Aarav opened with Incineroar and Garchomp, while Raihan led with Tyranitar and Duraludon.
Tyranitar set sand, and Duraludon stood ready as the obvious answer to a potential Sylveon.
A safe, stable opening.
But Aarav was sly—Sylveon wasn't going to show itself that easily.
He understood something very clearly: keeping Sylveon in the back was far more threatening than revealing it up front.
The battle began.
Lights flashed—Incineroar hit the field.
Intimidate rolled out like pressure in the air, and the moment Tyranitar and Duraludon appeared, their Attack dropped.
Duraludon didn't care much. It lived off special moves anyway.
But for Tyranitar?
It was huge—like its damage got cut down an entire tier.
At the same time, Tyranitar's ability Sand Stream activated, and the arena instantly erupted into a roaring sandstorm.
Raihan's team looked messy at a glance…
…but Duraludon, Flygon, and even a likely Overcoat Kommo-o could all ignore sandstorm chip.
Then Aarav issued a command that left the entire audience baffled.
"Incineroar—Fake Out Tyranitar. Garchomp—come back!"
He recalled Garchomp right at the start?
What kind of play was that?
The field answered immediately.
Incineroar lunged like a beast and slapped Tyranitar across the face—stopping the Rock Slide it was about to fire.
And at the same time, purple, star-like energy flared in Duraludon's mouth—
Draco Meteor.
Unfortunately for Raihan…
Aarav had already read it.
Garchomp—who would've been crushed by that move—stepped out.
And the Pokémon that replaced it?
Sylveon.
With Fairy typing that completely shut out Dragon-type attacks, Sylveon took that terrifying Draco Meteor—
without losing a single drop of HP.
Aarav clicked his tongue, still feeling the danger.
"Tch… so you were reading my Earthquake. Haki-na, you're seriously slippery."
In Hammerlocke, Galar, inside a private villa…
A dark-skinned athletic guy sprawled on the couch, eyes locked on the TV display of the match.
"Tch… Qishu didn't just change her team—did she swap her brain too?"
Galar and Paldea were close. People traveled back and forth all the time.
And since Qishu and Raihan were both Gym Leaders and massive internet celebs, they were familiar enough to joke like this without anyone taking it personally.
His chat was the same: mostly laughing and teasing Qishu, a few pointing out that this "Qishu" felt like a smurf-killing demon—so in a way, yeah, the brain really was different.
But even with that flood of comments, nobody could predict what was coming.
A few minutes from now…
Raihan wouldn't be relaxed anymore.
Back in East Huang, inside a student apartment at Shanghai University…
The guy "helping with the account" spoke fast, laying out the logic.
"The mind game here is simple."
"If Raihan is on the first layer, he'll try to use Duraludon's Draco Meteor—high power, super effective—into Garchomp."
"Then he stacks Tyranitar's Rock Slide on top, and there's a real chance my main damage dealer gets chunked hard right away."
"And my response is easy: pivot into Sylveon."
"But if Raihan reads that layer and clicks Flash Cannon instead, then Sylveon gets deleted the moment it comes in."
"But if I read the layer where Raihan reads my pivot…"
"Then I just stay in with Garchomp and Earthquake—eat a not-that-painful Flash Cannon and slam two Ground-weak targets. That's a massive profit."
"But if Raihan reads that I read that he read—"
Alright.
There weren't actually that many layers.
The truth was simpler:
Raihan couldn't afford to let Garchomp freely Earthquake.
So he'd rather accept Draco Meteor's brutal SpA drop than allow Garchomp to stay in.
Of course, if Aarav stubbornly refused to switch, Raihan would've been thrilled.
But—
Aarav's grin widened.
"Too bad. I'm better."
"Incineroar—Parting Shot Tyranitar. Sylveon—Hyper Voice!"
Tyranitar and Duraludon weren't exactly fast for pseudo-legendaries…
…but they were still quicker than Incineroar and Sylveon, who were basically operating on "two-leg disability tier" speed.
Before Aarav's moves fired, Raihan's damage came down first.
Flash Cannon and Rock Slide, both aimed straight at the biggest threat on Aarav's side—
Sylveon.
Normally, Sylveon's physical bulk wasn't good enough to survive a double-hit like that.
Even in Path to the Champion—where everyone's HP bars were inflated compared to the old games—that should've been too much.
But with Incineroar's Intimidate cutting Tyranitar's power…
…and Draco Meteor already forcing Duraludon's special output downward…
Sylveon—barely—held on.
Then it struck back.
Aarav's Sylveon had Pixilate.
Not only did it convert Hyper Voice into a Fairy-type move—
It boosted the move's power by another 20%.
The wave of sound hit.
The damage was clean.
But those two monsters were simply too thick.
And Duraludon—being Steel-type—had even more resistance layered on top.
So even under a Fairy-boosted Hyper Voice, both of them only dropped by about half.
Aarav sighed and shook his head.
"That's the beauty of raw stats."
Then Incineroar moved.
A few matches earlier, Aarav had replaced U-turn with something even dirtier—
Parting Shot.
A string of shameless verbal abuse spilled out like poison, and Tyranitar got a "farewell gift":
Both its Attack and Special Attack dropped by one stage.
Incineroar retreated safely into its Poké Ball.
And the Pokémon that replaced it…
was the final member of Aarav's backline.
Pachirisu.
In Hammerlocke, Galar—
The moment Pachirisu popped out on Raihan's TV screen, he coughed so hard he spat his cola.
"She actually brought Pachirisu out?! Is she looking down on me that much?"
The volume startled the Duraludon and Flygon resting in the yard. They exchanged a look.
They'd been with Raihan for over a decade—
and they'd never seen him yell like this over a video game.
But Raihan quickly forced himself to calm down.
No one wanted to lose face.
And in his live broadcast—first match of the stream—being "humiliated" by "Qishu" like this lit a fire in him.
If he was behind, then that arrogance might be the exact opening he needed to flip the match.
Raihan rubbed his chin and muttered,
"What can Pachirisu even do?"
"Pachirisu can't do anything."
He decided to ignore the strange little squirrel for now and focus on finishing off Sylveon, who was already hanging by a thread.
"Target Sylveon!"
"Duraludon—Flash Cannon. Tyranitar—Rock Slide!"
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