Vulpix's blue-and-white gradient eyes gradually became covered by an inconspicuous blue glow.
Immediately afterward, an enormous pale-blue aura surged toward Poliwrath.
Poliwrath, which had been sprinting rapidly across the surface of the water, suddenly felt its body freeze.
"Poli!"
It realized in panic that it had completely lost control of its body.
Poliwrath slammed face-first into the water.
"Whoa~~!"
The spectators instinctively cried out in surprise.
Considering the speed at which Poliwrath had been running just moments ago, anyone could imagine how painful that impact must have been.
Before long, Poliwrath surfaced from beneath the water with a thoroughly miserable expression.
A bright red mark across its face was particularly eye-catching.
"Are you okay, Poliwrath?"
Masayuki asked from the command platform.
Poliwrath quickly composed itself. It raised a hand and gave its Trainer a thumbs-up, indicating that it was fine.
It then turned its gaze toward Vulpix, its eyes filled with an intimidating fury.
"It's actually at this high a level?"
Masayuki's expression became serious.
When he first saw Vulpix, he had the same thought as Silas's previous opponent: this looked like an easy target.
Combined with the appearance of Prinplup just before it, he naturally assumed that Vulpix was at most an Advance-level Pokémon.
That was why he had dared to casually order Poliwrath to attack.
What he never expected was that this little fox would be quite so cunning.
Judging from the feedback from Disable's restraint on Poliwrath, its level might even be higher than Poliwrath's.
"Is this guy's head okay? A Vulpix has already reached the Advance level and he still hasn't evolved it?"
Masayuki was speechless.
As for the price of Evolution Stones, he didn't believe that someone who possessed a Sinnoh first partner Pokémon couldn't afford an Evolution Stone.
A Fire-type Vulpix needed a Fire Stone to evolve, so an Ice-type Vulpix would presumably need an Ice Stone.
And those things weren't particularly expensive in the four nearby regions.
"Since that's the case, use Bubble!"
He immediately changed his offensive strategy.
Getting into close combat was still necessary. Given Vulpix's small body and typing, getting close and using Fighting-type moves should allow Poliwrath to defeat it in one or two attacks.
But he couldn't be as straightforward as he had been against Prinplup.
"Poli!"
At the command, Poliwrath nodded vigorously.
Then it placed both hands on its hips.
Countless opaque white bubbles gushed out from the spiral pattern on its abdomen.
In an instant, the entire blue surface of the sea was covered in foam.
Poliwrath's figure quickly disappeared among the countless bubbles.
Disable might be useful, but it still needed to find its target before it could use it.
Although Poliwrath's speed inevitably decreased somewhat while moving through the bubbles, the technique also effectively prevented Vulpix from launching a counterattack.
"Icy Wind."
Silas and Vulpix remained exceptionally calm.
At Silas's command, accompanied by a sweep of Vulpix's tail, an icy blue current filled with bone-chilling cold suddenly appeared.
Tiny shards of ice began appearing across the autumn battlefield.
Under the invasion of the cold air, the foam covering the surface of the sea almost completely disappeared in patches.
"Too late! Poliwrath, grab it and use Circle Throw!"
Seeing this, an excited smile appeared on Masayuki's face as he shouted loudly.
"Poli!"
A sturdy figure burst out of the water near the floating platform, faint white light shining around both hands.
It was none other than Masayuki's Poliwrath.
After using the bubbles to conceal its movements, it hadn't chosen to launch its attack by running across the surface of the water at high speed. Instead, it had submerged itself and approached the floating platform underwater.
After all, Poliwrath was an accomplished swimmer. This was one of its specialties.
Masayuki clenched his fists.
This move was highly deceptive.
Even if the opponent kept reminding themselves that Poliwrath could swim, when facing a Pokémon that had spent the entire battle running across the water's surface to attack, anyone could instinctively forget that fact in the heat of battle.
From the beginning of the first battle, Masayuki had deliberately never allowed Poliwrath to use a swimming approach. His purpose was to disrupt his opponents' thought processes.
He and Poliwrath had used this combination to defeat powerful opponents more than once.
Their opponents' first reaction was always:
"Why did I forget that this guy could swim?"
However, looking at Silas's expression, Masayuki inexplicably felt somewhat uneasy.
Therefore, instead of using the more powerful Dynamic Punch that could potentially finish the battle in one blow, he switched to Circle Throw.
"Poli!"
Poliwrath leaped from the water onto the floating platform and exerted force through its powerful legs.
Almost instantly, the distance between the two Pokémon shrank to only a few body lengths.
Vulpix remained completely composed. There was even a hint of disdainful mockery in its eyes.
