As Iono confidently controlled her character to embark on the journey again, the comments in the livestream were also flying everywhere, engaging in heated discussions.
[Looking at it this way, the streamer should be able to easily clear the first Gym later!]
[As expected of the streamer, her progress speed is even faster than Cynthia's. Our Iono is really making us proud, boohoo!]
[What do you mean? Our Sis just went out on a mission, that's all. If she were playing now, her progress wouldn't necessarily be slower than Iono's!]
[Exactly. If you don't believe it, wait two days for Sis to return and check her stream. She's a Champion; playing a game with this kind of underlying battle logic, how could she lose to a Gym Leader?]
Inside Petalburg Woods, as the character reached the depths, a plot point was triggered—an employee from the Devon Corporation was blocked by a Team Aqua member who snatched his package.
The character Iono controlled naturally stood up for justice, battling the Team Aqua member, successfully retrieving the package, and receiving a Great Ball as a reward.
After helping this Devon Corporation employee, Iono didn't rush to leave Petalburg Woods immediately. Instead, she took Joltik and Mareep to grind levels inside.
Only when the levels of both Pokémon reached the cap for the current stage, "Level 15," did she leave the forest and enter the city where the first Gym was located—Rustboro City.
This was a city full of modern sensibilities. Skyscrapers stood in great numbers, and traffic flowed endlessly on the streets, making one feel somewhat dazzled and overwhelmed.
The scenery in the game displayed the characteristics of this city very well, eliciting another round of amazement from the audience.
After Iono went to the Pokémon Center to simply restore her Pokémon's status, she immediately followed the map's guidance and found the entrance to the Rustboro Gym.
Her face carried a hint of anticipation.
As a Gym Leader, in the real world, it was only ever others coming to challenge her.
Going to challenge someone else's Gym—although this was a game, it was her first time after all. This experience was truly quite novel.
"I'm ready! Let's have an intense Gym Battle!"
She took a deep breath, her eyes filled with expectation.
In her view, since even the Team Rocket NPCs in this game had such powerful combat capabilities, this Gym Leader would definitely be no ordinary person either.
The upcoming battle would probably be somewhat difficult.
But precisely because of this, she felt incredibly excited!
Thinking this, Iono controlled her character to enter the Gym.
However, in the next moment, the first thing that caught her eye was a sign—
[Rustboro Gym]
On the sign, there was also a huge brownish rock icon!
So, this is a Rock-type Gym??
Is there such unlucky business? If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have set that flag just now!
Iono's eyes widened.
[Hahahahahaha it really is a Rock Gym!]
[I really like a saying the streamer once said: 'There are so many Gym types, surely the first one won't be Rock or Ground, right?']
[LMAO? Why do I feel like this game was deliberately designed like this? Given this game's nature, maybe if you picked a different starter Pokémon, the Gym's type would change accordingly.]
At the same time, scanning the audience's comments, Iono took a deep breath and spoke as if to cheer herself up:
"Even if it's Rock-type, there's nothing to be afraid of! At least it's not Ground-type!"
"It's still the early game right now; it's hard for Rock-type Pokémon to master Ground-type moves."
"Besides, I currently have two excellent Electric-type Pokémon at the level cap. I believe they definitely won't lose!"
Saying this, she directly controlled her character to walk toward the depths of the Gym.
Ahead was a path paved on undulating rocky ground, leading straight to a high platform.
On both sides of this path stood quite a few NPCs, seemingly waiting quietly for something.
The moment Iono stepped forward, an exclamation mark instantly popped up above an NPC's head.
[You want to challenge the Rustboro Gym? Let me see if you're qualified!]
The battle activated instantly!
Three minutes later, Iono had successfully cleared all the NPCs inside the Gym and arrived in front of that high platform.
What gave her a bit of a headache was that, although it was a Rock-type Gym, the Pokémon used by these Gym NPCs actually included two Ground-type existences: a Sandshrew and a Diglett...
Fortunately, as pre-Gym NPCs, their levels weren't particularly high, lagging several levels behind her team.
After a few battles, the fights were close but safe, and she took them all down.
But a new problem arose—if even the NPCs inside the Gym had this level of strength, would this Rock-type Gym Leader also have a team full of Ground-type Pokémon?
