg, they would have to pay a price.
——That is, certain battles with the Rival would be replaced by battles with the Team Rocket Trio!
That's right, the trio was Meowth, James, and Jessie!
And the strength James designed for Team Rocket wasn't for them to be pushovers.
When the player set off for Petalburg City, they would encounter them for the first time. At this time, their Pokémon levels would be on par with the player's: a Koffing and an Ekans.
Moreover, they would be the kind with perfect IVs, fully trained EVs, and carrying the correct items!
This battle intensity would undoubtedly be more terrifying than the Rival!
As the game progressed, every time the player encountered them, their strength would become even greater!
The reason James designed them into the game was that he always felt this trio should possess such strength.
After all, with their abilities, as long as they didn't try to catch Ash's Pikachu, they would have succeeded in whatever else they did long ago...
Even if they went to steal Arceus's plates, they could probably do it...
Plus, these three were also among his favorite characters in the original work, so he might as well insert some personal bias.
As for whether the Team Rocket Trio really existed in this world...
Well, that was another matter entirely.
–
Meanwhile, in Iono's livestream room, amidst the heated discussion about Team Rocket in the chat, Jessie and James in the game also stepped forward, triggering the battle animation.
"Little twerp, hand over your Pokémon!"
[Team Rocket Grunts challenge you to a battle!]
Amidst the rousing drumbeats, white light flashed, and a Koffing appeared!
Its level was the same as Iono's Mareep, both Level 11!
"Same level, two Pokémon? Seems a bit hard to beat."
"But after all, it's an NPC's Pokémon, so there shouldn't be any difficulty, right?"
Iono looked at the prompt in the top right corner of the screen, muttered to herself, and tried to have Mareep use Thundershock.
Thunder crashed down, and the HP bar above Koffing's head dropped by half instantly!
However, before she could be happy, she saw a glob of venom erupt from Koffing's mouth!
[Koffing used Venoshock!]
[A critical hit!]
The HP bar above Mareep's head emptied instantly!
Iono: ???
No, bro, what kind of damage is that??
Even if it was a crit, it shouldn't be this perverted, right?
Since when was Koffing this fierce?
While she was bewildered, on the game screen, the figures of Jessie and James appeared again.
"Hmph, you and your partner are too weak! The Boss definitely wouldn't like a Pokémon like this."
"Goodbye, little twerp!"
Immediately after, the screen went black.
[Iono has no more Pokémon that can fight.]
[You blacked out.]
Seconds later, watching Iono's character reappear in the Oldale Town Pokémon Center, the comments went crazy.
[Holy crap, this is a Team Rocket grunt? Are you sure?]
[Since when was Koffing this strong??]
[The streamer was actually disdained by the villain organization for being too weak; they didn't even want to steal her Pokémon. I'm crying.]
Iono also came back to her senses from her daze. At this moment, she realized that the "extremely high difficulty" mentioned in the game's introduction wasn't joking with her.
But a game was only interesting if it was difficult.
She immediately began to think of countermeasures.
The reason Koffing could one-shot Mareep was that its move triggered a "Critical Hit."
Judging from the game's introduction, a "Critical Hit" should be a special mechanic triggered by probability that deals double damage, and this situation wouldn't appear in every battle.
In other words, the original Mareep could withstand two attacks from Koffing.
Possessing the first-move advantage, Mareep could tank one Venoshock, and then the second Thundershock would be able to take the opponent out.
But even so, Iono would still face another huge problem next, which was—the opponent still had another Pokémon in hand!
A Mareep that had already lost half its health obviously had a high probability of being unable to defeat the next Pokémon.
So... she had to find a way to deal with this Koffing without taking damage.
Pondering for a moment, Iono opened the bag interface, scanned Mareep's information, and immediately had a plan.
She controlled her character to return to the location where she encountered the Team Rocket members. Without the rousing music or speech, she entered the battle directly.
This time, she didn't let Mareep use Thundershock but instead used another move—Thunder Wave!
Electric light flashed. A current ran across Koffing's body, and an orange symbol appeared in its status bar. It had fallen into the Paralysis status.
[Koffing is paralyzed! It can't move!]
After a spasm, it didn't launch an attack in its first turn but had its chance to act skipped directly!
Iono's eyes lit up instantly.
As expected!
She explained to the viewers in the livestream:
"After using Thunder Wave, the hit Pokémon can be temporarily paralyzed. So I wanted to try and see if I could restrict Koffing's actions with this."
"Now it seems the game creator actually designed this point too! If Koffing can't attack now, Mareep can defeat it while preserving its health to deal with the second Pokémon!"
She appeared brimming with confidence.
[As expected of Iono, finding a solution instantly!]
[Too broken. In this way, as long as Thunder Wave hits first every time, isn't Mareep invincible?]
[Indeed a bit unreasonable, but after all, it's just a turn-based game. It's normal for the balance not to be perfect.]
While the chat discussed, Iono confidently pressed the "Thundershock" option, letting Mareep launch an attack.
Electricity flashed again, and the HP bar above Koffing's head dropped to 1/2 again.
"Great, just need to do this one more time."
However, just as Iono was cheering excitedly, electricity flashed across Koffing's body, but it didn't bring about a paralyzed state. In the next moment, a glob of venom spewed from its mouth, hitting Mareep once again!
[Koffing used Venoshock! A critical hit!]
[Mareep fainted!]
[Iono has no more Pokémon that can continue battling.]
[You blacked out.]
Looking at the prompt before her, Iono froze in place.
Wasn't Koffing already paralyzed? How could it still use a move?
