The standard Starter Pokémon abilities are typically Overgrow, Torrent, and Blaze.
Their effect activates when a Pokémon's HP drops to a certain level, boosting the power of moves that match the Ability's type — a state that only triggers when they're low on health.
Compared to Overgrow, Protean offers slightly less of a boost, but it gives Nekomi much more flexibility in adapting to different situations.
Her movepool is exceptionally wide, and since there's no restriction of only four moves here, Nekomi's type goes far beyond just Grass + Dark.
Pikachu's Thunderbolt wasn't able to deal damage, but that didn't mean it was meaningless. At the very least, under the illumination of electricity, Nekomi's once-invisible flower stalk was now faintly outlined.
This at least let Ash see that Pikachu wasn't being controlled by a Psychic-type move like Confusion.
After all, in battle, Pikachu couldn't clearly describe his own condition. Even though he was Pikachu, communication with Ash still relied on gestures and body language.
The root of all this was the mysterious species known as Pokémon — they could understand human speech, but expressing themselves clearly word-for-word was still quite difficult.
When excluding the influence of psychic power and aura, or special cases like Team Rocket's Meowth, the situation could be compared to the following:
Nekomi and Rowan communicated as if both were speaking standard Mandarin.
Regular Trainers and their familiar Pokémon, however, communicated like speakers of Mandarin with heavy regional accents — like Sichuanese or Cantonese-accented Mandarin. There was an accent, but they could still understand it, especially with some body language thrown in.
But in the rush of battle, Pikachu would instinctively start "speaking Cantonese," which made it harder for Ash to understand him.
"Invisible vines? Pikachu, break free! Use Thunder!"
"Pika...chu!"
"Once Thunder ends, follow up with Leech Seed!"
Pikachu's desperate Thunder attack, like the earlier Thunderbolt, failed to deal any damage. But several seeds scattered from the bud attached to Nekomi's flower stalk landed on Pikachu's body.
That was a move Nekomi had inherited. As the seeds scattered, Nekomi also voluntarily released her restraints from Pikachu.
At the moment, she was no longer a Ground type — she had switched back to her original Grass type. With the binding effect provided by Leech Seed, there was no need to continue holding on and risk increasing the enemy's hit rate.
But before letting go, Nekomi launched Pikachu upward to a higher altitude. As Pikachu began to fall, the Leech Seeds left behind sprouted just in time, rendering Pikachu immobile once again.
This also left Pikachu unable to adjust his posture, triggering the Spikes' damage a second time. At that moment, the Leech Seed also began draining the last of Pikachu's stamina.
"Pikachu! Use Thunder on yourself!"
Seeing Pikachu restrained by the vines sprouting from Leech Seed, Ash suddenly gave a new command. Pikachu didn't hesitate at all, aiming the attack at itself without a second thought.
Under the baptism of thunder, the vines restricting Pikachu were scorched into charcoal by the lightning strike. Though Pikachu lost a good chunk of his stamina, he successfully escaped from the dire situation.
"If Electric-type moves aren't working, then change the strategy! Use Quick Attack to get close to the opponent!"
"Shadow Claw."
The energy within Nekomi changed once more. A dark, purplish ghostly energy enveloped both her hands, then extended outward into three sharp claws on each.
As Pikachu rushed in and reached Nekomi, she made no attempt to dodge, letting Pikachu crash into her directly.
What looked like a powerful strike turned out to be completely ineffective upon contact. The force carried by Quick Attack simply vanished into thin air, while the black claws hit their mark dead-on.
There was no need to announce the result — Pikachu's eyes turned into spirals, clearly indicating the outcome of the battle.
None of Pikachu's previous attacks had dealt direct damage, but they had still drained over half its stamina. That close-range Shadow Claw was the final blow that took it out completely.
"Ash lost..."
"He actually lost this badly...?"
"The gap was too big. Pikachu's moves are all Electric and Normal types. But the opponent has both Ghost and Ground-type moves. Combined with that rare Ability, Pikachu had no way to deal effective damage."
In the Scarlet and Violet game versions, Protean has been nerfed — it can only activate once per battle.
But here, Protean was still in its prime.
"I heard from my sisters saying that Illumina is full of academic types—is this how academic types fight?"
"Maybe. At the very least, when it comes to type matchups and Ability usage, he's far more outstanding than Ash. And also..."
"What is it?"
"The opponent's Pokémon probably knows a lot of moves. With that many, its level shouldn't be low. But the way they fought… it didn't feel like a battle. It felt more like they were testing something."
At this point in time, Misty hadn't yet taken over the Cerulean Gym, but Brock had formally run the Pewter Gym for a while.
Battles between Gym Leaders and challengers aren't purely about winning or losing — they're meant to assess whether the challenger is qualified. That's why Gym Leaders choose a team appropriate to the opponent's strength.
With Rowan, Brock felt something familiar — but it seemed like Rowan wasn't testing Ash… he was testing himself.
At that moment, Ash had already picked Pikachu up. Even though they lost, Pikachu wasn't in bad condition and regained consciousness not long after the battle ended.
Just to be safe, Ash took Pikachu straight back inside the Pokémon Center for treatment.
"Meow~ Meow~ (I told you it was easy. Actually, I had an even simpler way to beat him.)"
Nekomi gave Rowan an "OK" gesture — but Meowscarada only has three fingers, so the gesture ended up looking more like a pinching motion.
"Mhm, well done. Maybe I shouldn't give commands at all — you perform better that way?"
"Meow! (That's not it! It's just that I didn't have to use any stamina at all — so relaxing!)"
Pikachu hadn't managed to land any effective hits and had instead been drained by Leech Seed. From that angle, it was actually a net gain.
"No need to praise me — I know exactly what level I'm at… Pikachu's Ability is Static; I shouldn't have let you make physical contact. Otherwise, there was a risk of triggering paralysis."
"And using Thunder to get rid of Leech Seed… battles like this are way more complex than in the games."
Rowan was reviewing the battle — just like going over a set of mistakes from homework, analyzing whether he made any errors. After finishing his notes, he was ready to start expanding his Pokéblock-related connections.
But before the plan could even begin, a thick cloud of smoke suddenly burst out inside the Pokémon Center, spreading all the way to the battle arena behind.
"Cough cough What's going on — is there a fire?!"
As soon as Misty finished speaking, it was like she'd triggered some hidden keyword. From within the smoke came a series of voices that were both familiar and strange to Rowan.
"Prepare for trouble!"
"Make it double!"
"To protect the world from devastation!"
"To unite all peoples within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
"To extend our reach to the stars above!"
"Jessie!"
"James!"
"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!"
"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!!" [TN: The Chinese version of this is slightly different, but I have gone with the English version.]
After the two finished saying this, they struck a pose, but even after James's mouth went numb from holding the rose, they didn't hear Meowth's finishing line...