Iono couldn't help but feel her head ache a little.
The occurrence of such a thing wasn't impossible. After all, she had long heard that a certain Elite Four member from the Kanto region who used Dragon-type Pokémon actually had mostly Flying-types in his team...
However, when she started the battle with the Gym Leader "Roxanne"—a girl with twin tails wearing a capable suit—Roxanne's first sentence made her breathe a long sigh of relief.
[The sturdy and powerful heart of Rock-type Pokémon... now let me demonstrate it to you!]
Since she had already said this much, pulling out a Ground-type Pokémon would be a bit impolite, right?
In the next moment, Roxanne threw the Poké Ball in her hand. White light flashed.
A strange Pokémon that was purple all over, with a head resembling a blooming lily, instantly appeared before Iono's eyes.
Looking at this Pokémon, she couldn't help but freeze for a moment. As the Electric-type Gym Leader of the Paldea region, her knowledge of Pokémon was quite extensive. It could be said that she knew almost all Pokémon, but she had truly never seen this one before!
She subconsciously looked toward the Pokémon's name and read it out.
"Lileep? Looking at it this way, it should be a Grass-type Pokémon."
"In that case, I'll leave it to you, Joltik!"
She decisively chose to switch Pokémon, sending out Joltik.
According to this game's rules, the first switch of Pokémon in a Gym Battle would not consume a turn.
This also counted as recreating the rules of challenging a Gym Leader in reality—the Gym Leader sends out their Pokémon first, and the challenger then chooses a Pokémon to send out.
At the same time, looking at this strange-looking Pokémon, the comments began to refresh.
[Eh? What Pokémon is this? Why haven't I heard of it before?]
[Could it be an original creation by the developer?]
[Who cares? If it's a Rock + Grass type Pokémon, it shouldn't be very strong. And the streamer just happened to train a Joltik. Bug is super effective against Grass, doesn't this come in handy?]
At this moment, Iono operated the game, having Joltik use the Bug-type move "Bug Bite."
After a deep green light flashed, the "Super Effective" notification popped up.
However, contrary to Iono's estimation, the HP bar above Lileep's head only dropped by a small segment!
Iono widened her eyes once again.
So tanky??
Immediately after, a cluster of dazzling psychedelic light suddenly flew from the top of Lileep's head, accurately hitting Joltik!
[Lileep used Confuse Ray!]
[Joltik became confused!]
Not only that, what was even more disastrous was...
A circle of deep blue light dots suddenly appeared beside Lileep, subsequently merging into its body.
[Due to the held item Leftovers, Lileep restored a little HP!]
The HP bar above its head, which hadn't dropped much to begin with, instantly rose back up...
Iono: ???
Being tanky is one thing, but why does it passively regenerate health too??
Big bro, how am I supposed to fight this?
What happened to Iono next could be said to be undoubted.
After entering the confused state, her Joltik was completely and utterly demolished by Lileep!
After all, Lileep itself was a Pokémon with extremely high defenses. Coupled with the current configuration of max EVs, max IVs, and holding Leftovers, neither Joltik's Bug Bite nor Electro Ball could break its defense at all. It even allowed Lileep to gain more health the longer they fought!
Not to mention Joltik got hit by the confusion effect of Confuse Ray right off the bat, occasionally hitting itself in confusion. It could be said to be adding insult to injury.
And under such circumstances, after dealing with Joltik, Lileep still maintained full health. Mareep was naturally no match for it either and was quickly defeated.
After this battle finished, the comments in the livestream had already begun to spam frantically.
[Haters speak up! One sweeping two!... Oh, sorry, it was the streamer getting swept. My mistake.]
[Who was the one who said the Gym Leader in this game could be easily passed? Simply a mouthful of poison milk, hahaha.]
[This is the first time I've seen a game NPC sweep a player's team with one Pokémon. Although the streamer only has two Pokémon in her team right now, this would be impossible in Battle Road. This game is really hard!]
[666 This Gym Leader is a demon! This thing is tanky as hell, has crowd control, and can heal itself. Who can beat this?]
When Iono lost to those three Team Rocket NPCs earlier, at least it was one against two, so losing was reasonable.
But now, her two Pokémon were directly swept by one of the Gym Leader's Pokémon!