Also, why was it a critical hit again?
Hey, isn't the probability of your critical hit a bit too high??
After respawning at the Pokémon Center, Iono didn't rush to challenge Team Rocket again. Instead, she chose to open the menu and check the tutorial information within the game.
Sure enough, she soon found the explanation regarding status conditions.
"So paralysis reduces the opponent Pokémon's Speed by half and has a chance to prevent the Pokémon from using moves..."
She suddenly realized.
If the status condition was implemented like this, then it was reasonable. Otherwise, if paralyzing the opponent meant they could never move, that would be too broken.
She couldn't help but admire this creator a little.
Not only were the Pokémon's Abilities and moves recreated quite well, but even these status conditions were reasonably reproduced!
Speaking of which, for this battle, she probably needed to try a few more times to win.
After understanding this, Iono activated the battle flow with Team Rocket again. This time her luck was very good. After Koffing was paralyzed, it failed to move for two consecutive turns and was easily taken away by Mareep's two Thundershocks.
The second Pokémon sent out by Team Rocket was an Ekans.
The moment it appeared, a red light flashed on Mareep's body, followed by a game notification.
[Due to the opponent Pokémon's Intimidate, Mareep's Attack fell!]
However, seeing this scene, Iono breathed a long sigh of relief and explained to the chat:
"Great! This means this Ekans doesn't have the Shed Skin Ability, but Intimidate!"
"If it were Shed Skin, it would be troublesome, because once it enters the paralysis state, it would immediately be automatically cured by the Ability."
"And right now, our Mareep is a Special Attack type Pokémon anyway, so even if its Physical Attack is lowered, it doesn't matter."
"Should be an easy win!"
With a look full of confidence, Iono chose to let Mareep use Thunder Wave again to control Ekans!
However, in the next moment, Ekans moved first.
[Ekans used Crunch!]
[Mareep flinched! It cannot move!]
Looking at Mareep's HP bar, which instantly flashed red...
Iono: ...
She clenched her fist.
"It's okay, again!"
After seven or eight consecutive failed challenges, the Goddess of Luck finally stood on Iono's side.
In this battle, neither Ekans nor Koffing landed a critical hit.
After both Pokémon entered the paralysis state, they didn't succeed in moving even once.
But even so, when Mareep won the battle, having only been hit once in the entire process, the HP bar above its head only had a sliver left.
From this, one could see how difficult this battle actually was...
After winning the battle, the Team Rocket trio retreated a few steps.
"Damn little twerp, just you wait, we'll be back!"
"——What a hateful feeling, meow!"
They left behind harsh words and disappeared into the distant grass.
Iono breathed a long sigh of relief.
At the same time, she discovered that at this moment, a strange feeling was emerging in her heart!
Although in a sense, this was also Pokémon battling...
What she experienced in this game was completely different from the real world.
This experience of repeatedly attempting based on her own understanding, repeating the challenge again and again until success, was something she couldn't feel at all in real-world Pokémon battles!
After all, in real Pokémon battles, there was often only one chance. If you wanted to try again, you had to wait for a period of time.
Pokémon needed a considerable amount of time to recover their stamina and energy each time. But in the game, after a failure, you could immediately regroup and make a comeback!
And the feeling of finally achieving success after multiple repeated attempts was often the most captivating!
Iono was becoming more and more interested in this game at this moment. She didn't even realize that just this one NPC battle had quietly made her addicted.
After defeating the Team Rocket trio, she continued to set off towards the next city without hesitation.
The gameplay experience that followed was simple. After arriving at Petalburg City, she visited the Petalburg Gym run by the player's father and accompanied a boy named Wally to catch a Ralts as his starter Pokémon. Then, Iono left Petalburg City and entered the forest above.
This was a vast green jungle, home to a large number of Bug-type Pokémon.
And not long after, Iono encountered a Joltik!
She threw a Poké Ball without hesitation after the battle, successfully catching it and adding it to her team.
At the same time, she began to smile and speak to the viewers in the livestream:
"Ta-da~ Iono's Electric Class is now in session!"
"We all know that Electric-type Pokémon have the characteristics of high speed and strong attack power, but they also have flaws."
"As everyone knows, the biggest weakness of Electric-type Pokémon is the Ground Type. Electric-type moves are completely nullified when hitting Ground-type Pokémon."
"Besides that, Grass-type, Rock-type, and Dragon-type are also quite disadvantageous matchups for Electric-type Pokémon."
"Grass and Dragon types resist Electric moves, making them very ineffective. And although Rock types don't resist Electric moves, they generally possess Ground-type moves, which pose a great threat to Electric-type Pokémon!"
"The main quest of this game should be to challenge Gyms of different types to collect badges and finally challenge the League."
"In that case, if we want to build a team specializing in Electric-type Pokémon, we must overcome these type disadvantages."
"Like this Joltik, it possesses the Bug type. When encountering Grass-type opponents, dealing with them won't be so difficult~"
"In the subsequent gameplay, I will build my team around this direction until I completely cover all the blind spots of Electric-type Pokémon!"
As soon as these words came out, the comments cheered one after another.
[As expected of the League's official Electric-type Gym Leader, her knowledge reserves in this area are sufficient!]
[Yeah, even if it's just playing a game. Where she should be casual, she's still professional!]
Iono glanced at the comments and smiled again:
"I think, at such an early stage of the game, it's unlikely for a Dragon-type Gym to appear."
"Then... only Ground-type and Rock-type remain."
"Surely the first Gym won't be one of these two types, right?"
She stretched her back:
"Alright, let's continue~"
(End of Chapter)
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