"In that case, let's just go all out!"
"Articuno, Snowscape!"
"Beautifly, Stun Spore!"
Her opening assault had been a set-piece tactic taught by Welt, but against an experienced competitor like Guinaifen, the typing mismatch and raw power gap were obvious. Even a surprise opening had been cleanly neutralized.
March knew that sticking to rigid, pre-planned drills would never carry her past Guinaifen.
Since strict textbook plays wouldn't cut it, why not throw caution to the wind and try whatever felt right, focusing on what looked most dazzling?
Clearing away the mental clutter, a flurry of creative ideas surfaced at once. The first priority was setting the stage with the right weather.
She recalled how Guinaifen's movements during the exhibition round had left flowing ribbons of ink across the canvas. Replicating that in reality took years of discipline, but within a swirling snowstorm, an Ice-type partner could shape rime and frost into pure visual poetry.
She had never practiced this exact sequence before; it was entirely a spur-of-the-moment gamble.
Yet she didn't abandon basic battle awareness. Activating a pure weather move took time, and an opponent of Guinaifen's caliber would instantly exploit the opening to press an attack.
That was why she ordered Beautifly to blanket the field with Stun Spore to buy room to breathe.
"Blaziken, Flamethrower, burn through that spore cloud!"
"Gardevoir, pin them down with Psychic!"
Guinaifen reacted with practiced calm.
Whether Articuno was setting up weather for tactical buffs or purely for stage points didn't matter. Her plan was simple: seize the tempo to focus fire and take Beautifly off the board.
Once Beautifly fell, even a Legendary bird like Articuno would struggle to hold the line in a two-on-one disadvantage.
"Beautifly, Protect, then slip through with Quiver Dance!"
Seeing the fiery column scorch the spores into cinders as it surged toward Beautifly, paired with the glowing psychic aura locking onto its wings, March felt a flash of panic.
Yet the sight of the roaring fire triggered something in her mind, and the commands left her lips almost on pure instinct.
Gardevoir's Psychic pulse struck first, only to shatter harmlessly against the glowing jade barrier of Protect.
The moment the shield dropped, Beautifly fluttered its wings, rising into an undulating, rhythmic aerial dance.
The sweeping loops of its ascent traced the outer edge of the oncoming inferno, slipping past the heat so cleanly that it looked like a delicate butterfly performing a waltz beside a pillar of flame.
The seamless evasion sent March's Charm gauge soaring.
Guinaifen's straightforward blast, by contrast, carried little artistic framing, yielding only a negligible sliver of points.
Using Quiver Dance to boost its stats while simultaneously gliding around a fatal offensive drew stunned gasps across the stadium.
"That was legendary! Easily one of the top ten highlights of the entire tournament!"
"Top ten? Put that in the top three! I actually got goosebumps watching that dodge!"
"I honestly wrote March off the moment she drew Guinaifen, but could we actually see an upset here?!"
"Wait, I just put all my betting points on Guinaifen! Don't do this to me!"
Having slipped through the combined offensive, March blinked, staring at the field in slight disbelief that she had orchestrated such a clean move.
In that split second, she remembered the animated shorts Welt had made her watch alongside her Pokémon.
At the time, she had thought the clips were just an entertaining distraction, but watching the same sequences looped for hours on end had grown tedious and dizzying. She hadn't understood the point back then, but now the method behind Uncle Yang's madness was crystal clear.
The instant the flames had closed in, a vivid memory flashed in her mind: an anime protagonist weaving through a collapsing wall of fire with impossible grace.
With that visual anchor in place, dodging Blaziken's direct stream was no longer impossible. The challenge lay in countering Gardevoir's invisible lock-on before initiating the dodge.
Protect and Quiver Dance had aligned in her mind like pieces of a puzzle, surfacing as the only natural response.
She didn't know how that instinctual clarity had kicked in, but as long as it worked, she wasn't about to question it.
High above, Articuno's Snowscape took full effect. Thick, crystalline snowflakes drifted down across the battlefield.
In the snowy weather, Ice-type Pokémon gained natural defensive resilience, while Blizzard gained perfect accuracy against opposing targets.
Even if the cold did modest direct damage to Blaziken and Gardevoir, the stage impact was undeniable.
Every sweeping flap of Articuno's and Beautifly's wings stirred the falling snow into glittering, luminous ripples. Framed by the winter backdrop, March's Charm meter began climbing at a steady, uninterrupted pace.
Factoring in the earlier exchanges, March's score had quietly pulled ahead of Guinaifen's by a noticeable gap.
Guinaifen hadn't stopped to check the scoreboard, but reading the arena's atmosphere, she knew she had fallen behind.
She couldn't afford to let March run away with the point lead; she had to force a knockout immediately.
"Blaziken, Quick Attack! Gardevoir, Moonblast!"
Blaziken lunged forward with explosive speed. Gardevoir struck a poised stance, raising an orb of concentrated lunar energy before spinning to launch the glowing sphere toward March's side of the field.
Guinaifen didn't call out a specific target, but her Pokémon understood the unspoken plan: eliminate Beautifly first. Keeping the command vague denied March an early read.
"Beautifly, Aerial Ace!"
"Articuno, let loose with Blizzard!"
Riding the momentum of her earlier success, March's confidence surged.
She reasoned that Guinaifen was dead-set on picking off Beautifly to create a numbers advantage.
Gambling that Articuno would be ignored, she ordered the bird to unleash its full-power tempest, betting everything on the trade.
Just as she anticipated, both Blaziken and the homing Moonblast adjusted their vectors mid-stride, converging entirely on Beautifly.
Protect could not be chained reliably, and its defensive value dropped sharply at point-blank range.
Instead, March opted for Aerial Ace, using the guaranteed-hit trajectory to evade while simultaneously cutting back into the attacker.
Meanwhile, Articuno's Blizzard covered their retreat from behind. If Beautifly slipped the pincer, the offensive momentum would flip entirely in March's favor.
Yet Quick Attack and Moonblast were blisteringly fast. Sandwiched between a physical rush and a homing projectile, Beautifly's margin for error was razor-thin.
As the glowing moon orb bore down, Blaziken closed the distance trailing white slipstream light. Beautifly folded its wings, entering a tight, high-speed spin in an effort to slip the blast radius.
To the naked eye, the projectile looked unavoidable.
At the final millisecond, Beautifly found an extra burst of acceleration, slipping past the edge of the Moonblast by a fraction of an inch.
A single moment slower, and the combined assault would have knocked the delicate bug out cold.
Carried by the momentum of Aerial Ace, Beautifly crashed head-on into Blaziken's chest, the two forces locking into a high-speed struggle that kicked up a cloud of snow.
It's the speed boost from Quiver Dance!
Guinaifen recognized the mechanic instantly. That single stage increase to speed had provided just enough burst for Beautifly to slip past Moonblast.
Her expression sharpened.
There was no time to ponder whether March had orchestrated the entire chain of events or simply caught a lucky break; in a live duel, a veteran had to treat it as deliberate tactical mastery.
As expected, Guinaifen thought, her battle focus locking in completely. Anyone traveling beside Mr. Welt is never going to be an easy opponent.
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