Chapter 66: Checking for Omissions and Filling the Gaps

He actually started rapping...

Baimu fell silent, watching his opponent mime-scratching a record in midair while going "b-box" and spraying saliva, feeling he might have run into a not-very-bright opponent.

Red lights flickered on the walls.

According to the person who had led him in earlier, this was the signal for both sides to get ready.

The chosen format was three-on-three — once one side's three Pokémon lost the ability to battle or surrendered, the other side won.

Seeing this, Rap Bro finally stopped the lip he was about to wear through, trying to judge Baimu's origins from his clothes.

But before reaching the Iron Arena, Flopo had already made him change out of his team uniform.

So Rap Bro stared for ages and still couldn't figure out where Baimu had come from; trying to pick a counter Pokémon based on his organization was a complete waste of time.

Beep—

A shrill alarm blared.

Baimu hurled out a Poké Ball and charged forward.

The Iron Arena's unspoken rule was that direct attacks on trainers were forbidden, as were attacks on the winner or loser, but injuries sustained during the battle itself fell outside its jurisdiction.

Stray hits were unavoidable.

That was why Flopo had told him many newly arrived trainers liked to use wide-area moves to take out the opposing trainer directly and claim victory.

But for Baimu, that was meaningless — injuring the man in front of him did him no good at all; only defeating his Pokémon could let Aggron grow stronger and master more power.

"Gudo!"

Aggron landed in a flash of white light, saw its trainer running on one side, and hurried to lengthen its stride and overtake him.

Across the field.

Rap Bro's movements held a hint of hesitation; only after getting a clear look at Aggron did he choose his Pokémon.

Bang!

The white light faded, and what landed was a beige furball with four limbs sprouting from its head, beast ears and a pig's snout—

Primeape.

The so-called pig-monkey Pokémon that was perpetually in a furious, irritable state — the angrier it got, the stronger its muscles became.

Rap Bro had clearly used the chance of choosing second to pick a type that countered Aggron, but doing so undoubtedly cost him the right to first strike.

"Rock Tomb!"

Aggron's opening motion was almost simultaneous with the command — both claws slammed into the ground, and countless massive boulders burst from the earth amid rumbling and tremors, flying toward Primeape!

The rocks' speed through the air wasn't particularly fast to begin with, but because Baimu had closed the distance between them in advance, Primeape was left with little time to react.

"Smash through it with anger!"

Rap Bro shouted hastily.

But by the time his command left his mouth, the rocks had already arrived and smashed into Primeape one after another; even though it struggled and shattered one or two of them, it was futile.

"Roo!"

Primeape crossed its arms in front of its face, unable to hold back a pained grunt, while rocks of all sizes and a cloud of dust boxed it in on every side — it couldn't see where Aggron was at all.

Rap Bro's line of sight was clearly disrupted too, but in his hesitation he didn't dare burst through the smoke to check Aggron's position, and by failing to tell his Pokémon where its enemy was, he handed Baimu another free chance.

"Sand Tomb!"

Accompanied by a loud shout, Aggron struck the ground again; the machine-compacted yellow-clay arena crumbled inch by inch, and within a few breaths a great pit had formed, spinning and sinking downward!

Primeape's body tumbled into it uncontrollably, spinning along with the quicksand and gradually sinking, its body no longer under its own control.

It couldn't help but start struggling, but with something like an "antlion's pit," the more you struggle the faster you sink; within seconds half its body was buried, completely beyond its own will.

Rap Bro let out a strange cry and immediately thought to use a Poké Ball to rescue Primeape.

But the swirling Sand Tomb wasn't about to give him that chance.

The 【Trap】 status meant that even if the Poké Ball's red beam hit Primeape, it couldn't take effect.

After his repeated failed attempts to recall Primeape, Aggron didn't hesitate, condensing a large number of sharp rocks in the air and hurling them one by one at the monkey!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of dull thuds.

The aim Aggron had been specifically practicing these past few days paid off — out of five rocks, four hit their mark, and every single one of those four exploded right on Primeape's skull.

Primeape's furious expression gradually turned blank, and in the end its eyes rolled back and it passed out cold.

"Hiss!"

Rap Bro's face went stiff; staring at Baimu's blurred silhouette amid the swirling dust, he felt a chill run down his spine.

His Primeape had actually been taken out so decisively by a single combo.

Where did this guy pop out from? Why had he never heard of him around the arena? An outside trainer?

On the other side.

Baimu quietly praised Aggron, equally curious about Rap Bro—

Too weak.

Setting everything else aside, there was simply no coordination between this guy and his Primeape — like some new trainer from another region, standing there dumbly waiting for the opponent to deal damage without even dodging.

Just shout "dodge, quick!" — what was the meaning of seeing an attack and immediately choosing to counter?

That confident?

But thanks to his opponent being such a dimwit, Baimu had also spotted something Aggron needed to watch out for—

The startup time on Sand Tomb was too long.

Generally speaking, this move had two uses — one was to whip up a sky-filling small sand tornado to trap the opponent's Pokémon. The other was the antlion pit he'd just used.

Each had its pros and cons; while the "antlion pit" certainly possessed the power to reshape terrain, it was affected by soil quality, which lengthened or shortened the time needed to turn it to sand.

The machine-compacted ground underfoot here was fine, but if it were a granite surface, Aggron certainly wouldn't have been able to dig an antlion pit to trap the opposing Pokémon this quickly.

And during this time, god knows how much the opposing Pokémon could get done.

The reason it hadn't been discovered earlier was that maintaining a battle arena was too expensive, so to train one had to go to the battle arenas inside the dungeon.

And Mawile could "fly"—Sand Tomb couldn't trap this thing at all, using it would just be a waste.

Adjust the usage based on the opponent's situation.

All Baimu saw rap-gee finally recall his Monferno, drenched in sweat, and felt some anticipation for the Pokémon he would send out next.

Although this guy was absurdly weak, it was still better than having no opponent and only doing internal scrimmages.

——

Arena lobby.

Flobo waited for All Baimu, whose face still showed an unwillingness to leave.

"How was it? Feel like it's a bit different from your battles before?"

"Indeed."

The latter nodded. Even compared with the very first battles against Otsuka and the others in the dungeon, the arena's battling style was noticeably milder, without that all-or-nothing aggressiveness.

Not to mention the battles in the charity tournament, where the rule was to attack the trainer whenever possible, and attacking the Pokémon was only to get at the trainer.

No.

Actually, that should be called slaughter.

But All Baimu was well aware that the back-and-forth battling here in the arena was what normal Pokémon world battles looked like, the kind of battling that was popular across every region.

"You'll get used to it from now on." Flobo patted his shoulder. "Just don't mix it up with battles outside—this is ultimately just a product under the Silver Ape's constraints."

"Mm."

All Baimu indicated he understood.

"Oh right, there's a tournament here next month. If you don't mind, you can take part. The entry fee isn't expensive, and if you can pull off a good result, the rewards are nothing to sneeze at."

Flobo pointed at the big screen beside them.

On it was clearly recorded a tournament called the "Iron Arena Battle Tournament."