The next second, under Masayuki's utterly bewildered gaze, Poliwrath, which had opened its arms in preparation to "embrace" Vulpix, slid straight past it.
"Splash!"
The sound of it falling back into the water rang out.
From the spectators' perspective, it looked as though Poliwrath had simply jumped onto the floating platform, taken a quick stroll around, and then fallen back into the sea.
Everyone wore an utterly bewildered expression.
Vulpix flicked its little tail.
Several shards of ice flew toward Poliwrath as a reward for its failed attack, while Vulpix elegantly turned around.
"It's ice."
After seeing the hard shards of ice, Masayuki quickly realized what had caused what had just happened.
He carefully examined the floating platform.
Sure enough, a barely perceptible layer of ice covered its surface.
Thanks to the battlefield being surrounded by seawater, anyone who wasn't paying close attention might have mistaken it for nothing more than water splashed across the platform under the sunlight.
Needless to say, this was the work of Icy Wind.
"Poli!"
Poliwrath extended its fists and smashed apart the incoming ice shards one after another, fury blazing in its eyes.
In terms of actual damage, Poliwrath hadn't suffered much from these failed attacks.
The real problem was how humiliating the situation was.
Anyone who didn't know better would think that Vulpix was deliberately playing with it.
Poliwrath would rather have faced that Prinplup from earlier. At least that battle had been a straightforward clash of strength and wouldn't have made a Pokémon look so foolish.
Tiny snowflakes began drifting through the air once more.
Vulpix's figure gradually became indistinct.
Masayuki froze for a moment.
"Hail? Poliwrath, use Rain Dance to cancel it out!"
Just like Silas's previous opponent, Masayuki ordered his Pokémon to use a weather-changing move.
A blue sphere of light shot into the sky.
The result naturally remained unchanged.
The light snow continued to drift gently downward.
Vulpix took advantage of this opportunity to disappear completely from the battlefield.
Seeing this, Masayuki's brows furrowed tightly.
He couldn't understand why this opponent's Pokémon and moves were both so strange.
"Mind Reader. Find it."
However, Masayuki didn't become helpless like Silas's previous opponent.
He ordered Poliwrath to close its eyes.
Eyes could deceive you, but the power of the mind could not.
"Poli!"
As Poliwrath cried out with its eyes closed, an enormous Hydro Pump shot toward a nearby floating platform.
"Vulpix!"
Under the spectators' watchful eyes, Vulpix, resembling a spirit of ice, was forced to reveal itself.
Although it rapidly shifted its footing several times in succession, it still took some damage from Hydro Pump.
"Troublesome."
Silas clenched his hand into a fist before relaxing it again.
Having studied martial arts, he naturally understood what Mind Reader was.
And as a move, Mind Reader's effect was considerably stronger than the "mind's eye" ability he himself possessed.
In other words, although Vulpix could no longer be seen visually, from Poliwrath's perspective, every movement it made was no different from normal.
Looking at the exceptionally weak snowflakes caused by the weather conditions, Silas helplessly shook his head.
Summer really wasn't an ideal season for Ice-type Pokémon to fight.
The combination of Snow Cloak and the snowfall caused by its ability obviously wasn't as simple as what Vulpix was displaying now.
Because of the limited intensity of the hailstorm, Vulpix's Snow Cloak had not reached its strongest state.
Vulpix clearly understood this as well.
So it simply stopped trying to hide and appeared directly on the floating platform.
"Ice Beam."
Silas's command came almost simultaneously with Vulpix opening its mouth.
A deep-blue beam flashed through the air.
"Poli!"
Poliwrath, which had yet to end its Mind Reader state, suddenly opened its eyes. Its hands also began glowing with the same blue light.
Its ice-covered fists collided head-on with the deep-blue Ice Beam.
With a powerful roar from Poliwrath, Ice Beam shattered into countless points of light and disappeared into the air.
Of course, there was a price to pay.
A thick layer of solid ice covered Poliwrath's left hand, restricting its movement.
The next moment, it brought its right hand down with tremendous force, smashing the ice and sending the fragments into the water.
Its momentum wasn't affected in the slightest.
"Vulpix!"
On the floating platform, Vulpix bared its teeth and ground them together.
It knew that this was entirely because its current abilities weren't strong enough.
If it evolved into Ninetales, the power of this Ice Beam would increase by at least another sixty percent.
If that happened, this Poliwrath wouldn't be able to take the attack so easily.
Since that was the case.
Vulpix flicked its tail again.
A stone wrapped in solid ice fell from the tip of its tail onto the floating platform.
"Hm?"
Silas was startled when he saw this.
"But this isn't a battle where you haven't given it your all yet?"
Before he could figure out what was happening, Vulpix raised its paw and slammed it down hard on the block of ice.
