Emotionally, Nova was rooting for Aresdra without question. But logically, he knew how strong Thelma was. Even in a straight one-on-one, he had only managed to keep up with her back when he had Nidorino. With Aresdra's current team, he could not see a clear path to victory.
His head was a mess. Part of him wanted to believe, and the other part kept running the numbers. He almost wished he could turn into a Psyduck himself, just so he would stop overthinking everything.
The referee announced the start of the match.
However, thanks to a certain duck, the mood in the arena was anything but tense.
The judges were fighting back grins. Half the audience was already laughing. And Aresdra, standing on her platform, had gone a deep shade of pink from head to toe.
Thelma gritted her teeth. She was convinced her opponent was not taking this seriously.
"Enough of this! Meganium, use Reflect! Sceptile, Bullet Seed!"
Aresdra had been planning to send Riolu in with Bullet Punch to take the first move, but Meganium's Reflect shut that down immediately. The level gap between the two sides already made it hard for Riolu's physical moves to deal serious damage. Now, with Reflect in place, physical attacks were practically useless.
Even a lion goes all out when hunting a rabbit.
That was how Thelma always battled. It did not matter if her opponent brought a joke of a lineup to the field. She would answer with the sharpest offense and the tightest defense she had, until there was nothing left of her opponent's confidence.
With Meganium holding the defensive line, Sceptile took up position at the back and began pouring on the pressure. A standard Bullet Seed fires two to five seeds at a time. Thelma's Sceptile was not standard. It did not fire in bursts. It fired in a continuous stream, sweeping across the field without pause.
But its opponent had a trick of its own.
The Parry Master ability was not just a title.
Seeing that a direct attack would not work, Aresdra shifted her approach and called for Detect. Fighting-type energy surged through Riolu's arms. It planted its feet and did not give an inch, holding its ground against the relentless barrage and deflecting every seed that came its way.
The problem was that Sceptile was not only targeting Riolu. The stream of seeds swept back and forth across the field. Riolu's Detect was covering most of the angle, shielding the space behind it, but seeds were still slipping through from awkward directions and finding the Psyduck stumbling around at the back.
Psyduck had been busy showing off its scorched backside to the audience. Then the seeds hit.
The sudden pain sent it into a panic. The trouble was, Psyduck was too dim to figure out where the pain was coming from. So it did the only thing it knew to do: it ran. It bolted in every direction, completely at random, crashing back and forth across the field in a full-blown panic and starting to throw off Riolu's footing in the process.
The more gaps that opened up, the more seeds got through. The more seeds got through, the faster Psyduck ran. The cycle repeated itself in spectacular fashion.
To Psyduck's credit, it was level 38. Among the Pokemon Aresdra and Nova had between them, only Nidoking and Corviknight ranked higher. A higher level meant more HP and more stamina, which meant it could take a hard beating and keep going. Even with Grass-type moves dealing double damage, Psyduck was soaking it up and still running strong.
It just looked absolutely terrible out there.
The field had dissolved into total chaos. The audience was losing it.
"Psyduck's leading another charge!"
"I can't breathe, this duck is too much!"
"Honestly, watching this Psyduck run around has done more for my stress than anything else this week."
One of the seeds clipped the chin strap of the safety helmet Psyduck wore to protect its head. The strap snapped clean. With Psyduck running nonstop without a steady moment, the helmet wobbled, tipped, and eventually bounced right off its head.
Aresdra's stomach dropped. Psyduck's head was the one thing she really could not afford to have take a hit. She started calling its name from the platform, trying to get its attention. Then it hit her, somewhere in the middle of the panic, that Psyduck probably had no idea its name was DIO.
Across the field, Thelma had stopped being annoyed and started being genuinely curious.
She had noticed something. Bullet Seed triggers two to five consecutive hits. Against a normal Pokemon using Detect, the first wave would be blocked, but the follow-ups would land. Riolu had blocked every single one.
That was not normal.
Thelma's instincts sharpened. She wanted to understand exactly what she was dealing with.
"Meganium, use Magical Leaf!"
A guaranteed hit. No way to dodge it.
Riolu's arms came up. Detect activated. The Magical Leaf was deflected cleanly.
Thelma's eyes narrowed. Detect again, and it still worked. The little Pokemon in front of her had a remarkably deep grasp of that move.
She decided to push further.
Sceptile opened with Leafage. Low power, low threat, the kind of basic Grass-type move that barely leaves a scratch. A trainer with Nova's battle experience would have read the setup the moment it was called. Aresdra was not there yet.
But even if she had seen it coming, she might not have had a choice. The gap in strength was so wide that even a glancing hit could put Riolu in serious trouble. She could not afford to guess wrong.
So Aresdra called Detect again.
The leaves came in and were parried one by one. But in the final burst, one leaf looked different from the rest.
A hidden move.
Chasing the tail end of Sceptile's Leafage was a Magical Leaf from Meganium. Because Riolu's Detect had been calibrated to the pattern of Leafage, the completely different properties of the Magical Leaf slipped right through. The parry that had worked perfectly a moment ago was now no use at all.
A sharp flash of light.
The Magical Leaf connected and burst open on impact, Grass-type energy ripping across the center of the field.
"Hang on, Riolu!"
And it did.
The Unyielding Fortitude ability kicked in at exactly that moment, keeping Riolu on its feet even as its HP hit the floor.
"Ri... lou!" it cried, refusing to go down.
Thelma watched the little Pokemon still standing across from her. A smile worked its way onto her face.
"That little one is something else."
Aresdra could not keep watching JoJo hold itself together on willpower alone with almost nothing left in the tank. She had one option left. She turned toward the Psyduck still careening around the field and called out, her voice quieter than usual, almost like she was asking for a favor.
"Psyduck, please. I need your help."