Tetsuya, Raine, Morty, and Fantina had each chosen their TMs.
Matsuba said, "I 'heard' the tactics you used to clear the second floor. There was definitely an element of luck, but you did grasp the key details of the battle quite well. However, I doubt you'll be so fortunate on the third floor. Try testing the waters this afternoon. If you fail, then pause and focus on thoroughly learning your new TM moves before challenging again."
The four of them nodded.
From Matsuba's tone, the third floor was clearly no easy task.
Tetsuya didn't mind either way. If you rushed forward without a solid foundation, reality would eventually hit you hard.
Matsuba's arrangement was mostly just to keep these hot-blooded future stars from getting too cocky.
After a full recovery at the Pokémon Center, their four Pokémon were brimming with energy that afternoon.
They had to try the third floor at least once. The future was "beautiful" because of its mystery.
No matter how difficult Matsuba said it would be, they wouldn't give up until they saw it for themselves.
---◓---
That afternoon, the four of them arrived as scheduled on the third floor of Brass Tower.
A Dusclops and twenty Duskull.
This time, the Duskull group didn't rush in to surround their four Pokémon. Instead, the twenty Duskull formed four rows of five, building a wall. Dusclops hovered at the top of the formation.
"What… what kind of strategy is this!?" Fantina asked in surprise.
Tetsuya glanced at it. "This time, we'll need real skill."
The battle formation made by the Duskull was completely different from the flanking tactics of the first two floors. With their incredible dual defenses, the Duskull wall concentrated its power.
The twenty Duskull worked in perfect harmony, immune to tricks or sneak attacks. Their defense was impenetrable, and their offense was the combined power of all twenty.
"They're definitely channeling the power of a single move and amplifying it to its maximum. What we're facing is a cannon!" Morty said.
"So what do we do now?"
Faced with the unmoving "Duskull army", even Raine didn't know where to start.
"Let's take it one step at a time. First, see what move they use," Morty replied.
"Gastly, Shadow Ball." Tetsuya wasted no time launching the first strike.
"Fantina, dual Ominous Wind," Morty ordered.
"Whatever… Duskull, Will-O-Wisp!"
The combined power of dual Ominous Wind, Shadow Ball, and Will-O-Wisp surged forward, attempting to sweep through the wall.
But then, Dusclops's eyes glowed blue, and a ghostly blue fireball appeared before it. Immediately after, all the Duskull made the exact same motion.
"It's Will-O-Wisp!" Morty shouted nervously.
Twenty-one ghostly blue fireballs gathered together into a single massive inferno. Under the control of Dusclops and the Duskull army, it hurtled toward them.
A Will-O-Wisp of such power…
The four were all dumbfounded. In the face of this kind of attack, everything else seemed small and insignificant.
Ominous Wind, Shadow Ball; none of it mattered...
They were instantly obliterated by the giant Will-O-Wisp meteor. Gastly, Duskull, Spiritomb, and Drifloon gave it everything they had, but it was no use against this "atomic bomb" level move.
Only now did they truly understand the scale of the power created by twenty-one Pokémon channeling a single Will-O-Wisp.
In his previous life, Tetsuya had spent most of his time in the wild. Sometimes he'd encounter Pokémon packs with dozens of members. But those were always scattered, each fighting on its own. With diversion tactics and picking them off one by one, he could easily take control of the battle. After all, most Pokémon couldn't compare to humans in terms of intelligence.
Back in Unova, Meowth once invented a kind of "Roggenrola Cannon," which also concentrated the power of many Roggenrola, triggering their internal "nuclear" energy and firing moves simultaneously. In theory, it was supposed to produce massive power. But since the Roggenrola were being forced, they couldn't work in unison. The actual result was underwhelming.
So this was the first time they had seen twenty-one Pokémon truly unify their power into a single point.
The Will-O-Wisp meteor engulfed the four Pokémon. And it wasn't just Burn status, they endured torment as if body and soul were being incinerated in hellfire.
But what surprised the four Trainers was that during the burning process, the Duskull group didn't follow up with an attack. They simply held formation.
Once the flames died down, the four Pokémon were already on the verge of collapse.
At that moment, the Duskull group finally moved. Five Duskull surrounded each Pokémon. Yet even then, they didn't attack first. They only defended passively when attacked, clearly aiming to hold them in place.
But the allied Pokémon had already lost so much stamina to the burn that they couldn't mount any strong attacks. The Duskull clung like glue, impossible to shake or escape.
Eventually, Dusclops approached the nearest target, Drifloon. With both palms, it unleashed two black shadows. Drifloon was struck and immediately collapsed.
Next were Duskull, Gastly, and Spiritomb. None could withstand those two shadow strikes.
"Hmph, that strategy really was solid…" Tetsuya muttered coldly as he recalled Gastly and turned to leave first.
"W-What strategy? What does he mean?" Fantina asked Morty beside her.
"Dusclops used the massive Will-O-Wisp to burn all our Pokémon and drain their stamina. Then the Duskull restrained them, all to set up for Hex. Hex deals greater damage to Pokémon suffering from status conditions. That's why none of our Pokémon could survive that final Hex attack," Morty explained.
"Ahhhh, how can these Pokémon be so smart!?" Fantina exclaimed in disbelief.
Of course, they'd all been thinking the same thing.
Tetsuya left first, still pondering the problem. If they had to rely solely on strength to take them on, even a year or two of intense training wouldn't be enough. Considering the strategies used in the previous two floors, there was only one conclusion.
Each floor's Pokémon "army" followed a fixed battle strategy. These tactics had been trained into them since the days of Ecruteak Gym's ancestors. There was no way Pokémon alone could develop such seamless coordination on their own.
One strategy, repeated endlessly: practice made perfect.
It was almost certain they didn't know any other tactics. So if they could find a way to disrupt their rhythm, they'd have a real chance at victory.
They had won the second floor because they disrupted the Misdreavus's encirclement early and broke the mind web's integrity. Once the formation fell apart, the Pokémon reverted to chaos.
The third-floor challenge had ended in failure. The next step was to focus on learning and mastering their new moves. As for Sludge Bomb, Tetsuya was already deeply familiar with it. He would definitely have his own method for "mastering" this move effectively.