"Crack, crack!"
As the solid ice shattered, dazzling white light instantly enveloped Vulpix's entire body from bottom to top.
"Evolution light! It's evolution light! Could Silas's Vulpix be about to evolve?"
The commentator's excited voice echoed throughout the entire arena.
This was a rare Ninetales, after all, and he was extremely curious to see what it looked like.
He wasn't the only one. The spectators were equally curious, all focusing their attention on the brilliant white light.
Without even waiting for the referee's instructions, Masayuki immediately ordered Poliwrath to stop attacking.
Pokémon undergoing evolution were protected. He didn't want to have his qualification revoked, or even be held responsible by the League, just because he attacked during an evolution.
The tiny figure within the evolution light gradually stretched, lengthening and growing larger.
An extraordinarily elegant fox-like silhouette gradually emerged.
Everyone instinctively held their breath.
"Mi~"
A light yet aloof cry rang out.
When the evolution light finally faded, a completely transformed Ninetales appeared before everyone.
Noble.
Elegant.
Those were the two words that immediately came to everyone's minds.
Ninetales had pale-blue fur, while the area connecting its tails to its body was a slightly deeper shade of blue.
Compared with the golden-yellow Ninetales, the greatest differences lay in the fur around its tails and head.
Both areas of Ninetales's fur appeared considerably fluffier and more flowing.
Set against the falling snow, the entire Pokémon looked incredibly regal.
Before the spectators could react, the highly professional referee was the first to recover.
"All right! The battle between Ninetales and Poliwrath will now continue!"
"Let's test its abilities after evolution first. Ninetales, use Ice Shard!"
Although Silas still hadn't figured out why Vulpix had suddenly chosen to evolve, he had placed the Ice Stone with it precisely so that it could make that choice for itself.
So he quickly reacted and issued the command.
Whatever questions he had, he could ask after the battle was over.
"Mi~"
Ninetales stood on all four paws atop the floating platform, its slender neck slightly raised.
Without making any obvious movement, the snowfall suddenly intensified.
Countless particles of ice condensed from the fur covering various parts of its body.
The ice particles then gathered together.
Dozens of enormous ice spheres, each roughly the size of a human head, floated in midair.
"Gulp."
Someone unconsciously swallowed.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Under Masayuki and Poliwrath's stunned gazes, the gigantic ice spheres shot forward like bullets.
"You call that Ice Shard?!"
Masayuki was completely dumbfounded.
Compared with the tiny, pebble-sized Ice Shards Vulpix had produced earlier, these were practically gigantic chunks of ice.
It wasn't just their size.
Their speed had increased tremendously as well.
"Break them with Brick Break!"
There was no time to dodge.
In desperation, Masayuki could only order Poliwrath to smash the ice spheres apart.
The idea was sound.
Reality, however, was cruel.
Poliwrath's hands took on a knife-hand shape as they glowed with white light. After continuously smashing apart twenty ice spheres, it could only gasp for breath helplessly.
Before it could recover, the remaining ice spheres came crashing into its body one after another.
"Poli... Poli..."
Poliwrath let out successive muffled groans.
Its body was covered in a miserable combination of bluish-white signs of frostbite and red swelling from the impacts.
"Whoosh!"
Immediately afterward, Ninetales strangely appeared on the surface of the water beside Poliwrath.
Four appropriately sized chunks of ice had formed beneath its feet, just large enough to support its body weight.
"Mi."
Ninetales narrowed its eyes slightly.
Brilliant pink light instantly filled the entire battlefield.
The spectators and Trainers on the field instinctively closed their eyes, their vision filled with nothing but lingering pink light.
When they opened their eyes again, Poliwrath was already floating on the surface of the water, its eyes replaced by spinning swirls.
As for Ninetales at some point, it had returned to the floating platform in front of Silas's command platform.
"Poliwrath is unable to battle. Ninetales wins!"
Seeing this, the referee immediately raised the flag and announced the result, surprise evident in his expression.
"Wow! What an incredibly powerful Ninetales! The difference is way too huge!"
"Alolan Ninetales is the same. Once it evolves, the difference is practically like night and day!"
"What was that pink move just now? Its power was incredible!"
"Yeah! And those huge ice spheres were amazing too! Is that some kind of special move?"
..
Hi For access to additional chapters of
Director in Hollywood (40 chpaters)
Made In Hollywood (60 Chapters)
Pokemon:Bounty Hunter(30 Chapters)
Hollywood:From Razzie to Legend(40 Chapters)
The Great Ruler(30 Chapters)
Btth: Ascend to Pinnacle (30 Chapters)
Douluo Dalu: My Martial is Tyranitar (30 Chapters)
Join pateron.com/Translaterappu