While everyone was lamenting the game's perverted difficulty, Iono also calmed her mind, controlled her character to quickly walk out of the Pokémon Center, and arrived at the Gym's entrance.
"Viewers, as you can see, this Gym Leader named Roxanne can be said to be quite interesting."
"But it doesn't matter. I've already thought of a countermeasure."
"——Still our previous Thunder Wave tactic!"
"Since this Lileep is not a Ground or Electric-type Pokémon, it has no way to be immune to the paralysis status."
"And judging from its durability, this should be a relatively slow Pokémon. So whether it's Joltik or Mareep, they could both easily move before it just now."
"So, we just need to use Thunder Wave first, like when we fought Koffing and Ekans last time, and gamble on paralysis triggering."
Iono quickly sorted out her thoughts and explained to the chat.
Although this looked like the same old trick, as the saying goes, "One good trick is enough to make a living anywhere."
In the face of this game's extremely high difficulty, she had to make good use of every resource she could utilize.
At the same time, the item named "Leftovers" also reminded her of one point: her two Pokémon could also hold items.
Unfortunately, she didn't have that kind of item on her right now. But luckily, she seemed to have picked a few Oran Berries by the roadside just now...
According to the description of this berry, as long as it was equipped on a Pokémon, it would be automatically used when HP dropped to a certain level, thereby restoring a little health.
Although it restored relatively little, it was better than nothing.
After equipping both Pokémon with Oran Berries, Iono walked into the Gym again and challenged Roxanne.
This time, her plan was executed quite successfully. Joltik's opening Thunder Wave successfully paralyzed Lileep, preventing it from using Confuse Ray.
Several turns passed, and Lileep had almost no chance to make a move. Under the condition of continuous paralysis triggers, the only "Confuse Ray" it used also showed a miss!
At this moment, as Joltik blasted an Electro Ball onto Lileep's body, its health finally dropped below half, turning yellow.
"Good job! Keep it up just like this!"
Iono's excited voice echoed in the livestream.
[So cool, streamer!]
[Holy crap, four paralysis triggers in a row? Sister Iono's luck is a bit too good, right?]
[Is she hacking?]
[Feeling like there's a big chance this time. At least she can take out this Pokémon and see the Gym Leader's next Pokémon, right?]
Iono glanced at the chat, confidently pressed the keyboard, and chose the Electro Ball skill to attack again.
The battle just now had already allowed her to judge that the opponent probably didn't have a move that could directly threaten Joltik.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have been switching back and forth between Confuse Ray and Mega Drain.
According to the pattern of the opponent's moves, the next move should be Mega Drain.
Even if this move hit, due to Joltik's resistance to Grass-type moves, it would only take a tiny bit of damage, and Lileep naturally wouldn't be able to recover much health from this skill!
As long as she could grind it down like this and paralysis triggered a few more times, Joltik should be able to maintain a 2/3 health state and enter the battle against the next Pokémon.
Amidst Iono's thoughts, the Electro Ball shot out, hitting Lileep again.
This caused its health, which had already started flashing yellow, to drop another small segment. Although the damage wasn't particularly high, it was already quite significant!
Immediately after, the paralysis special effect flashed across Lileep's body, but no trembling state appeared.
Iono's experience told her that this was a sign that the paralysis state had failed to take effect!
But she didn't care. After all, just as she analyzed earlier, this "Mega Drain" couldn't produce any turnaround effect on the battle situation!
But in the next moment, something beyond her expectations happened!
Lileep suddenly raised its head, and a beam of white light descended from the sky, landing on its body!
"This is... what move?"
Iono froze for a moment.
She suddenly had a bad premonition.
The game's notification suddenly popped up before her eyes.
[Lileep used Synthesis! Its HP was restored!]
Amidst the radiance, the HP bar above Lileep's head instantly began to soar, returning to the two-thirds mark!
Another new notification!
[Lileep's held item "Leftovers" restored a little of its HP.]
Blue light dots danced, and health was restored again!
At this moment, looking at Lileep's nearly full HP bar, and then looking at Joltik whose Move PP was almost depleted, Iono sat dumbfounded in front of the screen.
"????"
She suddenly kind of wanted to end the stream...
(End of Chapter)
--
Join Patreon.com/AHumanMadeMOFO to read 10+ chapters ahead right now.